Comfort Zone. Brian Aldiss

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      He potters about, adjusting a few of the piles of paper in his study. He can hear Maude’s radio upstairs. All today, but for Maude, he will be alone, as if on a desert island, unless the builders happen to turn up. This he does not greatly regret, because he will have time to prepare his lecture for the day after tomorrow, when he addresses a group of Christian ladies in a nearby church. He is not looking forward very much to this occasion. After he has showered and dressed, he walks round his garden. This always brings contentment, although Justin sees much that is neglected. He pulls up a strand of bindweed as he passes. A molehill has appeared on the upper lawn. The birds sing in the bushes. A pigeon cries monotonously ‘Walpole stinks, Walpole stinks’ – or so he imagines. But which Walpole is the bird criticizing? Horace Walpole, author of The Castle of Otranto, Robert Walpole, Prime Minister, or Hugh Walpole, author of Jeremy at Crale?

      That sad creature, Hughes, had by chance directed him to the Book of Ezekiel. He rested on a bench in his courtyard and looked into the old Bible that had belonged to his mother. I heard also the noise of the wings of the living creatures that touched one another, and the noise of the wheels over against them, and the noise of a great rushing. So the spirit lifted me up and took me away … No doubt of it. Stark raving. But beautifully expressed. The noise of the wings of the living creatures … The living creatures. What if Om Haldar were no longer among the living … Not many weeks ago, Maude had suggested that the young woman should come and live with them in their house. She could have the spare room for her own and be more comfortable than in the Fitzgeralds’ summerhouse. Justin rejected the idea indignantly, saying he refused to have his peace disturbed. His thought was that Kate would not like it, although he did not say so. Now a parallel case occurred to him. His aunt Phoebe, long dead, lived in a small house in St Clements. No garden. When World War Two broke out, there were many Jews trying to escape the cruelties of Nazi Germany. Two little sisters had been brought to Phoebe’s door by a charity worker. Phoebe had taken them in. Phoebe had loved and cared for those troubled and displaced girls. In consequence, the girls had grown to make their way in the English world, successful, well regarded, one as a lawyer, the other as an academic historian. Justin clutched his cheeks. He felt the shame of it that he had turned Om Haldar away. She might well have proved a parallel case with the children from Czechoslovakia. ‘Oh God, I am such a selfish bastard,’ he reproached himself aloud – but quietly, in case the neighbours overheard.

      He spent some while ripping ivy off a trellis before returning to his study. There, a woodlouse was crawling over the carpet. Justin liked woodlice and would never harm them, but he believed that each female woodlouse could lay a thousand eggs at a time. Since he could not tell the sex of this particular louse, he dropped it gently out of the window to the earth below, before settling down to compose his lecture. He banished the thought of Om Haldar from his mind.

      Breakfast was a small bowl of one of the many kinds of Kellogg’s cornflakes, with some canned raspberries added and milk poured on top. No cream nowadays. Kate had counselled against it to help control Justin’s weight. He washed down his daily diuretic pills with a glass of Volvic water. He unlocked the side gate in case the builders arrived, and stood for a minute or two in the sun of the courtyard. The morning sun shone in the back of the house and the evening sun in the front. It circumnavigated No. 29 during the planet’s daily duties. While he was standing there, Scalli arrived to do the cleaning and deal with his washing. They exchanged a few words. Justin apologized for taking the name of her god in vain. He felt too embarrassed to accuse her of the disappearance of the bodhisattva. It was a trivial matter compared with the disappearance of Om Haldar.

      ‘How is your son David?’ Scalli enquired. He said that Dave remained much as ever. Regarding her gravely, he enquired after Skrita.

      ‘Oh, she is so bad. She needs her mother to be by her. She has messed her bed in the night and so they hate her. Were they never sick? That I ask myself, that they don’t have pity?’ She went more thoroughly into the events of the night, from which it could be inferred that her daughter had an anal fissure. Once in the safety of his study, Justin checked his emails. Again, not a word from his agent. Not a word from Kate. Going to the other desk, on which his older computer stood, he began to tap out a sentence or two for his talk to the Christian ladies on Thursday. This he had intended to do for weeks. He continually put it off. Procrastination was the very making of time. Today the task must be faced. One possible subject was the prevalence of chance in people’s lives. It could be some kind of mischance which had overtaken Om Haldar. Her disappearance brought all that to mind again. He had used the theme of Chance in a TV documentary he once produced. But, according to his interpretation, chance ruled out religious belief. It was not the kind of theme to offer Christian ladies on a sunny afternoon. He decided instead to talk about ancient inventions which had reinforced civilized values – notably, the restaurant and the orchestra.

      Justin recalled that Marie had once played violin in the Oxford Symphony Orchestra. He phoned her in order to check on a few details, and then they chatted for a while. Something Marie said reminded Justin that mention had been made of Ken’s sister Catherine.

      ‘Is Catherine married? Why doesn’t she come and live in England, or have she and Ken quarrelled?’

      There was a silence on the line, until Marie said, ‘It wasn’t quite like that, dear. Best to leave that subject behind a closed door, comprendez?’ So Justin returned to his lecture notes.

      Once he had decided upon a subject, the piece flowed easily. The doorbell rang. There stood his accountant, John Stephens. Justin had forgotten the appointment. He might once have been vexed by the interruption of his thought. But it was accountancy, in a way, which kept him afloat. He welcomed John in and got them both cups of coffee. Instant coffee. Douwe Egberts. ‘I see the old Anchor has closed down,’ John said. ‘There’s a For Sale board up.’

      ‘It’s not much of a loss. People living nearby were always complaining about the noise.’

      John was a pleasant man. He wore a grey suit and tie, as became a respectable accountant, and made the collection of documents for VAT as painless as possible, despite Justin’s awful muddle of papers on both his desks. John was also Justin’s lady love’s accountant. Justin’s lady love – when not in Egypt administrating the Aten Trust in El Aiyat – lived nearby, in Scabbard Lane. Justin had lent Kate his Toyota while her car was being repaired; the Toyota was locked in her garage. He needed to take a suit to the cleaner and he wished to go into town to buy a particular book. When he asked John if he would mind giving him a lift, the accountant readily agreed. Justin suffered from getting into and out of cars, so John kindly carried his suit into the cleaner’s for him. As they drove into Oxford, John talked of this and that; his character was on display. One focus for his interest was the sale of the site of the Anchor, currently awaiting demolition. He delivered Justin to the very door of Blackwell’s bookshop. ‘Tremendously good of you!’ Justin exclaimed. He was amazed by John’s kindness and the kindness of others.

      The assistant in Blackwell’s was agreeable. They did not stock the book Justin was after, but the assistant looked it up on the computer. ‘The British Occupation of Indonesia, 1945–46. By Richard Macmillan. Routledge/Curzon. Seventy-five pounds.’

      ‘Heavens! Seventy-five pounds!’ Justin exclaimed. ‘I’m going to have to look at it in a library before I stump up seventy-five pounds for it. Keen though I am to read it.’

      ‘It is a bit steep,’ the assistant agreed. ‘And no paperback available.’

      But when the troops disembarked at Padang Docks, he said to himself, they had no idea that this was Indonesia. To them, it was just Bali. Sixty years ago, still vivid in mind … Bali! Had it been Bali and not Padang? He was unsure. And supposing Om Haldar had lost her memory and was wandering lost somewhere nearby? He ought to do something. Even though it was not exactly his business.

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