Walcot

by Brian Aldiss

  ‘That’s a silly argument. It’s like saying that because we saw one convoy of troops on the road, England is at war.’

  ‘Ha ha, what’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Sonia, I love you dearly, but you are making me cross and you are ruining that sofa.’ Mary pulled her regular, utterly-fed-up face. ‘And pick your nice coat up off the floor.’

  Jane entered with a tray of tea, set it down on a side table, opened a gateleg table and moved it to Mary’s side. She set the tray down on the table.

  Sonia, who had not moved from her position said, ‘Jane, I’m a hunchback, aren’t I?’

  Jane hesitated. Sonia laughed contemptuously. ‘Oh, you can tell me the truth. Ma won’t sack you for it.’

  Before the maid could answer, Mary said, ‘Jane, you know very well Miss Sonia is telling fibs.’

  Caught in the cross-fire, Jane said, mainly to the child, ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Miss Sonia.’

  As she beat a hasty retreat, Sonia stuck out her tongue at the maid’s back.

  ‘Your sister Valerie would never behave like that,’ Mary scolded.

  ‘I hate that Valerie. I’m glad she’s dead! I’d pull her hair if she was still alive.’

  Next morning, Mary drove into town to buy groceries, and you and Sonia went with her. They passed the post office, which was newly barricaded behind a wall of sandbags. Sonia asked why this had happened. Her mother told her that the post office was being rebuilt; the sandbags were to stop hundreds of letters from drifting into the road.

  Mary parked the car outside Randall’s, the grocer, after dropping you off at the railway station. She ordered Sonia to stay in the car while she shopped. Sonia sat and fidgeted and read her comic. She became aware of a curious object rising in the sky above roof level. It was grey and crumpled. As it rose, it became plumper, gradually achieving a fat sausage shape with plump double tail. With a cable anchoring it to the ground, it turned gently in the breeze.

  Sonia regarded it with wonder. Fitful sunshine made the object glow silver. It was frightening and yet beautiful. She climbed from the car and ran into the grocer to tell her mother.

  ‘There’s no such thing,’ said Mary, indignantly. But the assistant serving her, who wore an apron and a pencil-thin moustache, said, ‘I expect it’s a barrage balloon. The papers said they were going up today.’

  ‘So there!’ said Sonia. ‘The man is nice to me because he’s sorry I’m a hunchback.’

  ‘Will you stop it?’ said Mary, angrily. ‘Or I’ll send you back to the hospital again.’

  The groceries would be delivered that afternoon. When Sonia and her mother emerged from the grocer’s and were back in the car, heading for home, more barrage balloons became visible. It was evident that the city was now ringed with them. They gleamed, serious and attractive in the sun.

  ‘Goodness, aren’t they pretty?’ exclaimed Mary. ‘How clever of the city council to rent those things from the army. It’s the mayor’s birthday, Sonia. What a pretty way to celebrate the mayor’s birthday.’

  ‘I bet Valerie would have been scared. She’d have peed herself.’

  ‘That’s so unkind, child. Valerie never wet herself. Not like you.’

  Sonia never admitted she knew a war was in progress. She allowed her parents to continue their unconvincing deception for many a month, until the pretence ran thin and all concerned were exhausted. All, that is, except for Herr Hitler and Mr Churchill.

  It makes me unbearably sad when you bring up that forgotten past again. What is the point of it, unless to make me miserable? Let the dead bury the dead.

  Everything is recorded here, sorrowful or joyful.

  But why? Why record?

  Because it was enacted in the first place.

  Then why was it all enacted, that everlasting artistry of circumstance?

  ‘I expect you’ll do reasonably well in your adult life, Smollett,’ your headmaster said on your final day at school.

  ‘It’s Dickens, Sir,’ you responded wittily, well aware of the head’s flimsy grasp of names.

  He peered at you through his rimless glasses, encompassing his ginger moustache with his lower lip, making that curious sucking noise which was the subject of so many imitations. ‘So sorry, Dickens. I always confuse you with what’s-his-name. He’s also in the First Eleven. But you are bound to do quite well in the great world. Most of our boys do. I remember your father.’ He added, ‘I think.’

