Brian Aldiss - Greybeard

But somewhat to Timberlane’s disappointment, they kept to the east of the grey river he had glimpsed as they came in to land, and crawled into the part of town Pilbeam informed him was Anacostia. They pulled up in a trim street of new white houses before a block he was told was home. It proved to be swarming with decorators and echoing with the sound of carpenters.

“New premises,” Pilbeam explained. “Up until a month ago, this was a home for mentally deranged juvenile delinquents. But that’s one problem this so-called Accident has abolished entirely. We’ve run clean out of delinquents! It’ll make us a good HQ, and when you see the swimming pool, you’ll realize why delinquency in this country was almost a profession!”

He flung open the door of a spacious room. “You’ve got bedroom and toilet off through that door there. You share shower facilities with the guy next door, who happens to be me. Right down the corridor is the bar, and by God if they don’t have that to rights by now, and with a pretty girl at the alert behind it, there’s going to be hell raised. See you across a martini in ten minutes, eh?”

The DOUCH training course was planned to last for six weeks. Although it was in a high degree of organization, the system remained chaotic, owing to the disorder of the times.

Internally, all big cities were in the toils of labour problems; the conscription of strikers into the armed forces had served only to spread trouble to those bodies. The war was not a popular one, and not only because the enthusiasm of youth was missing.

Externally, the cities were under enemy bombardment. The so-called “Fat Choy” raids were the enemy’s speciality: detection-baffled missiles that dropped in from spatial orbits, disintegrating above ground and scattering “suitcases” of explosive or incendiaries. It was the first time the American population had experienced aerial attack on their home ground. While many city dwellers evacuated themselves to smaller towns or country areas — only to straggle back later, preferring the risk of bombardment to an environment with which they had little sympathy — many country folk entered the cities in search of higher wages. Industry complained loudly; but as yet it was agriculture that was hardest hit, and Congress was busily passing laws that would enable it to order men back to the land.

The one happy feature of the whole war was that the enemy’s economy was a deal more insecure than America’s; the number of Fat Choys had noticeably decreased over the last six months. As a result, the hectic night life of the wartime capital had accelerated.

Timberlane was able to see a good deal of this night life. The DOUCH officials had good contacts. Within a day, he was supplied with all necessary documents enabling him to survive in the local rat race: stamped passport, visa, alien curfew exemptions, police file card, clothing purchase permit, travel warrant within the District of Columbia, and vitamin, meat, vegetable, bread, fish, and candy ration cards. In every case except that of the travel warrant, the restrictions seemed liberal to all but the local inhabitants.

Timberlane was a man who only rarely indulged in self-examination. So he never asked himself how strongly his decision to throw in his lot with DOUCH was influenced by their promise to reunite him with his girl friend. It was a point on which he never had to press Dyson.

Within four days, Martha Broughton was flown out of the little besieged island off the continent of Europe and delivered to Washington.

Martha Broughton was twenty-six, Timberlane’s age. Not only because she was among the youngest of the world’s women but because she carried her good looks with an easy air, she attracted attention wherever she went. At this time, she boasted a full crop of fine ash-blond hair, which she wore untamed to shoulder length. One generally had to be well-acquainted with her to notice that her eyebrows were painted on; she had no eyebrows of her own.

At the time of what Washington circles referred to euphemistically as the Big Accident, Martha was six. She had fallen ill with the radiation sickness; unlike many of her little contemporaries, she had survived. But her hair had not; and the baldness which had accompanied her throughout all her schooldays, in subjecting her to taunts against which she had readily defended herself, had been instrumental in sharpening her wit. By her twenty-first birthday, a fuzz covered her skull; now her beauty would not have been despised in any age. Timberlane was one of the few people outside her family who knew of the internal scars that were the unique mark of her own age.

Pilbeam and Timberlane showed her to a women’s hostel a couple of blocks from the new DOUCH headquarters.

“You’re having an effect on Algy already,” Martha told Pilbeam. “His long English a’s are eroding; he told the taxi driver to pahss another car, instead of parss. What’s next to go?”

“Probably the English middle class inhibition against kissing in public,” Timberlane said.

“My God, if you call me public, I’m getting out of here,” Pilbeam said good-naturedly. “I can take a hint as well as anyone — and a drink. You’ll find me down in the bar when you want me.”

“We won’t be long, Jack.”

“We won’t be very long, Jack,” Martha amended.

As the door closed, they put their arms about each other and stood with their lips together, feeling the other’s warmth through mouth and body. They remained like that, kissing and talking, for some while. Finally he stood back on the other side of the room, cupped his chin in his hand in a judicious gesture, and admired her legs.

“Ah, the cute catenary curve of your calves!” he exclaimed.

“Well, what a lovely transatlantic greeting,” Martha said. “Algy, this is wonderful! What a marvellous thing to happen! Isn’t it exciting? Father was furious that I so much as contemplated coming — preached me a long sermon in his dee-eepest voice about the flightiness of young womanhood—”

“And no doubt admires you madly for sticking to your guns and coming! Though if he suspects the American male will be after you, he’s right.”

She opened her night bag, setting bottles and brushes out on the dressing-table, and never taking her eyes off him. As she sat down to attend to her face, she said, “Any fate is better than death! And what is going on here? And what is DOUCH, and why have you joined, and what can I do to help?”

“I’m being trained here for six weeks. All sorts of courses — boy, these fellows really know how to work! Contemporary history, societics, economy, geopolitics, a new thing they call existentietics, functional psychology — oh, and other things, and practical subjects, such as engine maintenance. And twice a week we drive out to Rock Creek Park for lessons in self-defence from a judo expert. It’s tough but I’m enjoying it. There’s a dedicated feeling about here that gives everything meaning. I’m out of the war, too, which means life again makes a little sense.”

“You look well on it, honey. And are you going to practise self-defence on me?”

“Other forms of wrestling perhaps; not that. No, I suspect you are out here for one very good reason. But we’ll ask Jack Pilbeam about that. Let’s go and join him — he’s a hell of a good chap; you’ll like him.”

“I do already.”

Pilbeam was in one corner of the hostel bar, sitting close with an attentive redhead. He broke away reluctantly, swung his mack off the back of a chair, and came towards them, saluting as he did so.

“All play and no work makes Jack a dull boy,” he said. “Where do we take the lady now, and is it anywhere we can take a friendly redhead?”

“Having restored the ravages of travel, I’m in your hands,” Martha said.