1

On the morning of her fortieth birthday Lavinia woke earlier than usual. She lay in her room in the Regional College of Further Studies, of which her husband Donald was Founder and Principal, drowsing through the songs of birds from the garden below, feeling against her eyelids the strengthening light, thinking in a sleepy, sliding way about her fancydress party, only a few hours off now, and about the people she had invited, people she knew quite well, for the most part, but they would be transformed, unrecognizable, completely unpredictable in their costumes and masks. Nobody would know who anybody else was. That had been her idea, the beauty of her idea, from the start: a beauty which illumined her musings now. Nobody would know, until midnight. She had forbidden anyone to reveal what they were coming as, and masks were to be kept on till midnight. A real carnival party.

Morning light continued to seep in, reddened by its passage through Lavinia’s ruby curtains. Though more or less awake now, she kept her eyes closed. It was strange to be forty. This warm heap of flesh that was herself in the bed had kept its blood moving somehow, and its nerves strung, for forty years. She felt vulnerable, this morning. Not fragile, but in need of careful handling, easily spilt. I am at my full, she thought. That is the way to put it. What I need is a man with steady hands. Immediately, by what seemed the action of some magnetic field in the mind, other attributes clustered around this primary one of steadiness: tall, erect carriage, thin but wiry, greying at the temples. A picture emerged of a randy, soldierly person. Such men existed – it was part of Lavinia’s world-view that men to suit every need were perpetually circulating – but they were only to be found by romantic accident. They were certainly, she thought, not in the next bedroom, where her husband Donald lay, presumably still sleeping. Perhaps Mr Honeyball, who was coming to tea that afternoon … But he was not a steady man either. Indeed, it had been the glint of fanaticism in Mr Honeyball, the promise, beneath his rather mincing exterior, of a frenzy she hoped would prove sexual, that had first attracted her interest. She would learn more about that, she hoped, this afternoon …

Meanwhile, she suddenly recalled, as it was a Monday, she would have to go and see old Mrs Mercer at the Home, as usual. The fact that it was her birthday did not affect obligations of this kind. The old lady looked forward so to her visits. Besides, she would probably need to be reminded about the party. She was coming too, the only guest to be excused costume. It would be a treat for the old thing, Lavinia thought vaguely. Her guests in various disguises began passing in procession through her mind again, attempting to converse through their masks.

‘Donald!’ she called. ‘Are you awake?’

There was no reply from the next room. Lavinia opened her eyes wide and stared up at the ceiling, still dark above the bed.

In the State Institution for the Aged, which Lavinia was to visit later that morning, many of the old folk were already up and about. Mrs Greenepad, extracting toast from her electric toaster at a few minutes before seven, heard on her radio forecasts of showers, some of them prolonged, and bright intervals. There was word also of an articulated vehicle wrecked across a motorway in the Midlands, causing inconvenience to motorists. Mrs Greenepad did not give this her full attention. At seventy-nine, though active still, she tended to regard all such happenings as outside her sphere. She listened assiduously to the news bulletins, not in quest of detailed information, but for the satisfaction of having her belief confirmed that total world collapse was just round the corner and that she might yet live to see it.

Noticing on the table margarine instead of butter, she directed a look of sharp reproof at the dishevelled back of Mrs Mercer’s head. Mrs Mercer was her room-mate, and there was already some bad feeling between the old ladies, as Mrs Greenepad was jealous of Mrs Mercer’s being invited to a fancy-dress party that evening. Now, with peculiar obstinacy, Edwina had again laid out margarine, instead of butter. It did not occur to Mrs Greenepad to replace the margarine with butter, nor quietly to lay butter alongside. She was keen to have the matter out with Edwina Mercer, once and for all, and was on the point of speaking when the pips for the seven o’clock news intervened. There were some vague introductory phrases, then a man’s voice, rather jubilant in tone, said,

First the news headlines. The Prime Minister and leaders of the opposition parties will be meeting later today. No details have yet been published as to the agenda, but in the light of the worsening economic situation it is widely believed that the main purpose of the meeting will be to explore possibilities of forming a Government of National Unity. Most experts however, in view of the differences …

‘Edwina,’ Mrs Greenepad said. She was meaning to embark on the margarine question, but at that same moment Edwina turned her head and began speaking.

‘What a lovely voice,’ Edwina said, evidently referring to the news-reader. ‘Hasn’t he got a lovely voice?’

… now entering its third day with no immediate prospect of a breakthrough in the negotiations.

‘That is a new voice,’ Mrs Greenepad said. ‘That man is a newcomer to the B.B.C.’ It was her radio; Edwina only listened to it by her permission, and she felt herself to be an authority on all that it put forth. ‘That is a young voice,’ she said.

… struggling to mobilise both domestic and international support to combat famine conditions that it is feared may persist well into next year. The latest central government estimate of the number of starvation deaths in the past three months is thirty-two thousand, but other sources put the figures …

‘He will be one of the younger echelons,’ Mrs Greenepad said. ‘One of those they are training up.’

‘Younger echelons?’ Mrs Mercer looked straight before her, concentrating deeply, stealthily. They had announced the man’s name, and it had been a name familiar to her. The prospect of catching Emily out made her quite forget the cramp in her left leg.

… speak of scenes of complete chaos and terror in the immediate aftermath of the explosion. Police and ambulance teams describe piercing cries from the wrecked interior as they dug in the rubble with bare hands in order to reach the victims. One eye-wittness …

‘Blythe,’ Mrs Mercer said suddenly. She twisted her tangled head round so that she could watch Emily, get the maximum effect. ‘His name is Blythe. He is an old hand at the studios; he has been a news-reader for a good many years now.’

