by Brian Aldiss
I was caught up in the business of living.
But suppose living is not ‘a business’?
11
A Break in Torremolinos
With the threat from the Soviet Union looming like bad weather from the East, the British people were the more inclined to tolerate dictatorships nearer at hand, and to flock to the beaches of Tito’s Jugoslavia and Franco’s Spain. The dictators of those impoverished states saw to it that charges were kept lower than prices on the more democratic shores in the south of France.
Your Uncle Claude realized that money was to be made out of package tours. Regarding you as a more reliable person than his own two sons, he persuaded you to accompany him to the town of Torremolinos in the south of Spain.
Torremolinos, with a convenient airport nearby, was undergoing rapid development as a seaside resort. Claude – good at drinking and making friends; the two habits often coincide – met a go-ahead young Spaniard, Francisco Lorca. Lorca was about to complete the construction of a large hotel called the Magnifico on the seafront.
Between them, the two men and their lawyers drew up a contract. Not that you were left out of the deal; Britannia was to provide the Magnifico with luxury furniture for its suites. ‘Torrid Tours’ was the name under which Claude operated. Lorca would receive a guaranteed number of bookings during the season.
The launch of Torrid Tours took place in a suite in the Savoy Hotel, a hotel favoured by the Fielding family. You were detained by traffic on the way there with Abby. The room was brightly lit, pop music played, the place thronged, so it seemed at first glance, with a number of young people, including attractive girls in miniskirts.
You did not recognize your uncle for a moment, although it was only a fortnight since you had been with him in Spain. In that time, he had shaved his moustache down to a thin line and had dyed his hair jet black. He now wore tight trousers and a black leather jacket.
As Claude shook your hand, he said, ‘Steve, I am now Justin, okay? Claude is yesterday. Justin is now, comprenez?’
‘Okay, uncle, but who are all these amazingly pretty girls you’ve got here?’
‘Not “uncle”. Justin. Okay? Just Justin. Justin of Torrid. Try to remember. The Press is here. I’ve got a gaggle of models – we’re giving them a free trip to Torremolinos. Well, almost free. Publicity, you savvy?’
‘But where did they come from?’
He took your arm in order to explain confidentially. Until yesterday there had only been women – mainly of the middle class – who dressed as their mothers dressed; dull, stuck in the mud. Now there were oodles of young girls, filling London, from the lower classes, who had their own way of dressing. Miniskirts up to their pert little bums.
‘That’s sociology, isn’t it?’ said Justin of Torrid.
Boutiques were opening up everywhere, he said. These girls, these boutiques, were changing London. London was swinging. Social history was being made, and old Justin was riding the new wave. New opportunities, new opportunities … Justin told you all this excitedly.
‘Yeah, and you see that chappie over there with a Pentax, snapping away? He’s new on the scene, too. And Pentax spells a new view on life, believe me.’
You did not quite believe him, but you were amused.
Justin pointed to a young man dressed as he was, in tight trousers and a black leather jacket. ‘Photographers. One or two are Italian. Yesterday these blokes were running pizza parlours, today, it’s film. Believe me, Steve, suddenly the future’s broken in.’
Abby regarded the scene coldly. ‘I see. We’re entering the Erogenous Zone. And where exactly does the money come from, to finance this new influx?’
Justin spread his arms wide. ‘From the new magazines, of course. From costume designers, from banks, from movies, from commercials. From everywhere. I want you two to go on this first trip. A bit of class, eh? Stay at my expense in the Magnifico. Now, excuse me, I have to do an interview.’
As he hurried away, you saw that Sonia was standing relaxedly by one of the long windows, speaking at a young man holding a microphone within a few inches of her lips. A waiter pressed glasses of champagne into your and Abby’s grasps as you crossed over to her. When the interview was over, she dismissed the interviewer and stood there waiting to be kissed. She said that she had been filmed earlier in the week, making a short commercial for Torrid Tours, which would be showing in the Torrid offices. She provided the comfortable presence, welcoming punters who had never left England before.
‘And I hear you’re going on the first trip to Torremolinos,’ she said.
‘We may do,’ said Abby, cautiously. ‘Are you?’
