'Er, is this some kind of club?'
'Not exactly a club, no,' said Garth, moving his head about and screwing up his face in a confidential way. 'It's more, well, we had been hoping to hold this private committee meeting in just a few minutes. Personal matters, you'll appreciate, er... '
'Oh... well... sorry..'
After an exchange of glances and no delay the two invaders set about leaving. The girl, who was rather tall and walked with a firm tread, looked briefly over at the seated three as she passed.
'And _shut__ the _door__,' said Peter with elaborate movements of his mouth.
When the door had shut, almost soundlessly, Garth puffed out his breath, Charlie said, 'Well done, Garth, you're a great man,' and Peter gave a short roar like a lion keeping in voice.
Malcolm made no sound. He thought the girl's eye had caught his for an instant, not of course out of anything but habit or even politeness, and yet it set him thinking. How many years was it since he had noticed a girl? And what exactly had he seen in this one? - ' she was not all that attractive. She was young, yes indeed, not that he could have said what age, but not so much young either as fresh, new, scarcely out of the wrapping-paper with no time for anything to have got at her and started using her up. It was hard to believe that there had been a time when he had lived his whole life among people like that with occasional unimpressive distractions from an aunt or a teacher or a ticket - collector.
'That, that _breed__ haven't necessarily been badly brought up, they're gross and boorish by nature.' It seemed that Peter thought the affray of a moment before had been far too lightly passed over.
'On the contrary,' said Malcolm, quite sharply for him. 'They blundered in rather crassly because they knew no better, but as soon as they grasped the situation their decent instincts took over and they were perfectly civil.'
'I'll go and invite them back in if you like,' said Charlie.
'It's my shout,' said Garth.
'No, mine,' said Peter.
But before he had got properly started on rising to his feet the door opened again, nearly as wide as before but smoothly and silently. There followed a frozen pause which a stranger might have found unsettling. Then a man came into the room and shut the door ceremoniously behind him, a man of the same sort of age as the company, a tall broad man, not fat, wearing an unusually thick naturalcoloured cardigan with scuffed leather buttons. This was Tarquin Jones, known as Tare, landlord of the Bible as long as any of the others could remember. On first sight of him standing behind the beer-pulls in the main bar, perhaps as far back as 1950, Malcolm had thought that he must have suffered a bereavement earlier that morning and had on the instant decided that he, Malcolm, was in some way responsible. But he had stood his ground and quite soon discovered that Tare always had that expression on, at least in public. Now, grasping the backs of Charlie's and Peter's chairs, he leaned over the table and looked them all in the eye one after the other.
'So you managed to dispose of the intolerable intrusion,' he said in a grave tone, at once diffusing a cloud of the ambiguity that hung about so much of what he said.
'They went like lambs,' said Charlie. 'No trouble at all.'
Tare nodded impatiently, already done with the matter. 'Last night,' he went on, lowering his voice, 'they were out there for an hour after I'd shut my house, revving up their bikes and the rock blaring out on their radios and yelling their heads off. They-'
'How extraordinary,' said Malcolm – 'as Charlie said they couldn't have been more tractable a moment ago. No hint of any... '
His voice died away as Tare looked round the circle again, this time with stoical weariness. 'I was thinking in fact,' he began, suddenly affecting a sunny forbearance, 'of a different group of young people altogether. Not the two who went in and out of here just now. No. Others. Who are given to behaving in the way I have tried to describe. As I was saying,' he went on, then said nothing for ten seconds or so before resuming in his original manner, 'They're not from round here, you know, most of 'em. Coming batting down the M4 from Cardiff or Bristol like fiends out of hell any time of the day or night, all with a chick behind there. I tell you, the other Sunday I was coming back from seeing my daughter in Penarth and a crowd of 'em caught up with me and started carving me up as I understand it's called, overtaking me and fanning out in front and then staying level three or four abreast and looking at me, staring at me for, I don't know, it seemed like minutes at a time and going at seventy. Seventy. And talking about me, shouting out to each other about me and pointing at me. I don't mind admitting to you,' he lowered his voice further, 'I was scared, honest I was. Scared.'
When he paused, none of his audience showed any sign of responding, then or at any future time. 'Because this isn't just high spirits or youthful exuberance - we're used to that. No no, what we're faced with is an orchestrated onslaught on our whole culture and way of life. And this concerns you gentlemen particularly. In your position it behoves you to take note and consider what is to be done. If the likes of you won't give a lead I don't know what is to become of us.'
'If you ask me,' said Malcolm, 'what could be at work there is an actual enmity towards the very structure of society.'
This observation seemed to take all the fight out of Tarc.
He said in a bleating tone and with a slight quaver, 'I'm very glad to find you hold that view, Mr Cellan- Davies, because it's rather 'the one I was trying to put forward myself.' Then as he gathered up the empty glasses his manner began to rally a little and grew almost friendly for a moment. 'Er, warm enough in here, are you? Miserable old day out. Now remember all of you, you've only to say the word and I'll bring in the fire.' No one said it, so he withdrew, pausing at the door for his closing line. 'I do beg you to consider seriously the points I've put to you.'
'Dear, dear, there's a character,' said Garth, very much the _son__ of thing he always said after one of Tare's visitations.
'I seemed to quieten him down all right,' said Malcolm modestly.
'Yes, you did, didn't you?' said Peter.
'He goes too far sometimes, old Tare,' said Charlie. 'We know we have to take it and so does he, so he really, shouldn't talk about orchestrated onslaughts and behoving, especially behoving. No, that was naughty.'
