The Children of Men

by P. D. James

  She wasted no time on greeting but said: “You’re alone?”

  “Yes. What is it? What’s happened?”

  “They’ve got Gascoigne. We’re on the run. Julian needs you. It wasn’t easy for her to come herself so she sent me.”

  He was surprised that he could match her excitement, the half-suppressed terror, with such calmness. But, then, this visit, although unforeseen, seemed but the natural culmination of the week’s mounting anxiety. He had known that something traumatic would happen, that some extraordinary demand would be made on him. Now the summons had come.

  When he didn’t reply, she said: “You told Julian you’d come if she wanted you. She wants you now.”

  “Where are they?”

  She paused for a second as if even now wondering if it was safe to tell him, then said: “They’re in a chapel at Widford outside Swinbrook. We’ve got Rolf’s car but the SSP will know the number. We need your car and we need you. We’ve got to get away before Gascoigne breaks and gives them the names.”

  Neither of them doubted that Gascoigne would break. Nothing as crude as physical torture would be necessary. The State Security Police would have the necessary drugs and the knowledge and ruthlessness to use them.

  He asked: “How did you get here?”

  She said impatiently: “Bicycle. I’ve left it outside your back gate. It was locked but luckily your neighbour had put out his dustbin. I climbed over. Look, there isn’t time to eat. You’d better grab what food you’ve got handy. We’ve got some bread, cheese, a few tinned goods. Where’s your car?”

  “In a garage off Pusey Lane. I’ll get my coat. There’s a bag hanging behind that cupboard door. The larder’s through there. See what food you can get together. And you’d better recork and put in the wine.”

  He went upstairs to fetch his heavy coat, and, mounting one more staircase to the small back room, slipped his diary into the large inner pocket. The action was instinctive; if asked, he would have had difficulty in explaining it even to himself. The diary wasn’t particularly incriminating; he had taken care over that. He had no premonition that he was leaving for more than a few hours the life which the diary chronicled and this echoing house enclosed. And even if the journey were the beginning of an odyssey, there were more useful, more valued, more relevant talismans which he could have slipped into his pocket.

  Miriam’s last call to him to hurry had been unnecessary. Time, he knew, was very short. If he were to get to the group to discuss with them how best he could use his influence with Xan, above all if he were to see Julian before her arrest, he must get on the road without a second’s unnecessary delay. Once the SSP knew that the group had flown they would turn their attention to him. His car registration was on record. The abandoned dinner, even if he could spare the time to throw it into the waste bin, would be evidence enough that he had left in a hurry. In his anxiety to get to Julian he felt no more than a slight concern for his own safety. He was still ex-adviser to the Council. There was one man in Britain who had absolute power, absolute authority, absolute control, and he was that man’s cousin. Even the State Security Police couldn’t in the end prevent him from seeing Xan. But they could prevent him from getting to Julian; that at least was within their power.

  Miriam, holding a bulging tote-bag, was waiting for him beside the front door. He opened it but she motioned him back, put her head against the doorpost and glanced quickly each way. She said: “It looks clear.”

  It must have rained. The air was fresh but the night dark, the street lamps cast their dim light over the grey stones, the rain-mottled roofs of the parked cars. On each side of the street curtains were drawn, except in one high window where a square of light shone out and he could see dark heads passing, hear the faint sound of music. Then someone in the room turned up the volume and suddenly there poured out over the grey street, piercingly sweet, mingled tenor, bass, soprano voices singing a quartet, surely Mozart, though he couldn’t recognize the opera. For one vivid moment of nostalgia and regret the sound took him back to the street he had first known as an undergraduate thirty years ago, to friends who had lodged here and were gone, to the memory of windows open to the summer night, young voices calling, music and laughter.

  There was no sign of prying eyes, no sign of life except for that one surge of glorious sound, but he and Miriam walked swiftly and quietly the thirty yards down Pusey Street, heads bent and in silence as if even a whisper or a heavy footfall could wake the street into clamorous life. They turned into Pusey Lane and she waited, still silently, while he unlocked the garage, started up the Rover and opened the door for her to slide quickly in. He drove fast down Woodstock Road but carefully and well within the speed limit. They were on the outskirts of the city before he spoke.

  “When did they take Gascoigne?”

  “About two hours ago. He was placing explosives to blow up a landing stage at Shoreham. There was to be another Quietus. The Security Police were waiting for him.”

  “Not surprisingly. You’ve been destroying the embarkation stages. Obviously they kept watch. So they’ve had him for two hours. I’m surprised they haven’t picked you up yet.”

  “They probably waited to question him until they got him back to London. And I don’t suppose they’re in much of a hurry, we’re not that important. But they will come.”

  “Of course. How do you know they’ve got Gascoigne?”

  “He rang to say what he was going to do. It was a private initiative, Rolf hadn’t authorized it. We always ring back when the job’s completed; he didn’t. Luke went round to his lodgings in Cowley. The State Security Police had been to search—at least, the landlady said someone had been to search. Obviously it was the State Security Police.”

  “That wasn’t sensible of Luke, to go to the house. They could have been waiting for him.”

