Comfort Zone. Brian Aldiss

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      Justin was proceeding slowly along the Croft, an ancient walkway situated beside a high and venerable wall which runs from one side of Old Headington to the other. He encountered a thin man with a lined tanned face. It was Jack Hughes, unmistakable in that yellow jacket, the fellow who had applied for the job of gardener and then decided against it. He was leading his small black dog on a length of string. He put out an arm and stopped Justin. The sleeves of the jacket shot up almost to the elbow, revealing a tattooed arm and a red fist. He asked how old Justin was. Justin told him. ‘Nice dog you have there.’

      ‘You and that woman with you made fun of me,’ Hughes said. ‘Don’t you have no sense of feeling?’

      ‘I’m sorry, it was just a joke. We were not making fun of you.’

      Hughes lowered his arm. ‘Talkin’ French at me …’

      ‘Speaking a word or two of French is not in itself an indication of a lack of feeling.’

      Hughes still looked threatening. Nor did the dog look particularly friendly. ‘Yes, you was makin’ fun. I don’t like being made fun of. I would beat you up if you wasn’t so old. You made fun of me just because I’m poor and down on me luck. I’ve had a rotten life. It’s all I can do to keep myself together. I got no friends I can trust, apart from this here dog.’

      In an attempt to mollify, Justin said, ‘I like your dog.’

      ‘It don’t like you.’

      ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

      Hughes shot Justin a glare of hatred, hunching up his shoulders to deliver the glare. ‘I don’t s’pose you are. Why should you be? My mother died the day I was born. Cold and waxen. Cold and waxen she was. I can never get it out of my mind. I go to church. I pray. But always there’s that death of my ma in my mind. It was so unfair. An aunt looked after me. Kind enough, religious. It’s like something lodged in my mind.’

      Justin bit his bottom lip. ‘Look, I’m sorry, Mr Hughes. Please accept my apologies if we offended you, but I must get on.’

      ‘Do you read your Bible, may I enquire?’

      ‘Of course not. I have no religion.’

      ‘That’s Oxford for yuh! You could learn som’ing. Take Ezekiel.’ Hughes reined in his dog and struck a pose to declaim, ‘“Also out of the mist thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man—”’

      ‘Fine, thanks, great stuff, but I must be off. I have to go to the bank.’

      Hughes seemed not to have heard. He continued his quotation, with gestures. ‘“And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings.” It’s going to be like that and I’ll be glad of it!’

      ‘It’s nonsense, man. Ezekiel must have been raving mad, face up to the fact.’

      Hughes stuck his face close to Justin’s. The dog sniffed his trouser leg. ‘I served my country. I was in the Falklands War. What does this rotten country care about me? It’s like I got a plum stone stuck in the back of my throat.’

      ‘Sorry, I must get on.’ He saw to his relief that a man and a woman had entered the Croft and were approaching. He knew them.

      ‘I’m uneducated.’ Hughes was shouting now. ‘I know that. Dirt poor. I can twig you despise me. P’raps you’re right. But you can’t help being what you are, can you, now?’

      ‘Well, that’s debatable.’

      ‘How do you mean, debatable? I’m telling you—’

      Maurice and his wife Judith were close now. ‘You’ll have to excuse me, Mr Hughes. I need to speak to—’ Justin turned swiftly and, calling to Maurice, said, ‘Oh, the very man, I need to have a word with you …’ Thus he escaped from a fellow he was beginning to think was probably mad and dangerous. But Hughes still had something else he wanted to say. ‘Oi, Reg!’ he called. ‘I hear as you wrote a book once.’

      Justin looked back, exasperated. ‘No, never, you are thinking of my friend, Tony Kenny. He has written many books.’

      Hughes lapsed from an aggressive stance into something more abject. ‘I thought about writing a book once. My life would make a good novel.’

      ‘Come on,’ said Maurice to Justin. He ventured to take Justin’s arm. They hurried on.

      ‘You look a bit shaken,’ said Judith, ‘I don’t wonder. What a horrid man. How on earth did you get to know him?’

      ‘I’ve just had to listen to a quotation from Ezekiel.’

      ‘Yes, come and have a sit down, Justin. A cup of coffee,’ said Maurice. ‘Ezekiel is a real visionary, isn’t he?’

      Rowlandson, that was their name. Pillars of the church, he remembered. And, like Hughes, dotty about Ezekiel! He took a quick look back down the Croft before they turned the corner. Hughes was still standing there in his ill-fitting jacket, looking at the backs of Justin and his friends. One hand remained raised, as if he had forgotten it. The Rowlandsons lived nearby, in The Court, a grand house towards the end of the Croft. Justin was glad to sink on to their sofa. Maurice assumed his friend had been about to be attacked. Justin said that Hughes was unbalanced. But he had told Justin that he was too old to be hit, or words to that effect; Justin laughed as he admitted it, though indeed he did not find it particularly amusing. ‘I can’t help feeling sorry for the fellow. Well, not exactly sorry … He said he was a regular churchgoer.’

      Judith entered with a coffee tray in time to catch this last remark. ‘You’re not religious, are you, Justin? At least, we never see you in church.’

      He said that as a boy he had prayed silently and constantly throughout the day. He then regarded himself as almost a saint, and certainly praying afforded some comfort. Only when he was older and looked back on an unhappy boyhood, did he see he had not been religious but neurotic. He smiled at Judith apologetically. ‘Nowadays, I’m neither religious nor neurotic.’

      ‘You would find a great deal of strength in Jesus,’ said Maurice, kindly.

      ‘He died for our sins, I understand,’ said Justin. ‘Rather presumptuous, I always thought.’ Silence fell as they drank their coffee.

      As Justin was leaving, Judith thrust a small book into his hand. ‘It’s the Book of Ezekiel, with charming pictures done by a Mr Heath Robertson. I think it may be a comfort for you, dear Mr Justin.’

      One of Justin’s lady friends, Mrs Wendy Townsend, drove him to the Manor Hospital for an appointment with his cardiologist. ‘It’s not so warm today, Justin, sweetie. You should have worn your scarf.’ He had a feeling Wendy was slightly moving in on him since Kate was away so much.

      ‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’

      ‘And you are still taking your furosemide like a good boy?’

      ‘Of course. I love it. And the other stuff Dr Reid put me on.’

      ‘The spironolactone.’

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