The Twinkling of an Eye. Brian Aldiss

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СКАЧАТЬ stretching, as the two dogs rush past me, each fastening on to a strand of flesh, running off growling in parallel.

      For many months this terrifying image, and the guilt attendant on it, dominated not only my waking hours.

      For ever after there was to be,

      … that sorrow at the heart of things

      which glides like water underneath thin ice,

      Bearing away what is most innocent

      To darkness and the realm of things unseen,

      Lending our joys a meaning never meant.

      Dogs were everywhere.

      Bill and Dot, in their carefree days before children overtake them, keep Airedales. They breed them and at one time have fourteen. At shows around Norfolk and Norwich they win prizes. These are their happy times, before my arrival, even before the steel-engraving angel. Just beyond my sandpit stands a shed, later to be a tool shed, in which Dot boils up sheep’s heads and oats with which to feed the dogs.

      Occasionally, after closing, Bill and Gordon would organise a rat hunt in the outbuildings, and send the dogs in. What a fury of barking! Into blackest corners rush the terriers, emerging with grey bodies clamped between their jaws.

      The dogs are sold off one by one. Only an old lady, Bess, is kept as a faithful pet. When I am an infant of no more than a year, Bill and Dot are busy. I learn to walk – this is family legend, not a real memory – by clinging to Bess’s tight curls. Patiently the old dog goes forward, step by step. Step by step, I stagger with her.

      When Bess dies, Dot buys a smooth-haired terrier we call Gyp. Faithful Gyp! He can be induced to pull a big wooden engine down the length of our corridor.

      H. H.’s premises are a child’s ideal adventure playground. Full of horror as well as pleasurable excitement. I can be wild for a whole hour before tea time. My favourite film actor is Tom Mix. Tom Mix, the great cowboy star, and his horse Tony perform an amazing stunt. I talk about it for months.

      Mix is being pursued by a whole gang of bad men in black hats. They are drawing closer, but he might escape by galloping across the railroad. Unfortunately, at that moment, along comes a freight train with many trucks, winding slowly across the prairie. It looks as if it’s all up with Tom Mix.

      But happily – in the nick of time! – there’s one, just one, flat truck in the middle of the train. Without a pause, Mix spurs on Tony, crouches low over the gallant animal’s neck and – wowee! – they jump right over the moving flat car and are away to safety.

      Much as I admire Tom Mix and other cowboys, I want not to be a cowboy but an Indian. For one birthday – but perhaps this lies on the far side of the Five Year Abyss – I am given a Red Indian suit, plus head-dress with coloured feathers (far too bright for realism, I think), a tomahawk, and a bow and arrows.

      What I do with the arrows gets me into hot water. But an Indian brave can always climb and trees are meant to be climbed. There are two favourites in the garden and another just outside, crowning a rockery.

      The trees inside are a laburnum and an elder. The laburnum slopes in such a way that I can swarm up it and on to the top of a brick wall to hide among the foliage of the second tree, the elder. He lies there, elegant and at ease, yet a threat to all baddies, until danger passes.

      The tree just beyond the garden is much bigger, a full-grown elm. I find a way of climbing it. All things considered, it is wonderful. I have no fear of heights. Up I go. Elms become easier to climb the further one goes. I am able to gain almost the topmost, outermost twig, far above the ground.

      This is a sort of paradise, to be above the world and its troubles, to be among the birds and rushing air. It’s easy to be up a tree. You hang on and make yourself comfortable. Everything below is transformed, amusing.

      One thing cannot be escaped, even in the crown of an elm: one’s characteristics. I call cheerfully to one of the staff passing below, proud of my newly acquired skill. The staff takes fright and runs to tell my mother. She rushes from the flat, to stand under the tree in her apron and beg me to come down before I break my neck.

      ‘You don’t love me.’

      ‘Of course I do. Come down at once.’

      ‘Tell me you love me, then I’ll come down.’

      ‘I love you, you idiot, I love you. Come down or I shall fetch The Guv’ner.’

      I climb down. I have discovered a secret weapon.

      We still have a way to go to complete the tour of H. H.’s premises. Now we are far from the street, where a bonfire of discarded boxes burns almost continuously. It is confined within a low stone wall. My cousins and I dare each other to jump in. We wonder if this is the Mouth of Hell we hear so much about in church.

      Next to the bonfire, the old coach houses, black-painted, now repositories for hay and straw, and the rat Utopia into which Bill and Gordon’s terriers are occasionally thrust. We are in the area of the stables, at the far end of the property. Here are cobblestones underfoot, to allow horse urine to drain peacefully away. Just opposite the coach houses stands the tack room, while further ahead are the stables where the horses are confined.

      This region is presided over by one of the shop’s great characters. His name is Nelson Monument. Monuments still live in East Dereham. Nelson is the stable man from the late twenties onward. On ceremonial occasions, he wears a top hat and tails. Most of the time he is in cords, leggings and a big rough coat. His hasty temper is legendary. He has earned himself the nickname of Rearo. For this reason he, and particularly his shiny top hat, have become targets for the wit of Betts & Co. Rearo cannot enter the outfitter’s premises without catching one of those notorious knotted dusters on the nut. His furious response, as he looks about for the culprit, is always greatly enjoyed.

      ‘Oh dear, did something hit you, Mr Monument?’ Betts enquires.

      Rearo retreats in dudgeon to his little tack room, sweet with the stench of horses. There a little fire burns, except in high summer, to dry out the harness.

      The tack room stands next to the tool shed where Dot once cooked sheep’s heads. You can climb on to the roof of the shed and from there leap on to the tack-room roof. If by chance you have with you a sack soaked in water, you can lay it over the top of the chimney.

      In a minute, reliably, Rearo will be smoked out of his den, and rush furiously into the yard to see what blighter done it.

      There is no one in sight.

      Outside the tack room stands a large metal water bin, wheeled. Occasionally it contains not water but bran. In the bran lies a chunk of rotten meat. The whole bin crawls with maggots, swarming from the meat. The stink is bad, the sight curiously fascinating. We do not, in those early years, entirely grasp the connection with human mortality. These maggots, full of blind life, are destined to be impaled on hooks and drowned in one of the Norfolk Broads during Bill’s and Gordon’s fishing expeditions.

      Mortality is one of the mainstays of the stable area. The great black horses in their wooden stalls, where they stomp and kick restlessly, and look down with disdain on visiting boys, are funeral horses. All they see of the outside world is the road to East Dereham cemetery and back. Their destiny is to pull a glass-sided hearse.

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