Brian W. Aldiss - Man In His Time.pdf

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One of the editors of this volume does not know that this
story is going into it. There has been collusion in high places.
The President of SFWA, Damon Knight, and the other editor
have overruled in advance any complaints that Brian W.
Aldiss might make. This story was one of three that tied for
the Best Short Story award and is, in its own right, a fine
piece of fiction. Here is art, in the interweaving of idea and
dialog, and here is something vital being said about the
human condition. It has earned its place in this book.
H.H.
MAN IN HIS TIME
Brian W. Aldiss
His absence
Janet Westermark sat watching the three men in the office:
the administrator who was about to go out of her life, the
behaviourist who was about to come into it, and the husband
whose life ran parallel to but insulated from her own.
She was not the only one playing a watching game. The
behaviourist, whose name was Clement Stackpole, sat
hunched in his chair with his ugly strong hands clasped round
his knee, thrusting his intelligent and simian face forward, the
better to regard his new subject. Jack Westermark.
The administrator of the Mental Research Hospital spoke
in a lively and engaged way. Typically, it was only Jack
Westermark who seemed absent from the scene.
Your particular problem, restless
His hands upon his lap lay still, but he himself was restless,
though the restlessness seemed directed. It was as if he were
in another room with other people, Janet thought. She saw
that he caught her eye when in fact she was not entirely
looking at him, and by the time she returned the glance, he
was gone, withdrawn.
"Although Mr. Stackpole has not dealt before with your
particular problem," the administrator was saying, "he has
had plenty of field experience. I know"
"I'm sure we won't," Westermark said, folding his hands
and nodding his head slightly.
Smoothly, the administrator made a pencilled note of the
remark, scribbled the precise time beside it, and continued. "I
know Mr. Stackpole is too modest to say this, but he is a great
man for working in with people"
"If you feel it's necessary," Westermark said. "Though I've
seen enough of your equipment for a while."
The pencil moved, the smooth voice proceeded. "Good. A
great man for working in with people, and I'm sure you and
Mr. Westermark will soon find you are glad to have him
around. Remember, he's there to help both of you."
Janet smiled, and said from the island of her chair, trying
to smile at him and Stackpole, "I'm sure that everything will
work" She was interrupted by her husband, who rose to his
feet, letting his hands drop to his sides and saying, turning
slightly to address thin air, "Do you mind if I say good-bye to
Nurse Simmons?"
Her voice no longer wavered
"Everything will be all right, I'm sure," she said hastily.
And Stackpole nodded at her, conspiratorially agreeing to see
her point of view.
"We'll all get on fine, Janet," he said. She was in the swift
process of digesting that unexpected use of her Christian
name, and the administrator was also giving her the sort of
encouraging smile so many people had fed her since Wester-
mark was pulled out of the ocean off Casablanca, when her
husband, still having his lonely conversation with the air, said,
"Of course, I should have remembered."
His right hand went half way to his foreheador his heart
Janet wonderedand then dropped, as he added, "Perhap
she'll come round and see us some time." Now he turned an
was smiling faintly at another vacant space with just th
faintest nod of his head, as if slightly cajoling. "You'd lik
that, wouldn't you, Janet?"
She moved her head, instinctively trying to bring her eye
into his gaze as she replied vaguely, "Of course, darling." He
voice no longer wavered when she addressed his absen
attention.
There was sunlight through which they could see each other
"There was sunlight in one corner of the room, coming
through the windows of a bay angled towards the sun. For a
moment she caught, as she rose to her feet, her husband's
profile with the sunlight behind it. It was thin and withdrawn.
Intelligent: she had always thought him over-burdened with
his intelligence, but now there was a lost look there, and she
thought of the words of a psychiatrist who had been called in
on the case earlier: "You must understand that the waking
brain is perpetually lapped by the unconscious."
Lapped by the unconscious
Fighting the words away, she said, addressing the smile of
the administrator-that smile must have advanced his career
so much "You've helped me a lot. I couldn't have got
through these months without you. Now we'd better go."
She heard herself chopping her words, fearing Westermark
would talk across them, as he did: "Thank you for your help.
If you find anything . . ."
Stackpole walked modestly over to Janet as the administra-
tor rose and said. "Well, don't either of you forget us if you're
in any kind of trouble."
"I'm sure we won't."
"And, Jack, we'd like you to come back here to visit us
once a month for a personal check-up. Don't want to waste
all our expensive equipment, you know, and you are our star
-er, patient." He smiled rather tightly as he said it, glancing
at the paper on his desk to check Westermark's answer.
