Walcot. Brian Aldiss

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СКАЧАТЬ The pictures on the walls of the living room showed Sopwith Camels and other ancient aeroplanes manoeuvring in clear blue skies. Mary had striven to brighten the room with bowls of flowers strategically placed, as advised in the pages of Amateur Gardening, to which she subscribed.

      You were forced into the company of Joey and Terry, the two sons of Aunt Ada, your father’s sister. Ada was there, still rather weepy from the graveside, with her husband, Claude Hillman, who was at this time of his life a stockbroker. Claude, your father always said, was ‘a bit of a bounder’.

      ‘Cheer up, old ducks,’ Claude told Ada. ‘Old Sid’s time was up. He had a good run for his money, didn’t he?’

      ‘Oh, Claude, truly, “in the midst of life we are in death”.’

      He thrust his rubicund face at hers. ‘Rubbish! In the midst of life we are in need of drink. Death’ll have to wait until I’ve got a noggin in me.’

      There had been a time a few months earlier when you had gone to play with Joey and Terry. They had stuck their hands in the pockets of their shorts and put their round, sand-coloured heads together. They contemplated you before asking, in no friendly terms, ‘Do you know the system, sport?’

      ‘What system is that?’ you asked.

      Terry had looked at Joey. Joey had looked at Terry. ‘He asks what system,’ they said to each other. Then, to you, ‘Why, mathematics, of course. Do you know what numbers are for?’

      ‘They’re for counting,’ you said, sulky under such interrogation.

      And the two boys had laughed. They showed you a blackboard in their den. On the blackboard, cabbalistic signs mixed with numbers. Some signs were enclosed by chalk squares. Arrows indicated directions. You were impressed that they had various coloured chalks.

      ‘What’s all this “DOBD” in these red squares?’ you asked.

      Terry sniggered behind a grubby hand. ‘Do or Be Done, of course.’

      Summoning a protective indifference, you remarked that that was silly.

      ‘It’s our future. It’s our system. We don’t expect you to understand.’

      But you had stayed for lunch in their house. Aunt Ada served cold stuffed veal with small new potatoes, cold, and a salad of crisp, sharp cos lettuce. Ada was a little woman with pale lips, very neat with her hair and clothes. Later on, not very surprisingly, Claude would leave Ada.

      To see these two boys now in your own house, rapidly gobbling the snacks, aroused your hostility.

      ‘Are you two still playing about with your stupid system?’ you asked Joey.

      ‘Our dad met Bertrand Russell,’ Joey said, proudly.

      It seemed unanswerable at the time.

      Accompanying Claude and Ada were the Frosts. Joy Frost with pigtails, tied for the occasion with black ribbons, was Claude’s younger sister. Her husband, Freddie Frost, adolescent in appearance, was regarded by the Fieldings as being rather loud. He was being rather loud now, saying cheerfully to Archie over his shoulder, as Emma poured more wine into his glass, ‘Well, there’s another one fallen off the old perch, eh, what?’

      He nudged his brother Archie in the ribs in order to encourage him to share in the joke – Archie being always, in Freddie’s judgement, too serious and quiet.

      ‘Show some respect,’ said Archie. ‘Try the sausage rolls and shut up.’

      You heard a good deal of shutting up in those days.

      Of these Frosts, Joy at sixteen seemed to suffer the most grief. Her nose had been reddened by constant applications of a small handkerchief during the funeral. She confided now to her Aunt Ada, ‘I’ve never been touched by death before – apart from the odd hamster.’ Ada pressed her niece’s hand. ‘I know, my dear.’ She repeated herself, saying, ‘“In the midst of life we are in death” – including hamsters.’

      Meanwhile, Mary was welcoming in her stodgy older brother, Jeremy, who was looking about him for the fount and source of alcohol. ‘Poor old pop, Mary,’ he said heavily, laying a hand on her shoulder. ‘Gone to his eternal rest, as they say. Still, not a bad life, I suppose. He certainly came up in society, didn’t he?’ He gave a short laugh.

      ‘That’s not a very nice way of putting it.’ But it appeared your mother’s thoughts were elsewhere, for she went on to say that she had heard on the radio that when certain kings could no longer satisfy their wives, they were put to death, or else the crops failed. She believed this was in some African tribe or other.

      ‘Don’t see what you are on about,’ said Jeremy. ‘We’re no African tribe. Pop wasn’t black, thank goodness.’

      His younger brother Jack agreed, but said, sotto voce, ‘No disrespect, please, Jeremy. Not in Mother’s hearing.’ He nodded towards Elizabeth.

      ‘But I didn’t respect him. He gave me a rotten childhood.’ However, Jeremy had lowered his voice to make this pronouncement. ‘Poor old bugger, all the same.’

      Claude was interested in another kind of respect. He grabbed his two sons and addressed them confidentially. ‘You two better behave respectfully to your grandmother. I happen to know that all of Granddad’s money is left to her, so be nice to the old girl.’

      ‘Will she be rich, dad?’ Joey asked.

      ‘Stinking rich, my boy. Stinking rich. So watch it!’

      ‘Will we be rich, dad?’ Terry asked.

      Claude closed one eye. ‘You go to work on it, old lad.’

      All round the room and into the nearby breakfast room, muttered family conversations went on, the family being semi-glad to be called together.

      ‘I don’t know Hunstanton,’ Jack Wilberforce proclaimed, as if bestowing a signal honour on the town he named.

      Jeremy said, before holding out his glass for a refill as Emma came round with the bottle, ‘I always felt a bit sorry for mum.’

      ‘He gave Liz a hard time,’ Flo agreed. ‘She had more intelligence than Sidney, that was the problem.’

      The lady referred to as Liz was the newly widowed Elizabeth, sitting alone in a corner of the room. Mary and Martin had escorted Elizabeth to a sofa, donkey brown and genuine leather, where she sat poised and elegant in her sweeping black dress. She wore a wide-brimmed black hat with a white rose attached to the brim. Elizabeth was in her late forties; her face, with its sharp features, was utterly pale, utterly composed, as she looked about the room.

      Since her stroke, the old lady kept her ebony walking stick to hand; but the sofa suited her well enough because it had a high seat, from which it was easy to rise without assistance.

      You went over to speak to her. ‘I’m so sorry, Granny dear. Granddad will be greatly missed.’ You added, ‘By you, most of all.’

      ‘It is character … istic of your mother,’ she began, ‘to wear a dress which fits – which does not fit, I should say – her. Properly.’

      ‘Yes, СКАЧАТЬ