Bill walked to the fireplace and stood in front of the Spitfire.
“It’s yours!” said Gordon.
“Say thanks,” hissed Mavis.
“Thanks,” muttered Bill and returned to her side.
“Colin’s the one to thank,” said Gordon. “He bought it for you.”
“Thanks,” Bill told Colin who murmured, “Don’t mention it. I have lots of money.”
“Well sit down sit down,” said Gordon rubbing his hands together. “Tea Mavis?”
“To be frank … I can’t stand tea.”
“Coffee?”
“If it’s no trouble.”
“White, brown or black?”
“Whichever’s the least trouble — I mean black.”
“Sure you wouldn’t like white?”
“Quite sure.”
“What about you, Bill? Lemonade?”
Bill said, “Coffee. Black, please.”
“Pull yourself together Bill,” whispered Mavis.
“Lemonade then. No, tea. I can’t stand lemonade.”
“One black coffee and three teas coming up,” said Gordon and left the room. No one had sat down.
Mavis turned to Colin and said, “I shouldn’t be here.”
“Yes you should.”
“Why does your dad act as if the house is his when it’s mostly yours?”
“Force of habit. He’s trying to make you feel at home.”
“I wish he would stop.”
“You’ll come to like him — he’s a very good man.”
She took the cigarette case from her shoulder bag, opened it, stared at a single cigarette and said, “God I’m nearly out.”
“No, you’re not,” said Colin, taking a pack of twenty from his pocket and dropping it in her bag. She nodded, lit up, inhaled, exhaled then said pathetically, “Colin love me a little?”
He embraced her. She offered her mouth. Before their lips touched Bill shouted, “Mum! Come here!”
He had wandered to the end of the room and was out of sight round a corner. Mavis grimaced and went after him. Colin followed more slowly.
The room was L-shaped. Round a corner stood a dining-table upholding an architecture of small blue, yellow and white plastic bricks, a central part nearly touching the ceiling. The general form suggested a blend of Babylonian ziggurat, Roman Colosseum, Edinburgh Castle and Manhattan Island. Bill hurried round it stooping to keek through openings and standing on tiptoe to peer over barriers.
“What’s this?” demanded Mavis.
“My hobby,” said Colin meekly.
“What is it Colin?” asked Bill.
“It began as a city with a castle inside. I was so keen to make a really safe city that now most of the castle goes round the edge. It’s not finished — I’m still working on it.”
“You can’t make a city safe nowadays!” cried Bill Belfrage scornfully. “One intercontinental ballistic missile will smash any castle in the world into little tiny radioactive bits.”
“My city,” said Colin regarding it with satisfaction, “is on a planet where they haven’t learned to split the atom. They have no aeroplanes either. Or motor cars.”
“Why isn’t it finished?”
“I’m not satisfied by the position of the windmills.”
Colin flicked a switch at the table edge. Little propellers began whirling on turret-tops round the outer walls.
“They look lovely!” cried Mavis. While surveying this large toy she had relaxed, become jaunty, was smoking now with total indifference to where the ash fell.
“They look all right,” admitted Colin, “but a besieging army could destroy them with gunfire and then the city would lose light and heat. The windmills drive its generators.”
He flicked another switch and light glowed behind a myriad of windows in the central towers.
“How can a planet have electricity without cars and aeroplanes?” cried Bill, shocked into indignation.
“You must work that out for yourself,” said Colin, “but I’ll give a clue. Their ships and locomotives are driven by wood-burning engines.”
“Colin!” said Mavis softly. Laying hands on his shoulders she held him at arm’s length, smiling with motherly humour. He looked back obstinately, ironically solemn.
“Get his mind off that nonsense, Mavis, and you’ll do us all a favour,” said Gordon carrying a large tea-pot and small coffee-pot to the table on the hearthrug.
“But I’m glad to find Colin has a touch of lunacy in him,” she said, following Gordon and sitting on the sofa. “In everything else he’s so abnormally safe and sober — unless you count his feeling for me.”
“Now on that matter, for me to comment,” said Gordon, grinning, “would be unbecoming to say the least. Have an ashtray.”
He passed her a small blue china dish in which she automatically stubbed the half-smoked cigarette.
“Ready for your tea Bill?” said Gordon, sitting in an armchair and pouring coffee.
“In a minute,” said Bill from the other end of the room.
The adults round the smaller table grew talkative. “When did Colin start building that thing Mr Kerr? It’s huge.”
“Call me Gordon, Mavis. It started when his mother and me gave him a box of Lego bricks on his eighth or ninth birthday. He made a clever little fort and kept tinkering with it so we gave him another box a year later. Of course in our old home he hadnae much room to expand. And, by the age of fourteen he had other interests and wouldnae have noticed if I’d broken the whole thing up and given it to Oxfam. I wish I had! Five months ago back he comes from Cambridge, brings the thing here and buys more boxes of Lego! He’s worked on it during his free time ever since.”
“Why?”
“He says Cambridge has spoiled him for social life in Scotland.”
“It’s true,” said Colin. “The friends I had before I went south now meet in pubs I don’t like and talk politics which don’t interest me.”
“Who keeps the house so beautifully spotless and tidy?” said Mavis, looking about.
“We have a cleaning woman for an hour on Mondays and Fridays.”
“Dad’s being modest,” said Colin. “He does practically everything. I’m no sort of housewife.”
“Neither am I,” said Mavis.
“I had to learn to be when Colin’s mum passed away,” said Gordon, smiling. “He was ten at the time and we hadnae the money to hire domestic help. But it’s surprising what you can take satisfaction in when you apply yourself — even dusting a room.”
“The application is what defeats me,” said Mavis ruefully.
“Is there no oil on this planet of yours Colin?” asked Bill sitting down beside them and taking a biscuit.
“No fossil fuel of any kind.”
“But they could have airships with steam-driven propellers.”
“Not practical. Sparks from the furnace would ignite the gas and …”
“Not if they used helium. It’s non-inflammable. I’ve looked into it.”
“No steam engine could drive an airscrew fast enough to lift its weight.”
“But if the airship was big enough —”
“The bigger the airship the more engines it needs. Early airships and aeroplanes were equally dependent on the petrol engine.”
Bill sulked for a moment then shouted, “Rocket-powered gliders! What about them?”
“Listen Bill!” said Colin raising a warning finger, “if you mean to bomb my city you must expect me to defend it. I don’t know how yet but I’ll think of something — barrage balloons with gun platforms perhaps.”