For the Good of the State

regretting only that he was too big to be edible, then turning away and defecating nervously on the stained and pitted metal, which had once been some Sunday driver’s pride-and-joy.

Tom searched for something just slightly better than filth on which to place his good clean shoes, wondering as he did so what Audley was wearing (and, for God’s sake, what shoes Comrade Professor Panin and his minder might have laced up this morning, in all innocence!). But long before he reached the flagstones set in the overgrown grass in front of the farmhouse door he gave up the attempt, and walked through the muck regardless.

(The trouble was, he decided, that the farm was huddled into the hillside, halfway down on its own platform across which all the rainwater from the top evidently made its way, unregulated by anything so outrageously Roman or modern as a drainage system, so it seemed.)

There was no bell or button on the door, which had last been painted when King George VI (or maybe his father) had been on the throne. But there was nothing to push or pull, so he rapped on it with his knuckles instead.

No answer—no sound from within. But he had seen that movement at the low window on his left, with its half-drawn faded curtains.

So he knocked again, more sharply than before.

(The incongruous ambience of this squalid place, he thought, was its clashing colours: against the old natural greens and red-browns Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State and greys of grass and mud, and roof and wall, there was the garish yellow of the ranks of plastic drums outside the barn and the vivid orange of the plastic sacks he could see inside it; and the bright red of the brand-new tractor also inside it, beside the sacks—all probably paid for by the EEC, yet as out-of-place and unnatural as the empty squeezee Fairy Liquid and Palmolife pressure containers on the cabbage-stalk-fish-nead garbage heap through which he’d walked just now.)

The door-latch snapped behind him, making him jump just as he had reached Audley in his survey (Audley stamping through the mud, oblivious of it!). But the door didn’t open, it only shivered as he turned back to it; but then the bolts inside cracked, and the key inside clicked, and the door began to open, scraping on the floor beneath it.

Tom composed his face into a mask of obsequious inquiry even before he could see anyone in the opening.

‘Good morning—’ (Could the farmer be Mr Bodger? But could anyone be Mr Bodger?) ‘—sir… I’m sorry to bother—’ (or should it be bodger? he thought insanely) ‘—to bother you, so early in the morning, sir.’

No answer, not even a grunt. Only the shadowy presence of someone taller than his own ceiling, therefore stooped under it, and a waft of smell composed of innumerable elements, in which damp walls predominated but paraffin and unwashed clothes and fried bacon fat also played their parts, among other things which he could not even guess at.

Tom tried to continue without breathing in too much of it. ‘Do you Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State mind if…’ The incongruity of the request enveloped him, like the smell ‘… if I go to see your castle, sir?’ The incongruity increased beyond his imagination as he thought of Gilbert de Merville riding to Mountsorrel Castle this way, on his iron-shod destrier, eight hundred years ago— eight-and-a-half hundred years ago— in this same mud, if not this same world.

The presence shook itself. ‘Cross the fields. Follow the track.

’Bout ‘alf a mile. You can’t miss it—church is on t’other side, opposite.’

Tom was overwhelmed by gratitude and relief, so that he felt in his pocket willingly. ‘There is a charge, I presume?’

‘No charge.’ The presence also seemed relieved, as though he had expected someone worse, in direct descent from Joscelin himself, demanding money rather than offering it. ‘Jus’ make sure you shuts the gates…’cause I’ve got beasts up there, that way.‘

‘Of course.’ Tom remembered Panin, and offered what was in his hand nevertheless. ‘I have two friends—two foreign gentlemen—

who are also coming shortly… If you would be so good as to direct them… This is for your trouble, sir—’

The door started to close, with the bank note ignored. ‘No trouble.

Jus’ so they closes the gates, that’s all.’ The words just managed to escape as it snapped shut, and as Tom turned away he heard the key click in the lock and the bolts rattle back top and bottom.

He crossed the yard diagonally, through a mixture of what looked like one part of Exmoor mud to three parts of cow-dung, to where Audley stood unconcernedly in a clump of dead nettles beside Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State another antique farm-gate which was secured to its post by a loop of bright orange plastic rope.

The old man regarded him quizzically. “This is the right place, then?‘

‘Yes.’ As he unhooked the gate he observed that Audley’s shoes were only slightly less mud-and-dung encrusted than his own. But they were stout heavy country shoes, and Audley didn’t seem to mind, anyway; if anything, he sounded much more polite and friendly than earlier, when he’d been in relative comfort. Perhaps the sight of all the piles of refuse reminded him of his beloved compost heaps. ‘This way—about half a mile.’

‘Indeed?’ Audley waited while he closed the gate. ‘Now, tell me, Tom… what gave you the idea of this particular rendezvous?

Rather than any other?’

Tom winced. It had seemed an innocently interesting idea, both in his head and on the map, after reading Panin’s note the night before. ‘I was rather hoping you weren’t going to ask that.’ He studied the deeply-rutted track with distaste. ‘Shall we walk on the grass?’

‘Yes. That would be the sensible thing to do,’ agreed Audley. “I rather approve of it, that’s all.‘

‘Approve of it—?’ Tom failed to avoid a rich new cow-pat, and slid dangerously in it for a second before he regained his balance.

‘Ye-ess. In the open, and nice and private, like he wants. But make the bugger suffer a bit for his privacy. Yes…