Emily’s face was too old and crumpled to give much away, but Edwina could tell by the agitated way her room-mate smoothed her palms down the front of her dress that the shot had gone home.

‘Well, that is news to me,’ Emily said, in an offended voice. ‘You left the margarine out again,’ she added, after a moment.

Edwina made no reply to this, merely raising to her eyes, which were discharging rather badly this morning, a small white cotton handkerchief. She dabbed at her eyes, watched over the border of her hanky Emily repeating that tell-tale gesture of the hands down the front of the dress.

‘Donald!’ Lavinia called again, looking up wide-eyed at the tremulous encroachments of light on the ceiling overhead. She thought, not for the first time, how nice it would be to have a large mirror, gilt framed to go with the rest of the décor, set in the ceiling over the bed, so that people could watch themselves. No good suggesting such a thing to Donald, of course – it would simply bring out all his latent conservatism. He was forward-looking in other ways; when it came to the School, for example, he had plenty of vision. He was fond of saving, and it was quite true, that he had built up the business out of nothing; but in sexual matters he showed no such initiative; he was a creature of habit. And lately, even that could not be depended on. Still, she thought, it is my birthday after all, so why not, and she called again, ‘Donald, are you awake?’

Cuthbertson heard these calls, as he had heard the first, but he made no response. That morning, every morning for weeks now, he had awoken very early, before dawn, to a sensation of intense fear. He had no defence against this, as it attacked him always before he was ready, before he had dressed, donned his glasses, summoned fortitude. It was a sense of danger acute but unlocalized, like walking through long grass in which a beast lurked somewhere. Sky clear above, but every step attended with dread. To avoid snake bite or crocodile crunch the best thing to do is keep still, and Cuthbertson did his best to achieve perfect immobility. He lay there, quite still, and the day stretched before him, a perilous savannah.

He was lying on his back, hands rigidly down by his sides. He licked the dry roof of his mouth and his mind moved cautiously among memories. The past was dangerous too, but in a different way. Somewhere, at some point, he had taken a wrong step, made some ghastly mistake. He knew this, because it was the only way of explaining his present sufferings. If only he could be patient and painstaking enough he might locate that moment, and somehow nip, sterilize, douse it, before its consequences gathered and engulfed him. The effort required was great because to the normal labour of recollection was added the impossibility of knowing whether the moment had seemed other than commonplace at the time. He was not required to remember highlights only. No incident, however trivial, could be safely disregarded. At present he was thinking of a time twenty-two years and three months previously, when he had given Lavinia, to whom he was then engaged, a bunch of daffodils.

Daffodils, jonquils, narcissus. He checked, as always, the type of flower. Big, yes, and yellow all over, a more or less uniform yellow. Daffodils. Hyperbolical yellow in that white room. Clumsily untying the string or perhaps twine. The clumsiness was partly that and partly actually giving them, how to behave, what to say. What did I say? They were very yellow in that light. The bay below the hotel was a generator of white light, and the walls, the walls of the room were white. Her eyes filled with tears. I was trying to untie the string, twine. The stems were pale green, and they were thick, fleshy. The string, twine, cut the stems and some of it got on my hands, afterwards it turned brown. A brown stain. No, that was not daffodils, that was dandelions, that was years before. Where the stems were cut and bruised, the stems of the dandelion, no, daffodil, this thin milky stuff came out. Sap? Her eyes filled with tears. She was regarding the daffodils in some way differently. What impulse led me to buy them? How can I ever know? Those brown stains, I was a child then, that was dandelion for the rabbits …

A terrible sense of having lost control assailed Cuthbertson. He tried to fight his way back to the white room, yellow flowers, Lavinia’s face, but rabbits obtruded their faces, staring fastidiously through wire-mesh, he was a boy again, bare-kneed, cutting dandelion … He groaned, raising his head a little from the pillow, as if seeking help, or struggling to break through delirium. There was daylight in the room now. Each leaf and loop of the moulded wreath on his ceiling was visible. He raised his rigid left arm, bent it towards him, looked at his watch. It was eight minutes past seven.

… describe it as a scene in a nightmare, dismembered bodies lying on the pavement outside, people wandering about amid the wreckage in a state of shock, some of them bleeding from face wounds …

‘Listen to the timbre of that man’s voice,’ Mrs Greenepad said. ‘That is a young man’s voice.’ She compressed her mouth so that her thin bluish lips disappeared altogether, and stared inimically at Mrs Mercer. ‘You put the margarine out again,’ she said.

… situation in the interior is extremely grave. It now seems that even if supplies …

‘You thought I wouldn’t notice, didn’t you? I can tell by the colour.’

… whole villages of dead and dying …

‘You haven’t got a weight problem, not like me.’

… lie out in the open, where dying mothers still try to feed babies too exhausted to …

‘You haven’t got a weight problem, Emily, that is what it is.’ Mrs Mercer paused. Then with a sort of despairing effrontery, because Emily always proved stronger in the end, and because it was Emily’s radio, she said, ‘You are an old bag of bones, that is what you are.’ Losing more nerve, she added quickly, ‘Speaking from the medical viewpoint, not personal.’

‘How dare you?’ Mrs Greenepad said. ‘Have you forgotten that it is my radio?’

‘I am not likely to forget.’

‘No,’ Mrs Greenepad said. ‘Nor are you likely to have a radio of your own.’

