by Brian Aldiss
‘I should have done something about it. You know how trivial I am …’ – she was sobbing again – ‘You couldn’t go to the police and say someone was planning the murder of a small boy.’ More tears.
‘Oh, you are far from trivial. What could you have done?’
‘I could have adopted you.’ She pulled a face at her blank statement, at the bare idea.
You were still standing close. You kept your arms round her body while you digested this new possibility. You found it hard not to shed a tear yourself, so precious to you was her affection and doubt.
‘But you didn’t. How could you have done?’
‘Bertie refused to believe me when I told him what I suspected. He told me never to think of such a monstrous – a monstrous thing. He stuck up for his sister, of course.’
You gave her cheek a light kiss, saying that she had married into the wrong family.
‘Of course Bertie stuck up for his sister. We had quite a row when I told him. He hit me across the face. The Hero of Kabul hit me across the face. I hate him.’
Still you were amazed. All those happy days on the beach – not happy at all in reality. You longed to reject what your aunt had told you. ‘But is it true? Their plan?’
At that, she managed a smile. ‘You don’t imagine I’m making all this up?’
‘No, my darling Violet.’ Now you had been told, you had to confront the full shame of the truth. Aristotle would have had something to say about ignorance as a source of happiness. You felt your own chill against the warmth and softness of Violet’s body under her inappropriate summer dress. ‘Thank you for caring, darling Aunt. Don’t cry about it.’
‘But how could they? How could they? It was criminal –’
Putting her head on your shoulder, she sobbed anew. ‘You were such a sweetie.’
You let her recover. ‘Sorry,’ she said, and poured you both another tot of gin.
‘You know what a weak and silly girl I am, Steve. I didn’t mean what I said about the Jews and it being their war.’
‘Don’t worry about it, Auntie, dear.’ You stroked her hair. You went back to the table and sat down, contemplating each other. You held her hand on the tabletop.
As if with sudden determination, she said, ‘I must tell you another little family secret. I know it’s not exactly what you came home for.’
You felt a slight alarm at what she might say next. The first shock had been entirely sufficient. ‘Do you need to tell me?’
She attempted a smile before looking down at the table. ‘It’s like Walcot. Knowledge doesn’t make you happier, but somehow you have to know. Maybe not knowing is worse than knowing, whatever it feels like.’
Violet then embarked on her story. ‘It’s about young Sid, your mother’s nephew. Maybe it is connected with his suicide a few years ago.’
Jeremy Wilberforce sent his young son Sid to boarding school to ‘toughen him up’, as he said. This was back in the late thirties, when a great number of people were fleeing from Nazi Germany. It happened that at Sid’s school there were two Jewish brothers – Bernie, the elder brother, and Peter, the younger. Whereas Bernie was a cheerful, outgoing boy, good at games, his brother, the younger by two years, was withdrawn and subject to casual bullying.
‘This young boy, Peter, slept in a dormitory in a bed next to your cousin, Sad Sid – as the boys called him,’ said Violet. ‘At the beginning of the winter term, someone had thumped Peter and he was feeling wretched. He climbed into Sid’s bed to be comforted.’
She gave you a sort of mirthless smile. ‘He just wanted a cuddle. You didn’t know about this, I suppose?’
You shook your head.
‘So Sid cuddled the boy. As they warmed up, Peter got an erection, and Sid felt it. Although Peter was a small boy, he had a large, well-developed penis.’ Again, Violet’s rather mirthless smile. ‘Sid had seen the big brother, Bernie, in the showers after rugger, and had noticed he was circumcised. Peter was not circumcised. His foreskin would not draw back when Sid started to play with it.’ She stared at you, to make sure you were listening. You released her hand to take a gulp of the gin. ‘It’s a condition known as phimosis – I know because I’ve looked it up – quite common, apparently. I take a considerable interest in the male sexual organ, Steve.’
Your Aunt regarded you straight-faced. You laughed at her confession.
