The Complete Short Stories: The 1950s

For the difficult business of landing, Rick switched on to auto. This luxury had been fitted by Happy Hover Ltd. only two months ago. With the faintest of sighs, the helic leafed down, below the clouds, below the aerial levels, below the rooftops, and squatted in the Sheridan back garden.

The garden was a large one, as gardens went, ten feet by sixteen, and covered by neo-concrete. Rick jumped out and stretched himself. Although he was all of twenty-eight, he suddenly felt young and healthy again. Appetite stirred sluttishly in his stomach.

‘Oh for a bowl of tasty, toothable Cob Corners!’ he cried exultantly, and bounded for the back door.

He was high enough up the consumer hierarchy to own a magnificent two-room dwelling: Walking through the Disposing room, he entered the Gazing room and called: ‘Neata!’

She was sitting quietly at the Relaxtable, laboriously mending a little labour-saving device, her fair head bent in concentration. Her smile of welcome formed easily and naturally round her new teeth, and she jumped up, throwing her arms round him – carefully, so as not to crumple his teddy tie.

‘Ricky, darling, you’re early!’ she exclaimed.

‘I hit my quota ahead of schedule,’ he explained proudly. ‘Thanks to Howlett’s.’

Their only child, Goya, jumped up and ran to greet her daddy. She managed to do it backwards, thus keeping her eyes fixed on the wall screens, where Sobold the Soap King was facing three dirty-looking criminals single-handed.

Rick’s eyes glistened behind their contact lenses. He reflected how affectionate the child was for a three-year-old, but something in the little girl’s actions must have displeased her mother, for Neata said irritably: ‘Why don’t you welcome your father properly?’

‘Wanna see old Sobold slosh the slashers,’ Goya said defiantly.

‘You’re old enough to guess what will happen,’ Neata said crossly. ‘He’ll catch them and make them all wash in that creamy, dreamy lather that only Little Britches Soap provides.’

‘Don’t get angry with her,’ Rick said. ‘Remember, it’s Christmas.’

He took Goya on his knee, and settled down with her to watch Sobold, his hunger forgotten. The wall-screens filled two walls. Before the end of next year, if he worked as well as he was working now, they might be able to afford a third screen. And one day … he blushed with excitement at the thought of being surrounded by an image in quadruplicate on all four walls.

A flicker of interference burst over the bright screens. Rick tutted with annoyance; the terrific technical accomplishment of telly was something upon which every civilised consumer prided himself, but it was nevertheless obvious that just lately there had been more misting than usual on the screens. Rick found himself recalling the rumours, dim and evasive, which he heard while at work; rumours of a vile movement to overthrow the present happy regime, of determined men with new weapons at their command.

Dismissing the idea irritably, he turned full attention on to the screens. Justice and cleanliness having overtaken Sobold’s opponents, the next Quarter of an hour was to be devoted to ‘Mr. Dial’s Dairy’, a comic serial lampooning twentieth-century farm life, presented by the makers of Grinbaum’s Meat Bars.

‘Time for bed, Goya,’ Neata declared, and despite the young lady’s protests she was whisked into the Disposing room for an encounter with Little Britches, Ardentifrices and Juxon’s (‘Nun-better’) Drying powder. Rick seized this opportunity while he was alone to spend ten minutes looking into his Pornograph, but his attention was recalled by a jolly announcer in the Grinbaum uniform calling out: ‘Well, customers, there we have to leave Mr. Dial for now. Is his prize cow really going to calve? Will Sally Hobkin get that big kiss she deserves? Your guess is as good as mine, suckers. One thing everybody is sure about is the goodness, the sheer brothy, spothy goodness, of Grinbaum’s Meat Bars. A whole carcass goes into each of those chewy little cubes.’

And then leaning, as it seemed, almost out of the screen, the announcer suddenly bellowed harshly: ‘Have you bought your quota of Grinbaum’s Meat Bars today, Sheridan?’

Cut. Screen blank. Ten seconds till next programme.

‘He certainly puts that over well,’ Rick gasped proudly, passing a hand over his brow. ‘It always makes me jump.’

‘It makes me jump too,’ said Neata flatly, leading a night-dressed Goya into the room.

This device whereby consumers could be individually named was the latest, and possibly cleverest, accomplishment of telly. The announcer had actually named no names; instead, at the correct moment, a signal transmitted from the studio activated a circuit at the receiving end which, in every individual home, promptly bellowed out the surname of the head consumer of the family.