‘Speaking in the medical sense,’ Mrs Mercer said, ‘and in that sense only, you are skin and bone, Emily.’

‘Pronouncing his name to be Blythe. You cannot possibly be as conversant with the personnel as I am.’

… aged twenty, said that one of the soldiers ripped off her clothes and she was …

‘Not like me. I’ve got a bit of flesh on me.’

… repeatedly…

‘Such rudeness. I could cut you off from the source of your information, just like that.’ Mrs Greenepad attempted in her rancour a snapping of the fingers, but succeeded in producing only a brief, dry, crepitant sound, ‘How dare you make personal aspersions?’ she said.

… tried to take a nine-month baby from one of the soldiers, saying she was its mother …

‘And my hair the same colour it had when I was a girl.’ Mrs Mercer’s eyes were discharging badly again.

… The naked body of a young girl was found last night hidden in thickets near her Sunderland home …

‘I’d be ashamed,’ Mrs Greenepad said, ‘if it was me. Appearing for breakfast in that state of dishabille.’ She was referring to her room-mate’s disordered hair, and the gaping front of her pale-blue candlewick dressing-gown.

‘The same colour. Not like some. Even my worst enemies – ’

‘You wallow in it. Edwina, that is the only word. You ought to wear a girdle.’

… aged eight, had been sexually …

‘– admit I have good legs, in every sense of that word.’

‘You ought to confine yourself within stricter limits.’

Edwina Mercer dabbed at her eyes again. The pain had returned to her leg. ‘I cannot help it,’ she said, thinking of Mrs Cuthbertson’s fancy-dress party, ‘if some of us are more in demand than others.’ She was conscious of her resources of defiance draining rapidly away. ‘You know what you can do with your radio,’ she said, with almost her last flicker.

… At Woolston in Buckinghamshire yesterday Henry Wilson ate six live frogs in seventy-one seconds to win fifteen pounds and the title of All England Live Frog Swallowing Champion.

‘My goodness,’ Edwina said. ‘What a strong constitution.’

‘Slut!’ Mrs Greenepad shouted, losing control of herself completely at the sight of Edwina’s mild round face, partially obscured by the dishevelled hair, listening with no apparent sense of gratitude to announcements about frogs on a radio not her own. ‘I will report you to the council,’ she shouted, ‘for trying to attract the glances of workmen.’

Not like mine, Edwina thought, and she let the other’s voice go over her head. Not like mine, which say what you like, is flesh and blood still, and my hair the colour it had when I was a young girl…

… The frogs went down between mouthfuls of –

With trembling fingers Mrs Greenepad switched her radio off.

‘Donald!’ Lavinia called again, less tentatively now, for she had heard that groaning noise from her husband’s room.

Cuthbertson sighed heavily, clambered out of bed, padded over three yards or so of carpet and, still in the grip of the anguish that had woken him, opened the door to his wife’s room. He stood for a moment, looking in warily, a pale, bulky man in dark blue pyjamas. Sensing the nature of this summons he had not bothered to put his glasses on, and so things were rather indistinct in his wife’s room. However, the sweet synthetic odours of her existence came wafting to him.

‘Come and get in beside me,’ he heard her husky voice say.

‘Happy birthday,’ he said, suddenly remembering. He moved obediently towards the bed, feeling under his bare feet the alien luxury of her carpeting, so much thicker than his own. He got into the bed, sank down beside her. She turned to him, and he laid hands on her abundant, sleep-heavy breasts. Ritual endearment and caress, however, effected no change in him, none whatsoever. He lay heavy and tense beside her, and Lavinia, who knew nothing of his morning fears, began quite soon to reproach him, first for lack of ardour, an old grievance; then for his unwillingness to experiment.

‘A man of your experience,’ she said, ‘I should have thought…’

Cuthbertson failed to hear the next few words, then he heard ‘variations’. He could not make out what his wife was talking about. He could not make out what he was doing, thus recumbent beside her. His mind was confused among yellow flowers, the oozing roots of daffodils, rabbits’ nervous ears and noses.

‘Different and exciting things to do,’ Lavinia said, with sudden distinctness.

Cuthbertson made non-committal noises. He felt like a member of the audience who has been called upon to assist without knowing how the trick is done. The string, twine. That little bay an aimer of sea light…

‘Thirty-six positions,’ she said ‘At least. And we go on in the same old way.’

‘Dispossessions?’ he said. This word, which he thought she had said, chimed in with one of his current anxieties, one which had been deepened by a person named Honeyball, an official at the Ministry of Education, who had been a frequent visitor lately, and who hinted constantly at a State take-over. ‘No fear of that,’ he said, with assumed confidence. Suddenly, in some remote recess he felt intimidations of sexual excitement, but these faded almost at once, to be replaced by anxious thoughts about Mafferty, a member of staff recently appointed, who was proving unsatisfactory.

‘Would you like to try it from behind?’ Lavinia said, in the tone of one offering biscuits.

‘From behind? No, I don’t think so.’ Dishevelled, unpunctual, smelling of drink, that was the count against Mafferty. He was to be interviewed that morning.

Raising himself a little and turning his wrist at the side of Lavinia’s head, Cuthbertson checked the time: it was eighteen minutes past seven. Mafferty was to be interviewed in … three hours and twenty-seven minutes precisely. He had found it increasingly necessary of late to keep times firmly fixed in his head, otherwise the day slid away, lost form.

