The Lordly Ones

by Keith Roberts

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera

Synopsis

Keith Robert's The Lordly Ones offers a wide variety of sf and fantasy (and even a ghost story). The title story is a vision of near-future Britain collapsing in social disorder told from the viewpoint of a slow-witted lavatory attendant. Another take, "The Comfort Station", approaches a similar situation from a quite different perspective. In other stories we see Roberts in a more light-hearted vein: "The Checkout", another of his series of stories about a modern-day witch, Anita, or "Diva", a tale of singer of unique abilities. In "Ariadne Potts" a man's wish brings a classical statue to life, with, inevitably, unfortunate results. "The Castle and the Hoop" is an atmospheric ghost story set around the pubs of Southwark. And "Sphairistike" is perhaps the only sf story ever to centre on the game of tennis.

Release date: August 29, 2013

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 176

Sample

‘How beautiful they are, the Lordly Ones, ‘Who live in the heart of the hollow hills.’ —William Sharp, Rutland Boughton, ‘The Immortal Hour’

When I was very young I was given a pedal car. That must have been just before the War, as such things later became unobtainable. I mean by that World War Two. People of my generation still call it ‘The War’, though of course there have been many wars since.

It was a very fine car indeed, much larger than was common and with a door on one side that could be opened. It was painted a bright golden brown, with three smart red flashes on either side of its bonnet. It had streamlined headlamps let into its mudguards and its wheels had rubber tyres and chromium hub plates, though the hub plates could not be removed. I became very skilled at driving it, though perhaps I should not say such a thing, and could negotiate the narrowest gates and doorways without scraping its paint. I also learned to steer it in reverse, and was able to turn it round in very small spaces.

I do not know why my father gave me such an expensive present as we were a fairly poor family. I was an only child, and lived in an end terrace house in a back street of the town in which I had been born. Both the terrace and the street in which it stood have been knocked down now for many years.

It was a small house, though as a child I was not conscious of this, but it had a long garden. I remember the garden particularly well. It was closed off on both its sides, partly by solid fencing and partly by trellis work fixed to stout posts. The fences and trellis were painted with creosote, which the summer sun bleached to a pleasant brown. At the bottom of the garden was a tall, untidy hedge of hawthorn. The hedge had gaps in it low down through which you could see allotments dotted with little sheds, and pig pens made of corrugated iron. On a sunny day the allotments and the men working on them looked like little bright pictures seen through the stems and leaves.

The garden, though narrow, was further divided by two long paths made of some pinky ashy stuff and edged by a grey-leaved creeper that grew star-shaped flowers in summer. Near the house was a little paved part my mother always called The Patio. Beyond The Patio was a rose plot, then another with Lane’s Prince Albert apple trees, then the vegetable patch and some raspberry canes before you came to the cold frame and the compost heap. There was a little greenhouse too, built close up to the hedge so that one side of it always grew green spots on the glass no matter how often they were scraped away. The greenhouse had an iron rainwater butt. During the War my father put it outside in the street and wrote FIRE on it in big red letters, though we were never bombed.

I remember the garden so well because of a game I played there. All the paths had names I had invented, the long paths and the little ones that went between the plots, the hard, beaten patch by the compost heap, the turning place beside the cold frame. The borders had their roadways too, places that were not often dug and where my tyre marks did not show, but only I knew what they were called. On summer afternoons when I did not have to shop with my mother I would sit on The Patio and plan my travels through the country I had invented. My choice of routes was wide. For instance, I could take the North Road or the South. The North Road, the first of the long pink paths, led to Foxglove Close, or if I travelled its full length, to Cold Frame Garage and the greenhouse. Behind the greenhouse were old bricks and rotted boxes, and a pair of great spoked wheels my father told me had once belonged to an aeroplane. The bindweed crawled over them before climbing up into the hedge. The Road ended here. It was a dangerous place, frightening and a little dark. Or I could cross The Patio to the South Highway. Clumps of violets grew between the flags of The Patio, where the cracks were widest. I knew exactly the locks to apply to steer my wheels between them. From the Highway I could swing right into Mornington Crescent. The grass path in front of the raspberry canes curved a little, and it was here the sun came first in summer. I do not know where I had heard the name I chose for it, but it seemed right.

Wherever I travelled though, I would always end up in my favourite place of all. I called it Daisy Lane, from the big mauve clumps of Michaelmas Daisies that grew close by each year. Here, by careful reversing, I could slide myself right out of sight between tall bushes. Once in position I could not be seen from the house at all, but I could see. I could stare down through the gaps in the hedge at the men working in the field, easing the car backward a little by the pressure of a pedal if one of them paused and seemed to glance my way. The sun struck hot on my face and arms, and the bushes broke the breeze. It was always still in Daisy Lane, and wasps would come and bite at the old wood of the fence posts, little beetles would run across the earth.

