Brian Aldiss - The Primal Urge

‘Actually, I believe the centenary of the publication of The Cloister and the Hearth falls some time next month,’ Mrs Wolf said cautiously.

A hush settled over them. ‘I ought to suggest something,’ Jimmy told himself, as gradually the dread of being laughed at by Trefisick was dwarfed by the dread of being considered unimaginative by Scryban. He cleared his throat.

‘How about some sort of tie-in with politics?’ he asked the company generally, following up with a brilliant improvisation: ‘I’ve been thinking about the Nitkin pearl that every poem is a pincer movement. Couldn’t we drag out some contemporary examples of that?’

‘I can see the implications,’ said Scryban, appearing actually to view them in a far corner, ‘but how exactly do you visualize … I mean, what I don’t see …’

He was too gentle to name what he did not see, but Jimmy suspected it must be the same thing he himself did not see: just what the deuce he was suggesting. He tried a countermove.

‘Well, how do you feel about the present political situation?’ he asked.

Scryban did not immediately answer. Instead Paul de Perkin leant forward, his face gleaming with interest, and said, ‘I think you have something promising there, old boy. Do you mean the international situation?’

‘Heavens, is he really fool enough to think I’ve got something?’ Jimmy asked himself drearily, and then decided that de Perkin, also unsure of himself, was also trying to appear bright.

‘Yes, the international situation,’ he said at random.

‘Ah now, let me see,’ said Scryban, conscientiously. ‘We have the Western bloc on one side and the Soviet bloc on the other, have we not? And the Middle East shuttling tediously about in between. That is how matters have been, internationally, for some years, I believe, and I confess I find it an uninspring situation: an unfruitful situation.’

‘We are all in a perpetual state of non-combatancy,’ Mrs Wolf said. Jimmy liked the remark and laughed; she smiled at him and laughed herself.

‘All very trying for everyone,’ Scryban agreed. ‘One may, in fact, quote the words Donne employed in a somewhat different context: “The foe oft-times having the foe in sight. Is tired of standing though he never fight.”’

‘We shall see a change now,’ Trefisick said, wrestling to fit his broad shoulders into the window frame. ‘These ERs completely topple the status quo at home; they are bound to have repercussions abroad. Without being in any way a prophet, I’d say that chaos will come again. Britain is already the laughing stock of Europe.’

‘That just isn’t so! The Guardian says Scandinavia is green with envy,’ Jimmy said hotly, venturing for the first time to contradict Trefisick.

‘Really? In those very words?’ asked Scryban, interested at last.

‘I see the New Statesman is less outspoken about Tory intrigues than it was last week,’ de Perkin observed. ‘And certainly the Commonwealth seems to commend us … Especially Australia; I always think Australia’s very forward looking …’

‘There was a paragraph in the Telegraph ,’ Mrs Wolf said, looking round as she whipped out her paper. They had all brightened considerably under the new topic of conversation. ‘Here we are. It points out that we have inaugurated a social invention whose power potential is far greater than that of the hydrogen bomb.’

‘And we go and use it on ourselves!’ Trefisick exclaimed bitterly. ‘My God, but I never saw such bloody folly. You’ll never catch me wearing one of the beastly things, I can assure you of that!’

‘Life has grown too complicated, Martin,’ said Scryban gently. ‘We have said that so often in past years that it has become a platitude. Now that something has come along which, it is claimed, will simplify things for us, surely we are morally obliged not to look our gift horse in the mouth – especially when they are free on the National Health Scheme?’

‘But will these damned gadgets simplify life, that’s what I want to know?’ Trefisick said pugnaciously, squaring his shoulders by inserting his thumbs in the top of his trousers. ‘Have they simplified your sex life, Solent? What about yours, de Perkin? Find things easier for having a tin medal over your nose?’

‘I’ve only had mine a day,’ Jimmy said, simultaneously feeling his cheeks redden and cursing himself for not standing up to this man.

‘You’d better ask all my mistresses about that, Trefisick,’ de Perkin laughed feebly, and Jimmy cursed him for being another time server.

Mrs Wolf rolled up her Telegraph pugnaciously. She was at least forty-nine, and every wrinkle showed; but for a second defiance gave her back her youth. ‘This damned gadget as you call it, Martin, has certainly not simplified my life,’ she said without heat, her sharp teeth gleaming as she faced Trefisick. ‘On the contrary, it has complicated it. My husband and I are in the situation which comes to many couples: we are out of love with one another. Whereas for years we have manoeuvred unceasingly to hide this state of affairs from each other – and from ourselves – and from other people – we can no longer conceal it. The Norman Lights confront us with the truth.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Trefisick said, rubbing his neck, abashed; he added, despite himself, ‘All the same, Veronica, you’ve proved my point about their being a menace.’

‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘For the first time my husband and I are free to be perfectly honest with each other. I have only hope for the future; forced to acknowledge the facts at last, we may reach something better than a dead compromise.’ She paused. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have …’

‘Dear Mrs Wolf,’ Scryban said, lifting his hands from his knees and replacing them there, ‘I refuse to allow you to apologise. What you say only makes us respect and admire you the more; our vegetable love for you grows marvellously quicker than empires. You do show—’

‘I’m just trying to show you,’ she interrupted a little breathlessly, ‘that these Norman Lights really should have our utmost faith: they are the first scientific invention ever to make us face ourselves.’

They had been embarrassed by revelations about Mrs Wolf’s marriage before. Silence burst over them like an exploding muffin.

‘Well, thank you all very much for coming up and giving me your ideas. We’ll think along the political line, shall we?’ Scryban said, with more haste than usual. ‘Now I’m sure I’m keeping you all from your coffee. I would just like to say, if I might, that though I disapprove of ERs personally, I find it difficult to understand why all the criticism of them from the culture camp, from people like Betjeman and Clark and Ayrton, has confined itself to aesthetic principles. I find those of you here who have your Registers installed’ – this was said with a deprecatory smile – ‘of an enhanced appearance.’

As they left Scryban’s room, Donald Hortense materialised at Jimmy’s left elbow. He was one of Jimmy’s closest friends, which made him rather less than more endearing at present, Jimmy’s lover’s soul feeling far from chummy.

‘I don’t believe you said one word in there,’ he accused Donald.

‘That takes bags of courage, especially when one has nothing to say. Did you get that portrait for your exhibition off Sir Richard Clunes?’

‘I got the promise of it when we’re ready for it, which is all I wanted,’ Jimmy said. ‘And I went to a cocktail party he gave last night. A business do.’

‘Oh? And what do the Corridors of Power boys think about nun chasers?’ This was Donald’s method of referring to anyone in bureaucratic or scientific circles, however lowly.