‘Thank you all the same,’ he said, with absent-minded politeness. Suddenly, and with irrepressible pride, he was aware of the quiet house all about him, with its many rooms, hushed and prepared for the students; the gardens beyond neat borders, clipped hedges, straight alleys of shrubs. Himself at the centre. But not as he should be, not in masterful repose. It was as if the centre was sticky somehow, and held him, faintly twitching … The feeling of being in the toils of something began to descend on Cuthbertson, and with it some return of the fear that woke him daily, the terrible need for circumspection.

‘Perhaps,’ Lavinia said, with a sort of muffled, gloomy sarcasm, ‘perhaps you would like to wear my clothes? My knickers, for example.’

‘I don’t think you ought to refer to them in that way,’ Cuthbertson said, his hearing again affected. ‘It could give offence.’

‘Any way you like.’

‘Blacks would be a better term. In my line of business I come across a good number.’

‘Do you indeed? Well, if that is the colour you like best – ‘

‘No, no,’ Cuthbertson said, ‘I have a great deal of sympathy for Africans, as for all emergent peoples, but I prefer my own pigmentation, basically.’

‘What are you talking about, Donald? I asked you if you would like to wear my knickers.’

‘Knickers?’ Cuthbertson was silent for some moments, then he said slowly. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ These suggestions, coming from so close beside him, were beginning to seem strangely like promptings from his own lower nature. He raised himself slightly and looked at his wife’s face. Her large blue eyse regarded him unblinkingly. ‘I thought you were comparing me with negroes,’ he said. Suddenly he was stricken by doubts as to whether he had remembered to instruct Bishop, his Senior Tutor and Administrative Officer, to post up the examination results. No one who had paid the fee ever failed, of course, if conduct had been satisfactory, but it was vitally important to keep to the forms …

‘What about a mirror in the ceiling?’ Lavinia said.

Feverishly Cuthbertson sought in his mind among the mass of directives, notes, memoranda he had issued in the last few days. He could remember nothing relating to examination results.

‘In a gilt frame,’ Lavinia said, ‘Who would you like to do it with?’

‘I don’t follow you.’

‘If it wasn’t me, who would you like to be doing it with?’

‘You are the only – ‘

‘Yes, but who, who?’

‘Miss Naylor,’ Cuthbertson said at random.

There was a short silence. Miss Naylor was his secretary. She was young, only twenty, and she had a very beautiful figure.

‘No, no,’ Lavinia said judiciously. ‘Do it with Mrs Binks.’ Mrs Binks, the wife of a member of his staff, was in her fifties and had a grim, large-jawed face, and a baying, rather blood-curdling laugh. The thought of sexual congress with Mrs Binks was not attractive to Cuthbertson.

‘I don’t really think – ’ he began.

‘Mrs Binks, Mrs Binks,’ Lavinia said, ‘Mrs Binks.’

‘Very well, my dear,’ Cuthbertson said hollowly. ‘Mrs Binks let it be.’

Lavinia waited some moments, as if to let thoughts of an unclothed Mrs Binks do their work. Then, as he made no further movement, uttered no futher sound, she sat up a little in the bed and turned her head accusingly towards him. ‘You really are hopeless, Donald,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how long we can go on like this.’

‘I am sorry,’ Cuthbertson said. He felt very little emotion, however, only a kind of generalized anxiety. He was aware of potential for sorrow deep within, but there was a thick wadding or padding around it, made up of all the things he had to worry about. His thoughts returned now to Mr Honeyball, and the threat of being taken over by the State.

‘You ought to read the Karma Sutra,’ Lavinia said.

‘Mr Honeyball is coming to tea this afternoon, isn’t he?’ Cuthbertson said. ‘Be nice to him, won’t you? I believe he has a good deal of influence.’

This Honeyball, who occupied a place in the thoughts of both Donald and Lavinia, was at this moment making a confidential report to a man named Baines. They were sitting in the small, meagrely furnished bed-sitting room rented by Baines on a weekly basis. Honeyball spoke rather quickly, not opening his lips very wide, not looking often at Baines, referring from time to time to a small pocket-book. He had called on his way to work, as he did Mondays and Thursdays, when Baines was in town. Any oftener than this, Baines thought, might be regarded as suspicious. Mr Honeyball was an official of the local branch of the Ministry of Education, in the Inspectorate Department, whose offices were in the centre of town.

The room was small and airless, with one narrow window looking out on to a blank wall. Baines was sitting at the table, before him a newspaper and an empty white plate. He was wearing dark blue pyjamas and a voluminous, tawny-coloured dressing-gown, which had moulted here and there, giving him a mangy look. However, he wore it with considerable style. He had tied a blue, polka-dotted cravat round his thick neck, and from his breast pocket there protruded a careless brown silk handkerchief. He kept his large, blue-featured face turned steadily towards Honeyball all the time the latter was speaking. When the report was finished there was silence for a while, with Honeyball looking modestly down at his sharply creased trousers, and Baines appearing to meditate.

‘Is Kenneth getting the best of everything?’ Baines said at last. His voice was deep, deliberate, curiously plangent, as if produced in an atmosphere different from that of his hearer. He was glancing, as he spoke, at the front page of his newspaper, at a picture of carnage and devastation, uniformed persons picking their way. Another bomb. Strange, he thought, perhaps a good omen, on this day of all days, when the Party was to explode its own smaller, obscurer bomb in the town, that there should be this national focus of outrage and indignation. The Party, of course, was aiming at property, not human lives. Not like these anarchist shits … Though listening to his underling Honeyball with a composed face, Baines felt exhilaration gathering deep within him at this patch of chaos in the newspaper, portent of that universal chaos they were aiming at, working for, in which amid blood and debris nations wheel and reform, from which all great cleansing, purifying movements are launched, the womb of –

He checked these thoughts, out of the long habit of conspiracy, and stared suspiciously at Honeyball, who knew nothing about the bomb plans.