  He shook your hand with a gentle resigned motion. You thought with some affection about this mild man when you were in the army and word came to you that your school had been evacuated to a place on the edge of Exmoor. You imagined the headmaster making his way across the quad in a heavy downpour. ‘Oh, is it raining, Bronte? I hadn’t noticed.’

  You walked into town and caught a train home. Your trunk would arrive later by PLA. You were taking a break on your way to the Officers’ Training Unit in Catterick, Yorkshire. You found your mother sitting in her conservatory, enjoying tea and cigarettes with a friend. She affected to be surprised by your appearance.

  ‘How strange! And you’re in uniform, Stephen. Good job Sonia isn’t here. I was reliably informed that you were going to Catterick.’

  ‘I am going to Catterick, Mother. I’m only here overnight. I’ll get the nine-fifteen tomorrow morning, if that’s okay by you.’

  ‘It’s rather inconvenient. The maid has yet to get your bed ready. And she’s leaving next week, to work in a factory of some kind. We’ve been so busy.’

  ‘Where’s Sonia, Mother?’

  ‘I think you know Mrs Thompson?’ She indicated her friend, who was sitting tight, with a teacup poised halfway to her lips, her little finger pointing halfway to heaven. ‘You might say hello to her,’

  ‘Hello. Where did you say Sonia was, Mother?’

  ‘Sonia is at RADA. I’ll tell you about it later.’

  ‘And Valerie?’

  ‘Don’t try to be funny.’

  You retreated to your room and lay down on the unmade bed. You tried to think why Sonia had left school and why she was at RADA, where she might learn how to act but would not learn anything about – well, about all the other subjects of which the world was full.

  You suffered the customary dismay at the indifference of your parents. Later, at the evening meal, you learnt that Sonia had been in some kind of trouble at school and had thrown an inkwell at her maths teacher. She had asked to leave school, to learn to act instead. This wish had been granted, although your father grumbled at the expense.

  ‘I shall be leaving England soon, I expect,’ you said. ‘Soon as I get my pips.’

  ‘Is that wise?’ your father asked. He was still wearing an Aertex shirt.

  ‘What do you mean, “Is it wise”? There’s a war on, Pa. I’m going to fight for my sodding country. I have my OTC Certificate. What else am I supposed to do?’

  ‘But you wanted to go to university and become a geologist, dear,’ said your mother. ‘It’s silly to give all that up, isn’t it?’

  You became slightly peevish. ‘It seems your pretence to Sonia that there’s no war going on has affected your thinking. We’ve got to fight the Germans, see? The bloody Third Reich. It’s a matter of priority.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t swear,’ Mary complained. ‘It’s so lower class.’

  Ignoring her, ‘That’s all very well,’ said your father. ‘But you have enjoyed an expensive education. You’ll throw all that away in the army. The army’s no place for education.’

  ‘Not at all. I expect to become an officer.’

  Your father pulled a lugubrious face. ‘Officers get shot, you know, old boy. If you must serve, why not serve in the ranks? You’d be safer there.’

  ‘I intend to become an officer, Father. I want to be able to shout at people.’ By now you were six feet two inches tall and well-developed for your age. Entirely ready to shout at people.

  Martin made a gesture of exhaustion, with which
you were familiar.

  9

  A Good Old Row

  So it was a fine March day in the year 1940. I was being told of my mother’s psychoanalyst. Butter, sugar and bacon were already rationed, to Mary’s disgust. ‘We’re cutting down on food. We’re slimming. Your father’s getting too fat,’ she said angrily to Sonia, but already what was wearing thin was the pretence she had created for her daughter that there was no war.

  Mary’s psychoanalyst was leaving the district and moving to Exeter for safety. Mary went to her for one final session. By this time, she was on informal terms with Wilhelmina Fischer.

  ‘I shall miss you, but I hardly think I need any more consultations,’ she said, stretching out the final word.

  Wilhelmina Fischer sat by an empty grate. She had changed her name and wore pale Lyle stockings under her heavy linen skirt.

  ‘We all encounter obstacles in facing the realities of life,’ said Wilhelmina Fischer, removing her pince-nez to gesture widely with them. ‘But, après tout, realities are real and fantasies must not become real. The German peoples have fallen victim to an anti-Communist belief in their own powers, largely finding reinforcement in an Aryan myth of Götterdämmerung. It is a destructive myth which –’

  ‘We’re not like them, thank goodness,’ said Mary hastily.