Neata pressed the Relaxtable, and a section of it sprang into a bed. Goya was put in, and given her cup of steaming, happy-dreaming Howlett’s. She had hardly drunk the last mouthful before she sank down on the pillow, yawning.

‘Sleep well!’ Neata said gently, pressing the child’s earplugs into place. She felt tired herself, she hardly knew why. It would be a relief when her turn came for Howlett’s and Payne’s Painless Plugs.

There was no switching the screens off and now that telly provided a twenty-four hour service, the aids to sleep were a necessity.

‘This is Green Star, B channel,’ announced the screens. ‘The Dewlap Chair Hour!!!’

‘Must we watch this?’ Neata asked, as three dancing, screaming nudes burst into view, legs waving, bosoms bouncing.

‘We could try Green Star A.’

Green Star A had a play, which had already begun. They tried Green Star C, but that had a travel programme on, and Rick was bored by other countries – and a little afraid of them. They turned back to the Dewlap Hour, and gradually relaxed into semi-mindlessness.

There were three other coloured star systems, each with three channels, at their disposal, theoretically at least. But Green Star was the official consumer system for their consumer-class; obviously it would be wasteful for the Sheridans to watch White Star, which advertised commodities they could not afford, such as shower-purges, stratostruts, tellysolids and bingoproofs.

If they did watch White Star, there was, unfortunately, no guarantee that telly was not watching them. For since the installation of ‘wave-bounce’, some ten years ago, every wall screen was a reciprocal – which meant, in plain language, that every viewer could be viewed from telly. This innovation was the source of some of the very best programmes, for viewers could sit and watch themselves viewing telly.

Dewlap was showing one of the numerous and ever-popular panel games. Three blindfold men and a blindfold woman were being passed patent custards, cake-mixes and detergents; they had to distinguish between the different commodities by taste alone. A compere in shirt sleeves awarded blows over the head for incorrect guesses.

Just tonight – perhaps because it was Christmas – the sight of Gilbert Lardner having his head tapped failed to enthral Rick. He began to walk about the Gazing room, quite an easy matter since, except for the Relaxtable in which Goya lay drugged, there was a complete absence of furniture.

Catching Neata’s curious gaze upon him, Rick moved out into the garden. It was not fair to distract her from her viewing.

The snow still fell, still by courtesy of Home-Count Climatic. He did not feel the cool night air, snug in his Moxon’s Mockwool. Absently, he ran his hand over the helic, its blunt vanes, its atomic motor, its telly suppressor, its wheels. All maintenance, of course, was done by the helic drome: there was nothing he could fiddle with. Indeed, there was nothing he could do at all.

Like a sensible fellow, like all his sensible neighbours – whom he had hardly so much as seen – he went back indoors and sat before the screens.

Five minutes later came the unprecedented knock at the door.

The shortage of arable land in England, acute in the twentieth century, became critical in the twenty-first. Mankind’s way of reproducing himself being what it is, the more houses that were erected on the dwindling acres, the more houses were needed. These two problems, which were really but facets of one problem, were solved dramatically and unexpectedly. After telly’s twenty-four-hour services were introduced, it was realised by those who had the interests of the nation at heart (a phrase denoting those who were paid from public taxes) that nine-tenths of the people needed neither windows nor friends: telly was all in all to them.

A house without windows can be built in any surroundings. It can be built in rows of hundreds or blocks of thousands. Nor need roads be a hindrance to this agglomeration: an airborne population needs no roads.

A house without friends is freed from ostentation. There is no longer any urge to keep up with the Joneses, or whoever may come in. One needs, in fact, only two rooms: a room in which to watch the screens, and a room in which to store the Meat Bars and other items which the screens hypnotize one into buying.

So telly changed the face of England almost overnight. The Sheridan house, like a great many others, was in the midst of a nest of houses stretching for a mile or more in all directions; it could be reached only by something small enough to alight in the garden.

So for many reasons the knock on the door was very much a surprise.

‘Whoever can it be?’ asked Rick uneasily.

‘I don’t know,’ Neata said. She too had heard rumours of a subversive movement; a momentary – and not unpleasing – vision attended her of two masked men coming in and smashing the wall screens. But of course masked men would not bother to knock.

