they haven’t worked. Close down the State porn shops. Treat the Sojourners like human beings not slaves. You can do any of those things easily. The Warden can do them with one signature. That’s all I’m asking.”
Xan said: “It seems to this Council that you’re asking rather a lot. Your concern would have more weight with us if you were sitting, as you could be sitting, on this side of the table. Your position is no different from the rest of Britain. You desire the end but close your eyes to the means. You want the garden to be beautiful provided the smell of manure is kept well away from your fastidious nose.”
Xan got to his feet and, one by one, the rest of the Council followed. But he didn’t hold out his hand. Theo was aware that the Grenadier who had shown him in had moved quietly to his side as if in obedience to some secret signal. He almost expected a hand to clamp down on his shoulder. He turned without speaking and followed him out of the Council chamber.
The car was waiting. On seeing him the driver got out and opened the door. But suddenly Xan was at his side. He said to Hedges, “Drive to the Mall and wait for us at the Queen Victoria statue,” and, turning to Theo, he said: “We’ll walk in the park. Wait while I get my coat.”
He was back in less than a minute wearing the familiar tweed which he invariably wore for outdoor television shots, slightly waisted, with two capes, Regency style, which in the early 2000s had for a brief time become fashionable and expensive. The coat was old but he had kept it.
Theo could remember when he had first ordered it, their conversation: “You’re mad. All that for one coat.”
“It’ll last forever.”
“You won’t. Nor will the fashion.”
“I don’t care about fashions. 1 shall like the style better when no one else is wearing it.”
And no one was wearing it now.
They crossed the road into the park. Xan said: “You were unwise to come here today. There’s a limit to how far I can protect you, you or the people you’ve been consorting with.”
“I didn’t think I needed protection. I’m a free citizen consulting the democratically elected Warden of England. Why should I need protection, yours or anyone’s?”
Xan didn’t answer. On impulse Theo said: “Why do you do it? Why on earth do you want the job?” It was, he thought, a question that only he could, or dared to, ask.
Xan paused before replying, narrowing and focusing his eyes on the lake as if something invisible to other eyes had suddenly interested him. But surely, thought Theo, he didn’t need to hesitate. It must have been a question he’d thought over often enough. Then he turned, walked on, and said: “At first because I thought I’d enjoy it. The power, I suppose. But it wasn’t only that. I could never bear to watch someone doing badly what I knew I could do well. After the first five years I found I was enjoying it less, but by then it was too late. Someone has to do it and the only people who want to are the four round that table. Would you prefer Felicia? Harriet? Martin? Carl? Carl could do it, but he’s dying. The other three couldn’t keep the Council together, let alone the country.”
“So that’s why. Disinterested public duty?”
“Have you ever known anyone to give up power, real power?”
“Some people do.”
“And have you seen them, the walking dead? But it’s not the power, not entirely. I’ll tell you the real reason. I’m not bored. Whatever else I am now, I’m never bored.”
They walked on in silence, skirting the lake. Then Xan said: “The Christians believe that the Last Coming has arrived except that their God is gathering them one by one instead of descending more dramatically in the promised clouds of glory. This way heaven can control the intake. It makes it easier to process the white-robed company of the redeemed. I like to think of God concerning Himself with logistics. But they’d give up their illusion to hear the laughter of one child.”
Theo didn’t reply. Then Xan said quietly: “Who are these people? You’d better tell me.”
“There are no people.”
“All that farrago in the Council room. You didn’t think that out for yourself. I don’t mean that you’re incapable of thinking it out. You’re capable of a great deal more than that. But you haven’t cared for three years, and you didn’t care greatly before then. You’ve been got at.”
“Not by anyone specifically. I live in the real world even in Oxford. I queue at cash registers, I shop, I take buses, I listen. People sometimes talk to me. Not anyone I care about, just people. What I have is communication with strangers.”
“Which strangers? Your students?”
“Not students. No one in particular.”
“Odd that you’ve become so approachable. You used to go round with an impervious membrane of privacy, your private invisible caul. When you talk to these mysterious strangers, ask them if they can do my job better than I. If so, tell them to come and say so to my face; you’re not a particularly persuasive emissary. It would be a pity if we had to close down the adult education school at Oxford. There’ll be no option if the place becomes a focus for sedition.”
“You can’t mean that.”
“It’s what Felicia would say.”
“Since when have you taken any notice of Felicia?”
Xan smiled his inward reminiscent smile. “You’re right, of course. I don’t take any notice of Felicia.”
Crossing the bridge which spanned the lake, they paused to gaze towards Whitehall. Here, unchanged, was one of the most exciting views which London had to offer, English and yet exotic, the elegant and splendid bastions of Empire seen across shimmering water and framed in trees. Theo recalled lingering at just this spot a week after he had joined the Council, remembered contemplating the same view, Xan wearing the same coat. And he could recall every word they had said as clearly as if it had just been spoken.
“You should give up the compulsory testing of sperm. It’s degrading and it’s been done now for over twenty years without success. Anyway, you only test healthy, selected males. What about the others?”
“If they can breed, good luck to them, but while there are limited facilities for the testing, let’s keep it for the physically and morally fit.”
“So you’re planning for virtue as well as health?”
“You could say, yes. No one with a criminal record or a family record of offending ought to be allowed to breed, if we have a choice.”
“So the criminal law is to be the measure of virtue?”
“How else can it be measured? The State can’t look into men’s hearts. All right, it’s rough and ready and we’ll disregard small delinquencies. But why breed from the stupid, the feckless, the violent?”
“So in your new world there will be no room for the penitent thief?”
“One can applaud his penitence without wanting to breed from him. But look, Theo, it isn’t going to happen. We plan for the sake of planning, pretending that man has a future. How many people really believe that we shall find live seed now?”
“And suppose you discover somehow that an aggressive psychopath has fertile sperm. Will you use that?”
“Of course. If he’s the only hope, we’ll use him. We’ll take what we can get. But the mothers will be carefully chosen for health, intelligence, no criminal record. We’ll try to breed out the psychopathy.”
“Then there are the pornography centres. Are they really necessary?”
