Brian Aldiss - Life in the West

Coughing, Uncle Willie rested his pipe in a marble ashtray and came round the desk to shake hands formally with his nephew.

‘You’re looking fit, Tom. Gallivanting round the world has been good for you. We’re heading for a drought, could be worse than last year, and that won’t please most of my clients.’ Willie bore a strong resemblance to his dead brother John, Tom Squire’s father. He too had a high-bridged nose and a pugnacious set to his jaw. The deep-set lines of the family face had visited him too. So had the clear skin. Although his hair was white, it remained thick.

Thomas thanked his uncle for seeing him on Saturday, although he knew that the old man, a widower for many years, often visited his office on Saturday mornings in order to keep the lethargy of old age staunchly at bay.

The years had hunched his shoulders. He regarded his nephew with a vaguely aggressive air, and then transferred his gaze to the open window.

‘How’s Teresa?’

‘She’s fine, Uncle. How are the cats?’

‘I’ve had Nickie spayed. She was turning into a regular kitten-factory. Madge, is she all right? Still staying with you? Terrible about Ernest. Madge makes a pretty widow, poor lady. How’s she taking it?’ As he spoke of Mrs Davies, he walked over to the window and looked out.

‘She seems cheerful enough. It’s Teresa who’s upset.’

‘In my experience,’ said Uncle Willie, still gazing out of the window, ‘widows are not too unhappy when they are left to pursue their own lives, though they may make a polite show of grief. It’s different for widowers.’

He turned and inspected his nephew, to see how the remark had registered.

‘Teresa’s having a series of nightmares. Always the same, though details differ. Sometimes it seems to be day, sometimes night. She is sitting or lying down when she sees a dark male figure outlined against the window. Someone is trying to break in. Sometimes she tries to scare him away, sometimes she runs from him, sometimes she wakes to the sound of smashing glass.’

‘Oh, she’s afraid of burglars while you’re away.’ He went over and picked his pipe up, as if the matter was disposed of.

‘There might be another explanation. She complains of back pain. She keeps talking about — well, cancer. She goes to Dr Bell. He gives her analgesics, and she’s gone to the Norfolk and Norwich for check-ups. All reports are negative to date.’

From the other side of the room, Dobson said, ‘They say cancer’s psychosomatic.’

‘Nicholas thinks everything’s psychosomatic, including taxes,’ Uncle Willie said. ‘Do you think she’s got cancer, Tom? Eh?’

‘No, I don’t…I’m anxious, of course, but the tests, as I say, are negative. People do get these ideas, and I wonder if the dream doesn’t indicate something of the force of Tess’s obsession.’

‘Well.’ Uncle Willie shuffled with some papers on his desk, as though he had lost interest in Teresa. ‘I hope that now you’re back home you’ll both settle down, you and Teresa. She’s a good girl but she needs a bit of looking after, don’t forget that.’

Squire considered saying more on the matter, caught Dobson’s eye, and decided against it. He turned to other things.

His London firm had been understanding, and had allowed him maximum freedom during the planning and filming of ‘Frankenstein Among the Arts’; now he had to notify them that he would be away longer than anticipated. He wanted his uncle to draft a proper letter, waiving his salary. There were also some long-standing matters which needed attention, such as a protracted argument with the local authorities over a right-of-way across Pippet land. Dobson brought out his file, and they talked for thirty minutes.

‘Business over,’ Willie said at last. ‘Nicholas, leave the file out and we’ll go and have a coffee.’

Downstairs, at the side door, he made a great business of seeing that the security bolt was functional. Dobson directed a pitying look over his bent back at Squire. Then they sauntered over to a coffee shop almost opposite St Ephraim’s Gate, Dobson walking smartly ahead.

‘They’re still talking about putting a motorway through to Bury and Chelmsford,’ Uncle Willie said, as they selected a table, looking with some dislike at the holiday-makers who surrounded them. ‘Then they’ll continue it up here. It’ll mean the end of East Anglia’s isolation, and the end of Norwich and Norfolk as they have been for centuries.’

‘Don’t worry, Uncle,’ Dobson said. ‘In the present state of the country’s finances, they’ve stopped building roads. Norwich will be safe for this century.’

‘I’m not so sure.’ He picked up the menu with contempt. ‘Once a planner has planned, and lodged his plans in Whitehall, the abstraction seems to acquire an existence of its own…Well, you offer some consolation for our bad trade figures, if they help to protect tradition.’

As the waitress came up, he smiled at her and said, ‘I suppose you’re still making coffee here in the traditional way — with instant coffee?’

She was young and pleasant-faced. She leaned forward, smiling, and supported her weight by resting one hand on the table. ‘I know you’re very fond of our coffee, Mr Squire, and it hasn’t gone up this week.’

‘In that case, we’ll treat ourselves to a cup each,’ he said, looking up at her in a sprightly way. When the girl had gone, he shook his head and said to his nephews, ‘When I was a young man, you were not supposed to address remarks to the waitress. It was bad form. Rigid class structure. I prefer the way things are today. I discovered at quite an advanced age that I enjoy flirting with waitresses. They don’t seem to mind, so why not?’ He blew his nose on a large white handkerchief. ‘The war changed things. Changed everything. Of course, no one knows exactly what waitresses think, doing the job they do.’

‘Come on, Uncle,’ Dobson said. ‘No one knows what solicitors think about.’

‘Increasingly, waitresses,’ said Uncle Willie, with a laugh. ‘This place used to be a Red Cross shop during the war. Did I ever tell you that? Then it became an antique shop. That didn’t last.’

‘I remember the antique shop,’ Squire said. ‘I bought about ten garage signs from the dealer, including a Redline Glyco and a Pratt’s High Test, enamel on tin. We used them in the Pop Expo.’

‘Your father used to chase waitresses,’ Uncle Willie said, ignoring Squire’s remark. ‘There’s always been a sort of naughty streak in the Squire family, I’m sorry to say. That is why we don’t get on with the branch of the family at King’s Lynn — the Decent Dobsons. Except you, Nick. Do you take after your father, Tom?’

John Matthew Squire, his father, had been a countryman, like most of the family in that generation, involved in the affairs of the village and the county. John Squire seldom moved beyond those self-imposed boundaries except when, following the steps of the ancestor whose name he bore, he joined the Royal Norfolk Regiment and went to fight for four years in the assorted muds of Europe, returning home to Hartisham with the rank of major, saying, ‘It was quite a good scrap while it lasted.’

Somewhere along the way, John Squire acquired several tastes which led to his downfall. He acquired a taste for art. To the dogs and horses which were his life, he added the Norwich School of painters. They were local men, they painted local things and were faithful to them, not prettifying too much. With his favourite mastiffs at his heels, John Squire became a notable figure as he toured the country, attending markets and, just as assiduously, dusty old shops and attics. Where he went, his son Tom also went. Together, while the dogs prowled round them, father and son acquired a commendable gallery of watercolours and oils by Old Crome, Stoddart, the incomparable Cotman, and others.