'You asked me to try to get some selected shits together and bring them - '
'Oh, that. Never mind, it was just a thought. Another time. How was Posturing Ponce?'
'Quite good, actually. Well, he was terrible at the unveiling thing, but came back stoutly later. There was a collector's-item Welsh-American queer there he brushed off in fine style.'
'Brushed him off? You mean he - '
'No, no. He invited Alun to go and stay with him in his bachelor quarters in Pennsylvania or Philadelphia or wherever it is.'
'I suppose there's no chance of him going? Because that really would be a turn-up for the book.' For a moment Victor's voice went falsetto with laughter. 'PP in Pennsylvania with one of that lot.' That lot stayed in the third person in dealings between the brothers. 'Too much to ask. Well- enjoy your pub-crawl. You'll be in later, will you?'
'Probably, but for once I'm not too sure when.' 'Any time you like, Charles.'
When he got back to it the party seemed to have dwindled a good deal, or perhaps had merely spread out to the edges. At any rate the mayoral squad was on the point of leaving; the chap who had liked the sculpture was nowhere to be seen. An old man with a pink-and-white complexion - pink round the nose and eyes, white elsewhere - stood by the wall opening and shutting his jaws at a great rate. Large oval dishes of uncommonly horrible finger- snacks, a vivid green or orange in colour, lay her~ and there almost untouched, and quite right too, thought Charlie, also quite understandable now that everybody was either too fat or living off chaff and whey.
The drink, on the other hand, had been very popular, so much so that at the moment there was no Scotch available and no one to serve it anyway. Charlie placed himself at the corner of the bar where he could grab the waitress on her return. Two others with empty glasses had taken up the same station, a fellow in his sixties with a small face that seemed the smaller for the elaborately strutted and cantilevered pair of spectacles on it, and a younger, dark-complexioned man of melancholy, thoughtful appearance, not unlike Garth, a common Welsh type not often noted for either quality. Both looked up at Charlie's arrival and nodded to him in a subdued but friendly way, seeming to know him, and quite likely they did know him, had at least seen him more than once in the way of business, at a function of this sort, in a club, in a bar. Round here you had a pretty good idea of who everybody was, which helped on some kinds of contact without doing anything for others.
Accordingly the two pursued their conversation while going out of their way not to exclude Charlie from it. 'You'll find the same everywhere,' the older man was saying, 'not just in our chosen field. Did you see about that ambassador bloke who brought home too much wine?'
'No I didn't see that, I must have missed it,' said the dark man, glancing at Charlie, and Charlie nodded to show he had missed it too.
'Well, you couldn't have a more perfect illustration of the point under discussion. When you retired, you see, from your last ambassadorial post you got a duty-free allowance, known as your cellar, a certain amount of wine you were allowed to bring back to England as a privilege.' The exact number of bottles was never fixed: it was left to your discretion, and everyone was happy. Until one fine day Sir This-and-that turns up with ten, twenty times what was reasonable. And that was it. As from the next day, no more allowance. No more cellar.'
'Ruined it for everyone. What appalling selfishness,'
'Indeed. I hope I needn't ram home the moral. In other areas the custom has grown up over the years of people in certain positions being deemed to be entitled to certain privileges. Of-and this is the point - a modest and limited order. And everyone is happy, until... '
'Until somebody goes beyond what is reasonable.'
'Exactly. Human greed,' said the older man, staring into vacancy through his spectacles. 'Human greed. Well,' he went on with humorous impatience, 'where's this bloody Scotch we've heard so much about?'
'What's the use of sitting in the dispensary when there's nothing for a sore throat?'
'A bit thick, I call it,' said Charlie.
'Ah - wait a minute. Remedy in sight. About time too. Grateful for small mercies. The relief of Mafeking. I knew you loved me, darling.' The three of them said all this and much more, until the glasses were refilled and the water, soda and ice had gone round. Everyone was very relaxed.
'Thankfully,' said the older man - 'thankfully the picture is not uniformly bleak. I'm thinking of one bright spot in particular. Aneirin Pignatelli.' This set the dark man nodding with his eyes closed. 'You know who I'm talking about, of course?'
'Well, naturally,' said Charlie, himself nodding. He was nearly sure he had heard the name somewhere.
'And I take it most people are sufficiently aware of what happened to him.'
Charlie went on nodding.
'He showed himself to be a man of the highest integrity.
When he came out' - the pause here was not really necessary - 'he couldn't get into his front room for the Bowers.'
At this stage Charlie did show puzzlement, slightly, briefly, unintentionally. In an instant the last speaker turned his small face aside. 'From all the people he hadn't brought down with him,' said the other with a hint of vexation.
Charlie hastened to say 'Yes yes' and make a silly-of-me gesture, but it was too late. The spell of something like intimacy was shattered. The interloper took himself off, though not before he had topped up his glass, with a couple of cold stares to speed him on his way.
Looking vaguely about, Charlie saw Alun and Gwen at the far end of the main room. As he came up behind Gwen he heard Alun say in his quick style, 'I try to get out of lecturing whenever I can these days. Would a reading do instead?'
'Oh, er, I should think so,' said Gwen, turning. 'I'll let you know.'
