An Infinite Summer
CHRISTOPHER PRIEST
From the author of A Dream of Wessex and The Space Machine—both very highly praised—comes this collection of five extraordinary stories, each dealing in its different way with the themes of human love and sexuality, of innocence and corruption.
The innocence of the title story is that of its period: the apparently endless summer of Edwardian England, when two young people, falling in love, become trapped in their moment of greatest happiness. ‘Palely Loitering’ is a story of adolescent infatuation, unrequited in childhood, but revisited in adulthood. In ‘The Negation’, the innocent is a young would-be poet, who meets the one author who has had a profound and lasting influence on his ideas. In contrast to these, there are two uncompromising sexual fables: ‘Whores’ and ‘The Watched’. In the former, a convalescent soldier goes on an hallucinatory quest for sexual satisfaction, while the latter story examines the uncanny and mutually dependant relationship between voyeur and victim.
This collection of stories, distinct in tone from his novels but complimentary to them, consolidates Christopher Priest’s reputation as one of the most original writers of his generation.
other books by the same author
FUGUE FOR A DARKENING ISLAND
INVERTED WORLD
THE SPACE MACHINE
A DREAM OF WESSEX
ANTICIPATIONS (edited by)
YOUR BOOK OF FILM-MAKING (for children)
First published in 1979
by Faber and Faber Limited
3 Queen Square London WC1
Printed in Great Britain by
Butler and Tanner Ltd
Frome and London
All rights reserved
Copyright © 1979, Christopher Priest
AN INFINITE SUMMER. Copyright © 1976, 1979, Christopher Priest.
First published in Andromeda—1, 1976
WHORES. Copyright © 1978, 1979, Christopher Priest.
First published in New Dimensions—8, 1978
PALELY LOITERING. Copyright © 1978, 1979, Christopher Priest.
First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, 1979
THE NEGATION. Copyright © 1978, 1979, Christopher Priest.
First published in Anticipations, 1978
THE WATCHED. Copyright © 1978, 1979, Christopher Priest.
First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, 1978
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Priest, Christopher
An infinite summer.
I. Title
823’.9’1FS PR6066.R551/
ISBN 0-571-11343-5
This book is dedicated, with gratitude and affection, to:
Graeme Aaron, Bruce Barnes, Micheline Cyna-Tang, Malcolm English, Randal Flynn, Sharon Goodman, Philippa Maddern, Edward Mundie, Sam Sejavka, Petrina Smith, Paul Voermans, David Walker, and Kitty Vigo
Contents
INTRODUCTION
AN INFINITE SUMMER
WHORES
PALELY LOITERING
THE NEGATION
THE WATCHED
Introduction
I am a very slow writer, and although this is neither an excuse nor a claim, and is actually just a bald statement of fact, it means that anything I write is cluttering my desk and head for so long that it becomes permanently associated with a particular period of my life. For instance, I wrote my scientific romance The Space Machine through much of 1974. I sometimes refer to it as my novel about Watergate, a piece of information which puzzles anyone who hears it, but that is how it seems to me. I have only to see the title written down, and immediately a mental image of Nixon’s perspiring face looms up in the background, like the cowl of a Martian fighting machine.
In this book of short stories (although “short” is only a term of convenience, in two or three instances), “An Infinite Summer” fits firmly into the context of The Space Machine itself. I wrote the story in the middle, literally, of the novel; somewhere in Chapter 13, to be precise. To prepare for the novel I had to do a certain amount of research, and this involved making several visits to Richmond, where much of the book is set. As it turned out, when I came to write the book I could not find much use for the product of this research, preferring to rely instead on an instinctive or felt response. “An Infinite Summer” was written because there was one strong feeling that would not fit in the novel: the sense that layers of time exist, that places do not change so much as people. Although the story is entirely independent of the novel (and vice versa), the two are complementary.
Although “An Infinite Summer” is a relatively recent story, the rest in this book are practically brand-new. “Whores” and “The Watched” are, respectively, the prologue and epilogue to my novel A Dream of Wessex…although only in the sense that the writing of them happened to precede and succeed the book in close order.
“Whores” is a Christmassy story, written to the accompaniment of thoughts about cards I should be sending and presents I should be wrapping. There the resemblance to seasonal good cheer ends, as you will discover, and in retrospect I think I must have eaten too much plum duff.
I finished A Dream of Wessex in July 1976, and immediately went on holiday to Greece. There I had what might be euphemistically called an unenjoyable time—the weeks following the end of a novel should be recuperative, but not in the usual sense of sin, sun and sea—and I flew home early. I started work on “The Watched” within a week, and wrote it through the last two months of that glorious, drought-ridden summer.
Both “Whores” and “The Watched” are from a loosely linked cycle of stories I think of as “the Dream Archipelago”. (“The Negation” also fits into the series, although in a slightly different way.) The Dream Archipelago is more an idea than an actual place, but if it has a correlative reality then it would be a kind of fusion of the Channel Islands and Greece, with bits of Harrow-on-the-Hill and St Tropez thrown in for good measure. I should like to issue a small warning here (knowing, as I do, what the stories are about): each story in the Dream Archipelago cycle is entirely self-contained. There is very little in common between each one, except perhaps the words “Dream Archipelago” themselves. Do not, please, make assumptions about one story from reading another; there are very few “links”.
