Implosion, page 21
“Yes?” He was taken aback by the sight of a woman at the door. “What do you want?”
The woman looked up. For a second or two, John stared, then the color drained from his face. He looked at Julia, the puffy face, pale with fatigue, the disordered hair, a dreadful parody of the woman now in his bed. He started to stammer, “Ju—Julia!”
Julia, desperately controlling herself, felt no emotion at the sight of him. His tousled hair, lightly streaked with gray, his unshaven face, they meant nothing to her, except as a source of help. Almost timidly, her voice unsteady, she said, “May I come in?”
John drew a deep breath, and stood back. She slipped past, making no attempt to touch or kiss him. The idea did not even occur to her.
Silent and tense, she stood in the middle of the living room, twisting the strap of her handbag, watching his face as he came in. They looked at each other, neither knowing where to begin.
“Darling, who is it?” Mary spoke from the bedroom.
Julia’s expression did not alter, but her shoulders seemed to sag, and there was a slight tremor in her lips.
John ran a hand through his hair. “Do sit down, Julia.” He spoke politely, as to a stranger.
She sank down in an armchair, making no attempt to undo her coat or remove her headscarf, damp wisps of hair hung down the sides of her face. Her shoes and stockings were dirty, mud-splashed. He took in her condition at a glance, bent down and put on the electric fire.
“Don’t talk just yet. I’ll get some tea.”
“What’s going on, am I missing a party, or something?” Mary emerged in the act of tying the cord of her frilly, frivolous robe, warm and flushed from bed, young … Julia did not look up, but Mary only needed the merest glimpse.
“My God!” She spoke slowly, utterly amazed. There was silence for a few seconds, broken by John’s departure to the kitchen. Mary was completely off-balance. There was a silly, almost vacuous expression on her face.
Julia, at that moment, had not the slightest interest. For forty-eight hours—longer—shock had been piled on shock. The final, fortuitous meeting with a postman outside the Stanhope Mews house had reduced life to more elemental matters. A hot drink, a bed, secure from the MOHS was all she wanted. True, the sound of Mary’s voice had shocked her, added to her personal sense of loneliness, but it all came to her through the gray film of fatigue …
Mary recovered enough to take a cigarette from a box and light it. The action seemed to put her in gear; she called John in the kitchen, “If the kettle’s on, leave the rest—I’ll do it. You go and get some clothes on.” She watched as he went into the bedroom, and shut the door behind him. She picked up the cigarette box, “Cigarette?”
Julia made no answer.
“Don’t blame John too much. Come to that, don’t blame me too much, either—”
Slowly Julia shook her head, still she did not look up. Her voice was infinitely weary, pleading, “Let it go—let it go. I don’t want trouble; I want so little …” Her voice trailed away, and she did not speak for a while. “I don’t blame anyone for anything, just let me rest.”
The mundane whistle of the kettle intervened, and Mary disappeared into the kitchen. The room was silent, and Julia, staring at the glow of the electric fire, was almost asleep when her sister returned with the tea. Mary took a cup to her. Julia took the cup with both dirty hands. For the first time she looked at Mary full-faced, and there was a very faint trace of a bitter smile as she saw Mary’s expression, a blend of shock and pity.
“Don’t bother to tell me. I know—God! How I know!” She drank the tea with almost animal avidity, the cup clutched in both hands. She held it out for more, and when it was filled, drank that with equal speed. Tea was good. Nice, dependable tea. Didn’t let you down. Abruptly she said, “Where’s Roger?”
It was Mary’s turn to look away. In short, hard sentences she told her sister.
“Poor old Roger!” Julia laughed unsteadily, “No! Not poor old Roger—lucky old Roger! Poor you, poor me, poor everyone, but lucky old Roger, lucky old Margie!” She gave a high-pitched giggle.
“Cut that out!” Mary was cold, incisive. “What d’you want?”
Julia turned her red-rimmed eyes upon her sister, and shook her head again. The momentary animation induced by the tea had gone.
