by Brian Aldiss
Now they went more slowly. Joyce extended her hands in front of her as if she were blind, or at least very short-sighted.
‘Thousands of years old. I’ve got sixteen kids of my own; two of them are spastic, worse luck. My eldest is from Jamaica.’
‘Night’s falling.’ Spoken in his wheezy voice. ‘It will be a bad night. The native drums are pounding. Blood will be spilt. Like lemonade from a glass – sticky all over the table.’
‘I see a light ahead! Saved! I believe it’s our camp at last.’
In fact, what they saw was the mauve door of ‘Grendon’, 19 Park Road. Dougie’s stick was thrown aside. Abandoning their roles, regaining their youth, the children scampered indoors, calling loudly for mother.
Violet Wilberforce was lying on the sofa, her feet up on its cushioned arm. She was scanning the pages of the Daily Mail. She wore spectacles to read with, removing them to greet her children.
‘Back already, kids? How went the day?’
‘Can I see Teddy Tail, mum?’
‘I am dying for a slice of cake, Ma. I just scored a goal.’ They flung down their satchels by her side.
Violet dropped the newspaper by the satchels and got off the sofa. She grabbed Joyce and hugged her. Douglas escaped laughing from her clutches.
Joyce unstrapped her satchel and produced her painting. Violet stared in some puzzlement at the furious black lines, out of which two blue and yellow eyes stared. A big red mouth was open in what was either a smile or coarse laughter.
‘Wow, that’s pretty strong, darling!’
‘It’s shit hot, I’d say.’
Violet tutted and wagged a finger. ‘Don’t use that naughty expression, darling. What’s it meant to be?’
‘It’s the face of God. Can’t you see?’
Violet smiled, shaking her head. ‘I’m not very religious, sweetie. It’s very good. Perhaps you are going to become a great artist.’
Douglas loomed near. ‘It’s rubbish. Where’s the cake, Ma? Anyhow, Mum, why don’t you be a great artist? You haven’t got much else to do.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of such a thing.’
Although she laughed, Dougie looked thoughtful. ‘Suppose I have a dream that my name is Henry Haircut, when I wake up would that make any difference? Or the world is made of toffee paper, say, there’s not a kid that breathes –’
‘Oh, do stop your nonsense. My nerves won’t stand it,’ she said laughing.
‘I’m starving, that’s why I’m delirious.’
‘Delirious, you little scamps! Let’s see if there’s anything to eat. Dougie, you must have your Virol.’
‘Urrrgh! I’ll spew up!’
‘Don’t use that horrid word. And you won’t spew, you like Virol. You know you like it. It’s full of nourishment. You don’t want to get TB, do you, now.’
‘I shall spew up. I shall spew over the table and over the chairs and over the carpet. And over Joyce’s picture.’
‘You little monkey!’ She made a rush at him and gave him a spank on his bottom. He fled round the table, laughing.
She went into the kitchen. She called out for the children to see what she had bought. They came to look; it was a new washing-up bowl, brilliant red in colour. Joyce grabbed it.
‘Shit hot, Mum! What’s it made of?’
‘Guess … it’s plastic. A new material. Isn’t it lovely?’
‘Shit hot!’
‘What did I tell you about that expression?’
As she reached down the brown Virol jar from the kitchen dresser, she heard her husband, Bertie, coming in, slamming the front door.
As his hangdog face appeared round the kitchen door, the children fell silent, staring at him, waiting to see what came next. He moved forward and sat down at the table, pulling a funny face at Dougie as he did so.
Joyce slid her drawing of God across the table towards her father. He glanced at it before pushing it aside.
Violet gave him a smile and asked if he wanted a cup of tea. When he indicated that he did, she said she would put the kettle on. She showed him the beautiful new red washing-up bowl.
‘More expense,’ Bertie sighed.
He regarded his children. ‘Well, little ones, and what did you learn today?’ he asked, speaking heavily.
‘I did that painting,’ said Joyce. ‘Didn’t you understand it, Daddy?’
He glanced at it again, before repeating his question.
