Life in the West tsq-1

by Brian W Aldiss

  He sighed heavily.

  ‘Now you are in trouble again,’ Squire said.

  Rugorsky smiled. ‘But I don’t do anything so serious as pushing my friends from cliffs.’

  ‘The world’s a dangerous place.’

  ‘You don’t need to tell me that. I brought you here because I wished to speak of those distant times in Yugoslavia. I longed to tell you of the extraordinary bond between us over many years, across the East-West struggle. To be frank, I thought if I told you that you would remember me in future times.’

  ‘I expect I shall.’

  ‘When we met before the Hamilton picture in the Tate Gallery, I had to work through my memory for many hours before I recalled you. This charming English critic was Slatko’s executioner. He had shot the evil man who had been chilled by the breath of Stalin. Then I believed in the miraculous.’

  ‘Of course you checked up on me through the KGB.’

  ‘I don’t deny. You also checked up on me — you know I am in trouble again now. That’s how the world situation is — we must check up on each other. We didn’t make that situation, you and I.’

  ‘The charges in Leningrad — they’re serious?’

  The Russian pulled a stalk of grass and bit it. ‘All things are serious, you see. Unfortunately, such is the state of morals that we all get involved with some form of graft as we progress upwards. There is no other way. Perhaps you will remember the case of Madame Furtseva, Minister of Culture and the late Khrushchev’s lady-friend. I knew her slightly — she was disgraced for such things. But that’s another tale… When I arrive at Moscow, I shall probably be tried, sentenced, and returned to the camps. My poor wife…I will never survive. I’m old, my kidney is weak. It will not be like living in a civilized English prison. Even if I could survive — even if the miracle happens and I am cleared at my trial — but that is not how they conduct trials in Moscow — I shall never again see the pleasant places of the West.’

  ‘Let’s get back to the square. I’ll buy you a drink.’ He got cautiously to his feet. This time, he extended a hand to Rugorsky, who took it and struggled up. They edged their way back along the narrow path.

  Addressing Squire’s back, Rugorsky said, laughing slightly, ‘You see, Thomas, we two are not such bad fellows, after all. We have managed some communication There is always division between East and West, and always has been. So much mistrust. But just this afternoon we spoke like men.’

  As they rounded the base of one of the towers, Nontreale again materialized; the shadowy abyss lay behind them. Squire found his legs trembling as he stood on firm ground, staring up the narrow side street, where life was lived among overhead balconies, drooping telephone wires, eaves that almost met overhead, and stalls selling portraits of Christ and the Virgin with luminous eyeballs which glowed at night.

  They pushed their way into a bar in the main square, opposite the ice-cream parlour where they had sat earlier. Men in rough clothes were crowding the counter. Squire almost spilt the beers as he carried them to a small table.

  ‘Quite a scrum,’ he said.

  ‘No. It’s not so at all, you see. Here, nobody pushes at all. Everyone is decent and polite.’

  As they sat down, Squire said ‘Whatever you have been up to in Leningrad, you are short of money when you come abroad.’

  Rugorsky looked searchingly over his glass at Squire. ‘It’s a privilege for you to buy me this beer. We shall think of it many years ahead. What little money I have, I keep. It’s possible a little bribe may help me at Moscow airport, because if I can fly on to Leningrad, then there’s a chance for me. In Moscow, none.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I am glad to buy you a beer. Is Kchevov keeping an eye on you?’

  ‘Of course. I’m sure you know it. But we will speak of such things no more. Instead, tell me about your Pop Expo. We are being watched by a friend of yours.’

  Turning, Squire saw that Parker-Smith was toying with a glass of wine and reading an Italian newspaper behind them.

  They caught the bus back to Ermalpa. Neither Squire nor Rugorsky spoke much on the way. Squire watched the Russian drinking in the outside world, storing away what he saw, possibly reflecting that even the dirtiest vulcanizers, carrying on their trade and their private life in two rooms, enjoyed a freedom they had no way of evaluating. And he thought, ‘The impulse to push me over the cliff in order to gain some small political advantage in Russia was in his heart. I’m sure of it, even if he denies it. Otherwise, why should I have felt threatened as I did?’

