The Children of Men

by P. D. James

  It was eleven o’clock when they arrived. I showed them into the ground-floor sitting-room and asked whether they would like coffee. They refused. Offered seats, Rawlings settled himself comfortably in a chair by the fireplace while Cathcart, after a moment’s hesitation, sat opposite him, sitting stiffly upright. I took the swivel chair at the desk and swung round to face them.

  Rawlings said: “A niece of mine, my sister’s youngest, she just missed Omega by one year, attended your little talks on Victorian Life and Times. She’s not a very intelligent woman, you probably won’t remember her. But, then, of course, you might. Marion Hopcroft. It was a small class, she said, and got smaller by the week. People have no persistence. They take up enthusiasms but quickly tire, particularly if their interest isn’t continually stimulated.”

  In a few sentences he had reduced the lectures to boring talks for a dwindling number of the unintelligent. The ploy had not been subtle but, then, I doubt whether he dealt in subtlety. I said: “The name is familiar but I can’t recall her.”

  “Victorian Life and Times. I thought the word ‘times’ was redundant. Why not just Victorian Life? Or you could have advertised Life in Victorian England.”

  “I didn’t choose the title of the course.”

  “Didn’t you? That’s odd. I should have thought that you did. I think you should insist on choosing the title for your own talks.”

  I made no reply. I had little doubt that he knew perfectly well that I had taken the course for Colin Seabrook, but if he didn’t I had no intention of enlightening him.

  After a moment’s silence which neither he nor Cathcart seemed to find embarrassing, he went on: “I thought I might take one of these adult courses myself. In history, not literature. But I wouldn’t choose Victorian England. I’d go further back, the Tudors. I’ve always been fascinated by the Tudors, Elizabeth I particularly.”

  I said: “What attracts you about the period? The violence and the splendour, the glory of their achievements, the admixture of poetry and cruelty, those shrewd clever faces above the ruffs, that magnificent court underpinned by the thumbscrew and the rack?”

  He seemed to consider the question for a moment, then said: “I wouldn’t say the Tudor age was uniquely cruel, Dr. Faron. They died young in those days and I dare say most died in pain. Every age has its cruelties. And if we consider pain, dying of cancer without drugs which has been the lot of man through most of his history was a more horrible torment than anything the Tudors could devise. Particularly for the children, wouldn’t you say? It’s difficult to see the purpose of that, isn’t it? The torment of children.”

  I said: “We should not, perhaps, assume that nature has a purpose.”

  He went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “My grandfather, he was one of those hellfire preachers—thought that everything had a purpose, particularly pain. Born out of time, he would have been happier in your nineteenth century. I remember when I was nine I had a very bad toothache, an abscess. I said nothing, fearing the dentist, but then woke up one night in agony. My mother said we’d go along to the surgery as soon as it was open, but I lay until morning writhing with pain. My grandfather came in to see me. He said, ‘We can do something about the small pains of this world but not about the everlasting pains of the world to come. Remember that, boy.’ He certainly chose his moment well. Eternal toothache. It was a terrifying thought for a nine-year-old.”

  I said: “Or for an adult.”

  “Well, we’ve abandoned that belief, except for Roaring Roger. He still seems to have his following.” He paused for a minute as if to ruminate on the fulminations of Roaring Roger, then went on without any change of tone: “The Council are worried, ‘concerned’ is perhaps a more appropriate word, about the activities of certain people.”

  He waited, perhaps for me to ask: “What activities? What people?” I said: “I have to leave in a little over half an hour. If your colleague wants to search the house perhaps he could do it now, while we’re talking. There are one or two small things I value, the caddy-spoons in the Georgian display cabinet, the Staffordshire Victorian commemorative pieces in the drawing-room, one or two of the first editions. Normally I would expect to be present during a search but I have every confidence in the probity of the SSP.”

  With these last words I looked straight into Cathcart’s eyes. They didn’t even flicker.