‘We learnt about Henry the Eighth and his boring old wives,’ Joyce said sulkily. ‘I don’t wonder he killed them off.’
‘We learnt that the Red Sea isn’t red,’ said Douglas.
‘Don’t be rude.’ He frowned at Douglas. ‘I asked you seriously what you learnt. I want to know.’
‘If you must know, we learnt about the Virgin Mary’s womb and what it was. It’s inside her. And Jesus was inside it.’
He showed no further interest then, watching as Violet cut them both a slice from a Swiss roll. With lowered voices, the children complained about the thinness of the slices.
‘It’s got to last till Saturday,’ Violet said, with a sly side-glance at her husband.
Bertie flared up at once in his own defence. ‘You know why we’re hard up. You’re such a spendthrift. You waste money: and the architectural business has collapsed. No one wants decent designs any more.’ He looked pained.
‘So that’s why you have a menial job in that DIY place. Why don’t you get a job in the car factory? You’d earn twice as much. Trouble with you is, you don’t like manual work.’
‘What about your father’s firm? No one wants their lousy lawnmowers any more. Everyone’s buying Atcos.’
‘It was the strike that broke him, you stupid fathead.’ Violet’s father had died recently, after a cerebral haemorrhage.
Bertie spoke more quietly, although still with rancour. He said that he had a brain, and that the owner of the DIY store was a friend – a friend who said that there were good chances of a raise after Christmas. Anyhow, he asked, why was Violet so mad keen to be married to a manual worker? He felt bad, he said, life had not worked out very well. Then he asked her for a cigarette.
Ignoring him, Violet produced a long spoon and dipped it into the jar of Virol. The spoon came out laden with the glistening, toffee-like substance.
‘Come on, Dougie dear, you know you like it really. It’ll help build you up. You’ve been looking rather pale lately.’
Obediently, Douglas opened his mouth. As she slid the spoon gently in, she cast an eye at Bertie.
‘I’m out of fags. Buy your own.’
In a minute, she handed him a cup of tea. As he spooned sugar into the cup, he sighed heavily, ‘It’s a hard life and no ruddy mistake.’
‘Don’t swear in front of the kids,’ she told him, ‘and try not to make it hard for all of us. You’re the breadwinner, aren’t you? Drink your flipping tea.’
Joyce had found a drawing pin in the kitchen drawer. She pinned her drawing of God to the wallpaper. ‘It’s a warning not to quarrel,’ she said, virtuously. ‘He looks a bit furious with you, Daddy.’
9
Ex-Army Furniture
Your work took you to various parts of the country. This was the aspect of your work you most enjoyed as the years swiftly passed. On a clear frosty morning, you were driving to a corner of Northampton in your Rover, surveying the countryside in the distance.
Acme Furniture was a thriving business. Your factory in Shepherd’s Bush employed twelve men, mostly ex-servicemen glad of a job. Money poured in. You collected cheap materials from various sources, bent them, stained them, machine-stitched or welded them together to produce workaday items of furniture which yielded healthy profits.
It was about maximizing this profit that you mainly thought. Whatever the discomforts of the Forêt de la Bouche, you had then been in contact with a living dynamism, as, to a lesser extent, you had been on Walcot’s sands – you had lived according to tides and seasons. Even in the bitter chill of t
he Ardennes in the final months of the war you had experienced how aspects and accents of the natural world affected you. A primitive morality had been enforced thereby.
Remembering the past, you thought of the Geldsteins. Your desertion of them still preyed occasionally on your conscience. That little family should be safe, now that peace had prevailed. You had begun to feel sentimental about that period of your life, now safely over.
Now, moving rapidly, your head full of figures, through a countryside you considered uninvolving, you served merely an economic function.
It was not surprising that you were going astray. We need no talk of morality to understand that in returning to so-called civilization, you had lost something earthy which had been sustaining you.
It is easy to see this in retrospect. I was – let me put it this way, a novice in the ways of society. Doing simply what was expected of me.
Yes, you were weak.