‘– been to see him in hospital,’ Honeyball was saying. ‘He seemed all right. He can’t talk very well.’ Aware of Baines’ scrutiny, he moved his slender neck inside its restricting collar, in a restless movement habitual to him. Then Baines averted his face, and Honeyball was looking with awe at the profile of a Regional Controller, one of the Party’s full-time officials.

‘His face is still bandaged, of course,’ he said. Kenneth had suffered a formidable blow in a street fracas two nights previously, when his nose and jaw had been broken.

‘Has he any idea who did it?’

‘None at all. He was with three others. They had succeeded in pulling the speaker down from his box, but then some people got in the way. Some of his own people I think. He did get hurt, actually. The speaker I mean. Ronald saw him being kicked. But it wasn’t one of our men – it happened before they could get to him. It was late in the evening, you know, and several of the people in the crowd were drunk.’ Honeyball paused, thinning his lips with distaste at this animality.

‘You say the speaker is known to us?’

‘Yes. He lives here in the town. It is the W.F.S., you know. Workers for a Free Society. Local branch.’

‘Trotskyite scum,’ Baines said mildly. ‘Semites not far to seek there, old boy. Don’t be taken in by this local branch jargon. They’ve got no national organization to speak of. I doubt if they could muster a hundred members.’

‘Not like us,’ Honeyball said, with immediate contempt for such weakness.

‘Our strength is in the public, in public support and sympathy,’ Baines said. He stood up, a tall, broad-shouldered, imposing figure, despite the mangy dressing-gown. ‘We are not politicians,’ he said. ‘We are old-fashioned patriots. And that is not such a rare breed as these anarchist shits try to make out. There are millions of us, typical, inarticulate English men and women, waiting for someone to give them a lead, voice their deepest feelings. They can see what is happening to this country, Honeyball, and they are waiting. That patience, that courage, it still exists, Honeyball, in the bosoms of countless men and women throughout this country. Those are the things that made us great.’

‘Hear, hear,’ Honeyball said.

‘When we have finished our game of bowls,’ Baines said, ‘we shall deal with these people who are trying to bring this country to its knees, and the reckoning will be heavy. It sounds like a loaded stick that was used on Kenneth. Something that was laid right across his face.’

‘It does sound like that, yes.’

‘He shall have a citation,’ Baines said. ‘As soon as he is sufficiently recovered. I will see to it personally. Here would probably be the best place for the ceremony. A simple bar, you know, for gallantry in the face of the enemy. For the moment, of course, it is merely a token, but one day, and that day is coming sooner than a lot of people think, our boys will be able to wear their insignia publicly and with pride. Tell him, will you?’

‘I will, yes.’ Honeyball felt a deep pang of jealousy and hostility towards Kenneth, now so contemptibly weak and disabled. His position as Branch Secretary precluded front line activities on his part.

‘Wait a minute,’ Baines said. ‘I’ll tell him myself. I think I can get along to the hospital later on this morning.’ He paused for a moment or two, considering. He thought of the little brown bag under his bed. He had things to arrange today which had to be kept very quiet – even from the local party membership, and that included Honeyball. Besides, he hated hospitals and all evidence of sickness. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think I can fit it in. There is this wretched costume to hire, too, isn’t there?’

‘For Mrs Cuthbertson’s party. Yes, that’s right.’

‘Well,’ Baines said, ‘it’s got to be done, I suppose. You will take care of those papers, won’t you? The Contingency Plans.’

‘Yes, of course. They are safe in my brief-case. As soon as I get home tonight I’ll put them under lock and key.’

‘Good man. Absolutely fatal if they got into the wrong hands. It’s not so much our own people, but various other groups – small concerns, but they are important collectively. Lots of little armies, you might say. Some more military than others, of course. Some not military at all. They must be kept in a state of resentment, Honeyball. At present it is the only unity they possess. That is the thinking up at Head-quarters and I think it is sound thinking.’

‘So do I.’

‘Good man. Well, as I say, it would be fatal to let the Press, for example, get hold of them. There are no names mentioned, but these are fairly detailed plans of what might be done, on a local basis, in the event of a breakdown, should the government prove ineffective.’ Baines paused a moment, smiling. ‘And it will,’ he said. ‘It will prove ineffective.’

‘I know it will.’

‘Good man. Well, it would reveal the political involvement, you see. I mean, all these people, there is no ideology in common, we must provide that, but they would be ready to act if things got to a certain stage… That is what we need, that sort of vigilante spirit, but not identified with a party …’

‘That would come later.’ Honeyball said, with a little, coughing laugh.

‘Exactly,’ Baines said. ‘Well, I suppose I’d better start getting dressed.’

‘I’ll be on my way then,’ Honeyball said, looking modestly aside.

‘You have some time left, haven’t you?’

Honeyball looked at his watch. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is only seven-thirty.’

‘I thought we might have a talk about this Cuthbertson chap,’ Baines said.

Without his glasses Cuthbertson couldn’t see the farther reaches of his wife’s room very clearly. The dressing-table and the clutter of objects upon it were indistinct, as was the large white and gilt wardrobe nearby. The brown and gold pansies on the wallpaper ran together.

