The Squire Quartet. Brian Aldiss

no, the situation has possibilities,’ d’Exiteuil said, shaking his head sagaciously. ‘Ermalpa University has a Faculty of Iconographic Simulation, with a few bright young men like Enrico Pelli. They are determined to run a conference in September, just to put themselves on the international map, so we at IS may join in. I will send you details when anything tangible results. You will have to be there.’

      ‘Can you persuade people to go to Sicily?’ Broadwell asked, arriving with a brightly-wrapped package.

      ‘Anyone will go anywhere if you pay their air fare,’ d’Exiteuil said, ‘Ancient proverb of the nineteen-seventies.’

      ‘Present for you, Tom,’ Broadwell said, thrusting the package forward.

      Squire unwrapped it. Inside the Christmas paper was a ten-inch 78 record, with Irene Taylor singing ‘Everything I Have is Yours’ on the Decca label. On the other side, she was singing ‘No One Loves Me Like That Dallas Man’.

      ‘Lovely, thanks very much, Ron. Taylor has a perfect period voice.’

      ‘Like to hear it now? I picked it up in Bristol market just before Christmas. I don’t think it’s been played.’

      They were sitting round the fire peacefully, sipping drinks and listening to the Irene Taylor record. Elm logs crackled, drowning the surface hiss – it was apparent that the record was much beloved by a previous owner. Stereo made it sound as if the lady was singing in her shower.

      Squire sat beside Séverine, basking in her delicious aroma while she continued to paint. Seville in summer – perhaps it was just the association of names. Oranges, sunlight, a bed for two in an attic.

      The Broadwell living room was decorated in rather a florid taste, the perfect extension of Ron Broadwell himself. Three Piranesi Carceri were mounted with wide green mounts and framed in exuberant gilt. The wallpaper was green-and-gold stripe. At the rear of the room, sliding glass doors opened into an extensive conservatory, most of the work on which Ron had done himself, aided by a son; there, a collection of exotic finches fussed from bough to plastic bough. Beyond the birds, in a wintry garden, lay an oval swimming pool, floodlit – presumably more to impress than invite guests.

      The Piranesis excepted, the pictures in the room were modern. Two nice Mike Wilks fantasy cities, an alarming Ian Pollock, an Ayrton minotaur, all framed in aluminium. They hung above a long bookcase filled mainly with Webb Broadwell books – Squire identified the spine of his own Cult and Culture, it was the book which had persuaded the despots of television to invest in ‘Frankenstein’. It and Against Barbarism were the only other books he had written or was likely to write. An Introduction for Jacques he could manage.

      The fireplace was declamatory but certainly knew how to burn logs. The semi-pornographic nineteenth-century Japanese woodcut over the mantelpiece was not a good idea. On a side-table were silver-framed photographs of the children, mostly smiling, now grown up, and their children, mostly waving, and dogs, mostly begging, interspersed with little silver articles which must have had utility in one culture or another – say before the invention of side-tables. It would have been more fun for visitors to have a random collection of plastic mazes available; there were brilliant mazes and puzzles on the market now which had so far escaped serious comment. But that was not exactly the object of furnishings and bric-a-brac. They existed more to make the householder feel secure and the visitor insecure. Not that Ron and Belinda actively thought that way; they simply followed Vogue and Homes and Gardens, a rack of which stood behind the piano.

      When they had played both sides of the record, Broadwell showed d’Exiteuil an advance copy of Frankenstein Among the Arts.

      ‘We are also doing a limited edition, five hundred copies, all signed, with one hundred extra plates, bound in full crushed blue morocco, in slip case. Sixty quid a time.’

      ‘All very elegant, Ron. How many examples of the ordinary edition do you publish?’

      ‘We have a first print run of sixty thousand, almost all already subscribed, and a reprint under way, and the book club have taken another fifty-five thousand. That’s how we managed to include so much colour and keep the price within bounds. Nice, isn’t it? Publication day, Friday, 3rd March.’

      D’Exiteuil shook his head ruefully, ‘Ah, success, success … You know that my sole book, a collection of essays, in English, called The Stupidity of the Rich, was merely a succès d’estime. Oddly enough, I see some of my more absurd ideas cropping up in this book, The Sower of the Seasons, which you published.’ He turned to Squire. ‘Tom, do you know Lippard-Milne?’

      ‘I know his wife quite well.’

      ‘Well, you see he has no guiding principle in criticism. Being English, he has a good critical eye, and is observant. That’s because you English all read your Bibles so much until a generation ago. You attended to the details, which were expressed in a fine language. Now the Bible has been rendered into civil servant English, and you are left without direction, and the whole perpetual instrument of Marxist analysis has yet to be taken up with the same expertise as it is wielded in France.’

      ‘Marxism naturally doesn’t suit us, any more than absinthe, garotting, or lederhosen,’ Squire said. ‘We have a monarchy, if you recall.’

      ‘Do you pretend that the Queen is obstructing literary criticism, Tommy?’ Séverine asked, and they all laughed.

      ‘No politics allowed here tonight,’ said Belinda. ‘Let’s all sink our differences at least until next year – which is only a few hours away. Come and eat now. I have just a little snack for you to keep the wolf away. We won’t wait for Teresa in case she’s late, but I’ve kept something for her.’

      The little snack proved to be a pocket-sized banquet. They had just finished, and were returning to the living room, when there were sounds of a car engine in the drive, and the front-door bell chimed. The Broadwell hounds barked furiously from the kitchen.

      Ron Broadwell opened the door. Teresa was not there as anticipated. Instead, her mother walked in, smiling. Madge Davies was smartly dressed in a brown wool coat trimmed with fox. With her was Squire’s Uncle Willie, dressed in his customary navy blue overcoat but wearing what, even on close inspection, was a rather snappy tweed hat.

      As the two of them shook hands with everyone, and removed their outer garments, Uncle Willie explained that they had intended to meet Teresa at the airport, but her plane had been delayed.

      His cheeks were reddened by the cold outside, but he was very brisk; Mrs Davies seemed at first unusually subdued.

      ‘Teresa managed to phone through to us from Rome airport,’ Willie explained. ‘For some reason, she chose to return from Malta via Rome. Madge and I guess she had some business there, because she’s doing very well, selling to the US and so on. We think she’s arranging some special packaging. The Italians are good at packaging. Her Rome–Heathrow plane was delayed because of a strike of fuel-tender men. As soon as she gets to Heathrow, she’ll catch a taxi here.’

      Séverine raised one of her immaculate eyebrows at Squire. ‘You remember what I said about putting the excitement back in travel. It soon won’t be safe for a woman to travel alone. I can’t wait for that day …’

      ‘It’s just a handful of communist agitators in each country,’ Willie explained.

      ‘The capitalists will go on saying that until their system finally breaks down completely,’ d’Exiteuil said. ‘May we play that charming little Taylor record again, Ron?’

      ‘Go ahead,’ Belinda said. ‘I suppose you think “Everything I Have is Yours” is some kind of commie signature tune, Jacques?’

      ‘I certainly didn’t expect to see you, Mother,’ Squire said, touching his cheek to Mrs Davies’s cheek. She was wearing a perfume he identified as one of Teresa’s. ‘Uncle Willie even less. I thought he’d be in Norwich, tucked up safely in bed with his cat.’

      ‘Well, dear …’ She looked embarrassed, and allowed the Broadwells to usher her into the living