by Brian Aldiss
Blood on the Ice
For a while you scarcely felt human. You could not sleep for your murderous preoccupation. Just to talk to people was a burden; between you and the other person was a vision of the body falling, spraying blood. Even the face of your innocent child was partly obscured from your cognizance by that ever falling phantom.
Your parents came to visit you and Abby and the baby. It was another ordeal.
Mary commented that you looked rather downcast. You could not admit to Sonia’s sorrows, or to Abby’s unfaithfulness. Silence smothered you. You poured the parents drinks after they had inspected the cradle newly installed by your twin beds, and its contents, and had cooed sufficiently over the baby.
The baby bore their admiration with considerable equanimity.
‘You don’t seem at all overjoyed to have a baby daughter,’ said Martin.
‘Are you sickening for something, Steve, dear?’ Mary, all solicitude, patted your hand.
You answered randomly. ‘There’s a spot of trouble at work, Mother,’ you told her. ‘Joey and Terry are scrapping. They – we – have a financial problem and the books don’t add up. I try to stay clear of it.’
‘In quarrel mode, are they, what?’ said your father. He wore smart suits these days, with no shine at the knees. ‘They always were a couple of little blighters, were Terry and Joey. They take after their father, thick as thieves. Bound to fall out eventually.’
‘Yes, Claude’s in hot water,’ Mary reported. ‘So poor Ada says. What that woman puts up with …’
‘Anyhow, more importantly, have you noticed how clean the streets are?’ said Martin. ‘’Specially to greet your offspring! Figures to be published by the Home Office next week will show that the litter in London’s streets has decreased by 34 per cent since Labour came to power. It’s a fine record.’
He looked so pleased, rubbing his hands together, that you became vexed. ‘How on earth can refuse go down by a percentage, by any percentage? How is it measured? Does it include the findings from every street in London? In Greater London? Who is paid to go round measuring these things? It sounds like absolute nonsense to me.’
Martin shook his head sadly. ‘You’re talking rubbish, my boy. What do you know about it? Cleansing vans have multiplied under Labour. Figures are based on the number of vans cleansing the streets.’
‘Oh, so there are now thirty-four per cent more vans, are there?’
Mary stamped her little foot. ‘Stop it! Martin knows more about government business than you do, Stephen. Talk of pleasanter things. Pass the gin, please, Abby.’
Your mother sipped at her glass with an air of righteousness, the Peacemaker in person. She had taken to a fondness for gin, possibly under the impression that it gave her character. ‘Just a drop for me auld age,’ she said, smiling, in an approximate imitation of an Irish accent.
‘There’s trouble everywhere. I hope you’re keeping your nose clean in that dodgy business of yours.’ Martin followed up this hope with something more immediately on his mind. ‘The US have been bombing the hell out of the Vietnamese. I know it’s all part of the Cold War, but still …’
You remarked that President Nixon was beginning to withdraw American troops from Vietnam.
‘Nixon’s a good man, whatever he looks like,’ Martin said. He sipped his martini with a judicious air. ‘Still they’re continuing to drop napalm on the poor bloody Viets.’
‘Yes, and they are defoliating the place with this ghastly Agent Orange,’ said Mary, adding, ‘I never realized oranges could be so dangerous. What about your plans to buy a place in France? Are you really that rich, Steve?’
‘Save something for a rainy day, old boy,’ advised Martin.
‘Property in France is amazingly cheap,’ you told them.
Another visitor to Leinster Gardens to see baby Geraldine was Bella. She arrived on crutches, having recently been involved in a road accident in Belgium.
‘She looks just like you, Abby,’ said Bella, admiringly. Abby, being nice, attempted not to appear offended by the cliché.
Bella was looking very masculine, her hair trimmed short, wearing a grey, pinstriped suit. She was now the representative of the British Retail Consortium in an exclusive government department in Brussels. Her name was always mentioned, when it was mentioned at all, with respect.