  “Nothing we’ve done has been sensible, only necessary.”

  He said: “I don’t know what you’re expecting from me, but if you want me to help you’d better tell me something about yourselves. I know nothing except your forenames. Where do you live? What do you do? How did you meet?”

  “I’ll tell you, but I don’t see why it matters or why you need to know. Gascoigne is—was—a long-distance lorry-driver. That’s why Rolf recruited him. I think they met in a pub. He could distribute our leaflets over the whole of England.”

  “A long-distance driver who’s an explosives expert. I can see his usefulness.”

  “His granddad taught him about explosives. He was in the army and the two of them were close. He didn’t need to be an expert. There’s nothing very complicated about blowing up landing stages or anything else. Rolf is an engineer. He works in the electricity-supply industry.”

  “And what did Rolf contribute to the enterprise apart from not particularly effective leadership?”

  Miriam ignored the taunt. She went on: “You know about Luke. He used to be a priest. I suppose he still is. According to him, once a priest, always a priest. He hasn’t got a parish, because there aren’t many churches left that want his brand of Christianity.”

  “What brand is that?”

  “The sort the Church got rid of in the 1990s. The old Bible, the old prayer book. He takes the occasional service if people ask him. He’s employed at the botanical gardens and he’s learning animal husbandry.”

  “And why did Rolf recruit him? Hardly to provide spiritual consolation to the group?”

  “Julian wanted him.”

  “And you?”

  “You know about me. I was a midwife. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to be. After Omega I took a job at a supermarket check-out in Headington. Now I manage the store.”

  “And what do you do for the Five Fishes? Slip the pamphlets into packets of breakfast cereal?”

  She said: “Look, I said we weren’t sensible. I didn’t say we were daft. If we hadn’t been careful, if we were as incompetent as you make out, we wouldn’t have lasted this long.”

  He s
aid: “You’ve lasted this long because the Warden wanted you to last. He could have had you picked up months ago. He didn’t because you’re more useful to him at large than imprisoned. He doesn’t want martyrs. What he does want is the pretence of an internal threat to good public order. It helps buttress his authority. All tyrants have needed that from time to time. All he has to do is tell the people that there’s a secret society operating whose published manifesto may be beguilingly liberal but whose real aim is to close down the Isle of Man Colony, let loose ten thousand criminal psychopaths on an ageing society, send home all the Sojourners so that the rubbish isn’t collected and the streets are unswept, and ultimately overthrow the Council and the Warden himself.”

  “Why should people believe that?”

  “Why not? Between the five of you you’d probably like to do all those things. Rolf certainly would like to do the last. Under an undemocratic government there can be no acceptable dissent any more than there can be moderate sedition. I know you call yourselves the Five Fishes. You may as well tell me your code names.”

  “Rolf is Rudd, Luke is Loach, Gascoigne is Gurdon, I’m Minnow.”

  “And Julian?”

  “We had difficulty there. There’s only one fish we could find which begins with J, a John Dory.”

  He had to stop himself from laughing aloud. He said: “What on earth was the point of it? You’ve advertised to the whole country that you call yourselves the Five Fishes? I suppose that when Rolf telephones you he says this is Rudd calling Minnow, in the hope that if the SSP are listening they’ll tear their hair and bite the carpet with frustration.”

  She said: “All right, you’ve made your point. We didn’t actually use the names, not often anyway. It was just an idea of Rolf’s.”

  “I thought it might be.”

  “Look, cut out all this supercilious chat, will you? We know you’re clever and sarcasm is your way of showing us just how clever, but I can’t cope with it for the moment. And don’t antagonize Rolf. If you care at all about Julian, calm it, OK?”

  For the next few minutes they drove in silence. Glancing at her he saw that she was gazing at the road ahead with an almost passionate intensity as if expecting to find that it was mined. Her hands clutching the bag were taut, the knuckles white, and it seemed to him that there flowed from her a surge of excitement which was almost palpable. She had answered his questions, but as if her mind were elsewhere.

  Then she spoke, and when she used his name he felt a small shock at the unexpected intimacy. “Theo, there’s something I have to tell you. Julian said not to tell you until we were on our way. It wasn’t a test of your good faith. She knew you’d come if she sent for you. But if you didn’t, if there was something important to prevent you, if you couldn’t come, then I wasn’t to tell. There’d be no point in it anyway.”

  “Tell me what?” He gave her a long glance. She was still staring ahead, lips moving silently as if she were searching for words. “Tell me what, Miriam?”

  Still she didn’t look at him. She said: “You won’t believe me. I don’t expect you to believe me. Your disbelief isn’t important, because in little more than thirty minutes you’ll see the truth for yourself. Only don’t argue about it. I don’t want to cope right now with protestations, arguments. I’m not going to try to convince you, Julian will do that.”

  “Just tell me. I’ll decide whether to believe you.”

  And now she turned her head and looked at him. She said, her voice clear above the noise of the engine: “Julian is pregnant. That’s why she needs you. She’s going to have a child.”

