'I want to talk to him about the Organic Toilet. It's not working properly.'
'I don't suppose it's meant to,' said Wilt. 'The bloody thing is a glorified earth closet and all earth closets stink.'
'It doesn't stink. It has a composty smell, that's all, but it doesn't give off enough gas to cook with and John said it would.'
'It gives off enough gas to turn the downstairs loo into a death-chamber if you ask me. One of these days some poor bugger is going to light a cigarette in there and blow us all to Kingdom Come.'
'You're just biased against the Alternative Society in general,' said Eva. 'And who was it who was always complaining about my using chemical toilet cleaner? You were. And don't say you didn't.'
'I have enough trouble with society as it is without being bunged into an alternative one, and, while we are on the subject, there must be an alternative to poisoning the atmosphere with methane and sterilizing it with Harpic. Frankly I'd say Harpic had something to recommend it. At least you could flush the bloody stuff down the drain. I defy anyone to flush Nye's filthy crap-digester with anything short of dynamite. It's a turd-encrusted drainpipe with a barrel at the bottom.'
'It has to be like that if you're going to put natural goodness back into the earth.'
'And get food poisoning,' said Wilt.
'Not if you compost it properly. The heat kills all the germs before you empty it.'
'I don't intend to empty it. You had the beastly thing installed and you can risk your life in the cellar disgorging it when it's good and ready. And don't blame me if the neighbours complain to the Health Department again.'
They argued on until supper and Wilt took the quads up to bed and read them Mr Gumpy for the umpteenth time. By the time he came down the Nyes had arrived and were opening a bottle of stinging-nettle wine with an alternative corkscrew John Nye had fashioned from an old bedspring.
'Ah, hullo Henry,' he said with that bright, almost religious goodwill which all Eva's friends in the Self-Sufficiency world seemed to affect. 'Not a bad vintage, 1976, though I say it myself.'
'Wasn't that the year of the drought?' asked Wilt.
'Yes, but it takes more than a drought to kill stinging-nettles. Hardy little fellows.'
'Grow them yourself?'
'No need to. They grow wild everywhere. We just gathered them from the wayside.'
Wilt looked doubtful. 'Mind telling which side of the way you harvested this particular cru?'
'As far as I remember it was between Ballingbourne and Umpston. In fact, I'm sure of it.' He poured a glass and banded it to Wilt.
'In that case I wouldn't touch the stuff myself,' said Wilt handing it back. 'I saw them cropspraying there in 1976. These nettles weren't grown organically. They've been contaminated.'
'But we've drunk gallons of the wine,' said Nye. 'It hasn't done us any harm.'
'Probably won't feel the effects until you're sixty,' said Wilt, 'and then it will be too late. It's the same with fluoride, you know.'
And having delivered himself of this dire warning he went through to the lounge, now rechristened by Eva the 'Being Room', and found her deep in conversation with Bertha Nye about the joys and deep responsibilities of motherhood. Since the Nyes were childless and lavished their affection on humus, two pigs, a dozen chickens and a goat, Bertha was receiving Eva's glowing account with a stoical smile. Wilt smiled stoically back and wandered out through the
