by Brian Aldiss
‘Sir Thomas,’ he found himself saying, ‘you show some sympathy for poor people. Why do you think it is that the poor never seem to have any power? Why are they always trampled all over by the powerful?’
Squire gazed thoughtfully at him until Tebbutt lowered his gaze. ‘If you are asking me why Lamb committed suicide, I should have to say because of a weakness in his character. A lack of sensitivity. Couldn’t he have cultivated some insight into Margy’s problems?
‘If you are asking why I sacked him – well, I’d say it was because of a weakness in the economy. As a farmer, I’m not subsidized to the same extent as French farmers. My enterprise was closed down by much bigger ones, beneficiaries of the CAP. I’m sorry about Lamb. I’m also sorry – damned sorry – to have to shut down an enterprise into which both Teresa and I put our hearts.’
Fiddling with his bread roll, Tebbutt said, ‘I mean more generally, why are the poor always downtrodden?’
‘Because they ask for it, that’s why,’ Noel said from his end of the table. ‘Because they won’t work unless they’re made to.’
‘We’re certainly better motivated if we are working for ourselves,’ Squire said cheerfully. ‘But a better answer is – well, if it won’t vex you, I’ll take that question back to the Enlightenment. It’s my pet subject at the moment – we are preparing an exhibition of paintings of the Enlightenment. Only a short while ago, common people were nothing. Nothing. Chattels. They were owned by the king, along with the land they tilled. The kings of France before the Revolution called themselves “France”. “L’État, c’est moi.” They embodied the nation, swallowed it whole. In Shakespeare we have “time-honoured Lancaster”, and the rest of it. The nobles owned the serfs, had the power of life and death – and labour – over them. The notion that the common herd owned the land too, might have a vote, a say in the running of the country, is a novel one, historically speaking.’
‘In Communist countries, the ordinary people own everything – in theory at least.’
‘Only in theory, Mr Tebbutt. Be assured of that.’
‘What about the peasants in China?’
Ruby kicked him under the table for his boldness.
‘I fear I know too little about Chinese peasants to answer you. But I’d guess that Chairman Mao, himself a peasant, was too clever not to see to it that they worked harder than ever.’
‘But he did attempt to share out the land – so I heard.’
Squire looked thoughtfully at his plate. ‘The question of how power should be deployed, not abused, has never been satisfactorily answered. Chiefly because the powerful themselves determine such matters. Occasionally, power does devolve into the hands of what you’d call a poor person, the underprivileged. Mao’s a case in point. We can all think of examples to show that underdogs wield power no more wisely than the rogues they supersede.’
Auntie April sat upright in her chair and sang to them – in surprisingly girlish tones, to the tune of ‘The Red Flag’:
‘The working class can kiss my arse –
I’ve got the foreman’s job at last …’
Squire laughed heartily. ‘Precisely, April. Joe Stalin also got the foreman’s job. If you visit his birthplace in Gori, you find a one-room hut, preserved like the stable in Bethlehem. Stalin was born a peasant, dirt poor. Expected when a boy to become a priest. When he gained power, he was directly responsible for the deaths of millions of his fellow countrymen. Another nasty example is the shoemaker’s son, Nicolae Ceauşescu, present dictator of Romania, who unfortunately visited Buckingham Palace a few years ago. One of Her Majesty’s few mistakes in a long reign. According to what I hear, this son of the people is a monster, corrupted by power, starving his wretched fellow countrymen.’
‘So anyone who gets hold of power becomes a monster?’ Tebbutt said.
‘Not at all. There are examples on the other side. Horses for courses. The poor are no better and no worse than the rich. It’s just that there are elements in human nature on which power operates like a devouring cancer. Elements of compassion, tolerance …
‘What one requires, therefore, is a sturdy constitution to protect the state from circumstances where the ruthless – whether rich or poor – are able to seize unlimited power. We have that protection so far in this country.’
‘You can read about abuses of power every day in the papers.’
‘Our good fortune is that we can read of such things in the papers. We have a free press – one of the few countries in the world to do so. What example would you give as an abuse of power?’
