The Horatio Stubbs Trilogy

by Brian Aldiss

  According to my watches, it was about nine o’clock, give or take twenty minutes. I set down on the table the presents I had brought for Margey: a jar of Chivers’ marmalade, a tin of Portuguese sardines, two bars of Palmolive, a tub of Indian-made Andrews’ Liver Salts, and some envelopes.

  As Fat seized upon these items and examined them with police-force thoroughness, Tiger Balm said affably, ‘And are the British still preparing for withdrawal?’

  ‘That’s up to Soekarno to decide.’

  My sarcasm was lost on him. He merely asked, taking another whiff of his cigarette. ‘Is that the official British attitude? Now you allow people to have what they want. We read in the papers that London lets Marshal Tito take over Jugoslavia. Poor King Peter, who was your wartime ally, is left out in the cold.’

  That this intellectual Chinaman should know so much about things that were going on in Europe …It was none of his business.

  ‘I came to talk to Rosey. To Margey. Where is she?’

  ‘Old Auntie sick, tida bagoose,’ said Fat. ‘Margey look see Auntie.’

  But in a moment, Margey appeared, smiling, and took my hand. I put an arm round her, squeezing her waist.

  ‘Second house of the cinema in half an hour,’ I said. ‘They All Kissed the Bride. Joan Crawford. Had you forgotten?’

  She laughed in genuine amusement. ‘I forget cinema with you, Horry? Course Margey no forget. First I nurse poor old Auntie a little, then we go. After that, we eat and have fun, yes?’ She smiled her lovely smile. ‘And you bring me more presents, you naughty boy. Now what, this time?’ Fat yielded up the shopping item by item, retrieving each after she had looked at it.

  Her slender arms went round my neck. ‘Why you so kind to me, Horry? Poor Margey no good for you. You very good for Margey.’

  ‘Not a foreign devil rapist soldier any longer, eh? You’re gorgeous, Margey – get a bloody move-on, will you, or we’ll miss the best seats.’

  ‘Maybe I give some Andrews’ Liver Salt to poor old Auntie. She very ill. Then we go upstairs for very quick time before pictures, okay? You like it? My God, Horry, I will absolutely drag your trousers down and I will make you come your orgasm in fastest rate ever, so be warn!’

  After the film, the hordes poured out along the safely lighted thoroughfares, but Margey led me down various unlit and unsavoury alleyways to an area of the town which had only recently been declared safe, following the eradication of a nest of extremists. This was the busiest time of day, with trade brisk and amazing smells of cooking fighting with music in the air. Not a hint of trouble about – though it needed only one pistol shot for the streets to clear instantly. I had seen it happen.

  Margey trotted along happily at my side. ‘This restaurant nice pleasant prace. Once was a consulate building, you know. Now British have made a deal with Soekarno, you not get shot at any more times.’

  I agreed that this was a good thing.

  ‘When British troops go away, then begins more shooting, and much trouble for all China people. Right now, Indonesians have your people to worry about. When you gone, then they worry about our people, I think.’

  ‘Something’s worrying me. Do you ever call yourself Rosey?’

  We walked several paces before she said in a tiny voice, ‘Why you ask such a thing?’

  ‘Answer the question.’

  ‘I Margey, okay. That my name ever since I go university. English names very smart and fashionable. Who this Rosey? What you mean to say? I no like all so many questions.’ I listened to her working herself up and would not reply.

  The restaurant was a two-storey concrete structure, built on stilts overlooking the river. Its name was the Bunga Rampaian. Its façade was scarred by machine-gun fire. As we entered, the sight of customers and the prospect of a meal made Margey chirpy again.

  She knew the boss. With wide smiles, we were shown to a table. Fragrant odours filled the air. It would be strange when first the British then the Dutch withdrew; but surely the prophets of doom would be wrong and the political takeover prove peaceful, here if not in Java. Probably I could get a bank job; the Indonesian Republic would need banks. If only I could get in touch with bloody Boyer …

  While I fantasised, Margey conferred with the waiter.

  ‘They have very tasty good sea fish served with ginger, also sweet green bean soup. How you like that, darling?’

