La Double Inconstance (2030–31) — Episode 11

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La Double Inconstance (2030–31) — Episode 11

21: Approach Phase: (Flaminia’s joke)

In the gym she appears before me.

I'm wrestling with the resistance band machine: it's like trying to master an anaconda. Nevertheless, momentarily I have a free arm. I stretch out to brush my hand against her shoulder, a gesture of affection which seems to affront her.

She asks with mocking sweetness: "Did you enjoy flying helicopters?"

I’m confused. The band drapes limply in my hand.

"Did you enjoy the way your bird quivered as you touched her joystick?" she persists.

She is being severe with me. I allow myself a cold smile in response.

"Yes, very much.”

And it’s the cyclic pitch control, by the way.

"Glass and metal, eager to do your bidding? How very happy you must have been."

I’m suddenly uncertain - she really does seem a little irritated.

"I came across an ancient joke the other day," Flaminia continues, "A guy calls the doctor, says, ‘Doctor, I think my wife might be dead.’

“‘Why do you think that?' the doctor asks.

“The guy answers: ‘Well, the sex is still the same but the ironing's piling up’."

I smile, I can't help myself.

"You're laughing. You think it's funny?"

"No," I say weakly, "I'm trying to recall what 'ironing' is."

"I'm not a helicopter," she says enigmatically, "You have to woo me."

She turns, tossing her hair back, and glides towards the door before her parting shot.

"You do know how to woo, don't you, André?"

Briefly the tip of her tongue appears, pushing her lips apart, as she makes her way to the exit - leaving me struggling to understand what just happened.

22: Marne-la-Vallée

Sylvia pushes the stroller along the smoothly-surfaced pavement, taking her child for some fresh air to the town square. Marne-la-Vallée exudes a prosperous modernity which lightens the spirits this winter morning. The sun shines low in her eyes as she walks through the chilly air. Perhaps she’ll just pop in for some patisseries to take back, something nice to have with tea. There is little to fill the time. André has been away for six months now and his messages are strained: over-formal with too little content.

She is thinking about the call she received yesterday from Anna de Kasparis. Her offer, made so tentatively, so indirectly.

In the many weeks since she met with her priest, synthetic people - now universally called models - have emerged from obscurity, secrecy and stigma to become mainstream-chic. Models are all over the media. The President of the Republic herself has one as a close advisor - and some suggest the model might have an even more active role. Columnists write excitedly about mixed couples: this actress is dating such a handsome one; that chanteur has a gorgeous model girlfriend.

She doesn’t know how they’ve become so cheap. Apparently the specifications were ‘open-sourced’ though no-one knows by whom. It’s like the original Bitcoin, they say - the origin is a mystery. Sylvia can make no sense of it at all.

She leaves the baby in the pushchair and walks inside the shop. It’s warm and the smell of freshly baked bread entices, bringing back memories of her youth. She dithers over the pastries: turnovers make you fat, she thinks, but what here doesn’t? She buys a yoghurt-bar and some fruit instead.

Why did I do that? she wonders.

On her way home she debates the ESA’s offer. She wouldn’t be the first, several of the wives have already agreed and there have been no backsliders.

‘I was so lonely before,’ one said, ‘it’s like having him back again. He’s always linked to Henri so we share news with none of the delays.’

The body language at the wives’ get-togethers tells a deeper story. ‘It was so cold at night. But now it’s like he’s back - it’s never been better.’

These women have lost their haunted looks, they seem in bloom, Sylvia thinks. She’s heard that take-up of models by the stay-at-home male partners of absent female astronauts has been pretty much universal. Dr de Kasparis observed with a smile that the women astronauts like to think their partners are in ‘safe hands’.

And that is one aspect of the models that people have commented on. They form immensely loyal emotional bonds with their partners, they are not unfaithful. Something people have always wanted in a partner, thinks Sylvia, something we always have to worry about.

“But what would happen when André comes back?” she had asked.

Anna was reassuring: “Your model will return to us and your husband will simply resume his life with you. You’ll hardly notice - as they’ve been synced throughout.”

A hundred philosophical and ethical issues brushed under the carpet there, she thinks - and then ceases to worry about it.

Here was the clinching argument: “Think of it as an extension of a video call. Rather than just seeing and hearing him on a screen, you’ll be interacting with him right in front of you. It’s a difference in degree and not in kind.”

What will the neighbours think, she wonders, do I need to keep him secret? Yet the neighbours are busy people and not close to her. They never had any idea about the comings and goings of André, which were in any case secret.

They will notice but not notice, she thinks.

Anyway, she’d better hurry because the delivery is scheduled for midday.

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The full story text can be found in my SF novel: here:

• "Donatien's Children" (2022) — as a PDF, and


• "Donatien's Children" (2022) — on Amazon for easier reading.

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