  Rawlings permitted in his voice a small note of reproach: “There’s no question of a search, Dr. Faron. Why would you suppose, now, that we want to search? Search for what? You’re not a subversive, sir. No, this is just a talk, a consultation if you like. As I said, there are things happening which cause some concern to the Council. I am speaking now, of course, in confidence. These matters have not been made public by newspapers, radio or TV.”

  I said: “That was wise of the Council. Troublemakers, assuming you’ve got them, feed on publicity. Why give it to them?”

  “Exactly. It’s taken governments a long time to realize that you don’t need to manipulate unwelcome news. Just don’t show it.”

  “And what aren’t you showing?”

  “Small incidents, unimportant in themselves, but possibly evidence of a conspiracy. The last two Quietus were interrupted. The ramps were blown up on the morning of the ceremony, just half an hour before the sacrificial victims—or perhaps ‘victims’ is hardly the appropriate word, let’s say the sacrificial martyrs—were due to arrive.”

  He paused, then added: “But ‘martyrs’ is perhaps redundant. Let’s say before the potential suicides were due to arrive. It caused them considerable distress. The terrorist, he or she, was cutting it rather fine. Thirty minutes later and the old people would have died rather more spectacularly than was planned. There was a telephone warning—a young male voice—but it came too late to do more than keep the crowds away from the scene.”

  I said: “An irritating inconvenience. I went to see a Quietus about a month ago. The ramp from which the boat embarked could, I should have thought, have been constructed fairly quickly. I don’t suppose that particular act of criminal damage held up the Quietus for more than a day.”

  “As you implied, Dr. Faron, a minor inconvenience, but not, perhaps, without significance. There have been too many minor inconveniences recently. And then there are the pamphlets. Some of them are directed to the treatment of the Sojourners. The last batch of Sojourners, the sixty-year-olds and some who had fallen sick, had to be forcibly repatriated. There were unfortunate scenes at the quay. I don’t say there’s a connection between that débâcle and the dissemination of the pamphlets but it could be more than a coincidence. The distribution of political material among Sojourners is illegal but we know that the subversive pamphlets have been circulated in the camps. Other leaflets have been delivered house to house, complaining about the treatment of Sojourners generally, conditions on the Isle of Man, compulsory semen testing and what the dissidents apparently see as a defect in the democratic process. A recent one incorporated all these dissatisfactions in a list of demands. You may perhaps have seen it?”

  He reached down to the black leather attaché case, lifted it on to his lap and clicked it open. He was playing the part of an avuncular casual caller, not very confident about the purpose of this visit, and I half-expected him to pretend to rummage ineffectively among his papers before finding the one he wanted. However, he surprised me by laying his hand on it immediately.

  He passed it to me and said: “Have you seen one of these before, sir?”

  I glanced at it and said: “Yes, I’ve seen it. One was pushed through my door a few weeks ago.” There was little point in a denial. Almost certainly the SSP know that the leaflets have been distributed in St. John Street and why should my house have been neglected? After rereading it I handed it back.

  “Has anyone else you know received one?”

  “Not to my knowledge. But I imagine they must have been fairly widely disseminated. I wasn’t interested enough to inquire.”

  Rawli
ngs studied it as if it were new to him. He said: “The Five Fishes. Ingenious but not very clever. I suppose we look for a little group of five. Five friends, five family members, five fellow-workers, five fellow-conspirators. Perhaps they got the idea from the Council of England. It’s a useful number, wouldn’t you say, sir? In any discussion it ensures that there can always be a majority.” I didn’t reply. He went on: “The Five Fishes. I imagine they each have a code name probably based on forenames; that way it’s easy for everyone to remember. A would be difficult, though. I can’t offhand think of a fish with a name beginning with A. Perhaps none of them has A as an initial. They could have bream for B, I suppose, and C wouldn’t be difficult: cod, codling. Dogfish would do for D. E might present a difficulty. Although I may, of course, be wrong, I reckon they wouldn’t have chosen to call themselves the Five Fishes if they couldn’t find an appropriate fish for each member of the gang. What do you think of that, sir? As a process of reasoning, I mean.”

