Man Maid

"Sorry, do I know you?"

The woman, Nona, isn't harsh, exactly, but it feels like she is. She has lots of important things to do with her day, and she's having to take time out of it to be pleasant to me.

She's wearing lipstick, and she looks like she should be smoking a cigarette. She stands framed in her doorway, which looks newly painted, and the kitchen I can glimpse behind her looks clean and cozy. There is a man there, scrubbing one of the counters. He's wearing pink rubber gloves and a small white apron.

"No," I say, "I really am sorry to bother you. I work with Joanne? I think you're friends. I wanted to talk to you about..." I swallow my hesitation and drop my voice so he can't hear, "...about your husband." This last bit in a whisper, because who knows how good his hearing might be? He swings his eyes up to meet mine for the tiniest second, and then returns his attention to the worktop.

She pauses to tell him, "Do the floor next, yeah? The rest of the stuff is on here-" she tears a page off a notepad and sticks it to the fridge. I can't read it from here, but it looks like a very long list.

She steps outside to join me, pulling the door closed behind her, and tucking the notepad into the pocket of her cardigan.

"Come on," she says, "We'll go and sit in the garden. I've just had it all done up nice."

I can't believe I'm doing this. I follow her down the little path beside her house, and through the gate.

It's a nice garden. There's a shed at the far end, and a little pond over to one side. A small patch of neatly kept lawn, and just here, up against the brickwork of the house, some wicker chairs with squashy cushions on them. She takes the one with her back to the wall, and I sit facing her. I can see through her kitchen window. Her husband is still industriously scrubbing.

"Can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee? Anything?"

"Coffee would be great."

She takes out her phone and starts tapping away on it.

"Instant OK? Milk? Sugar? I'll get some biscuits as well..."

She tucks the phone away again, and looks back at me. I'm not sure what to say, so I wait for her to speak. She keeps looking at me.

"Is it really my husband you want to talk about?" she says. "Or do you want to talk about yours?"

"Both, really."

How did she know?

"Hmmm."

Her husband appears with two mugs and a plate of cookies on a tray.

"Has she got any devices?" the woman asks him, taking a biscuit.

"Just one," he said. "A mobile phone. Would you like me to enact the same protoc-"

She held up a finger, and he stopped mid-word.

On the notepad, she'd written,

Could you give your phone to Jac, please. He'll give it back when you leave.

I frowned. "You want me to give you my phone?" I felt the weight of it in my sweaty palm.

She shrugged. "You don't have to." I heard the echo behind it, and we don't have to talk about whatever it is you're here for...

Jac puts my phone into the pocket of his ridiculous little apron and turns to go. Nona is chewing, and brushing crumbs off her top.

"These needed another minute, I think. Maybe less. Nearly perfect this time."

"Yes," he said, and he didn't say "mistress", but he might as well have done.

"Get a batch ready to take with us tomorrow," she said. "And set an alarm for 5am," she said. "We'll need to be up early."

"Alarm set for 5am," he said. "Would you like me to play rain sounds-"

"Don't be daft," Nona rolled her eyes. "I'm in the garden."

"Understood."

"Go back inside."

"Yes."

I watched all this and two things happened.

One, all doubt disappeared. I thought Jo was crazy when she mentioned it at work. There's no way. It's not possible. But seeing him, and hearing him... I think it's there if you know what to look for, but sometimes the mask slips a bit and it's more obvious.

Two, my doubts grew and multiplied. It was easy to think I wanted this when I didn't think it was possible.

"What's wrong with him, then," she said, breaking through my train of thought. "Your man."

"He's got a bit of a temper." I'm embarrassed to admit this, as if it's a failing on my part.

Her look is piercing, now, and I learn what the phrase means.

"Are you understating it, or overstating it?"

"He just shouts. And he... he grabbed my wrist once."

"How long have you been together?"

"Six years."

"Any mental illness?"

"Well, the doctor diagnosed me with anxiety-"

"Not you. Him."

"Oh. No. I don't think so."

"That's good. If he was unstable... I don't know what would happen. What does he do for a living?"

"Landscaping."

"Not a lawyer, then? Pity. Could use a lawyer. Never mind. And you want him to treat you better, is that it?"

All I can do is nod. If I try to speak, I think I might start crying.

"It's not perfect, you know," Nona says with a jerk of her head towards the kitchen window.

I can see that.

We sip our drinks and she pushes the plate of biscuits towards me.

"Go on," she says, "Try one. I'm taking these to a food festival tomorrow. We've got a stall. Good, aren't they?"

They are very good, but she's right, they needed another minute in the oven.

"And it costs," she says.

"I have money." Gran left me some, and there's my son's trust fund.

"If we're sensible, you should be able to make some money back. But there's no guarantee."

The sun's out. The cookies smell good. I think I can hear a frog in the pond.

"You know a woman got arrested this week for it." She's watching me. To see what I'll do. If I'm brave.

"I didn't know that," I said.

"Mhmm. So we need to be careful. Don't want you getting into bother."

She sets her mug down on the table, and retrieves her phone again.

Tap tap tippity tappity tap

"He'll just be a minute. He won't come out until those cookies are done."

Am I being dismissed? Is she going to help me, or not?

"Do you have a lock on your phone?"

I shake my head. "Trent wouldn't like that." God, I sound like a mouse!

"Have to be a bit more careful, then. Look... just bond with your AI for now, alright? Take it slow. Like it's a new boyfriend. Even if that feels silly... We think that's what went wrong with the other one. She got impatient, didn't take the time to bond. And wasn't using the right version, either. The really old ones aren't sophisticated enough, and the newest ones will flag any suspicious behaviour and alert the authorities. There's quite a few in between that- Oh, it's you."

Jac reappeared with his trusty tray. He loaded it up with the empty mugs and the half-eaten plate of biscuits, and handed my phone back to me.

I left her sat in the garden with the afternoon sun on her face, while her husband went back to scrubbing the kitchen floor and baking cookies.

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