‘Peter’s prick interested Sid. He rubbed it until Peter, with a little gasp, came all over the sheets. He then crept away, ashamed, back to his own bed. But of course he returned another night for more of the same. It became a regular thing. His condition did not stop him needing a spot of pleasure.’
You were embarrassed by this second family secret and asked Violet how she knew all the details.
She replied that eventually Sid had gone, not to Flo, his mother, whom he feared, but to his grandmother, Elizabeth Fielding. He had admitted everything, blurted it out, admitting that as soon as Peter left his bed, Sid had masturbated himself to orgasm. It was his need to confess.
‘You’re telling me that Sid was, in fact, queer?’
‘No, I’d say not. At the time of puberty, when boys’ pricks grow and they can produce semen, the whole phenomenon is exciting – a source of pride and some anxiety. They like to compare notes. “Tossing off” is almost mandatory. I bet you did it, Steve! The point of all this is the time factor, really. Do you see the implications?’
You asked her what she meant by that.
‘It’s not about masturbation. It’s the filthy Nazis, don’t you see? The elder boy was circumcised in the usual Jewish way, when conditions in Germany were not too bad. Then the younger boy, then Peter came along. Jews were increasingly persecuted. And as a safety precaution, simply in order to protect their son’s life – how different from your parents! – his parents did not have him circumcised. Why exactly? Because the lousy Germans, the Gestapo, checked up on such private matters. If you had had your foreskin chopped off, then you were a Jew, and off to the gas chambers with you.’
‘But –’
‘And it just so happened that because of the phimosis, circumcision was what poor Peter needed. And did not get.’
You put a hand to your forehead. You understood. Evil infected the flesh, as it did the mind. Poor, wretched kids. It was just as Pief Geldstein had been allowed, even encouraged, to say ‘Heil Hitler’ and give the Nazi salute.
‘So Sid told Granny? He must have been pretty desperate to do that. Why Granny?’
‘Perhaps, like you, he admired her intelligence.’
‘But it seems so odd –’
‘Everything in life is odd.’
You sat staring at each other until she spoke again.
‘We do know he was desperate – and a bit unstable mentally. And of course Elizabeth is the most intelligent member of your dreary family.’
You tried to imagine your grandmother listening to such an intimate male confession. ‘How did she take Sid’s story?’
Violet sighed and gazed at the ceiling. ‘You have to remember Elizabeth was born in Victorian times. She was shocked to hear the story. I’m sure she had never heard of such a thing as phimosis. In this case, prudery overcame intelligence. Her recommendation was that Peter should be expelled from the school. She told me the tale in a great flutter.’
‘She told you?’
‘She was so disgusted, so upset. I mean, penises! She had to tell someone. I had taken her shopping. She told me everything over a coffee. Golly, what a world we live in.’
You shook your head at this new misery.
‘I was taken aback,’ your aunt said, reflectively. ‘In particular, I suppose, sorry poor Sid didn’t have a more understanding reception. You little lads certainly get it rough.’
You both took swigs of gin. After a long silence, you looked at your aunt and asked what she had done about it, after she had heard the story from Elizabeth.
‘I was pregnant at the time. I did absolutely sod all. As w
ith you and Walcot. I was pregnant. And then Sid strung himself up, poor kid. It was too late to do anything. But what could I have done?’
‘Yes, poor Sid. Poor Granny, brought up in another age –’
Violet covered her eyes with her hand, propping her elbow on the edge of the table. ‘I’m a dead loss, darling,’ she said at last, looking up with a kind of grin. ‘Let’s have another ruddy gin and a fag. Be cheerful.’
Were you comfortable in that claustrophobic room?
Cosy, not claustrophobic! Yes, I was comfortable.
Yet your aunt was confiding some uncomfortable things to you. What do you think you thought of her behaviour?
I loved – adored my dear aunt, and I believe she loved me. She was able to confide in me. I counted that as a blessing. I took what she said at face value. What else?
That night, you slept in Violet and Bertie’s spare room, which overlooked their garden, where they now kept chickens to help with the rationing.
