Brian W. Aldiss - Intangibles, Inc

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Intangibles, Inc.

BrianAldiss

“Always seems to be eating time in this house," Mabel said.

She dumped the china salt- and pepper-shakers down at Arthur's end of the table and hurried through to

the kitchen to get the supper. His eyes followed her admiringly. She was a fine figure of a young girl; not

too easy to handle, but a good-looker. Arthur, on the other hand, looked like a young bull; none too

bright a bull either.

"Drink it while it's hot," she said, returning and placing a bowl of soup before him.

Arthur had just picked up his spoon when he noticed a truck had stopped outside in the road. Its hood

was up, and the driver stood with his head under it, doing no more than gazing dreamily at the engine.

Arthur looked at his steaming soup, at Mabel, and back out of the window. He scratched his scalp.

“Feller's going to be stranded in the dark in another half-hour," he said, half to himself.

"Yep, it's nearlytime we were putting the lights on," she said, half to herself.

"I could maybe earn a couple of dollars going to see what was wrong," he said, changing tack.

"This is food like money won't buy or time won't improve on,' my mother used to say," Mabel

mur-mured, stirring her bowl without catching his eye.

They had been married only four months, but it had not taken Arthur that long to notice the obliquity of

their intentions. Even when they were apparently conversing together, their two thought-streams seemed

never quite to converge, let alone touch. But he was a determined young man, not to be put off by

irrelevancies. He stood up.

"I'll just go see what the trouble seems to be out there," he said. And as a sop to her culinary pride, he

called, as he went through the door, "Keep that soup warm—I'll be right back.”

Their little bungalow, which stood in its own untidy plot of ground, was a few hundred yards beyond the

outskirts of the village ofHapsville . Nothing grew much along the road except billboards, and the

sta-tionary truck added to the desolation. It looked threadbare, patched and mended, as if it had been

traveling the roads long before trains or even stage-coaches.

Thecoveralled figure by the engine waited till Arthur was almost up to it before snapping the hood down

and turning around. He was a small man with specta-cles and a long, long face which must have

measured all of eighteen inches from crown of skull to point of jaw. In among a mass of crinkles, a likable

expres-sion of melancholy played.

"Got trouble, stranger?" Arthur asked.

"Who hasn't?" His voice, too, sounded like a mass of crinkles.

"Anything I can do?" Arthur inquired. "I work at the garage just down the road inHapsville ."

"Well," the crinkled man said, "I come a long way. If you pressed me I could put a bowl of steaming

soup between me and the night."

"Your timing sure is good!" Arthur said. "You better come on in and see what Mabel can do. Then I’ll

have a look-see at your engine."

He led the way back to the bungalow. The crinkled man scuffled his feet on the mat, rubbed his

specta-cles on his dirty overalls, and followed him in. He looked about curiously.

Mabel had worked fast. She'd had time, when she sawthrough the window that they were coming, to

toss their two bowls of soup back into the pan, add water,put the pan back to heat on the stove, and

place a clean apron over her dirty one.

"We got a guest here for supper, Mabel" Arthur said. “I’ll light up the lamp."

"Howd'you do?" Mabel said, putting out her hand to the crinkled man. "Welcome to our hospitality."

She said it just right: made it really sound welcom-ing, yet, by slipping in that big word "hospitality," let

him know she was putting herself out for him. Mabel was educated. So was Arthur, of course. They both

read all the papers and magazines. But whileArthur , just poured over the scientific or engineering or

mechanical bits (those three words all meant the same thing to Mabel), she studied psychological or

educa-tional or etiquette articles. If they could have drawn pictures of their idea of the world, Arthur's

would have been of a lot of interlocking cogs, Mabel's of a lot of interlocking schoolmarms .

They sat down at the table, the three of them, as soon as the diluted soup warmed, and sipped out of

their bowls.

"You often through this way?"Arthur asked his visitor.

"Every so often.I haven't got what you might call a regular route."

"Just what model is your truck?"

"You're a mechanic down at the garage, eh?"

Thus deflected, Arthur said, "Why, no, I didn't call myselfthat, did I? I'm just a hand down there, but I'm

learning, I'm learning fast."

He was about to put the question about the truck again, but Mabel decided it was time she spoke.

"What product do you deal in, sir?" she asked.

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