  They climbed out of the bus at last, only two blocks from the Grand Hotel Marittimo. The vehicle disappeared in a snort of grey exhaust fumes. Outside the swing doors, they paused.

  ‘I thought I might get to England from here,’ Rugorsky said abruptly. ‘But something tells me that I would not be welcome at Pippet Hall. You have a mistrust. Perhaps you still think in your mind that I had an intention to do something a little serious on the cliff at Nontreale… Well, really we are stuck with the nation we are born into, you see, and must play out its game of consequences.’

  ‘I’m sorry I can’t help, Vasili. And I didn’t lob that grenade at you in Istra.’

  ‘That’s a small cause for celebration. If you’re not feeling too unfriendly, perhaps you would like to buy us a bottle of champagne, or at least a beer.’

  He smoothed down his white lock of hair and smiled ingratiatingly, showing broken teeth. Scratch a Russian…

  ‘I’m going to my room to have a shower, Vasili. I’m sure you’ll find friends in the bar.’ They stood scrutinizing each other.

  Rugorsky shrugged. ‘Well, I understand your meaning.’ As they pushed through the swing doors into the cool of the foyer, he gave Squire one of his sly looks. ‘You do still think partly that I would be wicked enough to push you over the cliff, don’t you?’

  Looking him in the eye, Squire said, ‘If you were once one of Slatko’s men — yes.’

  Rugorsky nodded and rubbed his chin. ‘I see, Thomas. It’s because you’re not sentimental enough.’

  14. An Ideological Decision

  Paddington, London, September 1978

  The taxi-driver talked all the way from the airport. He was eloquent on the subject of immigrants, for which he did not care. Immigrants made London dirty and refused to work. They bred like rabbits and ruined the country. Squire made little response; he did not wish to be turned out of the taxi as had happened to him once when he tried to persuade the driver that ‘the blacks’ actually contributed something to Britain’s tottering economy.

  ‘You look tired, squire,’ said the taxi-driver, familiarly, as he pulled up in Bouverie Square.

  Cheered by being thus addressed, Squire agreed he was tired.

  ‘What, been abroad then?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘It is tiring abroad, innit? Dunno what people go there for.’

  Squire stood on the pavement. The taxi-driver reluctantly lifted his two cases out of the vehicle and set them on the pavement, while glancing up at the building suspiciously.’ Can you manage them cases, squire? They look a bit posh for round here, don’t they? That’ll be twenty-five pounds, thanks.’

  It was, if not nice, recognizable to be back in England.

  As the taxi moved off in a cloud of exhaust, and Squire bent to pick up his luggage, a pudgy man, dragging a wheeled suitcase, came along the street and cried Squire’s name.

  Squire responded to the man’s smile and shook his outstretched hand. The pudgy man wore a tight pair of faded jeans, a worn leather jacket, and a light blue silk sweater marked with beer or coffee stains. His long straggling grey hair surrounded a brown bald patch on the top of his head. He was perhaps sixty years old, and panted a good deal as he paused. He wiped his mouth on a blue spotted handkerchief.

  ‘Mustn’t stop. Just going to catch a train, but it’s lovely to see you. How’re you getting on?’

  ‘Fine,’ Squire said. ‘And you?’

  The plump man flu
ng his arms wide. ‘I’ve had it, really had it. Finished. The BBC didn’t get the increase it hoped for and they wouldn’t renew my contract. They’re broke, the bastards… I can’t get a job to suit me — me, of all people! The country’s going down the drain fast, it’s terrible. No room for people of talent any more.’

  Suddenly the name came back to Squire. Grahame Ash, the director of ‘Frankenstein Among the Arts’, skilled, inventive, dedicated.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  Ash grabbed Squire’s arm. ‘Don’t laugh. I’ve accepted a job with Aussie television. They offered me something — not much. I’m on my way now, just going to say good-bye to an old friend first, then I fly to Sydney in a couple of days. Terrible, isn’t it?’

  ‘Very enterprising of you, Grahame. I wish you the best of luck.’

