The Horatio Stubbs Trilogy. Brian Aldiss

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      ‘I’m hoping to get posted to France,’ said Sister.

      ‘Lovely, what fun! Go to Paris! Such a beautiful city. Notre-Dame! The boulevards! Robert and I love Paris, especially in the spring …’

      ‘You were only there one day, Mummy!’ Ann said.

      ‘A beautiful spring day – eat your bread-and-butter properly, Ann, and sit up straight! You’d like Paris, I know, Sister.’

      ‘Yes, I do, very much. I have connections there.’

      ‘Family connections, no doubt? I expect you know most of the capitals of Europe … I should like to do my bit for the old country, but I’m not as free as you – three children and a husband …’

      ‘You wouldn’t actually call Nelson a child, would you, Mum?’ I asked. ‘He’s in the forces and he’s grown a moustache.’

      Mother smiled at me and held out her hand. ‘Pass your cup nicely if you’d like another cup of tea. Beatrice, I think if we could have some more hot water … Nelson looks so silly with a moustache, Sister! Of course, you’ve never seen him. They’ll soon make him shave it off. He’s at Aldershot; Robert was there in the Great War. He’ll always be my child if he lives to be sixty. I hope he’ll do well in the Army. I believe your family are some of them in the forces, Sister, aren’t they?’

      A small foot kicked me under the table, and Ann made a face at me over her cup; we could almost feel Mother forcing the conversational-tone-improving word ‘Admiral’ to materialize in the air above the table.

      ‘Try and drink more like a lady, Ann,’ said Mother, catching the movement. ‘Aren’t they, Sister?’

      Sister was sitting at table eating demurely, half-smiling in a way she had. She looked, I thought, rather like a dutiful young daughter, except that her face was faintly lined. Her short hair, some strands of which were quite fair, was neat and beautiful. She was so – well, you could see she was the product of upper-class breeding.

      ‘My father and his brother were in the Navy.’

      ‘Oh, the Navy, the senior service! And I expect they were both very successful, weren’t they? Let me cut you a slice of sponge.’

      ‘I wouldn’t say successful. My father’s brother, poor Uncle David, was drowned at sea.’

      ‘You poor thing! I’m so sorry. Horatio never told me!’

      ‘I didn’t know,’ I said. ‘I never heard of Sister’s Uncle David.’

      ‘No, of course, you didn’t,’ Sister said, giving me a little secret smile. ‘It was rather a tragedy. It happened in 1917. I was crazy about my uncle, although I was only a tot. He was so brave and so handsome. His ship was sunk in the Atlantic by a German U-boat. He was in the water for some incredible time, clinging to a spar. At last a British merchant naval vessel picked him up and – do you know? – he hadn’t been aboard an hour before that ship was also torpedoed by a U-boat. It went straight to the bottom, Uncle with it.’

      ‘War’s a terrible thing,’ Mother said, causing a plate of cake to circulate.

      ‘We’ll soon beat the Germans,’ I said. ‘Their tanks are made of cardboard. The Head said so.’

      There was a pause for silent patriotism and fruit cake.

      ‘But your father’s alive and well still, I hear,’ Mother said.

      Sister nodded. ‘He’s a rear-admiral. Retired, of course. Now he talks about closing down Traven House and getting back into harness, if the Admiralty will have him.’

      We all smiled. Mother said, ‘Rear-admiral … A pity the way our grand old homes have to close.’

      Father had looked up Sister’s home in an old Baedeker the previous evening, and found: ‘3 m. farther NE, Traven House, Georgian, fine Vict. orangery, once the home of Sir Francis Traven, Gov. of Massachusetts Bay, 1771–9.’ We were all delighted, and wondered if Sir Francis’s descendants still grew oranges there.

      ‘Have you got any ghosts?’ Ann asked. ‘I’d be quite terrified! Do you have battlements, with phantom men in armour clanking about?’

      Sister laughed, a very charming little display. ‘No, no ghosts, no battlements.’

      ‘But Horry told me …’

      ‘Eat your cake,’ I said. ‘You’d be terrified of the mere thought of a ghost.’

      ‘Don’t bully her, Horatio, and do just brush your hair out of your eyes. That’s better!’

      ‘Mummy and I would love to come and see you at Traven House,’ Ann said.

      Our visitor looked askance. ‘I’m afraid I shan’t be at home much longer, Ann, otherwise I’d love to show you both round.’

      The words sank deep into my heart. Although I continued to munch gloomily at the cake, I ached inside. She couldn’t leave! I needed her. I loved her. She could not realize what she was doing to me or she would never go.

      There were four females in the room with me. Excluding my mother, I had had sexual relations with all the others. But the need was now for Sister, entirely for Sister, only for Sister, among all the women in the world.

      Should I stand up and declare my feelings? Would they laugh? What would Mother say? But Mother at this point, having poured herself a last cup of tea, was doing her party stunt and declaiming some poetry learnt as a girl:

      ‘Old Holyrood rang merrily

      That night, with wassail, and glee.

      King James within his princely bower

      Fêted the chiefs of Scotland’s power,

      Summoned to spend a passing hour.

      For he had vowed that his array

      Should southwards march by break of day.

      Well loved that daring monarch aye

      A banquet and a song.

      By day a banquet and at night

      A merry dance, made fast and light,

      With dancers fair and costumes bright,

      And something loud and long

      This feast outshone his revels past.

      It was his biggest and his last.

      ‘And so it goes on – I forget what comes next. It’s the court bit from Sir Walter Scott’s “Marmion”. I learnt it at school. Oh, I could spout it for hours! I tell Ann and Horatio they ought to read more poetry. Are you a great poetry-reader, Sister?’

      Sister made some suitable reply.

      After tea Ann slipped away to play in her СКАЧАТЬ