THE constitutional conference opened at Lancaster House on Thursday morning. Press photographers flashed their bulbs as the delegates arrived, flashed them as they assembled round the long table, flashed them again as the Minister arrived to make his opening speech. Then the journalists were asked to leave and the conference got down to business.

While Rolls-Royces were still delivering important people to Lancaster House, Hugh Shrieve, his cold now much better, was himself conferring with Colin Hoggart of the Mallory Foundation. Hoggart was an energetic man of fifty-five, red-faced and bald, with a reputation for great efficiency.

“I’m extremely glad to meet you, Mr Shrieve,” he said, with a firm handshake. “I’ve heard a lot about you and your problem recently. James Weatherby was telling me all about it last night, as a matter of fact, at the club.”

Shrieve looked interested. He hadn’t seen Weatherby for over a week, though they had spoken several times on the phone. James had said he was fearfully busy, he hoped everything was going well, and he had no new information about what might or might not happen. He was not himself involved with the constitutional conference, of course. He had done a great deal, Shrieve had to admit, wondering if he was being ungenerous to suspect his friend of backing out. It was strange, though, not to have seen him for so long.

“I’d better begin,” said Hoggart, “by saying straight out that I don’t think there’s much we can do for you, Mr Shrieve, I’m afraid.”

“Those words are beginning to have a familiar ring.”

“No doubt. But then, there’s not much anyone can do, is there? It’s all up to this conference, isn’t it?”

“Yes and no. It depends on what the conference comes up with. I’m afraid they may issue some tiny statement saying that the Ngulu will continue to enjoy their present protected status under the new régime. Everyone will think that’s enough. But it won’t be. I had a letter this morning, as a matter of fact, which makes it quite clear that that won’t be enough.” Shrieve fished in his pocket for Mackenzie’s latest letter. “May I read you the relevant bits?”

“Just a moment,” said Hoggart. “Before we start going into detail, let me get quite clear what it is you think we may be able to do for you.”

“Well. You’re a charitable foundation with, I understand, fairly wide terms of reference. You’re not restricted to this country. You can spend your enormous income as you think fit, where you think fit. Isn’t that right?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“I don’t know,” said Shrieve, refusing to be put off, “precisely what you can do for the Ngulu. To start with, as you say, we have to wait for the conference. But what I was wondering was, roughly, whether you couldn’t perhaps make the Ngulu an object of charity—whether you couldn’t, as it were, take them on from the government.”

“That’s what you said in your letter,” said Hoggart. He hunted around in some papers, then found what he was looking for. “Yes. You thought we might be able to devise a scheme whereby we would run a protective service on roughly the present lines.”

“Yes. It’s not that the new government will make any effort to harm the Ngulu. Rather the opposite, I should think. But there’s going to be chaos and old night for the next few months in the capital, and probably for a few months after independence, too. God knows what they’ll want to do. They probably haven’t thought about it much. I should think they’d leap at any offer you made. It wouldn’t, I mean, be difficult to negotiate.”

“Perhaps not,” said Hoggart. “It would be quite unprecedented, of course. We’re not the Red Cross, you know.”

“Of course not. And the whole business would have to be managed with great tact. But I don’t think Bloaku would have any fundamental objection.”

“I see. I think your idea is an excellent one in many ways, Mr Shrieve. So do my fellow directors of the Foundation. But I’m afraid we simply can’t do it, much though we’d like to. We’re limited, as you’ll realise, by the trust made by our founder. We can, it’s true, stretch the terms of the trust to include the Ngulu so long as they’re under British protection. But by a singular piece of irony, we can do nothing once the British leave the colony. I’ve discussed the matter with our lawyers. They’ve done their damnedest to find a loophole in the trust. But there just isn’t one. The day the new government takes over, we can do nothing for the Ngulu. And that, of course, is the day you want us to start acting.”

“Oh,” said Shrieve, hopelessly. He hadn’t expected anything definite to come from the meeting, but he had hoped they might explore beyond a blank wall.

“What we can do, and would be glad to do,” said Hoggart, “is finance an anthropological expedition from a British, or Commonwealth, university to study your people. We can subsidise any books that might be published about them by a British or Commonwealth university press. But we can’t look after the Ngulu themselves. I wish we could. But our hands are tied.”

“But the country will remain within the Commonwealth,” said Shrieve eagerly. “Couldn’t you do something through the university there?”

“I’m sorry, I spoke inexactly. When the trust was established there was still an empire. Mr Mallory confined his benefactions to universities in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and, ironically, South Africa. He didn’t envisage our withdrawal from Central Africa.”

“Well, that’s it, I suppose, then,” said Shrieve. “It was a pretty long shot, anyway. I just hoped—you know, one does have hopes about huge organisations like yours.”

“So many people do. You could try the big American foundations. The Free people. Ford and Rockefeller. We’re terribly restricted by the original trust.”

“So it seems.”

“I’m very sorry about it, Shrieve,” said Hoggart. “I’d really like to do something for the Ngulu. Mallory’s conditions have proved terribly frustrating. The money pours in, and we just can’t spend it as we’d like. Most of it goes on medical research—cancer, especially. We don’t have any trouble spending it, I mean, but we do often wish we could spend it more widely.”

“It’s not a problem I’m familiar with,” said Shrieve.

Hoggart laughed. “Obviously not. We get a bit like bankers here, I’m afraid. We tend to think in terms of millions when in fact, of course, all most people want is a fiver.”

“There’s nothing you can do, then?”

“Not that will help your immediate situation, no. But I mean what I said about an anthropological study. There isn’t a really full account of the Ngulu yet, is there?”

“No. There may never be. From what I’ve just heard there may not be any Ngulu to study soon.”

Hoggart refused to be drawn into hearing whatever bad news it was Shrieve had in his pocket. “Look,” he said, “let’s keep in touch. As soon as you know definitely what the conference has done, or is going to do, let me know. We’ll try and fix something up then.”

“It’s very kind of you,” said Shrieve. “I was at an anthropological conference in Oxford last week. I’m afraid I haven’t got that proper academic detachment.”

“Of course you haven’t,” said Hoggart warmly. “But don’t be too gloomy. From what Weatherby said, you seem to have done a great deal. And that letter in yesterday’s Times can’t fail to do good, you know.”

“You thought it was all right?”

“Excellent. Exactly the right tone. Neither querulous nor aggressive. And a most distinguished lot of signatures. I’m sure it’ll make the conference sit up.”

“I hope you’re right. I don’t see what there’s left for me to do, except try and have the odd word with the African delegates themselves.”

“It’s been very nice talking to you,” said Hoggart, “and I’m really very sorry indeed that there’s nothing immediate we can do. But there it is. Old Mallory’s word is law.”

“Is Patrick Mallory a relative of his, do you know?”

“I think he’s a great nephew, yes. Do you know him?”

“He organised the letter to The Times.”

“He’s a great one for that sort of thing, Patrick. Well, let’s get in touch at your convenience, shall we?”

“Thank you,” said Shrieve. He believed Hoggart when he said he would have liked to have done something. But there was a world of difference between well-wishing and action, between an anthropological study and saving the people to be studied. It wasn’t Hoggart’s fault, it wasn’t anyone’s fault. There were always trusts and conditions to excuse the failure to act. And now, in the long conference room, the future of the Ngulu was being settled by men to whom a stone-age tribe was worth a phrase or two in a complicated treaty, at most a couple of paragraphs; paragraphs which could mean the difference between extinction and survival.

He came out into the sunshine, feeling Mackenzie’s letter next to his handkerchief. Hoggart hadn’t wanted to hear it, and it couldn’t have altered the situation, anyway. No one breaks trusts for stone-age tribes.

