The Complete Short Stories

by Brian Aldiss

  The farmer’s face was dull, for he had been up all night with the labouring cow, and he sat down thankfully at the head of the table as the roast pig arrived on its platter.

  It proved uneatable. In no time, they were all flinging down their implements in disgust. The flesh had a bitter taste for which Neckland was the first to account.

  ‘It’s diseased!’ he growled. ‘This here animal had the disease all the time. We didn’t ought to eat this here meat or we may all be dead ourselves inside of a week.’

  They were forced to make a snack on cold salted beef and cheese and pickled onions, none of which Mrs Grendon could face in her condition. She retreated upstairs in tears at the thought of the failure of her carefully prepared dish, and Nancy ran after her to comfort her.

  After the dismal meal, Gregory spoke to Grendon.

  ‘I have decided I must go to Norwich tomorrow for a few days, Mr Grendon,’ he said. ‘You are in trouble here, I believe. Is there anything, any business, I can transact for you in the city? Can I find you a veterinary surgeon there?’

  Grendon clapped his shoulder. ‘I know you mean well, and I thank ’ee for it, but you don’t seem to realise that vetinaries cost a load of money and aren’t always too helpful when they do come. Just suppose we had some young idiot here who told us all our stock is poisoned and we had to kill it? That would be a right look-out, eh?’

  ‘Just because Gregory Rolles has plenty of money, he thinks everyone has,’ Neckland sneered.

  The farmer turned furiously on him. ‘Who asked you to open your trap, bor? You keep your trap shut when there’s a private conversation going on as don’t concern you at all. Why aren’t you out cleaning down the cowshed, since you ett all that last loaf?’

  When Neckland had gone, Grendon said, ‘Bert’s a good lad, but he don’t like you at all. Now you was saying we had trouble here. But a farm is always trouble, Gregory – some years one sort of trouble, some years another. But I ent ever seen such fine growth as this year, and I tell ’ee straight I’m delighted, proper delighted. Some pigs have died, but that ent going to stop me doing my best by all the rest of ’em.’

  ‘But they will be unmarketable if they all taste like the one today.’

  Grendon smote his palm. ‘You’re a real worrier. They may grow out of this bitter taste. And then again, if they don’t, people have to buy them before they can taste them, don’t they? I’m a poor man, Gregory, and when a bit of fortune comes my way, I can’t afford to let it get away. In fact, I tell ’ee this, and even Bert don’t know it yet, but tomorrow or the next day, I got Seeley the builder coming over here to put me up some more wood sheds down by Grubby’s hut, to give the young animals more room.’

  ‘Good. Then let me do something for you, Joseph, in return for all your kindness to me. Let me bring a vet back from Norwich at my own expense, just to have a look round, nothing more.’

  ‘Blow me if you aren’t stubborn as they come. I’m telling you, same as my dad used to say, if I finds any person on my land as I didn’t ask here, I’m getting that there rifle of mine down and I’m peppering him with buckshot, same as I did with them two old tramps last year. Fair enough, bor?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Then I must go and see to the cow. And stop worrying about what you don’t understand.’

  After the farmer had gone, Gregory stood for a long time looking out of the window, waiting for Nancy to come down, worrying over the train of events. But the view was peaceful enough. He was the only person worrying, he reflected. Even the shrewd Mr H. G. Wells, his correspondent, seemed to take his reports with a pinch of salt – he who of all men in England should sympathetically receive the news of the miraculous when it came to Earth, even if it failed to arrive in the form predicted in his recent novel, The Wonderful Visit. Be that as it might, he was going to Norwich and the wise uncle who lived there as soon as he could – as soon, in fact, as he had kissed dear Nancy good-bye.

  The wise uncle was indeed sympathetic. He was altogether a gentler man than his brother Edward, Gregory’s father. He looked with sympathy at the plan of the farm that Gregory drew, he looked with sympathy at the sketch of the muddy footprint, he listened with sympathy to an account of what had happened. And at the end of it all he said, ‘Ghosts!’

