The Primal Urge. Brian Aldiss
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course you can swim, Jimmy,’ Jill was saying. She had made her voice husky for extra appeal; perhaps, Jimmy thought, she did it by holding Pepsi-Cola at the back of her throat; and he watched her mouth eagerly to see if she dribbled any. ‘Only you see, Jimmy,’ she continued, ‘Daddy isn’t very broad-minded about couples swimming after dark – we had a lot of trouble in the spring with Rupert and an awful girl called Sonia MacKenzie – you ought to hear about that some time – but of course I’m broad-minded, so I don’t care, but you’d better be out before Daddy gets back. Teddy and I would come with you, but Teddy can’t swim.’
‘Pity about that,’ Jimmy murmured.
‘Here’s the key to the changing hut,’ Jill said, handing over a large label tied to a tiny key. Her hand touched his and stayed there. He stroked her chin with his free hand.
‘You’re an absolute darling,’ Jimmy said. ‘I love you, and I’ll remember you in my will.’
‘I never think that’s a very practical suggestion,’ she said frowning. The remark amused Jimmy considerably; he choked over his whisky.
‘As you can see,’ he said, ‘owing to present commitments, I am unable to offer you anything more practical!’
Still laughing, he turned to find Rose dancing a slow quickstep with Teddy. Both of them still clutched their drinks. Both scowled in concentration. Both were showing faint pink on their ERs.
‘Hey, you’re meant to be swimming!’ Jimmy said, forgetting his manners. Catching hold of Rose round the waist, he dragged her away, turning to wave at the other two as he pushed her through the door. Shoving her down the hall, he got her into the open and shut the front door behind them.
‘That was very rude!’ Rose said admiringly. Under the stars she drained the last of her glass, let it drop onto the gravel, and slid forward into his arms. They kissed, rapturous with reunion. In the house they had been apart: it was another world. Now they were together again, the evening once more on their shoulders like a tame raven.
Jimmy grabbed the Chianti and the swimsuits out of the car. ‘I just don’t give a damn,’ he thought wonderingly; ‘Not a damn!’
‘Hang on here a moment, pet,’ he whispered. ‘I’m going to take the car just down the road a bit, in case the old man comes home early and spots it.’
‘What old man?’ she asked curiously.
‘Any old man, Rangy, my love, my bright shiner.’
He seemed to be away an age, finding an unobtrusive place for the car and relieving himself heartily into a hedge, but when he returned Rose still stood in the centre of the drive and asked him again, with the same puzzlement in her voice, ‘What old man, darling?’
‘Jill’s old man. Old man Hurn. Come on; let’s go see the puddle.’
The swimming pool was at the rear of the house. By daylight it looked small and impoverished; the concrete was a maze of cracks, the diving boards both drooped. Now, camouflaged by night, Aphrodite could have risen from it without putting it out of character. On the other hand, the changing hut (the Hurns showed a surprising modesty in not labelling it ‘the pavilion’) was even smaller, darker and stuffier now than by daylight. Inside the door with the frosted glass window was one room with a partition down the middle, opposite sexes who changed there together being trusted not to look round it – a simple-minded but ideal arrangement, Jimmy thought.
‘Can you see to undress?’ he asked Rose.
‘Yes, by the light of your ER,’ she said.
‘Sorry,’ he muttered, turning tactfully away.
‘How’s the costume?’ he asked, when they emerged into the night air a minute later.
‘A bit tight.’
‘So’m I. Feel O.K.?’ She looked like a lusty goddess.
‘Hungry,’ she said, wrapping her arms round her middle.
‘We’ll eat later, that I swear: Jimmy’ll never let you starve. The night’s young!’
Suddenly he knew indeed that the night was young and he was young. The excitement of the dark purred through his body. In one grand flash, he recalled all the events of the day, getting up, his work, having his ER fitted, the party, Rose. It was all unreal, bygone, prehistoric. A new era had begun; the ERs were going to change everything. In Merrick’s words, he had inherited a major liberty.
He raced round and round the lawn, puppy-like.
‘The world’s begun again, Rangy my love,’ he shouted. ‘You and I are the only ones to guess it yet, but the jolly old millennium began today? Hurray! Life’s the greatest invention yet!’
‘Not so loud, Jimmy,’ she said. ‘You’re crazy!’
‘Nuts to you, you great big lovely ploughable adult of a woman,’ he called. Charging at the pool, he bounded in and disappeared with a resounding splash. Rose followed more gracefully, diving off the side of the bath.
‘Distinctly frappé,’ she said in a small voice, as they swam together. She shook her head vigorously in distress.
‘Where have they kept this pool all day?’ he asked. ‘Feels like liquid oxygen. Death to the loins.’
‘Oh Jimmy, I do feel funny. I think I’d better get out.’
He put an arm round her shoulders. Her flesh was as heavy and cold as refrigerated meat.
‘Come on then, pet,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you a hand out. You’d better go indoors and have a warm-up. A sip more whisky’s what you need.’
‘No, wait a tick … Ugh, better now, I think. It was just one of those momentary things. Sorry. I seem to be functioning properly again now.’
Rose trod water, and then they began swimming slowly round the tank like a goldfish in a bowl. The water had evidently had a cooling effect on their genes, for their Norman Lights no longer glowed, spoiling what might have been rather an unusual effect.
‘Are you sure you’re all right, Rangy?’
‘I told you I was.’
‘The water’s quite hot when you get used to it.’
‘What I was thinking.’
He floated on his back, gazing into the clear night sky with its complement of stars. Somewhere way up there was a super-civilisation which had solved all its troubles and wore new suits every day; it was not having half the time he was.
‘I think I’m ready to get out,’ he said. ‘How about you, Rangy?’
‘I could stay here till dawn now I’m properly in. One becomes acclimatised, you know.’
He drifted over to her. Her face and the reflections of her face seemed to palpitate before him like butterflies in a cupboard. Reaching out, he caught and kissed her; they climbed together up rickety wooden steps, trotting over short grass and gravel to the changing hut.
There, Jimmy thoughtfully locked the door on the inside, and proceeded with the next stage of his master plan. Waiting a moment, he called softly in mock-consternation. ‘Rangy, what a fool I am! I forgot to bring any towels.’
‘You are lying to me, Jimmy, and I hate lies,’ she said from her side of the partition.
‘I’m not lying!’ he said angrily. ‘I did not bring any towels. I was in such a hurry I forgot.’
In the faint light, he noticed as he spoke a towel hanging on a hook, on the rear wall of the hut. Rose presumably had found one too and believed Jimmy had provided it. Snatching it off the peg, he bundled it up and thrust it under the seat. Then he bounded round the partition.
‘If you’ve found a towel, you’ll have to let me share it, pet,’