  ‘Sounds great. Bring it on.’ As we lit cigarettes and smiled at each other, a five-piece band began to assemble on a tiny platform. They started up with ‘Terang Boelan’ as our fish arrived. Customers applauded the tune with rapture.

  With my knowledge of banking, I could rise to manager … Ah, at the time, at the time, it appeared that the future was simple if only I made up my mind. I did not grasp the fact that I was up against the futility of human relationships.

  International affairs met with little understanding in those days. To the crowds who danced in London and other great cities on VE Day, celebrating the death of fascism, Evil appeared vanquished. They lit their bonfires and exchanged their kisses under the impression that the world’s reserves of hatred were exhausted. In the East, matters appeared in truer perspective.

  VE Day itself was the occasion for a ten-minute break for a smoke while we got on with the task of dislodging every Japanese installed in thousands of islands and territories which stretched from Tokyo to the very gates of India. After the Japanese surrender, their will to fight smashed by the A-bomb, insurrections sprang up on every side in the territories they had freed from white rule.

  No country went back into the box from which the Nipponese tide had spilled it. New breeds of angry men arose, running to new barricades waving new banners. Many leaders like Soekarno rode to power on the backs of Nippon. In the East, the one peace ignited a dozen wars.

  Even in Medan, time-honoured fuses of economic interest, of race, of faith, of colour, were spluttering away. We kept our weapons clean, dry, and slightly oiled, and listened to ‘Terang Boelan’.

  While we wolfed down the fish, Margey extracted from me the fact that I had spoken to Katie Chae. Only when I swore that she was the ugliest Chinese girl I had ever seen did Margey relax.

  ‘Miss Chae is no pure China girl,’ she said. ‘That is why she so ugly like you say, and so dark skin. I hear her father is a very bad man who ran away to Penang after a bank robbery. He is half Mongolian man.’

  ‘What’s the other half?’

  ‘I tell you, Horry, her father one half Chinese, one half Tibet, one half Mongolian. Maybe another half Negro, I don’t know.’ She burst out laughing, covering her mouth politely.

  ‘That makes two of her!’

  ‘Miss Chae girl of many halves. I not bore you with description of her quarters.’ She roared with laughter again, sobering to say, ‘She come from Tibet – not so nice place as Tsingtao. Where you get this Rosey nonsense? One day, how I wish to take you see Tsingtao and the Shantung Peninsula. The people are all good and the landscape so pretty …’ She sighed. ‘Now for the present I must go home and nurse poor Auntie a little more.’

  I do not remember asking what was the matter with Auntie. She was old, and old people had a habit of falling ill.

  ‘Don’t go yet, Margey. Your place is full of people who can look after Auntie.’

  She laughed contemptuously, and waved her fingers. ‘They no capable. They poor fish, except Daisy, and Daisy work too much hard. Auntie need me.’ She rose, giving me a smile. I saw the enduring woman I admired, who went about her daily business – the shopping, the cleaning, the tending – however thoroughly the world fell apart round her.

  As we left the restaurant, a knot of foreigners – Dutch – were pushing their way forward, talking in loud voices.

  ‘Orang Blanda!’ said Margey, in low-voiced contempt. As she spoke, I spotted Johnny Mercer in the group. A tall blonde girl, real officer-fodder, had her arm entwined with his. He did not see me, I made no sign, allowing Margey to lead me through the dark alleys.<
br />
  I gave her a good-night kiss at her door and left her to do her stuff with Auntie. An hour or so before curfew. I took a stroll up the Kesawan, where shops were still open.

  Pleasant daydreams filled my mind. I saw the British leaving; the Dutch leaving, the Indonesians allowed to get on with their own business, building the place up again, trading with Singapore and the rest of the world. Why not? The island had coal, oil, minerals, endless timber; anything grew in the marvellous climate. It could become the richest country on earth. This logical development has yet to take place.

  A chill breeze sprang up. Rain was on the way again, moving in across the Indian Ocean. I went into the nearest shop and chatted with the shop-owner, while Malayan music twangled from an ancient radio. The old man apologised for the poverty of his stock. Tomorrow, the Van Heutsz would dock in Belawan harbour. It would unload goods for his shop, including Swiss music boxes in cigarette cases, which troops would like. Van Heutsz was very fine Dutch ship. In pre-war days he had sailed as far as Celebes on that ship. It was tranquil to be on the sea and watch day break over the waters.

