He took the Underground to Trafalgar Square.
Twenty people, all well known to him and to the public were grouped on the steps and porch of St Martins. Some sat on cushions, some on stools. A large professionally made banner said: THIS IS A TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR FAST FOR THE STARVING MILLIONS OF BANGLADESH. Each faster had flasks of water, blankets and coats for the night ahead. Meanwhile it was a warm misty afternoon. Walter had a thick black sweater tied around his neck by the sleeves. Walter was the centre of the thing: the others related to him. Jack stood on the other side of the road thinking that his idea of talking with these his old friends about a joint conference with 'the youth' was absurd, impracticaclass="underline" now that he was again in the atmosphere of ordinary partisan politics he could see that it was.
He was longing to join them, but this was because he wanted to be enclosed in a group of like-minded people, to be supported by them, to be safe and shielded from doubts and fears. And dreams.
By Walter was his wife Norah, a small pretty woman whom he had always thought of as Walter's doormat. He had done, that is, until he had understood how afraid Rosemary had been of himself. Norah had once said to him after a meeting: 'If Walter had been an ordinary man I might have resented giving up my career, but when you are married to some one like Walter, then of course you are glad to submerge yourself. I feel as if this has been my contribution to the Movement.' Norah had been a journalist.
Walter's face usually a fist of intention and power, was beaming, expansive: they all looked as if they were at a picnic, Jack thought. Smug, too. That he should think this astounded him, for he knew that he loved and admired them. Yet now, looking at Walter's handsome face, so well known to everyone from newspaper and television, it had over it a mask of vanity. This was so extraordinary a metamorphosis of Jack's view of his friend that he felt as if an alien was inhabiting him: a film had come over his eyes, distorting the faces of everyone he looked at. He was looking at masks of vanity, complacency, stupidity or, in the case of Walter's Norah, a foolish admiration. Then Jack's sense of what was happening changed: it was not that he was looking through distorting film, but that a film had been stripped off what he looked at. He was staring at faces that horrified him because of their naked self-centeredness; he searched faces that must be like his own, for something he could admire, or need. And hastily he wiped his hand down over his own face, for he knew that on it was fastened a mask of vanity; he could feel it there. Under it, under an integument that was growing inwards into his flesh, he could feel something small, formless, blind — something pitiful and unborn.
Now, disgusted with his treachery, but still unable to take his hand down from his face, unable to prevent himself from trying to tug off that mask fastened there, he walked over to his friends who, seeing him come, smiled and looked about them for a place where he could sit. He said: 'I can't join you I am afraid. Transport trouble,' he added ridiculously, as first surprise, then incomprehension, showed on their faces. Now he saw that Walter had already registered: His father! — and saw that this born commander was framing the words he would use as soon as Jack turned his back: 'His father has died, he has just come from the funeral.' But this was no reason why he shouldn't be with them: he agreed, absolutely. Now he moved away, but glanced back with a wave and a smile: they were all gazing after the small drama embodied in: His father has just died. They looked as if they were hungry for the sensation of it — he was disliking himself for criticizing people whom he knew to be decent and courageous, who, ever since he had known them, had taken risks, given up opportunities, devoted themselves to what they believed to be right. To what he believed was right... He was also a bit frightened. Thoughts that he would never have believed he was capable of accommodating were taking root in him: he felt as if armies of others waited to invade.
He decided to walk down to the river, perhaps even to take a trip to Greenwich, if he could get on to a boat at all on a warm Saturday afternoon. He saw coming towards him a little procession under banners of: JESUS IS YOUR SAVIOUR AND JESUS LIVES! All the faces under the banners were young; these people were in no way distinguished by their clothes from the young ones he had watched marching, with whom he had marched, for the last fifteen years or more. Their clothes were gay and imaginative, their hair long, their faces all promise. He was smiling at Ann, who carried a square of cardboard that said: JESUS CARES ABOUT BANGLADESH. A voice said, 'Hello, Dad!' and he saw his Elizabeth, her golden hair in heavy pigtails over either shoulder. Hands, Ann's and Elizabeth's, pulled him in beside them. In this way one of the most prominent members of the Old Guard found himself marching under a poster which said: CHRIST CAME TO FEED THE HUNGRY, REMEMBER BANGLADESH! Ann's little face beamed with happiness and the results of the exercise. 'It was a nice funeral,' she said. 'I was telling Liz about it. It had a good feeling. Grandad liked it, I am sure.'
To this Jack found himself unable to reply, but he smiled and, with a couple of hundred Jesus-lovers, negotiated the Square, aided by some indulgent policemen. In a few moments he would pass his friends on the steps of the church.
'I shouldn't be here,' he said. 'False pretences.'
'Oh why?' inquired his daughter, really disappointed in him. 'I don't see that at all!'
Ann's look was affectionate and forgiving.
Around him they were singing 'Onward Christian soldiers.' They sang and marched, or, rather, shuffled and ambled, and he modified his pace to theirs, and allowed his depression to think for him that whether the banners were secular and atheist on principle, or under the aegis of Jesus, twenty-four million people would die in the world this year of starvation, and that he would not give a penny for the chances of anybody in this Square living another ten years without encountering disaster.
He was now aware that Mona was starting at him: in her decisive face, in her unequivocal blue eyes, was not a trace of what he usually saw there — the reminder of their brief but pleasurable affair. She turned to tug at Walter's sleeve, in a way that betrayed panic — more than ordinary shock, anyway. Now they all turned to look at him: they were all blank, they could not take it in. He had a need to wave his arms and shout: Nonsense, can't you see that I am with my daughter and my niece? He felt he should apologize. He could not stand being condemned by them, his side, his family, but even as he nodded and smiled embarrassed greeting, he saw that Walter, whose mouth at first had really dropped open, had seen Elizabeth, whom of course he had known all her life. All was explainable! For the second time in half an hour Jack watched Walter framing words with which to exculpate him: Jack was with his daughter, that was it! After all, Jack was not the only one among them whose offspring had caught God in various extraordinary forms!
Jack entered the Square with the children, was informed that they would come to visit him later, and he left them singing energetic hymns by a fountain.
He took buses home. He was looking forward to letting the false positions of the day dissolve themselves into unimportance while he laughed over them with his wife; but now he remembered that she would not be there, not expect him to be.
There was a note, not to him but to Carrie, saying: 'Please feed the cat, shall be very late, might stay at Judy Millers please lock all doors much love.'
It was seven: it seemed like mid-afternoon. He drew the curtains to make a night, and sat in it with a glass of whisky. Later Ann came in to tell him about the funeral, about Jesus. He moved his position in his chair so that he could look at her shining eyelids. Carrie came in, and he looked at her, but her eyes were a woman's. He knew about her love-life, because she talked freely to her parents about it, but if she had never said a word he would have known from her knowledgeable breasts, from the way the flesh was moulded to her eyeballs by kisses. She breathed tenderness and care for him, he was happy she was there, but it was Ann he wanted to look at.