John returned, dressed in shirt and trousers. He sought refuge in his professional manner. “No talking now. You want a bath and bed.”
“No, no bath, bed.” Julia’s words were slurred. “First, there’s something, something …” she was concentrating hard, “must say it …” Then she remembered, and reached up, took John’s hand in a surprisingly strong grip. “Promise you won’t tell anyone—promise?” She tried to shake his hand from side to side, but the effort was too much, “You must promise …”
He helped her to her feet, “One question I must ask, Julia.” His voice was soft, “Did you see anyone as you came in?”
Julia called up her last reserves of strength, “No, no one there. I was careful, learnt a lot lately.” She stood, swaying very slightly and stared with great intensity at him, “Don’t fail me, John. You were all the world to me … Diana … you owe me that much … promise?”
He was inexpressibly moved by her expression and her words. “Don’t worry, Julia, you have my word, my promise. Now, sleep.” He led her to the spare room. In minutes she was asleep.
Mary, who had helped her remove her coat and dress, returned to the living room, where John sat, staring at nothing.
“I can’t believe it,” said Mary at last. “She’s a middle-aged woman. It’s impossible!”
“Not if you’ve had eighteen children in five years it isn’t!” His voice was hard, metallic.
“What are you going to do?”
“Do? Nothing.” He did not want to talk. “Yet.”
But life had to go on. In silence, John got ready as usual, although he refused breakfast. There was no time, for his Ministry car was waiting, and he did not feel like eating. At the door he stopped.
“Stay with her; let no one in. No one.” It was an order. “I’ll try to get back early, but if you have to ring me for any reason, no mention of her, or the fact that there is anyone here.”
Mary smiled, “Don’t you worry, either, I can cope. She was right, you—we—owe her something, poor dear.”
John’s attitude softened, “Good girl. You’re marvelous, Mary.”
With John gone, Mary peeped in to see her sister. The plump face, relaxed in sleep, looked younger. All the same …
Quietly Mary shut the door. For several minutes she stared at herself in a looking glass. She ran one hand lightly down the line of her cheek.
“Good God,” she said at last.
6
Sheer pressure of work had sustained Bart in other personal crises, and although it was not as bad as it had been in the early days, there was still more than enough work to force the problem of Julia, and his emotional attitude to her, to the back of his mind.
Everyone had settled down to the long hard slog predicted by Farmer. Bart still worked at least five days a week, but the character of his work had changed. The National Schools gave little trouble, and Homes, now controlled by the MOHS gave him, personally, little concern. More and more he was involved with Farmer, as his deputy, spending long hours with the Premier grasping, with some repugnance, the intricate shifts, the tricks, the subtle pressures and expediences of the highest office in the land.
But this morning, as for three mornings a week, he began as Minister of Health and Regeneration, Chairman of the National Redundancy Committee.
It had long been obvious that when the population sank to its lowest ebb of some five millions in the late nineteen nineties, these few would have to be regrouped, a process that could not start too soon, if disruption was to be kept to a minimum.
London, in 1970, had a population of eight and a half million. In the late nineties it would be under eight hundred thousand. Scattered at random over the Metropolis, they could not hope to keep the complex machine running. London would be far too big, and it would be far too big long before then. Britain had grown to accommodate nearly sixty million people, now it had to be cut back to a viable community of five million, and the job done in not much more than twenty years.
So the Redundancy Committee was born. They in turn charged the Regional Planning Authorities with producing schemes for their areas, and the Committee, which included Agriculture, Trade, Transport, Economic and Forward Planning as well as Bart’s Ministry, accepted, modified or rejected these schemes as they thought best. Less exalted subcommittees considered appeals against the decisions the Committee took, resubmitting the more intractable problems when necessary.