She had heard from Martin of your plans to buy a property in France. ‘Why France?’ she asked. ‘Why not Belgium? The Belgian cuisine is second to none. I know a little place in the Ardennes you would love …’
‘No, I think not the Ardennes, thanks, Bella.’
Nevertheless, it was some years before you bought the property in Brittany. You had calmed down by then. Abby was unwell after the birth of Geraldine Augusta. You did not confront her regarding her affair with Joey, you simply kept Joey away from the house and watched Abby like the proverbial hawk. You partly blamed yourself for not loving her enough. Had she detected a hollowness in your affection?
Yet you did love her in a way. Intensely, in a way. How much time, you sometimes thought, you had squandered, pursuing her and the world she represented.
How little on Briony.
A factor very different from compassion persuaded you to keep silent on the matter of her affair with Joey: you could imagine Abby’s lack of penitence. ‘Why not?’ she would say. ‘Everyone’s doing it!’ There would be no apology or pretence to one. And, even more poisonously, with blue eyes flashing, the fashionable, ‘You don’t own me.’ Indeed it was true, you did not.
So you kept your own counsel, as you had done in other serious matters. It was what to yourself you called ‘keeping your trap shut’ – no matter how much it hurt.
After many months of negotiation, and tiresome dealings with French lawyers, you bought a fine old chateau near the little town of Tremblay-en-France, some kilometres south of Mont St Michel. It amused you to think that you might have passed through Tremblay in 1940, in the days of the Second World War. Now the Cold War prevailed, but you were not going to let that spoil such pleasure as you could squeeze from life.
Chateau Aulnoy was named after the minor literary figure who had built it in the eighteenth century, in a vernacular style of stone with brick quoins and a fine, slate-capped tower. The chateau needed restoration and repair, and double-glazing of the fine large windows. You employed some excellent French craftsmen; carpenters, plasterers, decorators, wrought iron masters and others and put in an English overseer to supervise. You flew over once or twice to check on progress – and sometimes just to stand gazing at the building, thinking how lucky you were to own it, and how unlikely it had been that you would one day be able to afford it.
‘It’s entirely different from the chateau in the Forêt de la Bouche,’ you explained to friends. Indeed, this was your triumph, you were back in France, out of uniform!
Standing in an empty and still dilapidated room, with its crumbling plasters and sombre Second Empire greys, you gazed out at the lake which had been one of the reasons for buying the property. Where the water came closest to the house a jetty stood, with a rowing boat moored there. It was a peaceful scene which, to your receptive mind, held a quality of the eternal about it, as if boat and jetty were designed to convey a pilgrim, not simply across a prosaic lake, but to more transcendental scenes.
And an image of North’s boat, high and dry on the sands of Walcot, came to mind. At the Aulnoy lake, there were no treacherous tides.
Your thoughts drifted. You fell into that melancholy which was familiar to you, a melancholy of which you were as unaware generally as you were of your own breathing. Memories of Briony Coates returned. It occurred to you now that she might also suffer from the same prevailing gloom as you. Aulnoy was just the sort of place Briony would have loved, with its isolation and the waiting quality of the lake.
She could be seen in your imagination, dressed in her habitual brown; she would have walked this garden, would have been calm, clear-eyed, affectionate. Th
at was the worst of growing older: the torments of memory multiplied.
You felt that you loved the house as it was – despite the sounds of hammering – and were comfortable with its ruinous state. You could almost be happy there, just as you were almost happy with Abby and the infant Geraldine.
Why did you want this chateau?
Many of my prosperous friends were buying property in France. I suppose it was the fashion. It was a beautiful place; well worth having.
But why did you want it?
Oh, I don’t know; to escape? You would probably say it was the Zeitgeist again. I could afford it. I suppose I wished to impress friends – and my family. ‘Keeping up with the Fieldings …’ And the lake; it was so placid, so peaceful …
It brought you peace of mind?
As you know, it just brought horror.
