Brian Aldiss - The Horatio Stubbs Trilogy

My morale – a word we were then beginning to hear frequently – had sunk still lower by the time I reached Virginia’s address; the several wrong turnings I had taken, my base hesitancy in approaching strangers to ask the correct way, had convinced me that I was destined always to take life’s wrong turnings. Now, there I was, forty-three minutes early, if my watch was correct – and even that could not be relied upon. Rain was falling. I wore my mac, since that happened to be the only outside garment I possessed.

The house in which Virginia lived was one of a long terrace of a kind prevalent in that area of London: three storeys high plus basement, with would-be-grand steps leading up to the front door under pretentious porches. Once these had been the residences of prosperous middle-class families; by the war they were already subdivided and mysterious people came and went by private doors. Nowadays they are still further divided, and the roof which once sheltered my frail Virginia now keeps the rain off a large family of solid and stern-faced blacks.

I stood under a porch from which I might survey Virginia’s porch and detested my hopes and fears.

At 8.08 I shovelled my thoughts back into place and went over and rang at Virginia’s bell.

A man, smiling and suave and of call-up age, confronted me, nodding and grinning even more widely as I declared whom I was after, but without actually speaking, which transformed his smiles into gems of hostility. He waved me into the hall, put his hands abruptly in his pockets, and led me upstairs, leaving me outside a door on the first floor. I tapped and went in, hating every moment.

Virginia was sitting on the sofa, smoking, wearing her customary clothes and a wry expression. Sitting in an armchair was another girl of about the same age, also smoking. The room was drab; a black paper blackout dominated the room. In the hearth a small electric fire burned; over the mantelpiece was a coloured print of a man sitting on a horse in a condition print dealers refer to as ‘somewhat foxed’. The only thing that heartened me was the sight of one of Virginia’s dabby landscape sketches on a side wall.

‘Hello, Horatio! What fun seeing you down in the wicked city! Rather different from the wilds of Derbyshire! Say hello to my friend Josie. She lives here.’

I said hello to Josie, and went and sat by Virginia. I got up and took my mac off without being asked. I sat down again by Virginia; she smiled quickly and looked away from me. Her face was thin and rather lined; for the first time I realized she was really pretty old, older than she claimed to be. She offered me a cigarette from the open packet on the sofa arm.

‘How’s life in the Nursing Service?’ I asked diffidently.

‘I haven’t joined yet. A friend of mine is trying to get me a good position.’ Or perhaps she said commission.

‘I thought you said you had joined.’

‘I’m hoping to join next week.’

Conversation died. I waited for Josie to go. She lit another cigarette, examining it with intense curiosity between puffs.

‘Look, Virginia, I’d naturally like to talk to you privately, if I could.’

It turned out this was Josie’s flat. Virginia was just looking round for a flat of her own. She had left her last one because the landlady was so horrid. Desperately, I asked her to come round to my place; it wasn’t far; we could walk. She said she did not want to go out; she was expecting someone to come and see her in a little while. I pressed her harder. She and Josie looked at each other, she nodded and led me into the adjoining bedroom.

The room was only dimly lit, but I observed that it was small and extremely untidy. Clothes hung everywhere. I clutched her and told her I loved her, needed her desperately, had come to London just to be near her. She put her arms round my neck and looked up at me, half-smiling, still taking nothing seriously. She started talking about Josie, who was in love with a captain in artillery, but I cut her off. I asked if she was in some sort of trouble.

‘There is some trouble, Horatio, darling, but I would advise you to keep out of it. It’s grown-ups’ trouble, not for boys.’

‘Thanks, Virginia, but I am grown up or I wouldn’t be here.’

She frowned as if I had said something incomprehensible and continued, ‘The trouble is my cousin, a very bad cousin – I forget if I told you about him. You know my mother was an invalid for years. She died recently and there is some terrible trouble about the will – a lot of money is involved. My cousin is trying to get hold of it. I have to be very careful.’

‘Was that your cousin who showed me up here? The smarmy chap?’

‘That’s a cousin of Josie’s, and he’s really awfully jolly.’

She started telling me about him and what he was doing, and what other people who lived in the house were doing. By refraining from interrupting, I gained time with her, and time to try to adjust to the sensation I had that she was at once as she had always been and yet also entirely changed – a dual feeling that radiated from my mysterious intuitive source. Too restless to listen properly to what she was saying, I prowled about the encumbered room, dragging at my cigarette. There were several ashtrays in the room, most of them full of ash and stubs. By the side of one of the two single beds, a book lay open, face down; that was a habit of Virginia’s. It was a novel of Ethel Mannin’s, Venetian Blinds ; by chance, I had recently read it myself and thought it rather daring. I stared down at it, trying to make it provide me with a clue to Virginia’s mood, and over my head flew details of strange lives, people getting exotic war jobs, mysterious and handsome refugees from Hungary, husbands and wives changing into uniform. In between all this, Virginia dropped only the most stray word about herself.

It was an infuriating meeting. I could not piece together what was happening. She seemed unable to explain properly, or to make up her mind. It even appeared to me that she was lying about intending to join the Q.A.I.M.S. I begged her to meet me at the British Museum, so that we could spend some time together and go somewhere where we could walk and talk. Eventually she gave me a kiss and said she would drop me a note. I had to insist that she wrote down my address and did not just rely on her memory; doing that entailed going back into the other room and borrowing a little diary pencil from Josie. Josie was still smoking in her armchair.

Virginia came out on to the landing, still smiling rather anxiously, glancing at her watch. We kissed goodbye, and I went down the dim stairs in a muddle of emotion.

I let myself out into the street. By now it was absolutely dark and raining slightly; my sense of time and place was disoriented. I stood for a moment and then started off along the pavement. Such was my misery that when I heard someone walking close behind I did not bother to look round. I turned a corner and as I did so my shoulder was grabbed. Turning, I was hit inaccurately in the chest.

The blow caught me off balance and I fell over. My attacker began kicking me. I grasped his legs, dragged him down, and reached out for his throat. He was about my size, by the feel of things. He was hitting me in the face, and we rolled into the gutter. Terror and anger seized me. He wore a slippery mac, buttoned up round the throat, so that I could not hold him properly. I banged his head on the road. He struggled away but I had hold of him.

A car passed down the road. By the dimmed light of its headlamps, I saw the man I was fighting with.

‘Spaldine!’ I exclaimed. I let go of him and he began running. But I ran after him and called his name again. He stopped and we confronted one another, fists clenched, in the middle of the roadway.