Brian Aldiss - The Monster Trilogy

‘Please, sir – your heart,’ said van Helsing. ‘Resume your seat.’

But Stoker would have his way, limping about the hearthrug, at once sinister and comical, reciting in a high chant unlike his own voice:

His faith is great – I cannot touch his soul –

But what I may afflict his body with

That will I do, and stew him in disease …

He interrupted himself with a fit of coughing.

‘What would Henry say? – And him about to be made a knight!’ exclaimed Mrs Stoker.

‘I beg you, to bed at once, sir,’ said van Helsing. ‘It grows late.’

‘No, no, I must continue work on my novel. Must, must. More chapters. Lucy Westenra is in mortal peril –’ And he dashed from the room.

A gloomy silence followed. Van Helsing sat at an escritoire, rather ostentatiously writing something, muttering to himself as he did so. Florence Stoker sat tight-lipped, stabbing at her embroidery until, with a sigh, she abandoned it and rose, to stand by the fire staring at the mantelpiece abstractedly.

‘It’s a fine painting, Mrs Stoker,’ Bodenland said, referring to the Bronzino, to break the silence.

‘It was originally called “An Allegory”,’ she said. ‘Though an allegory of what I fail to see. Something unpleasant to do with … disease, we may suppose.’

The flatness of her tone did not invite response, leaving Bodenland leisure to ponder on the delights and difficulties of family life before, restlessly, she returned to her chair.

Something sought release. She looked at the ceiling to announce, ‘Sometimes he’s shut in his study for hours.’

‘That must make you feel very lonely, Mrs Stoker,’ said Bodenland.

She rose, preparing to retreat for the night, and said, grandly, ‘I can survive anything, Mr Bodenland, except bad taste.’

A few minutes later, van Helsing put away his writing materials. He picked up a candle in a silver candlestick and offered to show Bodenland up to his room.

‘You seem to be rather a romancer, sir,’ he remarked, as he led the way upstairs. ‘Your presence clearly disturbs Mr Stoker.’

‘What if the man’s soul is being destroyed?’

‘Ha ha, I think I may claim to be a man of science. This is 1896, after all, and the “soul” has been pretty well disproved. Men get on famously without souls. We turn left at the top of the stairs.’

‘Well, suppose it was possible to travel through time, to the years ahead, to obtain medicine for Stoker’s condition?’

Another dry laugh. ‘You are a romancer, indeed. Just along here. Most facts of science are known by this date. Winged flight may become possible in a couple of centuries, but travel through space or time – quite impossible. Quite impossible. I’ll stake my reputation on it. Here we are. I’ll leave you the candle. Let’s just see all’s well, and the windows properly fastened.’

Bodenland entered the dark bedroom first, conscious of the fatigue brought on by the events of the last many hours.

The bedroom was warm. A small gas fire burned in the grate. He lit the gas mantle over the mantelpiece from his candle, thinking incredulously as he did so, I’m lighting a real gas mantle …

A woman’s taste was in evidence. There were frills round the curtains and round the wash-stand. Over the bed was a pokerwork text in a wooden Oxford frame: Thou Shalt Not be Afraid for Any Terror by Night. Psalm XCI .

While he was taking in these details, the doctor was checking the window catches and adjusting the chain of garlic across the panes.

On the wall by the door hung a map of the world in Mercator’s projection, framed by the flags of the nations, enlivened by pictures of battleships. The British Empire was coloured in red, and encompassed a quarter of the globe.

Pointing to the map, in the glass of which the gas light was reflected, Bodenland asked, ‘Would you suppose there was once a time when Hudson Bay didn’t exist, doctor?’

Van Helsing looked askance, as if he suspected a trick question.

‘Hudson’s Bay didn’t exist – until it was discovered by an Englishman in the seventeenth century.’

Bidding Bodenland a good night, he left the room, and closed the door quietly behind him.

Slowly removing his jacket, Bodenland tried to take in his present situation. He found the room, large though it was, oppressive. Oil paintings of Highland cattle in ornate gilt frames occupied much of the wall space. On the bedside table stood a carafe of drinking water and a black-bound New Testament. He sat on the bed to remove his shoes, and then lay back, hands linked under his head. He began to think of Mina and of his pretty new daughter-in-law, Kylie. But would he ever be able to control the time train and get back to them?

His eyes closed.

Without any seeming discontinuity, the processes in his mind continued, leading him to leave the house he was in and descend some steps. The steps were outside, leading down a rank hillside fringed by tall cypresses; then they curved, broken and dangerous, into a crypt. The air became moist and heavy. He searched for somewhere to put down a burdensome parcel he was carrying. The underground room seemed enormous. A stained glass window let in a pattern of moonlight which hung like a curtain in the waxy atmosphere.

‘No problem so far,’ he or someone else said, as he seated himself in a chair.

Three maidens in diaphanous robes stood in the moonlight. They beckoned. All were beautiful. The middle one was the most beautiful. The coloured glass threw warm gules on her fair breast.

It was this middle creature who advanced on Bodenland, drawing aside her white robe as she came. Her smile was remote, her gaze unfixed.

He knew her and called her name, ‘Kylie! Come to me.’

He saw – with shut eyes but acute mental vision – the pale and loving woman who had so recently become his daughter-in-law. For those beautiful features, those soft limbs, that sensuous body with its delectable secrets, lust filled Joe’s body.

As he opened his arms to her, she bent eagerly towards him, letting the long dress fall away. He caught her scent, like a forgotten dream.

Now her arms were almost round his neck. He felt them intensely, was filled with rapture, when a pistol shot rang out.

Kylie was gone. The stony structure of the crypt faded.

He was back on the bed, his arms tingling with cramp behind his head. The long-horned cattle stared at him from the walls of the room.

He sat up, sick, cold. Had he heard a real shot?

Rising, he padded over to the window and drew aside a curtain a little way.

Two moons shone over the haunting nineteenth-century landscape, one in a clear night sky, the other its sister, its reflection, in the ornamental pool. The gazebo was a ghostly thing, its Chinese chimes not stirring. On the terrace, the statues stood in their dramatic attitudes, casting their shadows towards the facade of the old house.

Among the statues was a human figure. It was Stoker, his ginger coloration made snowy by the moon.

Breaking the chain of garlic flowers, Bodenland opened the window and leaned out.

‘What’s the matter? I thought I heard a shot.’

Stoker looked up, his features made brutal in the diffused glow.

‘Keep your voice down. You aren’t going to be too bucked with this, Bodenland. I’ve had to perform a soldierly duty. As I was turning in I heard a bit of thumping, armed myself, and came out here to see what the devil was going on.’

‘The driver …’

‘That’s it – your driver. He emerged through the door. Like a ghost. One of the Undead, my boy! I put a silver bullet through him in self-defence. It’s the only thing that stops his kind.’

‘I’ll come down.’

The window next to Bodenland’s was thrown open and van Helsing thrust his head out into the night air. He was wearing a night cap.