In winter or when the weather was bad I would oil the motor ready for fresh journeys, and polish its headlamp rims. Newspapers would be spread on the living room rug and my father would turn the car on its side for me so I could reach the pedal bearings. I had been given a little oilcan, round, flat and with a long, thin spout, to have for my own. I kept it with my cleaning rags in a tin with an overlapping pattern in brown, gold and orange. The oilcan had to be stored upright, or the oil would spill.

I do not know why I have begun to write down my thoughts, or why I should think first of my toy car, and the games I played when I was small.

It is very still today, with hardly any wind, and the Station is quiet. Recently a skylight ventilator has taken to rattling, several times it has woken me in the night. Yesterday I got the big steps out and climbed up to it but I could not see what was wrong. I wonder if a strip of draught excluder would be a good idea. If I put it along the top of the frame by the catch it would stop the noise, and also prevent the rain getting in. At least it would do no harm. I am always careful about undertaking actual repairs, as I know I am not very good with my hands.

I did my first piece of writing last night. I have read through it, and do not quite know what to think. I am not really sure what I am trying to do. I am certainly not writing my life story. Even if I was capable of such a thing, it would not be of any interest. Nor am I keeping a diary, I did the writing in an old ledger I found when I first cleaned my office out. So I suppose I must have started a hobby. I must be careful not to let it interfere with my work. I do not think I have ever had a hobby before.

The writing took a long while. Three hours, from locking the Stations until nearly midnight. I was amazed when I looked at my clock and saw how much time had passed. If I am to write regularly I must rearrange my schedule so as to take more advantage of the light. I have a good supply of candles but it seems a waste to burn them unnecessarily.

I read parts of what I had done several times. I was surprised at how much I had remembered about being small. I could never be a real writer of course but I find I can put my thoughts down clearly, and in the proper order. That will have to do instead.

I must spend this afternoon filling the water tank. It is a good tank and has been very useful, but filling it takes a long time. I found it behind what I think is an old factory on the far side of the Car Park. It was thrown out on a rubbish heap with a lot of used bricks so it seemed quite all right to take it, though it was very hard work getting it to the Station. I was afraid to drag it in case I damaged it but it was so heavy that carrying it took most of a day. It had a tap already fitted that I thought would be very useful, though when I got it back I realized it would have to be lifted up onto something before I could fill buckets from it. So I fetched some of the bricks and made them into two stacks for it to stand on. I was very pleased when I had finished as it seemed to be quite firm. The night after I fixed the tank was the first time I saw the camp fires on the hills.

A stream runs past the Station, within a yard or two of it, but the banks are steep and slippery and it is difficult to reach the water. For a time I did not know what to do, then I found something in a shed by the rubbish heap that I thought would help. It was like a little crane with a pulley and an arm and a sort of foot, a metal plate with holes at the corners for fixing. I do not know what it was for originally. There was some rope too. At first I did not like to borrow it as I was afraid it would look like stealing, but there was nobody I could ask.

There is a bridge across the stream, where the cars used to come into the Car Park. I managed to fix the crane to its parapet with baling wire. The pulley was very stiff at first but it ran quite freely after I had oiled it. It was difficult for a time getting the bucket to fill. Instead of turning over and sinking it would float, and the current would carry it off along the stream. I found after several tries that it was best to drop it the last little way with a bump, and sort of jog it over onto its side. Of course I only have the plastic buckets that were supplied for use on the Station. I wonder if metal ones might work better.

I was very worried when the water went off. I did not bother so much about the electricity as I had a box of candles in the office and have been able to get more since, but without water the Stations could not do their job properly. There was water in the small cisterns of course, but the big one my side used to flush automatically every twenty minutes and without the sound of it the whole place seemed different. I got the steps and filled it with a bucket. I found it would still work when the water reached the proper level. At first I filled it several times a day but with nobody using the Station any more that was not really necessary. But it is still done twice a day, last thing before I lock up and first thing in the morning.

I have been thinking some more about when I was small. I have been trying to remember the very last time I used the car, drove down the South Highway or into Mornington Crescent. There must have been a last time, but I cannot remember it. This seems strange. I found the car a long while later, when I was cleaning out the wash house after my mother died. It was very rusty, it needed a good clean up and a coat of paint. There were new people next door, with young children. I asked them if they wanted it but they said no so I put it back where it was. It was hard to believe I had once been small enough to drive it. By that time most of my Roads had gone anyway, as my mother had been ill for several years and I was never very good at gardening. It disappointed my father, as he had wanted me to be a gardener like himself.

