Brian Aldiss - Forgotten Life

Postcards from all over the world were ranged along the mantelshelf, like illustrations from other people’s lives lived under bright blue skies. Photographs of Green Mouth mixing with important people hung framed on the wall behind the door. Beneath them was a small eighteenth-century side-table bearing a large Chinese vase converted into a table-lamp. Similar conversions involved the mock gas brackets which projected from the wall over the fireplace. The white leather rhino which served as a footrest – present from a grateful and enriched publisher in Germany – had never seen the forests of Sumatra.

The stillness in the room was also in a sense man-made. The Winters had had all the windows double-glazed, to shut out noise from the street.

To the rear of the room, by a curtained archway leading through to the conservatory, a music stack with discs, records and cassettes waited in an alcove. There hung an enormous gouache, painted for a bygone dust jacket, of Gyronee, Queen of Kerinth, standing bolt upright with a spear and a sort of dog, gazing into the purple future.

Beyond the queen stood a bureau at which Sheila often sat to answer her fanmail. Her study suite was upstairs on the first floor. Clement’s little study was up another flight, on the second floor, under the eaves that pointed in the direction of the University.

‘Back to reality,’ she said, setting down her mug. ‘I suppose Michelin is in Summertown shopping.’

‘She’ll be back soon. Shall we have a snort of something?’

‘Shall we? Just wine for me.’

‘Wine it is.’ He went through to the kitchen and uncorked a bottle of Mouton Cadet, whistling as he did so.

Michelin had collected up the mail and piled it on the dresser. As he put the corkscrew back into the drawer, Clement looked it over. Most of the letters were for Sheila, addressed to her under her famous pseudonym; most of them came from the United States. Sorting casually through the collection, he found some bills and a small package addressed to him. He recognized his sister Ellen’s writing.

The package was registered. Evidently Michelin had signed for it. He frowned, but made no attempt to open it just yet. Like Sheila, he felt a reluctance to allow the real world back in: the world of bills. On Kerinth, bills were never presented or paid; no one worked, except peasants. Sisters, if they sent packets, sent them by hand – probably by a messenger on a telepathic erlkring. The messenger would arrive in a lather, perhaps seriously wounded, and the packet would contain something portentous. A lover’s heart, perhaps, as in The Heart of Kerinth.

Was Ellen sending him something equally vital?

He suppressed such questions, left the package on the dresser, and went back into the front room to Sheila, carrying the bottle and two glasses.

After the first glass, she fell asleep. He spread a tartan rug gently over her. He stood regarding her. With her eyes closed she looked characterless, despite the noble nose and noticeable chin.

Taking the opportunity, Clement went quietly upstairs to his study. There his dead brother’s papers awaited him, stacked on the desk, tumbling out of boxes on the floor; the mortal remains of Joseph Winter in folders and old brown paper bundles. For all practical purposes, Joseph in death had taken over Clement’s study.

When Sheila had made her remark, commonplace enough, about coming back to reality, she had spoken, Clement thought, with contempt as well as resignation. Reality for him meant something different, something with the texture of puzzlement, for to enter his study was to feel himself entangled in the affairs of his late brother.

Some time soon, he would have to drive over again to his dead brother’s flat. It was two months since Joseph had suffered his final heart attack. His flat remained, ensconced in that limbo of small London streets where Chiswick subsides ignobly into Acton amid a welter of little furniture dealers, junk shops, discount stores, and auto repair shops. There Joseph Winter had lived in his semi-academic obscurity with a succession of women, while books and documents had piled up around him.

Clement felt only mild curiosity about the women. The books and documents, willed to him, were his responsibility. He had collected some, almost at random, culling them from wardrobes and mantelpieces. He was also engaged with a series of secondhand booksellers, trying to screw from them a tolerably fair price for Joseph’s old volumes, some of which, dealing with Joseph’s subject, South East Asian history, were of value.

The question of the books could be resolved. They were the subjects of a mere financial transaction. It was the unpublished work, particularly that dealing with Joseph’s private life, which presented more than a problem, a challenge, which made Clement feel that his own life was being called into account.

Clement slumped in his chair, forearms resting on his knees, so that his hands dangled in space.

‘Joseph,’ he said aloud – quietly, bearing in mind that Sheila was asleep – ‘what am I going to do about you?’

Since the brothers had never known what to do about each other in life, it appeared unlikely that the question would be resolved now, when one of them had folded up his mortal tent and stolen away.

Clement Winter left home shortly after nine the next morning, keeping an eye open for his next-door neighbours, the Farrers, whom he detested. It was a Tuesday, quite a sensible, neutral day of the week – the day, in fact, when he usually held his clinic; but this week as last he had cancelled it, using the excuse of his American trip. Which was as well; jet-lag still made him feel slightly dissociated. Both his legs ached, the left in particular. He walked consciously upright, but a little stiffly.

This walk was his daily exercise. The car remained in the garage. He had changed his more daring American rig for a familiar light grey suit from Aquascutum, as better suited to the environs of Carisbrooke College.

Sheila was still in bed, presumably divesting herself of her Green Mouth personality at leisure. Though he guessed she would soon be working again. Michelin had taken her breakfast up on a tray: orange juice, a mixture of Alpen and All-Bran, two slices of brown wholemeal toast, and a mug of best Arabian coffee with cream. Clement had looked in on her after his breakfast and had taken her the Independent. They had murmured endearments to each other.

Now he was playing the role of one more Oxford don, greying, distinguished, as he walked down the Banbury Road to Carisbrooke.

Boston had been cold and rainy. Oxford was remarkably hot. A June heatwave lay over the British Isles. The newspapers were already circulating tales of old ladies fainting in the streets. In Oxford, Clement reflected, it would be old dons.

As he entered the College grounds, a slightly falsetto tooting sounded behind him. Turning, he saw a blue car of no significance drawing into the car park. His research assistant, Arthur Stranks, waved at him from the driver’s seat.

Out of politeness, Clement turned back, and stood waiting while Arthur parked the car and climbed out, to walk sideways towards his boss so as to keep the car within his sight.

‘Isn’t she a beauty?’ he said. ‘I bought her last week, er, in Kidlington, zero miles on the clock. Cheri’s mad about her.’

‘I’m not much of an expert on cars,’ Clement said, searching the new acquisition for some kind of distinguishing mark. He recalled that previously Arthur had driven a dilapidated Mini with printed jokes in the rear window. ‘What is it?’

‘She’s the new Zastava Caribbean,’ Arthur said, standing on tiptoe in his trainers, a habit by which he expressed enthusiasm as well as elasticity. ‘Jugoslav-made, newly imported. The Kidlington garage is the only garage in all Oxfordshire where you can buy it. Sole agents. Er – Cheri and I will be able to drive everywhere in it.’