Westermark's back was already turned on him, Westermark
was already walking slowly to the door, Westermark had said
his good-byes, perched out on the lonely eminence of his
existence.
Janet looked helplessly, before she could guard against it, at
the administrator and Stackpole. She hated it that they were
too professional to take note of what seemed her husband's
breach of conduct. Stackpole looked kindly in a monkey way
and took her arm with one of his thick hands.
"Shall we be off then? My car's waiting outside."
Not saying anything, nodding, thinking, and consulting
watches
She nodded, not saying anything, thinking only, without the
need of the administrator's notes to think it, "Oh yes, this was
when he said, 'Do you mind if I say good-bye to Nurse'
who's-it?-Simpson?" She was learning to follow her hus-
band's footprints across the broken path of conversation. He
was now out in the corridor, the door swinging to behind him,
and to empty air the administrator was saying, "It's her day
off today."
"You're good on your cues," she said, feeling the hand
tighten on her arm. She politely brushed his fingers away,
horrid Stackpole, trying to recall what had gone only four
minutes before. Jack had said something to her; she couldn't
remember, didn't speak, avoided eyes, put out her hand and
shook the administrator's firmly.
"Thanks," she said.
"Au revoir to both of you," he replied firmly, glancing
swiftly: watch, notes, her, the door. "Of course," he said. "If
we find anything at all. We are very hopeful. . . ."
He adjusted his tie, looking at the watch again.
"Your husband has gone now, Mrs. Westermark," he said,
his manner softening. He walked towards the door with her
and added, "You have been wonderfully brave, and I do
realize, we all realize that you will have to go on being
wonderful. With time, it should be easier for you; doesn't
Shakespeare say in Hamlet that 'Use almost can change the
stamp of nature'? May I suggest that you follow Stackpole's
and my example and keep a little notebook and a strict check
on the time?"
They saw her tiny hesitation, stood about her, two men
round a personable woman, not entirely innocent of relish.
Stackpole cleared his throat, smiled, said, "He can so easily
feel cut off you know. It's essential that you of all people
answer his questions, or he will feel cut off."
Always a pace ahead
"The children?" she asked.
"Let's see you and Jack well settled in at home again, say
for a fortnight or so," the administrator said, "before we think
about having the children back to see him."
"That way's better for them and Jack and you, Janet,"
Stackpole said. 'Don't be glib,' she thought; 'consolation I
need, God knows, but that's too facile.' She turned her face
away, fearing it looked too vulnerable these days.
In the corridor, the administrator said, as valediction, "I'm
sure Grandma's spoiling them terribly, Mrs. Westermark, but
worrying won't mend it, as the old saw says."
She smiled at him and walked quickly away, a pace ahead
of Stackpole.
Westermark sat in the back of the car outside the adminis-
trative block. She climbed in beside him. As she did so, he
jerked violently back in his seat.
"Darling, what is it?" she asked. He said nothing.
Stackpole had not emerged from the building, evidently
having a last word with the administrator. Janet took the
moment to lean over and kiss her husband's cheek, aware as
she did so that a phantom wife had already, from his
viewpoint, done so. His response was a phantom to her.
"The countryside looks green," he said. His eyes were
flickering over the grey concrete block opposite.
"Yes," she said.
Stackpole came bustling down the steps, apologising as he
opened the car door, settled in. He let the clutch back too fast
and they shot forward. Janet saw then the reason for Wester-
mark's jerking backwards a short while before. Now the
acceleration caught him again; his body was rolled helplessly
back. As they drove along, he set one hand fiercely on the
side grip, for his sway was not properly counterbalancing the
movement of the car.
Once outside the grounds of the institute, they were in the
country, still under a mid-August day.
His theories
Westermark, by concentrating, could bring himself to con-
form to some of the laws of the time continuum he had left.
When the car he was in climbed up his drive (familiar, yet
strange with the rhododendrons unclipped and no signs of
children) and stopped by the front door, he sat in his seat for
three and a half minutes before venturing to open his door.
Then he climbed out and stood on the gravel, frowning down
at it. Was it as real as ever, as material? Was there a slight
glaze on it?as if something shone through from the interior
of the earth, shone through all things? Or was it that there
was a screen between him and everything else? It was impor-
tant to decide between the two theories, for he had to live
under the discipline of one. What he hoped to prove was that
the permeation theory was correct; that way he was merely
one of the factors comprising the functioning universe, to-
gether with the rest of humanity. By the glaze theory, he was
isolated not only from the rest of humanity but from the
entire cosmos (except Mars?). It was early days yet; he had a
deal of thinking to do, and new ideas would undoubtedly
emerge after observation and cogitation. Emotion must not
decide the issue; he must be detached. Revolutionary theories
could well emerge from thissuffering.