Abby became impatient with the slow progress of the restoration as months dawdled by. She put her foot down. The blue eyes flashed – you would take, she said, the child and some friends, and spend Christmas in the unfinished building. At least some downstairs rooms would be habitable by then, and a brand new kitchen would have been installed. You could hire a cook locally.
So the three of you flew in in mid-December, together with some smart Cholmondeley friends whom you hardly knew.
The Chateau Aulnoy looked glorious in the frosty hours of daylight, seeming to stand aloof from merely temporary affairs. There were thickets on the far side of the lake, trees and bushes coming down to the water’s edge, their foliage at present powdered with frost, so that you suffered no shortage of wood. Soon fires were blazing in all the major rooms. The friends brought in bunches of holly with which to deck the place. At night when Geraldine Augusta was in her cot asleep, the guests played Murder and hid in mysterious places about the rambling corridors.
You drank local wines as you sat on rugs on the bare floorboards: furs of reindeer, the hairs of which adhered to your clothes. You ate oysters, suckling pig with gnocchi, and imported Christmas puddings with brandy butter and thick cream.
The weather was cold, but fine and still. You all voted it ‘Excellent Christmas weather!’ You drank a lot and laughed a lot.
You were borrowing money heavily. You had a bank account in the Cayman Islands and were siphoning money from your company. Did you not feel you were doing wrong?
I was simply behaving as many successful men behaved.
You thought your way of life was successful? Not reprehensible?
I certainly didn’t think so at the time. Our lives were totally harmless in comparison with the politicians who had got us into the dreadful stand-off with the Soviet bloc. You know, sorry to go on about it, but I had survived a horrendous war. I felt I deserved a more luxurious life. And then there was the Cold War – certainly not of my making – when we could all have been wiped out by a nuclear strike after a four minute warning! We had to live while we could, enjoy ourselves while we had the chance.
We should have granted you greater reasoning powers.
Abby gave you a striking Christmas present: a mating pair of black-necked swans imported from the Falkland Islands, together with a little wooden shelter for them. Was the gift guilt money, you asked yourself? Nevertheless, the pair of you, well wrapped up, sallied out, with Geraldine carried papoose-like, to establish the birds by the side of the lake. You tossed them some grain, not venturing too close. The proud creatures hissed their disapproval, but appeared subdued. They ate the grain and did not venture on the water.
As you returned to the house, your father phoned to wish you both a Merry Christmas. You responded warmly. Martin said that Mary was feeling unwell and announced that the Soviet army had invaded Afghanistan.
‘Why on earth?’ you asked in amazement.
‘Because they can,’ came your father’s reply, over a crackly line. ‘The blighters.’
‘But no one does any good going into Afghanistan. The British fought two Afghan wars and got soundly trounced. Doesn’t anyone learn from history?’
‘It seems they don’t. How’s the weather with you, Steve?’
‘It’s freezing cold. We’ve just been out there. I wonder there’s no ice on the pond.’
‘Keep warm, old boy!’
You thought increasingly well of Martin as you and he grew older.
‘Oh, these bloody Soviets!’
‘What a terrible period of history we’re living through.’
Such were the Cholmondeley verdicts when you told them the news of the Soviet invasion. But in came Abby bearing a bowl of a punch she had made. You all took a brimming glass full of it and toasted one another.
Later, you wrapped up well and walked into the village; there you bought French newspapers. The Afghans were portrayed as heroic. A particularly brave group of them called the Taliban was attacking the Soviet invaders. They were seeking economic support from the West.
‘What can the Soviets hope to gain?’ your guests asked each other. ‘It’s absolute madness.’
‘The Afghans are Muslim. It’s a religious war.’
They gazed out of the broad windows of your chateau, agreeing that Tremblay was a most beautiful refuge from worldly terrors. You were complimented on discovering it. Everything outside was frosty and still – ‘Like a Dutch painting,’ they said, without specifying to which painting they referred.
The black-necked swans stood together on the bank of the lake, hesitant before its still waters.
