The Children of Men Read online

  The Perch Inn, as he knew, had long been closed, as custom had dwindled. Across Port Meadow to Binsey had been one of his favourite Sunday-morning walks, with the inn as its destination. It seemed to him now that he passed through the hamlet like the ghost of that former self, seeing with unfamiliar eyes the narrow half-mile avenue of chestnuts which led north-west from Binsey to St. Margaret’s Church. He tried to remember when he had last taken this walk. Was it seven years ago, or ten? He could recall neither the occasion nor his companion if there had been one. But the avenue had changed. The chestnuts were still standing but the lane, dark under the intertwined boughs of the trees, had narrowed to a footpath musty with fallen leaves and tangled with an untamed profusion of elderberry and ash. The Local Council had, he knew, designated certain footpaths for clearage but gradually the number of those preserved had fallen. The old were too weak for the work, the middle-aged, on whom the burden of maintaining the life of the State largely depended, were too busy, the young cared little for the preservation of the countryside. Why preserve what would be theirs in abundance? They would all too soon inherit a world of unpopulated uplands, unpolluted streams, encroaching woods and forests and deserted estuaries. They were seldom seen in the country and, indeed, seemed frightened by it. Woods, in particular, had become places of menace which many feared to enter, as if terrified that, once lost among those dark unyielding trunks and forgotten paths, they would never again emerge into the light. And it wasn’t only the young. More and more people were seeking the company of their own kind, deserting the lonelier villages even before prudence or official decree made it necessary, and moving to those designated urban districts where the Warden had promised that light and power would be provided, if possible, until the end.

  The solitary house which he remembered still stood in its garden to the right of the church and Theo saw to his surprise that it was at least partly occupied. The windows were curtained, there was a thin trail of smoke from the chimney and to the left of the path some attempt had been made to clear the earth of the knee-high grasses and to cultivate a vegetable garden. A few shrivelled runner beans still hung from the supporting sticks and there were uneven rows of cabbages and yellowing, half-picked Brussels sprouts. During his visits as an undergraduate he remembered regretting that the peace of the church and the house, which it was difficult to believe were so close to the city, had been spoiled by the loud, ceaseless roar from the M40 motorway. Now that nuisance was hardly noticeable and the house seemed wrapped in an ageless calm.

  It was broken when the door burst open and an elderly man in a faded cassock precipitated himself out and came squawking and stumbling down the path, waving his arms as if to repel recalcitrant beasts. He called out in a quavering voice: “No service! No service today. I’ve got a christening at eleven o’clock.”

  Theo said: “I’m not attending a service, I’m just visiting.”

  “That’s all they ever do. Or so they say. But I shall want the font at eleven. All out then. Everyone out except the christening party.”

  “I don’t expect to be here as late as that. Are you the parish priest?”

  He came close and glared at Theo with fierce paranoid eyes. Theo thought that he had never seen anyone so old, the skull stretching the paper-thin, mottled skin of his face as if death couldn’t wait to claim him.

  The old man said: “They had a black Mass here last Wednesday, singing and shouting all night. That’s not right. I can’t stop it, but I don’t approve. And they don’t clear up after themselves—blood, feathers, wine all over the floor. And black candle-grease. You can’t get it out. It won’t come out, you know. And it’s all left for me to do. They don’t think. It isn’t fair. It isn’t right.”

  Theo said: “Why don’t you keep the church locked?”

  The old man became conspiratorial. “Because they’ve taken the key, that’s why. And I know who’s got it. Oh yes, I know.” He turned and stumbled, muttering, towards the house, wheeling round at the door to shout a final warning. “Out at eleven o’clock. Unless you’re coming to the christening. All out by eleven.”

  Theo made his way to the church. It was a small stone building and with its short twin-belled turret it looked very like an unpretentious stone house with a single chimney stack. The churchyard was as overgrown as a long-neglected field. The grass was tall and pale, as hay and ivy had leached over the gravestones, obliterating the names. Somewhere in this tangled wilderness was the well of St. Frideswide, once a place of pilgrimage. A modern pilgrim would have difficulty in finding it. But the church was obviously visited. On either side of the porch was a terra-cotta pot containing a single rose bush, the stems now denuded but still bearing a few starved winter-blighted buds.