  The rain dried. I returned to the street, smoking a big cigar. Everyone was emerging from shelter. I stood on the worn pavement, watching a road-sweeper who covered the hole where his nose had been with a leaf secured in place by a matchstick pushed into the matter beneath. It was hard to decide whether his trouble was syphilis or leprosy.

  Then I saw Captain Boyer farther down the street.

  He had a Dutch woman in tow. Impeding each other in so doing, they were climbing into the back seat of a rusty old car. They had emerged from a wine shop, in token of which the officer was clutching a bottle.

  I paused a yard or so away and called Boyer’s name. He did not look round. He and the woman had stuck in the door of the vehicle. All I could see of him was a leg, a backside, and an arm holding the bottle frenziedly by the neck, like a cripple trying to strangle a cat. Then the rest of him backed out, the woman fell inside, screaming resignedly, and he began to swear at her. Was it Boyer?

  I tapped him on the back as he prepared for another assault on the car. His reaction time was slow. He began to look round only as he heaved himself into the back seat, so that he caught the peak of his hat and knocked it flying into the dark interior. Cuddling the bottle, he glared out at me.

  ‘Who are you? Where’s my drink? Give me my cap back.’

  The light was so bad that I still could not see his face properly.

  ‘Sar’nt Stubbs, sir, 2nd Mendips.’

  His face protruded slowly out of the door, rather like paste oozing from a tube. The woman beat feebly on his back, under the impression that this would pull him back into the vehicle. His face was bevelled so as to climax in a nobly aquiline nose; all adjacent features were subordinate to his nose, with the possible exception of his eyebrows, which emphasised it as acanthus leaves emphasise the height of a Corinthian column. The eyebrow motif was echoed in his small black moustache, which hung sketchily above his lips. ‘Stubbs?’ these lips muttered, blankly.

  ‘Sah.’ I grinned. It was Captain Maurice Boyer, 2nd Royal Mendips.

  ‘So it blithering well is …’

  Like the passing of a rainstorm out to the Straits of Malacca, blankness faded from his face, replaced by a sort of idiot joy. He had recognised me. He was insanely glad. It might have been his old mother standing there. Laboriously, he heaved himself out of the car on to the pavement. Once on his feet, he slapped my back in the area where prickly heat was at its most gregarious, and tried to force me into the black cavern of the car, where unknown and carnivorous womanhood awaited me. I hung back, breathing cigar smoke into his face. He coughed, and breathed booze into mine.

  Coughing in my turn, I said, ‘Can I speak to you, sir? Personal and urgent.’

  ‘Course you can speak to me, Stubbs. Good to see you, man, always liked you. Burma days. Kohima, the DC’S tennis court – what a nightmare! Climb into this chariot with me and my light o’ love, come and have a drinkies with us. In you go – don’t know anyone else in all flaming Medan.’

  He encouraged me forward. As I bent to climb in, the woman was screaming from the back seat, in a Dutch accent, ‘There’s no rewm for any man more in this fewking automobile!’

  ‘Move over, you difficult bitch,’ snarled Boyer, plunging in and trampling his cap underfoot. He pulled me after him; I followed just behind the bottle.

  As I gulped the foetid air inside the car, I could distinguish sweat, cheap perfume, sick, and another aroma which I disliked. Boyer fell across me and slammed the door shut. The unseen woman fell across him, so that I got frowsy blonde locks in my face. They both screamed with what could have been laughter and the driver started the car. I began to laugh, too – I’d dropped my cigar.

  Boyer seized the woman with professional ease – not a difficult feat, considering that she was taking no evasive action – and began to talk to her and me at the same time.

  ‘Men’s welfare, my dear, don’t grumble. Drinkies ahoy! Good old Signaller Stubbs, now Sergeant well-deserved, one of the best lads in the regiment. Both under fire together. Fire! Fire!’

  ‘Not fire, only smewk,’ she said, fanning at the nauseating clouds which were drifting about as we gathered speed. I had ignited the floor mat. I was fumbling at their feet for the cigar butt, pretending to be drunk in case Boyer suspected me of feeling the woman’s legs.

