That just about covers it, he thought. Put like that, it is obviously out of the question.
Obviously?
Not obviously or I would not be thinking about it. This is the natural panic of age. These are last, and worst, growing pains.
Yet who would I harm? I have no one touchable by the law. I’m lucky in that respect.
Lucky?
Why had he not married Lizzie when Edna, his wife, died eighteen years ago?
Because I had not the right to involve her so closely with me in a dangerous struggle, he cried inwardly.
Suddenly he realized that he was twisting round in his seat and the others were looking at him with concern. Matlock had always set the tone of gatherings of his intimates, they respected his silence and had not spoken since he relapsed into his brown study. Lizzie had re-entered the compartment unnoticed and was regarding him with such loving concern that he forced himself to relax and smile at her.
It was still not too late, he thought. Perhaps that was the answer, a few final years of domestic contentment. At sixty-nine he was in the prime of life. Well, just a very little out of it. But sexually he was as active and as potent as ever he had been. He had hardly a grey hair; his body was tanned and fit. Lungs, liver and lights all in order, he thought, recalling this odd list from God knows where.
And heart?
Oh no trouble there. No one ever had any trouble there any more. Since the first transplant attempts in the nineteen-sixties, things had come a long way. Hearts could be popped in and out with vast speed and almost 100 per cent certainty of success.
And everyone had at least one heart operation in a lifetime. His hand strayed again to his chest. There running down his breast bone was the only large scar on his body. He had been the first, but since then the tidying-up had become so good that nowadays there was rarely a mark to be seen.
He had been the first.
He looked across again at Lizzie and thought of her soft round breasts which he knew so well. They had done a good job there. Scarcely a mark. Of course, with Lizzie’s generation they were already doing them much younger.
He had been the first.
He suddenly saw in his mind a vision of a young girl, naked on the operating table while white-coated men with rapid efficiency carved a hole in her chest and inserted a large clockwork device, all cogs and springs. This was always how he thought of it, though he knew well the actual electronic device was a mere millimetre in circumference.
He had been the first.
He was among those responsible that every man, woman and child in England had embedded in the heart a clock which after seventy years plus was going to sound an alarm, then stop. And the heart with it.
He stirred again and the others moved too. But this time it was because the smooth deceleration of the A-Train told them they were near their destination. He glanced at the wall-clock. It was ten-fifteen.
Colin followed his gaze.
“These bloody things are always late nowadays,” he said.
Ten minutes later they were standing silently in the lift which bore them down to street level.
“Come back to my place for a drink. We can talk things out,” said Ernst.
They all looked enquiringly at Matlock. He shook his head.
“No, thank you. We must talk, but not tonight. Nine-thirty tomorrow morning.”
He watched them move away, felt the urge to call Lizzie back. Instead he turned west and began his own slow walk home.
After a while he quickened his pace and paid more attention to the night and his surroundings. As always he admired the ingenuity of the store-artists. Nearly all the big shops were constructed of the new poro-glass which was window or wall at the turn of a switch, with the area and shape of transparency as easily controlled. He stopped outside Selfridges and watched as scene after scene revealed itself in depth as successive walls were cleared. It was like the transformation scene in the old pantomimes, he thought. It was also a very effective anti-burglar device. Though nowadays the new penalties had caused a considerable drop in the crime-rate. This was inevitably used as an argument in support of Age Laws, of course.
Matlock shivered and started walking again. Fifteen minutes later he was approaching the main door of the block of flats he lived in. When he was about thirty yards away, he noticed two things. The first was a large grey hovercar parked opposite the entrance. The second was a man coming towards him and about the same distance on the other side of his door. It was still early and even in this highly mechanized age walkers, especially in London, were fairly common. But the man’s strange, loose flapping, one-piece garment — a cross between a cloak and a dressing gown — caught Matlock’s attention. There was something about it which touched a chord in his mind, but odder still was the certainty growing in him that this man was going to speak to him, was there for the specific purpose of meeting him.
He increased his pace. So did the other, and they arrived at the door almost simultaneously. Matlock halted and the two men looked into each other’s face. Matlock saw a pair of deep-set, grey eyes, a flattened, pugilist’s nose and a fiercely unkempt brown beard. He had the feeling that the other was looking deeper into his own face and he resisted the strong temptation to speak first which this uncomfortable sensation produced.
But before he could learn whether his effort was to be rewarded, the silent contest was interrupted. The door of the hovercar slid smoothly open and a young man as extreme in his elegance as the bearded man in his disarray, stepped out.
“Mr. Matlock, Sir?” he said with the near insolent deference of office. “I have a message for you. Will you sign please?”
He handed over a small plain envelope and Matlock stabbed his forefinger automatically in the proffered receipt- wax. The bearded man had resumed his walk immediately the door opened and was now almost out of sight. Matlock could hardly believe that he had stopped at all.
The young man followed his gaze.
“Strange fellows about these days, Sir,” he said. “Goodnight to you, Mr. Matlock.”
He stepped back into the hovercar which pulled away instantly and noiselessly.
Matlock waited a few moments to see if the bearded man would return, but the street remained silent. Finally he operated his sonic key and entered the building. Immediately he was in his own flat he opened the envelope. Inside was a single sheet of paper. On it in an almost indecipherably ornate hand was written, ‘I would be awfully glad if you could call in to see me first thing tomorrow morning. Yours, Browning.’
He had been summoned to see the Prime Minister. Instead of his usual coffee and brandy, he took three sleeping tablets and went immediately to bed, knowing that if he sat up in thought for any time at all, he would in the end telephone Colin and Ernst. Or Lizzie. It might be interesting to see which ’phoned first.
But best of all was sleep.
2
My “dear Matt! Do step in.” Jack Browning came forward with his hand outstretched and a smile of apparently real pleasure on his face.
“Thank you, Clive,” he said to the smooth young man who had ushered Matlock into the room, then to Matlock, “I hope you didn’t mind my sending the hovercar for you.”
“Not in the least,” said Matlock, and he was speaking the truth. “I enjoyed its company.”