“I’m rather worried,” Mackenzie had written, “about the general situation. Not only are the Luagabu behaving very queerly, but your Ngulu are acting out of character, too. The Luagabu in my area are disappearing for several days at a time—the men, that is—with their arms, and when they come back they spend a good deal of time huddled together. They just clam up when I try to question them. My spies report that they’re angry about what’s going on in the capital—while Bloaku’s away a lot of little dictators are shouting their heads off. Chief trouble-maker is Viniku—he’s always hated Bloaku, and he’s furious that he’s not been asked to the conference. He’s trying to get into a position of strength for when the delegates return. He’s a Kwahi-Nuaphi, of course, and the Luagabu huddlings are probably more anti-Kwahi-Nuaphi than anti-Ngulu, but you know what the Luagabu are like—they’ll attack anyone who isn’t of the tribe when they’re feeling like it. Nothing has actually happened yet, but Robbins has given a general warning that there may be trouble when the delegates return, if not before.

“Now for the Ngulu. I don’t recall you ever saying that they went in for fetiches. But that’s exactly what they seem to be going in for at the moment. There’s a tree-stump just outside the village—you know it, of course, it’s right by the track to town. As I was driving in yesterday, I noticed there was something bright on it, so I stopped to have a look. It was a piece of coarse cloth, torn, I’d say, from a woman’s skirt. It seemed to have blood on it. There were other scraps of cloth about the place, too. I went on into the village and talked with the chiefs. They seem perfectly happy, though those calf-skins are still stinking the place out. I asked if they had any problems, and they smiled and said no. I don’t know what the gesture means, but they swung their hands back and forth in front of their private parts as I got up to leave. Is that usual? I went to see Amy next. I hadn’t asked the chiefs about the tree-stump, because it was obviously some feminine thing, and you know how bloody-minded the men get when you ask them what their women are up to. Amy looked alarmed when I mentioned it and muttered something about it not being right. She wouldn’t say, though, what wasn’t right about it, or what it was. She seemed well, and asked anxiously after you. I gave her a summary of your news, such as would interest her, and she nodded and said I was to tell you she hoped you were keeping well and eating properly. I said I thought you were probably all right. Her girl was there, too, with your little Tom, both in splendid health. But when I asked about the tree-stump, Amy made Dayu go out of the room.

“All this makes me suspect that the blood on the rags is menstrual blood, and some kind of fertility nonsense is going on. I hope that’s as should be. I had another look at the stump on my way home—I couldn’t stay long, with the Luagabu up to their tricks—and noticed bits of hair (probably pubic hair) on the bark. It looked, to be frank, as though women had been rubbing themselves against it. It’s a common enough practice, of course, but I don’t remember you ever saying anything about it. The general atmosphere of the village was happy enough, though, apart from that rather sad gesture the chiefs made at me as I left. Does it mean anything in particular? Your people are really so very different from mine. I tried to explain that you were doing great things on their behalf, and they smiled and nodded at your name, so they haven’t forgotten you yet, you’ll be glad to hear.

“How goes it in London? The conference will have started by the time you get this. There’s an air of subdued confidence in the capital—people seem to think there won’t be too much trouble. The Luagabu mutterings are worrying, though. The thing is that Bloaku’s such a strong personality that he’s managed to unite a great many disparate elements. But when he’s away the unity cracks, and local chiefs rush to assert themselves. The big man in my area is being a confounded nuisance. He’s eighty, and claims to remember the days before the British came—quite untrue, of course, but it gives him considerable stature just to tell such a whopping lie. He’s too bloody clever, that’s my problem. His son was at the London School of Economics and is itching to take over. He’s always talking about ‘négritude’, and now the father’s picked up the word and uses it all the time to defend the indefensible. When I remonstrate about something, he says ‘It’s part of our heritage of négritude’, and grins happily. But I think it’ll all be O.K. The old men are playing while Bloaku’s away, but they’ll shut up again when he comes back. At least I hope so.”

Mackenzie concluded with a page about local affairs, of little interest to Shrieve, who had never taken any part in such attenuated social life as existed in the area. But he was deeply worried by the Luagabu’s mutterings and very puzzled by the tree-stump, rags and hair. There was an elaborate Ngulu ceremony for pubescent girls, but it involved no tree-stump and no fetichism. The stump in question was, in any case, fairly new. The tree had been cut down three years ago to provide wood for repairs to Shrieve’s bungalow. There couldn’t be any ancient superstition attached to it. It was possible, of course, that any stump more than a few months old might be taken by the Ngulu to be a very ancient stump indeed, what with their notion of time and lack of interest in the past. But it was most unlikely, and besides, there was no precedent for the women to practise fertility rites of that kind. It was true, as Mackenzie said, that women rubbed themselves against various objects from Tangier to the Cape of Good Hope, and probably in Europe, too, where superstition was supposed to have been conquered. But the Ngulu women had never, to Shrieve’s knowledge, gone in for it. Nor had the other officers in charge of them ever mentioned anything of the sort.

Perhaps, then, it wasn’t a fertility rite? But what was it? Why did Amy send Dayu out of the room when Mackenzie asked her about it? Why did she mutter that it wasn’t right? Shrieve wished he had never left the Ngulu. He had accomplished so little for them, anyway, by his absence. Yet previous absences had caused no outbreak of fertility nonsense. Then there were the calf-skin or skins. They shouldn’t be stinking still—they were usually dry and hard after three or four days’ sunshine. Had the Ngulu killed more calves? Were they the same skins that Mackenzie had seen the previous week, or new ones?

Shrieve took Mackenzie’s letter from the side-pocket into which he had slipped it during his talk to Hoggart, and put it into his inside breast-pocket. His fingers touched another envelope, of thicker paper than Mackenzie’s flimsy air mail stuff. On top of all the worry about the Ngulu there was Jumbo Maxwell. The letter was from their old commander, Sidney Trevelyan, in reply to Shrieve’s greetings and questions.

“My dear Hugh,” he began, “It’s extremely good to hear from you after all this time. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to the reunion on Friday week. I don’t honestly enjoy these affairs much usually—the war seems very long ago, and I try not to think about it—but it will be a very great pleasure to see you again.

“As for Jumbo, well, it’s a sad story, I’m afraid. He’s had a rough time, and I’m sorry to say he’s thoroughly deserved it. I’m not in the least surprised to hear that he tried to touch you—though I’m staggered that he had the nerve to try for so much. He’s been in prison twice, as you obviously don’t know, for fiddling little frauds and confidence tricks, and he’d been on probation first, too. He was always a swindler, I fear, but a petty one, and without the guts or intelligence to make a decent job of it. He got the probation for cashing a phoney cheque for three pounds ten—what a miserable sum, I ask you! Then he went to jail for misapplying the funds of some awful little drinking club he’d somehow persuaded someone to let him manage. Again, a trivial sum—forty odd pounds. He got two months that time. That was about four years ago. Then last year they caught him again. He’d been living with some woman, and he’d got hold of her Post Office Savings book and managed to forge whatever signature was necessary. For his twenty-two pounds he got another four months.

“I may say that I gave evidence of character for him at the first two trials, and I think that’s partly why he got off with only two months after a previous conviction—the defence made great play with the war record, naturally. There was a good deal about a brave man down on his luck falling into temptation. But I refused to give evidence at the third trial, because I simply couldn’t go on swearing that I thought he was a man of good character. To be frank, his stupid little crimes revolted me. Needless to say, I’d lent him a bit of money, like a fool, when he came out of jail the first time. I didn’t expect to see it again, but I did tell him pretty bluntly that he’d better stay out of any further trouble. All I got for my pains was one of those reproachful and indignant speeches he was always so good at, when I refused to take my oath again that he was of impeccable moral uprightness.

“It’s my own belief that he was lucky not to be accused of living on the woman’s immoral earnings, too. She was, or had been, obviously a tart. She was getting on a bit, and quite nice, really. She said she was sorry, but she’d had enough of Jumbo, he’d had nearly every penny she’d saved, and when a man took to forging her signature to get what little remained, she wasn’t interested any longer. She said he’d been quite friendly company, but now she’d look elsewhere. I can’t blame her. I suspect she was concealing quite a number of other peccadilloes of his. But that’s Jumbo Maxwell’s history, I’m afraid. The other chaps know all about him, of course. We even passed the hat round to raise his bail. But I’ve had my fill of him now, and I’m sure the others have, too. Those of us who turn up at the reunions he organises do so because we want to see each other, or perhaps out of kindness to Jumbo. But there aren’t many who show up any more. There it is. I wouldn’t be coming myself this year if you hadn’t turned up. I suspect most of the others feel the same. We don’t have much in common any more, except perhaps Jumbo, and we’re all sick to death of him.