Tebbutt knew he was trapped. He had no skill in argument. Whatever he said would be contradicted by this easy smiling man sitting opposite, now wiping his lips on his table napkin. Then he thought of his dear daughter, and the months she had spent with the CND, opposing the deployment of American nuclear weapons on a Norfolk airbase.
‘This country squanders far too much money on defence,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that an abuse of power?’
Squire shook his head. ‘Power would be abused by any government who decided not to invest in defence – in effect, to disarm itself unilaterally. Since earliest days, nations have had to defend themselves. Otherwise, sooner or later, they disappear. I know such arguments are pallid set beside the strong emotional drive we all have for peace. But, as we learned in the school playground, you have to defend yourself. Peace requires muscle. Otherwise, you must bend to the mercy of bullies, the Stalins and Ceauşescus and Hitlers.’
He seemed intent on letting Tebbutt down gently. In softer tones, he said, ‘Personally, I grieve most about the defence spending poured into Northern Ireland. There’s where we need wise statesmen on both sides, to get us out of that sad entanglement. The Irish and English should be kissing cousins. Northern Ireland has us caught in a moral maze and I think every one of us, English as well as Irish, has to pay for that ancient wrong.’
‘Are you talking about the IRA?’ Jean asked.
‘Yes. Also about the situation of which the IRA is a part. The IRA is a striking symptom of power mania – the power of the bullet. The IRA may be fighting a lost cause and fighting it in a cruelly wrong way, but they serve to remind us that a cruel wrong was done the Irish people. There indeed the poor were abused, just as the English poor were.’
‘You think they should have been better armed?’ Jean asked.
Squire roared with laughter. ‘Frankly, yes!’
The talk became general.
Ruby was attempting to persuade Auntie April to try some food, but the old lady spat out a piece of potato and would have nothing more. Teresa had already pushed away her half-emptied plate and was looking bored again. Mike ate heartily, occasionally shaking his head as if denying what was being said.
Startled, Ray realized that Jean was making covert signals, wiggling fingers and frowning. Following her gaze, he saw that Alaric, Aldred and Alfric were pressing their noses against the window pane and making funny faces. Jean rose and drew the curtains, shutting her sons from view. It was now dark outside.
The powerless always get locked out, Ray thought. Talk doesn’t alter the fact.
The men were eating and drinking more heartily than the women. Noel Linwood, who was holding forth about Iraq, began to recite poetry – perhaps a sure way of annoying his sister.
‘“We are they who come faster than Fate:
We are they who ride early or late:
We storm at your ivory gate: Pale Kings of the Sunset, beware!”
Marvellous stuff!’
‘Coming faster than fate,’ repeated Auntie April, and cackled. ‘My lips are sealed! All some people think about …’
‘Barking mad … Wonderful place, Iraq. Chap that runs it is a bit of a blighter. Can’t be helped. Too many people there, that’s the trouble. Bad neighbours … You’re right, Sir Tom, have to arm yourself to the teeth. A lot of those people should be done away with, quite frankly. It’s as I said earlier, though you didn’t agree – some people s
houldn’t be allowed to breed. Over-population …’
‘Eugenics was another Enlightenment idea,’ Squire said. ‘Francis Galton had a theory that there were indisputably superior people in the world, as well as multitudes of inferiors. People who hold to such theories invariably rank themselves with the superior minority. They don’t see that many of the despised cottagers who read Catherine Cookson may be in many ways “superior” – you have to put the word in quotes – to themselves. In kindness, for example. In conscience and forbearance. Just as Hitler, in whose regime the eugenics theory comes really unstuck, could not perceive that many Jews were “superior” to many of his SS troopers. Moral qualities versus muscle …’
Noel was determinedly not disconcerted. ‘All the same, Sir Tom, I think you’d like this chap Saddam running Iraq. He’s burdened with a war against Iran, but he’s got his head screwed on the right way. There’s another example of a man with a humble background … Different kettle of fish from Adolf Hitler, of course …’
He ordered his son to fetch another bottle of wine. Everyone attended to their plates in silence for a moment, until Teresa spoke, drumming her fingers on the table.
