One day, a letter came from Ireland. It was from one of Rosie’s old aunts. She wrote to say that Rosie had died of consumption. John, distraught with grief, had tied the tie he wore to her funeral round the handlebars of his bike and cycled at full tilt into the Liffey, where he drowned. He had left nothing of value. There was only an unfinished story, “Transfiguration,” which he begged his son Bryan to finish, since it represented freedom to him. Rosie’s mum enclosed John’s note, together with the tattered manuscript.
Shortly after that, Bryan was badly beaten up in the street one night. Breeze blocks were dropped on his knees, his arms were broken with an iron bar. “That’s for Bugle,” someone said, vanishing into the night.
Bryan finished neither Latourette’s novel nor his father’s story. He tinkered occasionally with the story, removing the Chinese flavour, since he wished to conceal his own ancestry. He inserted instead some of Latourette’s far-fetched scientific theories.
He and Fifi were married. He remained a cripple for life. Fifi took him to live in Berlin, where her uncle Desmond Miller (or Muller, for accounts differ) played violin in the orchestra under Furtwangler. The married couple quarrelled violently. Bryan was always in pain. Nevertheless, Fifi bore him three children, two girls and a boy. Bryan ran a small radio shop in a street off the Kurfursterdam.
When the Nazis came to power, he was in trouble. His oriental looks, hardly discernible to most people, marked him out as non-Aryan. Fifi was warned she should divorce him for her own safety. She showed spirit, defied the Eugenics Office, and stuck by him. Uncle Desmond persuaded Furtwangler to speak for his crippled nephew-by-marriage.
Meanwhile, one of the daughters, Claire, showed literary talent. She obtained work in the office of a fabrics factory, soon becoming manager of a small branch in the suburbs. Here she typed out “Transfiguration,” converting it from ragged holograph to orderly typescript.
Claire had a hatred of military activity. When her factory was forced to divert to making Wehrmacht uniforms, she rewrote the “Transfiguration” story, making it an engaging tale of two tribes of bunnies, one lot white, one lot brown, who first quarrelled and then made peace. They were going to live happily ever after, when Hitler’s armies poured into Poland. War broke out. Once more the story was never finished.
One night, her crippled father disappeared. They never had word of him again. They did not doubt that the Gestapo had arrested him. With the connivance of Uncle Desmond, Fifi managed to get a train to Paris, taking the children with her.
Fifi still retained a certain charm. An American journalist working in France, by name Raymond Gram Swing, took a less than fatherly interest in her. They became lovers, living in Montmartre. Fifi’s son died of cholera. Meanwhile, the Nazi armies were sweeping westwards, towards Paris. America was still neutral. Swing pulled strings at the American Embassy and provided Fifi with a forged British passport. He flew out with her and her two girls forty-eight hours before France fell and the Wehrmacht marched into Paris.
Fifi was distraught. Her English was poor. London was looking particularly bleak as it prepared for war. She realised that Swing was not for her; he seemed already to have lost interest, being caught up in the British cause. She thought of rejoining Latourette, but Belgium, like France, was now enemy territory.
A colonel in the REME invited Fifi to spend a leave with him in York. They stopped for a night in Peterborough on the way north. It was here that Fifi’s daughter Claire was kidnapped by a Norfolk farmer.
With Claire, struggling and kicking as she was shoved into the back of a Volvo estate wagon, went her overnight bag, containing the various abortive drafts of her grandfather’s story.
Wilf Deacon, the farmer, never received the ransom he demanded for Claire. Indeed, under wartime conditions, the demand never reached Fifi, who by now was living in a Scottish castle on the shores of Loch Awe, waited on hand and foot by Penelope, the REME colonel’s adoring mother. The colonel did not survive Dunkirk. His mother and Fifi lived quietly together beside a lucrative trout stream. Fifi had found happiness at last. Penelope died at the time of the Korean War.
After beating and maltreating Claire, Wilf Deacon accepted her as one of his daughters (who were also beaten and maltreated)— rather an unusual acceptance, since she soon bore him a child. Their relationship had been consummated in the warmth and comfort of the pigsty. The child, a daughter, was named Kate after Wilf’s favourite dog, a Rottweiler bitch. When old enough, Kate attended the local school under the name of Kate Aldiss.
Wilf had spent fourteen months on Venus, as he claimed, and was something of a local celebrity. His article in the local paper, The Wells Chronicle, told how Venus was sunny but very cold. Farming conditions were difficult, owing to the fact that there was no soil. But Wilf had taught the locals how to grow potatoes in rock. As a result, he had been crowned King of Venus (or Rock, as the locals called it).
When kidnapping Claire, he had intended to take her back to Venus with him. As he explained, the Venusian women had breasts but very little else.
Stimulated by Wilf’s stories and her mother’s history, Kate began writing in earnest when still a child. She was determined to complete “Transfiguration” as a novel. Her upbringing had made her tough-minded. Such was her tragic vision, she concluded that humankind could exist only in a state of war. She strove to tell a tale full of death and shit, with a slight love interest running through it. Filled with the beauty of her imagination, she attempted to write it as a verse epic.