Dreams of the sea came to you in your sleep. Not the sea at Walcot, long ago, but more recent seas, where you lay on the decks of various French fishing boats, riding easily on the Atlantic. You heard the steady throb of a ship’s engines, like a giant heart. High above you were the stars. You had visualized them once as cold and remote; now they seemed close and friendly, the same welcoming stars you might observe from England – the England to which brave men were risking their lives in returning you.
You wondered childishly if there were planets among those stars, planets containing civilizations older than Earth’s transitory patchwork of cultures, perhaps millions of years older, where deeply wise – perhaps born wise – men and women travelled in great ships from star to star, conversing, sharing their knowledge and their speculations. With none of the muddle and strife afflicting Earth … perhaps having banished all cruelties from their natures. Dining decorously, and not eating animals they had killed. Or, if not men and women, then whatever those lofty beings did to reproduce their kind without all the torments that sexuality brought human beings. Such fancies dwindled into confused thickets of thought, then thoughts of Marie Bourmard, whose religion had stood between your lovemaking. You dreamed you were sliding your hand between her legs.
You woke.
Daylight was filtering through the curtains. Violet had entered the room in her nightdress, barefoot, bringing you a cup of tea.
‘Steve! What on earth are you doing down there? What’s wrong with the bed?’ She looked down at you, half-astonished, half-amused, to find you lying on the floor.
You had grown unused to the softness of beds. The floor suited you better, and there you had slept the night through.
‘It’s comfortable here, Auntie. Come and try it.’
You lifted the blanket by way of invitation. You had slept naked.
She gasped.
She set the cup and saucer down without hesitation and climbed in beside you.
‘It’s early yet,’ she said in a whisper to herself.
As she got in, she hoisted up her nightdress. You saw her secret parts, almost like a secret smile. Next moment, her bare body was pressed against yours.
She kissed you passionately. She had applied lipstick to her lips. You returned her kisses. You rolled on your sides. Her tongue found its way between your lips, into your mouth. You wrapped your arms about her. She lifted her leg and guided your stiff flesh into her ready body.
‘Oh …’ – a long shudder from her – ‘my darling …’
‘Auntie, I’ve always loved you … Always –’ You could hardly speak.
You began to move in her. Slowly, sumptuously slowly at first.
2
Hoarded Biscuits
Another door. This door a grander one, and locked. No one at home. No parents when you wanted them. ‘Par for the course’, you told yourself. You sat on the step, resting an elbow on your suitcase. Your thoughts blew about like leaves in a windy driveway. The chills of winter had settled in.
Leave was a complex matter. Unexpectedly, life in the army was simpler: certainly with fewer emotional demands. Your beloved aunt had given you much. Once again you had been forced to think of Sad Sid’s death and unhappy life. But overriding that was the riddle of your days on the sands of Walcot. As yet you could not bring yourself to believe completely in the truth of Violet’s charge against Martin and Mary.
How could you approach your parents? Should you accuse them of – attempted murder? Should you say nothing? Should you be angry? But you felt too empty – empty and yet choked. One implication you stumbled on was that if they did not love you, then you were not worthy of being loved.
All of a sudden, you got to your feet. You were too cold to await their return any longer. Besides, what could be said now that would affect what had happened some seventeen years or more in the past? And you would be glad to see Sonia again, even if you were not yet prepared to face your parents.
As soon as you started down the drive, it happened that your father’s old Rover turned in at the gate. Your father braked. He climbed out of one door, your mother out of the other. The old dog, Gyp, followed, wagging his tail, advancing cautiously to sniff your khaki-clad knee.
‘My boy!’ Martin Fielding exclaimed. ‘Good God, thought you were dead, killed in action – The War Office wrote –’
‘Stephen darling!’ exclaimed Mary Fielding. Rushing to you, she flung her arms round your neck and kissed you. ‘Oh, if you knew how we’ve suffered. Our lives have been a misery. We thought you were dead. Why did you never write?’
You recognized the old note of reproach. Your mother seemed to have shrunk slightly. She was wearing a pink wool dress, the hem of which hung unevenly. You bent and patted the dog’s head.
