Life in the West tsq-1

by Brian W Aldiss

  ‘There was a woman Tom had the hots for a while back. He thought Marsh and I didn’t know, but I happened to find out. Sheila Lippard-Milne. Rather a saucy bit of goods, saucier than Teresa by a long chalk.’

  She drained her glass and beckoned the waiter over.

  ‘I know Sheila. I published a book by her husband. He’s a bit of a wet, but quite a sound art-historian. What about sweet? Our Hungarian tart as usual?’

  ‘Two Dobos Torta,’ she told the waiter.’ I think the waiters change every year. This chap’s a Cypriot or something. The chef seems permanent, thank God. They’d make a good pair.’

  ‘The chef and the waiter?’

  ‘Tom and Sheila Lippard-Milne. He needs jollying up.’

  ‘We’d make a good pair. Then your Marshall could marry my Belinda.’ He reached out and took her hand.

  ‘My God, Belinda’d eat Marsh…’

  ‘Missed you while you were in Greece.’

  ‘You never think of me. It was nice to escape the strikes, I suppose. The hotel on Minos is dreadful, not even picturesque. I took along my watercolours, like a good Squire gel, but never used them.’

  ‘The sign of an irredeemable nature,’ he said, beaming at her.

  The sweet trolley arrived. The Dobos Torta looked and tasted as delicious as in previous years.

  3. A View from the Beach

  Pippet Hall, Norfolk, June 1977

  The world underwent one of its amazing simplifications. First and nearest was the great band of beach, decorated in bas-relief with a complex ripple pattern; then a sliver of sky-coloured lagoon left by the retreating tide; then a band of lighter sand, then a drab donkeyish strip of distant fern and grass; then a band of dark green, formed from the long line of Corsican pines which stood guard between land and beach, allowing pale sky among the colonnades of its trunks; then the enormous intense blue summer sky, sailing up to zenith, beyond captureable reach of camera.

  The equipment and human figures were reduced to toy scale by the expanse of beach.

  Thomas Squire was wearing a blue canvas shirt and a pair of brown swimming trunks. He was up to his knees in almost motionless sea, moving steadily towards the shore.

  Beside him was a gorgeously tanned girl in her mid-twenties. Her thick fair hair streamed over her shoulders in the light offshore breeze. She wore a black bikini with artificial white roses stitched round the line of her breasts. She was laughing and vivacious, the very embodiment of seaside girls on posters everywhere, and paid Squire no attention as he acted out his part.

  ‘The sea is always close to our thoughts in Europe, because it has played such a part in history. It may also have played a considerable part in pre-history, if mankind reverted to marine life at a stage in its early career. I think of that theory whenever the annual summer pilgrimage to the nearest strip of beach begins. The human race then shows a tendency to cluster like penguins on the shores of the Antarctic, as if we were all about to revert to the sea again, having found life on land a little too complex.’

  He and the girl were almost ashore. There were no waves, only the purest warm ripples of water which glided up the beach like liquefied sunlight.

  ‘The sea that most possesses the European imagination is the Mediterranean, the sea at the middle of the Earth. It’s the cradle of our culture, the home waters of Greece and Rome. This is not the Mediterranean but the North Sea. I love this stretch of the North Norfolk coast, and the docile summer North Sea, not only because it is much less crowded and despoiled than most of the Mediterranean coast, but because I happen to live within ten miles of this particular beach. As you see, the water in late June is entirely warm enough for our Sex Symbol to sport in.

  ‘If I mentioned the name of the beach, that advertisment would cause it to become crowded within a year.

  ‘Such is the power of advertising. Advertising in various media frequently makes use of the sea and, of course, of sex symbols such as this young lady by my side. If I mentioned her name, she would become a character, not a symbol; such is the power of names.

  ‘Her skin is really white, not brown, but she has applied suntan oil to satisfy tradition. The image of brown girl in blue water has proved strongly evocative ever since sea-bathing became fashionable last century.

  ‘You may believe that such images demean women. Perhaps you think they demean the Mediterranean or, in this case, the North Sea. I don’t. We are all symbols to each other as well as real people. The experience of the imagination gives life savour.