  ‘After all I’ve done… “Frankenstein” and all the rest of it. But the oil crisis isn’t going to go away. Inflation isn’t going to go down. I believe, if you ask me, that the Arab world is going to squeeze Europe and the US by the throat. Nothing’s ever going to be the same again. We’re going to go down the drain, till we end up like a lot of little Uruguays and Paraguays. This country’s had it, that’s my belief, I tell you frankly. We’ll have to team up with the Soviet Bloc in the end, just to keep going. Trading in furs again, before long. Well, I must dash.’ He looked at his wristwatch. Summer was closing, and the day; the light thickened in the narrow street.

  ‘I hope you find things better in Australia. They’ve got massive economic problems too.’

  ‘Don’t tell me. I’ll find out soon enough. But I’ve got a younger brother in Sydney, haven’t seen him for fifteen years. I’ll be okay. I’m talented, you know, Tom. I’ve got faith. Remember the times we had in Singapore, and Sarawak?’

  ‘Of course. All the best. I’d always be glad to hear from you.’

  ‘I’ll drop you a card. How’s Laura? See anything of her?’

  ‘Not lately.’

  ‘Lovely girl. All the best, then.’

  ‘All the best.’ Squire watched Ash’s departing back before taking up his cases.

  The flat suited Squire well enough. He had no objection to the Paddington area. A Greek hairdresser worked at his trade in the basement of the house; sounds of clippers and bazouki music drifted up the stairs. On the ground floor was an old woman of mysterious nationality who occasionally walked a fat pug to the corner lamp post. The Iranian professor of metallurgy on the first floor was also very quiet. The young men in frilly shirts who visited him most evenings were also quiet, if not downright taciturn.

  Squire rented the top floor. It was modest, and the furnishings were not even dreadful enough to be worth joking about. But the front room was large and had once been good. He found himself not displeased to be back. A sepia photograph of his parents, and a colour photograph of John, stood on the mantelpiece; otherwise the room was anonymous.

  From the window, he could see the corner shop, a grocer’s run by a Pakistani family which remained open most hours of the day and night. Mr Ali Khan was the only acquaintance Squire had made in the neighbourhood; the two men now knew each other well enough for Mr Khan to confide his suspicions concerning the Chinese who ran the ‘Hong Kong Restaurant and Take-Away’, only three doors from his shop. They worked too hard and were secretive.

  Having dumped his suitcases in the middle of the room, Squire went back downstairs to collect his mail, which had been thrown into an old Bovril box on the hall floor. Most of the letters were re-addressed from Pippet Hall in the firm round handwriting of Matilda Rowlinson. He had given the flat address to few people.

  There was no letter from Teresa. Most of the mail looked like circulars or fan mail. He opened one letter as a kind of spot check. It came from a gentleman in Carlisle who claimed to have spent twenty years in the RAF. He had watched the ‘Frankenstein’ programme (sic) on television, and was disappointed to hear no mention of Irving Berlin, the best song-writer of this or any other century. It was time some sort of justice was done.

  Squire was carrying clothes about in a rather helpless fashion, sorting out dirty items to be taken to the launderette in Praed Street, when his doorbell rang. He went to the door and dragged it open.

  His brother-in-law, Marshall Kaye, stood there, bronzed, slightly ragged round the moustache, and smiling.

  ‘Hi, Tom, glad to find you back home. I rang your number several times. From a news item I caught, I feared the flying saucers over Ermalpa had got a hold of you.’

  ‘Marsh, come in.’ They shook hands. Squire indicated the muddle in his room. ‘As you can see, I’m just back. Care to sample some eight-year-old duty-free malt?’

  ‘Try me.’

  Whilst Squire was breaking open the whisky carton, Kaye asked him about the flying saucers.

  ‘I saw one, Marsh. I’m convinced. I saw it, yet I still don’t believe it.’

  ‘Okay. It’s like seeing a damned ghost — it may scare you, but it can’t affect your life in any way. Just suppose whole squadrons of flying saucers landed, and we were up to here in little green men. It still wouldn’t affect our inner lives one bit.’

  ‘You think not? Would you say that as you scavenged through the ruins of London?’