  ‘But the British believe in the fantasy of white superiority, which may prove to be equally damaging.’ Wilhelmina shook her heavy head so that her heavy cheeks wobbled.

  ‘I can’t see how that applies in my case. It’s a generalization.’ Mary realized, as she rose and thrust her right arm into her coat sleeve, that she had never liked Wilhelmina Fischer. Wilhelmina Fischer had contributed considerably to the miseries of the last few years. She made one feel one was mentally disturbed.

  The women shook hands and bid one another farewell on the doorstep of the clinic.

  ‘God speed,’ said Mary, feeling, directly she had pronounced the words, that they were inappropriate.

  While Wilhelmina Fischer was moving towards Exeter and extinction, you marched along Park Street, Southampton, towards Number 19, where Uncle Bertie Wilberforce and his family lived. You hoped that your uncle would be away.

  Before you presented yourself on your Aunt Violet’s doorstep, a young, chubby boy, of pink complexion, appeared from the back garden, round the side of the house, blowing a tiny silver trumpet of the kind to be found hanging off pre-war Christmas trees. The trumpet emitted a shrill note as the boy marched right up to you. ‘Being carefree,’ he said, addressing your Sam Browne, ‘Being carefree is a thing like a motto, but I don’t know what. I’m always being something. Not a motto, though. Ha ha ha.’

  ‘Hello, Dougie,’ you said. ‘Is your mother in?’

  ‘She’s in charge of the Virol. Mistress of Virol! Know what Virol looks like? Like the mess what Lillie Reader made in her nick-nacks when our form were in the gym, swinging on the handlebars. We all laughed except Lillie.’

  That silly forgotten scene … As he was speaking, another figure emerged from the back garden, pushing aside the buds of a hazelnut tree. It was your Uncle Claude. He looked somewhat disconcerted to see you standing there, but covered his embarrassment quickly.

  ‘Morning, Steve! Just came to see how this young rogue was getting on at school. Must be off. Dougie, follow me, you little blighter.’

  He grasped the boy’s arm and began to drag him away, promising the child a stick of rock ‘down at the port’.

  You were slightly surprised by this encounter, but, after all, it seemed to be no business of yours. You were in any case more concerned with the impression your appearance would make on your dear aunt.

  You were smartly dressed in your new khaki uniform, with the pips of a Second Lieutenant on your shoulders. You were fresh out of OCTU. Your hair was slicked down with Brylcreem and you wore a cap. Your shoes were shining. You had a moustache of a kind. When you rang the bell, Violet opened the door after some delay, looking flushed and dishevelled.

  ‘Golly! Steve, I hardly recognized you in that get-up. Do you want to come in?’

  Since she seemed reluctant, you said sharply that that was the general idea. She stood back. You entered the familiar hall. You recognized the heavily-carved hall-stand, with a mirror in its middle and a wooden bear’s head snarling at the crown of it. A child’s fairy cycle was propped against it. Of course, you remembered, Violet had two children, not only the garrulous Douglas, but his more silent sister, Joyce. It would be Douglas’ bike. Thank God Joyce would probably be at school, you thought. There was something more intimate in your mind, which you attempted to keep from consciousness. You had expected that when your aunt saw you spick and span in your officer’s uniform she would fall into your arms. Instead she was giving a little snigger and saying that you were, in her phrase, all done up like a dog’s dinner.

  ‘Better come into the kitchen,’ she said unceremoniously, leading the way through to the rear of the house. Her face was flushed and unhappy. You felt annoyed because she had not kissed you; you had no concern for her.

  You were not best pleased to see your Uncle Bertie there, in his old brown-striped suit, his tie badly knotted. He was leaning against the sink with his arms folded. The kitchen smelt stale and cheerless; you had remembered it as a cosy place. A plate with a half-eaten piece of toast lay on the table.

  ‘We were having a good old row,’ said Violet, with an imitation of her previous brightness. ‘Do you want a sherry?’ she asked you.

  When you hesitated, she added, ‘It’s all we’ve got in this house of parsimony.’