‘Sonia’s not with you?’
‘Nottingham. Pursuing her acting career. Come on, Gyp, good boy. Home now.’
The three of you went into the house, followed by the dog.
‘Valerie still here?’ you asked sarcastically.
Father’s cricket bats stood to attention in the hall. Mary took Gyp into the kitchen to drink at his water bowl. She hastened to make a big pot of tea. She continued to talk from the kitchen while waiting for the kettle to boil. ‘You’re lucky to have escaped some of the hardships here – pretty unnecessary –’
Martin talked in a low rapid voice, fixing you with an eager gaze. ‘You’ll want to know what’s been happening. It’s excellent that Churchill has taken our socialists into his coalition government. It will give them experience for when we take over from the old brute.’
‘When will that be?’ you asked, startled.
‘When the damned war is over, of course. When do you think? After what we’re going through, things have to change.’
‘Except cricket!’ You gave a laugh. He looked angry, then recovered.
‘There will be good opportunities for us all then. Aviation will be the thing – a better world, Steve, a better world. I want you to go into politics. Great advances will emerge from this terrible war. You can help sort the country out.’
‘Dad, I can’t sort myself out as yet. Sorry, I’m only on leave; I go back to my unit the day after Boxing Day. I, well, I feel I’m on automatic pilot. I don’t really know who I bloody well am.’
Martin gave a snort. ‘You don’t have to swear about it. What do you mean, anyhow, “you don’t know who you are”?’
Your mother re-entered the room, bearing a tray of tea. ‘Luckily I have a packet of Macfarlane’s biscuits.’ She gave a giggle. ‘I’ve been hoarding, naughty me!’ She set the tray down and sank wearily into an armchair. ‘We don’t have a maid any more, you notice.’
‘There’s a war on, you know,’ said Martin, clarifying the situation.
‘So what have you been doing? We thought you were dead. Not that we’re blaming you … Where on earth have you been?’ Mary asked with emphasis on the ‘been’.
‘I’ve been in France.’
‘France, of all places! Oooh,
lucky you! I suppose the food was lovely as usual, despite the Jerries.’
‘I was stuck in a forest, mother. A forest in Brittany. Food was a bit scarce. Sonia’s in Nottingham, you say? Is she okay?’
You bit into the Macfarlane biscuit.
Mary’s attention was easily deflected. She said proudly that Sonia was with a repertory company in Nottingham. This week, the company was performing Henry V. Men were so few and far between Sonia was taking the part of Henry. It was, Mary said, her big chance.
You laughed. ‘Once more into the breech, dear ladies.’
Mary was indignant. ‘That’s unkind. How do you know what she’s gone through? Ghastly digs. An unhappy love affair. The blackout –’
‘She does modern plays too,’ Martin explained. ‘She was in a J. B. Priestley play last week. We’re hoping she’ll make a go of it. It’s a hard slog for her and no mistake.’
‘But she’s enjoying herself?’
‘Well, you know. I can’t see much future in it for her, myself.’ Father nodded his head sagely, as if the future were rationed along with butter.
While these and other conversations were continuing, you were suffering from an uncomfortable rumbling of the stomach. These two people were strange to you. Your mother had aged, your father had taken to brushing his hair in a peculiar way, in an endeavour to conceal its thinning. And had they disliked you so much that …?
Without doubt, they were pleased to see you now; they endeavoured to make themselves agreeable, pressing more of the precious biscuits on you. Yet they seemed disconnected from realities: they were dated figures, left over from another epoch. Without Sonia, the house seemed dead. The ever-unborn ghost of Valerie hovered still.
You took your suitcase up to your room, where you had insisted on having a phone extension installed. The room was in twilight. A lemon-coloured blind had been drawn down over the window. You dialled your aunt’s number. When Bertie’s voice answered, you set the phone back in its cradle.
Over a supper of cold mutton and warmed-up potatoes, you told your parents something of your adventures – of Major Montagu, of Palfrey, and above all of the Geldsteins.