“However, I mean it when I say how glad I shall be to see you next week. I understand you’ve been having a pretty hectic time with all that independence business cropping up. You must explain it all to me. I’m afraid I take the rather old-fashioned line that it wouldn’t do any harm if the government spared a thought for the white man for a change. But it’s none of my business, thank goodness. Best of luck with your conference, and I’m sorry to be so gloomy about Jumbo. But the facts have to be faced.”

That Jumbo had been in prison did not altogether surprise Shrieve, who had often felt, during their shared wartime years, that there would be something dreadfully wrong with British justice if he kept out of it all his life. But he was saddened all the same. The really awful thing about Jumbo was, as Trevelyan said, that his crimes were so mean, so small, so unintelligent. Could he really believe that people would overlook forged cheques, wrong money in the till, phoney signatures in Savings books? Or had he got away with such things before, the smallness  of the sums making people say, “Forget it, it’s not worth  bothering about”? Perhaps Jumbo had escaped ten times for  every time he’d been caught, by trading on people’s contempt  for the meanness of his thefts. Such things happened. It didn’t  take long for a man like Jumbo to inure himself against any  feeling of shame.

Shrieve blew his nose violently as he walked along. He felt restless and fretful. It annoyed him to think about Jumbo, so he worried about the Ngulu instead. If only there was something more practical he could do. He had done what he could in England: the conference was beginning, it was out of his hands now. To sit idly by while the decisions were made was worse than frustrating, it was a torture. If only he could address the conference for, say, twenty minutes…. But district officers weren’t invited to address constitutional conferences. There was always the possibility that he might be invited to give evidence to a sub-committee, of course, if one was appointed to deal with minor business. And he had, after all, done his best. The letter was there for all to read. He would meet the Africans soon. It was probable that people who mattered were talking about the Ngulu, mentioning them over cocktails and dinner, and, simply by mentioning them, making it more likely that something would be done.

If it wasn’t all too late. If the Luagabu weren’t preparing a raid. If the Ngulu weren’t reverting to customs supposed forgotten. If talk was enough.

*

Next morning, rising again to the eighteenth floor of the Brachs Building, Edward tried to keep his face calm. He had had a letter from Fred Martin saying the audition had been very promising, and they would now like to give him a test-recording. There was even a hint that a contract might be offered. Contracts, of course, shouldn’t be signed without consulting a battery of lawyers first, but to be offered one at all was amazing, incredible; almost worrying. He had felt sure that the audition had been a disaster, that he wouldn’t be invited to call again, that the whole absurd fantasy was over. He had been, even, rather relieved. Yet now, here he was, the lift doors were opening, and what preposterous possibilities awaited him?

Miss Francis was sitting by the receptionist as the double door to Champney, Morrison, Dulake opened itself before him.

“Good morning, Mr Gilchrist,” she said, a smile splitting her face into two unnatural halves. Everyone in the Brachs Building seemed to smile a lot.

She led him to a recording studio similar to the one in which Edward had watched Chet London a few days earlier. Fred Martin was chatting with a group of musicians, three of whom had electric guitars, and the four women who had been oooh-aaahing for Chet London sat composedly in one corner.

“Great to see you, Ed,” said Martin, shaking his hand. “We really liked that audition. Really we did.”

“Oh. Good.”

“Come and meet your backing group. They’re the Swaymen. Wait till you hear them.”

Their names were Mervin, Slim, Tex and Stu, and they were all spotty, except Stu, who was very small with almost white blond hair and seemed about fifteen. He was the only one who looked as though he’d had enough orange juice as a baby. The others were pasty as well as spotty, though their clothes were very smart. They had on narrow cotton slacks with no turups, winkle-pickers, and very loose long jackets. Mervin, the drummer, was tall and thin, with very heavy rims to the glasses through which he peered about the studio as though in a fog. Edward had never, to his knowledge, met any trainee male nurses, but he felt quite sure that if he ever did they would look exactly like Mervin, Slim, Tex and Stu.

“How do you do,” he said.

They looked at him and mumbled.

Martin smiled widely and said, “A great bunch of boys, Ed, a really up-and-coming group.”

“I see,” said Edward.

“And now I want you to meet the girls. Girls, this is Ed, a great new discovery. Ed, these are the girls. Miss Fielding, Mrs Manning, Miss Slattery, Mrs Mitchell. They’re one of the strongest backing teams in the business, isn’t that right, girls?”

Miss Fielding, who had been knitting, looked up and nodded briefly. Mrs Manning and Mrs Mitchell said, “That’s right, Fred,” then went on exchanging notes on their children’s schools. Miss Slattery, who was reading The Guardian, and who only did this kind of work to pay for her singing lessons (she hoped to sing in opera one day—she was younger than the others on a closer inspection) did not deign to look up. A headline read: CONFERENCE OFF TO FRIENDLY START: MR BLOAKU IN JOVIAL MOOD.

“Now,” said Martin, “while they’re getting ready in here, we’ll go along to rehearse with Steve Daniels down the corridor.”

Obediently Edward followed him to a smaller room where a short, bald man was playing the piano.

“Steve,” said Martin. “This is the boy.”

“Hi,” said Daniels. He nodded at Edward without stopping his playing. It was a Debussy Prelude.

“Right,” said Martin. “Now, let’s hear you sing, Ed.”

“Do you want me to do ‘Tinder’?”

“‘Tinder’? I don’t think I know that number, do I?” said Martin. Today he was wearing an Old Wykehamist tie. It seemed, somehow, to suit him better.

“But it was the number I sang, you remember.”

“Oh, sure, that. Yes, I remember. Yes, it was a nice number. Very nice. You wrote it yourself, I remember.”

“That’s right. With Pete Harrisson.”

“Well, we’re not going to record that this morning,” said Martin. “Later, maybe. This morning we want you to concentrate on the Sway.” He turned to Daniels and said, “O.K., Steve, let’s have a little quiet. You’re giving us the wrong atmosphere.”

“The Sway!” said Edward, appalled. “But I can’t do that, I don’t have that kind of style at all.”

“I think you do, Ed,” said Martin. “I think you may make a great Sway singer. And so do the bosses,” he added, smiling. It never did any harm to let the singers think that he didn’t make the important decisions. And besides, with Mr Brachs taking a personal interest, he didn’t.

“But,” said Edward. “I mean, I can’t. I just can’t sing that sort of stuff. It’s not me.” He felt totally bewildered. How could they have made such a ridiculous mistake?

“I think you underestimate yourself, Ed,” said Martin, patting him on the shoulder. “You wait till you hear yourself. Steve, it’s your job to convince him. Bring him along when you’re all ready.” He smiled genially and went out.

“Yeah,” said Daniels, more to himself than to Edward. “Well, do you read music at all, at all?”

“Yes. I can’t sight-read to sing as well as I can to play, I’m afraid.”

“You play?” said Steve. “Yeah, well so do I. Let’s just look over this, shall we?” He handed Edward a sheet of music. “I’ll play, you just hum along, right?”

The words were imbecile, and Edward read them with horror while Daniels played the monotonous tune.

“This is ridiculous,” said Edward.

“It’s all ridiculous,” said Daniels. “You think the music business isn’t ridiculous? You think I’m not ridiculous sitting here playing this piano? Ridiculous, spidiculous, my friend, that’s show business.”

Pleased to have found a genuine Jew in Champney, Morrison, Dulake, Edward began to try the song. Pop music didn’t seem right without contemptuous Jews running it. Only Daniels, of course, wasn’t exactly running it.

“You want to be top of the pops?” said Daniels, after they’d run the song through three times. “You want to be heart-throb of the nation? You’re nuts. Let’s try it again.”