  ‘People have a down on advertising. Of course I can see why, just as I can see why they have a down on smoking. Yet people go on smoking and derive at least temporary pleasure from it. I derive a lot of temporary pleasure from advertising, and am practised at separating the commercial from the aesthetic side of it; it’s a trick I learnt from my children, who are connoisseurs of TV advertising. Adult moral disapproval of advertising spoils our enjoyment, just as the Victorians found that moral approval of a painting enhanced their enjoyment of it.’

  He and the girl were heading up the beach, splashing through a shallow lagoon. In the water lay a large beach ball with the word ‘NIVEA’ on it. Squire kicked the ball out of the way. Taking the towel wrapped like a scarf round his neck, he put it round the damp shoulders of the girl, talking cheerfully at the same time.

  ‘Some enemies of advertising claim that advertisements show a too perfect, too happy world against which reality can never compete. I disagree. George Bernard Shaw said that perfection was only achieved on paper; utopia is only achieved in adverts. We need to be reminded that it exists even if it is attainable only by purchasing Domestos or Horlicks. Enemies are, in any case, blind, and have not noticed how often adverts on television show things going wrong; catastrophe has become a new sales gimmick. Here’s a current advert for Andrex toilet paper or, as they put it more refinedly, toilet tissue.’

  Squire broke off and the cameras stopped. He and the Sex Symbol sat down abruptly on the hard sand. They looked at each other and laughed.

  ‘Just fine that time, Tom,’ Grahame Ash said, coming up from behind the cameras and removing his ear plug.’ You must be exhausted. And you, Laura. Good day’s work, both of you. At that point we cut in the ad with the little dog running into the garden with the toilet roll in its mouth. Great. Thanks very much, everyone.’ The director waved his hands above his head. The crew moved nearer and doled out cigarettes.

  His PA, Jenny Binns, called, ‘Remember, nine o’clock tommorow at Mr Squire’s house, without fail everyone, okay?’

  ‘We’re all going over to Blakeney to a hotel for posh nosh this evening,’ Ash reminded them.

  ‘Count me out of that, Grahame,’ Laura said. She scrambled to her feet and clutched her arms, rubbing them and shivering. ‘Ooh, this isn’t quite Singapore. I’ve gone all goosey.’

  Squire put an arm round her shoulder and kissed her ear.

  The men were talking about the good filming conditions as they gathered their gear together. Hartisham Bay stretched to either side of them, punctuated to the west by a low headland on which the window of a parked car glinted in the sun. To the east, the sand seemed to extend for ever. Some distance out to sea, a cluster of what looked like rocks was visible now the tide was low. It was the remains of Old Hartisham Priory, which had been overtaken by coastal erosion in the Middle Ages.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Ash said. ‘Forward march. Jenny, did you book us a table for this evening?’

  ‘Of course, Grahame,’ said his assistant, sweetly. ‘Haven’t I been booking you tables all round the world?’

  There was still half a mile between them and the path through the dunes. Squire and Laura Nye trudged along together, she gripping the crossed ends of his towel, still wrapped round her neck. The others straggled along behind, exchanging insults and laughing. They fell silent on reaching dry sand above tide level, where the going immediately became harder. The cameras were dragged on sledges. The equipment van, the generators, and the
ir cars were parked on the other side of the dunes, in the shelter of some pines.

  As Laura went with the wardrobe girl to the caravan that served her as dressing-room, Squire stopped and waited for Ash. The four other members of the team streamed past them. Summer sun made their movements dazzle.

  ‘That all seemed to go well. All those hours splashing about in the water, and we never even took a dip. Amazing weather for June.’

  Ash smiled and shook his head. ‘You can keep your dips. I would never swim in the North Sea, never. My health is precious to me.’ He looked mock-solemn. Ash was a small round man, his fringe of long grey untidy hair sprouting round a freckled bald patch giving him a monkish air. By contrast, and possibly to prove he was a dedicated media man, he wore a gaudy flowered shirt that recalled Hawaii and British Home Stores, although Squire had been with him when he bought the garment in Orchard Road, Singapore, to the derision of the camera crew.