‘They can’t mind cold water,’ said Abby, with a giggle. ‘They come from the Falkland Islands, where it must be freezing most of the year. I’m sorry I chose such a cowardly pair!’
But no, the birds were now on the move. They spread their wings, flapped them, gained some height, and took to the air, flying just a few feet to splash down on the lake.
With a great resounding crunch, much like the sound of steel closing on steel, ice shot across the surface of the water. It was instantaneous. Suddenly the surface closed like icing on a cake. The swans had disturbed still water, remaining unfrozen four or five degrees below freezing. Disturbed, the water immediately changed its state. Becoming solid, it locked the two unfortunate birds in its grip.
You onlookers gasped with horror.
The swans struggled, but could not free themselves. Their legs were held in the ice. They screamed in their frustration; their wings beat vainly until they were exhausted. There they remained, captive.
‘Can’t we go and rescue them?’ one of the Cholmondeley guests asked.
Picking up the general agitation, Geraldine began to cry.
‘Wait! Look!’ It was your exclamation.
From under the bushes on the far side of the lake, two rust-coloured animals came creeping. After them came a smaller animal, most probably the pair’s cub.
The foxes gingerly approached the ice margin, bellies near the ground, noses to the air. The larger of the two tried the ice with a tentative paw. He, if it was a he, then cautiously ventured onto it. The ice held. The watchers saw him glance back over his shoulder as if beckoning. The vixen in her turn slunk on to the ice with many a hesitation.
Seeing the foxes some distance away, the swans fell silent, arching their necks, while fighting more vigorously to escape the grip of the ice.
The vixen found the ice safe. She turned back and nuzzled the cub until it too stood on the ice. Seeing this stage of the threat, the black-necked swans began to beat their wings in a frenzy to free themselves: they were unable to loosen their legs from their prison.
Now the three foxes were sure of their footing, they hesitated no more. They raced across the ice on their nimble black feet, and fell upon the swans.
Struggle as they might, crying terribly, the swans were torn to pieces.
Abby fell screaming to her knees, clutching her head. Geraldine also screamed.
Blood spread across the surface of the ice. The foxes went relentlessly about their meal.
You closed up Aulnoy and returned to Leinster Gard
ens. Such was your haste, you left fires burning in the chateau grates. Abby seemed on the edge of a breakdown, swearing she would never return to Tremblay. You had to sell the place: it was accursed.
‘That’s not rational,’ you told her. ‘We’ve only just bought the bloody place.’
‘What the hell does rational mean? Were those horrid animals rational?’ She was all but shrieking.
‘According to their lights, yes, completely rational. Don’t be so silly! They have to eat. They had to feed the cub. It’s the law of the jungle.’
Gloom settled over you all. ‘You should have shot those foxes,’ Abby said at last, in a sulk. ‘You would have done if you’d been a man!’
In sudden fury, you shouted, ‘Don’t lecture me, you bitch! I know you’ve been screwing Joey! I should have shot him, the little bastard!’
She drew back, pale of face. ‘You don’t own me!’ she said.
On the last day of the year, a black car drew up outside the apartment in Leinster Gardens. Two men got out of the vehicle, to knock at your door.
When you opened it, they charged you with responsibility for financial fraud involving the purchase of Britannia Furniture by the fictitious company of Mayfair Holdings. You were complicit as Managing Director. Your signatures were on all the documents. They required you to help them with their enquiries.
Other matters of serious fraud were involved.
‘Steve!’ Abby cried, holding out her hands to you.
But you were resigned. You gave her a look of hate.
‘It’s your fault. It’s the law of the jungle,’ you told her, as they marched you off.
PART THREE
1
A New Line of Thought
You were confined in D Wing. The discomfiting racket of the prison; the shouts, the clanging of doors, the banging of trays, the jangle of keys, the stink of the place, got through to you. All harsh male sounds afflicted your ear. The hardest aspect of confinement was the deprivation of female company. You were forced to resign yourself to it.