They tried it again. The tune was simplicity itself, but the words, being so alike, were hard to remember. After another fifteen minutes Daniels said, “O.K., O.K. Let’s leave it like that, shall we? You’re not going to get any better, I’m not going to get any better, let’s leave the rest to the engineers.”

“Do you like pop music?” said Edward as they went back to the studio.

“Like it?” said Daniels. “It feeds me, doesn’t it?”

He led Edward into the studio and handed him over to Martin. “All yours, Fred,” he said. He shrugged expressively at Edward and went out.

“Now,” said Martin, “I’m putting you in the hands of Jeff, the studio director here. I’ll see you later. Best of luck, Ed.”

Jeff was in shirt-sleeves, with earphones clamped to his head. “Right,” he said. “We’re all ready, I guess. You see that mike out there all by itself? That’s yours, Ed. Go and sing into it. It doesn’t matter what kind of a noise comes out, just keep singing till I tell you to stop. We’re not going to get it right first time. We’re not going to get it right the tenth time, either, probably. But let’s get started.” He clapped his hands.

Miss Fielding put away her knitting, Miss Slattery her Guardian. The Swaymen shuffled to their elongated feet. Other men in earphones signalled unintelligibly at each other. Through a glass panel Edward could see a switchboard of dials being operated by still more earphoned men.

“When the red light stops blinking, we start,” said Jeff. “Girls, bar five. You’re bar six, Ed. Silence, please, everyone. Right, let’s go.”

A red light began to blink. When it stopped the Swaymen started a monstrous twanging round their microphone. At the fifth bar the four women came in, reading their music. “Sway, sway, sway, sway, sway, sway, sway, sway,” they sang, all on one note. A bar after them, Edward joined in.

“Sway, sway, everybody sway,” he sang. A violent desire to burst with laughter nearly threw him off balance, but he kept going, throwing himself into it with a careless energy, a nearly hysterical glee. “That’s the way, Let’s all sway,” he yelled, hardly able to hear himself above the electric guitars and fierce drumming. “Sway, everybody sway.” He looked up at the ceiling and shouted the words as though they were a magic rune. One might as well, he thought between verses, make the emptiness ring.

When the last echoes had died away, Jeff said, “Well, we got through it first time, anyway. Great, fellows. Really great. Let’s have a playback.”

There were signals from behind the glass screen, then a magnified voice saying, “Coming right up, Jeff.”

Edward sat on a tall stool by the microphone and closed his eyes. No one in his right mind could ever, conceivably, want to hear him singing this ludicrous song. The whole thing was a marvellous, lunatic dream. As the playback began he opened his eyes and watched for reactions around the studio. The Swaymen listened intently, mouths agape or steadily, rhythmically chewing. The four women paid no attention. Mrs Manning took out a detective story and began to read, Miss Fielding got on with her knitting, Mrs Mitchell picked at a ladder in her stocking, and Miss Slattery started the crossword in her Guardian. The sound was deafening, and Edward could scarcely concentrate for the reverberation of the drum and guitars. But his much amplified voice boomed maniacally above it.

My God, he thought, this is going to be all right, it’s going to happen. Jesus Christ, I’m going to make it.

“That was O.K.,” said Jeff in some surprise when the noise finally, mercifully, stopped. “Only four wrong notes. Stu, bar forty-six. It goes, turn, turn, tum-ti-ti, turn. Not turn, turn, tum-ti, tum. You,” he added, turning to Edward, “didn’t hold it long enough at the end. Drive right in there as though you were punching someone’s nose through the back of his skull. Tex, bar sixty.”

“Yeah,” said Tex. “Sorry.”

“And you girls, let’s have a bit more life. Particularly on that key change in the second section. I want an extra oomph there.”

All four women made notes on their music, then resumed their various distractions. Stu said, “What the hell’s this, I mean, sorry, Jeff, but—you know I don’t read too well.”

Tex explained it to him. Jeff consulted with the engineers. Edward saw that Fred Martin was in the glassed-off section of the studio, talking to one of the men in earphones.

“Are we O.K., everyone?” said Jeff. “All straight now, Stu? Don’t forget to give it all you’ve got at the end, Ed.” He looked round the studio. “O.K.? Right, countdown.”

The light began to blink red again. When it stopped the Swaymen blasted off. Edward blasted after them.

“Sway,” he yelled, “sway, everybody sway.”

Everybody swayed.

*

Shrieve sat in a coffee-shop, a large chrome machine hissing at the counter, and read Dennis Moreland’s article with growing astonishment. The cover of the weekly announced in large Gothic type: RELIGIOUS BOOKS SUPPLEMENT. The leading article was about the continued need for Anglo-American unity at a time when the Berlin crisis looked as though it might be coming to yet another head. Shrieve had the feeling that he’d read it somewhere before.

Moreland’s article was called “The Road From New Delhi”, and it started by listing the colonies which had obtained independence since 1947. There was a fierce attack on both Labour and Conservative administrations for not doing enough for those British people who had suffered from the granting of self-government. “Not content,” Moreland had written, “with initiating the programme of scuttle by allowing several hundred thousand Indians and Pakistanis to slaughter each other, successive governments have made it their deliberate policy, albeit a policy of neglect and indifference, to ruin as many honest farmers and businessmen of British origin as possible.” The plights of tea-planters, rubber-planters, growers of sisal and sugar, breeders of cattle, insurance agents and administrators were vividly described. Calming somewhat towards the middle of his article, Moreland admitted that in a changing world it was of course necessary to grant independence where appropriate. But the Government seemed to have forgotten that we had served as well as ruled, and in the undignified and unworthy scramble to be rid of our responsibilities, there had been a shocking failure to see where our true obligations lay. British rule had been in many cases a genuine guardianship of peoples incapable of managing their own affairs in the modern world. We had created order out of chaos, built roads and schools, laid down systems of law, founded industries, improved agriculture and generally benefited the peoples we governed in a thousand ways. In our shameful anxiety to clear ourselves of the charge of “colonialism” before the neutralist bloc at the United Nations, we had forgotten that these noble services, rendered for so many years with an absolute faithfulness to principle, had cost much in lives as well as money. Not a village in England but had not a memorial plaque to someone who had given his life for the cause. Was everything to be destroyed because of our intemperate haste to leave? It was better to take the hard decision to stay, no matter what the nationalist opposition might threaten, than to flee with our tails between our legs, all hell breaking loose behind us. (Moreland didn’t, Shrieve noticed, mention any particular colony where he thought Britain should stay.) In the long run, taking the only view that mattered, it was our duty to make certain that what we had so patiently created would survive.

Turning finally to the current constitutional conference, Moreland stated that here, at least, was a clear opportunity for Britain to take a firm stand. Unlike many other colonies, there was no large white population to be cast contemptuously on the rocky shore of unemployment in what was called, with genuine affection that turned all too tragically often to contempt, “Home”. That made it easier for the negotiators to insist on the continuance of British standards and British personnel. “For a change, let the minority, the decent, hard-working minority which has brought the country so far forward in such a short space of time, brought it today to the brink of self-government, be given its proper due.” The good work must be continued. For instance, the Ngulu must be maintained in their present state of protection—theirs was a classic instance of British “colonialism” being wholly for the benefit of those “colonised”. The African delegates to the conference, in their triumphant progress towards power and (he hoped) responsibility, would probably want to remove all British administrators. Whom did they propose to appoint in their places? The Minister must be firm for once. His generosity to countries now independent was much admired by so-called liberals. It was time he—and they—faced up to the fact that true freedom, true liberty, could exist only within certain agreed limits. If all was not to be lost, as it so often had been in other instances, these limits must be clearly written into the constitution now being drafted. Britain, he concluded, had nothing whatever to be ashamed of in her colonial record. Let it never be said that in leaving her empire she betrayed those unimpeachable principles on which that very empire had been built.

Shrieve turned the page, expecting there to be more. There was not, merely the beginning of the Religious Books Supplement. The headline was “New Canterbury Tales”, and the book under review was a biography of a recently deceased archbishop. Shrieve started reading about it in a state of dazed fuddlement, realised what he was doing, and put the paper down. His coffee was cold.