  ‘Dear God, the privations! Never forget it. Drive on, driver, damn you, faster, faster. Drinkies ahoy! Need a pee.’ Cough, cough, cough. ‘What’re you doing here, anyway, Stubbs? What’s the name of that restaurant, my dear? Christ, I need a pee – step on it, driver, damn you!’

  We soon found ourselves at the Bunga Rampaian, where I had eaten with Margey scarcely an hour earlier. We tumbled out of the car amid clouds of billowing smoke. The upholstery was inarguably on fire, though it had not enough strength, given the humidity of the night, to burst into flame. Boyer uttered the cry of one bringing forth young and relieved himself against the concrete stilts of the building. Like his cap, his bottle of drink lay forgotten in the car.

  Staggering up the restaurant steps behind Boyer, I found myself next to his Dutch light o’ love. Her name was Raddle, or so I received it from Boyer. She was fat yet withered, two undesirable attributes infrequently found together. Her hair was blonde, and curled wherever possible. Her ample trunk was encased in a dress of navy blue which shone like the seat of old trousers. The looks she gave me were either of animosity or amorousness; both possibilities scared me. Three Margeys could have found refuge in her blue dress.

  Inside the restaurant, the five-piece band was in full charge. None of your native muck at this time of night. Gone was ‘Terang Boelan’; instead, we had genuine airs from European operettas:

  All the world’s in love with love,

  And I love you …

  The music appeared to upset Boyer, who twirled about a bit in the entrance, knocking over some flowers. Raddle skipped forward and grabbed his arm, saying, ‘Attempt not to lewk so fewking drunk, you twirp.’ Her English was very fluent.

  Up came the manager who knew Margey. He did not recognise me. Waving his hands, he announced that no more food could be served because of the imminence of curfew. It was the fastest bit of character-reading I had seen in a while.

  ‘Bring me a bottle of whisky, then,’ said Boyer immediately. ‘Or I’ll have your restaurant closed down for good.’

  ‘Sairtainly, sair, and maybe I bring you some nice kebabs, sair, for you and the lady and gentleman.’

  Having shown himself so responsive to threats, the manager led us to a table by a window overlooking the river. Boyer waved expansively, threading his way between tables and leaving Raddle to take her chance – being corpulent, she had to make many a detour among the diners. ‘Grab yourself a seat, Stubbs. Drinkies ahoy!’

  ‘Sir, I’d be glad to have a word with you, if you can spare me just a moment. I didn’t ought to sit down at the
table with you, sir.’

  He hammered on the table with his fist. ‘Damn it, man, take a seat. I said – haven’t seen you for months, what’s the matter with you?’

  I stood at attention to remind him of his position in society.

  ‘Regulations, sir, NCO and officer, sir. No familiarity. No offence, sir.’

  He made such a violent gesture of contempt that he swept a sauce pot into Raddle’s lap just as she was sitting down. Unable to find lodgement on that convex surface, it fell to the floor and rolled under an adjacent table. ‘To the devil with regulations, Stubbs, I’m giving you an order. Sit yourself down.’

  Still I hesitated – to be truthful, there was a gob of sauce on the vacant chair – but the woman, who was fairly well oiled herself, said in a high voice, ‘Sergeant, unless you are a complete fewl, will you sit in that fewking chair and keep this drunken horse’s arse in quietness.’

  I sat.

  A waiter presented himself, carrying a bottle of whisky, three glasses, a small flower in a small vase, and a plate of steaming kebabs with chunks of pineapple and mangusteen nestling between chunks of skewered meat, covered in a hot sauce. Uttering shrieks of various magnitudes, we forgot our similarities and tucked in.

  From where I sat, I could observe Johnny Mercer, his bird, and the rest of the Dutch contingent gathered round a corner table; Mercer was signalling frantically at me through a haze of tobacco smoke. One by one, the rest of his party joined in the gesticulation, pointing, shaking heads, and behaving so wildly that I began to suspect they had detected a bomb under my seat. I looked. There wasn’t. They shook their heads and renewed their pointing. I shook my head in return, gestured questioningly at myself. Nodding from them. Blank looks from me. I turned to see Boyer staring nonplussed at my performance.

  ‘Are you pissed, old chap?’ he enquired, pointing his kebab accusingly.