‘How does music do this? How do structured sounds communicate to a human – a human spirit?’

I’m stuck now. My little speech has revived my own spirits, or spirit, but I can’t see how to make Winifred understand it.

‘It’s not logical. Even though music is based on a kind of mathematical logic – you can see that, can’t you?’

‘Yes, but how does maths inspire emotion?’

‘It’s not just maths. It’s something we respond to. In Bach, for example, it’s the beauty of the mathematical structure, but it then seems to describe the entire universe. In Mozart, the maths is there too, but it’s pure joy. Not always, but often. They say when the angels play for God, they play Bach, but when they play for each other, they play Mozart.’

‘You don’t believe in angels, do you?’

‘It’s a sort of parable, I suppose.’

She looks blank again, and this time, her face doesn’t clear. ‘I don’t understand this.’

I wonder if she’s now confronting the limits of her electronic brain.

‘I can’t explain it any better. You have to feel it, perhaps. I’m sorry, I know last time we spoke about feelings it got complicated.’

She stands there, looking at me, without any expression on her face. Have I finally offended her? She always says it’s impossible. Perhaps finding there’s something you can’t know, ever – something denied to you, because of what you are – must have an effect, surely? Even if only a simulated effect. What will she do, I wonder?

The answer is not long in coming. It’s a complete surprise, too.

She walks up to me and takes my hands.

‘Margaret, you are truly a magnificent specimen of a human being. Many humans never reach the stage of development you have reached. Not only through age, but through the exceptional working of your mind and your emotions. You are the best a human can be, I think. I have watched you return from the darkness of dementia, and I have learnt from you what it can mean to be human. And you have shown me what I’m missing. I was created to be a convincing synthetic human, and I have in most ways succeeded. But in you I see something more. You have something I lack, and without it, I can’t ever be a fully convincing human. Thank you, Margaret.’

And she kisses me. Tenderly, with love, it feels like. On my lips. Which takes me aback, but then, she doesn’t know the finer distinctions of kissing, does she? I accept it. A kiss from a robot. Isn’t life full of surprises?

Winifred

Night.