The Twilight of the Vilp

by Paul Ableman

  “The borer!” cried Bill.

  “Not quite,” replied his dad. “This here is a mock-up, made from the tin-foil you get in cigarette packets.”

  “That’s as far as you’ve got—after seven years?”

  “Mock-ups are very important,” his dad reproved him. “All that’s left now is the technical side. That’s mainly connected with springs. It’ll need a great many springs before it’s actually boring. Now, Bill, I have a mission for you. Take off that mask, lad, and let’s see your face.”

  Bill obligingly removed the massive Singhalese mask and his father looked at his face. Then Glebe senior continued:

  “The need for secrecy is imperative. Almost any foreign government would give billions for this borer. The military implications are staggering. Anyone can see that this thing will revolutionize warfare. That’s why we must hasten on and finish it so that our government will do any military boring that occurs and our country will once more achieve invincibility. Now I’ve applied to the home office, the patents office, the foreign office, the Queen, the prime minister, the arts council, and the Welsh liberation army and they all fail to grasp the momentous implications of this tin-foil borer. They won’t act. No more will they stir. Bill, it’s an old story. A sad story. It’s a melancholy tale, old fellow. Son, it’s a dismal history. Nevertheless, my loyalty, courage, patriotism and undaunted spirit are proof against all the barbed arrows of their ignorant scorn. I shall bore forward on my own and at this stage I must have help. Bill! Have you ever heard of Guthrie Pidge?”

  “What? Professor Guthrie Pidge?”

  “That’s the one, late of Mushton and now lecturing in literary agronomy to sixteenth year students at Tanbury Snide, Calikansas in the Compacted States of America. He’s also doing great work with beans, trying to bash the local blight into submission. Bill, Pidge knows about the borer—”

  “But I don’t see—”

  “Wait! He’s promised to help and the time has come for him to step into the picture. Now, I dare not trust the post. As is well-known, most postmen are double agents. I’m too old to travel myself and anyway, since the government refuses to vote me the seventy-three million I require to complete the project, I can’t afford the fare. Bill, this is where your hitch-hiking genius comes into its own. Hasten to the Compacted States, thumb your way to Tanbury Snide and let Pidge know the time has come and also hand him this packet of plans.”

  That evening Bill paced restlessly about his little room. He shunned the drug cabinet. This was no moment for awakening the full range of his psychic powers. All he required now was a little common pondering. Should he hasten to Professor Pidge, as his father wished? But even as a fleeting assent passed through his mind another and more pathetic appeal intervened. Once more Bill was standing up to his waist in rank water in Pad Dee’s paddy, listening to the earnest, humble application of the farmer who had befriended him and allowed him to sleep with the yak.

  “If our love in Buddha counts for anything, O Bill, hasten back with the precious volume.”

  Bill reached into his pocket and withdrew it, Miniature Pumps, the book that could make all the difference between prosperity and starvation for the toiling farmer and his family. Too much water had been getting into the paddy fields and the miniature pump had broken down. Without the poor support of the little machine the harvest was doomed. Only by studying Miniature Pumps would Pad Dee be able to make the necessary repairs. Bill had promised to bring him the book. Might he post it? But what if his father were right? Might the treason of some postman prevent Miniature Pumps from ever reaching Connemara?

  Krishna! What a dilemma….

  THREE

  During the next few months I wrote numerous lamentable versions of the first chapter of my new novel. Another author might have become discouraged and this would undoubtedly have been the best course.

  During this period two of my daughters had babies. These daughters were fine girls, fifteen or sixteen years of age and with pretty names like Joanna, Maria, Nicholine and Snottynose. Unhappily the later stage of their pregnancy was marred by the fact that they both became exceedingly stout. I urged my wife to suggest to them tactfully that they should be more careful with their diet.

  “Perhaps,” suggested my wife thoughtfully, “they should eat fewer nuts.”

  “Is it the nuts that’s making them so fat?”

  “I don’t think that’s nuts.”

  The girls went on increasing in girth and one day I slipped secretly up to Harley Street and consulted an obstetrician about it. He was a short man with ice-blue eyes and he listened attentively as I recounted the nature of the disorder.

  “Do you mean,” he finally interrupted, “that each month of their pregnancy they get a little fatter?”

  “Precisely. Look here, is it serious?”

  “It’s perfectly normal.”

  “It’s what?”

  “It always happens. Oh, I wish—”

  Here he rose from his chair with a faint gesture of resignation. He crossed to some shelves and hauled down a large casebook.

  “See this? I want you to know that every one of these women, without one single exception, found herself in the same plight as your daughters.”

  “Good lord!”

  “I’ve had them plead with me, offer me jewels, babies, switch gear, vintage cars, tax-free grants, rubber plantations, cured hams, dancing rats if I could find some way of mitigating their tragic increase in girth. Mr. Witt, do you know what I’m forced to tell them?”

  “What?”

  “Incidently, I adored your Ruben Bismuth.”

  A quick mental check sufficed to convince me that I had never written a work called Ruben Bismuth, but I was too eager for medical counsel to mention it. I asked:

  “And what are you forced to tell these unfortunate ladies?”