  On their many trips to locations at home and abroad, Grahame Ash had shown himself to understand perfectly Squire’s material, and had made contributions they had incorporated in the script. In particular, he had proved himself visually inventive. He was a north countryman, his soft-spoken vowels adding to a general impression of comfortable command.

  ‘It’s supine, Grahame, supine, that sea, a reformed teddy bear sea, promising never to play rough again.’

  ‘I never swim with teddy bears.’ He emptied sand from his canvas shoes. ‘It must be tea-time. I need a drink.’

  ‘What’s next in the script?’

  ‘A word about advertising supporting newspapers, television companies, colour supplements, sport, pointing out its virtues in a capitalist society.’

  Ash climbed into the Peugeot and pulled the script of the episode of ‘Frankenstein Among the Arts’ they were filming from the crammed glove compartment. Squire went to the sheltered side of the vehicle and pulled an old pair of slacks over his swimming trunks.

  ‘Okay. Perhaps we should scrap that as a bit didactic and say instead that advertising — like the Andrex ad — reinforces a rather dangerous Western obsession with cleanliness.’

  ‘My father served three years in the mud and trenches in World War I and was never the same afterwards, at least according to mother. Perhaps in reaction against the mud, his devotion to cleanliness spilled over into pacifism.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Squire. He climbed into the passenger seat beside Ash. ‘How much is the unpreparedness of the West due to fear of war, how much to advertisements with perpetual stress on avoidance of dirt — meaning death as well as excreta.’

  ‘Bit difficult to avoid either if you ask me.’

  ‘Yes, but you can avoid thinking about them.’ It was seven months since his mother died, yet the loss was still with him.’ I mean, do we see the shiny packaging of purchasable objects as guardians against evil, like Chinese temple dogs? Why is packaging so often of more durable material than the object being packaged?’

  Ash backed the car out on to the road. ‘That would fit more appropriately into Episode Twenty, “Shiny Surfaces”, where we’re dealing with Jasper Johns, Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, and the pop artists’ interest in commercial packaging.’

  Laura Nye came over to them. She had changed into a frilled blue shirt and jeans. The blond wig had gone, to reveal her own neat crop of chestnut hair.

  ‘Are you going to go to the pub?’ Squire asked. She was staying at The Lion in Hartisham, like most of the crew, for the four days they were working here.

  ‘No, darling, not tonight. I’ve got to dash to London. See you tomorrow, okay?’

  Her smile echoed the note of interrogation in her voice.

  He squinted against the sun in order to study her expression, shielding his eyes in an instinctive attempt to conceal his alarm.

  ‘You’ve got a hell of a drive from here all the way to London. Can’t it wait? We’ll be back in the Smoke in a couple of days.’

  She glanced unnecessarily at her wrist watch.

  ‘I’ll be in town by seven, no bother. I’m looking forward to the drive. I must go. Sorry.’

  ‘Are you going to see Peter?’

  ‘I must, Tom. Besides, you’re going to see Teresa.’

  She smiled soberly across at Ash. ‘I’ll be back for work on time tomorrow, Gray.’

  The two men watched her retreating behind in silence. Sunlight glinted through the characteristic female crutch gap.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Squire said, with a sigh. ‘Pippet Hall.’

  Ash said nothing. He drove.

  The Norfolk coast road from Hunstanton meanders eastwards towards Sheringham and Cromer. On its way, it calls at a number of small towns which are never quite on the sea, whatever their intentions. Blakeney, for instance, gazes placidly across tidal river and marshes to its distant head, with scarcely a glimpse of the real sea. It once held fairs which were among the excitements of the Middle Ages; Muscovite ships visited it, with cargoes of silver, sable, caviar and bear grease. Three stout ships sailed from Blakeney against the Spanish Armada.

  Only at Wells-next-Sea is there still clear sight of the open waters leading on to Norway, the Arctic, or Ostend. At Wells tourists can walk with their ice creams and fish’n’chips straight across the road, to view little Egyptian freighters or the modern, hammer-and-sickle-flying descendants of the Muscovites who reached Blakeney, all moored peaceably against the quayside.

