Brian Aldiss - The Primal Urge

‘What do you want?’ the young man asked, refusing to be deflected into a smile.

‘We are friends of the Hurns,’ Jimmy told him. ‘We beg entry in the name of hospitality – or don’t they live here any more? Tell me the worst.’

‘Which Hurn do you want? They’re nearly all out.’

‘For heaven’s sake,’ Rose said, making a determined entrance into this asinine conversation, ‘Who are you, a bailiff?’

The young man shot her the look of dumb endurance one sees on the faces of wet dachsunds. He was about to speak when a girl appeared in the open doorway, wearing a severe blouse and slacks, the austerity of which was relieved by a hundredweight of charm bracelet clanking on her left wrist. In the dim light, she looked very young, very lovely. She also wore an ER, though her hair was swept forward so as partly to conceal it.

‘Jill!’ Jimmy exclaimed. The name of Rupert’s sister had returned to him suddenly, just when vitally needed. Jill! That podgy creature who had swooned over Rock Hudson and played Jokari from a sitting position had transformed herself into this moderately svelte little armful. He wished two years had done as much for him.

‘My giddy aunt, you’re – aren’t you Jimmy Solvent, or someone?’ the girl said.

‘Solent. Wish I was solvent. Fancy your remembering my name!’

They clasped each other’s hands.

‘My dear , I had a perfectly silly crush on you once. You used to look so sweet on the back of a motor bike!’

‘Cross my heart, I still do,’ Jimmy said, sliding in the nicest possible way round the fringe-cut, who stood there nonplussed by this turn of events. ‘This, forgive me, is Rose English; Rose English, this English rose is Jill Hurn.’

‘And this,’ Jill said, swinging up the charm bracelet in the direction of the scowling youth, ‘is my boy friend, Teddy Peters. You’d better come in. Were you looking for Rupert, because he’s not here. He’s in Holland.’

‘Each to his destiny,’ Jimmy said easily, forging into the hall. ‘Actually Rose and I came to ask you if we could have a swim. It seemed a shame for a couple like us to waste a bath like yours on a night like this.’

With Jill leading and Teddy following, they had reached a living room at the back of the house. A teleset radiated dance music softly from somewhere upstairs. Jill switched on a light on a corner table; in the illumination flowing over her face, Jimmy saw she was too heavily made up and a trifle spotty. All the same, it was a good attempt for – what? – sixteen, she would be no older. She headed for an expensive cocktail cabinet, moving with a copybook grace.

‘You must have a drink,’ she said. ‘Daddy and Mummy are out.’ That was a slip, although it told Jimmy nothing he had not already guessed. To readjust the role she was playing (and that little lout Teddy wouldn’t have noticed the slip, Jimmy thought), Jill sloshed whisky into three glasses, squirted soda at them and doled them out like Maundy money. She reserved something else for herself; perhaps a Pepsi-Cola.

Jimmy took his glass, looking askance at Rose, wondering just how she was feeling. She took a sip and said, ‘What a lovely room you’ve got here’ – which greatly cheered Jimmy; even half stewed, he could see it was a ghastly, ostentatious room.

‘It’s beautiful,’ he lied. ‘Your chandelier must have been particularly expensive. And your Jacobean radio – gramophone.’

‘Let’s get back upstairs, honey,’ Teddy said, speaking for the first time since his setback on the porch. Turning to Rose, he added, with a sort of rudimentary parody of Cagney courtesy, ‘We were dancing.’

‘How heavenly,’ Rose said gravely. ‘I love dancing.’

Jill, tilting her tightly covered rump like a snub-nose, was edging Jimmy into a corner. He was content to be edged until the vital question was answered; this now popped impolitely out of him again: ‘Can we have a swim?’

She did not answer at once, being busy breathing somewhat industriously.

Her eyes were ludicrously wide. Her perfume was as painful as a trodden corn, and then she smiled. The performance would be better in a year; in eighteen months you would not be able to tell it from the real thing. Perhaps, indeed, there wasn’t a real thing: only a series of undetectable fakes. It might be one of those shams which Rose said that Norman Lights would abolish. Apropos of which, Jill’s, old boy, was turning pink on you. Keep your ruddy genes to yourself, you in the ruddy jeans. It’s useless getting sanguine over me. Title for a song …

‘Of course you can swim, Jimmy,’ Jill was saying. She had made her voice husky for extra appeal; perhaps, Jimmy thought, she did it by holding Pepsi-Cola at the back of her throat; and he watched her mouth eagerly to see if she dribbled any. ‘Only you see, Jimmy,’ she continued, ‘Daddy isn’t very broad-minded about couples swimming after dark – we had a lot of trouble in the spring with Rupert and an awful girl called Sonia MacKenzie – you ought to hear about that some time – but of course I’m broad-minded, so I don’t care, but you’d better be out before Daddy gets back. Teddy and I would come with you, but Teddy can’t swim.’

‘Pity about that,’ Jimmy murmured.

‘Here’s the key to the changing hut,’ Jill said, handing over a large label tied to a tiny key. Her hand touched his and stayed there. He stroked her chin with his free hand.

‘You’re an absolute darling,’ Jimmy said. ‘I love you, and I’ll remember you in my will.’

‘I never think that’s a very practical suggestion,’ she said frowning. The remark amused Jimmy considerably; he choked over his whisky.

‘As you can see,’ he said, ‘owing to present commitments, I am unable to offer you anything more practical!’

Still laughing, he turned to find Rose dancing a slow quickstep with Teddy. Both of them still clutched their drinks. Both scowled in concentration. Both were showing faint pink on their ERs.

‘Hey, you’re meant to be swimming!’ Jimmy said, forgetting his manners. Catching hold of Rose round the waist, he dragged her away, turning to wave at the other two as he pushed her through the door. Shoving her down the hall, he got her into the open and shut the front door behind them.

‘That was very rude!’ Rose said admiringly. Under the stars she drained the last of her glass, let it drop onto the gravel, and slid forward into his arms. They kissed, rapturous with reunion. In the house they had been apart: it was another world. Now they were together again, the evening once more on their shoulders like a tame raven.

Jimmy grabbed the Chianti and the swimsuits out of the car. ‘I just don’t give a damn,’ he thought wonderingly; ‘Not a damn!’

‘Hang on here a moment, pet,’ he whispered. ‘I’m going to take the car just down the road a bit, in case the old man comes home early and spots it.’

‘What old man?’ she asked curiously.

‘Any old man, Rangy, my love, my bright shiner.’

He seemed to be away an age, finding an unobtrusive place for the car and relieving himself heartily into a hedge, but when he returned Rose still stood in the centre of the drive and asked him again, with the same puzzlement in her voice, ‘What old man, darling?’

‘Jill’s old man. Old man Hurn. Come on; let’s go see the puddle.’

The swimming pool was at the rear of the house. By daylight it looked small and impoverished; the concrete was a maze of cracks, the diving boards both drooped. Now, camouflaged by night, Aphrodite could have risen from it without putting it out of character. On the other hand, the changing hut (the Hurns showed a surprising modesty in not labelling it ‘the pavilion’) was even smaller, darker and stuffier now than by daylight. Inside the door with the frosted glass window was one room with a partition down the middle, opposite sexes who changed there together being trusted not to look round it – a simple-minded but ideal arrangement, Jimmy thought.