Forgotten Life. Brian Aldiss

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      Snatch him too young away and count the Cost,

      A tortured Spirit, rostered with the Lost.

      from ‘Miss Montagu’s Portrait’

       William Westlake, 1790

      Introduction

      Forgotten Life opens in razzmatazz style, with American fans of Green Mouth’s ‘Kerinth’ novels seeing her off at JFK airport as she prepares to fly back to Britain.

      On the flight, she slowly becomes Sheila Winter again, wife of Clement Winter. She has travelled around the States for twenty-three days, signed many of the 1.5 million copies of her latest book, given a two-hour-long speech, gone without sleep, lived on pills, and more than once had had sexual intercourse with her Hispanic New York editor.

      When the Winters are home and secure in their large Victorian house in North Oxford, Sheila falls asleep in a chair. Clement goes upstairs to his study, and it is then we come to the heart of the book.

      This volume shows the division between the well-established Oxford don, Clement Winter, living in Rawlinson Road, Oxford, and his footloose elder brother, Joseph Winter, who has just died. Clement is finishing his work on Adaptability: Private Lives in Public Wars. He works from his home and from Carisbrooke, his college. He is a qualified analytical psychologist.

      Now he must do something about his dead brother’s relics.

      One thing I hoped to emphasise was the inevitable divide that existed between those who went through World War II and those who did not - even if the two were brothers.

      Joseph, the older brother, had fought the Japanese in Burma in 1944. He wrote letters, not to Clem but to their sister, Ellen. Some of those letters, worn by time, have found their way into Clement’s hands.

      In them, Joseph speaks of the fighting. He speaks too of a deserters’ camp in Calcutta, where men lived in squalor, existing by thieving from other army units, rather than facing the terrors raised by the Japanese Imperial Army.

      A substantial part of Forgotten Life is taken up by Joe’s efforts to record the fighting in Burma, where he formed part of the ‘Forgotten Army’ – a label claimed at the time, which remains even now – as well as his search for the house where he and a Chinese woman had become lovers. Baffled, Joe cannot decide if he had ever found that house. Time, as Joe has to come to admit, brings change. The quiet little town in Sumatra he knew in the old days becomes a roaring and confused city. It proves futile to search for the past.

      One might call the plot-line simple; the characters are more complex. There is a time in life when the two brothers are together again, and Joe his sardonic self. But the few years’ difference between them proves too much: Joe fought in a war, on the other side of the globe; Clem did not. Many families made this discovery. Perhaps it is what made the novel popular.

      Brian Aldiss

       Oxford, 2012

BOOK ONE

      1

      It was almost roses, roses, all the way. The fans kept on laughing and joking, even into the asperities of JFK Airport.

      SPEAK TO US GREEN MOUTH, cried their noble banners, in priceless fan embroidery, too overwhelmed to give punctuation a single hemstiched thought.

      RAZZMATAZZ FOR TAZZ.

      ‘Don’t leave us! We’ll make ya President!’

      What measure was the unit of laughter? The ha? A million units of ha were expended as the admiring throng gladly, proudly, lugged Green Mouth’s luggage to the First Class Check-In. Every one of the faithful needed to lay a plump hand on the sacred suitcases.

      More units, as baggage moved on the metal loop away into concealed realms, piece by precious piece. More units, as the throng shuffled slowly towards Duty Freeze Zone and final farewells. More units, pained now, before they could possibly say goodbye to her. A little chorus of units trickled among the streams of ha-less humanity filling the lounges.

      Green Mouth was always at the centre of the chorus, triumphal, regal. Almost silent herself, the catalyst against whom the ha-units she generated beat in vain. It was a fine performance, Dr Clement Winter told himself. He should not worry. There was no real cause for worry.

      The noise, the banners, the nervous mirth, provoked Green Mouth continually to smile her grim smile, and to chuckle her grim chuckle, which even the most admiring could not effectively imitate. Laughter was not for her but for the acolytes. Chuckles were power-based, laughter was weakness. She floated slowly towards SHOW PASSPORTS, stately as a cinema butler, be-ringed hand up to shoulder to adjust green cloak.

      Some of those jostling near asked her questions, harmless things intended as no more than tribute. To these questions, Green Mouth tossed remarks of some brevity: ‘We’ll have to see about that.’ ‘That’s one for my agent.’ ‘What do you think?’ ‘We’d all like to know that.’

      Each little coded reply provoked more units of ha. The throng loved, thrilled to, such effortless arrogance. They ate them like dog biscuits. And of course there was grief in every ha, for Green Mouth was about to desert them.

      Green Mouth was deserting them. She was now leaving the United States of America behind, leaving it forsaken to make out on its own as best it could. The mere idea was ha-inducing. So Clement told himself, squeezing out his amusement as the throng elbowed him.

      The fans had a fantasy ready to account for the desertion. Green Mouth had been Called. Tazz of Kerinth had called her on telepathic beam. A New Cause awaited Green Mouth. So she was about to leave Planet Earth for another galaxy, wrapped in her ample green cloak, wearing that neat little tiara – handmade by admirers in Churubusco, Indiana – in among her blonde curls. This was what they told each other, among has, to console themselves for the cruel facts of life.

      No wonder the mundane passengers, outside the charmed ha-ing circle, turned momentarily to stare. Envy must account for those surly looks.

      At the inescapable moment of parting, a group of the laughingest fans, calling themselves the Inner Circle of Kerinth, who had travelled with Green Mouth and Clement all the way from Boston, unfurled their largest banner. It bore the slogan featuring in the publisher’s current publicity campaign: GREEN MOUTH SEZ IT ALL. A bugle ha-haed, sky high.

      Clapping, cheering. Ha-ing, weeping. Other passengers pushed out of the way. Special people only in this throng – men and women, or rather, boys and girls, weighty around stomach and hips, protuberant of buttock and breast, most having achieved, if not maturity, avoirdupois, all be-badged if not actually in fancy costume, all addicts of Green Mouth’s pre-pubertal planet. Cameras and videocams at the alert, all clustered about their heroine for the last shot, a last kiss, an embrace or, failing those, a mere touch.

      How fortunate that she was, in her forty-sixth year, so statuesque that she could withstand their ardour, like a rock in a surging tide, or perhaps Brünnhilde standing in for Andromeda on her rock. She could recall all the names of the faithful – all their first names. She had a word for each personally, even if it was only ‘Bye’. Her little Hispanic editor from Swain Books Inc. was thanked last and with greatest warmth. Against his lips, as he stood on tiptoe, were crushed most enthusiastically those pursed green lips. Clement turned away. When he looked again, she and the СКАЧАТЬ