The most recent story here is “Palely Loitering”. This too is a summery story, and was written soon after I returned from a long and very happy stay in Melbourne, Australia. It was an attempt to think myself back into a European sensibility; visiting Australia is like seeing the past and future simultaneously, and the familiar and unfamiliar at once.
Although these stories have all enjoyed previous publication, I think of this book as a whole, and as a whole new work. I have revised all the stories here, and placed them in a deliberate order, with a purpose that I hope will become clear on reading. The proper context for these stories is as you find them here, sitting quietly by themselves in a docile row. I like having my stories published in different places on the first outing, but a short story by any writer, when published in a magazine or an anthology, is planted into a soil alien to its roots; like an Englishman alone in Australia. One meets many new people, makes a lot of new friends, learns and benefits by the experience…but it isn’t quite the same as being at home, somehow. In many cases, though, these stories would not have been written without the good work and encouragement of their first editors, and I should like to take this opportunity to thank Peter Weston of Andromeda, Robert Silverberg of New Dimensions, and Edward Ferman of Fantasy & Science Fiction. I wrote “The Negation” for Anticipations, a book I edited myself, so I have only myself to thank…or to blame.
CHRISTOPHER PRIEST
> An Infinite Summer
August, 1940.
There was a war on, but it made no difference to Thomas James Lloyd. The war was an inconvenience and it restricted his freedom, but on the whole it was the least of his preoccupations. Misfortune had brought him to this violent age, and its crises did not concern him. He was apart from it, shadowed by it.
He stood now on the Thames bridge at Richmond, resting his hands on the parapet and staring south along the river. The sun reflected up from it, and he took his sunglasses from a metal case in his pocket and put them on.
Night was the only relief from the tableaux of frozen time; during the days the dark glasses approximated the relief.
It seemed to Thomas Lloyd that it was not long since he had last stood untroubled on this bridge. The memory of the day was clear, itself a moment of frozen time, undiminished. He remembered how he had stood here with his cousin, watching four young men from the town as they manhandled a punt upstream.
Richmond itself had changed from that time of his youth, but here by the river the view was much as he remembered it. Although there were more buildings along the banks, the meadows below Richmond Hill were untouched, and he could see the riverside walk disappearing around the bend in the river towards Twickenham.
For the moment the town was quiet. An air-raid alert had been sounded a few minutes before, and although there were still some vehicles moving through the streets, most pedestrians had taken temporary shelter inside shops and offices.
Lloyd had left them to walk again through the past.
He was a tall, well-built man, apparently young in years. He had been taken for twenty-five several times by strangers, and Lloyd, a withdrawn, uncommunicative man, had allowed the mistake to go uncorrected. Behind the dark glasses his eyes were still bright with the hopes of youth, but many tiny lines at the corners of his eyes, and a sallowness to his skin, indicated that he was older. Even this, though, lent no clue to the truth. Thomas Lloyd had been born in 1881, and was now approaching sixty.
He took his watch from his waistcoat pocket, and saw that the time was a little after twelve. He turned to walk towards the pub on the Isleworth road, but then noticed a man standing alone on the path beside the river. Even wearing the sunglasses, which filtered away the more intrusive reminders of past and future, Lloyd could see that it was one of the men he called freezers. This was a young man, rather plump and with prematurely balding hair. He had seen Lloyd, because as Lloyd looked down at him the young man turned ostentatiously away. Lloyd had nothing now to fear from the freezers, but they were always about and their presence never failed to make him uneasy.
Far away, in the direction of Barnes, Lloyd could hear another air-raid siren droning out its warning.
June, 1903.
The world was at peace, and the weather was warm. Thomas James Lloyd, recently down from Cambridge, twenty-one years of age, mustachioed, light of tread, walked gaily through the trees that grew across the side of Richmond Hill.
It was a Sunday, and there were many people about. Earlier in the day Thomas had attended church with his father and mother and sister, sitting in the pew that was reserved traditionally for the Lloyds of Richmond. The house on the Hill had belonged to the family for more than two hundred years, and William Lloyd, the present head of the family, owned most of the houses on the Sheen side of town as well as administering one of the largest businesses in the whole of Surrey. A family of substance indeed, and Thomas James Lloyd lived in the knowledge that one day the substance would be his by inheritance.
Worldly matters thus assured, Thomas felt free to divert his attention to activities of a more important nature: namely, Charlotte Carrington and her sister Sarah.
That one day he would marry one of the two sisters had been an inevitability long acknowledged by both families, although precisely which of the two it would be had been occupying his thoughts for many weeks.
There was much to choose between the two—or so Thomas himself considered—but if his choice had been free then his mind would have been at rest. Unfortunately for him, it had been made plain by the girls’ parents that it would be Charlotte who would make the better wife for a future industrialist and landowner, and in many ways this was so.