You can say that. Yet I believed I was being strong – and aren’t we about to meet a man with whom I was strong and firm? It was difficult to adjust to civilian life after the years of soldiering.
Certainly excuses are ready to hand.
You were about to investigate an ex-army furniture store. Acme was considering buying the contents of the store at a bargain price. You turned off the A5 to a side road, and thence to a track which petered out a mile from the village of Grimscote. You got out of the Rover and began to walk towards some buildings you could see ahead. The going was good at first: there had been a tarmacked road at one time; now grass grew over it.
You enjoyed the walk. Birds were chirping, green fields and unkempt hedges stretched in all directions, not exactly flat, although hardly undulating. Ordinary, extensive, traditional, temperate. This was the usual uninspiring English countryside, which must have left its imprint, you felt, on the English character. Nothing in particular existed on which one might fix the gaze, apart from a church tower standing on a distant and indistinct horizon. Nothing moved, apart from an odd flutter of bird wing.
Strands of barbed wire barred the old roadway farther along. A yellow notice warned that this was WD PROPERTY and that there was NO ADMITTANCE. Although the wire was sagging, it still held something of its old threat. You looked about and found that a path had been worn to one side of the metal post supporting the wire. You followed the path with care; it led slightly downward and the grass was slippery where frost, covering it earlier in the morning, had melted. Now those ordinary green blades gleamed freshly in the daylight.
The ground was uneven. You approached a cluster of buildings, mostly low brick hutments of the kind the military had been building two decades earlier, utilitarian hutments not intended to last or to be comfortable, or even warm. One building stood out from the others scattered near it, a larger structure whose curved metal roof gave it a resemblance to an aircraft hangar. You were undecided at first, but now directed your steps towards this larger building. The grass on the way grew tall and coarse. Something caught your leg. You found yourself falling.
Into a damp hollow you sprawled full length. Your right leg, the leg injured in France, sent out signals of pain. You pulled yourself into a sitting position, and saw your trouser leg had been ripped by concealed coils of barbed wire. When you tried to rub your leg, blood came away on your hand.
‘Shit!’ you exclaimed.
Once you got back on your feet, you found walking was painful but possible. You hobbled towards the barn.
‘Hey, you, what do you do? Halt!’
The shout came. For a moment you could see no one. There were only the deserted buildings, standing solitary in the deserted landscape. To one side was a pile of felled tree trunks, bereft of branches, roots or tops; they were dark with damp. From behind them emerged a man, wielding a stick.
‘I’m here on business,’ you called. ‘I’m hurt. I tripped over some damned barbed wire.’
The stick was lowered as the man approached; a small man, bundled into what had once been an army greatcoat.
‘What do you want here?’
‘I’m from Acme Furniture.’
‘All right.’
He was a tough-looking man in his thirties, with a ruddy face and blue eyes. From somewhere behind him a woman’s voice called anxiously, ‘Who is it, Joe?’
He reassured her before coming up to you and proffering his hand, saying he had received your message.
‘I see you are hurt, sir.’
‘It’s nothing, thanks.’
A beaming smile crossed Joe’s face. ‘A very English answer, sir, if I may say it. Do you wish I should take you straight to inspect the furniture storage?’
You were both slightly annoyed and slightly amused. ‘A good idea, since that is what I came for.’
‘I thought you should like perhaps to sit down and let my woman serve you some coffee.’ He smiled inquiringly into your face.
‘Thanks, but let’s have a look at the furniture first.’
Joe led the way to the large building. Pulling a key from his pocket, he unlocked the padlock and, with a good deal of effort, pulled one of the two doors open to the extent of almost a yard. He led the way in.
Inside the structure it was freezing cold, as if the last of winter had been stored here for some future occasion. Joe pulled down a small lever situated near the door: a series of electric lights came on near the roof, each bulb hanging below a round white glass shade. They did little to illuminate an immense pile of furniture that was stacked high into every corner of the building.