‘Perhaps it’s somebody from Grinbaum’s Meat Bars,’ suggested Rick, ‘I forgot to buy any today.’

‘Don’t be so silly, Rick,’ his wife said impatiently. ‘You know their factory must be purely automatic. Go and see who it is.’

That was something he had not thought of. You had to hand it to women … He got up and went reluctantly to open the door, smoothing his hair and his tie on the way.

A solid-looking individual stood in the drifting snow. His helic was parked against Rick’s. He wore some sort of a cloak over his Mock-wool: obviously, he was of a higher consumer-class than the Sheridans.

‘Er …’ said Rick.

‘May I come in?’ asked the stranger in the sort of voice always hailed on the screens as resonant. ‘I’m an escaped criminal.’

‘Er …’

‘I’m not dangerous. Don’t be alarmed.’

‘The little girl’s in bed,’ Rick said, clutching at the first excuse which entered his head.

‘Have no fear,’ said the stranger, still resonantly, ‘kidnapping is not one of the numerous offences on my crime sheet.’

He swept magnificently past Rick, through the dark Disposing room and into the Gazer. Neata jumped up as he entered. He bowed low and pulled the cloak from his shoulders with an eloquent gesture which scattered snow over the room.

‘Madam, forgive my intrusion,’ he said, the organ note more noticeable than ever. ‘I throw myself upon your mercy.’

‘Ooh, you talk like someone on a panel game,’ Neata gasped.

‘I thank you for that from the bottom of my heart,’ said the stranger, and announced himself as Black Jack Gabriel.

Rick hardly heard. He was taking in the thick-set figure in its smart attire, and the curiously impressive streak of white hair on the leonine head (the fellow must be thirty if he was a day). He also took in the meaningful way Neata and Black Jack were looking at each other.

‘I’m Neata Sheridan, and this is my husband, Rick,’ Neata was saying.

‘A delightful name,’ said Black Jack, bowing at Rick and grinning ingratiatingly.

‘It’s only short for Rickmansworth,’ said Neata, a little acidly.

Black Jack, standing facing but entirely ignoring the screens, began to speak. He was a born elocutionist, and soon even Rick ceased to blush – a nervous habit which manifested itself on the rare occasions when he was face to face with a real human being.

Black Jack had a dramatic tale to tell of his capture by armed police, who had chased him across roofs thirty storeys above ground level. For the last nine years he had been imprisoned in Holloway, condemned to hard labour, knitting hemp mittens for the cameramen of Outside Telly.

Suddenly, only a few hours ago, an opportunity for escape had presented itself. Black Jack had broken into the Governor’s suite, exchanged clothes, and flown off in the Governor’s helic.

‘And here I am,’ he said. ‘I just landed at random – and how lucky I was to find you two.’

Despite some opposition from an outbreak of bope music from the screen, Rick had been listening with great attention.

‘If it’s not a rude question, Mr. Black,’ he said, ‘what did you do wrong?’

‘That’s rather a long story,’ Black Jack said modestly, knitting his eyebrows but positively smiling at Neata. ‘You see, England used to be rather a strange place. In those days – you must have seen so much entertainment you would not remember – there was a government. There were also several industries, and something known as ‘free enterprise’ flourishing. The government used to ‘nationalise’ (as they called it) any industry which looked like getting too big and prosperous.

‘Well, one of these industries was called Television – telly is the modern term. It was getting so big, the government took it over, but it was so big, it took over the government. A case of the tail wagging the dog, you see.

‘Soon, everything was telly. And perpetual entertainment did a lot of good. Now half the people in the country work – directly or indirectly – for telly. It did away with unemployment, overemployment, strikes, neuroses, wars, housing problems, crime and football pools. Perpetual entertainment was here to stay.’

‘You tell it so well,’ Neata said. She was virtually cuddling against him. ‘But what did you do to earn your long prison sentence?’

‘I was the last Prime Minister,’ Black Jack said. ‘I voted against perpetual entertainment.’

Neata gasped.

So did Rick. Drawing himself up, he said: ‘Then we don’t want any of your sort in our house. I must ask you to leave before the H. Brogan’s Watches’ Show comes on.’

‘Oh, don’t make him go,’ pleaded Neata. She suddenly realised that here was the calibre of man she had been waiting for. He might well be leader of the rumoured subversive movement: he might cause interference on every wall screen in the country: but she could forgive – no, applaud! – everything, if he would just roll his eyes again.