He rose, and padded softly back over the thick carpet to his own room. Once there, he went to his bedside table, found his glasses and put them on. At once the blurred world resettled into clear images. The house took shape around him, assumed the day’s business and purposes. His own room, as always, pleased him by its order and simplicity: single, iron-framed bed, plain oak chest of drawers, narrow wardrobe, white-shaded lamp. Standing there, looking round, Cuthbertson, strove to reassure himself by an elementary process of logic: this room, of which I am the owner, demonstrates beyond doubt its owner’s competence and control … Everything is all right, he thought. It is perfectly obvious that everything is all right. Why do I worry about lists, about persons like Honeyball and Mafferty? Everything emanates from me. In my capacity as Principal I cannot be wrong. Every directive issuing from me is at once transformed into the corporate reality of the School…

Almost at once, however, even as he was reaching for his dressing-gown behind the door, he experienced a fresh wave of panic. He had suddenly remembered that today was Degree Day. This ceremony took place every six weeks and was an important and colourful occasion. His fear was due to the fact that only now, when he had been awake several hours, had it come into his mind. He had been in danger, therefore, all this time, of forgetting it completely … In an attempt to steady himself he began to utter incantatory phrases in his mind. It falls to my lot… It must surely be apparent to you all … If that is the general feeling of the meeting … Far be it from me …

This worked, as it sometimes did, and after a moment or two he was able to go back to the door and look in on his wife again. She had hoisted the pillow up, thus raising the angle of her head. He saw her face and met her eyes. For a moment or two they regarded each other in silence and to each of them during those moments the other seemed curiously typical: Lavinia with the flush of her excitement still lingering on her broad, fair-browed, guileless-looking face, at home in this room, her natural habitat, where shades of pink and brown struggled for supremacy, where almost everything was fringed or frilled, from shocking pink lamp shade to brown velvet cushions; and he with that sad doggedness, head up and shoulders braced, after his lamentable failure, thick dark eyebrows above horn-rimmed glasses, the heavy body and the heavy face.

‘I don’t know how long we can go on like this, Donald,’ she said. ‘You won’t seek advice.’

Cuthbertson walked to the bed, one hand going to his dressing-gown pocket. The simple pleasure of being about to give Lavinia something excluded everything else from his mind. ‘This is for you,’ he said. ‘A token of my – ‘

The pocket, however, was empty. His fingers curled softly, unbelievingly round in it.

‘A small gift,’ he said, thrusting his hand hastily into the other pocket. There was nothing there, either. ‘I trust that over the years,’ he said, his desire to make a speech surviving the shock by a few seconds. Then he stopped. ‘But I … It must be …’ he said. He felt his knees begin to tremble. Panic again threatened, and he fought against it, opening his mouth and taking deep breaths. ‘My God,’ he said. He strove to remember himself actually putting the jewel box there, but could recall only the luminous intention, and the shape and glisten of the locket itself, in his hand. He had taken it out to look at it, yes. But in that case … ‘My God,’ he said again, appalled at his inability to remember.

‘Are you feeling all right, Donald?’

Through a mist he saw Lavinia sitting up in bed, regarding him alertly. Caution came to him, the need for concealment.

‘Silly of me,’ he said, twitching his mouth into a smile. ‘I had something for you. I must have …’

‘You probably left it downstairs somewhere,’ she said. ‘Never mind, it will be something to look forward to. Don’t tell me what it is, will you? I’d like it to be a surprise.’

‘All right,’ he said.

‘You are silly, Donald.’

‘I suppose I am,’ Cuthbertson said, normal speech miraculously continuing to proceed from him in spite of the sickening chaos this miscarriage of plan had thrown his mind into.

‘You should not be so set in your ways,’ she said. ‘There are books, manuals, which give details.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Cuthbertson said.

‘Take the Karma Sutra, for example.’

Suddenly he realized that she had reverted to the former topic. ‘The Karma Sutra?’ he said. ‘Do you really expect me, at my time of life, to imitate natives?’ The sense of outrage cleared his mind. The rhetorical impulse, always strong in him, became imperious. The moment to assert himself had arrived. ‘Of all the ways,’ he began, in commanding tones, and then paused, looking down at her, marshalling his thoughts.

‘You could take a leaf out of their book,’ Lavinia said.

‘Distinguishing human beings, I say of all the ways distinguishing human beings from the … from animals, the rest of the animal kingdom, let me put it that way …’

‘More than one, several,’ Lavinia said.

‘No, no,’ Cuthbertson said, loudly and vehemently. ‘It is in the methods in connexion with copulation, copulatory methods, to put it … Therein lies the distinguishing feature. Human beings make love face to face. Lavinia, we have developed a frontal style.’

He stood for a moment, head up, shoulders squared, seeking the question to end on. Now he had it. ‘Why should we turn, for models, to lower forms in the evolutionary train?’

‘Human to drink water,’ Lavinia said. ‘From the clear spring. But it doesn’t put us among the beasts to have a shandy now and again.’

‘I’m going to have my bath,’ Cuthbertson said, offended that Lavinia had not seen the superior quality of his arguments. He turned and retreated rapidly into his own room, passed straight through it without pausing, and went out into the corridor. ‘Sherry, brandy, beer,’ he heard Lavinia’s voice calling after him.

He made his way to the bathroom with a sense almost of being pursued. He locked himself in and put on the cold shower, letting it run cold while he undressed. Before getting under he regarded his blanched corpulence for some seconds in the long mirror set in the wall, inspected his tongue and eyeballs, the paucity of hair on his crown. The thin spray of the shower looked like steam almost, but he could feel the chill of it. He nerved himself to get under, endure the doubt-expelling, fear-expelling, shock. It was the only thing, he had found, in the morning, which would settle his mind. He had not missed a morning now for … five months and ten days. Shivering in his nakedness he checked and double-checked this calculation. Yes, absolutely right. The reassuring sense of exactitude, mastery of brute fact, enabled him once again to achieve the matutinal self-conquest. He stepped under the shower. Enclosed within a plastic screen he writhed and clutched.

