Greybeard

“You’ll see I’ve abandoned my old gimmick of not having a gimmick. It’s not the first time this country’s economy has taken me for a ride. Good evening, ladies and gentiles, and I really mean that — it may be your last. In New York, where I come from — and you know state tax is so high there I needed a parachute to get away — they are very fond of World End parties. You rub two moralities together: the result’s a bust. You rub two busts together: the result is always a titter. The night Senator Mulgravy went, it was a twitter.” At this, there was a round of applause. “Oh, some of you have heard of senators? Friends told me when I arrived — friends are the people who stand you one drink and one afternoon — they told me Washington D.C. was politically uneducated. Well, they didn’t put it like that, they just said nobody went to photograph the African bronzes in the White House any more. I said, remember, it isn’t the men of the state that counts, it’s the state of the men. At least they’re no poorer than a shareholder in the contraceptive industry.”

“I can’t hear what he’s saying — or else I can’t understand it,” Martha whispered. “It doesn’t sound particularly funny to me either,” Timberlane whispered. With his arm round his girl friend’s shoulder, Pilbeam said, “It’s not meant to be funny. It’s meant to be slouch — as they call it.” Nevertheless, he was grinning broadly, as were many other customers. Noticing this, Dusty Dykes, shook a cautionary finger. It was his only gesture. “Smiling won’t help it,” he said. “I know you’re all sitting there naked under your clothes, but you can’t embarrass me — I go to church and hear the sermon every Sunday. We are a wicked and promiscuous nation, and it gives me as much pleasure as the parson to say so. I’ve no objection to morality, except that it’s obsolete.

“Life gets worse every day. In the High Court in California, they’ve stopped sentencing their criminals to death — they sentence them to life instead. Like the man said, there’s no innocence any more, just undetected crime. In the State of Illinois alone, there were enough sex murders last month to make you all realize how vicarious your position is.

”The future outlook for the race is black, and that’s not just a pigment of my imagination. There were two sex criminals talking over business in Chicago the other day. Butch said, ‘Say, Sammy, which do you like best, murdering a woman or thinking about murdering a woman?’ ‘Shucks, I don’t know, Butch, which do you prefer?’ ‘Thinking about murdering a woman, every time!’ ‘Why’s that, then? ‘That way you get a more romantic type of woman.’ “

For some minutes more the baby-faced little man stood there under the spot in his slept-in suit, making his slept-in jokes. Then the light cut off, he disappeared, and the house lights rose to applause.

“More drinks,” Pilbeam said. “But he was awful!” Martha exclaimed. “Just blue!”

“Ah, you have to hear him half a dozen times to appreciate him — that’s the secret of his success,” Pilbeam said. “He’s the voice of the age.”

“Did you enjoy him?” Martha asked the green-eyed girl. “Well, yes, I guess I did. I mean, well, he kind of made me feel at home.”

Twice a week, they went over to a small room in the Pentagon, where a blond young major taught them how to programme and service a POLYAC computer. These new pocket-sized computers would be fitted in all DOUCH recording trucks.

Timberlane was setting out for one of the POLYAC sessions when he found a letter from his mother awaiting him in his mail. Patricia Timberlane wrote irregularly. This letter, like most of them, was mainly filled with domestic woes, and Timberlane scanned it without a great deal of patience as his taxi carried him over the Potomac. Near the end, he found something of more interest.

“It’s nice for you to have Martha over there in Washington with you. I suppose you will marry her — which is romantic, because it is not often people marry their childhood sweethearts. But do make sure. I mean you’re old enough to know that I made a great mistake marrying your step-father. Keith has his good points, but he’s terribly faithless, sometimes I wish I was dead. I won’t go into details.

“He blames it on the times, but that’s a too easy get-out. He says there’s going to be a revolution here. I dread to think of it. As if we haven’t gone through enough, what with the Accident and this awful war, revolution I dread. There’s never been one in this country, whatever other countries have done. Really it’s like living in a perpetual earthquake.”