“What on earth are you doing over here?”
“The usual thing,” says Michael. “Reading out various grim warnings on the Teleprompter to the natives about the way things are going. Trying to put the fear of God into them. And you?”
“Oh,” says Howard wittily, “trying to get the fear of God out of them.”
“Do you think the bar’s open?” says Michael. “Let’s go and have a drink. I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see you! I thought I was in for another evening of getting slightly drunk on my own.”
They get slightly drunk together, in a most agreeable way, and then wander round the West End, making jokes about the photographs outside the strip clubs. They are very pleased with each other’s company — as pleased as only two fellow-countrymen meeting each other in a strange city can be.
“Lord, this city’s a dump!” says Michael.
“Oh, I don’t know,” says Howard, trying to be reasonable.
“No, it’s the last place God made. I can’t imagine how we all put up with living here.”
“I quite enjoy watching all the people go by,” says Howard, “and wondering what’s going on inside their heads.”
“But that’s you all over, Howard. You always manage to find some good in people. I can’t stand them. For a start they smell.”
“Well …”
“Oh, come on. Be honest.”
“They smell different, that’s all.”
“They smell, Howard. They’re rude and indifferent, and when they’re not being rude and indifferent they’re licking your boots and telling you what they think you want to hear.”
“Michael, I think a lot of this is really our fault….”
“Oh, bollocks! Don’t let them give you that line. They’re born whiners.”
“No, Michael, I honestly think it’s the result of the system that we’re part of….”
“Don’t believe a word they tell you, Howard. They’re all liars. They’re all on the cadge.”
“I must admit,” concedes Howard, “the telephone service is a bit erratic. And the hotel’s lost my laundry.“
“I’ll tell you what gets me,” says Michael. “Having to be so careful all the time not to offend their susceptibilities. Though what right this lot have got to have susceptibilities I can’t imagine. Don’t you find, about five o’clock each day, that you’ve got a polite smile permanently creased into your face, like rigor mortis?”
“I know what you mean,” says Howard. “But …”
“Mind!” cries Michael, and steers Howard round a little heap of excrement in the middle of the pavement. Howard can’t help laughing. Michael enacts a scene where, smiling politely, he attempts to use a telephone to inform some touchy British official that there is a heap of something untoward lying on one of his pavements. Passers-by step into the gutter and try not to look at them as they both lean against walls and shop-fronts, laughing helplessly.
“No, but seriously,” says Howard. “They do have a terrible life.”
“They have a terrible life,” says Michael, growing serious as well, “because a terrible life is what these people understand. A terrible life is what these people enjoy. There’s nothing they love more than an interesting little family tragedy, or a nice little disease to muck themselves up with.”
Howard continues to protest. But secretly he knows that Michael is right. There is something curiously unappetizing about these people. Even McKechnie. Especially McKechnie. It gives Howard an extraordinary sense of personal liberation to admit this to himself. There is something very sweet about strolling through the streets of London with a fellow-countryman, and in the privacy afforded by their shining armour of courtesy and concern, frankly to recognize the difficult truth: that they are better than the people around them.
“It’s some friend of yours who’s responsible for man, isn’t it?” asks Michael, looking sideways at Howard.
“Phil Schaffer. Well, he’s one of the design team.”
“Making rather a pig’s eye of it, isn’t he?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” says Howard loyally. “I think it’s a remarkable achievement. On the whole.”
His loyalty to Phil sets his blood circulating with a pleasant warmth. So does the discovery that Phil needs his loyalty. It’s very agreeable to be able to reach down and offer someone a helping hand — particularly someone he has looked up to for so long.
Later they meet up with a couple of girls whose telephone numbers Michael finds in his pocket, and as a crazy night out they all have dinner at the Ritz.
“But seriously,” cries Howard to Michael in a dramatic voice, over the coffee and brandy, waving his cigar about, “what are we going to do about these people? How can we solve the problem?”
The girls both stare at him, obviously impressed by the scale and force of his concern. They are all a little drunk.
“Keep killing them,” says Michael humorously, resting a hand on each girl’s forearm. “Wheel on the cholera. The more we keep them down, the less of them there’ll be to get themselves into trouble.”
“Oh, charming,” says one of the girls.
“Have another chocolate, love,” Michael invites her, smilingly holding out the dish. “Get a little more refined sugar into your arteries.”
~ ~ ~
Howard’s report on the human condition, when it finally appears, is a remarkably balanced and perceptive document. He resolutely refuses to give way to the temptation to blame the local inhabitants for their problems. He points out that many of the characteristics of man which outsiders find distasteful reflect genuine local needs and aspirations.
He recognizes that there is a real divergence of expert opinion between those who believe that men are happy because they are miserable, and those who believe that men are miserable because they are happy; and wisely arrives at a synthesis of both views.
He cautions against any hasty attempts at imposing reform from outside, warning that they would be very likely to upset the delicate social and economic balance which society has achieved — to cause unemployment among the medical profession, for instance, and to weaken the funeral as one of the main bonds of family life.
He recommends improving the quality of life by gradually weaning people away from unhealthy indoor forms of death, such as heart disease, and offering more facilities for dying traditional outward-looking deaths in the fresh air. To this end he urges the setting up of carefully landscaped mountains and waterless deserts in the main centres of population, and their stocking with carnivorous animals and poisonous reptiles.
The first two printings of the report sell out before publication, and there is fierce competition for the paperback rights. The reviews are marvellous, and Howard gets a call from Bill Mishkin, of Bill Mishkin Productions.
“Howard Baker,” says Bill Mishkin, “I want to make this thing. It’s as simple as that.”
Bill Mishkin has an office on the fifty-fourth floor of the RCA building. The hills outside the city are remote and blue behind his head as he leans back in his chair, shirt sleeves rolled up, collar and tie loosened. He is younger than Howard expected, with crisp curly hair, full smooth cheeks which are just about to smile at his own jokes, but never quite do, and thick horn-rimmed spectacles through which his magnified eyes watch carefully to estimate audience reaction. The office is littered with scripts.
“Howard,” he says, “I think this is far and away the subtlest, most exciting … zaniest … most realizable, wittiest, sexiest… most lovable White Paper that I have ever set eyes on.”