‘Good heavens, no. I have a career to pursue.’
You were sorry to realize the two women did not like each other.
Abby consented to stay in the Magnifico only if you and she did not take the proffered charter flight to Torremolinos. You would travel on a regular flight, and in First Class.
‘Don’t be difficult, Abby, sweetie.’
‘Not difficult, discerning.’
You arrived in Spain in mid-afternoon and took a taxi to the Magnifico. Heat shimmered and every dwelling was brilliantly white in the sunshine. In Torremolinos, a building site greeted you. The structure created to date was nested in bamboo scaffolding. Like the famous glass of water which is either half-full or half-empty depending on the temperament of the observer, the Magnifico was either half-finished or half-started.
‘Don’t go away,’ Abby said to the taxi driver.
Concrete mixers were working, and men were uncertainly perched on the scaffolding, while derricks carried breeze blocks up to their level. Suites of Britannia furniture, delivered punctually as arranged, withered in the heat in what in due course would become the hotel car park.
A shabby blue coach arrived as you stood there rather helplessly, taking in the dismaying sight. From its doors poured the freeloading vacationers, models, photographers, maids and other servants. Francisco Lorca rushed from the grandiose entrance of the Magnifico to greet them, hair and arms flying.
‘There is delay only!’ he cried. ‘Sorry for delay, peoples! Some workers don’t work. But you are all welcome and I have many beautiful places for beds in our luxury lounges you will love!’
‘But your fucking hotel ain’t built yet!’ cried one of the leading models, a young lady who went by the name of Barbie Salmon.
‘All ground floor is finish!’ Lorca cried. ‘I invite you everybody to enter in and see it. Kitchen is all but finish. Tomorrow comes in the ovens. My lovely swimming pool is finish and needs only water. Come, please come.’
‘Not fucking likely,’ cried Barbie, to supportive shouts. ‘We ain’t staying in this awful dump. Might as well be back ’ome!’
‘Let’s go,’ said Abby to you. No argument. You both climbed back into the taxi.
What made you think that your uncle’s hasty plans would succeed?
We did not realize that Britain was working to a faster clock than Spain, that was all. We were all go at the time.
You were simply swept along by the Zeitgeist.
What else is there, I ask you?
I regret there is nothing else.
A little way down the coast lay quiet Malaga. There you found a beautiful five star hotel, the Casa Bella. Your room was decorously furnished, its windows overlooking a small courtyard. Beyond the tiled roofs of the houses opposite lay the line of the blue Mediterranean, in which you would soon swim together. In the room was an ample double bed, on which you would soon lie together.
If the Magnifico was not entirely a success, Torrid Tours was not entirely a disaster. The craze to go abroad instead of to Butlin’s Holiday Camps had hit the British. The Swinging Sixties Zeitgeist had arrived. But bigger charter holiday companies emerged like mushrooms sprouting from pasture, and so gradually Torrid was forced, first out to Montenegro, and then out of business.
Justin became your Uncle Claude again, and grew his moustache once more. ‘The l
uck of the draw, old boy,’ he told you vaguely, lifting his glass. ‘Chin chin!’
12
The Disastrous Party
You and Abby were riding together, for you had progressed that far. You sat a fat well-fed mare, obedient and lazy, named Belinda. Abby announced that she was throwing a dinner party for Uncle Ben in two weeks’ time. Uncle Ben would be eighty; the party was designed to celebrate the fact. She invited you. You said you would be happy to be there. By this time you were living – as Sonia eloquently put it – high on the hog, as indeed on Belinda.
‘Then you can give a hefty donation towards the wine, Steve. Now that you’re rich.’
You had no inclination to dispute that claim with her. ‘How about my aunt, Violet? Can she come? She’s rather down in the dumps at the mo’.’
She looked at you, chin down, her beautiful eyes half-hidden by the peak of her hard hat. ‘Your Aunt Violet? Awful name; is she common?’
‘By your standards, most people are common.’
She laughed. ‘At least she doesn’t wear miniskirts, I assume. A bit dismal to drag your aunt along, isn’t it? What weird vibes! Okay, though, if you wish to do so, I suppose it’s kosher.’
