Walcot. Brian Aldiss
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not a very nice way of putting it.’ But it appeared your mother’s thoughts were elsewhere, for she went on to say that she had heard on the radio that when certain kings could no longer satisfy their wives, they were put to death, or else the crops failed. She believed this was in some African tribe or other.
‘Don’t see what you are on about,’ said Jeremy. ‘We’re no African tribe. Pop wasn’t black, thank goodness.’
His younger brother Jack agreed, but said, sotto voce, ‘No disrespect, please, Jeremy. Not in Mother’s hearing.’ He nodded towards Elizabeth.
‘But I didn’t respect him. He gave me a rotten childhood.’ However, Jeremy had lowered his voice to make this pronouncement. ‘Poor old bugger, all the same.’
Claude was interested in another kind of respect. He grabbed his two sons and addressed them confidentially. ‘You two better behave respectfully to your grandmother. I happen to know that all of Granddad’s money is left to her, so be nice to the old girl.’
‘Will she be rich, dad?’ Joey asked.
‘Stinking rich, my boy. Stinking rich. So watch it!’
‘Will we be rich, dad?’ Terry asked.
Claude closed one eye. ‘You go to work on it, old lad.’
All round the room and into the nearby breakfast room, muttered family conversations went on, the family being semi-glad to be called together.
‘I don’t know Hunstanton,’ Jack Wilberforce proclaimed, as if bestowing a signal honour on the town he named.
Jeremy said, before holding out his glass for a refill as Emma came round with the bottle, ‘I always felt a bit sorry for mum.’
‘He gave Liz a hard time,’ Flo agreed. ‘She had more intelligence than Sidney, that was the problem.’
The lady referred to as Liz was the newly widowed Elizabeth, sitting alone in a corner of the room. Mary and Martin had escorted Elizabeth to a sofa, donkey brown and genuine leather, where she sat poised and elegant in her sweeping black dress. She wore a wide-brimmed black hat with a white rose attached to the brim. Elizabeth was in her late forties; her face, with its sharp features, was utterly pale, utterly composed, as she looked about the room.
Since her stroke, the old lady kept her ebony walking stick to hand; but the sofa suited her well enough because it had a high seat, from which it was easy to rise without assistance.
You went over to speak to her. ‘I’m so sorry, Granny dear. Granddad will be greatly missed.’ You added, ‘By you, most of all.’
‘It is character … istic of your mother,’ she began, ‘to wear a dress which fits – which does not fit, I should say – her. Properly.’
‘Yes, Granny, but –’
She reached out and clutched your hand. ‘Yes, it’s about your granddad sad. But the over war … the Civil War Spanish is over. We must be small mercies. Grateful for –’
She paused, gazing upwards, searching for a word.
‘Small mercies?’ you suggested.
Later in life, you would come greatly to respect your grandmother. Moreover, it grew to be your opinion that Elizabeth was the one scholarly member of the family, apart from Jeremy’s wife, Flo. Your grandmother, in your view and that of others, had not been well treated by her husband Sidney. Sidney had been too busy making money to care properly for his grand wife – or for her intellect.
Elizabeth had suffered her stroke three years earlier. Her intellect had carried her through. Sonia affected to be scared of the speech impediment. As Sonia happened to be passing, you grabbed her arm and made her say hello to her grandmother.
‘Oh, I thought you didn’t want to talk to me, Granny,’ said Sonia, grinning and rocking her body back and forth in an idiotic way.
‘Why should I … why not wish … to talk to you, child?’ asked Elizabeth, scrutinizing Sonia with some interest.
‘I thought perhaps you did not like hunchbacked children, Granny.’ Sonia made an awful grimace as she said this.
‘On the cont … on the contrary. I adore hunchbacks, child. Remind me of your name.’
‘Oh,’ Sonia gazed at the floor. ‘I am sister to the adorable Valerie, who was perfect and not hunchbacked. Little Valerie-Wallerie was the world’s most perfect child.’
You reassured your grandmother, pointing a finger to your temple, working it back and forth as if to drill into your brain. ‘Sonia is a bit touched, Grandma. It runs in the family.’
Elizabeth made no direct reply to this remark, although she flashed at you something that could have been a smile of understanding. She fished in her handbag, took out a cigarette case and extracted a cigarette. When she had lit it and blown a plume of smoke from her nostrils, she said, not looking at you, but gazing rather into the room, where her relations were milling about, ‘Why are your Uncle Bertie and Auntie Violet not here? Why did they not attend Sidney’s funeral?’
‘I’m afraid Mother doesn’t approve of them. Well, at least she doesn’t approve of Auntie Violet. She told Auntie she was not welcome.’
You did not add that you had asked your mother why she did not want Auntie Violet in the house. To which she had replied, loftily, that she was a good judge of character.
‘Violet wears good clothes. Wears well. Them well,’ said Elizabeth, now.
‘Yes, but Mum says they are too expensive.’
The old lady inspected your face. ‘Violet, I recall … Violet criticized your Uncle Jeremy. Jeremy’s of his son, deplorable treatment. Poor Sid. Rightly so, to my mind. It’s as well to speak. Brave to speak, um, out. A necessary adjunct. I say, adjunct of civiliz … our civilization.’
Lamely, you said, ‘We were all upset about Sad Sid.’
‘Suicide. Suicide is … sorry, suicide is always a family … A criticism, I mean to say, of the family.’
‘We are a funny family, I must agree,’ said Sonia. ‘Look at their faces! But our sausage rolls are good. May I get you one, Granny?’
‘No, thank you. Valerie.’
‘No, sorry Granny.’ Sonia vigorously shook her head. ‘I’m Sonia, thanks very much. And I’m alive. Valerie is the one who is not alive.’
‘I see.’ Elizabeth spoke gravely, looking into Sonia’s face. ‘And was not Valerie also hunchbacked?’
‘Oh, heavens no! Valerie was perfect, Granny. Everyone knows that. That was why she died, so they say. Died of perfection, like Jesus on the Cross. In fact, I believe I saw her at your husband’s graveside.’ She pressed her fingers to her lips. ‘Sorry, shouldn’t have mentioned gravesides.’
Elizabeth nodded thoughtfully, but she could not restrain a smile. ‘Well then, Sonia, you should go far in life, and get into a lot of trouble on the way.’
She dismissed the subject. Again the inspection of your face. You liked your grandmother’s intelligence, while finding it alarming at times. Her face still bore traces of a smile.
‘I hope you learnt something. Stephen. From Sad Sid’s death. Unlike your cheeky little sister.’
‘Valerie?’
‘Sonia.’
‘I still feel bad about it, Gran.’
‘Feeling bad is the same. Is not the same as something. Learning something.’ She changed the subject abruptly. She tapped the end of her cigarette on the rim of a brass ashtray, which was secured in the middle of a weighted leather strap so that it hung comfortably over the arm of the sofa on which she was sitting. ‘But that you know.’
She