Her desire was to encompass a whole imaginary world, filled with science, religion, glory, dedication and—in the words of an earlier version of her inherited story—death, shit, love, and transfiguration.
The war ended with the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Kate’s epic was well launched when catastrophe struck. A squadron of the Luftwaffe based on the remote Lofoten Island of Minhin had never accepted defeat or the death of Adolf Hitler. The brave fliers there believed that a sudden strike against Gross Britannien could reverse the course of events. Hermann Goering had been mistaken in his attack on British cities; what was needed was a strike against British agriculture, and the wretched little island’s economy would collapse. (Such quasi-scientific theories were common in those days.)
The last brave flight of the Third Reich took place at dawn one morning on the anniversary of Hitler’s birthday, 1955.
A Dornier, flying over Wells in North Norfolk, unloaded its clutch of bombs, inscribed variously HEIL HITLER, FOR YOU, TOMMY! and THE WAR IS OVER! The clutch fell on Wilf Deacon’s farm, killing three goats, a ancient Rottweiler called Kate, Wilf himself, Claire herself, the very pigsty in which their love had been consummated, and an incubator full of newly hatched chicks. Kate had to abandon her manuscript and find a way of supporting herself.
~ * ~
Here I must inject a personal note. Kate Aldiss was my great-aunt. She married a man called Alastair Holman, spent thirty-three years working as secretary for a solicitor (Sims & Malpractice) in Fakenham, and never took up her pen again. She took up gardening instead.
It was her son, Charles Holman Aldiss, who was next to attempt to complete “Transfiguration.” Charles, becoming a regular soldier, had plenty of leisure time. He sent an outline of his story to the publishing firm of Faber & Faber, and was commissioned to write a novel with that title.
Charles was not a natural writer. He attended a Creative Writing course in Norwich, as a result of which his idea was to concoct a huge bestseller. He knew that SF was popular, having been so informed by a neighbour, a Mr Leonard Fanthrope. His intention was to transpose the story into the future, setting it in the Twenty-First Century, which he visualised as rather rainy.
He took a hint from earlier versions of the story. Social life had deteriorated steeply, owing to rock ‘n’ roll; the presidency of the United States of America had become a hereditary office. Based on this premise, he began to plot a trilogy. Faber did not complain, and neither did Fa
ber.
Unfortunately for Charles and literature, the Falklands War broke out at this juncture, and Charles was sent to those remote islands in the South Atlantic. There he was killed by an Argentinian-launched French Exocet missile in the very hour of his arrival.
Knowing that I occasionally dabbled in the literary arts, Charles’s executors sent me the worked-over drafts of “Transfiguration,” with a request that I should complete this fascinating story if possible, “for the continued honour of your family,” as they expressed it.
The manuscript was forwarded to me at the Holiday Inn in Kuwait, where I was holidaying with my wife. (Her cousin Sandy worked in the British Embassy there.) This was 1990. We had to leave in rather a hurry on the last plane out before Saddam Hussein’s forces occupied the city. In my haste, I left the precious manuscript bundle behind. No doubt it now resides in a Baghdad museum.
I concealed my grief at this carelessness as best I could, saying no word to my wife. Only this year did she think to mention to me that she had in her possession a photocopy of “Transfiguration” in all its forms. She had prevailed upon her cousin Sandy to copy the MS at the Embassy, so that she could study it herself. (She made little sense of it, incidentally.)
Great was my joy and relief!
Now I am planning to reshape the story myself.
I shall not allow the bomb outrages in London to distract me.
By way of life insurance, I publish above the story as written and rewritten by four generations. With a few odd touches of my own, here and there.
<
~ * ~
THE PACT
BY ANDREW STEPHENSON
Giving his helicopter its final instructions, Sir Henry Gypter stepped clear and watched it lift into the sky.
The fierce downdraught probed and tugged at his clothing. A sense of nakedness hit him, a recognition of being on enemy soil, encircled by a wilderness that reached, not-so-symbolically, into seeming infinities of inimical nothingness.
His hand case felt tiny, too light, empty. Were all special needs covered for the next two days? Everything had to be in the case, or in his pockets. No hope of local supplies.
Then so be it, he decided, and turned to confront the rococo absurdity of his hostess’ home.
Ahead sprawled flawless lawns, an emerald bib for the broad sandstone frontage. Ranks of windows ignored him. From out of the mansion’s maw a tongue of rosy marble steps dipped into white gravel, as though lapping milk. Shadowy within an entrance arch, ebony doors stood shut against the world.
Behind those modest portals lived This Week’s Sucker.
The deal clicked back into perspective and felt good again.
He began a leisurely stroll across the grass. To encourage in himself a formal frame of mind, he hummed one of the jollier passages from Liszt’s Dead March, reasoning that very likely his doubts had been appropriate. Even robbing a baby of its candy could be hazardous: the brute was liable to slobber on you.
Before he had quite attained the steps, some subspecies of uniformed servant bolted from cover and tried to deprive him of the case. The fellow seemed put out on being invited to desist.
