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Walcot
Brian Aldiss
A story charting the events of the twentieth century through the eyes of the Fielding family, whose fortunes are altered irrevocably…The Brian Aldiss collection includes over 50 books and spans the author’s entire career, from his debut in 1955 to his more recent work.On the glorious sands of the North Norfolk coast, Steve, the youngest member of the Fielding family, plays alone. But are these halcyon days?War is looming, and things will never be the same again. This book, described by Brian as his magnum opus, charts the fortunes of the Fielding family throughout the twentieth century.
BRIAN ALDISS
Walcot
HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk (http://www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk)
This ebook first published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager in 2015
Copyright © Brian Aldiss 2009
First published in Great Britain by Goldmark 2009
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com
Brian Aldiss asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 978-0-00-748226-9
Ebook Edition © December 2015 ISBN: 978-0-00-748227-6
Version: 2015-10-19
Dedication (#u76d66035-7fc3-5046-bfc7-cb9118cc9a60)
To Ronnie
with remembrance of Ruth
with regards as always
Epigraph (#u76d66035-7fc3-5046-bfc7-cb9118cc9a60)
God forbid that we should give out a dream of our own imagination for a pattern of the world.
– Francis Bacon
Novum Organum
Contents
Cover (#uf9c10263-7c24-5a00-816f-b23282f672ca)
Title Page (#uc9d7801a-934d-506a-8fe2-94e5647c5eee)
Copyright (#u7bf2f970-be9b-5bbd-8215-8271f9a6a0f3)
Dedication (#ub0bf738e-259a-5840-8846-5233ba14bab5)
Epigraph (#u6e5bda1b-e2af-5a4b-aa60-0e927efeb7f7)
Introduction (#u69352506-b1e7-5ff8-8e9b-2052345f4ba6)
PART ONE (#u1c65c989-9496-54da-901f-bc6c967e88a0)
Chapter 1: Barefoot (#u1c895df3-415f-5316-aa33-7a7e6540909c)
Chapter 2: An Adult Breath (#uf1e06356-68d3-50fb-8dfd-58cf44e8542b)
Chapter 3: Almost Drowned (#uc487d248-62bf-5684-b436-d24b5d0def58)
Chapter 4: An Absolute Slave (#u330382f0-4d30-528d-9383-bfbdbd70cc21)
Chapter 5: ‘Bloody Cripples!’ (#u5ff08495-91bb-5fb9-b17b-c5a67a6263c0)
Chapter 6: Earth Sciences (#u728fd4ae-519b-51d5-ad90-bdfa46e08510)
Chapter 7: The New Widow (#ucfecc4b7-400f-56d5-9be5-438193406ae2)
Chapter 8: Kendal, of All Places (#uab952566-5a88-5969-9acc-ed78c0b8b116)
Chapter 9: A Good Old Row (#u80e801e3-db1b-5607-adbf-45395790696a)
Chapter 10: A Slight Change of Plan (#uf2a17b9e-7e20-5896-bc51-84c54b93bca8)
Chapter 11: Carnage on the Road (#u52ba4ca8-ae74-5083-9594-064d75d374cd)
Chapter 12: ‘War or no War …’ (#u2d1bf8c3-93b6-502d-abdc-90d9f14b2446)
Chapter 13: ‘We’re Okay Here …’ (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14: Over the Boundary (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15: Le Forgel (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16: A Lesson in Aristotle (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17: The Wehrmacht Pays a Visit (#litres_trial_promo)
PART TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1: What a Wild Man (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 2: Hoarded Biscuits (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 3: Christmas at Gracefield (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 4: ‘Please Not to Shoot Us’ (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 5: Endless Carnage (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6: Kiss Whom You Like (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7: Leaving Home (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8: Old Children (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9: Ex-Army Furniture (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10: A Man About Town (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11: A Break in Torremolinos (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12: The Disastrous Party (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13: On the Grand Canal (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14: Elizabeth Sips Her Wine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15: ‘I Must Love Abby’ (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16: A Modernizing Government (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17: In the Alley (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18: Blood on the Ice (#litres_trial_promo)
PART THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1: A New Line of Thought (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 2: Guernica (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 3: One of the Poor (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 4: ‘We Don’t Want no Trouble’ (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 5: Some Family Conversation (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6: Over Jurassic Sand (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7: Another Invitation (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8: Supper at Sandy Bassett (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9: Tolstoy Unread (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10: Violet in Her Bath (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11: Flight to Austin, Texas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12: The Future of the World (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13: An Arrival From Venice (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14: The Known Unknowns (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15: The Sacrifice (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16: A Fuller Understanding (#litres_trial_promo)
Notes (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Brian Aldiss (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Introduction (#u76d66035-7fc3-5046-bfc7-cb9118cc9a60)
‘You are free men, whatever that means.’ So says Steve Fielding to some German soldiers, whose lives he spares during the closing events of a world war, in the freezing cold Ardennes. But Steve, as we learn in this complex unfolding of a life, is himself not a free man.
We find him first of all as a child, playing alone on a Norfolk beach – the beach that gives this complex tale its title.
Already, like a tide, doubt enters his life. Is he in danger? High on the dunes, a woman, almost a stranger, looks to see if Steve is safe.
So the question arises, to be solved if possible: do Steve’s parents wish to get rid of him? In love, in war or peace – or in an uncertain interlude between the two – the uncertainty continues to tease.