  ‘Because you’ve guzzled all the gin,’ said her husband. He was regarding his wife with a look that seemed to contain hatred and fear. He then said, ‘I don’t want to come home and find Claude hanging round here again.’

  ‘Sorry if I’ve come at an awkward moment, Uncle,’ you said, with a tone intended to indicate that sorrow was only skin deep.

  ‘There are plenty of those round here,’ he responded, without removing his gaze from Violet. ‘Plenty and to bloody spare.’

  A large ginger cat, which had possibly fled the room when the row was in full swing, slunk back in, jumped up on a kitchen chair and curled itself into a ball. Violet filled two glasses with a dark sherry and handed one to you. Her hand was shaking. Taking the glass with a frown, you directed a look towards Bertie. ‘You’re not having one?’

  ‘Can’t afford to drink, my lad. I leave all that to your aunt.’

  ‘Well, cheers!’

  Neither of them made any response. Bertie continued to lean against the sink; he now gazed down at the floor. He seemed to have aged considerably since you last saw him. Violet, too, looked less bright and sassy than she had done. She was wearing no lipstick. She stood now on the far side of the kitchen table, her glass half-raised to her mouth. A clock was inset in one door of the kitchen dresser. It gave a loud tick.

  ‘So you’re an officer, Steve,’ said Bertie with an attempt at geniality. ‘Going to have a crack at the Boche, eh?’

  ‘Sooner or later, yes. That’s the general idea. I’ll be in the tank corps.’

  Bertie pulled a face, as if dismissing such an odd notion.

  ‘We were all Socialists in my day. What made you wish to become an officer?’

  ‘I wanted to be able to shout at people.’ The phrase had become your standard joke. You expected people to laugh at it. You never saw below the surface – that it was no joke, that you felt your parents had mistreated you, that other people did not value you, and that you could get your own back by shouting and bullying.

  Your uncle did not laugh. ‘Your father tells me you were at OCTU. Who did you shout at there?’ He shot glances at you before turning his gaze once more to his shoes.

  You did not like the question.

  ‘At an Officer Cadet Training Unit, you learn to control men. That’s the essence of what being an officer means. You have squads of ordinary soldiers you have to drill. Discipline, y
ou know, Uncle, discipline. Necessary in times of war.’

  ‘Did the, what you call “ordinary soldiers”, enjoy this drill?’

  A vivid picture came into your head. You were standing erect at one end of the parade ground. The squad was three hundred yards distant from you at the other end of the parade ground, marching like robots, arms swinging, faultlessly in step, the noise of their progress echoing against the stern surrounding buildings. ‘Straighten up there,’ you bawled. ‘March as if you mean it. Squad. Ri-i-ght. WHEEEEL!’

  ‘They weren’t there to enjoy it,’ you told your uncle. ‘They were in the army. They were just part of the system.’

  ‘But you had a good time,’ Bertie insinuated.

  ‘Oh, leave the poor lad alone!’ shouted Violet. ‘I should hope he did have a good time. Why should he want to be in the bloody ranks? You’re on embarkation leave now, aren’t you, Steve?’

  ‘How did you know?’

  She looked puzzled. ‘Your father told us. We’re still speaking, more-or-less. Off to France, aren’t you?’

  ‘It’s supposed to be a military secret.’

  With feeble sarcasm, Bertie said, ‘Don’t want Adolf Hitler to know where our Second Lieutenant Steve Fielding is, do we? Might lose the war because of it.’

  You sipped the sherry, before saying you were sorry to barge in in the middle of an argument, but had no wish to be drawn into it.

  ‘Your aunt is spending too much money, that’s all,’ said Bertie, pettishly. ‘That’s it and all about it. She doesn’t know there’s a war on. She can’t get it into her head. It’s not an argument, it’s a fact. I’m not made of money.’

  ‘This stingy nonsense is just because I took Joyce up to London in the hols and bought her a new party dress.’ Violet sighed and gazed up at the ceiling. ‘Not a big deal. In any case, the dress was a bargain.’

  ‘Bargains, bargains. That’s all you ever think of.’

  Turning away from her husband towards you, Violet said, ‘What kind of father grudges his daughter a new party dress?’