Greybeard

“Perhaps it’s the death of my mother makes me talk like this. I’m sorry, Martha, particularly when we don’t know what’s become of your father. All the while I’ve been so busy living my life, Mother’s been living hers. You know what her life’s been like! She fell in love with three useless men, my father, Keith Barratt, and this Irishman, poor woman! Somehow I feel we should have done more to help her.”

“You know she enjoyed herself in her own way. We’ve said all this before.” He wiped his brow and head on a handkerchief and grinned more relaxedly. “Maybe that’s what happens when the mainspring of the world snaps: everyone is doomed for ever to think and say what they thought and said yesterday.”

“We don’t have to despair, Algy. We’ve survived years of war, we’ve come through waves of puritanism and promiscuity. We’ve got away from London, where they are in for real trouble, now that the last authoritarian government has broken down. True, Cowley’s far from being a bed of roses, but Croucher is only a local phenomenon; if we can survive him, things may get better, become more settled. Then we can get somewhere permanent to live.”

“I know, my love. We seem to be going through an interim period. The trouble is, there have been a number of interim periods already, and there will be more. I can’t see how stability can ever be achieved again. There’s just a road leading downhill.”

“We don’t have to be involved in politics. DOUCH(E) doesn’t require you to mix in politics to make your reports. We can just find somewhere quiet and reasonably safe for ourselves, surely?”

He laughed. He stood up and looked genuinely amused. Then he stroked her hair with its grey and brown streaks and drew his chair closer.

“Martha, I’m mad about you still! It’s a national failing to think of politics as something that goes on in Parliament. It isn’t; it’s something that goes on inside us. Look, love, the United National Government has broken apart, and thank God for it. But at least its martial law kept things going and wheels turning. Now it has collapsed, millions of people are saying, “I have nothing to save for, no sons, no daughters. Why should I work?”, and they’ve stopped work. Others may have wanted to work, but you can’t carry on industry like that. Disorganize one part effectively, and it all grinds to a halt. The factories of Britain stand empty. We’re making nothing to export. You think America and the Commonwealth and the other countries are going to go on sending us food free? Of course not, especially when a lot of them are harder hit than we are! I know food is short at present, but next year, believe me, there’s going to be real famine. Your safe place won’t exist then, Martha. In fact there may only be one safe place.”

“Abroad?”

“I mean working for Croucher.” She turned away frowning, not wishing to voice again her distrust of the local dictator. “I’ve got a headache, Algy. I shouldn’t be drinking this gin. I think I must go and lie down.” He took her wrist. “Listen to me, Martha. I know I’m a devil to live with just now and I know you don’t want to sleep with me just now, but don’t stop listening to me or the last line of communication will be cut. We may be the final generation, but life’s still precious. I don’t want us to starve. I have made an appointment to see Commander Croucher tomorrow. I’m offering to cooperate.”

“What?”

“Why not?”

“Why not? How many people did he massacre in the centre of Oxford last week? Over sixty, wasn’t it? — and the bodies left lying there for twenty-four hours so that people could count and make sure. And you-”

“Croucher represents law and order, Martha.”

“Madness and disorder!”

“No — the Commander represents as much law and order as we have any right to expect, considering the horrible outrage we have committed on ourselves. There’s a military government in the Home Counties centred on London, and one of the local gentry has set up a paternalistic sort of community covering most of Devon. Apart from them and Croucher, who now controls the South Midlands and down to the South Coast, the country is slipping rapidly into anarchy. Have you thought what it must be like farther up in the Midlands, and in the North, in the industrial areas? What do you think is going to happen up there?”

“They’ll find their own little Crouchers soon enough.”

“Right! And what will their little Crouchers do? March ‘em down south as fast as they can.”

“And risk the cholera?”