“I can’t think about numbers that big. No one should have two billion dollars.”
“You’re not going to be that way, are you?” she asked wearily. How strange was it that this familiar city, these familiar sidewalks seemed so alien? When had she last walked down a city street? She wore a hat and had the collar of her jacket turned up. She might still be recognized, but she doubted it: New Yorkers don’t look people in the eye.
“What the hell are you doing in this stupid game, in this stupid war?” Keats asked. “You could go anywhere.”
“And take my biots with me?”
“Yes, take your biots, yes.”
“And what about when they die of old age, or whatever it is that kills biots?”
She could see that this was not a new thought for Keats. “We don’t know how long they live. Maybe by then there will be some sort of answer. You could always spend a billion figuring it out.”
“When you say ‘billion’ there’s an edge to it,” she pointed out.
He didn’t answer. In fact, he didn’t look at her.
Plath sighed.
“It’s ridiculous,” Keats said at last. “You and me. What would I be? Your butler? It’s Downton Abbey and you’re the duchess or whatever, and I’m the footman.”
“Keats, don’t do this, okay?”
“It’s why you could talk to them that way. With that whole I-getwhat-I-want, tone of voice. It’s the voice your class are born with.”
She stopped, and after a couple of steps, he stopped, too. “Listen, Keats, I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to have to defend myself from you. I have more than enough to deal with.”
“Yeah, well, saving your pennies so you can afford to take a girl to the movies isn’t one of them.”
He looked genuinely angry, and that fact made Plath genuinely angry. “Hey: I’m not responsible for you being poor. Or working class. Or whatever you call it.”
“I didn’t say you were,” he muttered. “We should keep walking. Caligula is certainly watching this. From somewhere.”
“I don’t care what he’s watching,” she snapped. “He killed Ophelia.”
They walked for a block in silence. Then he said, “We could just go, Sadie. If you don’t mind being with a footman, we could just go. Just go. Get on a plane to …to …Africa.”
She didn’t answer at first. They dodged around street vendors selling cheap copies of designer bags, and vendors selling cheap copies of designer watches, and tourists buying same.
“Costa Rica,” Plath said at last. “The Pacific Coast. I could learn to surf.”
It was his turn to fall silent now, brooding.
“Or Africa,” she said. “What is it?”
“What?”
“Your name.”
“Noah.”
“No? Why not, do you think it really matters?” she snapped.
“Not ‘no.’ Noah. Like the old Hebrew with the big boat full of animals.”
“Oh. Noah,” she said. “That’s a strange name for a footman.”
He sighed.
“The thing is . . .” he began, then cut himself off.
“The thing is what?” she demanded.
“The thing is, sometimes I get myself through something with a story. You know, a fantasy.”
“Yes?”
“A fantasy. Imagination.”
“Yes, I know what a fantasy is,” she said, irritated again. “What’s yours?”
He made a bitter laugh. “I haven’t worked out the details, but somehow you and I end up together. And not in a mental ward, but like, together. Like I say: I haven’t worked out the details. There’s a house. Nothing grand. You know. Just a place.”
“You’ve moved straight to marriage? You’ve only known me a couple of weeks.”
“Fantasies don’t have to make any sense,” he snapped. “That’s what makes them fantasies. They aren’t meant to be logical, they’re meant to keep you from losing your mind or panicking or wanting to kill yourself.” He noticed the way she was looking at him and said, “No, for God’s sake, I’m not bloody suicidal. And I’m not proposing, either. Forget I said anything.”
They were walking slower now. Both had decided they wanted to extend this time, not cut it short.
“I have a fantasy, too,” she said. “It’s that this is all an elaborate dream and I wake up and I’m only seeing through one pair of eyes and I’m not noticing that it’s time to move away from that lymphocyte.”
A bike messenger barely missed running them down. They were both city kids, London and New York, so neither missed a step.
“So, all a dream, eh?” Keats asked.
“A dream. Yeah. Everything goes back to normal.”
“And I’m not there.”
She stopped. He stopped.
“Oh my God: you are there.” She made no effort to hide the surprise in her voice. It was true and it startled her: even when she imagined everything going back, no Vincent, no Caligula, no biots or Armstrong Twins, no terrible plane crash killing her father and brother, Keats was still there.
“I assume I’m your footman.”
“You’re the guy who saves up his pennies to take me to a movie,” she said, shaking her head as the truth of it came home to her. “I buy the popcorn. Large, of course, because I’m rich.”