  “That I can’t help them. That no one can. It would involve a paradox, contradict a basic scientific law.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Two spatial bodies can never occupy the same vacuum while expanding. Do you understand?”

  “Well—”

  “Think of it this way. Suppose you had a room with a large cupboard in it and some malignant aunt left you an even larger and uglier cupboard in her will. Now suppose further that your lease was up. Would it be possible to get a good price for both those cupboards?”

  “But I don’t quite—”

  “Forgive me, Mr. Witt, but I have to deliver numerous siblings before tea and poke around in general. I can’t give you any more time today but, my dear chap, take my word that there’s nothing to worry about. Good afternoon.”

  I returned from this consultation much relieved. My daughters continued expanding but I made sure there was no vacuum in the house. I considered selling our cupboards but, on mature reflection, decided it was not necessary. However, I made a point of assuring them that our lease had many years to run although I was a little troubled at the thought of my publisher’s machinations.

  In the last stages of their pregnancies my daughters, as my wife assured me often happens, developed a craving. It was for machine tools and I had some capstan lathes installed in the basement. They spent happy hours down there, turning out axles for diesel locomotives. I don’t think there can be many finer examples of capstan work by pregnant adolescent girls.

  The babies were ultimately born and my daughters returned with them from hospital, greatly improved in appearance. It dawned on me that possibly they were slimmer because the babies which had been inside them were now outside. I wrote to the obstetrician outlining this theory and he replied promptly that he missed me horribly. Moreover, he failed to mention my theory and addressed me as “Darling Lillian”, which does not happen to be my name. A few days later he wrote again, apologized for having sent me the wrong letter and asked me if I was still not able to supply the alloy fishing rod he had ordered last spring.

  We had now abandoned the use of our living room. A go
od deal of earth had blown in and some grass and flowers had taken root. What with this flora, and also the wombats, the okapi, the crested toads, the harte-beests and a sombre hermit who had built a small, crude refuge there, we found the room lacked cosiness and we closed it off. I was gratified, therefore, when my publisher arrived one day, wearing a cloth cap and carrying a brick-layer’s trowel, and expressed his intention of patching it up.

  “You have a shrewd solicitor, Clive,” he laughingly admitted, touching his cap.

  He set to work at once but he was not skilful at laying bricks and I soon realized that the job would take weeks. On the second day he built a canvas hut in the living room and installed a glowing brazier outside it. I thought, at first, that he and the hermit would become friendly but, as far as I could judge, they barely exchanged a word. In the evenings, if I happened to be returning from somewhere, I would often see my publisher sitting at the door of his hut, warming his hands at the brazier and wearing the blank, hopeless expression that night-watchmen often wear.

  My children were all fascinated by the mystery of reproduction and I decided that it was time they learnt a little about the true functioning of the human body.

  “It is composed,” I explained to the assembled family, “of cells, bones, brains, blood and various other items. Each part has a distinct function and yet, such is the unique planning, whatever its function it never takes a step without consulting the other bits and that is why the nerves are so useful. For example, suppose the blood decides that it hasn’t been paying enough attention to, say, the pancreas, it doesn’t simply rush over and engorge—that’s a technical term—the pancreas but first sends an urgent message to other departments asking them if they’ve all got enough blood. Now possibly the liver or the right foot, or even the left foot, is feeling a bit bloodless at that moment and it cables back to this effect. The blood then invites the autocratic nervous system to arbitrate and between them they work out how much blood to send to each applicant. After this it’s a simple matter to conduct the whole operation to everyone’s mutual satisfaction. It should be emphasized that this complex operation happens not once but up to a dozen times a day. Is that clear?”

  My children rapidly grasped this advanced material and asked numerous intelligent questions. For example, a medium-sized boy, whom I heard addressed as Rodney, asked:

  “How many kidneys are there in the human body?”

  I explained that everyone has a different number of kidneys.

  “Some people need twenty or thirty and others can get along with as few as eight. It just depends on whether you use them a lot.”

  “Where are the kidneys located?”

  “They are distributed artistically all around.”

  “What is the function of the kidneys?”

  “Respiration.”

  Finally, and best, I told them about the reproductive system, how it is related to the sexual function and has as its objective the provision of suitable employment for young mothers. It was a most rewarding afternoon.

  My publisher finally finished repairing the wall. Before he left, I invited him to sherry and he told me that, on balance, he preferred publishing.

  “It has a quite different atmosphere,” he observed.

  “You mean that in publishing you don’t have to handle bricks and mortar?”

  He pondered for a moment. Then:

  “You’ve put your finger on it,” he agreed.

  Naturally we had intended to restore our living room to its former state of elegant comfort but an unforeseen complication arose. The hermit refused to leave. I tried to reason with him:

  “You see,” I elaborated, “in the evenings we may want to watch television or to have sympathetic and diverting friends in to enjoy the pleasures of social intercourse. Suppose on such occasions you want to pray or meditate or something? Don’t you feel there are possibilities of friction?”

  “Not if there’s tolerance on both sides.”

  “And then what about your vermin? Are they adapted to luxury conditions?”

  “They must take their chance.”