  I said: “Ingenious. It’s interesting to see the thought processes of the SSP in action. Few citizens can have had that opportunity, at least few citizens actually at liberty.”

  I might just as well not have spoken. He continued to study the pamphlet. Then he said: “A fish. Quite nicely drawn. Not, I think, by a professional artist, but by someone with a feeling for design. The fish is a Christian symbol. Could this be a Christian group, I wonder?” He looked up at me. “You admit that you had one of these pamphlets in your possession, sir, but you did nothing about it? You didn’t feel that it was your duty to report?”

  “I treated it as I treat all unimportant, unsolicited mail.” Then, deciding it was time I went on the offensive, I said: “Forgive me, Chief Inspector, but I don’t see what precisely is worrying the Council. There are malcontents in any society. This particular group have apparently done little harm apart from blowing up a couple of flimsy, temporary ramps and distributing some ill-thought-out criticisms of the government.”

  “Some might describe the pamphlets as seditious literature, sir.”

  “You can use what words you like, but you can hardly elevate this into a great conspiracy. You’re surely not mobilizing the battalions of state security because a few bored malcontents prefer to amuse themselves by playing a more dangerous game than golf. What precisely is worrying the Council? If there is a group of dissidents they will be fairly young, or at least middle-aged. But time will pass for them, time is passing for all of us. Have you forgotten the figures? The Council of England reminds us of them often enough. A population of fifty-eight million in 1996, fallen to thirty-six million this year, 20 per cent of them over seventy. We’re a doomed race, Chief Inspector. With maturity, with old age, all enthusiasm fades, even for the seductive thrill of conspiracy. There’s no real opposition to the Warden of England. There never has been since he took power.”

  “It is our business, sir, to see that there isn’t.”

  “You will, of course, do what you think is necessary. But I would only take this seriously if I thought that it was, in fact, serious: opposition, perhaps within the Council itself, to the authority of the Warden.”

  The words had been a calculated risk, perhaps even a dangerous one, and I saw that I had worried him. I had intended to.

  After a moment’s pause, which was involuntary, not calculated, he said: “If there were any question of that, the matter wouldn’t be in my hands, sir. It would be dealt with at an altogether higher level.”

  I got to my feet. I said: “The Warden of England is my cousin and my friend. He was kind to me in childhood, when kindness is particularly important. I am no longer his adviser on the Council but that doesn’t mean that I am no longer his cousin and his friend. If I have evidence of a conspiracy against him, I shall tell him. I shan’t tell you, Chief Inspector, nor shall I get in touch with the SSP. I shall tell the person most concerned, the Warden of England.”

  This was play-acting, of course, and we knew it. We didn’t shake hands or speak as I showed them out but this wasn’t because I had made an enemy. Rawlings didn’t permit himself the indulgence of personal antipathy any more than he would have allowed himself to feel sympathy, liking or the stirrings of pity for the victims he visited and interrogated. I thought I understood his kind: the petty bureaucrats of tyranny, men who relish the carefully measured meed of power permitted to them, who need to walk in the aura of manufactured fear, to know that the fear precedes them as they enter a room and will linger like a smell after they have left, but who have neither the sadism nor the courage for the ultimate cruelty. But they need their part of the action. It isn’t sufficient for them, as it is for most of us, to stand a little way off to watch the crosses on the hill.

  18

  Theo closed the diary and put it in the top drawer of his desk, turning the key and slipping it into his pocket. The desk was well made, the drawers strong, but it would hardly resist an expert or determined assault. But then, one was hardly likely to be made and, if it were, he had taken care that his account of Rawlings’s visit should be innocuous. That he felt this need to self-censor was, he knew, evidence of unease. He was irritated that the precaution was necessary. He had begun the diary less as a record of his life (for whom and why? What life?) than as a regular and a self-indulgent exploration, a means of making sense of the past years, part catharsis, part comforting affirmation. The diary, which had become a routine part of his life, was pointless if he had to censor, to leave out, if he had to deceive not illumine.

