'Very wise,' said Braintree. 'I hate to think what Eva would do if she found you knew you were passionately in love with the au pair.'
'If what she has done for lesser reasons is anything to go by so do I,' said Wilt and left it at that.
'Any message for the Tech?' asked Braintree.
'Yes,' said Wilt, 'just tell them that I'll be back in circulation...Christ, what a word...when it's safe for me to sit down without back-firing.'
'I doubt if they'll understand what you mean.'
'I don't expect them to. I have emerged from this ordeal with the firm conviction that the last thing anyone will believe is the truth. It is far safer to lie in this vile world. Just say I am suffering from a virus. Nobody knows what a virus is but it covers a multitude of ailments.'
Braintree went back to the house leaving Wilt thinking dark thoughts about the truth. In a godless, credulous, violent and random world it was the only touchstone he had ever possessed and the only weapon. But like all his weapons it was double-edged and, from recent experience, served as much to harm him as to enlighten others. It was something best kept to oneself, a personal truth, probably meaningless in the long run but at least providing a moral self-sufficiency more effective than Eva's practical attempts to the same end in the garden. Having reached that conclusion and condemned Eva's world concern and PAPP, Wilt turned these findings on their head and accused himself of a quietism and passivity in the face of an underfed and deprived world. Eva's actions might not be more than sops to a liberal conscience but for all that they helped to sustain conscience and set an example to the quads which his own apathy denied. Somewhere there had to be a golden mean between charity beginning at home and improving the lot of starving millions. Wilt was damned if he knew where that mean was. It certainly wasn't to be found in doctrinaire shits like Bilger. Even John and Bertha Nye were trying to make a better world, not destroy a bad one. And what was he, Henry Wilt, doing? Nothing. Or rather, turning into a beer-swilling, self-pitying Peeping Tom without a worthwhile achievement to his credit. As if to prove that he had at least the courage of his garb, Wilt left the summerhouse and walked back to the house in full view of the conservatory, only to discover that the meeting had ended and Eva was putting the quads to bed.
When she came downstairs she found Wilt sitting at the kitchen table stringing runner beans.
'Wonders never cease,' she said. After all these years you're actually helping in the kitchen. You're not feeling ill or something?'
'I wasn't,' said Wilt, 'but now you mention it...'
'Don't go. There's something I want to discuss with you.'
'What?' said Wilt, stopping in the doorway.
'Upstairs,' said Eva, raising her eyes to the ceiling meaningfully.
'Upstairs?'
'You know what,' said Eva, increasing the circumspection.
'I don't,' said Wilt. 'At least I don't think I do, and if your tone of voice means anything, I don't want to. If you suppose for one moment I'm mechanically capable of...'
'I don't mean us. I mean them.'
'Them?'
'Miss Mueller and her friends.'
'Oh, them,' said Wilt and sat down again. 'What about them?'
'You must have heard,' said Eva.
'Heard what?' said Wilt.
'Oh, you know. You're just being difficult.'
'Lord,' said Wilt, 'we're back in Winnie-The-Pooh language. If you mean has it dawned on my
