Remembrance Day. Brian Aldiss

to go on with this lie? Tebbutt asked himself, but already he heard his own voice continuing the tale.

      ‘At the end of the meal, Cracknell suddenly turns to the duchess and says, “Show us your quim”, just like that. Instead, she jumps up, pulls off her clothes, every last stitch, and climbs up on the table. There she dances a fandango among the plates, naked as the day she was born, and a sight more attractive.’

      Mutterings all round from the company, until Pauline asked, ‘What did the Kuwaitis do?’

      ‘Oh, they all thought it was a normal part of English home life.’

      ‘You Brummies had a rare old time,’ Yarker said, enviously.

      After closing time, the drinkers staggered into the night air. Langham lay about them, quiet and serious, with the great stone shoulder of the church looming darkly nearby. They stood outside the pub, in no hurry to say goodnight to each other.

      Offering to give Tebbutt a lift home, Yarker flung a heavy arm round his shoulders and propelled him in the direction of his car. He ignored Tebbutt’s protestations that he preferred to walk. As soon as her husband’s back was turned, Pauline Yarker grabbed young Georgie Clenchwarden and planted a big kiss on his lips.

      The drink had given the lad courage. Returning the kiss, he grabbed as much of her as he could. Someone cheered. In the dark, lit only by the light from the pub windows, in the middle of the road, the two danced slowly together. The others made way for them, muttering encouragingly. ‘Git in there, Georgie boy, it’s yer birthday!’ Slowly they gyrated, while Pauline sang ‘I am Sailing’ into Clenchwarden’s ear.

      Turning at the car, Yarker saw what was happening. A kind of war cry escaped him. He rushed forward. Warned by the roar, Clenchwarden let go of Pauline and started to run in the direction of Blakeney, yelling for help as he did so. Burton, the ferret man, with a wit quicker than anyone would have attributed to him, started up his stinking motorbike and ran it between Yarker and his quarry. A swearing match started. The landlady appeared and begged them to be quiet. Tebbutt took the opportunity to escape.

      He marched home in a cheerful frame of mind. Though darkness had fallen, the ambience of a summer’s sunset lingered, with a legacy of honeysuckle fragrance. Bats wheeled about the church where, in a few hours, a congregation would be gathering. A harmony of slight noises rose everywhere, from farm and field, comprising the orchestral silence of a Norfolk night. By the entrance to a lane, he halted to urinate under a tree, listening to a leaf fall within the circumference of the branches. He plucked another leaf, pricking himself in so doing. Holding it woozily before his eyes, he made out its sharp outline, with a green heart rimmed by yellow; without being able to determine the colours, he could distinguish their difference. It was a leaf of variegated holly.

      ‘That’s right, that’s the ticket,’ he said aloud, ponderously. ‘That’s life right enough. Variegated. Very variegated.’

      He was impressed by his own wit, and sober enough to stand for a minute listening to the night about him. Even at this distance from the coast, the presence of the sea could be felt, calming, chastening.

      That story of the dancing duchess, he reflected, had been an invention to make his past life seem more exciting than it was – to others, but to himself above all. The truth was, Parchment had always been a slog. His uncle had seen to it he was underpaid. He knew Cracknell Summerfield, but no dancing duchesses. Well, you had to make what you could of the moment, and no harm had been done.

      Truth was, he rather despised the company in the Bluebell, and despised himself for going there so regularly.

      When you think about it, they’re always running down women. What’s the matter with them? Is that just an English thing? Or maybe none of them have had my luck in finding a Ruby in their lives.

      It’s impossible to see how things will get better for us. I’m not likely to find a better job. Not at my age.

      But at least I’ve got Ruby …

      I suppose some would say I’ve made a mess of my life, seeing the family business go bankrupt; the economic climate was mainly to blame for that, but I realize I shouldn’t have trusted the word of a liar and a crook. There were danger signs. I ignored them. I was dazzled by all his money …

      Perhaps I’m attracted to liars. I hated being told always to tell the truth when I was a kid because I could see even then how adults were terrible liars and dissemblers.

      Still, you can’t say life’s a complete cock-up, he told himself complacently as he slouched down the country road, listening to the echo of his own steps. I had the savvy to marry Ruby.

      Shows I know what’s what. First time I set eyes on her. That day she came into the works I was in a bad temper – can’t remember what about now. She brought those samples over from Dickinson’s. I hardly glanced at her and made some crappy remark about the colours. And she answered me so nicely, not at all put out.

      So then I looked up. There she was. Neat and bright and slender. So slender, and with a playful air I still catch in her sometimes. You couldn’t really say it was love at first sight, but certainly I took a shine to her there and then. Escorted her to the door, in fact. She was wearing sandals. Watched her going down Bridge Street, thought – oh, what a real darling of a girl she was. I remember it so well, standing at that door. It had been raining; the pavements shone.

      Those first impressions have never left me, never have. I was going with Peggy Barnes at the time – let’s see, of course that was the year I traded in my old Triumph for my first car – but I slung her up. In a rather rotten way, sad to tell. Unfeeling sod, I was. It was Ruby awoke tender feelings in me. Maybe the blokes at the Bluebell never had anything like that.

      By ringing Ruby’s firm, I got her name. Ruby Silcock. She was engaged to a chap in the tax office, what was his name?, but she agreed to have a milk shake with me in the lunch hour.

      Time I’d got to the bottom of that glass, I knew I was mad about her – I didn’t tell her so, of course. Not then. Didn’t want to scare her.

      He peered back into the past, recalling how he’d been late back to work that afternoon, so that his uncle had grumbled.

      Then we were meeting again. Then she let me take her to the Saturday hop. Oh, to feel that body against mine, to look into her eyes, to move with her!

      There was always something restrained about Ruby. Withdrawn, do I mean? Not sexually, mentally. Still is. Not a chatterbox, a blabberer, not like Peggy Barnes, thank God. A girl who can keep a confidence.

      Nearly home. You did well then, matey. Not such a ditherer in that instance.

      I walked on a sea of thistledown when I found she had a little warmth for me. Happy in a hundred ways. My mind and heart were full of her like being crammed with flowers. Oh, yes, Ruby, darling … how you haunted me, possessed me!

      She rang me one day – we’d known each other about three weeks – to say she’d broken off her engagement. Alex was his name. She never told me then how she did it or what happened. It was just off.

      Oh, the passion of those days! Me, whose idea of foreplay was to drag my pants down – I was a fast learner. You could never feel that way twice in a lifetime, could you? I sometimes think it’s all gone, then back it comes. We lived in a dream, didn’t know ourselves.

      Amazing how it’s lasted. Oh, when I saw her naked … I could have eaten scrambled egg out of her darling armpits.

      Well. Ruby, love, pissed though I am, I have to say you make my life worth while. You’re my religion. The Bible.

      It wasn’t all lovey-dovey. Christ, was I a fool! When I first met her younger sister, Joyce, I kidded myself I fancied her more. Some kind of madness, just because she was the snappy dresser. Silly bugger. Ruby caught me kissing her. What a row we had! She gave me such a clout! Naturally I was all bull and rubbish, all the time thinking I’d shat on my chips as far as she was concerned. Women know how to stage-manage these things.

      That’s