The difficulty arose because Thomas had fallen impetuously for her younger sister Sarah, a state of affairs of absolutely no moment to Mrs Carrington.
Charlotte, twenty years of age, was an undeniably handsome girl, and Thomas much enjoyed her company. She appeared to be prepared to accept a proposal of marriage from him, and to be fair she was endowed with much grace and intelligence, but whenever they had been together neither had had much of interest to say to the other. Charlotte was an ambitious and emancipated girl—for so she styled herself—and was constantly reading historical tracts. Her one consuming interest was in touring the various churches of Surrey to take brass-rubbings from the plates there. Thomas, a liberal and understanding young man, was pleased she had found a hobby, but could not own to a sharing of the interest.
Sarah Carrington was an altogether different proposition. Two years younger than her sister, and thus, by her mother’s estimation, not yet eligible for marriage (or not, at least, until a husband had been found for Charlotte), Sarah was at once a person to be coveted by virtue of her unavailability, and yet also a delightful personality in her own right. When Thomas had first started calling on Charlotte, Sarah was still being finished at school, but by astute questioning of Charlotte and his own sister, Thomas had discovered that Sarah liked to play tennis and croquet, was a keen bicycliste, and was acquainted with all the latest dance-steps. A surreptitious glance into the family’s photographic album had established that she was also astoundingly beautiful. This last aspect of her he had confirmed for himself at their first meeting, and he had promptly fallen in love with her. Since then he had endeavoured to transfer his attentions, and with some success. Twice already he had spoken to her alone; no minor achievement when one considered the enthusiasm with which Mrs Carrington encouraged Thomas always to be with Charlotte. Once he had been left alone with Sarah for a few minutes in the Carringtons’ drawing-room, and on the second occasion he had managed a few words with her during a family picnic. Even on this brief acquaintance, Thomas had become convinced that he would settle for no less a wife than Sarah.
So it was that on this Sunday, Thomas’s mood was full of light, because by a most agreeable contrivance he had ensured himself at least an hour alone with Sarah.
The instrument of this contrivance was one Waring Lloyd, a cousin of his. Waring had always seemed to Thomas a most unconscionable oaf, but remembering that Charlotte had once remarked favourably on him (and feeling that each would be eminently suited to the other), Thomas had proposed a riverside stroll for the afternoon. Waring, suitably confided in, would delay Charlotte while they walked, so allowing Thomas and Sarah to go on ahead.
Thomas was several minutes early for the rendezvous, and paced to and fro good-naturedly while waiting for his cousin. It was cooler by the river, for the trees grew right down to the water’s edge, and several of the ladies walking along the path behind the boathouse had folded their sunshades and were clutching shawls about their shoulders.
When at last Waring arrived, the two cousins greeted each other amiably—more so than at any time in the recent past—and debated whether they should cross by the ferry, or walk the long way round by the bridge. There was still plenty of time in hand, so they opted for the latter course.
Thomas reminded Waring of what was to happen during the stroll, and Waring confirmed that he understood. The arrangement suited him; he found Charlotte no less delightful than Sarah, and would doubtless find much to say to the older girl.
Later, as they crossed Richmond Bridge to the Middlesex side of the river, Thomas paused, resting his hands on the stone parapet. He was watching four young men struggling ineptly with a punt, trying to manoeuvre it against the stream towards the side, while on the bank two older m
en shouted conflicting instructions.
August, 1940.
“You’d better take cover, sir. Just in case.”
Thomas Lloyd was startled by the voice at his side, and he turned. It was an air-raid warden, an elderly man in a dark uniform. On the shoulder of his jacket, and stencilled on his metal helmet, were the letters A.R.P. In spite of his polite tone of voice, he was looking suspiciously at Lloyd. The part-time work Lloyd had been doing in Richmond paid barely enough for food and lodgings, and what little spare there was usually went on drink; he was still wearing the same clothes as he had five years ago, and they were the worse for wear.
“Is there going to be a raid?” Lloyd said.
“Never can tell. Jerry’s still bombing the ports, but he’ll start on the towns any day now.”
They both glanced towards the sky in the south-east. There, high in the blue, were several curling white vapour-trails, but no other sign of the German bombers everyone so feared.
“I’ll be safe,” Lloyd said. “I’m going for a walk. I’ll be away from the houses if a raid starts.”
“That’s all right, sir. If you meet anyone else out there, remind them there’s an alert on.”
“I’ll do that.”
The warden nodded to him, then walked slowly towards the town. Lloyd raised his sunglasses for a moment, and watched him.
A few yards from where they had been standing was one of the freezers’ tableaux: two men and a woman. When he had first noticed this tableau, Lloyd had inspected the people carefully, and judged by their clothes that they must have been frozen at some time in the mid-nineteenth century. This tableau was the oldest he had so far discovered, and as such was of especial interest to him. He had learned that the moment of a tableau’s erosion was unpredictable. Some tableaux lasted for several years, others only a day or two. The fact that this one had survived for at least ninety years indicated just how erratic the rate of erosion was.