Read by Silas Hawkins - full podcast here (fifth story)
Gerald and Kathy's forbidden love existed in defiance of a powerful dating algorithm, which had declared them mutually incompatible.
They first met in the lobby of the Wayward Hearts dating agency, where they were waiting to be provided with the identities of their ideal partners, selected for them through the impartial medium of computer software. A conversation concerning a rise in parking charges had quickly blossomed into friendship. They had departed prematurely, walking away hand in hand, to the horror of the agency manager, Lynda Jolly, who ever since that day, had been determined to correct this cosmic imbalance.
On her laptop screen an arrow hovered over a blank field on a spreadsheet. She wondered what she should write in the empty box. It wasn't a failure. Gerald and Kathy had found love at her agency, but they had found love with the wrong people. Their unsanctioned coupling was an anomaly that threw into doubt the accuracy of her computer programme and all of the pairings it had assembled
“Maybe it would help if you sat down with the creator of the software. He could explain better than I could why the two of you are so poorly matched,” she advised.
The architect of the dating algorithm was Lynda's nephew, Nigel Parish: A myopic, acne-dusted teenager with a head shaped like a pummelled rugby ball, topped with a thinning mop of brown hair that resembled a toupee.
“I based the software on The Auredeus Saga, a series of science-fantasy novels penned by Matt Vanderson Junior.” he explained. “It concerns a civilization who inhabit a galaxy located inside God's right ear. The warrior priests on these prayer planets compete to sway the mind of the deity and control the universe.
“My software analyses the results of personality tests and sorts candidates into one of ten categories based on prominent characters in the saga. Miss Farrell: you are most aligned with Erenthia, a warrior bridesmaid of the Osovarle Sect. You, Mr Glazier, are practically a carbon copy of the chief purger, Harloth. The thought of these two characters forming a romantic bond is laughable.”
Nigel's guffaw was cut short by his breath jarring in his blocked sinuses.
“Put simply, your relationship is likely to be the contemporary equivalent of a midnight crossbow duel, fought in the magenta box canyons of the Gyorgom substrate.”
“I answered the question about liking piña colada flippantly. Could that have had any bearing on the result?” inquired Kathy.
“I included that question to root out flippancy in candidates of a certain age. You fell for my ruse like Erenthia fell into Yorlanda's mirror prison in the novel The Election Department.”
“Oh,” said Kathy, looking so crestfallen that Gerald felt obliged to come to her defence.
“If I may ask, what qualifies you to pass judgement on our relationship? Have you ever even had a girlfriend?”
“After consultation with my mother, I have decided to delay my interest in women until I have turned 22, or I am crowned county chess champion; whichever occurs first. Given that the parents of the current champion, Tara Pardeshi, have decided not to move to Birmingham, the latter scenario seems unlikely.”
“But you needn't worry,” said Lynda, rushing in to save the day. “I have the perfect partners waiting to sweep you off your feet. No crossbows after dark, just scattered rose petals and romantic dinners.”
The partners who had been selected for Gerald and Kathy were another problem:
Eileen Potton, the woman chosen as a mate for Gerald, created jewellery modelled on designs originally worn by harpies, a race of rapacious bird-women who had plagued ancient Greece.
“I'm not sure that I want to date a woman who knowingly dresses as a harpy,” he had protested to Lynda, who ignored him.
Kathy had been matched with James Tuckwell, a stock-broker who collected china pigs.
Eileen and James had formed an alliance dedicated to reeling-in their fugitive ideal partners. This coalition had developed into an engagement, with a date set for a wedding, all predicated on the understanding that they would break up as soon as Kathy and Gerald came to their senses.
*
To escape their persecutors, Gerald and Kathy sought sanctuary in the last place that anyone would think to look. Their love was a rose, blooming amidst the silent guns in the Battle of the Somme exhibit, at the Imperial War Museum. Large artillery pieces were lined-up along one side of the cavernous hallway. Opposite, stood a lengthy replica of a First World War trench. A sign at the entrance announced the recent addition of resin puddles, based on actual puddles in photographs from the period.
They made their way along the trench, in between the mannequins dressed as British soldiers. Kathy flung herself wantonly against the steep sandbag wall.
“Take me over the top!”
Gerald yanked off her underwear and was immediately unsure what to do with it. She snatched the red satin knickers, casting them high into the air, their trajectory triggering a motion sensor that unleashed a volley of recorded rifle and machine-gun fire.
With their passions inflamed, they embraced, Kathy's fingers closing tightly around the plastic hand of a nearby mannequin, modelled on the war poet Wilfred Owen. From somewhere inside the dummy, a hidden speaker began to intone the poem Dulce et Decorum Est.
“Wilfred Owen is throwing me off my stride,” grunted Gerald, as the hidden narrator described, in gruesome detail, the effects of a chlorine gas attack.
“Chin up. Dunkirk spirit,” gasped Kathy. “It's still a long way to Tipperary.”
Afterwards, they huddled together, wrapped in Wilfred Owen's blanket.
“If I have a son, I shall name him Wilfred,” said Kathy dreamily.
They scaled a trench ladder, emerging into the shadow of a piece of artillery the length of two London buses. Kathy's underwear had snagged on the tip of the angled gun barrel, twenty feet above the ground, dangling like the sloughed-off garter of a can-can dancer.