She dug her stirrups into the flanks of her mare and was off at a canter.
You, perforce, followed.
So Violet Wilberforce attended Lord Lyndhurst’s disastrous eightieth birthday party. She had bought herself a smart new gown for the occasion, and decked her neck with a double string of pearls. You hugged and kissed her and led her before Lord Lyndhurst to be introduced. It was the 12th of March, 1962, and Abby was staging the event in Gracefield House, his lordship’s home, on the grounds that her own apartment was too tiny – she called it ‘teeny’ – for such an event.
‘Do you happen to be any relation of one Bertie Wilberforce, m’dear?’ Lyndhurst asked Violet when they met, showing his old tarnished teeth in a ferocious smile.
‘I am married to Bertie Wilberforce.’
‘Bad luck for you, then!’ He gave a throaty chuckle. He was standing, propped up by an ebony stick over which he leant to say, ‘He’s a confounded poor architect, I’ll tell you that! I hope for your sake he’s a better husband than he is an architect.’
Violet gave a brittle smile. ‘If he wasn’t I wouldn’t tell you.’
The retort amused the old man. He nodded considerably. He said, ‘I see he can afford to deck you out in expensive dresses. No doubt you look, shall we say, better in that dress than out of it.’
‘That’s something you’ll never discover, you cheeky old so-and-so!’ She spoke without anger, half-laughing.
At that response, he gave a wheezy chuckle. ‘Well, you’re no chicken, you saucy monkey. Good luck, anyhow.’ He turned to greet his next guest.
A lot of men stood about, faces lined, though not exactly old, as yet. They wore smart, unostentatious suits, made by discreet tailors. Some held glasses of kir or wine; others stood with hands behind their backs, alert but unspeaking.
You looked into a small side room, furnished with worn leather furniture. Claude – late Justin – Hillman was there. He acknowledged you with a curt nod and an inflection of his right eyebrow downwards, without removing his gaze from a television screen.
You asked him what he was doing at the Lyndhursts’ party. Again you got the inflection of the right eyebrow.
‘I’m on a roll, Steve,’ he said, from the corner of his mouth. ‘Confidential. Something new coming up …’
The Lyndhursts had a favourite Irish wolfhound, a great grey thing, thin and melancholy, with a pronounced backbone. This visitant was allowed to prowl among the guests, tolerating a pat here and there, to which it responded with a cautionary display of teeth, not unlike its master’s. Abby made a fuss of the monster, who yielded his grin up at her, his tongue lolling.
‘Chancellor, you dear old ghost! You’re all a dog should be!’ She introduced you to Chancellor; the hound was judicial at best.
The meal went cheerfully. The men who had waited for something revealed themselves to be good trenchermen, having little to say unless it was about the state of the stock market. With the venison was served a Château Miaudoux, Côtes de Bergerac. You had paid for it, as you had for the Laurent-Perrier Champagne. Lyndhurst ate little of each course but drank heavily.
He called to the wolfhound – ‘Chance, here, old feller!’ Chancellor appeared inclined to beg, but Lyndhurst told him it was demeaning to beg, and fed him a large portion of pheasant from his plate.
Making an exception for a lord, the men present moved round the table by one place for the dessert, in order to sit with fresh partners.
‘How does Macmillan suit you as PM, Uncle Ben?’ Abby asked.
His wife, Augusta, answered immediately, while Lyndhurst was drinking his wine, which trickled down the outside as well as the inside of his throat. Augusta showed her large false teeth as she spoke.
‘Oh, Ben worked with Harold,’ she clattered, ‘when Harold was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply. They got on well, both being reformers, don’t you know? You must remember that, Abigail.’
‘Before my time,’ Abby replied cheerfully, blinking her blue eyes at the thought.
‘Nonsense, child,’ Augusta added. ‘There are some scandalous goings-on behind the scenes, but then, when weren’t there?’
