Brian Aldiss - Greybeard

“Touching, eh? I fancy your lady has a few throbbings left, nothing more. But I shall come and see her, of course. It is my duty. I shall naturally assure her that she is in the family way, if that is what she desires to hear.” He folded his fleshy hands together and frowned.

“There’s no chance she might really be about to bear a child?”

“My dear Timberlane — if you will pardon my not using your somewhat inane sobriquet — hope springs as eternal to the human womb as to the human breast, but I am surprised to find you seem to share her hope.”

“I suppose I do. You said yourself that hope was valuable.”

“Not valuable: imperative. But you must hope for yourself — when we hope for other people we are invariably disappointed. Our dreams have jurisdiction only over ourselves. Knowing you as I do, I see that you really come to me for your own sake. I rejoice to see it. My friend, you love life, you love this life with all its blemishes, with all its tastes and distastes — you also desire my immortality cure, do you not?”

Resting his throbbing head on his hand, Greybeard quaffed down more drink and said, “Many years ago, I was in Oxford — in Cowley to be accurate — when I heard of a treatment, it was just a rumour, a treatment that might prolong life, perhaps for several hundred years. It was something they were developing at a hospital there. Is it possible this could be done? I’d want scientific evidence before I believe.”

“Of course you do, naturally, undeniably, and I would expect nothing less of a man like you,” Jingadangelow said, nodding so vigorously that the woman was almost dislodged from his lap. “The best scientific evidence is empirical. You shall have empirical evidence. You shall have the full treatment — I’m absolutely convinced that you could afford it — and you shall then see for yourself that you never grow a day older.”

Squinting at him cunningly, Greybeard said, “Shall I have to come to Mockweagles?”

“Ah ha, he’s clever, isn’t he, Ruthie? He’s prepared the way for himself nicely. That’s the sort of man I prefer to deal with. I—”

“Where is Mockweagles?” Greybeard asked.

“It’s what you might call my research headquarters. I reside there when I am not travelling the road.”

“I know, I know. You have few secrets from me, Doctor Jingadangelow. It’s twenty-nine storeys high, more like a castle than a skyscraper…”

“Possibly your informants have been slightly exaggerating, Timberlane, but your general picture is of course amazingly accurate, as Joan will tell you, eh, my pet? But first we should get a few details straight; you will want your lovely wife to undergo the treatment too?”

“Of course I will, you old fool. I can quote poetry too, you know; to be a member of DOUCH(E) you have to be educated. ‘Let me not to the marriage of two minds omit impediment…’ How does it go? Shakespeare, Doctor, Shakespeare. Ever make his acquaintance? First-class scholar… Oh, there is my wife! Martha!”

He staggered to his feet, knocking over his glass. Martha hurried towards him, anxiety in her face.

Charley Samuels was close behind, carrying Isaac in his arms.

“Oh, Algy, Algy, you must come at once. We’ve been robbed!”

“What do you mean, robbed?” He stared stupidly at her, resenting the interruption of his train of thought.

“While we were bringing you in here after you were attacked, thieves got into the boats and took everything they could lay their hands on.”

“The sheep!”

“They’ve all been taken, and our supplies.”

Greybeard turned to Jingadangelow and made a loose gesture of courtesy.

“Be seeing you, Doctor. Got to go — den of thieves — we’ve been robbed.”

“I always mourn to see a scholar suffer, Mr. Timberlane,” Jingadangelow said, bowing his massive head towards Martha without otherwise moving.

As he hurried into the open with Martha and Charley, Greybeard said brokenly, “Why did you leave the boats?”

“You know why! We had to leave them when we heard you were in trouble. We heard they were beating you up. Everything’s gone except the boats themselves.”

“My rifle!”

“Luckily Jeff Pitt had your rifle with him.”

Charley put the fox down, and it pulled on ahead. They pushed through the dark, down the uneven road. There were few lights now. Greybeard realized how late it was; he had lost the idea of time. Potluck’s Tavern had its single window boarded up. The bonfires were mere smouldering cones of ash. One or two stalls were being shut by their owners; otherwise, the place was silent. A thin chip of moon, high overhead, shone on the expanse of flood water that threaded its way through the darkness of the land. Breathing the sharp air steadied the pulse in Greybeard’s head.

“That Jingadangelow’s behind all this,” Charley said savagely. “He has these travelling people in the power of his hand, from what I’ve seen and heard. He’s a charlatan. You shouldn’t have had anything to do with him, Greybeard.”

“Charlatans have their ambivalences,” Greybeard said, recognizing the preposterousness of the words as soon as they were out. Hurriedly, he said, “Where are Becky and Towin?”

“They’re down by the river with Jeff now. We couldn’t find them first go off, then they turned up. They were busy celebrating.”

As they came off the road and padded over soggy ground, they saw the trio huddled by the river bank near by the dinghy, carrying a couple of lanterns. They all stood together, not saying much. The celebration was over. Isaac padded unhappily in the mud, until Charley took pity on him and lifted him into his arms.

“It would be best if we leave this place straight away,” Greybeard said, when examination proved that though the two boats were indeed all that was left to them, they were intact. “This is not the place for us, and I am ashamed of my part in this evening’s events.”

“If you’d taken my advice, you’d never have left the boat in the first place,” Pitt said. “They’re just a lot of crooks here. It’s the loss of the sheep that grieves me.”

“You could have stayed by the boat as you were told,” Greybeard pointed out sharply. Turning to the others, he said, “My feeling is that we’ll be better off on the river. It is a fine night, I have alcohol in my system to row off. By tomorrow, we can reach Oxford and get work and shelter there. It will be a very different place from what it was when Martha and I were last there, however many years ago that was. Do you all agree to leaving this thieves’ den now?”

Towin coughed, shiffing his lantern from hand to hand.

“Actually, me and the missus was thinking of staying here, like. We made some great friends, see, called Liz and Bob, and we thought we’d join forces with them — if you had no particular objection. We aren’t much set on this idea of going down the river, as you know.” In the moonlight, he smiled his injured wolf’s grin and shuffled his feet.

“I need rest in my condition,” Becky said. She spoke more boldly than her husband, glaring at them through the sickly light. “I’ve had enough of being in that little leaking boat. We’d be better off with these friends of ours.”

“I’m sure that’s not true, Becky,” Martha said.

“Why, I should catch my death of cold in that boat, me in my condition. Tow agrees with me.”

“He always has to,” Pitt observed.

There was a silence as they stood together but separate in the dark. Much lay between them they could never express, currents of liking and resentment, affinity and aversion: vague but not the less strong for that.