‘I said “Go”,’ demanded Rick.

‘I had no intention of staying,’ said Black Jack coolly. ‘I’m on my way to Bali or Spain or India or somewhere without perpetual entertainment.’

‘Then what did you come here for in the first place?’ Rick asked.

‘Merely to borrow some food to sustain me on my journey. The Governor’s helic happened not to be provisioned for a long flight. Surely you’ll do that for me?’

‘Of course we will – if you must go,’ said Neata.

‘Why should we?’ asked Rick. ‘I’ll be a Dutchman if I lift a finger to help a criminal.’ But catching sight of his wife’s clenched fists and suddenly blazing eyes, he muttered miserably: ‘OK, call me Hans,’ and made off into the Disposing room.

Ardently, the self-confessed Prime Minister turned to Neata. ‘How can I ever thank you for your assistance, madam,’ he breathed. ‘It will be useless for you to forget me, for I shall never forget you!’

‘Nor I you,’ she said. ‘I think – oh … I think you’re wonderful, and – and I hate the telly.’

With swimming eyes, she peered up at him. He was pressing her hand: he was pressing her hand. It was the most wonderful moment of her life; her heart told her she was closer to the Meaning of Existence than she had ever been. Now he was leaning towards her – and Rick was back in the room again.

Hardly daring to leave them alone, he had snatched up a bag of dried prunes, two cartons of Silvery Soggmash, a cake, a sackful of Dehydratede Olde Englishe Fishe and Chyps (‘There’s no food like an old food’) and a tin of Grinbaums which had been previously overlooked.

‘Here you are,’ he said ungraciously. ‘Now go.’

Black Jack was meekness itself, now his object had been gained. He seemed, indeed, pleased to be off, Neata thought dejectedly; but doubtless such police as could be spared from viewing would be on his trail, and he could not afford to delay.

Rick followed the intruder out into the snow, which was still falling by courtesy of H-C.C. Black Jack flung the provisions into the boot of his helic and jumped gracefully into the driver’s seat. He raised a hand in ironical salute and called: ‘Happy Christmas!’ The helic lifted.

‘Good-bye!’ Neata called romantically and then, more romantically still: ‘Bon Voyage!’

But already the machine was lost in the whirling white flakes.

‘Come on in,’ Rick grunted.

They exchanged no words indoors. Morosely, Rick glared at the wall screens. Somehow, now, the savour was gone. Even the H. Brogan’s Watches’ Show had lost its appeal. He got up and paced about restlessly, fiddling with his teddy tie.

‘Oh heck,’ he said. ‘Let’s try White Star. I don’t suppose any supervisors are watching us. We need a change, that’s what.’

He flicked the controls over to White Star A, and gasped in astonishment. Neata gasped too, a little more gustily.

A sumptuous lounge showed on the screens. An immaculate announcer and three immaculate guests were leaning back in their chairs to watch a figure enter a door and approach the camera.

The figure, in its swagger cloak, with the distinguished streak of white in its hair, was unmistakable. It bowed to the unseen audience.

Nervously, a little over-heartily, the announcer was saying: ‘Well, consumers, here comes the scallywag of the Bryson Brainbath Hour, safe back in the studio.’ And turning to the newcomer he said: ‘Well, Gervaise McByron – alias Black Jack Gabriel – your forfeit in this special Christmas edition of our popular panel game, “Fifty Queries”, in which you got lowest score, was to go out and talk your way into a green consumer-class home, returning with a souvenir of your visit. You’ve certainly carried out instructions to the letter!’

Popular White telly-star McBryon smiled lavishly, said: ‘I did my best!’ and deposited some prunes, some Soggymash, a cake, Fishe and Chyps and a tin of Grinbaums at the announcer’s feet.

‘Your patter was terribly convincing,’ said the announcer uneasily. ‘I just hope none of our viewers believed a word you said about – er, Big Mother Telly. I almost believed you myself, ha, ha!’

‘You’ll get suspended for this, McByron,’ opined a decorative lady who had been included on the panel for the sake of her undulating façade. ‘You went too far. Far too far.’

‘We watched every moment of your performance in the Sheridan shack via wave-bounce reciprocal,’ said the announcer. ‘I just hope none of our viewers believed a word – ’

‘Tell me, McByron,’ cut in the decorative woman coldly, ‘what did you really think of Mrs. Sheridan?’