Lyndhurst set down his glass, continuing to clutch its stem. ‘I hate the light-hearted way Harold behaves; not becoming in a Prime Minister; it sets a bad example to the country. I hate football,’ – the table fell silent, as if familiar with the catechism to come – ‘I hate the peasants who play football; I hate the idiots who attend the matches. I hate this new, so-called music, now being played. I hate English food; English seasides; the coarseness of English manners; the clothes English people wear; the way they agree with everything; the way they argue all the time; the cheekiness of the lower classes.’
The sting of this last remark was drawn by his wink at Violet as he spoke.
At this juncture, Chancellor, the Irish wolfhound, rose up and set its paws on the table, to stare up mournfully at its master’s face.
‘And most of all, I hate you, Vega!’ Lyndhurst said, striking it on the head with a spoon.
As the dog sank down, Abby called out, ‘Oh, Uncle, that’s Chance! You know it’s Chance! Vega has been dead for five years or more.’
You noted that.
‘And the English – the way they talk, talk, talk.’ He wiped his chin free of saliva, leaning forward to bang the table with his spoon for emphasis. ‘We used to sail the seven seas … The way they talk – they’re letting some of these bally oicks on the BBC now. I hate their jokes; their habit of swilling beer; “the pub”; their women; their ghastly little ill-mannered children; their aunties!’
Here, he again shot a not ill-natured glance at your Aunt Violet.
Violet put an elbow on the table and leaned across to the old man. ‘The pale worn face of the English aunt is the backbone of English society!’
‘Is it now?’ He looked at her, smiling quite affectionately. ‘Well then, get your elbow off my damned damask tablecloth!’
He continued with his disquisition.
‘Above all, I hate … well, I hate their elbows; their hotels, of course; their nasty, noisy motor cars – Morris, of course – that car manufacturer; George Orwell; Malcolm Campbell – why does he want to go so fast, I ask you? Their motion pictures; these, so-called “modern”, plays – Ashburn’s The Entertainer – sheer filth! The Americanization of everything! Give me the good old days before the war, when Britain was a stable place – let’s admit it – fit to live in. I hate this National Health Service; I hate the French, with their superior ways; can’t stand the Welsh; Lloyd George and all that …’
As he ran out of breath, Abby said cheerfully, ‘I expect you hate being old too, Uncle?’
He gave her a withering look, before saying in a low, growling voice, ‘And I hate the young ab
ove all. It’s an unnatural state of being, a pre-imago …’
Everyone was looking anxious, when Lyndhurst burst out, ‘Good Lord, I must be drunk, talking like this. Get me some more of that Armagnac, Reg!’
Reg, the butler presiding, poured half-an-inch of the golden liquid into His Lordship’s brandy glass. The guests talked among themselves.
Among the diners sat the Bishop of Lymington. His plump face was full of smiles as he flapped a hand towards Lyndhurst, to say, in an unctuous way, ‘I really don’t think you believe a word of what you are saying, Ben. You’re far too kind-hearted.’
Lyndhurst looked at the bishop from under his eyebrows. ‘Do you believe a word of your sermons, Clement? All this business about our God being a God of Failure –’
‘It was a metaphor,’ the bishop responded, sounding rather disappointed. ‘Failure is an honourable estate, like Marriage –’
‘Utter balderdash!’ exclaimed His Lordship. ‘You might as well say indigestion was a – what did you call it? – an honourable estate …’
‘So this is how the other half lives,’ said Violet to you, sotto voce. When you assented, she added thoughtfully, ‘Or perhaps it’s just the state of being old, of decaying, when you hate everything that is alive and living … Poor old bugger.’
‘You stood up to him well, Auntie.’
Eventually, the guests moved to the blue sitting room where, as Violet said, a pianist played Chopin and others played bezique.
Lyndhurst showed signs of flagging; Augusta was winning a hand at cards and asked Abby to escort her husband upstairs to his bedchamber. Abby linked her arm with the old man’s and led him to the foot of the stairs, where he stubbornly insisted that he was perfectly capable of climbing them alone.
‘Of course, Uncle. It’s your birthday, do as you wish.’
‘I saw Queen Victoria, don’t you know? A fat little personage …’
He went slowly from stair to stair, gripping the banister rail, in part hauling himself up by it. Abby stood at the foot of the stairs to watch his progress.