  He thought back over the visit of Rawlings and Cathcart. He had been surprised at the time how unfrightening he had found them. After they had left he had felt a certain satisfaction in this lack of fear, in the competence with which he had handled the encounter. Now he wondered whether his confidence was justified. He had almost perfect recall of what had been said; verbal recall had always been one of his talents. But the exercise of writing down their elliptical conversation raised anxieties that he hadn’t felt at the time. He told himself that he had nothing to fear. He had only lied directly once, when he had denied knowing anyone else who had received one of the Five Fishes pamphlets. It was a lie he could justify if challenged. Why, he would argue, should he name his ex-wife and expose her to the inconvenience and anxiety of a visit from the SSP? There was no particular relevance in the fact that she or anyone else had received a pamphlet; the sheets must have been pushed through practically every door on the street. One lie wasn’t evidence of guilt. He was unlikely to be arrested because of one small lie. There was, after all, still law in England, at least for Britons.

  He moved down to the drawing-room and walked restlessly about the wide room, mysteriously aware of the unlit and empty storeys above and beneath him as if each of those silent rooms held a menace. He paused at a window overlooking the street and looked out over the wrought-iron balcony. A thin rain was falling. He could see silver shafts falling against the street lights and, far below, the dark tackiness of the pavement. The curtains opposite had been drawn and the flat stone façade showed no sign of life, not even a chink where the curtains met. Depression settled on him like a familiar heavy blanket. Weighted with guilt and memory and anxiety, he could almost smell the accumulated rubbish of the dead years. His confidence drained away and fear strengthened. He told himself that during the encounter he had thought only of himself, his safety, his cleverness, his self-respect. But they weren’t primarily interested in him, they were seeking Julian and the Five Fishes. He had given nothing away, he need feel no guilt about that, but still they had come to him, which meant they suspected he knew something. Of course they did. The Council had never really believed that his visit was entirely of his own volition. The SSP would come again; the next time the veneer of politeness would be thinner, the questions more searching, the outcome possibly more painful.

  How much more did they know than Rawlings had revealed? Suddenly it seemed to him that they hadn’t already pulled in the group for questioning. But perhaps they had. Was
that the reason for the call today? Were they already holding Julian and the group and testing how far he was involved? And surely they could get on to Miriam quickly enough. He remembered his question to the Council about conditions on the Isle of Man, and the reply: “We know; the question is, how do you?” They were looking for someone who had knowledge of conditions on the island; and with visitors forbidden and no letters to or from the island permitted, no publicity, how could that knowledge have been gained? The escape of Miriam’s brother would be on record. It was remarkable that once the Five Fishes began acting they hadn’t taken her in for questioning. But perhaps they had. Perhaps even now she and Julian were in their hands.

  His thoughts had come full circle and he felt for the first time an extraordinary loneliness. It wasn’t an emotion with which he was familiar. He both distrusted and resented it. Looking down over the empty street, he wished for the first time that there was someone, a friend he could trust, in whom he could confide. Before she had left him, Helena had said: “We live in the same house, but we’re like lodgers or guests in the same hotel. We never really talk.” Irritated by such a banal, predictable complaint, the commonplace lament of discontented wives, he had answered: “Talk about what? Here I am. If you want to talk now, I’m listening.”

  It seemed to him that it would be a comfort even to talk to her, to hear her reluctant and unhelpful response to his dilemma. And mixed with the fear, the guilt, the loneliness, there was a renewed irritation—with Julian, with the group, with himself that he had ever become involved. At least he’d done what they’d asked. He’d seen the Warden of England and then he’d warned Julian. It wasn’t his fault that the group hadn’t taken the warning. No doubt they would argue that he had an obligation to get a message to them, to let them know they were in danger. But they must know that they were in danger. And how could he warn them? He knew none of their addresses, where any of them worked or at what. The only thing he could do if Julian was taken would be to intercede with Xan on her behalf. But would he even know when she was arrested? It should be possible, if he searched, to find one of the gang, but how could he safely inquire without making the search obvious? From now on the SSP might even be keeping him under secret surveillance. There was nothing he could do but wait.