So that was Moreland’s idea of doing something to help the Ngulu. He had used them as a small twig in the bundle of sticks with which he was beating the Government. So much for journalists, then. There had, it was true, been a short unsigned article in The Economist dealing sympathetically with the Ngulu, and Charles Fraser had dealt with their problem at some length in a long piece about the conference in his paper. But it was hardly the “follow-up” he had imagined Mallory to mean.

He picked up The Times. No one had written in either supporting or criticising the letter, but then, that was hardly to be expected. The news item about the conference was cautiously optimistic. All had gone well on the first day, it said, and it was hoped that the whole thing would be over by the end of the following week. Earlier negotiations had left little to be thrashed out, though it was believed that the Government was insisting on certain military agreements which were not wholly to the liking of Mr Bloaku. It was expected, however, that only minor concessions would be necessary. Mr Bloaku was reported as saying, “I do not see any major difficulties in our way.” Mr Bloaku’s reputation as an aggressive nationalist leader had perhaps misled observers in this country. Certainly he had gained considerable respect since his arrival, and a reputation for geniality and shrewdness.

Shrieve paid for his coffee and left. He wished he hadn’t told Edward he would come to the party at which Pete’s band was playing that evening. He was impatient and restless. He felt like the negotiators described in The Times: “eager to conclude the conference before the Bank Holiday.”

It was sunny and warm, and in spite of the cold which lingered in his sinuses he found London stuffy. Perhaps he was adjusted to the climate at last. As he strolled down Knightsbridge, window-shopping, he was struck by the number of expensive things on sale. The new affluence of which he had read was visible on every passerby. He stopped before a men’s clothing shop. There wasn’t anything in the window which he would have thought of wearing himself. True to the custom of the trade, the shop had already filled half its display space with winter goods, and the chunky woollen sweaters, the heavy checked shirts and sports coats were not only hopelessly inappropriate for Africa, but also in a style altogether foreign to his taste. The underpants, to take a single example, seemed all to be as brief as possible, and Shrieve had been brought up on reliably thick underwear, as recommended by his schools. He was too old to adapt to these new fashions—skimpy pants, string vests, bold shirts and bolder ties, the new narrow cut of trousers and the unpadded jackets. In the section still reserved for summer wear there were swimming trunks almost as brief as the underpants. There was one pair in white leather that Shrieve could not imagine anyone at all wearing. Loose striped cotton vests with long sleeves were advertised as the latest thing for sailing and the beach. The photographs of the male models throwing beachballs, leaning on tillers and idling on quaint old Cornish quays, were all quite openly sexual in their appeal. The models stood with their feet apart, the trousers stretched tight across the crutch, or lounged in swimming trunks in such a way as to force their maleness on one’s attention. It was all part of the new England, Shrieve supposed: the advertising men were in charge, the flamboyant, the eye-catching, the sophisticatedly obscene, all these were in. And perhaps it didn’t matter. Perhaps. It wasn’t like the England of his childhood or the war years. Then it had been simplicity and demureness—or had it? His childhood had always been sheltered. And then, the war had been neither simple nor demure, of course. But there was, even then, a public restraint which was nowhere to be found now. In Edward Gilchrist’s England, as he ruefully thought of it, no holds were barred.

As he moved on, he glanced at the name above the shop. I should have guessed, he thought. Brachs. Brachs’s England. Brachs was probably at the constitutional conference, personally arranging the handing over of the colony to the Free Organisation.

*

Fred Martin heard a voice say “Mr Brachs for Mr Martin”, and just had time to stub out his cigarette before Mr Brachs’s face appeared on the television set. His oiled black hair glinted richly, and his thick spectacles so reflected the light that his eyes were completely invisible. It was like talking to a blind man wearing dark glasses.

“I am pleased, Mr Martin, with the recording made by Sammy Sweet this morning. You have put him. under contract?”

“Well, sir, he wouldn’t sign it. He said, sir, that he would have to go away and have it looked at by someone.”

“You offered him, I hope, something more than the standard option.”

“Oh yes, sir. I explained that he stood to be one of the richest young men in London if we took the contract up, but he still said he must have it read by someone first.”

“Wise child,” said Mr Brachs, a frown creasing his dark brow. “I trust there is no manager or agent in the background, Mr Martin?”

“He denies it, sir. He strikes me as the sort of boy who would tell the truth.”

Mr Brachs appeared to consider. “No one in this business tells the truth, Mr Martin. But I think you may be right. When have you arranged for him to come again?”

“On Wednesday. You did say, sir, that I was not to show him too much——”

“Quite.”

“He promises to have made up his mind about the contract by then. He still knows nothing, of course, about being Sammy Sweet. But judging by his performance this morning, I think he will accept our offer. He seemed to enter wholeheartedly into the Sway.”

“Good,” said Mr Brachs. “Very good. I am always pleased to hear that someone has his heart in his work. There is too much cynicism in the world today, Mr Martin.”

“Yes, sir. There most certainly is.”

“Give him,” said Mr Brachs, “as much as he asks for. Bargain with him, of course. But do not, under any circumstances, lose him.”

“No, sir.”

Mr Brachs smiled. “The Sway, Mr Martin, is going to sweep this country like a great epidemic. We will mount our campaign to catch the Christmas market. There will be, Mr Martin, many complaints of the season.” He laughed richly, full of phlegm, and his glasses sparkled. Martin chuckled nervously.

“I want,” said Mr Brachs mellowly, “I want people to be happy, Mr Martin. That is why I sponsor this new, this great new dance, the Sway. People will be happy doing the Sway, listening to the Sway, watching others do the Sway. The Sway will become part of our national life, Mr Martin. I am proud to be sending the Sway out into the world.”

Martin nodded, speechless.

“Good day, Mr Martin.”

Mr Brachs switched the channel of his set to his confidential secretary. “Mr Bray, please come here. Bring your copy of the Restaurant accounts and Jefferson’s memorandum.”

“Yes, Mr Brachs.”

Mr Brachs watched as Bray rose from his desk, picked up a file and left the room. Then he switched off the set.

A moment later Bray opened the door of Mr Brachs’s office, and began the long walk down the room towards the desk. The window which ran the length of the Building was shuttered, and the three remaining walls were white and bare except for a single painting, halfway down the room and opposite the window, a vast burgundy-coloured abstract which seemed to lour at the visitor as he advanced over a thick mustard carpet. Twenty feet wide and ten feet high, the picture had an oblong shape at its centre, but the colours were so shaded that the edges of the oblong were almost imperceptible. The deep dark reds against the white wall exuded menace and power. The painter was Mark Rothko.

Apart from Mr Brachs’s desk and chair, the only furniture in the huge room was two low leather chairs and the closed-circuit television. Whereas all the other sets in the Building glowed bluely, Mr Brachs’s glowered with an angry amber. It stared at the visitor like a ferocious guard dog, radiating aggression, ready to leap for the throat. There was nowhere to look except at Mr Brachs or it.

Flinching away from the Rothko, Bray finally reached the desk.

“Sit down, Mr Bray,” said Mr Brachs.

Bray sat down. The chair was comfortable, but so low that his head was only just above the top of the desk.

“I am worried, Mr Bray. I am very rarely worried as much as I am worried now. I am deeply perturbed. I am almost angry.”

“I’m sorry, Mr Brachs.”

“It is I who should be sorry, Mr Bray.” Mr Brachs looked at his fingernails for a few moments. “Tell me what you think of Jefferson, Mr Bray.”

Bray cleared his throat. “Mr Jefferson has been managing director of the Brachs chain of restaurants for five years. He has always been scrupulously honest. He is imaginative. He has done some very good work. He is, perhaps, a little overconfident.”

“You have read his memorandum on the accounts?”

“Yes, Mr Brachs.”

“And does it satisfy you?”

“It does, yes.”

“It does not satisfy me, Mr Bray. It does not satisfy me at all.”

“I am sorry to hear that, Mr Brachs.”