*

Baines had taken off his dressing-gown and his pyjama jacket, and now stood for some moments fronting Honeyball. The skin of his body was very pale. Light auburn hair formed a cross on it, the vertical bar reaching down to the top of his pyjamas. His shoulders were smooth, heavy, with a pronounced slope. ‘Now what about this Cuthbertson chap?’ he said.

Honeyball looked timidly at his chief’s naked torso. ‘I have been there twice since I saw you last,’ he said. ‘You are going to the party tonight then?’

‘This fancy dress affair?’ Baines turned to the chair on which his clothes were draped, picked up the pale pink shirt, and looked closely at the collar. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think it is important for us both to go. I have hopes of these Cuthbertson people. You don’t see a pair of cuff-links, do you, up there on the mantelpiece?’

‘Yes,’ Honeyball said. ‘Here they are. Can I put them in for you?’

Baines smiled. His eyes had a way of widening when he smiled, which gave his face an appearance of great charm. ‘If you like,’ he said, extending an arm. ‘You are a good fellow, Honeyball. Your value is known at Headquarters, believe me.’

The smile vanished, however, as he found himself looking down from close quarters at Honeyball’s narrow, neat, saurian head. Not a pure type, Honeyball. ‘The day is coming,’ Baines said, ‘and coming sooner than a lot of people think, when we shall be able to fulfil our natures, be ourselves, play the roles we were intended for.’

‘Certainly,’ Honeyball said.

‘In the meantime, Honeyball, it is all a subterfuge. We are dressed in borrowed robes, to quote the bard. You’re going there this afternoon, aren’t you?

‘To the School? Yes.’ Honeyball lowered his head, increased his concentration. He was normally very nimble with his fingers, but the Regional Controller’s nearness was making him clumsy.

‘Good man. Finished that one?’ Baines extended his other arm.

‘She has asked me to tea again. I don’t quite know why. It is the second time in the last week. Perhaps she wants to pass on some message from him, from Cuthbertson.’

‘Mysterious lady,’ Baines said jovially. ‘Why has she invited me to her party, for that matter? She doesn’t know me.’

‘I spoke to her about you.’

‘I hope you didn’t say too much,’ Baines said, with a sudden change of tone.

‘I spoke of you as a friend.’ Honeyball, who had registered this change, did not dare look up as he said this. He had once seen Baines seriously displeased, and it had frightened him. He heard Baines breathing above him, passed a few moments of half-pleasurable apprehension, then after a moment the voice, restored to joviality, said, ‘Good man. You’re a bit of a butterfingers, aren’t you?’

‘Not as a rule,’ Honeyball said. ‘There, it’s finished now.’

‘You have been working on Cuthbertson?’

‘Yes. I have been going on in the way we decided. He now quite definitely believes that my position in the Ministry gives me access to inside information about take-over plans and so forth. I think he also believes, though he pretends not to, that there is a possibility of the State extending its ownership over all the places of further education. Either that, or if they cannot be made to fit into any official category, closing them down altogether. And not only that.’ Honeyball smiled. His teeth were small, neat, yellowish. ‘He is actually coming round to the belief that I can influence the decision, on a local basis.’ His smile widened. ‘He is gullible,’ he said, ‘for a man in his position.’

‘Everyone is gullible these days,’ Baines said, ‘It comes from the sense of crisis. Disaster makes people gullible, Honeyball. And it suits our book very well. It suits us as far as Cuthbertson is concerned, and it suits us generally. The readiness to believe in what we are trying to create. The readiness of the State to purify itself. Any means of achieving that readiness is justified. Ripeness is all, to quote the bard. You can’t see a pair of black shoes over there, can you? Over near the bed?’

‘I’ll have a look.’ Honeyball went in the direction indicated. ‘No,’ he said, after a moment. ‘I can’t see any shoes here.’

‘Perhaps they got pushed under the bed,’ Baines suggested.

‘Here they are,’ Honeyball said, on hands and knees beside the bed. ‘They need a bit of a wipe-over. Can I do it for you?’

‘By all means. You’ll find some polish and a brush at the bottom of the cupboard.’ Baines removed his pyjama trousers and threw them on to the bed. His legs were rather short in relation to his body, and thickly covered with glinting gingerish hair. ‘What we need,’ he said, ‘and I know I have said this before, is a room in that house of theirs, a rent-free office in that building. He must have rooms he doesn’t use. It would be marvellous cover. Do you think he can be persuaded?

‘I think he might be,’ Honeyball said, busy with the shoes.

‘That is our first objective, Honeyball. A base, a foothold, a room in that house. But there is more at stake than that. If these people could be made … sympathetic to our cause, think of it, Honeyball. Think of it in terms of possible donations. Money is not plentiful up at Headquarters, you know.’

‘I know it,’ Honeyball said.

‘And Cuthbertson must be quite rich.’

‘Very rich, yes.’

‘It is important that he should be handled in the right way. I want you to keep this to yourself, Honeyball, but the people up at Headquarters have decided that this is what is officially known as a High Potential Area. It is predominantly middle and lower-middle. Very little industry as such, and relatively small proletariat. Large number of chronically insecure small businessmen and self-employed persons. Out towards the coast a lot of people on fixed incomes with inflation going up. Then there is the military base, all those trainee officers, and the Government threatening further defence cuts. It has all the ingredients, Honeyball.’