  When Gregory tried to argue with him, he said firmly, ‘My dear boy, I fear the modern marvels of our age have gone to your head. You know of such engineering structures as the cantilever bridge over the Firth of Forth, and you know as we all do of the colossal tower Eiffel has built in Paris – though if it stands ten years, I’ll eat my hat. Now, no one will deny these things are marvellous, but they are things that rest on the ground. You’re trying to tell me that engineers on this world or some other world might build a machine – a vehicle – that could fly from one heavenly body to another. Well then, I’m telling you that no engineer can do such a thing – and I’m not just saying that, but I’m quoting a law about it. There’s a law about engineers not being able to sail in some sort of damned Eiffel Tower with engines from Mars to Earth, or the Sun to Earth, or wherever you will – a law to be read in your Bible and echoed in the pages of The Cornhill. No, my boy, the modern age has gone to your head, but it’s old-fashioned ghosts that have gone to your farm.’

  So Gregory walked into the city, and inspected the booksellers, and made several purchases, and never doubted for a moment that his uncle, though infinitely sympathetic, and adroit at slipping one sovereigns on parting, was sadly less wise than he had hitherto seemed: a discovery that seemed to reflect how Gregory had grown up and how times were changing.

  But Norwich was a pleasant city and his uncle’s house a comfortable house in which to stay, and he lingered there a week where he had meant to spend only three days at the most.

  Consequently, conscience stirred in him when he again approached the Grendon farm along the rough road from Cottersall. He was surprised to see how the countryside had altered since he was last this way. New foliage gleamed everywhere, and even the heath looked a happier place. But as he came up to the farm, he saw how overgrown it was. Great ragged elder and towering cow parsley had shot up, so that at first they hid all the buildings. He fancied the farm had been spirited away until, spurring Daisy on, he saw the black mill emerge from behind a clump of nearby growth. The south meadows were deep in rank grass. Even the elms seemed much shaggier than before and loomed threateningly over the house.

  As he clattered over the flat wooden bridge and through the open gate into the yard, Gregory noted huge hairy nettles craning out of the adjoining ditches. Birds fluttered everywhere. Yet the impression he received was one of death rather than life. A great quiet lay over the place, as if it were under a curse that eliminated noise and hope.

  He realised this effect was partly because Lardie, the young bitch collie who had taken the place of Cuff, was not running up barking as she generally did with visitors. The yard was deserted. Even the customary fowls had gone. As he led Daisy into the stables, he saw a heavy piebald in the first stall and recognised it as Dr Crouchorn’s. His anxieties took more definite shape.

  Since the stable was now full, he led his mare across to the stone trough by the pond and hitched her there before walking over to the house. The front door was open. Great ragged dandelions grew against the porch. The creeper, hitherto somewhat sparse, pressed into the lower windows. A movement in the rank grass caught his eye and he looked down, drawing back his riding boot. An enormous toad crouched under weed, the head of a still writhing grass snake in its mouth. The toad seemed to eye Gregory fixedly, as if trying to determine whether the man envied it its gluttony. Shuddering in disgust, he hurried into the house.

  Three of Trix’s kids, well grown now, strutted about the parlour, nibbling at the carpet and climbing into the massive armchairs, staring at a stuffed caricature of a goat that stood in its glass case by the window. Judging by the chaos in the room, they had been there some while, and had had a game on the tabl
e. But they possessed the room alone, and a quick glance into the kitchen revealed nobody there either.

  Muffled sounds came from upstairs. The stairs curled round the massive chimneypiece, and were shut from the lower room by a latched door. Gregory had never been invited upstairs, but he did not hesitate. Throwing the door open, he started up the dark stairwell, and almost at once ran into a body.

  Its softness told him that this was Nancy; she stood in the dark weeping. Even as he caught her and breathed her name, she broke from his grasp and ran from him up the stairs. He could hear the noise more clearly now, and the sound of crying – though at the moment he was not listening. Nancy ran to a door on the landing nearest to the top of the stairs, burst into the room beyond, and closed it. When Gregory tried the latch, he heard the bolt slide to on the other side.

  ‘Nancy!’ he called. ‘Don’t hide from me! What is it? What’s happening?’

