Walcot. Brian Aldiss
Читать онлайн книгу.
went to the bottom of their garden and hanged himself without fuss from a branch of an old apple tree.
The suicide caused shock waves all round the family.
‘He was a nice, quiet boy, mind you,’ said your mother.
‘But he was a bit, you know, funny, mum,’ Sonia exclaimed. ‘He asked me once if I wanted to see his willy.’
‘I hope you didn’t say yes,’ said your mother, keen that her daughter should remain unsullied.
‘I did just have a quick look, but I didn’t touch.’
You could see that Sonia was teasing your mother, but Mary was clearly shocked.
‘Valerie wouldn’t have looked, would she?’ you said, teasing in your turn, with a sidelong glance at Sonia.
‘Oh, you’re so jealous of your poor sister,’ Mary exclaimed. ‘It’s a horrible trait in you!’
Uncle Claude Hillman gave your father a wink. ‘The kid was queer, wasn’t he? ’Nuff to make anyone hang themselves.’
Your Auntie Violet had her own slant on the matter, saying to Bertie, ‘Well, plants die from lack of sunlight. The poor kid died from lack of love and understanding, didn’t he? They aren’t exactly elements in which your flipping family specializes, are they, Bert?’
You can understand that at this time your mind was a confusion of ill-digested thoughts. You were of an age when your perceptions were extended, when it seemed to you that every day you climbed a new metaphorical hill. You had anxieties about what was truth, what false. You were keen to bring a possible life as a geologist into line with probity of character. Many connections had to be made, many decisions confronted you.
After leaving school, you went up to Birmingham University to study the new discipline of Earth Sciences. You knew of no other university offering such a course. You were proud to be an early student, and worked hard.
During your first term in Birmingham, your Aunt Violet came to visit you, to see how you were getting on. You were ashamed to take her to your digs, but Violet seemed not to mind. ‘I like the poster,’ she said, admiring the portrait of Che Guevara hanging on your wall. There she stood, perfectly at ease in the scruffy room. Your Aunt Violet was brightly clothed in something beaded and flowing. Gipsy earrings swung from her ears. She wore silk stockings and red, high-heeled shoes. You were overwhelmed by her appearance and hoped all your new friends saw you with this illustrious relation.
She removed, with meticulous care, your soiled shirts and pants from your rickety chair. She pushed aside some paperbacks and scribbled-on pieces of paper, to make a space on the table.
‘I’ve brought you some plonk, Steve, dear,’ she said, setting down on your table a brown paper carrier bag containing a bottle of red wine. ‘I assume you drink?’
‘Of course.’ You did not wish to appear other than adult before this sophisticated aunt. The fact was that you had tasted beer and had not liked it, and the group of young men you mixed with proclaimed themselves Communists and were abstemious (and saw no contradiction in that).
Violet gingerly settled her behind down on your chair, tipped it back, put her feet up on the table edge, showing an extent of shapely leg as she did so, and eased off her high heels, so that they hung loose from her stockinged toes. She asked you what you were getting up to, now that you were free of parental control. You replied, ‘I’m considering disowning my pater. I have already disowned God. My pater has been a bad and repressive influence. I reject his way of life. You know him, auntie, and I am sure you dislike him.’
‘No, I don’t really dislike Martin. I feel a bit sorry for the old blighter.’
‘Feeling sorry for people does no one any good.’ How grown up you were being.
‘And your mother has a bit of a mental problem, as I suppose you know. Well, like poor old Bertie, in a way.’
Bertie was her husband, your mother’s younger brother. But you were uninterested in Violet’s troubles. You spoke instead of your own troubles.
You addressed her as if she were a meeting.
‘You see, auntie, I have reached the conclusion that money should not be inherited. When a person dies, his estate, if there is one, should pass to the government. Within one or two generations, we would see a complete reformation of society. The public exchequers could then finance massive projects in housing and health and education. We might then expect a general moral reformation. Also, women have to be liberated from housework. Their intellects are limited at present.’
Violet gave a little laugh. ‘That’s certainly true of my intellect.’
She added, ‘But who’s going to put up with handing over their property to some government department? Not me, old sport.’
‘Auntie, perhaps you don’t realize,’ you were being ponderously patient, ‘that thirty-one per cent of the inhabitants of Britain live below the poverty line. Thirty-one per cent! That’s disgraceful. That has to be rectified, in the name of justice. And humanity.’
Violet produced a cigarette and threw you one. You went over to get a light from her.
‘Aren’t things just as bad in Russia, where you get your ideas from?’ she said, indifferently.
You then had to lecture her on basic economics. She sat there not listening, her pretty little chin in the air.
You embarrass me by recalling what I said on that occasion. What a prig I was! Do not feel embarrassed. You were attempting to digest recently learned facts and trying on what personality suited you best. We understand that adolescence is a difficult time.
‘Don’t believe what the capitalist press tells you about Russia, auntie. You’re living under an illusion.’ You were bending over your aunt to light a second cigarette. It did not occur to you to offer her a mug of instant coffee.
‘I say, aunt, what beautiful legs you have.’
She looked up, giving you a flirtatious glance. Smiling she said, ‘That’s none of your business.’
‘I wish it was, really.’
Violet removed her feet from the table and tucked them under her skirt. She announced there was something serious she wanted to talk to you about. Then she said, ‘Oh, I can’t. I’m made for the frivolous life. Besides, you’re almost grown up now. You’re safe.’
‘What were you going to tell me, aunt, dear?’
She waved an elegant hand. ‘Doesn’t matter. There’s going to be another war soon. You’ll have to go, darling – serve King and country. Give your old aunt a kiss.’
You put an arm round her neck and kissed her lingeringly. An erection sprang up in your trousers. You knew she saw the effect she had on you.
She said, teasingly, ‘You are a big boy! I’d better go, sweetie.’
She stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette. She put her shoes on. She gave you a straight look, serious but affectionate. ‘Toodle-pip,’ she said. You thought as she left how old-fashioned it was to say ‘Toodle-pip’.
It was going to be a long while before you saw your aunt again. You would then be adult, war-hardened. But first you had to attend a funeral.
It was on the first day of April, 1939, that the Spanish Civil War ended. General Franco’s forces had triumphed. ‘Fascists!’ your father had been shouting for some time. But not on that particular day. For on that particular day, he was standing with his mother, Elizabeth