you too, Theo. And don’t call me a bastard, it’s disrespectful to our mother.” He took a long pull on the cigar and threw it away. “What is that thing you’re wearing? It looks like a—”
“Max.”
“Yes, I think we’ve established that. Sit down, for crying out loud, and have a drink.”
Without looking, Theo backed away until he tripped and landed on his backside. Max leaned back into the shadows and produced a canvas director’s chair, in which he perched gracefully. From his inside pocket he drew a silver flask. “Remy Martin,” he said, unscrewing the cap. “You can’t get it here, of course, so I’m having to make it last. No? Suit yourself.” He took a neat swig from the flask and put it away. “Well,” he said, “I’d like to say how good you’re looking.” He frowned. “But I’m addicted to the truth, so I can’t. You look like shit. How’s Amanda?”
It took Theo a moment to remember the name. “She left me.”
“Pity. She was too good for you, of course.”
“How the hell do you know about Amanda? You died before we got married.”
“I try and take an interest,” Max replied. “Also, I’m not dead.” He yawned, and took out a cigar case. “I tried to call you but you weren’t there.”
“Max, you complete shit,” Theo said gently, “what are you doing here?”
Max lit his cigar with a gold Zippo. “I guess you could say resting. That’s what actors call it, when they can’t get a job. Fortunately—” He puffed at the cigar. “My needs are few and simple. The Seven Dwarves bring me food.” He smiled. “They seem to have got it into their heads that I’m Walt Disney, which makes me sort of like God in their eyes. Of course they’re sworn to secrecy, so they won’t tell the others. And the donkey knows about me, of course. I like him, he’s a doll.” Smoke streamed down through his nostrils. “I expect you’d like me to tell you how I got here.”
“I think you should,” Theo replied. “And then I can kill you.”
Max smiled indulgently. “You’re just saying that,” he said. “Well, let’s see, where to begin?”
“How about my favourite part? The bit where you died.”
“Ah, but I didn’t.” Max smiled. “That was just make-believe. You may recall, I’d got myself into a bit of a jam.”
“You faked your own death.”
Max opened his mouth, put a finger under his top lip and lifted it to show a gap. “I keep getting false ones fitted,” he said, “but every time I move somewhere new, they vanish. No dentists here, of course, or at least not human ones. Actually, I don’t think they have teeth here. In fact, you hardly ever see them eat. And I don’t think they ever shit. Probably don’t have the right plumbing.”
“You faked your death,” Theo repeated. “Then what?”
Max sighed and tipped ash from his cigar. “Well, I was at a bit of a loose end, really. My family had more or less disowned me.” He gave Theo a reproachful look. “I couldn’t really trust any of my so-called friends not to give me away to the bad guys. All I could think of was Pieter van Goyen. He’d always liked me, you know. I wasn’t sure what he could do for me – like, college professors don’t have a lot of money – but I had this feeling that a smart guy like that would be able to think of something. And he did.”
“YouSpace.”
Max shook his head. “We decided not to call it that,” he said. “Too sort of bland. But yes. Or, at least, the first prototype of the technology that’d lead to YouSpace. Pieter warned me, he said it was all mostly theoretical and there was no way of being sure it’d work, let alone getting me back again. But I didn’t really have too many options at that juncture. So I said yes, please, and off I went.”
His cigar had gone out. He paused to relight it, then went on: “In retrospect, I was really lucky. I mean, I could’ve landed up anywhere. But where I ended up was this kind of cute agrarian idyll, sort of like Switzerland only warmer. A peasant family took me in, fed me and looked after me and all. I stayed there for about three months. But then there was a spot of trouble.”
Theo waited a few seconds, then asked, “What?”
“The daughter got pregnant. Shame, she was a nice kid. Anyhow, I had to