‘Perhaps it was Hitler’s singular lack of rationality which finally put the kibosh on the Enlightenment, with its brave confidence in the idea of Progress. As you say, Tom, rational minds had to be part of the equation. The appearance of railway timetables must have served as an affirmation of rationality. The steam locomotive as ethical proof … By the beginning of this century, trust in reason was on the wane. The moths, and Sigmund Freud, had got at it. Then there was the calamity of the Great War – or World War One, if you accept that countdown – which opened the gates for Adolf Hitler to strut in. Thus did rationality create from Progress its own Frankenstein’s monster.’
‘Frankenstein. Love it,’ Auntie April said. ‘Genesis, Hubris, Nemesis. Terribly creepy …’ She pushed her plate away and brushed the imaginary hair from her cheek.
Noel sighed. ‘Barking again. Right up the creek, poor lady …’
Most of the diners accepted second helpings, and more wine.
‘I don’t think I’m rational,’ Ruby said suddenly, putting down her fork. ‘Perhaps it’s because I live in a cottage. I see things. Just the other day I had a – well, I call it a vision. Something spoke to me about death. Gosh, I shouldn’t mention death at the table, should I?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Noel, looking offended. ‘None of us is going to die, are we? Let’s take a vote on it.’
‘Oh, death can be very funny,’ Squire said, accepting more braised parsnip. ‘Provided it’s kept at arm’s length.’
Auntie April stretched out a stringy arm. ‘That’s the length of an arm. Perfect. It’s never been married and it’s never died – yet. Maybe next April …’
She gave a grotesque laugh. Her brother hid his face in his hands.
Silence fell, until Squire interposed with some haste. ‘Marriage has many hazards, as we all know. You’re fortunate if, like Teresa and me, you have survived a few crises and gone on to make a solid marriage.’
‘I ran away from him once,’ Ruby inserted mischievously, pointing at Ray.
‘Well, that’s more or less what happened with the Lawrences of Stanhoe.’
‘Oh, yes, tell them that story, Tom,’ said Teresa, beginning to smile. Ruby looked sulky and lodged a small rabbit bone on the side of her plate; she had wanted to tell her tale, but the Squires outgunned her.
‘The Lawrences, Silas and – what was her name? – Hermione, yes. They lived in the big house in Stanhoe. It’s divided into flats now. It was his house originally, the old Lawrence family home. Silas was thin and bald and a rather miserable-looking old chap, whereas Hermione was quite a fatty, and came from a long line of fatties. Silas’s portrait hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. He was famed in horticultural circles for identifying three sub-species of goosegrass, or something of the sort.
‘Anyhow, Silas and his wife fell out. I believe it was over a housemaid he was caught in bed with. Or perhaps Hermione simply was not amused by goosegrass. The marriage broke up. She kept the house and all her fat sisters moved in with her.’
‘A fat brother too, I believe,’ Teresa added.
‘You’re right. Also a fat brother. Silas moved out, minus housemaid, to live in a flat in Lymington and muck about with his yacht on the Solent. I sailed with him once, and we crossed to the Scilly Isles. He was not what you’d call a mariner.
‘Silas was old enough to be my father. When he became pretty decrepit, he wrote to Hermione, rather throwing himself on her mercy and asking if he might return to the family house in Stanhoe to die. This was in the sixties.’
‘And could he bring the dog?’ supplemented Teresa.
‘Hermione wrote back to say no to him and no to the dog. She told him in no uncertain terms to go and die somewhere else. I don’t know what happened exactly, but a year later poor Silas ran his yacht into a dinghy, which sank. A woman on board was nearly drowned. For Silas, this was the end – a terrible disgrace. He got in his old car and drove all the way back up here. Some time long after midnight, there he was in Stanhoe, banging on Hermione’s door. His old door.’
‘Can you imagine the scene?’ Teresa said. ‘It was pouring with rain. Winter. Big Hermione bounces downstairs in her nightie, peers out into the darkness, and sees her ex standing there. It’s three in the morning. She refuses to let him in. He pleads with her. He says he only wants to collect some possessions from the cellars. He left a tin trunk of family documents down there. Eventually – when she sees he hasn’t brought the dog – Hermione lets Silas in, all dripping, and forces the poor man to go down to the cellars immediately. I imagine she rather lacked a flair for hospitality.
