Life in the West tsq-1

by Brian W Aldiss

  Teresa was painting, copying a large butterfly. She used acrylics on a large pad, and worked deftly, occasionally looking up and smiling at Ann and Jane, who lolled by the fire with Nellie, the Dalmatian. Ann was just thirteen, her sister eleven; the sandy gene had run out with their elder brother; they had inherited their mother’s mouse, and their father’s enquiring nature.

  ‘You girls ought to be going to bed,’ Teresa said, as the grandfather clock in the hall struck ten.

  ‘We’re watching you,’ Ann said. ‘We’re fascinated, aren’t we, Nellie?’

  ‘You’re not.’

  ‘What sort of a butterfly is it, anyway?’

  Teresa appealed to Squire. He had bought the spectacular insect in its frame in a Singapore shop as a homecoming present for her.

  ‘It’s called a Bhutan Glory.’

  ‘You’re ruining the ecology of Singapore by buying that poor butterfly, Dad,’ Jane said. ‘There soon won’t be any left. How’d you like it if they came over here and bought all our butterflies?’

  ‘We’d have to exercise some controls.’

  Teresa said in his defence, ‘Daddy helps to preserve the ecology of the Norfolk Broads, because they are our local responsibility, but you can’t expect him to butt in on Singapore’s affairs.’

  ‘It’s a pity we didn’t manage to stop the council pulling down the old almshouses,’ Matilda said. She was the vicar’s daughter, a tall pale woman in her early thirties and, with her plain looks and self-effacing manner, an embodiment of the traditional vicar’s daughter, until one became aware of her lucid way of thought.

  ‘They were tumbledown,’ Teresa said, ‘but the semi-detacheds that Ray Bond is building in their place are quite out of keeping with the rest of the village.’

  ‘I know, why don’t they build houses with green bricks instead of red ones?’ Jane said. ‘Then they’d merge with the landscape.’

  ‘Who’s ever heard of green bricks, Stupid?’ said her sister.

  ‘Well, they could invent them… Only I daresay they’d fade after a year and turn the colour of dog shit.’

  ‘I heard that Ray Bond was having an affair with two women at once,’ Ann said. ‘Both of them married. Isn’t that beastly, Dad?’

  ‘Beastly complicated.’

  ‘It’s disgusting. You girls shouldn’t listen to village gossip,’ Teresa told them.

  Ann rolled on to her back, and pulled Nellie on top of her. With evening, a chilly wind was blowing in from the coast, and the big old electric fire was burning. She rested a slippered foot on top of it and announced, ‘I think I shall have affairs when I grow up. I’d like to have people gossiping about me.’

  ‘What, affairs with people like Ray Bond? You are nauseating,’ Jane said. ‘That’s just about your style.’

  ‘Oh, you can stick to your boring old ecology. You think caterpillars are more important than love, but I don’t. Grownups think love is important, don’t you, Mummy?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Teresa, and nothing more; so that Matilda, who sat quietly on a large Moroccan pouffe just beyond the compass of the light falling on Teresa’s paper, added, ‘Love can be a way of perception, like science or art, Ann, provided you don’t use it for power over people.’

  ‘To think I once used to be in love with that odious Robert Mais! I was only six then. I’ve got better taste now…’ Ann thought a while and then asked Squire, ‘Were you in love when you were very young, Dad?’

  ‘I don’t remember being in love at six. But I was at nine.’

  Ann sat up. ‘Go on, don’t just stop there! True confessions… Who was she? Do we know her? I suppose she must be pretty ancient now.’

  He laughed. ‘That’s true. Her name was Rachel. She lived here during the war. I loved her dearly.’

  ‘She lived here!’ Ann laughed. ‘I smell a rat! Did you have an affair with her, Dad? I mean, you know, a real flaming affair?’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Ann!’ Jane exclaimed. ‘You’re embarrassing poor Daddy, can’t you see? Nellie, eat her, go on, eat her! This conversation is getting too carnal entirely.’

  They rolled together, shrieking. Teresa called to them ineffectually to stop.

  ‘Was it carnal, Dad? Tell us, we won’t tell anyone!’

