Ruins by Brian Aldiss (romantic novels to read .txt) 📗

had been constructed inside the shell of the old church, a much humbler structure, a mere cottage. Here the two old people lived, and they were welcoming him into their home.

Stones from the church formed the walls of the building. Indeed, a part of the old church served as the rear wall of the cottage. Its roof was thatched, its windows leaded with diamond panes. It lay within the embrace of the grander structure.

As the old couple shepherded him forward, he realised how beautiful the cottage was, and humble. The rays of the sun, which was about to sink below the distant skyline, lit the window panes brightly. The front door swung open. Inside gleamed a log fire. He heard the crackle of flames. The two old people gestured courteously to him. The dream always ended before he could enter.

‘And how old were you, do you say, when you first had this vision, dear?’ Gladys asked, after a silence.

Striving to answer, Billing looked down at the sketches on the floor. He had drawn one version as a Victorian sentimental picture. A second sketch was more austere, with the church tower fading in a ghostly way into the evening sky. To a third he had given a wartime emphasis; the building in the background had been ruined by shellfire, while the figure that represented his lost self was in uniform, complete with steel helmet and rifle.

‘I must have been four the first time. I sat on my mother’s knee to tell her all about it. And before my sixth birthday … that was when my dear Dad fell off the ladder and killed himself …’

Scarcely were the words out when Billing began weeping as he had not wept for countless years and the tears splashed down on to his sketches. His whole frame shook with sobbing. Horrified as he was by his performance, he could not staunch the tears, had no idea from what deep well they came. He felt Gladys’s frail arm round his shoulders, but still the grief went on, like a river pouring from a glacier.

At one point he heard himself say, ‘You see how my life’s in ruins – without a father I never had any … any pattern of approval. Even women could not give me a … give me a permanent …’

The sobbing swept away his words.

Later, he was mopping his face, childlike, and apologising.

‘You poor dear,’ Gladys said, ‘you were robbed, robbed. Life can be very cruel. And your mother can’t have been a great help. As we’ve agreed, she was a bit of a … bit of a swank …’

She mopped her eyes but her general calm in the face of these earth-moving revelations was reassuring.

So ashamed was Billing of his weakness in revealing his emotions that he did not go near Gladys Lee’s house for several days. By night, he roved far afield, through parks and stone streets, walking with echoes and shadows. He had learnt how to travel on the underground without paying. From the underground, he transferred to an ordinary train, and travelled down to Winchester. He slept that night against the door of the cathedral, but the season was growing cold. The rheumatism returned, bolder than before.

He got back to London. His firm had sent on to his digs his employment cards and a small payment owing; Mr Motts Senior had finally acted.

It was the weekend. Escape was the only thing: he would return to California. Living was easier there. He might take up RDS again, make a movie, find a new woman. All he need do was earn the air fare. He pocketed the last of his money and went on a rare drinking bout across town, in Hammersmith, home of some market porters he knew.

‘Jimmy, Jimmy, stop your running!’ someone called to him as he was heading towards Gladys’s house after midnight. He ran in earnest then, making Shepherd’s Bush echo to his footsteps, looking back to call derisively at the man, looking ahead again just in time to see the great black lorry bearing down on him, like a shark on a drowning baby.

Dr Platt was young and smart and carried himself very straight. He smelt chemically clean. He had a small moustache and was sharp in a friendly way with the patients in the surgical ward. Billing recalled, with a feeling he did not analyse, the time when he had looked like that. Dr Platt’s suit was impervious to creases in the wrong places.

‘You can leave hospital tomorrow,’ Dr Platt told him. ‘You’re lucky, old chap. It’s a simple break and all you’ll need is a crutch for a while. The abrasions on your trunk are healing well. Of course, that arm may take longer. You’re not as young as you were. What are you, fifty? You’ll survive.’

As he was walking on, Billing called to him, ‘Doctor, excuse me – do the nurses have to play that music all the time?’

‘Radio One? I don’t care for it myself, but most people like it, or get used to it.’

‘No, I mean at night, when the radio’s off. Is it a tape they play? That everlasting bugle, or whatever it is.’

Dr Platt shook his head. ‘I don’t follow you. There’s nothing else. You’re hearing things.’ He walked away, paused, sighed, then returned to Billing’s side.

‘Perhaps you are hearing things, old man. How long have you been conscious of this music?’

‘Oh …’ He was confused by the unexpected question, did not know what to say and was afraid of losing the doctor’s attention. ‘I couldn’t say … Some while.’

‘What’s your theory?’

‘What theory?’

The doctor tapped a ball-point pen against his thumb nail. ‘How do you account for the noise? Most sufferers have a theory about the noises they hear. Flying saucers. The Russians. The CIA. The chap next door. A secret ray. I just wondered what your theory was.’

‘I thought it was the radio. I don’t have any theories. You mean it’s in my head?’

‘The noise is called tinnitus.