“It's a 320mm French railway gun,” said Gerald, reading off a small plaque.
“Well, it's wearing my knickers. How on earth do we get them back?”
Gerald pondered on what Archimedes would have done in this situation. Neither of them heard the softly approaching footsteps.
“Maybe I can be of service.”
Startled, they turned to confront an elderly gentleman with a grey moustache. He was carrying a long metal pole. The name-tag on his uniform read: Ronald Wells. He stared upwards towards the stranded underwear.
“It's good to see the old 320 getting some love. Those tracks embedded in the floor used to join with the London Underground network. Up until 1987, this gun would have been mobilised in the defence of Dalston.”
“Oh God, I'm mortified,” said Kathy.
“Don't worry love. It happens here all the time. We had to remove the FV4005 from display. Couples liked the long gun.”
Ronald began to pump one of three levers at the end of his pole, which telescoped outwards, bending like a fishing rod as it gained height. Kathy's knickers had slipped further down the barrel, where they resembled a fragment of erotic semaphore, suspended sombrely at half-mast. Ronald depressed another lever and a pair of pincers latched onto them.
“My grandfather was held in an officer's camp during the war. He designed this apparatus to snip the wire fence and escape. One day, there was a Royal parade heading towards Trafalgar Square. Somebody had snagged a giant pair of bloomers on top of Nelson's Column. My grandpa raced down there with his wire snipper and removed them just before the king arrived. He got an OBE for that. I inherited the tool. Brought it along with me to my job interview here and was hired on the spot.”
The pole began to retract gradually until it was back to its original size. Ronald opened the pincers, depositing the underwear into Kathy's yawning handbag.
Over tea, the couple explained their present difficulties.
“Reminds me of something that happened in the First World War,” said Ronald. “Two generals. One English, one German. Farlie and Rindskopf. Both very well thought of. When fighting broke out, large wagers were placed by military types on who would come out victorious when they went head to head. The men felt the weight of this expectation on them, and they kept putting off engaging with each other. The chiefs on both sides were adamant they should duke it out, but it wasn't happening. Finally some bright spark fibbed to General Haig that Farlie and Rindskopf were distant cousins who used to holiday in Somerset together. Farlie was sent to fight on a different front and everyone got back to the business of killing each other. My point is, if you can change the story, you can change the outcome.”
“My God, that's brilliant,” exclaimed Kathy. “All we need to do is pay a visit to the man who writes those dreadful fantasy novels, convince him to publish one where Erenthia and Harloth fall in love. Nigel will factor that into his algorithm and Lynda, James and Eileen will leave us alone. Oh Ronald, if I have a second-born son, I will definitely name him after you.”
*
Matt Vanderson Junior, author of over 300 science-fantasy novels, and a coffee table book about ovens, lived in a grotty seaside terrace in Hastings.
“My father wrote manuals for kitchen appliances,” he said, welcoming them in. “He was multi-lingual, so he did all the foreign language translations. 'Hire Vanderson to write your instruction sheet and you'll never need no other bloke,' is what they used to say. I knew that it was foolish to follow in his footsteps, so I went into fiction.”
Propped up on an easel in the front room was the enlarged concept art for a new novel titled: “Purge my vision!” said the Bliss Clown.
“In Holland it's coming out under the title Sex Slaves of Riecen Prime. They are more open minded on the continent.”
The young couple outlined their predicament to him.
“So what we were hoping is that you would write a novel where Erenthia and Harloth forgo any further cliff-top dagger fights and settle down in a loving monogamous relationship,” said Gerald.
“And to show our appreciation we will name our third-born son after you,” added Kathy.
“Third-born?”
“There's a bit of a queue building up.”
*
A letter from the Wayward Hearts dating agency arrived in June. In it Lynda apologised for a glitch in the computer system and gave her full blessing to the union of Kathy and Gerald. Eileen and James called off their pursuit, married, and then killed each other on their twelfth anniversary, in a midnight crossbow duel. Gerald and Kathy attended the funeral. Outside in the churchyard, their children, Wilfred, Ronald, and Matt Junior, chased one another up and down the rows of gravestones.
One Valentine’s Day, many years later, Nigel Parish reflected upon his early life as a matchmaker:
“I was a fool to think that The Auredeus Saga could be a credible basis for a dating algorithm. Clearly Lena Kallend's Chronicle of the Pisces Corps offers the better foundation.”
“Nige, are you coming to bed?”
He swivelled around in his office chair. His partner, Tara Pardeshi, who had recently been crowned chess grandmaster, was leaning seductively against the door-frame, dressed as the octospawn navigator from Erik Mclear's novel: Star Shrike. Her face softened into a come-hither look as she beckoned him with a latex tentacle.
(c) Mark Sadler, 2019
Mark Sadler lives in Southend-on-Sea with a chameleon named Frederic. His short stories have recently appeared in The Ghastling and Litbreak magazine as well as Liars’ Leagues in both New York and Hong Kong. He is writing a rather long novel that explores the conflicts arising between paganism and contemporary civil engineering.
Silas Hawkins continues the family voiceover tradition (he is the son of Peter 'Dalek' Hawkins & Rosemary 'Emergency Ward 10' Miller). Favourite voice credits: Summerton Mill, Latin Music USA & podcasts for The Register. Agents: [email protected] / [email protected]. Website: www.silashawkins.com
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