Ernst leaned forward and put his hand on Matlock’s knee.
“Couldn’t that be the point of tonight? That it’s not worth it, I mean?”
They digested this for a while.
“This would mean,” said Colin, “that Percy’s death was planned. A warning. Not just an accident (if that’s the word) in the general fighting.”
“Yes.”
“Why not one of us?”
“Because,” said Matlock, “this way they can shovel us out of the area as a complete, unsullied unit and sweep poor Percy and the rest of the meeting under the carpet. Maximum warning, minimum fuss. I think you’re right, Ernst. It’s a new part in the jigsaw. It’s a different picture.”
Lizzie, who had been staring dully out of the window apparently not attending to a word, suddenly turned and dragged her hand from under Matlock’s. They saw that her face was wet with tears, but it was anger that twisted it now.
“So that’s good-bye to Percy, is it?” she snarled. “A piece in a jigsaw now. He was alive an hour ago. Our friend. Telling everyone how bloody great you were, Matlock. Then someone cracks his skull wide open and suddenly he’s a piece in a jigsaw, part of a game, more significant dead than he ever was alive. Then he was just an old friend we could rely on. Now he’s important. Now he’s dead.”
The tears had started again. Matlock reached out his hand, but she slapped it aside, stood up and flung out of the compartment.
The three men sat in silence for a moment.
They’re waiting for me to say something, do something, thought Matlock. They’re all waiting. Friends and foes alike. All waiting. And I’m no longer ready.
His right hand had involuntarily moved inside his loose jacket till it rested lightly over his heart. He increased the pressure till he could feel the rhythmic beat.
A machine. A machine running down. Ticking off years, days, hours. It is not many years since that was just a metaphor, he thought. It changed in my lifetime. I helped to change it.
The thought made him clench his hand into a sharp-cornered fist. Abruptly he stood up and followed Lizzie out of the door. She was standing staring through one of the observation ports and did not turn as he joined her. He put his arm over her shoulder but she shook it off impatiently.
“Go away, Matt.”
He looked through the port with her. Their own faces, shadowy, transparent, stared palely back at them. He forced his eyes to pass beyond and looked down at the blur of lights which was all that was visible of the Multicities over which the great elevated track of the Autotrains ran.
He did not try to touch her again and she showed no sign of awareness of his presence.
Finally he began to talk softly, monotonously.
“Lizzie Armstrong. Age forty-seven. Height five feet five inches. Weight eight stone two ounces. Blue eyes; brown hair; good teeth; mole on left hip; appendix scar; left breast slightly larger than right. Born Perth, Scotland. Resident in England twenty-three years, eighteen of them spent in the employment of Matthew Matlock. Took English citizenship seventeen years ago. A competent secretary, consistent in her errors. Two ‘m’s in amount. Two ‘c’s in necessary. Has been known to correct an audio-type machine.”
Lizzie’s eyes had come up to meet his from the shadow world in the port. He went on, expressionlessly.
“Loyal to a fault. Has served her master with unquestioning devotion. Intellectually. Spiritually. Sexually. Tends to boast that she knows him inside out.”
Lizzie turned to him.
“I know, Matt. Yet she seems incapable of understanding what he truly feels on the death of a friend. I know what you’re thinking. But it wasn’t that. It wasn’t just Percy. It is this whole business. It seems so aimless somehow. Why not make a run for it, Matt? Go for Op. We can afford it. Or at least, duck out. Retire. Marry me. You’ve got six years at the present rate. Let’s make them easy, carefree years. Six contented years.”
Matlock grimaced.
“Less after the Budget.”
“Five then. Or four. Browning won’t dare go nearer the Bible Barrier than that. I’ll settle for four. And who knows? Things may take a turn for the better of their own accord. A boom perhaps. It could be ten.”
“In a free economy it could be twenty. It could be fifty.”
Lizzie stamped angrily.
“It could be none. I’ll settle for five. I think Ernst was right, you know. Percy was a warning. That could be you next time with blood on your head and your head in someone’s lap.”
Matlock shook his head.
“They wouldn’t dare. That at least I’m sure of. Not like that anyway. But you’re right in part, Lizzie. I’ll take part of your advice at least. I’ll give the meetings up. They can win that round.”
Lizzie had watched her employer’s expression closely as he spoke. Now she put her hands lightly on his lips.
“Matt, you’re talking about politics again. You’re retreating from yourself, from us.”
“It’s my life.”
“Not any longer. I’ve been watching you change for two or three years now. It was your life once; all your life. But now these plots and plans and policies are at least fifty per cent a refuge. You can hide in them. You didn’t really want to go to Manchester tonight, did you? It was pointless long before some thug split Percy’s skull.”
“No,” said Matlock defensively, “we achieved something. At least I got some of my words heard.”
Lizzie laughed derisively.
“You mean the tape and the loudspeaker? A prank. A joke. Oh I know, it took them by surprise. It broke the pattern. Percy broke the pattern too. Have you thought, perhaps they fixed Percy because you broke your precious pattern. In any case Matt, this wasn’t your idea was it? Not much lately has borne your mark. This stinks of Ernst.”
Matlock drew away now.
“Let’s not start on that tack again, Lizzie. Ernst is my chief assistant, my successor. And my friend.”
Lizzie shrugged indifferently and lit a cigarette as Matlock turned and re-entered the compartment. The two men in it were talking earnestly, but stopped as the door opened.
Ernst’s boyish face broke into a smile. He was by far the youngest there and looked another five years younger than his forty. Matlock smiled affectionately at him. There had been no doubt at all in his mind who to publicly declare as his successor when he had reached the statutory age four years earlier. The Age Law declared that every man in a position of public responsibility must at age sixty-five appoint a successor (or ‘understudy’ as he was generally and frivolously known) at least ten years younger. ‘In a position of public responsibility’ had needed a great deal of qualification and modification, and Matlock was still not wholly certain whether he as the ‘leader’ of a non-representational ‘party’ came under this section of the Bill. Dentists, youth leaders and newspaper reporters didn’t; doctors, civil servants of the top grade, broadcasting administrators did. These were only a few of the categories where doubt had arisen. Matlock had decided to be on the safe side.
To attack a law, he always declared, one must first make sure that one does not break it.
I must have been young and certain when I said that, he thought.
Now Lizzie had openly suggested (among other things admittedly) what had begun to stir in his own mind recently — what must begin to stir in the minds of many men of his age.
Go for Op.
It sounded flippant, casual, put like that. He forced himself to think what it really meant. It was a favourite theory of his that verbal abbreviations were often euphemistic to start with and morally blinding to finish with. To ‘go for Op’ meant, he formulated carefully, to use one’s wealth illegally and selfishly to pay for a criminal operation which would extend one’s life above and beyond the maximum permitted by the laws passed by a democratically elected government. So stringently applied were these laws, moreover, that it involved illegal exit from one’s country with (if it were to be worth while) sufficient funds to maintain one during the illegal extension of one’s life-span.