“The restaurants are losing large quantities of foodstuffs each year. They are being robbed. Unscrupulous employees, possibly under the direction of a well-organised gang of criminals, are filching at every opportunity.”

Bray looked impassively at the television set.

“I want you, Mr Bray, to set up, without Jefferson’s knowledge, an enquiry into the chain of restaurants. Meanwhile, I have ordered Jefferson to keep a foolproof check on every tin, can, bottle, sack and case of food and beverage that enters every restaurant. A similar check is to be made on every tin, can, bottle, sack and case that leaves. I wish to discover whether the same number of tins leaves the restaurants empty as enters them full.”

“It is a large undertaking, Mr Brachs, and an expensive one. There will have to be a special staff recruited to do the counting.”

“It will not prove expensive, Mr Bray, if the check reveals the extent of the pilfering and waste. Someone is sabotaging our business. I am convinced that large quantities of food are being stolen. The first detailed reports will be received next week. We shall be able to make a preliminary judgement on the extent of the thefts then.”

“Yes, Mr Brachs.”

“I want you to organise your enquiry with great discretion. I am particularly anxious to know what attitude Jefferson is adopting towards my reforms.”

“Yes, Mr Brachs.”

“You understand, then, what I require, Mr Bray.”

“I do.”

“Good,” said Mr Brachs. “We are under constant watch by our enemies, Mr Bray. The man of business in the modern world cannot afford to relax his guard for a single moment. Socialists and Communists infiltrate ceaselessly.”

Bray, who knew Mr Brachs’s views on the trials of business, nodded. Mr Brachs regarded himself and his enterprises as a crusade for individual freedom against the increasing dictatorship of governments all over the world. He did not, like some businessmen, think that the world was a conspiracy against himself; on the contrary, he thought of himself and his businesses as a conspiracy against the world. Secrecy, therefore, was vital. The law required certain public statements of accounts. These had to be as misleading as possible, must contain as many vague headings as the revenue authorities would allow. The multiplicity of companies within the Brachs organisation was a way of concealing what was actually owned and by whom. Some of the subsidiary companies acted solely as holding companies for others which in their turn held them. They were blind alleys in the vast financial city which Mr Brachs governed, where long avenues of retreat ended in pre-planned bankruptcies and ramparts of financial obfuscation.

“That will be all, then, Mr Bray.”

Bray rose and started on the long trek to the door. Unconsciously he flinched again from the huge, threatening picture. When he reached the door he bowed towards Mr Brachs, who made no sign of acknowledgement, and went out.

Back in his own office he gave a few minutes to the restaurant accounts, frowned and shrugged. Then he. summoned three men to his office, gave them orders and dismissed them.

The fourth floor of the Brachs Building was very busy that afternoon, and Jefferson was in a foul temper. He was unable to leave his office until after eight o’clock.

As he put on his bowler hat and picked up his umbrella, he said to his secretary, “Let’s just hope the old man goes right off his head before he thinks up another crazy scheme like this.”

“You’d better not let Mr Brachs hear you talking like that,” she said. She even gestured at the television set. She was fond of Mr Jefferson.

“That bloody thing,” he said, pointing his umbrella at it. “You can’t even get the Test Match on it. What the hell is the use of a television set you can’t even get the Test Match on?”

“Good night, Mr Jefferson,” said his secretary.

“Good night,” he said.

A full report of his remarks and gestures lay on Mr Brachs’s desk within an hour of his leaving the Building.

*

The noise, thought Shrieve, as he clutched a glass of warm red wine and listened to Pete Harrisson taking off on a little fantasy of his own known among his friends as “When You Come At The End Of A Perfect Day”, the noise was cheerful, anyway. He smiled at Jackie Harmer and said, “Don’t you carry earplugs?”

She shook her head and said, “You get used to it in time.”

“I’m afraid I must be what you call a square,” said Shrieve. “I find it all rather wearing. Why don’t they play something quiet for a change? It’s like Piccadilly Circus on Boat Race night.”

“Oh, I expect they will soon,” she said. She grinned. “I think it’s very noble of you to have come at all.”

“He supports me,” said Shrieve, “so I feel it’s only decent to make an effort to find out what it is he does and support him in my turn.”

“You know he’s been offered a contract to sing this new song called the Sway?” said Jackie. “That’s more like having something done to you than doing it yourself.”

“He’s actually been offered a contract?”

“Oh yes. And Pete says it’s quite a decent one—not the usual cheating kind at all. He thinks they really want to turn Edward into something.”

“How simply awful,” said Shrieve.

“Yes, isn’t it?” said Jackie. She grinned at him again. “I think jazz is all right, but pops—well.”

“I’m not sure that I can tell the difference.”

“Then I’m afraid you may be a bit of a square. I think everyone ought to be able to tell the difference, if he listens at all, that is. They aren’t a bit alike. For instance, listen to Pete. He plays jazz. It’s a sort of creative improvisation within limits.”

“Ah, I see,” said Shrieve gravely.

“Only, of course, this group doesn’t improvise much, Edward’s arranged it all in advance. But even within the arrangement they’re allowed to take off sometimes and do what they like. This is one of Pete’s special solos now.”

“And does he always play it the same way?”

“Oh no. That’s the point. I suppose if he ever felt he’d played it perfectly, then he’d always try and imitate that time. But in fact he doesn’t have a set piece here at all—it’s just a tune he goes crazy over and lets off whatever steam he happens to have around at.”

“Have around at?” muttered Shrieve, bewildered.

Jackie didn’t hear him. “He’s great,” she said. “Listen to that! It’s a parody of Cat Anderson,” she explained.

Shrieve leaned back against the wall and stopped trying to follow her. The music was, as he’d decided earlier, cheerful; there was that to be said for it. And the way the young danced nowadays, though odd, to put it mildly, was rather charming. They seemed to avoid all contact with each other except at the finger-tips, and even these were only used, as it were, as marker-buoys to be rounded from time to time. He didn’t see how anyone knew who was whose partner, but perhaps they’d got it all worked out among themselves.

The number came to an end amid loud applause and Pete took an ironic bow. He then said into a microphone: “Ladies and gentlemen, you are about to hear a sensational new rocking number, the Sway. This was recorded by Edward Gilchrist here only this morning, and we haven’t got any parts for it, so excuse any wrong notes. Actually, from what Edward says, there are only about four notes involved, so we should do all right. There’ve been a lot of new dances recently, and you may not have heard of the Choke. But if you have, the Sway’s the same thing, we think. Anyway, everybody Sway!”

There was a guitarist with the band tonight, and Edward had hummed the tune to him. The Sway sounded just acceptable on the solo guitar, but when Pete’s trumpet and Greg’s saxophone joined stridently in, it sounded even more crude and vulgar than with the Swaymen and the girls. Edward shut his eyes and hoped for the best.

“Sway,” he sang, “everybody sway.”

Shrieve listened, amazed and amused. So this was how Edward hoped to make his fame and fortune! The song was tuneless, the beat unimaginative and the words lacked, simply, humour or intelligence. Yet the Sway seemed somehow familiar, he thought. Perhaps all the popular “rocking” numbers sounded the same—he had heard, or rather overheard, enough of them on the radio. Yet this was familiar, surely?

He looked at the dancers. Few of them knew either Choke or Sway and only two or three couples were risking it. Suddenly he pushed himself away from the wall and watched them closely.

“Good God!” he said.

“What is it?” said Jackie. She was listening with a sad, almost resigned, expression on her face.

“Good God Almighty!” said Shrieve. He turned to her, his face a long exclamation mark, mouth hanging open, eyebrows high. “It’s the Ngulu dance they’re doing!”

“It’s the what?” said Jackie.

“It’s the Ngulu dance! Watch me! Come on!”

He seized her by the arm and pulled her to the dance floor. She followed him, wondering what on earth he was talking about. He began to shuffle and sway, clapping his hands, doing what the other dancers were doing, only better.

“It’s simple,” he shouted to her over the din, “just follow what I’m doing.”

He began to do his imitation of a giraffe. A small interested crowd gathered quickly round them. “It’s easy!” he called. “Easy!”