  Julian was waiting for him in the porch. She didn’t hold out her hand or smile, but said, “Thank you for coming, we’re all here,” and pushed open the door. He followed her into the dim interior and was met by a strong wave of incense overlaying a more feral smell. When he had first come here, thirty years ago, he had been transported by the silence of its ageless peace, seeming to hear upon the air the echo of long-forgotten plainsong, of old imperatives and desperate prayers. All that had gone. Once it had been a place where silence was more than the absence of noise. Now it was a stone building; nothing more.

  He had expected the group to be waiting for him, standing or sitting together in the dim rustic emptiness. But he saw that they had separated themselves and had been walking in different parts of the church as if some argument or a restless need for solitude had forced them apart. There were four of them, three men and a tall woman standing beside the altar. As he and Julian entered they came quietly together and grouped themselves in the aisle facing him.

  He had no doubt which one was Julian’s husband and their leader even before he came forward and, it seemed, deliberately confronted him. They stood facing each other like two adversaries weighing each other up. Neither smiled or put out a hand.

  He was very dark, with a handsome, rather sulky face, the restless, suspicious eyes bright and deep-set, the brows strong and straight as brush strokes accentuating the jutting cheekbones. The heavy eyelids were spiked with a few black hairs so that the lashes and eyebrows looked joined. The ears were large and prominent, the lobes pointed, pixie ears at odds with the uncompromising set of the mouth and the strong clenched jaw. It was not the face of a man at peace with himself or his world, but why should he be, missing by only a few years the distinction and privileges of being an Omega? His generation, like theirs, had been observed, studied, cosseted, indulged, preserved for that moment when they would be male adults and produce the hoped-for fertile sperm. It was a generation programmed for failure, the ultimate disappointment to the parents who had bred them and the race which had invested in them so much careful nurturing and so much hope.

  When he spoke his voice was higher than Theo had expected, harsh-toned and with a trace of an accent which he couldn’t identify. Without waiting for Julian to make any introductions he said: “There’s no need for you to know our surnames. We’ll use forenames only. I’m Rolf and I’m the leader of the group. Julian is my wife. Meet Miriam, Luke and Gascoigne. Gascoigne is his forename. His gran chose it for him in 1990, God knows why. Miriam used to be a midwife and Luke is a priest. You don’t need to know what any of us do now.”

  The woman was the only one to come forward and grasp Theo’s hand. She was black, probably Jamaican, and the oldest of the group, older than himself, Theo guessed, perhaps in her mid- or late fifties. Her high bush of short, tightly curled hair was dusted with white. The contrast between the black and white was so stark that the head looked powdered, giving her a look both hieratic and decorative. She was tall and gracefully built with a long, fine-featured face, the coffee-coloured skin hardly lined, denying the whiteness of the hair. She was wearing slim black trousers tucked into boots, a high-necked brown jersey and sheepskin jerkin, an elegant, almost exotic contrast to the rough serviceable country
clothes of the three men. She greeted Theo with a firm handshake and a speculative, half-humorous colluding glance, as if they were already conspirators.

  At first sight there was nothing remarkable about the boy—he looked like a boy although he couldn’t be younger than thirty-one—whom they called Gascoigne. He was short, almost tubby, crop-haired and with a round, amiable face, wide-eyed, snub-nosed—a child’s face which had grown with age but not essentially altered since he had first looked out of his pram at a world which his air of puzzled innocence suggested he still found odd but not unfriendly.

