Brian Aldiss - The Male Response

‘That’s it now! That one over there, Johnny, that one over there. Easy with it, you silly sod – treat it like it was crockery. Now bring that one here. You! Bring it here. Here , you clot! That’s better. Well, get your great foot out the way. Where are you going? Where are all them others? Come on, chop-chop, you black bastards, my grannie could move quicker. No, that’s Number Twenty Crate, that goes right down that end. Further. Further still. No, not there. There! Good lad.’

The porters seemed to understand. They loved being sworn at. Grinning broadly, they parrotted Timpleton’s words, calling to one another, ‘No. Not dere,’ ‘You black basads.’ Eagerly they fought for the diminishing pile of crates outside, in order to relish the joy of being cursed again inside. So forty-six grey boxes came to be strung out in line down the length of the room, in numerical order according to the stencilled numbers on their sides.

Timpleton rubbed his hands. He picked up a crowbar he had been using as a conductor’s baton during the cursing operations.

‘OK, Jimpo,’ he said. ‘Let’s open a test case and see if anything’s broken.’

Working delicately with the crowbar, he prised the lid off Crate Ten. Inside, packed tightly, partitioned with thick rubber, cushioned with foam rubber, each gripped in place by a spring clip, stood rows of transistors and valves as delicate as Fabergé jewels. The electronics engineer grunted, eased one of the partitions out and removed a valve from its clip.

It was pear-shaped, sixteen slender prongs protruding from its base. The lower half of it was silvered. Timpleton held it up to the light with a connoisseur’s eye. Inside it was a lattice of wires and grids, a tiny structure as dainty as a fairy palace in a bottle, while through its interstices could be glimpsed the river Uiui, flowing darkly on.

‘That’s OK,’ he said finally. ‘And if a 10 CAAL 10 pentode has stood the journey, the rest of the equipment will be OK. I’ll get started putting it together as soon as possible tomorrow morning, Jimpo.’

‘Excellent, Ted,’ Jimpo said. ‘I will get down two of our radio engineers to assist you in any way.’

‘Yes, they can help over things like bolting the main framework together,’ Timpleton assented.

‘I shall take this very good news to my father,’ Jimpo said. ‘Your personal luggage, by the way, is in the cab of the lorry. A bearer will fetch it to your rooms. Tomorrow the lorry will go back to the wreck and will transport the bodies of the dead men – so much as remains of them – here for burial.’

The last meal of the day was taken at sundown, and consisted chiefly of a porridgy meat mince which Soames did not enjoy. Turdilal Ghosti, the chef, was evidently off duty. None of the royal and presidential families was present except for Princess Cherry, who sat alone at the royal table, and Jimpo, who came down to the commoners’ table to discuss computers and the wonderful science of electricity with Timpleton and his two radio engineers, Gumboi and L’Panto.

Eventually, Soames got up and left on his own.

The palace, which during the day preserved the quiet of a village church, was now as noisy as a village fair. From being nearly empty it had become nearly full. Thronging groups of black men and women made the corridors as unruly as hospital corridors at visiting time. Vendors descended on Soames, volubly offering him peanuts, cotton vests, sweets, drugged parrots and nicely shaped bits of old sardine tins.

Someone touched his arm and gently spoke his name.

‘Come away from this maddening crowd with me, Mr Noyes. Outside it is pleasant weather before the rain breaks. We will find silence outside.’

An old Chinese with a dark skin and sleepy eyes stood there smiling, introduced himself as Ping Ah and repeated his invitation to the great outdoors. ‘Who am I,’ thought Soames, ‘that all nations should love me?’ He suddenly felt sour and suspicious, for the recent meal lay heavy on his stomach.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but I am tired. I don’t want to walk tonight.’

‘Then it would be very nice thing if you will come to my room here in the palace. Take a cup of tea with me, Mr Noyes. Discuss old times.’

‘What old times?’ (Even as he spoke, he was being manoeuvred down the passage, gently, celestially.)

‘As a young man, my wife and I live in England five years,’ the Chinese said. ‘We make money there and enjoy. Liverpool very interesting city. You come from there perhaps, Mr Noyes?’

‘No. I’ve been there, though.’

‘Is very interesting city, no?’

‘Very interesting.’

‘In Liverpool are many Chinese men. This is my room now please.’ Ping Ah seized Soames by the sleeve, opened the door wide enough to stick his head in, stuck his head in, and shouted sharply in Cantonese, whereupon there came an almighty scuffling inside, followed by silence.

‘Just I call to see if my missus at home,’ explained Ping Ah blandly. ‘Please do me a favour of stepping inside.’

They entered what Soames soon found was the palace laundry; Ping Ah was in charge of it. The multitude who had scuttled into hiding had made an excellent job of it; nobody, as they walked through into Ping Ah’s inner sanctum, was visible but his wife, whom he addressed as Rosie, pronouncing it Lousy. She came forward smiling through her rimless glasses, shaking her head, bowing, a little plump woman with dimples and a magnificent coiffure. She had no English.

‘In Liverpool, she was always indoors, washing, ironing, seeing nobody, eh, Rosie?’ said Ping Ah affectionately. She bobbed in answer.

They seated themselves round a scrubbed, bare table. Ping Ah clapped his hands, whereupon a girl hurried out to throw a pretty cloth over the white wood and lay out the paraphernalia for tea. As she did so, the Chinese talked.

‘Anything you have for wash or clean,’ he said, ‘you bring down here, Mr Noyes, and we will attend to with greatest attention and lowest cost. No article is too small or too big for us. All notions of cleanliness admiringly observed.’

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