Jackie did her best to follow him. The crowd failed to recognise a giraffe in his contortions.

“Hey, who’s he?” said a man with a fringe of beard.

“Don’t know,” said his girl. She jangled her bracelets. “But he certainly knows how to Sway.”

“Sway, sway, sway,” sang the band in chorus above the plucking and twanging of the guitar.

Edward led them, clapping his hands maniacally and gyrating about the stand in his usual parody.

“Where did you learn?” shouted Jackie. She was picking it up fast.

“In Africa,” Shrieve called back.

“Go, man, go,” said the beard.

“Sway, man, sway,” jangled the bracelets.

Fred Martin would have smiled to hear them.

When the song ended there was feeble applause for Edward and the band, but several whistles and cheers for Shrieve and Jackie.

“What the hell’s going on over there?” said Greg to Pete.

“Christ knows. Let’s take a break. It’ll take me ten minutes to get my head clear after that mindless jingle.”

“Thanks,” said Edward. “Thanks a lot. You’ll be proud to know me in a couple of months, that’s all. Say what you like now, it won’t worry me.”

“We will,” said Pete. “Come on, let’s grab a drink.”

They retired briefly to a small room where the band’s whisky was kept, then emerged with glasses in their hands.

“How are you enjoying it?” said Edward anxiously, when he’d made his way over to Shrieve.

“Marvellous,” said Shrieve. He was still panting from his exertions. “Do you realise, it’s the most extraordinary thing, but your Sway is the Ngulu dance. It’s it exactly.”

“It can’t be,” said Edward. “I thought they had better taste.”

“No, no, I mean it. Really. It’s exactly the same—the rhythm and everything.”

“But the steps?”

“They seem to be more or less identical. I think the Ngulu ones are a bit more complicated, but no one here seems to know the Sway very well. I’m afraid I got carried away and did my giraffe imitation.”

“So that’s what it was,” said Jackie. “You were terribly good, whatever it was.”

“It’s absolutely incredible,” said Shrieve. “I wonder what Professor Adams would say about it. They all imitate animals,” he went on excitedly to Jackie, “and I’m expected to do something, you see, so I do a giraffe. But the basic step, the shuffling and swaying, that’s the same as what those people over there were doing.”

“It doesn’t seem possible,” said Edward.

“Oh but it is, it is.”

“It’s the internationalisation of culture,” said Jackie. “It’s like Free. Every time you get off an aeroplane, whether it’s Timbuctoo, Thailand or Tallahassee, there’s always a sign advertising Free. Your Ngulu may be backward, Mr Shrieve, but they seem to have got to the Sway well ahead of us.”

“Hello,” said Edward. “There’s my sister. I didn’t know she was going to be here. Excuse me a moment.”

Jane was with a tall man Edward didn’t know.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, kissing her on the cheek.

“I thought I ought to come and hear how you were disgracing the family name,” she said. “That was simply awful, Teddy, that Sway thing. For goodness sake don’t let Mummy hear you singing that, she’d die.”

“I shall be a household name in a month,” said Edward. “I’m going to be the biggest thing to hit the pop market since Elvis Presley.”

“Elvis Presley?” said the tall man. “Who’s he?”

“Oh Timothy, really,” said Jane. “I’ve got so much to teach you. You haven’t met Edward, have you? He’s my brother. Teddy, this is Timothy Fearon.”

“How do you do?” said Edward.

“Do you make much singing that stuff?” said Fearon. “I mean, do people buy records of that sort of thing? Really?”

“Not yet. I hope they will soon, though.”

“Teddy, darling, you can’t, you absolutely can’t sing that awful song. Why don’t you sing something nice?” She turned to Fearon and said, “He really has rather a sweet voice, though you wouldn’t know it.”

“They didn’t seem very interested in my ballads, to be honest,” said Edward. “But they’re crazy for the Sway. Of course, nothing may come of it. It was only a test-recording, you see. But they have offered me quite a good contract.”

“They have?” said Jane. “Oh Teddy, how simply marvellous!”

“Well, keep your fingers crossed. Pete says it’s all right. The contract, I mean.”

“Congratulations,” said Fearon. “No doubt you’ll be deafening us all for years to come. Can I get you a drink, Jane? I’m parched myself.”

“Oh, do, please.” She turned back to Edward and said, “Will you be terribly rich, Teddy? Terribly, terribly rich?”

“Terribly. Who’s your new boy friend?”

“Oh, don’t you know Timothy? He’s rather dull, actually. He’s on the Stock Exchange. Or in the Foreign Office or something. I only met him this evening at another party, you see, and he brought me here. I didn’t know you would be playing.”

“Don’t tell the parents about the Sway, will you, Jane? They’ll have to find out about it very gently.”

“You are horrid to them, Teddy.”

“Are you going back tonight?”

“Not if I can avoid it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind. What were you going to suggest?”

“Well, this party’s due to end about one, I think. Anyway, we’re packing up then, because Greg has to get home, and I’m exhausted. We’re all going to have something to eat at Pete and Judy’s. Do you want to come?”

“Lovely. Can I bring Timothy?”

“Sure. Here he is. I’ll see you afterwards, then.”

“All right, Teddy. Oh,” she went on, catching his sleeve. “Who’s that pretty girl talking to your friend Mr Shrieve?”

“That’s Jackie Harmer. Haven’t you met her?”

“No. Will I later?”

“I expect so. Look, I must go and entertain Shrieve.”

“Goodbye,” she said.

“Here you are,” said Fearon, handing her a drink. “I must say, I don’t know if I’d want to have a brother who sang pop songs, Jane. How did it happen?”

“Don’t be stuffy,” she said. “Did you say you were on the Stock Exchange or in the Foreign Office?”

“I’m an accountant,” said Fearon, looking rather cross.

“I knew it was something like that,” said Jane.

Edward went back to Shrieve and Jackie. Shrieve was busy giving a demonstration of his giraffe.

“It’s like this,” he was saying, thrusting his chin in the air and putting up two curled fingers for ears. “I’ve been doing it for ages. I’m rather proud of it, actually, though the Ngulu just think it’s funny. They fall over themselves, in fact.” He tiptoed round Jackie, waggling his giraffe’s ears.

“I wish they could see you at the constitutional conference,” said Edward. “It’d soon put a stop to talk about superior cultures. And I don’t want to hear any further criticism of my singing, if you don’t mind. You’ve lost the right to criticise. Are you enjoying yourself all right?”

“It’s splendid,” said Shrieve, still waggling his ears. “A splendid party. I’m enjoying it enormously.”

Pete pushed his way over towards them and said, “Come on, we’d better give them value for money. We’ve only got till one, remember.”

“This must be a sad night for you,” said Edward, as they went back to the stand. “I mean, you’ll be losing me soon. In a few weeks you won’t be able to afford me. But I’ll be decent, I’ll make a few guest appearances for you.”

“Thank God,” said Pete, “pianists are two a penny.”

“Watch it, now. You may be able to find a pianist as good, but you’ll never get anyone to sing the Sway for you like that.”

“Thank Christ. Come on, let’s play some real music for a change. What with you flaking out from Swaying all day, and Greg’s father refusing to lend him the car, we’re a pretty broken-down band. It’s a hopeless way to run anything. I wish to God I’d got my club open.”

“Name the day,” said Edward. “I’ll come and open it for you. There’ll be a stampede of my teenage fans. You’ll be a huge success.”

“Any fans who come stampeding into my club,” said Pete picking up his trumpet, “will find themselves getting more than they stampeded for. ‘April in Portugal’. G sharp. And Edward, keep off the bloody tune, will you? In my kind of music we take a tune that’s been ruined and make something new out of it. You keep dragging us back into the rut.”

Pete seemed angry about something.

*

Two trombones kissed juicily from one stereophonic speaker across the room to the other, while Judy handed out plates of cold meat and salad. Jane and Jackie were sitting on the bed, while the men sprawled on the floor.

“You’re not to let them change your name, Teddy,” said Jane. “Whatever happens, you mustn’t let them do that.”