  The man called Luke, whom he remembered Julian too had described as a priest, was older than Gascoigne, probably over forty. He was tall, with a pale, sensitive face and an etiolated body, the large knobbled hands drooping from delicate wrists, as if in childhood he had outgrown his strength and had never managed to achieve robust adulthood. His fair hair lay like a silk fringe on the high forehead; his grey eyes were widely spaced and gentle. He looked an unlikely conspirator, his obvious frailty in stark contrast to Rolf’s dark masculinity. He gave Theo a brief smile which transformed his slightly melancholy face, but did not speak.

  Rolf said: “Julian explained to you why we agreed to see you.” He made it sound as if Theo were the supplicant.

  “You want me to use my influence with the Warden of England. I have to tell you that I have no influence. I gave up any such right when I relinquished my appointment as his adviser. I’ll listen to what you have to say but I don’t think there’s anything I can do to influence either the Council or the Warden of England. There never was. That’s partly why I resigned.”

  Rolf said: “You’re his cousin, his only living relative. You were more or less brought up together. The rumour is that you’re the only one in England he’s ever listened to.”

  “Then the rumour is wrong.” Theo added: “What sort of group are you? Do you always meet here in this church? Are you some kind of religious organization?”

  It was Miriam who answered. “No. As Rolf explained, Luke is a priest, although he hasn’t a full-time job or a parish. Julian and he are Christians, the rest of us aren’t. We meet in churches because they’re available, they’re open, they’re free and they’re usually empty, at least the ones we choose are. We may have to give this one up. Other people are beginning to use it.”

  Rolf broke in, his voice impatient, over-emphatic. “Religion and Christianity have nothing to do with it. Nothing!”

  As if she hadn’t heard him, Miriam went on: “All sorts of eccentrics meet in churches. We’re just one set of oddballs among many. No one asks any questions. If they do, we’re the Cranmer Club. We meet to read and study the old Book of Common Prayer.”

  Gascoigne said: “That’s our cover.” He spoke with the satisfaction of a child who has learned some of the grown-ups’ secrets.

  Theo turned to him. “Is it? So what do you reply when the State Security Police ask you to recite the Collect for the first Sunday in Advent?” Seeing Gascoigne’s embarrassed incomprehension, he added: “Hardly a convincing cover.”

  Julian said quietly: “You may not sympathize with us but you don’t have to despise us. The cover isn’t meant to convince the SSP. If they started taking an interest in us no cover would protect us. They’d break us in ten minutes. We know that. The cover gives us a reason, an excuse for meeting regularly and in churches. We don’t publicize it. It’s there if anyone asks, if we need it.”

  Gascoigne said: “I know the prayers are called Collects. Do you know the one you asked me?” He wasn’t being accusatory, merely interested.

  Theo said: “I was brought up with the old Book. The church my mother took me to as a boy must have been one of the last to use it. I’m a historian. I have an interest in the Victorian church, in old liturgies, defunct forms of worship.”

  Rolf said impatiently: “All this is irrelevant. As Julian says, if the SSP take us they’re not going to waste time examining us on the old catechism. We’re not in any danger yet; not unless you betray us. What have we done so far? Nothing but talk. Before we do act two of us thought it might be sensible to make an appeal to the Warden of England, your cousin.”

  Miriam said: “Three of us. It was a majority. I went along with Luke and Julian. I thought it was worth a try.”

  Rolf again ignored her. “It wasn’t my idea to get you here. I’m being honest with you. I’ve no reason to trust you and I don’t particularly want you.”

  Theo replied: “And I didn’t particularly want to come, so we meet on equal footing. You want me to speak to the Warden. Why don’t you do that yourselves?”

  “Because he wouldn’t listen. He may listen to you.”

  “And if I agree to see him, and if he does listen, what do you want me to say?”

  Now that the question was so baldly put it seemed that they were temporarily nonplussed. They looked at each other as if wondering which one would begin.

  It was Rolf who answered: “The Warden was elected when he first took power, but that was fifteen years ago. He hasn’t called an election since. He claims to rule by the people’s will, but what he is is a despot and a tyrant.”

  Theo said drily: “It would be a brave messenger who was prepared to tell him that.”

