Sweet Dreams

He has in fact got a job, now his father mentions it, and an astonishingly good one, too, for someone in his first year down from university. He is working with Harry Fischer's design group, which is almost certainly the liveliest team in the profession at this particular moment. They all think so, at any rate, though they turn it into a joke. You can tell how lively they are by the fact that they work not in great white north-lit drawing-offices, like the more fashionable and established groups, but in a few cramped rooms on the fourth floor of an Edwardian commercial block, above a tobacconist and an employment agency, mostly looking out on an airshaft.

They are designing the Alps.

Phil has an incredibly good job, too. He is creating man.

Or at any rate, he is with one of the research teams working on the man project. Half the university departments and industries in the city are involved. The end product, as everyone knows from all the projections and mock-ups they keep making public to try to justify the wildly escalating costs, will have two arms and two legs, a language capability, and a fairly sophisticated emotional and moral response. The general idea is to build something pretty much in their own image.

"I beg your pardon?" says Howard.

Freddie clears his throat, and forces himself to look Howard in the eye.

"I said, I'm God."

He folds his arms very tightly, and looks away over Howard's shoulder. He is plainly embarrassed. So is Howard. He is embarrassed to have embarrassed Freddie.

"I'm terribly sorry," says Howard.

"Can't be helped," says Freddie. "Just one of those things."

"I mean, I'm sorry not to have known."

"Not at all. I'm sorry I had to spring it on you like that."

There is an awkward silence. Freddie fiddles with his biscuit, breaking it into small pieces, and dropping crumbs which catch in the hairy surface of his trousers.

"Well," says Howard. "Congratulations."

"Oh," says Freddie. "Thanks."
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The more Howard thinks about it, the less he knows where to look or what to do with his hands. He tries putting them behind his back and looking at the floor, smiling reflectively. Freddie is having difficulties, too. He puts his dry biscuit down, and with his left hand seizes his right elbow. With his right hand he takes hold of his chin. Then he, too, examines the floor.

"On second thoughts," he says, "I don't know about congratulations. Not like being elected to a fellowship, or whatever. Wasn't open to other candidates, you see."

"I can't help feeling," says Howard, sticking his head forward ruefully, "now I know who you are, that I've been a bit outspoken in some of my remarks about the system."

"Not at all!" says Freddie.

"Not a bit!" says Caroline.

"But I must in all honesty say," says Howard very quickly, jutting his chin out and smilingly blinking his eyes, "that I still think there are a number of things in the universe which really need seriously looking into."

"Oh, the whole thing!" says Freddie with feeling.

"Ghastly mess," says Caroline.

"Absolute disaster area," says Freddie.

"Frightful," says Caroline.

"So far as one can understand it," says Freddie.

"Freddie feels frightfully strongly about it, you see," says Caroline.

Howard looks from one to the other in astonishment.

"Good heavens!" he says. "I should never have guessed...."

"Oh, Freddie's a terrific radical," says Caroline.

"Really?" says Howard.

"A terrible firebrand, really," says Caroline.

Freddie knots himself up.

"A bit firebrandish," he admits.

"A bit of a Maoist, to tell you the truth," says Caroline.

She looks sideways at Howard to see how he is taking this. So does Freddie.

"A Maoist?" says Howard, astonished.

"Permanent revolution," says Caroline.

"That style of thing," agrees Freddie.

"What he feels, you see," says Caroline, "is that people ought to struggle pretty well all the time against the limitations of the world and their own nature. Not stop."

Howard gazes at Freddie, deeply impressed.

"Don't worry," says Freddie. "I don't think my views have much effect."