“I should have thought your family were hoping you would change it,” said Timothy Fearon.

“It’s not a very good name for a pop singer,” said Edward. “Not like Chet London, for instance.”

“What’s so good about Chet London?” said Jackie.

“Oh, a place name is always good, you know. And the first name mustn’t be too obvious. Shane is a very good first name for a pop singer. Quite a good surname, too, actually.”

“I don’t know why you don’t call yourself Harold Macmillan and have done with it,” said Pete.

“I think Anthony Eden would be better,” said Edward. “Eden’s a very good name. Adam Eden would be best of all.”

“Oh for God’s sake, Edward,” said Pete.

“What’s the matter?”

“Look, man, we’re all very pleased about you being a success, we’re happy for you, we think you’re great. Now can’t you just shut up about it?”

“What the hell’s got into him?” Edward asked Judy.

“You know perfectly well what’s got into him,” she said. “He thinks you’re selling your soul for a mess of pottage, and so do I, and so does Jackie, and so does everyone else who likes you and has thought about it.”

“Mess of pottage? Mess of pottage? What’s this Old Testament stuff all of a sudden?”

“Oh Edward,” said Jackie. “Honey, you don’t want to be a Sway singer, honestly, do you?”

“Of course I do,” said Edward. His face became hard. “It’s all very well for you lot to sit there with Old Testament proverbs dribbling down your bibs, but you’re just jealous, that’s all, jealous. Why shouldn’t I be rich, if I can make it?”

“I don’t see why you shouldn’t, Teddy,” said Jane.

“Thank you. I think Pete’s frightened that if I’m a success I won’t speak to him any more.”

“It’s got nothing to do with that,” said Jackie, “and you know it. It’s just that—oh, it’s such an awful life, with such awful people. You’ll be rushing around giving performances everywhere, recording new and more horrible songs, showing off, signing autographs, and you won’t be enjoying it a bit.”

“Apart from the recordings and the autographs it sounds just like my life now.”

“And you’re always complaining about how fed up you are, aren’t you? When you’re not getting enough sleep, and you’re spending all day with seedy musicians and their seedier managers and agents, when you’re living and working with the dullest, stupidest people, knowing you won’t last more than a couple of years at the most—how are you going to enjoy that?”

“I may not enjoy it. But at least I’ll be rich in the end. And you’ve just made my best point for me. It’ll be a couple of years, at most.”

“And so it’s just the money you want?”

“Why not? What else is there?”

“Oh, Edward,” said Jackie. She looked appealingly at him, but his face remained hard.

“Let’s drop the subject, like Pete suggested,” said Edward. “If I get the chance to be a pop singer, I’m going to take it. And you know what you can do with your moral scruples. It’s very nice of you to worry about my soul for me. It’s not something I ever worry about much myself. But now you can all stop worrying, because I’ve chosen slavery and damnation. So there.”

“You said it, not me,” said Pete. He got up to change the record.

Edward found he was trembling. He gripped his knees with his hands. A wave of blackness, of bitterness, swept over him, he felt dizzy. He heard himself saying, “What have you all got to be so smug about? Who are you to tell other people how to live their lives? We’re no good, any of us. We’re all corrupt, second-rate, cowardly, stupid. We live in a corrupt, second-rate, cowardly, stupid country. Why haven’t you got the guts to see it, all of you? And to take advantage of it? Revel in it? Cover yourselves in the shit, glory in it? Down, down, down. That’s where we’re going, down. Into the stink and shit. That’s where we belong. That’s what our lives are about.”

He was shaking all over, the acrid taste of vomit in his mouth, explosively. He jumped up, tripped over someone’s legs, righted himself and rushed out. He banged the front door behind him, and stumbled down the steps. He was violently, quickly, sick into the gutter. After the spasm he wiped his mouth and sat on the steps, head in hands. The shaking slowly stopped. The night breeze was cold on his cheeks. He put up a hand and found them wet with tears.

After a few minutes Jackie came quietly out and sat beside him, without speaking. He was aware of her, and comforted by her silence. He wanted to put his arm round her, but something prevented him, a feeling of hopelessness, a sense that it would be dishonest, an appeal for pity. He knew that he didn’t want pity. What he did want he didn’t know. He felt his body relaxing.

Jackie put her arm round his shoulders and at once he stiffened again. Feeling him stiffen, she sighed.

“It’s getting cold out here,” she said briskly, taking her arm away. “Let’s go in.”

“All right.”

“Better now?”

“Yes, thanks. I’m sorry.”

They went back into the house. The others were talking quietly about Pete’s club.

Edward said, “I do apologise.”

Judy smiled at him. “Welcome back,” she said.

He sat down against the wall and hugged his knees. Jane came over to him and said, “You are funny, Teddy.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.” She settled herself beside him and said, “Now tell me about that girl.”

“She’s called Jackie Harmer and she was at Oxford with me and she’s very clever and she’s probably got a first, which I haven’t. She’s also very nice.”

“I think she’s in love with you,” said Jane.

“You’ve thought that about every girl you’ve ever seen me with.”

“But this is different. Are you in love with her?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Were you ever in love with her?”

“Do stop cross-questioning me, Jane.”

“I’m worried about you,” she said. “I don’t think you’re happy.”

“You deserve a medal for perspicacity.”

“You are grumpy tonight. What went on between you two outside? What were you doing, anyway?”

“I was being sick in the gutter. Nothing was going on between us. We didn’t even speak.”

“Have you had a row with her?”

“No. Why should I have had?”

“She looks so sad.”

Edward looked across the room at Jackie, who was standing by the gramophone, looking through the stack of records. She did look rather sad, he thought. He refused to believe, though, that it was his fault.

“It’s time we were going,” said Jane. “Do cheer up, Teddy. You’re going to be a huge success.” She kissed him warmly and got up.

“Thanks,” he said.

He watched her go over to Fearon, feeling there was something he ought to be worried about, but unable to think what it was.

“How are you going to get home, Jackie?” said Pete.

“There’s an all-night bus.”

“Can I give you a lift?” said Fearon. “Where are you going?”

“Hampstead.”

“Oh, that’s almost on our way. We’re off to Belsize Park. Come with us.”

“It’s awfully kind of you,” said Jackie.

They moved to the door amid general goodbyes. When they had gone, Pete came up to Edward, put an arm round his shoulder and said, “Buddy, buddy.” Then he began to clear away the plates and glasses. Edward helped him.

While they were washing up Judy said, “That wasn’t a very interesting man your sister brought with her.”

“She only met him tonight,” said Edward.

Judy looked up sharply. “What?”

“My God,” said Edward. He went white. “She only met him tonight and she’s gone home with him.”

“It may be all right,” said Judy. “He may just be giving her another drink.”

“But she’s got nowhere to stay in London. I asked her if she was going home tonight and she said not if she could avoid it. I didn’t realise what she meant.”

“Man, that’s quick work,” said Pete. “I don’t dig her taste, though.”

“She didn’t even seem to like him much,” said Edward. He looked so upset that Judy said in her most practical tone of voice, “Well, she’s gone now. It’s time we all went to bed. It’s been a wearing day.”

“That’s for sure,” said Pete.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” said Edward.

Judy smiled. “I thought she was very sweet and nice, Edward. It’s probably perfectly innocent. As you said, she didn’t even seem to like him much.”

“She is sweet and nice,” he said. “But she’s not very clever, I’m afraid. And maybe she feels as desperate as me sometimes. I had no idea she behaved like this.”

He hung up the towel and went off to his mattress.

When Pete and Judy were in bed, Judy said, “I hope Edward’s all right.”

“I expect so,” said Pete. “Anyone who plays or does anything interesting is more or less nutty. You have to be nutty to want to play music. He’s a bit mixed up, that’s all. And overexcited. He’s always had his nihilist side.”

“But he’s so bitter.”

“Yeah. Sure. You can hear it in his playing sometimes. Usually when he’s playing very well, too.”

Judy lay on her back, thinking. Pete’s beard began to tickle her shoulder. She turned towards him and held him very close.