Life in the West. Brian Aldiss

the hotel. Since then, both had married Americans, and the affair was long over.

      They remained good friends and still enjoyed their secret annual meeting. This year it was Deirdre’s turn to pay. A delegation of Chinese in sober business suits was eating Dover sole in unison at a nearby table. Deirdre and Broadwell had both ordered cotelettes d’Agneau Madelon, and were drinking a claret with them.

      ‘I saw your mother’s obituary in The Times,’ Broadwell said. ‘Tom didn’t expect me to come up to Hartisham for the funeral, did he?’

      ‘Good God, no. But we’ve met since then. That was the Christmas before last.’

      He looked embarrassed. ‘I lose account of the time nowadays. So it was.’

      ‘You’re not having an affair with another woman, are you?’

      ‘I promised always to be faithful to you. The lamb’s good.’

      ‘Looking back, I can see what a snob she was. I suppose that generation were. The Hodgkinses do tend to be. I remember mother’s advice to me on my twenty-first. “Always look first-rate,” she said. “Dress becomingly, wash thoroughly, particularly between the legs, always hold yourself properly. Keep a fit expression on your face at all times. Remember you’re a Squire, gel.”’

      She had given a precise imitation of her mother, and Broadwell laughed. ‘She was rather grand. “Always look first-rate.” I like that. She did look a bit first-rate.’

      ‘Oh yes. Those hats. Drank like a fish towards the end. Tom preferred not to notice. Tom likes to maintain the family image.’ The cutlets were tiny, delicately done, and served with a sauce Madère; she cut one in half and raised it to her mouth.

      ‘It’s quite a relief to be married to old Marsh. As an American, he doesn’t grasp all the implications of being a Squire gel, so I’ve escaped all that. More or less.’

      Broadwell gazed at her over his glass. In her late forties, Deirdre Kaye had grown rather like her brother. There were the same strong features, the same marked lines beside the mouth, even the same way of carrying the head. He enjoyed their relationship, and was not sorry that it was no closer. He also reflected that she was more Squire-like than her brother.

      ‘Belinda simplifies my life. “Cut out all that English bullshit,” she’ll say. Not that she hasn’t plenty of bullshit of her own. By the way, she informs me that The Times may cease publication. Staff troubles – the unions, of course. Can you credit it? Life won’t be the same. I’m one publisher who’ll suffer if the TLS goes.’

      ‘Belinda’s fun for you, Ron. What you deserve. They are tasty, aren’t they?’

      ‘Was Tom very upset by Patricia’s death?’

      ‘You know Tom. Nothing upsets him. One of his worst characteristics. Now he is head of the family, etc. We don’t see much of Adrian, except at Christmas. I guess being a Squire boy is a bit of a responsibility. Notice Tom always looks first-rate. Ideal telly fodder.’

      ‘He came over very well on the box. More wine? How is his relationship with Teresa? I daren’t ask him, not after the great bust-up at my house last New Year’s Eve.’

      ‘I’m getting such an alcoholic in my old age. It’s all a mess. I suppose you know he’s not actually at Pippet Hall any more? First he stayed at his club, now he’s got a flat somewhere in Paddington, of all places.’

      ‘I know. Chops were good. He could have stayed with us. The dogs are worse than children, though. Mind you, the first meal we ever had here was the best.’ He wiped his lips on his napkin and grinned at her. She had grown softer over the years – not to mention plumper.

      ‘There was a woman Tom had the hots for a while back. He thought Marsh and I didn’t know, but I happened to find out. Sheila Lippard-Milne. Rather a saucy bit of goods, saucier than Teresa by a long chalk.’

      She drained her glass and beckoned the waiter over.

      ‘I know Sheila. I published a book by her husband. He’s a bit of a wet, but quite a sound art historian. What about sweet? Our Hungarian tart as usual?’

      ‘Two Dobos Torta,’ she told the waiter. ‘I think the waiters change every year. This chap’s a Cypriot or something. The chef seems permanent, thank God. They’d make a good pair.’

      ‘The chef and the waiter?’

      ‘Tom and Sheila Lippard-Milne. He needs jollying up.’

      ‘We’d make a good pair. Then your Marshall could marry my Belinda.’ He reached out and took her hand.

      ‘My God, Belinda’d eat Marsh …’

      ‘Missed you while you were in Greece.’

      ‘You never think of me. It was nice to escape the strikes, I suppose. The hotel on Minos is dreadful, not even picturesque. I took along my watercolours, like a good Squire gel, but never used them.’

      ‘The sign of an irredeemable nature,’ he said, beaming at her.

      The sweet trolley arrived. The Dobos Torta looked and tasted as delicious as in previous years.

      3

      A View from the Beach

      Pippet Hall, Norfolk, June 1977

      The world underwent one of its amazing simplifications. First and nearest was the great band of beach, decorated in bas-relief with a complex ripple pattern; then a sliver of sky-coloured lagoon left by the retreating tide; then a band of lighter sand, then a drab donkeyish strip of distant fern and grass; then a band of dark green, formed from the long line of Corsican pines which stood guard between land and beach, allowing pale sky among the colonnades of its trunks; then the enormous intense blue summer sky, sailing up to zenith, beyond capturable reach of camera.

      The equipment and human figures were reduced to toy scale by the expanse of beach.

      Thomas Squire was wearing a blue canvas shirt and a pair of brown swimming trunks. He was up to his knees in almost motionless sea, moving steadily towards the shore.

      Beside him was a gorgeously tanned girl in her mid-twenties. Her thick fair hair streamed over her shoulders in the light off-shore breeze. She wore a black bikini with artificial white roses stitched round the line of her breasts. She was laughing and vivacious, the very embodiment of seaside girls on posters everywhere, and paid Squire no attention as he acted out his part.

      ‘The sea is always close to our thoughts in Europe, because it has played such a part in history. It may also have played a considerable part in pre-history, if mankind reverted to marine life at a stage in its early career. I think of that theory whenever the annual summer pilgrimage to the nearest strip of beach begins. The human race then shows a tendency to cluster like penguins on the shores of the Antarctic, as if we were all about to revert to the sea again, having found life on land a little too complex.’

      He and the girl were almost ashore. There were no waves, only the purest warm ripples of water which glided up the beach like liquefied sunlight.

      ‘The sea that most possesses the European imagination is the Mediterranean, the sea at the middle of the Earth. It’s the cradle of our culture, the home waters of Greece and Rome. This is not the Mediterranean but the North Sea. I love this stretch of the North Norfolk coast, and the docile summer North Sea, not only because it is much less crowded and despoiled than most of the Mediterranean coast, but because I happen to live within ten miles of this particular beach. As you see, the water in late June is entirely warm enough for our Sex Symbol to sport in.

      ‘If I mentioned the name of the beach, that advertisement would cause it to become crowded within a year.

      ‘Such is the power of advertising. Advertising in various media frequently makes use of the sea and, of course, of sex symbols such as this young lady by my side. If I mentioned her name, she would become a character, not a symbol; such is the power of names.

      ‘Her