  Gascoigne said: “And the Grenadiers are his private army. It’s him they take an oath to. They don’t serve the State any more, they serve him. He’s got no right to use that name. My granddad was a private in the Grenadiers. He said they were the best regiment in the British Army.”

  Rolf ignored him. “And there are things he could do even without waiting for a general election. He could end the semen-testing programme. It’s time-wasting and degrading, and it’s hopeless anyway. And he could let the Local and Regional Councils choose their own Chairmen. That would at least be the beginning of democracy.”

  Luke said: “It isn’t only the semen testing. He should stop the compulsory gynaecological examinations. They degrade women. And we want him to put an end to the Quietus. I know that all the old people are supposed to be volunteers. Maybe it started out like that. Maybe some of them still are. But would they want to die if we gave them hope?”

  Theo was tempted to ask “Hope of what?”

  Julian broke in. “And we want something done about the Sojourners. Do you think it’s right that there’s an edict prohibiting our Omegas from emigrating? We import Omegas and others from less affluent countries to do our dirty work, clean the sewers, clear away the rubbish, look after the incontinent, the aged.”

  Theo said: “They’re anxious enough to come, presumably because they get a better quality of life.”

  Julian said: “They come to eat. Then, when they get old—sixty is the age limit, isn’t it?—they’re sent back whether they want to go or not.”

  “That’s an evil their own countries could redress. They could begin by managing their affairs better. Anyway, their numbers aren’t great. There’s a quota, the intake is carefully controlled.”

  “Not only a quota, stringent requirements. They have to be strong, healthy, without criminal convictions. We take the best and then chuck them back when they’re no longer wanted. And who gets them? Not the people who need them most. The Council and their friends. And who looks after the foreigners when they’re here? They work for a pittance, they live in camps, the women separate from the men. We don’t even give them citizenship; it’s a form of legalized slavery.”

  Theo said: “I don’t think you’ll start a revolution on the issue of the Sojourners, or on the Quietus for that matter. People don’t care enough.”

  Julian said: “We want to help them to care.”

  “Why should they? They live without hope on a dying planet. What they want is security, comfort, pleasure. The Warden of England can promise the first two, which is more than most foreign governments are managing to do.”

  Rolf had been listening to their exchange without speaking. Then he said suddenly: “What’s he like, the Warden of England? Wha
t sort of man is he? You should know, you were brought up with him.”

  “That doesn’t give me an open entry to his mind.”

  “All that power, more than anyone has ever had before—in this country anyway—all in his hands. Does he enjoy it?”

  “Presumably. He doesn’t seem anxious to let it go.” He added: “If you want democracy, you have somehow to revitalize the Local Council. It begins there.”

  Rolf said: “It ends there too. It’s how the Warden exercises control at that level. And have you seen our local chairman, Reggie Dimsdale? He’s seventy, querulous, shit-scared, only doing the job because it gets him a double petrol allowance and a couple of foreign Omegas to look after his bloody great barn of a house and wipe his bum for him when he gets incontinent. No Quietus for him.”

  “He was elected to the Council. They were all elected.”

  “By whom? Did you vote? Who cares? People are just relieved that someone will do the job. And you know how it works. The Chairman of the Local Council can’t be appointed without the approval of the District Council. That needs the approval of the Regional Council. He or she has to be approved by the Council of England. The Warden controls the system from top to bottom, you must know that. He controls it, too, in Scotland and Wales. Each has its own Warden, but who appoints them? Xan Lyppiatt would call himself the Warden of Great Britain except that, for him, it hasn’t got quite the same romantic appeal.”

  The remark, thought Theo, showed perception. He recalled an old conversation with Xan. “Hardly ‘Prime Minister,’ I think. I don’t want to appropriate someone else’s title, particularly when it carries such a weight of tradition and obligation. I might be expected to call an election every five years. And not ‘Lord Protector.’ The last one was hardly an unqualified success. ‘Warden’ will do very well. But Warden of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? That hardly has the romantic ring I’m aiming for.”