Brian Aldiss - Greybeard

“I don’t expect any work off you today,” Flitch said, when Greybeard showed himself at the little dairy. “Life’s short enough as well as being long enough — you’re a young man, you are, go and enjoy yourself.”

“What year is it, Joe? I’ve lost my calendar and forgotten where we are.”

“What’s it matter where we are? I barely keep the score of my own years, never mind the world’s. You go on home to your Martha.”

“I’m just thinking. Why wasn’t Christmas Day celebrated?”

Flitch straightened up from the sheep he was milking and regarded Greybeard with an amused look. “You mean why should it be celebrated? I can tell you’re no sort of a religious man, or you wouldn’t ask that. Christmas was invented to celebrate the birth of God’s son, wasn’t it? And the Students in Christ Church reckon as it aren’t in what you might call good taste to celebrate birth any more.” He moved his stool and pail to a nanny goat and added, “Course, if you were under tenancy to Balliol or Magdalen, now they do recognize Christmas still.”

“Are you a religious man, Joe?”

Flitch pulled a face. “I leaves that sort of thing to women.”

Greybeard tramped back through the miry streets to Martha. He saw by the look in her face that there was some excitement brewing. She explained that this was the day when the children of Balliol were displayed in ‘The Broad’, and she wanted to go and see them.

“We don’t want to see children, Martha. It’ll only upset you. Stay here with me, where it’s cosy. Let’s look up Tubby at the gate and have a drink with him. Or come and meet old Joe Flitch — you don’t have to see his womenfolk. Or—”

“Algy, I want to be taken to see the children. I can stand the shock. Besides, it’s a sort of social event, and they’re few and far enough between.” She tucked her hair inside her hood, eyeing him in a friendly but detached way. He shook his head and took her by the arm.

“You were always a stubborn woman, Martha.”

“Where you are concerned, I’m always as weak as water, and you know it.”

Along the path known as the “Corn”, presumably from a ploughed-up strip of wheatland along one side of it, many people were flocking. Their appearance was as grey and seamed as that of the ruined buildings below which they shuffled; they sucked their gums against the cold and did not chatter much. They gave way falteringly to a cart pulled by reindeer. As the cart creaked level with Martha and Greybeard, someone called her name.

Norman Morton, with a scholastic gown draped over a thick array of furs, rode in the cart, accompanied by some of the other Students, including the two Greybeard had spoken with already, the tallowy Gavin, the silent Vivian. He made the driver stop the cart, and invited the two pedestrians to climb up. They stepped up on the wheel hubs and were helped in.

“Are you surprised to find me participating in the common pleasure?” Morton asked. “I take as much interest in Balliol’s children as I do in my own animals. They make a pretty display as pets and reflect a little much-needed popularity on to the Master. What will happen to them when they are grown up, as they will be in a few years, is a matter beyond the power of the Master to decide.”

The cart trundled to a convenient position before the battered fortress of Balliol, with its graceless Victorian façade. The ultimate effectiveness of Colonel Appleyard’s mortar fire was apparent. The tower had been reduced to a stump, and two large sections of the façade were patched rather clumsily with new stone. A sort of scaffold had been erected outside the main gate and the college flag hung over it.

The crowd here was as large as Martha and Greybeard had seen in years. Although the atmosphere was more solemn than gay, hawkers moved among the numbers assembled, selling scarves and cheap jewellery and hats made of swans’ feathers and hot dogs and pamphlets. Morton pointed to one man who bore a tray full of broadsheets and books.

“You see — Oxford continues to be the home of printing, right to the bitter end. There is much to be said for tradition don’t you know. Let’s see what the rogue has to offer, eh?”

The rogue was a husky broken-mouthed man with a notice pinned to his coat saying “Bookseller to the University Press”, but most of his wares were intended, as Morton’s friend Gavin remarked, turning over an ill-printed edition of a thriller, for the rabble.

Martha bought a four-page pamphlet produced for the occasion and headed, HAPPY NEW YEAR OXFORD 2030!! She turned it over and handed it to Greybeard.

“Poetry seems to have come back into its own. Though this is mainly nursery-pornographic. Does it remind you of anything?”

He read the first verse. The mixture of childishness and smut did seem familiar.

“America…” he said. The names of everything had deserted him over almost thirty years. Then he smiled at her. “Our best man — I can see him so clearly — what was it he called this sort of stuff? ‘Slouch!’ By golly, how it takes you back!” He wrapped his arm round her.

“Jack Pilbeam,” she said. They both laughed, surprised by pleasure, and said simultaneously, “My memory is getting so bad…”

Momentarily, both of them escaped from the present and the festering frames and rotten breath of the crowd about them. They were back when the world was cleaner, in that heady Washington they had known.

One of Bill Dyson’s wedding presents to them was a permit for them to travel throughout the States. They took part of their honeymoon in Niagara, rejoicing in the hackneyed choice, pretending they were American, listening to the mighty fall of waters.

While they were there they heard the news. Martha’s kidnapper was found and arrested. He proved to be Dusty Dykes, the low comedian Jack Pilbeam had taken them to see. The news of the arrest made headlines everywhere; but next day there was a mighty factory fire in Detroit to fill the front pages.

That world of news and event was buried. Even in their memories, it lived only flickeringly; for they formed part of the general disintegration. Greybeard closed his eyes and could not look at Martha.

The parade began. Various dignitaries, flanked by guards, marched from the gates of Balliol. Some mounted the scaffold, some guarded the way. The Master appeared, old and frail, his face a dead white against his black gown and hat. He was helped up the steps. He made a speech as brief as it was inaudible, subsiding into a fit of coughing, after which the children emerged from the college.

The girl appeared first, walking pertly and looking about her as she went. At the cheer that rose from the crowd, her face lit; she climbed the platform and waved. She was completely hairless, the structure of her skull knobbly through her pale skin. One of her ears, as Greybeard had been warned, was swollen until it was no more than a confused mess of flesh. When she turned so that it was towards the spectators, she resembled a goblin.

The crowd were delighted by the sight of youth. Many people clapped.

The boys appeared next. The one with the withered arm looked unwell; his face was pinched and blueish; he stood there apathetically, waving but not smiling. He was perhaps thirteen. The other boy was older and healthier. His eye as he regarded the crowd was calculating; Greybeard watched him with sympathy, knowing how untrustworthy a crowd is. Perhaps the boy felt that those who cheered so easily today might by next year be after his blood, if the wind but changed direction. So he waved and smiled, and never smiled with his eyes.