Kingsley Amis - Dear Illusion - Selected Stories

The Director coughed. ‘Well, I did just make the suggestion to him. After all, part of our terms of reference was to report on social conditions, in addition to the political situation. And drinking habits are a pretty good guide to the social set-up, aren’t they? Find out how people treat their port and you’ve found out a lot about the kind of people they are.’

‘Something in that, sir.’ I’m a beer man myself, which made me a bit of an outsider in the team. There were only the four of us in the lab that night — the VIPs and the press boys had been pushed into the Conference Room, thank heaven — and all the other three were wine-bibbers of one sort or another. The Director, as you will have gathered, was fanatical about port; Rabaiotti, my senior assistant, belonged to a big Chianti family; and Schneider, the medical chap, had written a book on hock. Simpson was reputedly on the way to becoming a sound judge of claret, though I had sometimes wondered whether perhaps tactical considerations played their part in his choice of hobby. Anyway, I considered I was lucky to have got the job of Chief Time-Engineer, against competition that included a force-field expert who doubled as an amateur of old Madeira and an electronics king named Gilbey — no relation, it turned out, but the Director couldn’t have known that at the time.

‘The receiver is tuned, Dr Baker.’

‘Thank you, Dr Rabaiotti. Would you like to operate the recall switch, sir?’

‘Why, that’s extremely kind of you, Baker.’ The Director was shaking with excitement. ‘It’s this one here, isn’t it?’ His hand brushed the trigger of a relay that would have sent Simpson shooting back to about the time of Victoria’s accession. This may have been half-deliberate: the Director often got wistful about what pre-phylloxera stuff might or might not have tasted like.

‘No, this one, sir. Just press it gently down.’

The switch clicked and instantly the figure of Simpson — tallish, forty-ish, baldish — appeared in the receiver. We all gave a shout of triumph and relief. Rabaiotti killed the power. Schneider hurried forward and there was tension again. ‘I’d give a case of Dow 1919 to see him conscious and mentally sound,’ the Director muttered at my side.

‘Everything all right so far,’ Schneider called. ‘I’ve given him a shot that’ll pull him round in a minute or two.’

We lit cigarettes. ‘Pity conditions wouldn’t allow of him bringing anything back,’ the Director said. ‘Just think of a forty-year-old 1970 all ready to drink. But I suppose it would have cost too much anyway. Next time we must find a better way of handling the currency problem. Very risky giving him raw gold to pawn. And we’re restricted to a lump small enough not to arouse too much suspicion. Oh, well, he should have been able to afford a few glasses. I hope that champagne’s all right, by the way?’

‘Oh, yes, I put it in the molecular-motion-retarder myself, with the setting at point-three. It’ll be nicely chilled by now.’

‘Splendid. I do want the dear boy to get a decent livener inside him before he faces all those cameras and interviews. I should have preferred a dry port myself, or possibly a Bittall, but I know what the occasion demands, of course. It’s a Lambert 1952 I’ve got for him. I don’t understand these things myself, but the Director of Lunar Projectiles swears by it.’

‘He’s coming round now,’ Schneider shouted, and we all pressed forward.

There was an intense silence while Simpson blinked at us, sat up and yawned. His face was absolutely impassive. Very slowly he scratched his ear. He looked like a man with a bad hangover.

‘Well?’ the Director demanded eagerly. ‘What did you see?’

‘Everything. At least, I saw enough.’

‘Had there been a war? Is there going to be a war?’

‘No. Russia joined the Western Customs Union in 1993, China some time after 2000. The RAF’s due to be disbanded in a few months.’

Then everyone hurled questions at once: about flying saucers, the Royal Family, the sciences, the arts, interplanetary travel, climatic conditions in the Rheingau — all sorts of things. Simpson seemed not to hear. He just sat there with the same blank look on his face, wearily shaking his head.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked finally. ‘What was wrong?’

After a moment, he said in a hollow voice, ‘Better if there had been a war. In some ways. Yes. Much better.’

‘What on earth do you mean?’

Simpson gave a deep sigh. Then, hesitantly, to a silent audience and with the bottle of champagne quite forgotten, he told the following story.

The landing went off perfectly. Hyde Park was the area selected, with a thousand-square-yard tolerance to prevent Simpson from materializing inside a wall or halfway into a passer-by. Nobody saw him arrive. He changed his gold into currency without difficulty, and in a few minutes was walking briskly down Piccadilly, looking into shop-windows, studying dress and behaviour, buying newspapers and magazines, and writing busily in his notebook. He had several fruitful conversations, representing himself according to plan as a native of Sydney. This brought him some commiseration, for England had just beaten Australia at Lord’s by an innings and 411 runs. Yes, everything seemed normal so far.

His political report and much of his social report were complete by six-thirty, and his thoughts started turning to drink: after all, it was a positive duty. As he strolled up Shaftesbury Avenue he began looking out for drink advertisements. The beer ones had much in common with those of 1960, but were overshadowed in prominence by those recommending wines. MOUTON ROTHSCHILD FOR POWER, BREEDING AND GRANDEUR, one said. ASK FOR OESTRICHER PFAFFENBERG — THE HOCK WITH THE CLEAN FINISH, enjoined another. MY GOLLY, MY ST GYOERGHYHEGYI FURMINT, bawled a third. Well, practical experiment would soon establish what was what. Simpson slipped quietly through the doorway of an establishment clearly devoted to drink.

The interior was surprising. If some French provincial café had not been gutted of décor and furnishings to get this place up, then a good job of duplication had been done. Men in neat, sombre clothing sat at the tables talking in low tones, wineglasses and wine-bottles before them, while aproned waiters moved silently about. One of them was decanting a red wine from a bottle that was thick with dust and cobwebs, watched critically by all the nearby drinkers. Simpson crept to a seat in an unfrequented part of the room.

A waiter approached. ‘What can I bring you, monsieur?’

Here it must be explained that Simpson was not quite the claret-fancier the Director thought him. He enjoyed claret all right, but he also enjoyed other French wines, and German wines, and Italian wines, and Iberian wines, and Balkan wines, and fortified wines, and spirits, and liqueurs, and apéritifs , and cocktails, and draught beer, and bottled beer, and stout, and cider, and perry — all the way down to Fernet Branca. (There were some drinks he had never drunk — arak, kava , Gumpoldskirchner Rotgipfler, methylated spirits — but they were getting fewer all the time.) Anyway, feeling dehydrated after his walk round the streets, he unreflectingly ordered a pint of bitter.

‘I’m sorry, monsieur, I don’t understand. What is this bitter?’

‘Bitter beer, ale; you know. Haven’t you got any?’

‘Beer, monsieur?’ The waiter’s voice rose in contempt. ‘ Beer? I’m afraid you’re in the wrong district for that.’

Several men turned round, nudged one another and stared at Simpson, who blushed and said, ‘Well… a glass of wine, then.’

‘France, Germany, Luxembourg, Austria…’

Simpson tried to think. ‘A claret, please. Let’s say — a nice St Emilion.’