Forgotten Life. Brian Aldiss

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СКАЧАТЬ where Chiswick subsides ignobly into Acton amid a welter of little furniture dealers, junk shops, discount stores, and auto repair shops. There Joseph Winter had lived in his semi-academic obscurity with a succession of women, while books and documents had piled up around him.

      Clement felt only mild curiosity about the women. The books and documents, willed to him, were his responsibility. He had collected some, almost at random, culling them from wardrobes and mantelpieces. He was also engaged with a series of secondhand booksellers, trying to screw from them a tolerably fair price for Joseph’s old volumes, some of which, dealing with Joseph’s subject, South East Asian history, were of value.

      The question of the books could be resolved. They were the subjects of a mere financial transaction. It was the unpublished work, particularly that dealing with Joseph’s private life, which presented more than a problem, a challenge, which made Clement feel that his own life was being called into account.

      Clement slumped in his chair, forearms resting on his knees, so that his hands dangled in space.

      ‘Joseph,’ he said aloud – quietly, bearing in mind that Sheila was asleep – ‘what am I going to do about you?’

      Since the brothers had never known what to do about each other in life, it appeared unlikely that the question would be resolved now, when one of them had folded up his mortal tent and stolen away.

      2

      Clement Winter left home shortly after nine the next morning, keeping an eye open for his next-door neighbours, the Farrers, whom he detested. It was a Tuesday, quite a sensible, neutral day of the week – the day, in fact, when he usually held his clinic; but this week as last he had cancelled it, using the excuse of his American trip. Which was as well; jet-lag still made him feel slightly dissociated. Both his legs ached, the left in particular. He walked consciously upright, but a little stiffly.

      This walk was his daily exercise. The car remained in the garage. He had changed his more daring American rig for a familiar light grey suit from Aquascutum, as better suited to the environs of Carisbrooke College.

      Sheila was still in bed, presumably divesting herself of her Green Mouth personality at leisure. Though he guessed she would soon be working again. Michelin had taken her breakfast up on a tray: orange juice, a mixture of Alpen and All-Bran, two slices of brown wholemeal toast, and a mug of best Arabian coffee with cream. Clement had looked in on her after his breakfast and had taken her the Independent. They had murmured endearments to each other.

      Now he was playing the role of one more Oxford don, greying, distinguished, as he walked down the Banbury Road to Carisbrooke.

      Boston had been cold and rainy. Oxford was remarkably hot. A June heatwave lay over the British Isles. The newspapers were already circulating tales of old ladies fainting in the streets. In Oxford, Clement reflected, it would be old dons.

      As he entered the College grounds, a slightly falsetto tooting sounded behind him. Turning, he saw a blue car of no significance drawing into the car park. His research assistant, Arthur Stranks, waved at him from the driver’s seat.

      Out of politeness, Clement turned back, and stood waiting while Arthur parked the car and climbed out, to walk sideways towards his boss so as to keep the car within his sight.

      ‘Isn’t she a beauty?’ he said. ‘I bought her last week, er, in Kidlington, zero miles on the clock. Cheri’s mad about her.’

      ‘I’m not much of an expert on cars,’ Clement said, searching the new acquisition for some kind of distinguishing mark. He recalled that previously Arthur had driven a dilapidated Mini with printed jokes in the rear window. ‘What is it?’

      ‘She’s the new Zastava Caribbean,’ Arthur said, standing on tiptoe in his trainers, a habit by which he expressed enthusiasm as well as elasticity. ‘Jugoslav-made, newly imported. The Kidlington garage is the only garage in all Oxfordshire where you can buy it. Sole agents. Er – Cheri and I will be able to drive everywhere in it.’

      ‘Except, presumably, the Caribbean.’

      Arthur laughed good-naturedly. ‘We’ll see about that,’ he said.

      They walked along together.

      ‘I’ve promised not to drive too fast,’ Arthur said. ‘Not with Cheri in her condition.’

      Clement recalled that Mrs Stranks, who had changed her name from Cherry to Cheri – to be more interesting, her husband said – was newly pregnant.

      In Clement’s room, the accustomed piles of papers and books awaited him. He looked about with a show of pleasure. Here at least, he could bring some sense and order into life.

      Arthur Stranks blinked a welcome through his glasses and nodded his head a bit.

      ‘I hope the New York conference was a success? Fun? You get the material you needed?’ His manner was solicitous.

      ‘Some of it, some of it. I had a long conversation with Prof Stauffer and I’ve brought back photocopies of a bundle of his material.’

      Arthur looked interested and did some more nodding. He had tidied the room while Clement was away, and the old box files now stood in military array under the wide window. The photograph of Willy Wilkes-Smith, the late Master of Carisbrooke, Clement’s friend, still hung awry behind the door. Clement went over and straightened it.

      Two stacks of wire baskets, six baskets tall, stood on the broad central table. They contained documents, together with photographs and cuttings culled from European and transatlantic sources. One day, with the aid of Arthur, a secretary who came twice a week, and a computer, all this paper, with which the room was slowly filling, would be processed into more paper: into, to be precise, Clement’s next work, a study entitled, Adaptability: Private Lives in Public Wars. The title was a compromise between the academic respectability he had already achieved and the popular acclaim he felt he deserved; of course the publishers would probably change it anyhow.

      ‘Er, the breakdowns of the VD figures have arrived from the National Archives in Washington. Came on Thursday.’

      ‘Good.’ He began to open letters. ‘How’s Cheri? Any morning sickness?’

      ‘Cheri’s fine. Great.’

      They looked at each other across the room, expressionlessly. Clement, in a fit of good will, put down the letter he was holding and commenced to tell Arthur something about the Modern History conference he had attended before flying to Boston to meet Green Mouth.

      Clement, who was rather a distant man, discovered in Arthur a desire to get a little too close in their relationship. Also, there was the generation gap, much though he might try to discount it – indeed, he disliked the very phrase. At forty-nine, Clement was conscious of his age. His once curly hair now harboured ash to dilute its previous chestnut and, even more regrettably, was thinning in a silly fashion, behind and in front. His ruddy cheeks had become patchily sallow, in a way that made him uncomfortable before his mirror. Although no hypochondriac, he imagined himself due for a heart attack at times, and had cut down accordingly on the College port. Caring little about politics, he still clung to his liberal socialist principles, born in the early days of Harold Wilson, the first Prime Minister he had voted for, and believed those principles helped keep his faculties from ossifying.

      Arthur Stranks was twenty-two and sallow to start with, a stubby young bespectacled man СКАЧАТЬ