The Complete Short Stories: The 1960s. Brian Aldiss
Читать онлайн книгу.
have any fuss in public at present, Nancy. The General Election is only two years away.’
‘The Last Trump may precede it.’
‘The Last Trump will scandalise the British public less than a ministerial decree nisi. You’re in some sort of a mess, aren’t you?’
‘How you adore your euphemisms and your clichés! Yet how else could you bear to be married to Herbert? You’ll be talking next about washing dirty linen in public.’
Lady Elizabeth rose and said, with the glacial courtesy of anger, ‘You’re in some sort of a mess, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, I am, if you must know. I am having, ducky, a rather hot affair with a pop singer called Johnny Earthquake.’
They faced each other lividly, hate and love running together like a spilt Irish coffee. Finally Lady Elizabeth turned away and marched over to the door saying, ‘The Prime Minister’s sister-in-law involved with a pop singer. … Governments have fallen for less.’
Deftly, while her sister’s back was turned, Nancy knocked the nipple off one of the polyannamine capsules she had pocketed, and poured its contents into Lady Elizabeth’s coffee. Then she marched towards the door. Again the two were face to face.
‘A pop singer!’
‘He makes me feel horribly democratic!’ With an angry leer, Nancy swaggered out.
For some minutes, Lady Elizabeth stood inside the cosy room, clutching her temples.
Then the phone rang.
Her voice when she answered gave no hint of her feelings.
It was an agitated young secretary to an under-secretary, Rupert Peters, phoning from Whitehall. Lady Elizabeth knew him well, and admired him; the feeling was reciprocated – as she had perceived.
‘This is a horribly informal way to come through to you, as Your Ladyship knows; I can only plead in extenuation a grave emergency. Would it be at all practicable for me to have a word with Sir Herbert?’
‘He has the TUC on his back at present.’
‘Jolly! Well, look, we’ve got the Ambassador to Russia speaking on a scramble call from Moscow. He has just had an extremely abusive note handed to him from Nikita Molochev. We’re going to be at war before morning unless something happens fast.’
‘Rupert! But this is unprovoked!’
‘Within the contemporary usage of the term, not entirely.’ Rupert paused. She sensed his embarrassment down the other end of the line.
‘What do you mean, “not entirely”?’
‘I’m afraid it was that remark of Sir Herbert’s in his Guildhall Speech.’
A cold hand with ill-manicured nails wrapped itself round Lady Elizabeth’s heart. She sat down on the chaise-longue. Her coffee stared coolly up at her.
‘What remark?’ she managed to ask.
‘Sir Herbert said – and Your Ladyship must realise I quote from memory – that after prolonged consideration he had concluded that President Molochev was a disagreeable sight that should be abolished.’
She made an inarticulate noise in her throat.
‘Not, one must admit, the year’s most tactful political utterance,’ Rupert said. ‘As I say, it seems in the present inflamed state of world affairs that it may precipitate hostilities, unless speedily retracted or ameliorated. I would like to ask Sir Herbert if we should offer the Russians a complete denial. Would you, Lady Elizabeth, in view of the emergency, detach him from the embrace of the TUC?’
Lady Elizabeth sat back, pale with horror. Clearly before her mind’s eye floated the typescript pages of the speech she had prepared for the Guildhall. Page five, dealing with the Berlin question, had had the PM saying that after prolonged consideration he had concluded that President Molochev had historical logic but not contemporary logic on his side in his demand for an East German peace treaty. Such little meaning as this statement possessed had then been obliterated in succeeding paragraphs, into which, by the bottom of the page, a reference to the statues Buster and Nikko and that the two figures confronting each other formed – and here one turned to page seven – a disagreeable sight that should be abolished.
Beyond a doubt, Lady Elizabeth know what had happened. In the jocular hurly-burly of Guildhall wine and food, Sir Herbert had dropped page six, and read on without noticing the omission.
‘Lady Elizabeth, could you get him?’
The tinny voice of Rupert recalled her.
‘Just a minute,’ she said.
Limply she rose and went to fetch her husband. As she passed the hideous daguerreotype of Gladstone, she heard singing – singing at 10 Downing Street! – but Lady Elizabeth was beyond surprise. Opening with his arms round his two supporters. Their hats were on their heads at a rakish angle, and with verve they executed a few lively unison steps to their own version of ‘Rule, Britannia!’
Not only that. The Foreign and Home Secretaries were conducting the trio, singing heartily with them as they did so.
Rule, Britannia, two tanners make a bob;
Three make one and six, and four two bob.
No Common Market shall rule the Common Man
While two bob buys us booze throughout the lan’ –
I don’t mean maybe –
Buys us booze throughout the la-a-a-a-n’.
They went smartly into a reprise; no attention was paid to Lady Elizabeth, beyond a suggestively raised eyebrow from Watts-Clinton. The PM sat feebly by the drinks cupboard, emitting an inconstant smile; here, thought Lady Elizabeth with a gush of sympathy, was a man who had had greatness thrust upon him. She beckoned and he came at once.
‘Strike’s off,’ he said, as they went into the corridor, closing the door behind them. ‘Do you know what Brotherhope said to me? “Between you and me, I’m more interested in the power than the glory.” Slipping polyannamine into the sherry did the trick.’
‘But Herbert, you’ve given it to Andaway and Watts-Clinton too!’
‘Couldn’t be helped – emergency. I had to pour the stuff into the decanter. Of course I refrained from drinking it myself. It’s a pity about Ralph, but after all he is happy; he’s got no worries, whereas we’ve got plenty.’
‘You don’t know how many, my dear.’
‘It occurred to me that by spraying polyannamine over London and other big cities, we could face the next election with equanimity; I instructed Miller accordingly. Has the fellow gone?’
‘Yes, and we are in trouble, Herbert. The British Embassy in Moscow is on the line.’ And she told him what had happened.
‘My God!’ he said. They were into the cosy room by now; the jazz version of ‘Rule, Britannia!’ was silenced as Lady Elizabeth closed the door. The PM sank down on the nearest chair and stared unseeingly at Lady Elizabeth’s coffee. ‘How absolutely ghastly! You know, now you mention it I recall thinking that something dropped just as I rose to make my speech. It must have been page six. It must have gone under the table.’
‘If only you’d read the speech through first!’
‘I didn’t have time.’
‘Didn’t you notice what you were saying?’
He had his face in his hands. She saw, through his thinning grey hair, freckles on his skull.
‘You know how it is after a heavy lunch. … I just read in a stupor, I’m afraid – though I do remember everyone clapping and laughing unexpectedly.