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indulge in that kind of self and mutual destruction it’s up to them. I’ve got too much work to do, and leave that sort of thing to people like Frank Dawley, who’s more fitted for it than me. He’s in Algeria somewhere, taking pot-shots at the French. At least I hope so: I wouldn’t like him to die on me, though I would feel better if he was taking pot-shots at some of the British I know.’ He poured some more brandy: ‘Let’s drink to good old Frank.’
    â€˜Certainly. To Frank,’ – whoever he was, but it was good brandy, anyway. ‘Don’t you think the artist should take an interest in politics, Mr Handley?’
    â€˜If you start mistering me I’ll shut up and sulk,’ he laughed. ‘Like the rest of the world I’m a split personality when it comes to art and politics: I can’t hear the glories of Mozart’s Coronation Mass without catching an echo of the Ça ira in the background, the sublime about to be pushed aside – temporarily, of course – by the clogs and sandals of the proletariat. So don’t ask me for an opinion, old rum-chum. Two of my lads are up to their necks in this Ban-the-Bomb stunt, so I’m involved to that extent.’
    Like many people who drank a lot Jones got drunk too quickly. By the third large brandy his brain lost its usual middling sharpness, and the soporific warmth of the stove made his eyes heavy. ‘Aren’t there any political causes you help?’
    Handley lit a cigar. ‘That depends. I do send money to certain organisations – if they look like causing enough trouble. That’s the only thing. So few of ’em do. It’s throwing away good money. Maybe something’ll turn up one day. You see, I have a system. I’ve invested five thousand pounds in industrial shares, and what dividends I get go into any trouble-making or revolutionary organisation aimed at disrupting the system we live under. You can’t be more apolitical than that, can you? Invest in the system in order to destroy it. Not that I think it’ll ever be destroyed, mind you, but if I thought it would last forever I’d not paint another thing. Maybe I’d be happy if I just lived on an ice-floe that never stopped drifting, painting until it melted under me and I took to the boat to find another ice-floe.’
    Jones grinned. There were times when he seemed like one of us after all. ‘What if there were no boat?’
    â€˜I’d sink.’
    â€˜Would you mind?’
    â€˜Not all that much. I’ve got a couple of heavy quick-firing ambush-guns defending this house, well-placed and concealed, a fine field of fire organised mainly, I must admit, by my son Richard, and my brother John, who’ve studied such matters. The cellars are stocked with food – self-perpetuating flour, expanding water – all that sort of thing.’
    â€˜Don’t you find yourself a bit cut off from reality?’
    â€˜Closer. How much closer to eternal reality can you get – an artist with a machine-gun waiting for the end of the world? I drink strong tea and walk through fields, fight with a cat-and-dog family, stand alone on the strand at Mablethorpe and watch the steamroller waves updrumming for me as I run back over the dunes dropping my notebook which they hobble-gobble, and cursing them as they spit defeated in my face. What do you mean, not normal? Do you think I should work in a factory? Hump shit around a farmyard? Paint fashionable nose-picking pictures that’ll reproduce nicely in the posh magazines? Get hooked. I’d rather listen to the wind and flirt with chaos.’
    â€˜Do you often fall in love?’
    Handley smiled. ‘What do you think?’
    â€˜I don’t know. I’m asking you, really.’
    â€˜No, I’m asking you.’
    â€˜I might say “yes”,’ Russell said.
    â€˜You might be wrong. If I said “often”