  He broke into laughter. ‘I just loved her, that’s all.’

  Matilda, smiling, said, ‘Even carnal love can be a sign of someone’s yearning for Unity, though one can only really achieve unity with God.’

  ‘You’re bound to say that because you’re the Reverend Rowlinson’s daughter,’ said Ann, derisively. ‘I bet you’ve never had carnal knowledge — not even with Ray Bond, have you?’

  ‘That’s very rude, Ann. Apologize and go up to bed at once.’ Squire joined his wife with a shout of ‘Apologize!’

  ‘We’re only talking, Mummy,’ Jane said, soothingly.

  But Ann had already shifted back to her original target.

  Jumping up, laughing, she demanded again, ‘Were you carnal, Pop — even when you were only nine?’

  The noise of a woodcock roused Squire. For a moment he had a vision of happier things, imagining that his father was alive and moving about in the room; then his waking senses returned. His bladder was full. His body felt cold. Sighing, he sat up.

  Light of another day filtered through the long windows. His carriage clock pronounced the time to be five-twenty. He was lying cramped on the chesterfield in his study, with a quarter-full glass of whisky standing on the carpet beside him. His head ached. His mouth was dry.

  The pallid light seemed to cast a veil between Squire and a painting on the wall on which his sickened gaze rested. The painting dated from 1821, and had been executed by a nineteenth-century artist whom Squire had collected consistently over the past quarter century, Edward Calvert. Entitled ‘The Primaeval City’, it showed a scene which charmingly mingled the rural with the urban. A bullock cart trundled among trees into a city of thatch and domes and ruin, where figures could be seen in cameo, a bucolic pressing wine, a nun entering the church, a woman hanging out washing, a man pulling a donkey. In the background, garlanded with leaves, a gibbous moon rose like a planet above the crumbling rooftops, and a shepherd tended his sheep. In the foreground, dominating everything, stood a nude maiden in a leafy bower of pomegranate trees, having climbed from a brook. She looked over one shoulder without coquetry at the viewer, a bewitching mixture of flesh and spirit.

  Recalling the previous evening, Squire turned his regard from these symbols and yawned.

  Painfully, he got to his feet and staggered across to the french windows. When he twisted the latch, they opened with a squeal. He walked stealthily across the terrace, arms enfolding his chest to ward off the chill. He went on tiptoe down a gravel path and made his way barefoot over damp grass to the nearest clump of rhododendrons.

  Down by the Guymell, faintly, he could see cattle standing without movement. Steam attended their flanks. All was still, artificial. The nearby cedars stood in a mist which rendered them as outlines. As a painter reduces a tree to a symbol which will function within his composition as a real tree does in a real landscape, so these outlines rendered the awakening world artificial. They and it had been sponged, as if Cotman were temporarily God.

  As Squire turned after relieving himself, he saw the Jaguar standing at the front of the house, half-hidden by a corner of the building. Its two doors hung open. Something on the driver’s side had fallen out onto the gravel; a travel atlas, possibly.

  In the mist-blurred wall of the house, fluorescent light spread towards the garden, where he had left on the kitchen lights when getting tea.

  Looking up at the damp eaves as he picked his way back to the study, he observed that the bedroom light also was burning. The bedroom curtains had been pulled half-way back. The light spread a faded orange wash across the ceiling, a glow belonging to midnight rather than dawn, an ominous shade boding no good.

  So she had not slept, or would not sleep, or could not sleep. Or w
as already prowling about the house. It had only been a minor tiff. He must eat humble pie, reassure her. All would be well again in a day or two.

  He entered the study, shivering. As he turned from securing the windows, he discovered with a start that Teresa had entered the room while he was out of it; she stood in her dressing-gown, drawn up to her full height, by the door into the rear hall, in shadow. Her motionlessness was unnatural. She regarded Squire with fixed intensity.

  ‘You startled me, Tess. A Lady Macbeth act? Couldn’t you sleep?’

  In a tone different from her usual tone, she said, ‘You have been getting into bed with that piece of goods, Laura, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, Teresa, I have. I’m sorry if it hurts you. It means very little to me but I could not resist the temptation. I have been to bed with her.’

