Howard sits back a little on the sofa. He feels very much at home.
“I suppose in a way I always really knew it was you,” he says. “From that first time I met you. Because as soon as one starts to think about it seriously it’s obvious. It has to be you. There’s no one else who would even begin to be plausible.”
“Terrifically kind,” says Freddie, putting his head on one side and grinning awkwardly. “No special skill involved, though. Anyone could do it.”
“Oh, come, come!” says Howard, smiling.
“No, really …”
“Howard’s right, darling,” murmurs Caroline. “You mustn’t keep running yourself down. It’s a dreadful bore for all the rest of us.”
“Oh, dear,” says Freddie, knotting his arms and legs together in embarrassment.
“I can’t help feeling,” says Howard, sticking his head forward ruefully, “now I know who you are, that I’ve been a bit outspoken in some of my remarks about the system.”
“Not at all!” says Freddie.
“Not a bit!” says Caroline.
“But I must in all honesty say,” says Howard very quickly, jutting his chin out and smilingly blinking his eyes, “that I still think there are a number of things in the universe which really need seriously looking into.”
“Oh, the whole thing!” says Freddie with feeling.
“Ghastly mess,” says Caroline.
“Absolute disaster area,” says Freddie.
“Frightful,” says Caroline.
“So far as one can understand it,” says Freddie.
“Freddie feels frightfully strongly about it, you see,” says Caroline.
Howard looks from one to the other in astonishment.
“Good heavens!” he says. “I should never have guessed….”
“Oh, Freddie’s a terrific radical,” says Caroline.
“Really?” says Howard.
“A terrible firebrand, really,” says Caroline.
Freddie knots himself up.
“A bit firebrandish,” he admits.
“A bit of a Maoist, to tell you the truth,” says Caroline.
She looks sideways at Howard to see how he is taking this. So does Freddie.
“A Maoist?” says Howard, astonished.
“Permanent revolution,” says Caroline.
“That style of thing,” agrees Freddie.
“What he feels, you see,” says Caroline, “is that people ought to struggle pretty well all the time against the limitations of the world and their own nature. Not stop.”
Howard gazes at Freddie, deeply impressed.
“Don’t worry,” says Freddie. ”I don’t think my views have much effect.”
“Don’t be silly,” says Caroline. “People have a lot of respect for them.”
“I’m not sure they even notice them.”
“I notice them,” says Howard fervently. “I respect them.”
“You see?” says Caroline.
“Rather cheering meeting you, I must admit,” says Freddie. “Fearfully difficult in this job to know if one’s having any effect on things. One tries to — well — set a bit of an example. If that’s not too sanctimonious.”
“Not at all!” cries Howard. “Thank God someone is still prepared to make a moral stand like this!”
“I told you, darling,” says Caroline.
“Sometimes,” says Freddie, “one’s tempted to just plunge in and put everything to rights.”
“I know the feeling,” says Howard warmly.
“But if one really believes in participatory democracy, and all that kind of thing, one has to be a bit constitutional about it.”
“Of course,” says Howard.
“Paradoxically.”
“You do jog things along a bit behind the scenes, though, darling,” says Caroline. “You do drop a hint here and there.”
“That’s the most one can do, really,” says Freddie. “Get hold of some ordinary chap and drop a few hints in his ear.”
“That’s why Freddie asked you to come round today,” says Caroline.
“Perhaps ‘ordinary chap’ is a rather unfortunate phrase….“
“Not at all,” says Howard. “You couldn’t find a more ordinary chap than me.”
“What I thought,” says Freddie, “was that we could fix you up with some kind of nominal job in the organization….”
“Like Managing Director,” says Caroline.
“Or Prime Minister,” says Freddie. “Something like that. Then between us possibly we could begin to stir things up a bit.”
Howard frowns at his glass, trying to conceal his pleasure.
“Well,” he says.
“I haven’t put it very well,” says Freddie, screwing his head round sideways.
“The ideas would be yours as much as Freddie’s,” says Caroline.
“I’d just make the odd suggestion from time to time,” says Freddie.
“Well,” says Howard. His hands are shaking slightly.
“It’s not the kind of thing that would influence you, of course,” says Caroline, “but the prospects would be quite good.”
“Because I don’t suppose I shall go on forever,” says Freddie, smiling. “Anyway, perhaps you’d think it over.”
“Yur,” says Howard thoughtfully, putting his head on one side. “Yur.”
~ ~ ~
Howard and Felicity don’t go mad. They don’t let the new job make any great difference to their lives. They have to buy a house in town, of course, so that Howard can be near his work during the week. It’s two minutes’ walk across the Park from the sombre baronial building where he has his office; there’s no point in not living centrally now the children are away at school. But otherwise it’s quite modest. A little walled garden, with a few pollarded lime trees in it, and one or two urns and busts, and a solitary policeman tucked away in a little sentry-box inside the gateway. Inside the house the furniture and the pictures on the walls are all dark brown. Everything is old, and well-polished, and slightly worn. It’s not some brash statement of their own personalities, but a low murmur from many people over many years.
Howard and Felicity sit facing each other in the evenings across the empty fireplace (they have central heating, of course, and there’s no point in getting soot in the curtains unless they have guests). He wears a dark three-piece suit, but from a sense of natural modesty he has his suits considerably better cut than Freddie’s. Felicity wears a beige twin set, but keeps her slip modestly out of sight.
“It feels better, doesn’t it?” says Howard. “If one’s honest with oneself.”
“I’ve always preferred old things and quiet colours,” says Felicity. “In myself — underneath.”
Howard draws on his pipe. (He smokes a pipe now.)
“When one’s first married,” he says, “when one’s first down from the university, one keeps striking attitudes. One’s whole style of life is intended to make claims about oneself — to announce one’s group loyalties and relationship with the world. The rest of one’s life is a process of dropping the claims, one by one. And with each claim one drops, one feels better. More relaxed. More honest. More oneself. The less one makes of oneself, the more one is oneself. The less one is who one thinks one ought to be, the more one is who one is. I feel more myself now than ever.”
“Yur,” says Felicity. “Terrifically true.”
They all live in solid old houses near the Park now — the Chases, the Bernsteins, the Waylands, Charles Aught, the Goodys — their whole set. They all have dark brown pictures on their walls, and oatmeal skirts, and umber dogs. The only thing the rest of them lack is a policeman at the gate.
“We really do seem to have taken over,” says Prue at her dinner-parties, looking at them all.