Another footman, his expression the merest hint removed from a sneer, deigned to open the doors. He was kept waiting, while Gypter awarded the antique brass hinges an unhurried appraisal.
“No automatics?” Gypter enquired, eventually.
This one maintained a professional cool. “None, sir,” he intoned. “The mistress deems them to be inconsistent with the traditional character of the House.”
“Hah,” said Gypter and swept through into the cavern of the entrance hall. Soon fix that if I buy in, he decided. Could use such shortcomings as a lever to drop the price—
He gaped in stark disbelief.
Maxwell’s ghost! What a heap!
Hectares of shiny wood loomed on all sides. Warehousefulls of chairs and sofas, bulging with PVC and leather, crowded close, tempting travellers to entrust any weariness to their comforting embrace. Antique knick-knacks, fashioned from scarce materials, perched in parasitical flocks upon herds of lesser furnishings. Antimacassars and beaded covers abounded. Left and right, two stunningly gruesome gilt-framed paintings, of a Dionysian revel and three winsome Victorian brats hugging fluffy kittens, spanned the walls and challenged the sensibilities. Directly ahead, a veritable Jacob’s Ladder of a stairway, corseted in pink-motif Bokhara and ribbed by varnished brass rods, zigzagged high into dark mahogany heavens, whence constellations of crystalline lamps shed a sparkling golden glow.
At the foot of the stairs his hostess waited. Tight mouth smiling. Eyes wary.
A glance matched mistress and mansion, in age and style.
“Sir Henry,” she rustled, extending a hand. “Most welcome.”
Setting his case on lustrous parquet, Gypter took her hand. Its skin was dry-smooth, reminding him of snakes. Her antiquated tie-dyed clothing reminded him of an accident in a paint factory.
Watch your back, he told himself. Patricia Amelia Lourat did not get rich through sheer niceness, no more than you did.
“Yah, thanks,” he said. “Good notion, Pat, asking me over to size up the place. And it’s Henry to friends.”
The acquisitive flunky was making moves on the case again, so Gypter paused to shoo him off and resume a firm grip. He made a performance of unbuttoning his overcoat.
“I expect you are tired,” said the old lady. “Swanson will guide you to your apartment. When you feel ready to join us, my other guests and I will be in the southwest drawing room.”
The servant glided partway up the stairs and paused. Before Gypter could follow, Lourat whispered, “Dear Swanson would be much happier if you permitted him to carry your baggage. Otherwise he feels slighted.”
Gypter eyed the flunky, then beamed at Lourat.
“That right? Okay, if he’s a really good boy, maybe soon.”
Lourat blinked. “Henry,” she said, “please consider that our bargain is not yet confirmed.”
Beckoning to Swanson, Gypter proffered the case. “Must be your lucky day.” He favoured Lourat with his sincerest predatory grin. “Tell the gang I’ll be right on down.”
~ * ~
There was too much talking and bonhomie. Fully five minutes were wasted before he could entice Lourat aside.
Her other guests had proved to be stockholding nebbishes or senior employees, mingled with a sprinkling of ecofreaks on their best behaviour. Ostensibly it was a relaxed social event, to let prospective partners get acquainted.
But Gypter knew who was under scrutiny. Ineptly concealed reactions and intemperate remarks suggested he was hardly flavour of the month with some present, particularly not the ‘freaks.
Sir Henry Gypter, it appeared, had a Reputation.
“Listen up, Pat,” he began, once they were safely cloistered in her study, “a lot of bull’s been spread around about me.”
“Surely you mean ‘synthetic fertiliser’?” she murmured from the depths of an easy chair.
He managed a chuckle. “Hey, not all of my businesses depend on clever chemistry and ingenious engineering.”
“Indeed not. Sagacious shysters are said to do their bit.”
“The world seethes with small minds and jealous hearts.”
“Is that it?”
He assumed his placatory simper. “Oh, I make mistakes. Now and then. But I try to square things with any who get bruised.”
“Yes.” There was a long pause. “So I heard. A man who can accommodate conflicting viewpoints and unexpected realities... Which is why I thought you might be worthy of an approach.”
At last, the nub of it.
He waited. And had the good grace not to smirk visibly.
~ * ~
It was long tale: of a business founded on early successes and happy chances; of ethical practice winning approval from a public sick of cynical corporate greed; of canny altruism inspiring the Lourat Association to make several now-famous
wise investments.
It was also a tale with a down side: of public complacency allowing bad old habits of industry to creep back; of shifting fashions; of crucial mistakes dragging the Association towards the verge of ruin.
All in all, it was a pathetic and whingey sort of tale.
Gypter had sat through many such, however, and had learned how to look interested, even sympathetic, while his brain figured what might be in the ever-so-sad situation for him.
“By now,” concluded Lourat, “the wealth of the Association is, in effect, reduced to a single asset.”
Gypter raised an eyebrow in feigned incomprehension.
She looked disappointed.
“Okay,” he admitted. “This estate.”
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