  Take one of the minor roads which turn southwards off the coast road between Wells and Blakeney. After a few miles’ drive, you will arrive at the pretty village of Hartisham. Hartisham is set half on a small eminence, half in a small valley, through which the small River Guymell runs. The higher village contains a manor house, a vicarage, and a fine church, dedicated to St Swithun, and refaced with knapped flint in the eighteen-eighties. The lower part contains most of the village, its dwellings (mainly cottages, built blind side to the street), a few shops, and Pippet Hall, through the modest grounds of which the River Guymell flows.

  The countryside is undulating hereabouts, rather than flat. It is very fertile, and must once have abounded in the deer for which the village is named. Pippet Hall estate consists of under one hundred acres since the Squire family had to sell land off to meet death duties. The modest farmhouse, now occupied by the manager of the estate, lies in a bend of the Guymell. The manager frequently eats trout for his supper. The Hall itself stands on a slight eminence. It is mentioned and often pictured in all the guide books of the area, and also in Nikolaus Pevsner’s architectural guides. It was named after the meadow pipits which used to nest abundantly hereabouts.

  The house is visible from the front gate, but to reach the front porch the drive curves elegantly and crosses an ornamental stone bridge over a small lake which was created by a Squire ancestor with advice from Thomas Repton. The cedars Repton planted, the blue cedars of Lebanon, still stand in a noble group of four on the north side of the lake. It is tradition that, when the weather is cold enough and the ice will hold, the local population enters the grounds of Pippet Hall and skates or slides on the frozen lake.

  I love this place,’ Ash said, as he braked the Peugeot in the drive outside the porch. ‘I’ll buy it off you.’

  A dog barked somewhere in an offhand manner.

  ‘Let’s see if Teresa’s at home.’

  The house was early Georgian, built of brick cornered with stone. It replaced a smaller building on the same site which had been destroyed by fire. It owed its existence to an earlier Squire, the vigorous Matthew, born in Norfolk in 1689, in the reign of King James II.

  Matthew Squire bought himself a commission in Marlborough’s army and served as liaison officer between Marlborough and Prince Eugene at the battle of Oudenarde in 1708, in which the French were defeated. Matthew’s bravery, his dash, and his command of the German tongue, commended him to Eugene.

  The bravery must have been inborn; the command of German was acquired from young Matthew’s mistress, Caroline, the illegi
timate daughter of a Westphalian captain of dragoons. With Caroline following behind, Matthew joined Eugene’s army to fight at Peterwardein in 1716. There the Turks were defeated for the last time on European soil.

  As victory bells pealed throughout Christendom, Matthew found he had lost a finger and gained a reputation. He was decorated and rewarded by Eugene. He acquired a substantial train of Ottoman booty. Whereupon he retired with his beloved Caroline to his native village, Hartisham. There in the seven-teen-thirties he had the present house built and, it is claimed, was the first man to introduce coffee to North Norfolk. Despite lavish expenditures, he ensured the modest fortunes of the Squire family for the next two-and-a-half centuries.

  Caroline’s sturdy Westphalian loins provided for the continuance of Matthew’s line. She outlived her husband. He died, a slightly dotty old man with a cork finger, in his seventy-first year, and was buried in St Swithun’s churchyard at almost the same time as Horatio Nelson was entering the world, only a few miles away across the Norfolk meadows.

  As the two men climbed from Ash’s Peugeot, a Dalmatian bitch came bounding from the rear of the house and flung herself at Squire.

  At the same time, a female voice was heard calling, in hopeless tones, ‘Nellie, Nellie, good girl!’

  A plump white-haired lady appeared, carrying a trug in one hand. She paused, then came up smiling, saying, ‘Tom, your dog is quite uncontrollable.’

  Squire introduced her to Ash as Mrs Davies, his mother-in-law. She was recently widowed.

  ‘Where’s Teresa?’ he asked her, patting Nellie’s back.

  ‘This sunny spell we’re having is beautiful, and yet you know I get so hot,’ she told Ash, with the confidence of one who has regularly enjoyed the attention of men. ‘I never used to get so hot. I mustn’t do any more, but I couldn’t resist pottering. All the poor plants need water. Tess feels the heat too, and I would not be surprised if she hasn’t retired to her own room for a shower and rest. You must have found filming on the beach intolerably hot today, Mr Ash.’