Geoff Ryman - Lust Or No Harm Done

The woman chuckled. 'Well, OK, come in.'

She spoke French and was Canadian and her name was Mirielle. Mirielle led them up a staircase that was crammed with bicycles. On the landing there was a toilet in a kind of booth that had been jammed against a sloping roof. It looked like a set from an early German Expressionist movie like the Cabinet of Dr Caligari.

Past more banisters and they were in one huge room. One wall was lined with kitchen sink and encrusted cooker. Two other sides were crowded with bookcases, desks and sofas. All along one wall arched windows faced east, dancing with light. Picasso was overjoyed. He turned and rubbed the top of his head in a circle against Michael's chest.

Mirielle led them through a door out onto a flat rooftop, lined with big red pots holding giant ferns, bamboo and evergreens. 'This is the garden. We would sell the plants with the flat. Do you like gardens?'

'He does,' said Picasso and pointed to Michael.

The banisters led up a staircase that smelled of sawdust, to two bedrooms. One was long and dark with a sloping roof, and the other was a garret with another huge window. It was full of canvases lined up like cards in an index file. Picasso rifled through them. His cheeks rose up like buns. There were Goths with facial tattoos, cross cut on the same canvas with the backs of turtles. Magicians in top hats were under the sea, but the seabed was an aerial map of New York. 'You are one of my children,' Picasso said.

'Oh really,' chuckled Mirielle. 'And what is your name?'

'Pablo Picasso,' he announced. Um, thought Michael, that might be a mistake.

'Funny,' said Mirielle, without missing a beat. 'That's my name too.'

'We will buy your flat,' Picasso said, airily as if it were nothing.

'For my asking price?'

'Is anyone else asking?'

'Now,' said Mirielle, 'we need the estate agent.'

'And a glass of wine, to celebrate. My friend has a bottle,' said Picasso and winked at Michael, and Michael for once was quick on the uptake. Out came another bottle of 60-year-old wine. Mirielle looked at its old-fashioned label, with its plain black print. Mis en bouteille 1932. It was too perfect, so she laughed, and brought out glasses.

'I will work here,' Picasso announced to Michael. 'I am your new life.'

There was just one problem: who would buy Michael's flat?

Michael remembered his Polish neighbours downstairs. The husband had been made redundant and they needed to sell their larger flat with its Council Tax and ground rent. They had a buyer for their place: but they had been gazumped on the flat they wanted to buy. They had nowhere to move to.

Mr Miazga was alone in the apartment, still dressed as if for his work: a neat grey shirt of some interesting fabric, black slacks and black jacket. Yes, yes, it would be ideal.

'My wife, you see, works at the School of Eastern European Studies, which is just near here, so she can walk to work. That is why we are here in England.' He had a neat, quiet way of walking and talking, as if he were continually picking lint from his suit. His eyes never quite met yours.

Picasso began to slump and look about the walls, and huff. Shy quiet people made him impatient.

The Miazgas were shy but talented. The wife was doing a thesis on the pre-Christian Balkans. Mr Miazga had until recently worked in an architects' office as a programmer.

'That means he writes programs… uh…' Michael searched for the word in French.

'… logiciels ,' Mr Miazga said, with his unfaltering, mild smile.

'Computers.' Picasso sat up. 'You work on those things?'

'Well,' said Mr Miazga, 'I write the instructions that make them work.' He glanced sideways at Michael: how is it that this man has only just heard about computers?

Picasso kept pushing. 'You know how they work. You write down the numbers.'

'That is one way of putting it, yes.'

'Do you have one? You could show me how it works?'

Mr Miazga did not want to teach this bumptious man anything, but he was trapped by his own good manners. He avoided answering. 'The architects ask me to use the computer to show our clients how the buildings will look.' He used the present tense as if he still had a job.

Michael offered compromise. 'Why don't you just show us something you've worked on?'

Mr Miazga showed them a virtual shopping mall that was to be built along the A40. He guided them down the covered walkway, past the Pizza Shack and Ameriburger franchise and into the bowling alley. There was the sound of a strike and the clatter of falling pins.

The father of Cubism saw: this was the real way to display all sides of an object. He leaned forward and irresistibly took control of the mouse. He scowled, his eyes widened; the whites of his black eyes were illuminated like a glass of milk with a light bulb in it.

Mr Miazga explained, 'This way, the client feels work has begun on his project. While the surveyors are still specifying the materials and checking our estimates, we have something to show.'

Picasso only sniffed. He moved forwards and backwards through the design. He tried to scamper across the ceiling upside down. He could not. He chuckled. He drove the mouse straight into a wall and through it and he laughed. 'You are God,' he said. 'You can change the rules.'

'It can show what the blueprints will look like,' corrected Mr Miazga, who detested all overstatement and vulgarity. His black suit and designer shirt would have looked better with a huge gold brooch.

Picasso ignored him. 'The artist is the one who makes the space. The audience uses it. It is much more like life. But He slapped his thigh and stood up. 'The power of the artist has not changed. It is his world the audience enters. Thank you, Mr Miazga. Please, would you be able to show me more about how this works?'

'Certainly, if you wish,' said Mr Miazga. He was beginning to rise.

'You could do it today?' Picasso asked.

Mr Miazga faltered. He batted his eyelids like an embarrassed girl. 'I… I plainly have nothing else to do.'

Picasso sat down in his chair. 'Excellent, excellent. You and your wife must come upstairs and have dinner with us tonight. Is that not so, Michael?'

'Indeed,' Michael began.

'There will be a lot to celebrate.'

Mr Miazga could not help but smile. It would indeed be a relief to be able to sell their big flat and move on. He nodded in agreement.

'Michael, you have things to do with banks and lawyers, yes?'

Michael was beginning to get a bit peeved at being directed all the time. Picasso looked around at him and suddenly he had a face like a bloodhound: doleful eyes and drooping jaws. 'Don't you have a lot to do? I'm sorry, is it possible that I can help you in any way? I don't speak English. I am weak in such situations.' He was apologetic and undeniable.

'No, it's for me to do.' It was just that Michael wished he were doing the driving. It was his money that was buying the flat.

'I will cook!' Picasso announced, his eyes dancing again.

Picasso did not cook. He concentrated on a complicated sauce involving cream and tomatoes and basil and berries and apple liqueur and butter and a teaspoon of grated onion. Michael did the shopping. Michael cooked everything else: the boiled potatoes, the salad. The Miazgas rang on the telephone first, to tell them they were on their way: one floor up.

'Remember,' Michael told him. 'You cannot be called Pablo Picasso. Everybody in the world knows who Pablo Picasso is.' Picasso looked like he was picking his teeth after a good meal. 'You'll need to be called another name. I suggest Ruiz.' Michael paused. 'It will be easy to remember.'

'It is my father's name.' Picasso curled his lip.

'That's why it will be easy to remember,' said Michael, backing away to the door. And, he thought, it's your real name.