‘I see that, yes.’

Baines began to put his grey flannel trousers on. ‘Which means,’ he said, ‘that they will be watching developments here with particular interest. By the way, what is she like?’

‘Mrs Cuthbertson?’ Honeyball blushed a little. ‘She doesn’t seem to care about the school, as such,’ he said.

Baines, noting the blush, laughed in a barking way. ‘Got her mind on other things, has she?’ he said. ‘Well, you must be ready, aye ready, Honeyball. No sacrifice is too great.’

Honeyball’s blush deepened. He looked down. ‘Your shoes are ready, Eric,’ he said.

‘Thank you.’ Baines looked at his servitor in silence for some moments. Not really enough panache there to exploit a situation like this, he thought. He had a shrewd suspicion that Honeyball, at thirty-five, was still a virgin. Perhaps just as well he was to meet her himself. He had always been a great one for the ladies. God bless the ladies, he often said to himself and others. Where should we be without them? ‘Do you think Cuthbertson worries about being shut down on legal grounds?’ he said. ‘He must be sailing near the wind, dishing out his own degrees like that.’

‘As the law is constituted at present there’s nothing illegal in it. Anyone can open a school and charge what fees and run what courses he likes. He can issue his own certificates, diplomas, degrees. There are a good number of such places up and down the country.’

‘Parasites,’ Baines said. ‘Their days are numbered, old boy.’

‘What makes Cuthbertson unusual is that he actually runs the place as a school, employs teachers, and so forth. I mean, most of these places do it by post; you take a very expensive course of correspondence lessons and you get your degree. But Cuthbertson insists on giving value for money, as he would probably put it. He has a sort of ethical attitude towards it. No one gets a degree who hasn’t attended. He is an idealist, in his way.’

‘He is a crook, in his way, too,’ Baines said. ‘It is foreigners he mostly attracts, isn’t it? Back home in Abu Dhabi people won’t know the difference, that’s the idea, isn’t it?’

‘Partly. But he gets quite a few English people too. People who want to be able to say they’ve got a degree. People who want to get jobs in undeveloped countries.’

‘Knaves and fools, that’s what it comes down to. I don’t call a man like that an idealist.’

‘I only meant that in his own eyes he is a man of principle.’

‘We are idealists,’ Baines said, and Honeyball realised from his manner that he had been offended by the application of this word to Cuthbertson.

‘Working in poverty and obscurity,’ Baines said, ‘to make this country great again.’

‘True,’ Honeyball said. ‘It was the wrong word.’

‘Still, if he is confused about his motives, so much the better for us. He will be more suggestible.’

Baines mused for a moment. Dressed now in his flannel trousers and navy-blue, double-breasted blazer, he looked large, handsome, dependable. ‘We are desperately short of funds,’ he said. ‘You know that. If we could estblish some sort of influence there, it would be invaluable. And highly regarded at top level. It is just the sort set-up I regard as promising. A basically crooked enterprise, whatever the law says, and whatever the illusions of this Cuthbertson chap.’

He began to pace backwards and forwards in front of Honeyball. ‘I can smell it,’ he said. ‘Money is of first importance to us just now. Every penny of expenditure is carefully scrutinized up there, Honeyball. Even the cost of hiring a costume for this party tonight will have to be accounted for. I myself live on a pittance. Not because they are niggardly – there are some very noble natures up there. It is simply that money is so short. These Cuthbertsons sound the likeliest sources I’ve come across in ages. Believe me, I have a nose for these things.’

‘I know you have,’ Honeyball said, watching the pacing figure with awe and admiration.

‘So keep at it, there’s a good chap. You will be mentioned in despatches, never fear. Well, I won’t keep you any longer now.’

The two men raised clenched fists and looked fixedly at each other for a moment. Then Honeyball, grasping his brief-case firmly, turned to the door.

‘What are you going as, by the way?’ Baines said.

‘I’m going as Toad of Toad Hall,’ Honeyball said. ‘It is the only fancy dress outfit that I possess. There is a headpiece, you see, so I shan’t need to bother about a mask.

‘Good man.’ Baines nodded his head approvingly.

When Honeyball had gone, he sat down again at the table, and looked at the newspaper. Again the picture of debris and bodies on the front page drew his attention. Martyrs, they were martyrs. Even though they had died in ignorance. Probably left-wing terrorist shits who had planted the bomb. But it made no difference, no difference at all. This bomb, this damage, these deaths of men, women, children all helped towards that readiness he had spoken of earlier, to be achieved through the erosion of security. Millions of people would be horrified by this picture, this morning and some of their faith in government to enforce and protect would go.

The sight of the anonymous corpses stirred Baines: he was moved by the sacrifice. To have died like this was virtuous, it was to have played a part, however humble, in the dynamics of history. Their bodies would sprout flowers. There was almost a lump in his throat. He stood up abruptly, to break this unmanly weakness, and began striding back and forth across the worn carpet of the room. The life of the individual was as nothing. A collective grave, a mound humped with flowers. A moment before quick with life, instinct with beauty. Now anonymous meat. But not futile, no – those who directed history, those with the power and the wisdom to accept the violence necessarily inherent in the dialectical process, we know how important, how profoundly important … otherwise animals, clinging to life. A ground-swell of music began in his mind, building up to a mighty surge, taking in on its sweep all the devastation, the wounds of the world, and bearing on in triumph.