  Teresa said, as if that was the really important matter, ‘You lied to me last night, you rotten bastard.’

  4. Conversation with ‘Drina’s’

  Ermalpa, September 1978

  Darkness had fallen. The first-floor corridor of the Grand Hotel Marittimo was littered with silver trays, lying forlorn with a mess of coffee-pots, used cups, and tousled napkins. As Thomas Squire left Room 143, a guest was in another room playing a violin behind locked doors.

  After a half-an-hour suspended in sarvangasana, followed by a cold shower, Squire was feeling alert and ready for the evening. Downstairs, before turning into the bar, he took a stroll in the busy street. One of the Canadian delegates, seeing him walk towards the swing doors, said, in honest horror, ‘You’re not going out alone in Ermalpa after dark, Mr Squire? You know this place is the headquarters of the Mafia?’

  Surviving a turn in the muggy air, Squire went to fulfil his seven o’clock appointment in the bar.

  Selina Ajdini was there already. Several young Italians were talking to her, pressing round her armchair. She had changed her clothes, and now wore an ankle-length white jersey dress with long sleeves and edged with gold braid, its only decoration being a criss-cross pattern of braid with loose tassels which covered the bosom. Several thin gold bracelets hung at her slender right wrist, three rings glittered on her rather cruel-looking fingers. Her neat black hair, gathered into a thick tail, hung asymmetrically to one shoulder. She still carried her bulky bag.

  The bar was full of the cheerful noises characteristic of a popular time. Three barmen in smart uniforms moved freely behind their gilded pallisades, smiling, exchanging jokes with each other and their customers as they worked; glass chinked against glass; the cash register whirred; wallpaper music played softly in the background; a waitress bustled among the customers, collecting glasses; and a murmur of many languages grew from all sides. A female voice called Squire’s name.

  He turned and there was a small dark Italian lady he had watched earlier in the day. She was an efficient messenger for Frenza, the conference secretary, and spoke a little English. She had a minor administrative detail to sort out with Squire and, as she talked, he realized that she was Frenza’s wife; her well-turned ankles and heavy gold hair were immediately recognizable. Her name was Maria. She wore a neat black dress, had one bracelet on her wrist and two rings on her fingers. The smile she gave him was tired.

  When they had settled the matter, he moved towards the bar. Ajdini had dismissed her retinue and sat smoking through a long holder, awaiting him. Although the bitter herb of her Huxley speech still flavoured his memory, he could not help smiling as he joined her, sinking into an armchair facing her.

  The eroded bone was softened in artificial light. She said, ‘These Italians are so sociable, that we would talk with less disturbance in one of the rooms of the foyer. I have spoken about it to one of the barmen, who is very kind, and he will serve us with drinks as long as we are there.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Let’s go, then.’

  The room she referred to led off the passage where the case of silk ties stood. It was small, containing by way of ornament only a large marble bust of a general, whose remarkable cranial development alone was worth commemoration. Some earlier occupant of the room, perhaps idly waiting a tryst, had pencilled in the general’s pupils, making him appear cross-eyed.

  ‘This is a privilege for me,’ she said, lightly arranging the white dress as they sat down.’ I suppose that any university in the capitalist world — and not only there — would be delighted to be able to address you face to face, Mr Squire. Your television series, and the book, which is a delight in its own right, does for the culture of today what Lord Clark’s Civilization did for the past.’

  ‘The series was the work of a team. They made it work — Grahame Ash, the director, in particular. Ash is a genius. He has a way with people and he thinks in pictures.’

  ‘Your work in general. Since the Hyde Park Expo — and before. What you do enables the various artists of today, and those who would not presume or care to call themselves artists, to go ahead with more confidence, as one always can when one sees oneself working within some kind of a tradition. You generously defined a revolutionary tradition. However, I must not embarrass you, a modest Englishman, with my praises, although I am aware they can have no significance for you.’

  ‘That is a mistaken assumption. I am delighted to have your good opinion. You have a higher opinion of the series than some critics. What man does not desire the good opinion of an attractive woman?’

