the park.”
“Do you believe in Him? Do you believe He exists?”
We had drawn up now at the door of the old Foreign Office. Before getting out to open the door for me he looked round and gazed into my face. “Perhaps His experiment went spectacularly wrong, sir. Perhaps He’s just baffled. Seeing the mess, not knowing how to put it right. Perhaps not wanting to put it right. Perhaps He only had enough power left for one final intervention. So He made it. Whoever He is, whatever He is, I hope He burns in His own hell.”
He spoke with extraordinary bitterness, and then his face assumed its cold, immobile mask. He stood to attention and opened the door of the car.
The Grenadier on duty inside the door was one Theo recognized. He said, “Good morning, sir,” and smiled almost as if there had been no lapse of three years and Theo was entering as of right to take his appointed place. Another Grenadier, this time unknown to him, came forward and saluted. Together they mounted the ornate staircase.
Xan had rejected Number Ten Downing Street as both his office and residence, and had chosen instead the old Foreign and Commonwealth building overlooking St. James’s Park. Here he had his private flat on the top floor, where, as Theo knew, he lived in an ordered and comfortable simplicity which is only achievable when buttressed by money and staff. The room at the front of the building, used twenty- five years ago by the Foreign Secretary, had from the first been both Xan’s office and the Council chamber.
Without knocking, the Grenadier opened the door and loudly announced his name.
He found himself facing, not Xan, but the full Council. They were sitting at the same small oval table he remembered, but along one side only and closer than was usual. Xan was in the middle, flanked by Felicia and Harriet, with Martin on the far left, Carl on his right. A single vacant chair had been placed immediately opposite Xan. It was a calculated ploy obviously intended to disconcert him, and momentarily it succeeded. He knew that the five pairs of watching eyes hadn’t missed his involuntary hesitation at the door, the flush of annoyance and embarrassment. But surprise gave way to a spurt of anger and the anger was helpful. They had taken the initiative, but there was no reason why they should retain it.
Xan’s hands were lying lightly on the table, the fingers curved. Theo saw the ring with a shock of recognition and knew that he was meant to recognize it. It could hardly have been concealed. Xan was wearing on the third finger of his left hand the Coronation Ring, the wedding ring of England, the great sapphire surrounded with diamonds and surmounted with a cross of rubies. He looked down at it, smiled, and said: “An idea of Harriet’s. It would look appallingly vulgar if one didn’t know that it was real. The people need their baubles. Don’t worry, I’m not proposing to have myself anointed by Margaret Shivenham in Westminster Abbey. I doubt whether I could get through the ceremony with the appropriate gravity. She looks so ridiculous in her mitre. You’re thinking that there was a time when I wouldn’t have worn it.”
Theo said: “A time when you wouldn’t have felt the need to wear it.” He could have added: “Nor the need to tell me that it was Harriet’s idea.”
Xan motioned towards the empty chair. Theo took it and said: “I asked for a personal interview with the Warden of England and I understood that was what I was getting. I’m not applying for a job, nor am I a candidate for a viva voce.”
Xan said: “It’s three years since we met or spoke. We thought you might like to meet old—what would you say, Felicia?—friends, comrades, colleagues?”
Felicia said: “I would say acquaintances. I never understood Dr. Faron’s precise function when he was Warden’s Adviser and it hasn’t become clearer with his absence and the passing of three years.”
Woolvington looked up from his doodling. The Council must have been sitting for some time. He had already massed a company of foot soldiers. He said: “It never was clear. The Warden asked for him and that was good enough for me. He didn’t contribute very much, as I remember, but neither did he hinder.”
Xan smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s in the past. Welcome back. Say what you’ve come to say. We’re all friends here.” He made the banal words sound like a threat.
There was no point in circumlocution. Theo said: “I was at the Quietus at Southwold last Wednesday. What I saw was murder. Half of the suicides looked drugged and those who did know what was happening didn’t all go willingly. I saw women dragged on to the boat and shackled. One was clubbed to death on the beach. Are we culling our old people now like unwanted animals? Is this murderous parade what the Council means by security, comfort, pleasure? Is this death with dignity? I’m here because I thought you ought to know what’s being done in the Council’s name.”
He told himself: I’m being too vehement. I’m antagonizing them before I’ve really started. Keep it calm.
Felicia said: “That particular Quietus was mismanaged. Things got out of control. I’ve asked for a report. It’s possible that some of the guards exceeded their duties.”
Theo said: “Someone exceeded his duties. Hasn’t that always been the excuse? And why do we need armed guards and shackles if these people are going willingly to their death?”
Felicia explained again with barely controlled impatience: “That particular Quietus was mismanaged. Appropriate action will be taken against those responsible. The Council notes your concern, your rational, indeed laudable, concern. Is that all?”
Xan appeared not to have heard her question. He said: “When my turn comes I propose to take my lethal capsule comfortably in bed at home and preferably on my own. I’ve never quite seen the point of the Quietus, although you seemed keen on them, Felicia.”
Felicia said: “They began spontaneously. About twenty eighty-year-olds in a home in Sussex decided to organize a coach party to Eastbourne, then, hand in hand, jumped over Beachy Head. It became something of a fashion. Then one or two Local Councils thought they ought to meet an obvious need and organize the thing properly. Jumping off cliffs may be an easy way out for the old people but someone has the unpleasant job of clearing away the bodies. One or two of them actually survived for a short time, I believe. The whole thing was messy and unsatisfactory. Towing them out to sea was obviously more sensible.”
Harriet leaned forward, her voice persuasive, reasonable: “People need their rites of passage and they want company at the end. You have the strength to die alone, Warden, but most people find it comforting to feel the touch of a human hand.”
Theo said: “The woman I saw die didn’t get the touch of a human hand except, briefly, mine. What she got was a pistol crack on her skull.”
Woolvington did not bother to look up from his doodling. He muttered: “We all die alone. We shall endure death as once we endured birth. You can’t share either experience.”
Harriet Marwood turned to Theo. “The Quietus is, of course, absolutely voluntary. There are all the proper safeguards. They have to sign a form—in duplicate, is it, Felicia?”
Felicia said curtly: “In triplicate. One copy for the Local Council, one to the nearest relation so that they can claim the blood money, and one is retained by the old person and collected when they board the boat. That goes to the Office of Census and Population.”
Xan said: “As you see, Felicia has it all under control. Is that all, Theo?”
“No. The Man Penal Colony. Do you know what’s happening there? The murders, the starvation, the complete breakdown of law and order.”
Xan said: “We do. The question is, how do you know?”
Theo didn’t reply, but in his heightened awareness the question sounded a clear warning bell.
Felicia said: “I seem to remember that you were present at our meeting in your somewhat ambiguous capacity when the setting up of the Man Penal Colony was under discussion.