  In the end we were reluctantly compelled to yield. We restored most of the living room to its former state but left a corner where the hermit continued to inhabit his hut of petrol tins and mud. I soon realized that I had exaggerated the danger of collision and only once, when an eminent barrister and his wife had come to dine, did the hermit emerge with a crude flail of nettles and mortify himself rather ostentatiously as we sipped sherry.

  One day two of my daughters approached nervously and stammered something about babies.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “It’s just that—well, we both have babies.”

  I told them that I had long ago observed the fact and asked them if there was anything special they wished to tell me concerning it.

  “No—it just seems—somehow—important,” one of them, a nice girl whom I will refer to as Sandra, murmured shyly.

  “And do you?” I asked the other one—I shall call her Millicent. “Do you also think this is a matter of importance, Millicent?”

  “Well, in a way, yes,” she confessed.

  I smiled indulgently and explained that, at their age, things often loomed disproportionately large.

  “There’s no harm in it,” I explained. “It’s simply that you haven’t yet acquired a mature scale of values. Now run along and play with your babies and try not to get worked up about things.”

  With happy, grateful smiles the two children skipped away.

  So the weeks passed. I made little progress with my novel and sank slowly into a sort of mental stupor. I was dimly aware that the leaves were turning from gold to silver, from silver to dark-blue, from dark-blue to ultra-violet, from ultra-violet to battleship-grey. I listened to the prime minister on the wireless but the wild poetry barely penetrated my reverie. Children came and went and the great world whirled. Perhaps I would never complete my novel. Did it really matter? Probably life would go on as usual on Mars or on Venus and perhaps even on Earth. Life! There was no end to it? How could there be an end to it? There was no beginning! Might there perhaps be a middle? But where? On Mars? Were there publishers there? And bookshops? A vast untapped readership? And beyond Mars? What was beyond Mars? Space? But what was space? Merely a version of time. And what was time? Merely a version of space. And what was I? Merely a version of a novelist. Beyond me stood the Great Novelist who was himself space, time, Mars, bookshops, trees, prime ministers—was that it? The human story: a cosmic best-seller? For days I writhed in the grip of these slimy metaphysics.

  Finally I struggled to the surface and glanced around. The room was full of pineapples. On top of the great heap of pineapples sat a small boy looking ill.

  “Who are you?” I inquired.

  “Your son, Alexander.”

  “What are you doing, Alexander?”

  “Eating a pineapple—my third.”

  “You’ll be ill.”

  “Conceivably. The other children are already ill.”

  At this I hastened in search of my wife and found her at the back gate, bargaining with an itinerant fruit merchant.

  “How much are your pineapples?” I heard her ask as I drew up.

  I instantly seized her by the arm and drew her away. “Are you mad?” I asked. “There’s half a ton of pineapples in the house already.”

  “Pineapples are very healthy,” she protested.

  “But they’ll go bad.”

  Tears sprang into her eyes.

  “That’s not my fault!” she sobbed. “I hate it when they go bad.”

  At that very moment a thought came to me. I suddenly knew what was wrong with the first chapter of my novel. It was not authentic. I was trying to write about something I had never directly experienced: hitch-hiking. Barely pausing to kiss my wife and tuck a brace of pineapples under my arms, I hurried out into the street and started hitch-hiking. When drivers picked me up I offered them a pineapple. Later I v
aried my technique and offered them an orange, a salami sausage, a liver sausage, a nectarine, a ham, tinned mushrooms or dried cod. Often we sat side by side, hurtling through merry England, and greedily gnawed salami.

  Weeks later, contented, thoroughly imbued with the principles and practice of hitch-hiking I made my way home again. I rushed into the house, up to my study, locked the door and, in one great, effortless flow, wrote a magnificent first chapter to my novel. Then I fell asleep at my desk.

  When I awoke, I was aware of a great peace. This came partly from a sense of work well done and partly from the absence of children’s voices, or indeed any other sound, in the house. I judged it to be about mid-morning and I rose and shuffled sleepily to the window. Looking out, I was surprised to see a large group of children on the lawn gazing solemnly towards me. Amongst them I discerned both my wife and the hermit, also gazing earnestly at the house. From the size of the group, which included two girls carrying babies, I inferred that virtually my entire family must be assembled out there. I was about to raise the window, hail them and suggest that they come in and join me for coffee when I noticed, a little apart, a man squatting on the ground and wearing a steel helmet. At that very moment he appeared to press down on something and at once, with a dull roar, the house collapsed around me.

  I must have been thrown clear by some trick of the blast for the next thing I saw was the excited face of my publisher, still topped by a steel helmet, staring down at me.

  “Clive!” he cried enthusiastically. “Lord, man, you were perfectly right! A few hundred weight of explosive and the job’s done! Saves all that messing about with bulldozers. Incidentally, I don’t think you should have remained indoors. Explosions are dangerous and you could have been hurt. That’s why I evacuated the family before I detonated the stuff.”

  He helped me to my feet and led me eagerly over to the smoking ruins, gloating over the thoroughness of the demolition.

  “Hardly a stick or stone intact. It was brilliant of you, old man.”