I did not get on very well at school. Everybody said I was slow, though I was never sure just what they meant. One time when it was very bad I started trying to do all sorts of things, like eating and tying my shoelaces, quicker than usual to show I was not slow at all. My father visited the school several times. I met him once in the corridor, it seemed very strange to see him there. Afterwards the Head sent for me, from one of my classes. I was very frightened. He asked me a lot of questions about the sort of things I did at home. I could not answer him properly as I did not know what he meant. It was a new school, built nearly outside the town, and his study was very new with light green walls. There was a cream-painted cupboard behind his desk, I knew that was where he kept his Sticks. They were canes really but we called it getting the Stick. There were also tall glass doors with a flagged courtyard outside, like The Patio at home only much tidier. He said he wanted to help me and that I was not to worry. I was very glad when he told me I could go.

After that they put me into a Special Class. They said it was to help my reading. We all sat round on funny-smelling straw mats with bright patterns on them and took it in turns to read aloud. I could read quite well although I was never very interested in books, but I could not answer questions. They confused me, I could never understand what I was supposed to say.

Afterwards the Head sent for me several more times and asked what I was doing at home to help my mother. I could never think of what to say to him either. He said he wanted to be my friend but I never really liked him much.

I think not being able to remember the last time I drove my car is really odd. It has made me think of doing other things for the last time. I did read a story once, about a man who was going to be shot for spying. Only they did not do it till the morning so that he could see his last sunset. But if you were going to be killed there would be a lot of other things. Like the last time you cut your nails, or the very last time you ever combed your hair.

Things always seemed to get harder for me, not easier. After I left school my father got me a job at the Council nurseries. I had to go and see a man called Mr Sanderson. I thought I was going to like it at the beginning. It was not far to go, just the other side of the allotments. There were three big greenhouses about 30 yards long. I could see the roof of our house and the big hedge at the bottom of the garden, it looked quite different from the other side. But I did not do very well. I kept breaking plant pots, things were always going wrong. And there was a girl who worked in the office. She used to follow me about, try and get me on my own in one of the sheds. She made me afraid to go to work. Then she said a lot of things about what I had done to her. They were not true but everybody believed her. Afterwards I worked at the Tip for a long time, then I was on the carts. I did not like that at all.

I was nearly 45 when I started at the Station. It had not been built very long then. I knew they wanted someone to look after it but I did not think they would give the job to me. I had to see a man called Mr Ireland. That was at the new Council Offices. He asked me a lot of questions, it was nearly like being in the Headmaster’s study again. Then he said that I had worked for the Council a long time and that apart from one small incident I had a very good record. He said that he had known my father for many years and that he had been a good worker too. He made some notes and sat and thought for a minute, then he said he would let me know. He was very nice to me.

The letter came next day. It upset my mother very much. I was really happy, I could not understand why she was not pleased as well. She kept saying, ‘To think a son of mine should be a lavatory attendant.’ But I never thought of it as a lavatory. It was the Station almost from the start. I heard a lady say one afternoon, ‘Thank God, a Comfort Station!’ It pleased me very much, it seemed such a good name. I think she was an American.

There are two Stations really, built on to each other, one for Ladies and one for Gentlemen. The Ladies side was looked after by someone called Mrs Stevens. She was rather short and had hornrimmed glasses and very yellow hair. On sunny afternoons she used to take a chair outside and sit by her door and knit. I used to say good morning to her but we never talked much. She did not seem very friendly.

I expect it will sound silly but I think the Station is very beautiful. It stands to one side of the Car Park, very close to the stream. It is low and plain and built of a sort of fawn-coloured brick, with narrow windows along the side that have muffled glass. Inside, all the tiles are white and the walls are a very light grey with more white on them in little splashes. It is always cool, even in summer. At the end farthest from the stream there is quite a large room with one door into the Station and another that opens outside. This is my room. It has a chair and table and a ring for boiling kettles, a sink and two big cupboards and quite a lot of shelves. There is even space for a bed, which is very fortunate.

I made a mistake about the room the first time Mr Ireland came to the Station. I had been there nearly 2 weeks then. When I took over it was in a terrible mess, with cigarette ends ground out all over the floor and dirt everywhere. I scrubbed it out, using the disinfectant for the Station floor, and got everything tidy, and Mr Ireland came to see what stores and equipment I had and what new things I would need. I said, ‘If you will come into the office, sir, I will show you,’ . . .