‘If you want a frank answer,’ began McByron bluntly, ‘compared with you, Lady Patricia So-and-So Burton, she was an absolute – ’

‘And so ends this special Christmas edition of “Fifty Queries”,’ cried the announcer frantically, jumping up and waving his hands. ‘It was brought to you by courtesy of Bryson’s Brainbaths. Don’t forget: a mind that thinks is a mind that stinks. Good night, consumers, everywhere.’

Cut. Screen black. Ten seconds to next programme.

Slowly, Rick turned to face his wife.

‘There!’ he said. ‘Disgraced! That – that trickster! We were just a spot of amusement on a snob-class panel show. Now are you ashamed?’

‘Don’t say anything, please, Rick,’ Neata said distantly. There was something so commanding in her tone that her husband turned away and abjectly switched back to Green Star.

Neata walked pensively out of the room. She still clutched the wicked little device which McBryon, alias Black Jack, had pressed into her hand. Then, it had been startlingly cold; now, her palm had made it hot. She knew what it was, she knew what she had to do with it.

‘Deadly …’ she whispered to herself. ‘Deadly … The end of civilisation as we know it.’

The metal was a challenge in her grasp.

Ah, but McBryon was clever! She was dizzy at his impudence. Although evidently a leading tellystar, he was nevertheless a saboteur, a member – perhaps the leader! – of the subversives. And he had dared to pass on this weapon and to deliver his inspiring message of doubt in front of thousands of viewers.

‘What a man!’

Neata was out in the snow now. She looked with strained face at the little device. It had to be fitted on to Rick’s helic. Poor Rick – but he would never know! The thought that she was helping in a mighty, silent revolution lent her determination.

Quickly, she bent down and fitted the anti-telly suppressor into Rick’s helic.

Pogsmith

Dusty Miller and his wife were lucky. Not lucky to be on a year’s holiday, because everyone higher than esp-inspectors qualified nowadays. Not lucky to be on Mercury, because although the new atmosphere breathed well enough it had not yet stabilized and typhoons were frequent. Not lucky to visit the Galactic Zoo, because its gates were open wide to all who could afford the entrance fee. But lucky because they were the one millionth and one millionth and one (or one million and oneth) human beings to go in.

The celebration of this numerical achievement entailed a lavish lunch, followed by a personally conducted tour round the zoo by the Director.

‘I don’t like him,’ Daisy whispered.

‘Shut up, he’ll hear you,’ Dusty snapped. He had reason for his belief. The Director possessed three of the largest ears Dusty had ever seen. But then the Director had been hatched on Puss II.

Nevertheless, the tour was highly stimulating. Dusty was delighted with every animal he saw. His wife was less happy, but she never enjoyed wearing space suits; by a quirkish, claustrophobic effect, they gave her asthma. Unfortunately, they were highly necessary, since each block of the zoo naturally contained the atmosphere of the planet whose animals it housed – and nine-tenths of them were nothing less than death to human nostrils.

They had visited the Puss II block, whose inmates looked to Daisy and Dusty surprisingly like their distinguished escort, and had traversed the impressive Ogaeiou chain of buildings housing the Knitosaurs, gigantic crabs who weaved their own shells from a natural-nylon seaweed, when they came to a large domed erection.

‘This,’ the Director claimed impressively, ‘is our latest addition to the zoo. Within, we shall find the only extant life form of the newly discovered planet Pogsmith.’

‘Wasn’t that the place there was all that fuss about?’ Daisy asked.

‘There is always a fuss about a newly discovered planet,’ the Director said severely. ‘Territorial rights, etc …’

‘Shall we go in?’ Dusty asked hastily. He had known for years that his wife was dull and provincial; he just happened to love her that way. While for the Director he held every respect – but a growing repulsion.

‘First,’ replied the great man, ‘depress the yellow switch you will feel just in front of the central ridge of your helmets.’ He showed them by example. ‘That will protect us from the thought waves which this creature sends out. It sets in action a dead field about the brain.’

He looked pointedly at Daisy, as if to imply that she was already safeguarded by such means. When they had complied, they entered.

The ground plan was the usual one. A spiralling observation ramp circled an enormous glassite dome which contained the alien species and fragments of its customary surroundings. At the beginning of the ramp was a fortified gate into the dome and a large panel of information, such as details of topography, atmosphere, planetary year, etc.