To Sail Beyond The Sunset

I opened the door and held out the robes. ‘Good morning, darlings. One for each of you. Breakfast in twenty minutes.'

Priscilla bounced out of bed and kissed me. Donald approached more slowly but did not seem much troubled at being caught in his skin by fierce old Mama. The room reeked even more than 1 remembered.

Something brushed past my legs - Her Serene Highness. She jumped up on the bed and started purring loudly. Priscilla said, ‘Mama, she bumped against the door last night, making a terrible racket, so I got up and let her in. She stayed with us a short while, then she jumped down, and demanded that I open the door again. So I did, and closed it behind her. It could not have been a half-hour before she was banging on the door again. This time I ignored her. Uh... we were busy.'

‘She resents closed doors,' I explained. ‘Any closed door. I leave mine ajar and she spent the rest of the night with me. Or most of it. Hmm - She's Susan's cat and you have Susan's room. Do you want to move? Otherwise she is likely to wake you at any hour.'

‘No, I'll just train Donnie to get up and hold the door for her.'

‘Now see here, Slugger -‘

I left.

I stirred up muffins and popped a Pyrex pan of them into the oven on a six -minute cycle. While the muffins were baking I set up baked eggs wrapped in bacon in another muffin pan. When the oven pinged, I transferred the muffins to the warmer, reset the cycle and put in the bacon and eggs. While they cooked, I poured orange juice and milk, and started the samovar to cycle. That left me time to set the breakfast table with happy mats and gaudy Mexican crockery - a cheerful table.

Priscilla appeared. ‘Donnie will be right down. May I help?'

‘Yes, dear. Go out into the back yard and cut some yellow roses for that bowl in the middle. Make it quick; I am about to serve the plates. Polly Down off that table! Take her with you, please. She knows better but she always crowds the limits.'

I served the plates and sat down just as Donald appeared. ‘May I help?'

‘Yes, you can keep the cat off the table.'

‘I mean, really help.'

‘You'll find that a full-time job.'

Thirty minutes later I was working on my second cup of tea while Priscilla served another pan of muffins and more bacon, and opened another jar of Knott's Berry Farm marmalade. I was feeling as contented as Princess Polly looked. When you come right down to it, children and cats are more fun than stocks, bonds, and other securities. I would get these two married (but not to each other!) and then it would be soon enough for Maureen, the Hetty Green of the fast new world, to tackle the Harriman empire, force it to stand and deliver. ‘Polly! Get out of that marmalade! Donald, you are supposed to be watching that cat.'

‘I am watching her, Mama. But she's faster than I am.'

‘And smarter.'

‘Who said that? Who said that? Slugger, you'll rue the day.'

‘Stop it, children. Time we talked about the Howard Foundation.'

Quite a while later Donald said, ‘Let me get this straight. You're saying that I have to marry a girl on my list and Priss has to marry a man on her list?'

‘No, no, no! Nothing of the sort. Nobody has to marry anybody. If you do marry, it will be your own free choice and it need not be another Howard. There is just one marriage you can't make and that is to each other. Oh, you could marry each other; there are thousands of incestuous marriages in this country - so some Kinseys have calculated. You could do it by cutting out on your own again, supporting yourselves somewhere else and somehow until you both look old enough to convince a county cerk that you are over twenty one. You could do that and I would make no effort to stop you.

‘But I would not help you. Not a thin dime. I'm not going to try to give you a course in genetics this morning, but I will later. Just let it stand for the moment that close incest isn't just against the Bible, and against the laws of Missouri and all the other fifty-five states, it's against natural laws because it makes unhealthy babies:

‘I know that. But I could get a vasectomy.'

‘So you could. What are you going to use for money? I certainly won't pay for it! Donald, I bate to hear you talk that way. I would rather pay to have your eyes removed than see you submit to sterilisation. You are here not only to live your life but to pass that life along. Your genes are very special; that is why the Foundation will subsidise any offspring of yours that you share with a female Howard. The same applies to you, Priscilla; you both have the genes for long life. Barring accidents, each of you will live to be more than a hundred. How much more we can't tell but it has been stretching longer each generation.

‘Now here is how the Howard Fouudation system works. If you ask for it, the Foundation will supply each of you with a list of Howard eligibles near your age, while your name and address will be supplied to each person on your list. When I was young, it used to be eligibles close by, say fifty or a hundred miles or inside one state. Today, with glide rockets spanning North America in thirty minutes and everybody moving around like disturbed ants, you can elect to have your name supplied to every bachelor or spinster Howard in North America if you like and get back a list like a phone book. Not quite true; I understand that they dole them out a couple of dozen at a time, grouped geographically... but you can go on shopping until you find the man - or woman - with whom you want to spend the rest of your life.'

I continued, ‘just one thing. When you date another Howard, while it can be fun, it is dead serious, too. You'll be looking him over as a prospective husband, Priscilla. If he is utterly impossible, for any reason or none, you must tell him so and tell him not to come back... or tell me and I'll tell him so. But if he appeals to you and better acquaintance causes you to think of him as a possible husband, then it's time to take him to bed. Right here at home and I'll arrange things so that you can do so comfortably and without embarrassment'

‘Wait a minute! Make love to somebody else? With Donnie right upstairs and knowing what I'm doing?'

‘No. One - Donnie is not likely to be upstairs. He is likely to be at the home of a girl on his list. Two - nobody is urging you to have intercourse with anyone. That is strictly, totally, and utterly up to you. I am saying only that if he is a young man whose name has been sent to you by Uncle Justin, and you decide you want to try him, you can do so safely at home... and if, after sober consideration, you and he decide to marry, then you can get pregnant right at home. Howard brides are almost always pregnant - always, so far as I know - because it would be sad indeed to marry a man and discover, too late, that you and he are not fertile together. Oh, divorce is easy today... but it is better to have a seven-month, seven-pound baby than to have a divorce before you are twenty.'

I added, ‘You're going to have plenty of time to think about it. I want to check on some basics today. Priscilla, will you stand up and take off your wrap? We can ask Donald to leave the room if you wish. I want to guess how old you are, biologically.'

‘I'll go upstairs, Slugger.'

‘Don't be silly. You've seen me before and Mama knows you slept with me last night' My daughter stood up, took off my wrap, hung it on her chair. ‘Any special way, Mama?'

‘No.' No baby fat left that I could see and hers was not a baby face. A young woman, physically mature, functioning as such and enjoying it. Well, we'll get an expert opinion from Dr Rumsey. ‘Priscilla, it seems to me that you look about the way I did at seventeen. We will see what Dr Rumsey says. For the sooner you start shopping your Howard list, the sounder I will sleep.'

I turned to my son. I'm sure you can be listed as eighteen, Donald, if you wish, and receive a list of eligible girls. And - I may be prejudiced; you're my son - but it is my guess that you can spend the next couple of years, if you choose to, travelling around the country, meeting Howard couples, eating at their tables and sleeping with their daughters - a different bed mate every week, until you find the right one. That programme would be safest for your sister.'