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fragments I have shored against my ruins.
Was that the reason? Was it he himself that he needed to immortalize? Was this museum, founded by him and in his name, his personal alms to oblivion? Perhaps this was one attraction of all museums. The generations die, but what they made, what they painted and wrote, strove for and achieved, was still here, at least in part. In making memorials, not only to the famous but to the legions of the anonymous dead, were we hoping to ensure our own vicarious immortality?
    But he was in no mood now to indulge in thoughts of the past. This coming weekend would be one of sustained writing and in the week ahead he would be working twelve-hour days. But next Saturday and Sunday were free and nothing was going to interfere with that. He would see Emma and the thought of her would illuminate the whole week as it now filled him with hope. He felt as vulnerable as a boy in love for the first time and knew that he faced the same terror; that once the word was spoken she would reject him. But they could not go on as they were. Somehow he had to find the courage to risk that rejection, to accept the momentous presumption that Emma might love him. Next weekend he would find the time, the place, and most importantly the words which would part them or bring them together at last.
    Suddenly he noticed that the blue label was still stuck to his jacket. He ripped it off, crumpled it into a ball and slipped it into his pocket. He was glad to have visited the museum. He had enjoyed a new experience and had admired much that he had seen. But he told himself that he would not return.
    3
    In his office overlooking St. James’s Park, the eldest of the Dupaynes was clearing his desk. He did it as he had done everything in his official life, methodically, with thought and without hurry. There was little to dispose of, less to take away with him; almost all record of his official life had already been removed. An hour earlier the last file, containing his final minutes, had been collected by the uniformed messenger as quietly and unceremoniously as if this final emptying of his out-tray had been no different from any other. His few personal books had been gradually removed from the bookcase which now held only official publications, the criminal statistics, White Papers, Archbold and copies of recent legislation. Other hands would be placing personal volumes on the empty shelves. He thought he knew whose. In his view it was an unmerited promotion, premature, not yet earned, but then his successor had earlier been marked out as one of the fortunate ones who, in the jargon of the Service, were the designated high-fliers.
    So once had he been marked. By the time he had reached the rank of Assistant Secretary, he had been spoken of as a possible Head of Department. If all had gone well he would be leaving now with his K, Sir Marcus Dupayne, with a string of City companies ready to offer him directorships. That was what he had expected, what Alison had expected. Sometimes he thought that this was why she had married him. His own professional ambition had been strong but disciplined, aware always of the unpredictability of success. His wife’s had been rampant, embarrassingly public. Every social occasion had been arranged with his success in view. A dinner party wasn’t a meeting of friends, it was a ploy in a carefully thought-out campaign. The fact that nothing she could do would ever influence his career, that his life outside the office was of no importance provided it was not publicly disgraceful, never entered her consciousness. He would occasionally say, “I’m not aiming to end up as a bishop, a headmaster or a Minister. I’m not going to be damned or demoted because the claret was corked.”
    He had come with a duster in his briefcase and now checked that all the drawers of the desk had been cleared. In the bottom left-hand drawer his exploring hand found a stub of pencil. How many years,