  ‘What I mean is, some people are toppled into misery by what may seem minor factors. Others triumphantly survive the most terrible tragedies and come up smiling. Like some of the characters in Solzenhitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago.’

  They drank, exchanging more idle remarks. Kaye asked about the conference, and Squire gave him a brief account of the Rugorsky affair.

  ‘Sounds pretty hairy!’ Kaye exclaimed. ‘Was the guy flying back to Moscow today?’

  ‘Yes. I bought him a drink and a meal at Rome airport before we went our separate ways. Kchevov was with him, keeping close, so I had to stand him a meal too. Rugorsky was naturally cagey, because he was not absolutely sure that his friend was unable to understand English. Otherwise he was calm. He was convinced that he was going back to Moscow to face absolute destruction. He didn’t think he would see his wife — who’s in Leningrad — again.’

  ‘Can we do anything from this end?’

  ‘We can and will send letters, stressing his international importance. D’Exiteuil will help too; he has powerful friends in government, and the French, as you know, exert a bit of a pull in Moscow. But fraudulent currency transactions are a criminal offence.’

  ‘Guys who defraud criminals are not necessarily themselves criminal.’

  ‘A point of view it would be rather difficult to sustain in a Moscow court of law… Someone, probably Solzenhitsyn, spoke of the lack of character among men in the West, and the corresponding stature of so many characters in the USSR under that oppressive system. Of course, the remark is one of prejudice and can have no statistical validity, but I thought of it when parting from Vasili. He is a terrific guy. Good to have in a slit trench with you when the shit’s flying.’

  ‘Not so good on a cliff edge.’

  Squire looked down at the worn carpet and rubbed his knees.

  ‘You know what I was thinking in Rome airport? He and I between us could have clobbered Kchevov in the toilets, and tied him up like a mummy with strip towels. Then I could have brought Vasili back here. The uncertainties over Pippet Hall deterred me — that’s my excuse. He would have been safe there for a while, and then we could have found him somewhere a bit more secure, in Canada, or the good old US of A.’

  ‘You’d have been mad. Would he have played along?’

  ‘Oh, probably.’ Squire looked at his watch. ‘He did his share of toilet-fighting as a young man, I’m sure… He’ll be in Moscow by now, poor sod. I feel like a worm for doing nothing.’

  ‘But he did try to knock you off?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  They drank in silence for a while. Kaye rose and ambled about the room. Something in his bearing told Squire that he disliked the flat with all its shabbiness, and felt caged within it;
layers of time in a Paddington room held less appeal for the American than the thicker strata of an old Greek palace.

  With surprising force, amounting almost to anger, he turned suddenly on his heel to look down at Squire, who sat in a worn cane chair. ‘So here you are, lurking in a seedy flat in Paddington. I don’t understand, Tom — this must be some brand of British behaviour that eludes me. What the hell goes on?’

  ‘It was so damned uncomfortable at the Travellers’. My room was half the size of this. It made sense to move here.’

  Kaye tugged his moustache down over his mouth. ‘You know what I mean. You don’t belong here. This isn’t your thing. Is it the mid-life crisis, have you got a black woman stashed away in the jakuzzi, or are you in search of God?’

  ‘Come on, Marsh, there are other explanations for living in Paddington. And there’s nothing wrong with this flat. I’ve always imagined that if anyone goes looking for God they can find him easily — he’s only an image in the mind. Do you know, one of the most interesting places we went to while we were making the TV series was the Tin jar National Park in Sarawak. We visited a cave where there were some paintings made over forty centuries ago — you may remember it from the first episode, ‘Eternal Ephemera’. There was a whole wall covered with paintings of hands, hands facing palms outward, hundreds upon hundreds of them.’

  ‘I remember. You sent Deirdre a postcard of it. What about it?’

  ‘I often think of that wall. It may be the earliest human painting that survives. Those hands aren’t making supplications to God. In all religions, people making a supplication to God turn their palms either upwards, unconsciously indicating thereby that God resides in their skulls, in the uppermost part of their anatomy, or else inwards, thereby unconsciously acknowledging that he is an inward quality.