By pre-PROLIX standards, the work went at a vast speed. It had to. In less than three weeks from the original proposal to declare a town redundant, the decision, the appeal and its acceptance or rejection would be dealt with. Farmer’s Government had been strengthened by the 1976 elections. The New Britain Party held all its original gains, plus one or two more seats. This was not, admittedly, because of greater enthusiasm for the Party, there just was not the opposition. Farmer made no great promises or proposals before the election. The Party line was “we will do what has to be done,” and that was all. Judging by the chaos in certain countries abroad, they were not serving Britain badly. One new measure he did announce was his intention to hold future elections under a proportional representation system. Parliament itself would in time reduce to something under a hundred members.
So the Redundancy Committee, backed by the election results, worked on, with a peculiarly British compound of dictatorship and democracy, hacking relentlessly at the fabric of the nation, built up over two thousand years.
The Southeast Region, for example, was tied to London, and included Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, Middlesex, parts of Essex, and Hertfordshire. The population in 1970 had been some twenty-two million. The estimated allocation for Zero Year, the lowest point, was one and a quarter million. London, the capital, a center of industry, trade and communications, would have half a million. All other towns in the region, except Guildford, Maidstone, Southampton, Dover and Horsham were declared redundant, the rest were condemned to death, the final obsequities not later than 1995. The local opposition was intense, but unavailing, for the stark facts were unanswerable.
The five surviving towns would have average populations of eighty thousand each. The remaining three hundred thousand would be spread throughout the region in smaller communities of roughly two thousand each, and this involved a particularly hard decision, one that Farmer had to make.
This was that smaller towns could not be saved by downgrading. For instance, Sevenoaks was to die. A unit for seventeen thousand people could not be cut down to two thousand. Nearby Westerham would be the local center instead. Many of the larger houses, scattered round the village, could easily be demolished so as not to impede the local reforestation scheme.
And thus Bart and his colleagues spent that morning, working on the far southwest. Truro was to be the only center west of Plymouth. Falmouth, St. Austell, Penzance would die. The small village of Flushing, across the water from Falmouth would, however, go on as a small fishing center. Bart left the meeting, depressed as always by what they had done. But there was little time to think of that, and none to think of Julia. He had another meeting, one that was potentially more worrying than the Redundancy Committee.
In 1965 in the west there had been discovered a strain of rat which was resistant to the most effective poison, Warfarin. The significance of this had not been lost on Bart’s predecessors, and prompt measures had been taken to wipe out the rats, using gas, traps and anything else that could be pitted against the not inconsiderable intelligence of the animals. For a time it looked as if this had contained the threat, but in the seventies several outbreaks of Warfarin-resistant rats occurred in widely spaced centers. Immediately the battle was renewed, and the search for an alternative poison intensified. The meeting was to consider the progress—or lack of it—in this campaign. A large increase in the rat population, combined with hundreds of deserted towns and villages did not bear contemplation. There would inevitably come a time when, vastly increased in numbers, and the resources of the deserted towns exhausted, they would spread out in search of food …
It was a very worried Bart who went across to Downing Street for a late lunch with the Premier. His hopes had been pinned upon a variation of PROLIX which, under laboratory conditions, showed some signs of effectiveness. A large-scale field trial, which had been going on for nearly a year, had not succeeded. What was worse, no one knew quite why. Bart was too deeply immersed in this problem to even wonder why he had not heard from the Clacton Home.
Farmer was in good form. He took one look at his younger colleague, “You look damn’ miserable, John. Cheer up! We’ve got a steak and kidney pie and a nice bottle of Volnay. Don’t want you ruining it with gloom,” he rubbed his hands in anticipation, “and a nice bit of Stilton. And one or two spicy bits which may amuse you.”
“You’ll find it uphill work amusing me, George.”
“You’re a miserable devil! The weather’s good and my sciatica is giving me a rest, there’s no immediate crisis, your Home production figures are first class—even the Archbishop has stopped trying to get me to overrule you about the redundancy of York.”
“That might be because I’ve agreed to license the manpower to cocoon the Minister,” observed Bart acidly.