  In the silence that followed he was aware firstly of a plunging disappointment followed by irritation and then disgust. It was repugnant to believe that Julian was capable of such self-deceiving nonsense or that Miriam should be fool enough to connive in it. At their first and only meeting at Binsey, brief though it had been, he had liked her, had thought her sensible and intelligent. He didn’t like having his judgement of a person so confounded.

  After a moment he said: “I won’t argue, but I don’t believe you. I’m not saying you’re deliberately lying, I believe you think it’s true. But it isn’t.”

  It used, after all, to be a common delusion. In the first years after Omega women all over the world believed themselves to be pregnant, displayed the symptoms of pregnancy, walked proud-bellied—he had seen them walking down the High Street in Oxford. They had made plans for the birth, had even gone into spurious labour, groaning and straining and bringing forth nothing but wind and anguish.

  After five minutes he said: “How long have you believed this story?”

  “I said I didn’t want to talk about it. I said you were to wait.”

  “You said I wasn’t to argue. I’m not arguing. I’m only asking one question.”

  “Since the baby quickened. Julian didn’t know until then. How could she? Then she spoke to me and I confirmed the pregnancy. I’m a midwife, remember? We’d thought it wise not to be together more than necessary during the last four months. If I’d seen her more often I should have known earlier. Even after twenty-five years, I should have known.”

  He said: “If you believe it—the unbelievable—then you’re taking it very calmly.”

  “I’ve had time to get used to the glory of it. Now I’m more concerned with the practicalities.”

  There was a silence. Then she said, as if reminiscing with all the time in the world: “I was twenty-seven at Omega and working in the maternity department of the John Radcliffe. I was doing a stint in the antenatal clinic at the time. I remember booking a patient for her next appointment and suddenly noticing that the page seven months ahead was blank. Not a single name. Women usually booked in by the time they’d missed their second period, some as soon as they’d missed one. Not a single name. I thought, what’s happening to the men in this city? Then I rang a friend who was working at Queen Charlotte’s. She said the same. She said she’d telephone someone she knew at the Rosie Maternity Hospital in Cambridge. She rang me back twenty minutes later. It was the same there. It was then I knew, I must have been one of the first to know. I was there at the end. Now I shall be there at the beginning.”

  They were coming into Swinbrook now and he drove more slowly, dimming the headlights, as if these precautions could somehow make them invisible. But the village was deserted. The waxy moon, half full, swayed against a sky of blue-grey trembling silk, pierced by a few high stars. The night was less dark than he had expected, the air still and sweet, with a grassy smell. In the pale moonlight the mellow stones gave out a faint glow which seemed to suffuse the air and he could clearly make out the shape of the houses, the high sloping roofs and the flower-hung garden walls. There were no lights in any of the windows and the village lay silent and empty as a deserted film-set, outwardly solid and permanent but ephemeral, the painted walls backed only by wooden supports and concealing the rotting debris of the departed crew. He had a momentary delusion that he would only have to lean against one of the walls and it would collapse in a crumble of plaster and snapping batons. And it was familiar. Even in this unreal light he could recognize the landmarks: the small green beside the pond with its huge overhanging tree and surrounding seat, the entrance to the narrow lane leading up to the church.

  He had been here before, with Xan, in their first year. It had been a hot day in late June when Oxford had become a place to escape from, her hot pavements blocked with tourists, her air stinking with car fumes and loud with the clatter of alien tongues, her peaceful quads invaded. They had been driving down the Woodstock Road with no clear idea of their destination when Theo had remembered his wish to see St. Oswald’s Chapel at Widford. It was as good a destination as any. Glad that the expedition had a purpose, they had taken the road to Swinbrook. The day, in memory, was an icon which he could conjure up to represent the perfect English summer: an azure almost cloudless sky, the haze of cow parsley, the smell of mown grass, the rushing air tearing at their hair. It could co
njure up other things too, more transitory, which, unlike the summer, had been lost for ever: youth, confidence, joy, the hope of love. They had been in no hurry. Outside Swinbrook there had been a village cricket match and they had parked the car and sat on the grass bank behind the dry-stone wall to watch, criticize, applaud. They had parked again where he parked now, beside the pond, had taken the same walk which he and Miriam would take, past the old post office, up the narrow cobbled lane bordered by the high, ivy-clad wall, to the village church. There had been a christening. A small procession of villagers was straggling up the path towards the porch, the parents at the head, the mother carrying the baby in its white flounced christening robe, the women in flowered hats, the men, a little self-conscious, perspiring in close-fitting blue and grey suits. He remembered thinking that the scene was timeless and had amused himself for a moment imagining earlier christenings, the clothes different but the country faces, with their mixture of serious purpose and anticipated pleasure, unchanged. He thought then, as he thought now, of time passing, inexorable, unforgiving, unstoppable time. But the thought then had been an intellectual exercise devoid of pain or nostalgia, since time still stretched ahead and for a nineteen-year-old seemed an eternity.

  Now, turning to lock the car, he said: “If the meeting place is St. Oswald’s Chapel the Warden knows it.”

  Her reply was calm: “But he doesn’t know that we do.”

  “He will when Gascoigne talks.”

  “Gascoigne doesn’t know either. This is a fall-back meeting place which Rolf kept to himself in case one of us was taken.”