  She smiled, and the bangles rattled as she stretched out a hand. ‘Nor will I ask you if you are finding enjoyment in your world-wide success, since you must surely have become tired of such a question. Do you mind if I smoke?’

  She was more striking than pretty, with a sharpness about her features which suggested wary intelligence. The sharpness, a quickness in her movements, a fleck of green in her irises, suggested wolf to Squire. He admired wolves; wolves were good to each other.

  Her hair moved about her cheeks as she reached into the clumsy leather bag and brought out her cigarettes. He noticed immediately, with surprise, that they were Yugoslav, ‘Drina’ brand. He knew the name.

  Whilst he was leaning forward to give her a light, the friendly waiter arrived. He cast an envious and distinctly unfriendly look at Squire. Squire stood his gold lighter on the table as he ordered drinks. After the waiter had left, dismissed by a brilliant smile from Ajdini, she picked up the lighter and inspected it as it lay in her narrow palm before pressing it into Squire’s hand.

  ‘What I respond to personally in your work is your humanity. It gives your criticism what the rest of us lack, a creative depth. No, I’m not praising now, merely stating. To prove it, let me be a little critical, if you will permit, and say that I find the humanity the more impressive since you do come, do you not, from a deeply privileged background?’

  He regarded her through her protective cloud of smoke, admiring her breasts and thinking of the benefits her beauty must bring her, unasked.

  ‘Almost anyone, in North America or Western Europe, must admit to a privileged background.’ Seeing her expression, he added, ‘And that is not intended as an evasion of your question. We must use that privileged background to carry not only our materialism but our liberalism and awareness to the rest of the world. We must hope that ultimately those values will prevail.’

  ‘Liberalism doesn’t carry much priority, even in universities.’

  ‘No, or in an ant heap. But we have to resist the idea of the world as ant heap.’ He could catch the distinctive smell of Balkan tobacco.

  ‘Well, I know what you mean, but only people from backgrounds of privilege can afford the luxury of fine sentiments. Your series, when all’s done, was admirable as display…’

  He laughed.’ Display? Give me credit for keeping my politics out of it.’

  She looked down at the table, sharply up at him, down again. ‘I found it loaded with politics.’

  Music was playing, perhaps in the room overhead. The atmosphere of the room was oppressive; having the general listening s
tonily to all that was said did not increase comfort.

  ‘I don’t see any worth in a world in which individuality has been lost or relinquished,’ he said. ‘On an evolutionary scale, mankind strove for many generations to become a conscious individual being, instead of a unit in a tribe or a herd or an ant heap. In our generation — or generations, I should say, since there is a considerable difference in our ages — we have seen a menacing move in the opposite direction, and individualism crushed by the power of the state.’ In fact, there probably was not more than eight years between them.

  ‘In a world threatened by fascism, where parliamentary democracy has failed, the state must protect the individual, and the individual submits for his own good.’

  ‘Perhaps you mistake the implications of what I say. I would deny that parliamentary democracy, for all its faults, has failed; being a consensus, it offers its citizens a freer life than the despotisms of either Left or Right. Nor is the world threatened by fascism; individual countries, perhaps. But fascism is always a ramshackle thing which cannot perpetuate itself, whereas the great communist bureaucracies prove to have longer life.

  ‘However, the point I was trying to make goes beyond politics, to forces moving through our evolutionary lives, if I may use that phrase. Evolution still shapes us. Compare Islam and Christianity with the conceptually primitive Aztec religion, where mass-salvation could be achieved by mass-sacrifice. Souls were interchangeable. The Old Testament is a drama of man becoming aware that souls are no longer interchangeable.’

  She smiled. ‘You speak of the soul, whatever that may be. Yet you are not a religious man?’

  ‘We are all religious. In our day, the Left has all the dialectic, the Right none. Yet lying to hand is the supreme argument that souls are not interchangeable. It is perhaps too universal a truth for the Right to use, too true a truth to fall to the service of any party. Nevertheless it is the vital factor through which the present world struggles towards the future, whether capitalist or communist, Caucasian, Negroid, or Mongoloid. It’s our one hope, because undeniable.’