  She made no answer. As he stood there baffled against the door, the next door along the passage opened and Doctor Crouchorn emerged, clutching his little black bag. He was a tall, sombre man, with deep lines on his face that inspired such fear into his patients that a remarkable percentage of them did as he bid and recovered. Even here, he wore the top hat that, simply by remaining constantly in position, contributed to the doctor’s fame in the neighbourhood.

  ‘What’s the trouble, Doctor Crouchorn?’ Gregory asked, as the medical man shut the door behind him and started down the stairs. ‘Has the plague struck this house, or something equally terrible?’

  ‘Plague, young man, plague? No, it is something much more unnatural than that.’

  He stared at Gregory unsmilingly, as if promising himself inwardly not to move a muscle again until Gregory asked the obvious.

  ‘What did you call for, doctor?’

  ‘The hour of Mrs Grendon’s confinement struck during the night,’ he said, still poised on the top step.

  A wave of relief swept over Gregory. He had forgotten Nancy’s mother! ‘She’s had her baby? Was it a boy?’

  The doctor nodded in slow motion. ‘She bore two boys, young man.’ He hesitated, and then a muscle in his face twitched and he said in a rush, ‘She also bore seven daughters. Nine children! And they all – they all live. It’s impossible. Until I die –’

  He could not finish. Tipping his hat, he hurried down the stairs, leaving Gregory to look fixedly at the wallpaper while his mind whirled as if it would convert itself into liquid. Nine children! Nine! It was as if she were no different from an animal in a sty. And the wallpaper pattern took on a diseased and livid look as if the house itself embodied sickness. The mewing cries from the bedroom seemed also the emblem of something inhuman calling its need.

  He stood there in a daze, the sickly infant cries boring into him. From beyond the stone walls that oppressed him, he heard the noise of a horse ridden at hard gallop over the wooden bridge and down the track to Cottersall, dying with distance. From Nancy’s room came no sound. Gregory guessed she had hidden herself from him for shame, and at last stirred himself into moving down the dark and curving stairwell. A stable cat scuttled out from under the bottom stair, a dozen baby tabbies in pursuit. The goats still held possession of the room. The fire was but scattered ashes in the hearth, and had not been tended since the crisis of the night.

  ‘I bet you’re surprised!’

  Gregory swung round. From the kitchen came Grubby, clutching a wedge of bread and meat in his fist. He chewed with his mouth open, grinning at Gregory.

  ‘Farmer Grendon be a proper ram!’ he exclaimed. ‘Ent no other man in this county could beget himself nine kids at one go!’

  ‘Where is the farmer?’

  ‘I say there ent no other man in this county –’

  ‘Yes, I heard what you said. Where is the farmer?’

  ‘Working, I supposed. But I tell ’ee, bor, there ent no other man –’

  Leaving Grubby munching and talking, Gregory strode out into the yard. He came on Grendon round the corner of the house. The farmer had a pitchfork full of hay, which he was carrying over his shoulder into the cow sheds. Gregory stood in his way but he pushed past.

  ‘I want to speak to you, Joseph.’

  ‘There’s work to be done. Pity you can’t see that.’

  ‘I want to speak about your wife.’

  Grendon made no reply. He worked like a demon, tossing the hay down, turning for more. In any case, it was difficult to talk. The cows and calves, closely confined, seemed to set up a perpetual uneasy noise of lowing and un-cowlike grunts. Gregory followed the farmer round to the hayrick, but the man walked like one possessed. His eyes seemed sunk into his head, his mouth was puckered until his lips were invisible. When Gregory laid a hand on his arm, he shook it off. Stabbing up another great load of hay, he swung back towards the sheds so violently that Gregory had to jump out of his way.

  Gregory lost his temper. Following Grendon back towards the sheds he swung the bottom of the two-part door shut, and bolted it on the outside. When Grendon came back, he did not budge.

  ‘Joseph, what’s got into you? Why are you suddenly so heartless? Surely your wife needs you by her?’

  His eyes had a curious blind look as he turned them at Gregory. He held the pitchfork before him in both hands almost like a weapon as he said, ‘I been with her all night, bor, while she brought forth her increase.’

  ‘But now –’

  ‘She got a nursing woman from Dereham Cottages with her now. I been with her all night. Now I got to see to the farm – things keep growing, you know.’

