Brian Aldiss - Remembrance Day

Tebbutt had heard Linwood’s history while working with him at Pippet Hall. Indeed, had heard it more than once.

Like his grandfather and uncles before him, Michael Linwood had started adult life as a modestly prosperous farmer, taking over the farm at an early age when his father suddenly disappeared to do something more exciting. The Linwood farm was near the Rollrights in Oxfordshire. Headstones in the local churchyard displayed many vanished Linwood names.

Mike’s marriage to Jean Lazenby caused a row in both Linwood and Lazenby families. Mike had recounted this part of his story with morbid relish.

The Lazenbys were no farmers. Their money came from sugar. Despite its associations with slavery on West Indian plantations and caries in the teeth of children, sugar had brought a rise in social class for past Lazenby generations. Farming was a little below them.

Jean’s parents had refused to attend the wedding.

Jean had been philosophical. ‘Renegade father, weak mother – what do you expect?’ and the remark had been quoted with pride. Mike’s parents shared not dissimilar qualities.

The Linwood farm at Middle Rollright was comfortable enough. Jean enjoyed playing the role of farmer’s wife. Mike had watched approvingly as his new wife took to baking her own bread and carrying cider to the men who worked on the land with Mike. She tolerated mud. She bottle-fed piglets. She shopped locally. She dressed the part in scarf and wellies by day, and was popular in chintzy frocks at Young Farmers’ parties in the evenings.

‘A dream world for us both,’ Mike had commented, with bitterness.

In the golden haze, he had bought more land. He made deals with a leading fertilizer company which took much of the burden of actual crop-growing off his shoulders. He bought the adjoining run-down Base Bottom Farm for cattle, for what he regarded as a bargain price, although the pasturage was poor and sour. During the seventies, generous subsidies were available for beef farmers.

Disaster came knocking with the eighties. As unemployment mounted, inflation rose, the price of mortgages climbed. EEC agricultural policies ran counter to Mike’s expectations. When he realized how serious were his financial problems, the fertilizer company proved unhelpful. They were closing down one of their factories outside Sheffield. They were off-loading commitments. They wrote threatening letters.

‘Seemed God had it in for me,’ Linwood commented, carelessly enough, as he and Tebbutt slapped emulsion on the cottage walls.

The bank gave him a loan at stiff interest rates which he soon found himself unable to pay off. Smart accountants took to visiting him in smart cars. Someone was making money.

That winter was a bad one. He lost some stock. The bank fore-closed. He sold off Base Bottom Farm at a loss to a London insurance company. Came the following summer and drought, and he threw in his hand. Jean urged him to hang on, but at the last he was even relieved to see the old place go.

At the time the Linwoods were packing up and leaving their ancestors to moulder in the local churchyard, trouble also visited the Lazenbys.

Jean’s father, ‘Artful’ Archie Lazenby, died of a stroke over dinner in his London club. His will presented the family with some unpleasant surprises. Not only had Artful Archie lost most of the last of the sugar money gambling in the Peccadillo, a Mayfair club, but what sums remained were in generous part bestowed on a hitherto unsuspected Miss Dolly Spicer, of Camberwell Villas, London, SE5.

Jean’s mother went into sheltered housing and died of influenza within eight months.

‘How did Jean take all that?’ Tebbutt had asked.

‘Like a trooper. Not a word of mourning. Bit unfeeling, really.’

With no option but to farm again, Michael Linwood moved with trooper-like wife and sons to somewhere where land was cheaper. He settled on Norfolk.

The acres he bought proved difficult to work and were liable to flooding. His heart had gone out of the business. Again he got his sums wrong. Within a twelve-month, he was forced to sell to a scoundrel who swindled him and turned the land into a caravan park.

The shipwrecked family had moved into St Giles House and Linwood had taken up odd-jobbery. Jean had worked in a local dairy until that was taken over by a larger company.

You can’t blame the poor sod for being a bit difficult, Tebbutt thought, mentally reviewing his friend’s history, as they headed for Stanton’s garage.

They had driven in silence for some miles before he dared to ask about the progress of the Linwood boys. Their sons seemed always more a source of anxiety than pleasure to Mike and Jean.

Instead of answering his friend’s question, Mike said, ‘In all our misfortunes, I have surely seen the guiding hand of Our Lord, directing me into His paths. After constant prayer, I can at last see a way to clarify our lives. This is confidential as yet, Ray, but I am thinking of joining the Church of Rome as a lay preacher.’

On reflection, Tebbutt realized he might have thought of something more tactful to say than the question he now blurted out. ‘What did Jean say when you broke the news to her? Crikey, Mike, you can’t earn a living as a lay preacher. You’ve got three kids to support.’

‘Jean said more or less the same thing.’ The blue eyes gazed serenely at the road ahead.

‘I bet she did,’ Tebbutt said. ‘And your father?’

Mike clasped his hands together and trapped them tightly between his knees. ‘We’re not on speaking terms just now, Noel and I. My father is a heathen. When Jean ran upstairs and told him the news, he rushed out of the house roaring profanities. Jean wouldn’t speak to me.’

‘Where did your father go?’

‘Oh, over to my dotty Auntie April in Blakeney, of course. If only he’d stay there …’

‘I don’t want to interfere, Mike, but how are you all going to eat if you … well, I mean, if you decide to go into the Church?’

‘The Lord will decide, the Lord will provide.’

Tebbutt felt driven to say something in Jean’s defence. He spoke cautiously. ‘The Lord provides best for those who help themselves. Jean must be very anxious as to where the money’s going to come from. I know Ruby would be.’

‘Jean will eventually see the light. We shall manage,’ Linwood said, with infuriating calm. An awful inflexibility in his voice silenced Tebbutt.

It was ten to nine. They were nearing Melton Constable. Tebbutt drove more and more slowly, feeling anger and despair welling up inside him. He stopped the car. Linwood looked at him curiously, raising one of the neat furry eyebrows, saying nothing as Tebbutt turned to him.

‘Mike, the country’s gone down the tubes. You are I are both hard put to earn a crust. But times are bound to get better. Maybe if we clubbed together we could buy out Yarker and make a go of the garden centre. What do you say?’

The reply was slow in coming. Gazing out at the placid countryside, Linwood said, ‘You might like to know I nearly did away with myself when I lost my land here. God intervened through Jean. I knew then I was in sin. In sin, you understand? I no longer wish to operate within an economic system I consider wicked. It’s as simple as that.’

Tebbutt closed his eyes. ‘But you can’t possibly dream of going into the Church with a wife and three kids to support. You must be fucking mad to think of it.’

Linwood’s face grew red. Making a solemn moue which would not have looked out of place above a dog collar, he slowly shook his head and said, ‘You sound just like the rest of them, my friend. I know you mean well. But there is such a thing as conscience, and I am bound to obey mine. We live in a sinful world, but our obligations to God must never be forgotten.’