‘The house stands on a slight eminence. Perhaps you know it. With extensive cellarage. Silas staggers down there. She goes back to bed, grumbling.
‘Easterbrook. That was her family name before marriage. She and all the Easterbrooks get up next morning. Hermione, her three sisters, and of course the brother. They go down to breakfast. While they’re tucking into their eggs and bacon and all the rest, they hear groans in the cellar.’
Jean was clearing away the dishes and making Mike rise to assist her in bringing in the pudding, a fine summer pudding with cream and custard to accompany it. Sir Thomas smiled appreciatively at her.
Teresa continued with the story. ‘So of course they all troop down into the cellar.’ She began to laugh. ‘They leave breakfast and troop down into the cellar still munching … You’ll have to tell them the rest, Tom.’
Tom smiled widely. ‘Ruby, you say you see things. That’s something else the Enlightenment sought to suppress. Visions didn’t fit the world picture. Save them for the Romantics. Only the material world had a right to exist. One result is all those soap operas followed avidly by – pace Noel – people in cottages and palaces: dramas set in houses without spiritual dimension. Nourish your spiritual life, don’t feel ashamed of it. Work on it positively and it may reward you with positive visions.
‘Anyhow, there was nothing spiritual about the Easterbrooks. The flesh had taken over. And what did they find down in their cellar when they got there? Poor old Silas Lawrence! There lay the discoverer of goosegrass, helpless on the floor, calling “Help me!” He had prised open a wooden chest and then suffered a heart attack.’
Tebbutt observed that both Mike and his father were horrified by this tale.
‘It was many a year since Silas had set eyes on his ex-wife. Hermione had blossomed into a real fatty. And her sisters and brother were all just as enormous. Silas was in the Land of the Fat, they had been living on the fat of the land. They were all so round that they could not bend to pick Silas up off the floor. Circumference rendered them powerless, and he died before their eyes.’
The whole table roared with laughter and passed round the bottle of wine – all except Noel, who shook his head, and Mike, who crossed himself.
/> ‘It’s a horrible story,’ he said.
‘Oh, horrible,’ agreed Teresa, and they all laughed afresh. Jean helped them to more summer pudding. As the blackcurrants, redcurrants and raspberries tumbled on to their plates, she assured them she had another pudding in reserve.
‘I’m certain his ghost lives. Haunts Stanhoe House still,’ Auntie April said, with sudden animation. ‘Only this morning, I was sitting in my room. Alone. Doors closed. Windows closed. No flowers. Just a fly flying round the room. Round and round. It made no noise. Just went slowly round in circles. As if I wasn’t there. Awful.’
The company fell into an uncomfortable silence.
Auntie April found it necessary to explain. ‘Think of that fly. My brother. Absolutely alone. Round and round. Not another fly anywhere. Just silence. No escape. Closed universe. Hope we aren’t like that.’
After another silence, Mike Linwood said, ‘Yes, that would be terrible, Auntie. What did you do?’
She looked up at the ceiling for a moment. ‘Round and round. I wasn’t going to have such nonsense. Not in my room, of all rooms. I rolled up my newspaper. Yesterday’s. Charge of the Light Brigade. Squashed it flat. Against the window. Very little blood. I was surprised.’
‘Well,’ said Jean, rising. ‘I’ll fetch the coffee if you’ll get the liqueur, Mike.’
‘I bought the liqueur,’ Noel said. ‘I’ll get it.’ He rose unsteadily to his feet. ‘I paid for this meal, I’ll have you know. What an affront … Anyone else got any funny stories about death? Dear, dear – we’ll be talking about money next.’
‘Money’s a sore point, Mr Linwood,’ Ray said, standing up. ‘Some of us are owed money by members of this very household. Ugh!’ He grunted as Ruby kicked him, and sat down again.
Auntie April began slowly to clap her hands together. She fixed her faded old eyes on Teresa. ‘You will understand, dear – money owed, blood owed. Always the history of families. Family involves history, just like a nation. You remember the Norman Conquest, don’t you?’