The Twinkling of an Eye. Brian Aldiss

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СКАЧАТЬ of tit, bum and cunt magazines. No family magazine. Don’t laugh at the thirties, okay? Among major gains, something has been lost.

      Little conformist that I am, I do not mind the itinerant pastors, since my parents seem to like them. I come greatly to like Edna V. Rowlingson. I recognise in this bright, sparrow-like lady a real goodness; of course, at the time I do not phrase it in these terms. I know only that it is pleasurable to be with her. Although I am only one of her flock, she likes me. She cares about people. For this reason, she makes a splendid preacher. Perhaps if you really know her, you will find she is truly concerned to think we shall all go to hell. I am sorry when Bill jokes about her behind her back.

      William Cowper is part of the mythology. The ugly little church that bears his name is built on the site of the old house in which he died. There is much in that very English poet to love – not only his poems but his letters, which display a gentle personality.

      Cowper believed in eternal damnation, as I did. This is one way in which the national mentality has changed over the course of a generation. We can no longer believe that after death, if we have sinned, we shall enter hell. Hell has been acted out here on Earth in the time of Nazi Germany, when even the innocent went in their millions to a hell that beggars the imagination. A profound change in attitude has come about as a result.

      The film continues, an 8mm epic. Year by year, I begin to discover more of East Dereham. At the far end of the market place is the Cabin. It stands behind the newly built war memorial. You climb a stair to it, hence its name. Inside, Dot and her son eat iced cakes. A few doors away, conveniently, is Mr Toomey, the dentist, who profits from the sale of the iced cakes. I am rewarded with lead soldiers whenever I visit Mr Toomey and do not make a fuss. I never fuss.

      The reason why we all keep Mr Toomey in business is because of a habit of Bill and Dot’s. By their bedside stands a tin of Callard & Bowser’s Olde Mint Humbugs. At bedtime, they pop these corrosives into their mouths and their son’s mouth. By the time the son is twelve, both parents have to wear false teeth.

      Just beyond Mr Toomey’s torture chamber is the entrance to the cattle market, past the Cherry Tree pub. On Fridays, this market fills with life. To me and my cousins, it seems to sprawl for miles. Some animals arrive by lorry, others by horse-drawn carts. Many are treated with cruelty, made to hurry, to be herded into metal pens. They slip, try to escape, are heartily beaten. Cows, bulls, sheep, ewes, a few goats, some with kid. All are kicked and cursed into appropriate pens. Blood, excrement, straw, fly everywhere.

      Into small cages are crammed many kinds of living thing. Ducks, geese, hens, cockerels, several types of rabbit, stoats, ferrets, their cages marked with a warning not to touch. The ferrets fling themselves in a fury at their bars.

      Perhaps rural life is always like that. Respect for animal life is not high.

      My grandfather, The Guv’ner, is a JP in the time I know him. I like to go and play in the grounds of Whitehall, where my grandmother lies upstairs in bed. Whitehall looks vaguely Italianate. Wide eaves and a tower, sitting in the middle of the building, account for that. Its windows are large, their sills on the lower floor coming to within a foot of the ground. An ornate verandah runs along the front of the house. The place has a peaceful and generous air as it sits foursquare at the end of its long drive.

      The gardens run a good way back, past the asparagus beds, the vegetable beds, the two sunken greenhouses, each of which is patrolled by age-old toads, the fruit trees, to a wide lawn fringed by sheltering trees and shrubs. Spinks is H. H.’s loyal gardener, and Spinks’s loyal companion is H. H.’s dog, Spot. Spot is a wire-haired terrier. Three enormous black cats live at Whitehall. H. H. spoils them and talks to them, lowering his habitual guard.

      H. H. bought Whitehall before the First World War in his cool offhand manner.

      He is travelling back by train from London on one of his buying trips when he falls into conversation with another passenger. This passenger says he is leaving Dereham to live elsewhere and intends to sell his house. The Guv’ner says he happens to be looking for a suitable house.

      The passenger says his house is fairly large, with good gardens and a field, the recreation ground, attached.

      The Guv’ner knows the house.

      By the time the two men reach Dereham station they have shaken on it.

      Grandma Aldiss, the farmer’s daughter, once Lizzie Harper, is bedridden for as long as I am about. Dot knew her when she was well, and cherishes some of her recipes. One favourite recipe is for Pork Mould, a dish made with pigs’ trotters. When cold, it is turned out of a mould rather resembling a child’s sand castle. We eat it with Colman’s mustard, and plain brown bread on the side.

      I do not recall Bill ever going to Whitehall to see his mother. Dot often goes, and takes me with her. Dot will carry fruit or cornflour buns in her basket. She will be in her cheery mode.

      We proceed upstairs to a room at the rear of Whitehall. Here long windows on two walls look down the length of the garden and across to The Rec, as the adjoining field is known. Lizzie lies patiently in bed, year after year. Self-effacing in the background, a nurse attends her, wearing a starched cap, uniform, and black cotton stockings.

      Provided I do not make a noise, I am allowed a grape or two from the fruit dish by the side of the invalid’s bed.

      Why do I remember the room so well, with its long curtains with wooden rings on mahogany rods, and a wash stand with basin and jug on it, and the swan-neck brass light fitting over the bedside table, and the grey patterned carpet, and the general grey stuffiness of the room – and yet cannot call to mind a single feature of Lizzie, or anything she said? Or anything Bill ever said about her?

      What has gone wrong? Two of her four children died. Is there some great disappointment in her life? She leaves no record. As far as I know, she makes no complaint. She dies in 1930 or 1931. I fail to remember the event.

      Every Christmas, we go up to Whitehall for Christmas dinner. It is a serious commitment. Beforehand, Bill and Dot become anxious. Also present will be the rival brother’s family. Gordon with his sharp-nosed Dorothy and their three children will outnumber us. I, by contrast, skip about, because I shall receive a present from The Guv’ner, and it might be a Hornby train. He always knows what young boys like.

      Despite a roaring fire, the dining room at Whitehall is cold. There is no central heating. Dot always complains beforehand, applying Snowfire and cachous to their appropriate stations. I know without being told that she fears Dorothy’s sharp nose, which bores holes in Dot’s fragile self-confidence. I know without being told of the rivalry between Bill and Gordon. H. H. ignores these tensions.

      In the room above the dining room lies Lizzie. She is not brought down, perhaps cannot be brought down, to join the fray.

      We are seated, nine of us, round the table. The maid brings in the turkey. And I disgrace the family.

      This humiliating memory must date from Christmas 1927, when I am twenty-eight months old. If it dates from the next year, then it proves I am a backward child. For a christening present, the Roddicks, family friends, give me a silver pusher. I adore the pusher. It is a miniature hand-held bulldozer. The pusher has a loop for a finger to go through and a tiny shovel blade. With this, food is pushed towards a spoon held in the other hand. It is a device to simplify eating for the infantile or retarded. This I employ on The Guv’ner’s turkey, which in consequence has to be cut up for me.

      One of Dot’s great triumphs is to have delivered me into the world ten days before my cousin Tony is born. This, it is felt, is definitely one up СКАЧАТЬ