  ‘They’re growing too much, Joseph. Stop and think –’

  ‘I’ve no time for talking.’ Dropping the pitchfork, he elbowed Gregory out of the way, unbolted the door, and flung it open. Grasping Gregory firmly by the biceps of one arm, he began to propel him along to the vegetable beds down by South Meadows.

  The early lettuce were gigantic here. Everything bristled out of the ground. Recklessly, Grendon ran among the lines of new green, pulling up fists full of young radish, carrots, spring onions, scattering them over his shoulder as fast as he plucked them from the ground.

  ‘See, Gregory – all bigger than you ever seen ’em, and weeks early! The harvest is going to be a bumper. Look at the fields! Look at the orchard!’ With wide gesture, he swept a hand towards the lines of trees, buried in the mounds of snow-and-pink of their blossom. ‘Whatever happens, we got to take advantage of it. It may not happen another year. Why – it’s like a fairy story!’

  He said no more. Turning, he seemed already to have forgotten Gregory. Eyes down at the ground that had suddenly achieved such abundance, he marched back towards the sheds, from whence now came the sound of Neckland washing out milk churns.

  The spring sun was warm on Gregory’s back. He told himself that everything looked normal. The farm was flourishing. From beyond the sties came shouts, distantly, and the sounds of men working, where the builder was preparing to erect more sheds. Perhaps, he told himself dully, he was worrying about nothing. Slowly, he walked towards the back of the house. There was nothing he could do here; it was time to return to Cottersall; but first he must see Nancy.

  Nancy was in the kitchen. Neckland had brought her in a stoup of fresh milk, and she was supping it wearily from a ladle.

  ‘Oh, Greg, I’m sorry I ran from you. I was so upset.’ She came to him, still holding the ladle but dangling her arms over his shoulders in a familiar way she had not used before. ‘Poor mother, I fear her mind is unhinged with – with bearing so many children. She’s talking such strange stuff as I never heard before, and I do believe she fancies as she’s a child again.’

  ‘Is it to be wondered at?’ he said, smoothing her hair with his hand. ‘She’ll be better once she’s recovered from the shock.’

  They kissed each other, and after a minute she passed him a ladleful of milk. He drank and then spat it out in disgust.

  ‘Ugh! What’s got into the milk? Is Neckland trying to poison yo
u or something? Have you tasted it? It’s as bitter as sloes!’

  She pulled a puzzled face. ‘I thought it tasted rather strange, but not unpleasant. Here, let me try again.’

  ‘No, it’s too horrible. Some Sloane’s Liniment must have got mixed in it.’

  Despite his warning, she put her lips to the metal spoon and sipped, then shook her head. ‘You’re imagining things, Greg. It does taste a bit different, ’tis true, but there’s nothing wrong with it.’

  ‘Sweetheart, it’s horrible. I’m going to get your father to taste it, and see what he thinks.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bother him just now, Greg, if I was you. You know how busy he is, and tired, and attending on mother during the night has put him back in his work. I will mention it to him at dinner – which I must now prepare. Them there goats have made such a muck in here, not to mention that Grubby! You’ll stay to take a bite with us, I hope?’

  ‘No, Nancy, I’m off now. I have a letter awaiting me that I must answer; it arrived when I was in Norwich.’

  She bit her lip and snapped her fingers. ‘There, how terrible awful you’ll think me! I never asked you how you enjoyed yourself in the big city! It must be wonderful to be a man of leisure, never with no work to do nor meals to prepare.’

  ‘You still hold that against me! Listen, my lovely Nancy, this letter is from a Dr Hudson-Ward, an old acquaintance of my father’s. He is headmaster of a school in Gloucester, and he wishes me to join the staff there as teacher on most favourable terms. So you see I may not be idle much longer!’

  Laughing, she clung to him. ‘That’s wonderful, my darling! What a handsome schoolmaster you will make. But Gloucester – that’s over the other side of the country. I suppose we shan’t be seeing you again once you get there.’

  ‘Nothing’s settled yet, Nancy.’

  ‘You’ll be gone in a week and we sha’n’t never see you again. Once you get to that there old school, you will never think of your Nancy no more.’