“Cunning old sod!” cried Farmer, admiringly. “He’s single-minded enough to be an R.C.!” He looked at Bart with almost affectionate concern. “Anything in particular worrying you, John?”
Bart told him about the rats. Farmer grimaced, and poured two large dry sherries. He sniffed loudly, “Um. That’s a nasty one.” He sniffed again. “Buck up, John. We’ve licked bigger problems than that, and we’ll lick this one.”
“We’ll damned well have to,” replied Bart grimly. “And don’t imagine all it needs is organization. You should study rats sometime.”
“OK, John.” Farmer refused to be dampened. “Don’t go on about it.” He put down his empty glass. “Come on, let’s get to that pie.”
Farmer disliked talking business at meals, and for him, as for Bart, informal meals were all too rare, not to be ruined with shop talk. Farmer was a hearty eater, who liked to concentrate, and did so now. Bart picked at the pie without enthusiasm. Farmer glared at him over his chin-tucked napkin, “Go on, eat it before your bloody rats get at it!”
Bart did his best, but found his thoughts wandering to the subject of Julia. That wouldn’t do. For all his heartiness and push, the Premier was not egocentric. The greater the ego, the less the perception, and Farmer was very perceptive.
“Tell me your funny story, George.” It was none too soon. Bart could see the questions forming in Farmer’s face.
“Well, they’re not exactly funny stories. Don’t seem so damned funny with you sitting there like Ajax defying the lightning.” He thought for a moment, laughed reminiscently, “Guess who called this morning!”
Bart gestured impatiently.
“All right, I’ll tell you. The Chinese bloody Ambassador!” Farmer was rewarded by the look of surprise on Bart’s face. “Shook me, too. No mucking about, either. Straight to the point. They want to send a mission to study our methods—how the Homes run—schools—and all the rest.”
“Why us?”
“Simple. We’ve the most know-how. That’s first. Then they don’t talk at all to the Yanks—and they’d rather die than ask the Russians.”
“They must be damned badly hit,” observed Bart.
“They are. He made no secret of that, either. It seems they thought that with so much of the population on purely local water supplies, they’d be pretty safe. Someone got round that with fine airborne suspension. They reckon on a drop to fifty million by their Zero Year.”
Bart frowned as he did mental arithmetic. “That’s a much higher percentage loss than us.”
“Yes. Intelligence has already inferred that Asian women were particularly susceptible.”
Bart shook his head. “To think eight hundred million dropping to fifty!”
“Bloody marvelous! Puts an end to the risk of a major war out there for—oh,” he waved his knife expansively, “a hundred years—more,” he went on, confidentially. “I had the impression even the Chinks are not all that sorry—so long as everyone else is in the same boat—and they are.”
“Are you going to agree?”
“Have done. Damn’ silly not to. Nice little export order goes with it, and God knows we can use all the foreign exchange we can get! Their pig-farming’s badly hit. Agreed to send ’em whatever we can spare in the way of immune breeding sows. Chance to get a bit of goodwill. Told him so.” Farmer mopped up his plate with a piece of bread and laughed. “They want all the sows to be pregnant, or ‘in-pig,’ or whatever the rustic term is. That shows just how bad the situation is out there. Fancy us, flying pregnant bloody pigs to the Chinks!” He pushed his plate away reluctantly. “Cheese?”
Bart shook his head. “Does that mean famine in China?”
Farmer looked at the cheese. “They’ve always got famine somewhere out there. I don’t think it’ll make a hell of a lot of difference, and not for long, anyway. Have to stuff themselves with more rice for a while, and the Lord knows they’re used to that.” Farmer looked again at the napkin-wrapped Stilton. “You’re sure about that cheese?”
“Quite, thank you.”
Farmer sighed. “Right, let’s get back. Lot to talk about.”
As they walked back Bart said, “Was that the funny?”
Farmer glared at him, sat down and began to fill his pipe. “There’s one more. Intelligence reports—Class One—that the Yanks are using white semen for their AI program.”
Bart looked puzzled. “Yes?” he said noncommittally.