He could see his wife by him, standing off in case they
happened embarrassingly or painfully to collide. He smiled
thinly at her through her glaze. He said, "I am, but I'd prefer
not to talk." He stepped towards the house, noting the
slippery feel of gravel that would not move under his tread
until the world caught up. He said, "I've every respect for
The Guardian, but I'd prefer not to talk at present."
Famous Astronaut Returns Home
As the party arrived, a man waited in the porch for them,
ambushing Westermark's return home with a deprecatory
smile. Hesitant but business-like, he came forward and looked
interrogatively at the three people who had emerged from the
car.
"Excuse me, you are Captain Jack Westermark, aren't
you?"
He stood aside as Westermark seemed to make straight for
him.
"I'm the psychology correspondent for The Guardian, if I
might intrude for a moment."
Westermark's mother had opened the front door and stood
there smiling welcome at him, one hand nervously up to her
grey hair. Her son walked past her. The newspaper man
stared after him.
Janet told him apologetically, "You'll have to excuse us.
My husband did reply to you, but he's really not prepared to
meet people yet."
"When did he reply, Mrs. Westermark? Before he heard
what I had to say?"
"Well, naturally notbut his life stream... . I'm sorry, I
can't explain."
"He really is living ahead of time, isn't he? Will you spare
me a minute to tell me how you feel now the first shock is
over?"
"You really must excuse me," Janet said, brushing past
him. As she followed her husband into the house, she heard
Stackpole say, "Actually, I read The Guardian, and perhaps I
could help you. The Institute has given me the job of
remaining with Captain Westermark. My name's Clement
Stackpoleyou may know my book. Persistent Human Rela-
tions, Methuen. But you must not say that Westermark is
living ahead of time. That's quite incorrect. What you can say
is that some of his psychological and physiological processes
have somehow been transposed forward"
"Ass!" she exclaimed to herself. She had paused by the
threshold to catch some of his words. Now she whisked in.
Talk hanging in the air among the long watches of supper
Supper that evening had its discomforts, although Janet
Westermark and her mother-in-law achieved an air of melan-
choly gaiety by bringing two Scandinavian candelabra, relics
of a Copenhagen holiday, onto the table and surprising the
two men with a gay-looking hors d'oeuvre. But the conversa-
tion was mainly like the hors d'oeuvre, Janet thought: little
tempting isolated bits of talk, not nourishing.
Mrs. Westermark senior had not yet got the hang of talking
to her son, and confined her remarks to Janet, though she
looked towards Jack often enough. "How are the children?"
he asked her. Flustered by the knowledge that he was waiting
a long while for her answer, she replied rather incoherently
and dropped her knife.
To relieve the tension, Janet was cooking up a remark on
the character of the administrator at the Mental Research
Hospital, when Westermark said, "Then he is at once thought-
ful and literate. Commendable and rare in men of his type. I
got the impression, as you evidently did, that he was as
interested in his job as in advancement. J suppose one might
say one even liked him. But you know him better, Stackpole;
what do you think of him?"
Crumbling bread to cover his ignorance of whom they were
supposed to be conversing, Stackpole said, "Oh, I don't know;
it's hard to say really," spinning out time, pretending not to
squint at his watch.
"The administrator was quite a charmer, didn't you think,
Jack?" Janet remarkedperhaps helping Stackpole as much
as Jack.
"He looks as if he might make a slow bowler," Westermark
said, with an intonation that suggested he was agreeing with
something as yet unsaid.
"Oh, him"' Stackpole said. "Yes, he seems a satisfactory
sort of chap on the whole."
"He quoted Shakespeare to me and thoughtfully told me
where the quotation came from," Janet said.
"No thank you, Mother," Westermark said.
"I don't have much to do with him," Stackpole continued.
"Though I have played cricket with him a time or two. He
makes quite a good slow bowler."
"Are you really?" Westermark exclaimed.
That stopped them. Jack's mother looked helplessly about,
caught her son's glazed eye, said, covering up, "Do have some
more sauce, Jack, dear," recalled she had already had her
answer, almost let her knife slide again, gave up trying to eat.

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