You surveyed the heap with a certain wonder. Solid yellow tables were here, together with filing cabinets painted in camouflage green – though why indoor furniture should need to be camouflaged was a matter for debate – and an immense number of chairs; chairs of a variety of army uglinesses, with metal seats and wood seats and canvas seats, chairs of a now distant antiquity, creations of a now distant emergency. You understood how long ago the war was, even if the wound on your leg had opened afresh.
‘There’s nothing here we could use. Nothing we could adapt,’ you told the waiting Joe. ‘This lot’s not for us.’
‘But the filing cabinets, sir. With a repaint … say in white, or cream …’
You shook your head. ‘They’re far too clumsy for today’s use, I’m afraid. Sorry about that. My visit is an utter waste of time.’
He said, ‘The Ministry of Defence would be glad to have the place cleared, sir. You would not have to pay a great amount. Sold in the marketplace, sir … on an open market, sir.’
‘We don’t work like that. That’s not our business. You need a junk dealer for this lot.’ You were annoyed that Joey and Terry had misled you in their description of the store’s contents. ‘New War Department Furnishings, various. Good Condition.’ It had proved a fool’s errand.
‘I give my apologies, sir,’ Joe was saying. ‘Perhaps you will allow my woman and me to give you some coffee, sir, and also examine your leg.’
After he had switched off the lights and locked up, Joe led you to one of the low brick buildings, as meagre a building as could be designed by the combined brains of military men. You were introduced to Rhona, a woman with an attractive, worn face framed by straggling brown hair. Rhona wore no makeup. She had on a grey shirt with a brown pullover above it, and a pair of jeans. She welcomed you and guided you to a chair by a wood fire where you were able to warm yourself, noting that the chair on which you sat was an old metal army chair, painted a drab green, aspiring towards camouflage. Joe pulled off his greatcoat, revealing that he wore a rough grey wool suit beneath. He rubbed his hands by the wood fire.
The long narrow building contained only one room: a part of it had been curtained off. Rhona dived behind the curtain to prepare coffee. Joe sat himself down opposite you.
‘Were you to remove your trousers, sir, I could repair them. My father was a tailor, and I learnt his trade as a young man.’
You had noted his accent and careful elocution, and asked wher
e it was his father practised as a tailor.
After a moment’s hesitation, he said, looking at you directly, ‘This was in Nuremberg, sir, in Germany. Where the trials are held, sir.’
Rhona came to you with a steaming mug of instant coffee on a tin tray. She explained that Joe was born in Germany but now had British citizenship. ‘You may consider we live in a strange wee place, sir, but it pleases us well enough. We had not a penny piece between us, so this job as caretakers suits us well. It’s a quiet life, but I was born in a wee hut in the Highlands, so solitude doesne vex me.’ She looked at you with her honest clear gaze, seeking your approval.
You smiled at her as you picked up the coffee mug.
‘I have a respect for solitude,’ you said. ‘But since the war I have to struggle to make my way in the world.’
‘Och, I fear I have no time for that kind of thing,’ she said, with a slight gesture of either apology or dismissal.
‘Is it the way or the world you mistrust?’ you asked her.
She returned a sad smile. ‘Seems I’ve cast my lot against the both of them.’ She added, ‘For better or worse, mayhap. My mentality isne fitted for the capitalist world, I’m ashamed to tell.’ She hugged herself in the old brown pullover. ‘This is a terrible time we’re living in, and no mistake.’
‘Has your life then been dramatic, sir, may I ask?’ Joe enquired, urgent to cover his wife’s confession.
You were unsure how to answer, but said that everyone’s life had been dramatic in one form or another during the war. Joe nodded. Your remark led him to open up and tell something of his story. His father’s tailoring business had not suited his adventurous nature. The family were poor. He had joined the German army. He admitted he admired Adolf Hitler at first. What worried him was the way in which crowds of people seemed to be hypnotized by his rabble-rousing oratory. (Joe used the German word, Pöbel, for rabble.) He asked, was it something in the people or the language that made them so easily roused?
All the while he was talking, he was stitching the tear in your trousers with neat, small stitches. You watched his rough hands working.