The President of the Republic of Israel invited all heads of Arab states to hold their Pan-Arab Conference and fund-raising activities for a third Jehad in Tel Aviv. The President of Egypt declined, the President of Syria accepted, the President of Algeria declined, the President of Libya accepted and there were several don’t-knows, among them the King of Jordan. As an unfortunate result of this well-intentioned act on the part of Israel, four Arab states declared war on each other. Although fighting remained negligible, feelings rose quite high.
For the first complete year in the history of sport, no referees were injured by flying objects, shot or lynched on any South American football field.
For the first complete year in the history of sport, more than fifty per cent of all international games, contests and tournaments ended in agreed draws.
In Switzerland, Brother Peter was offered the Presidency, and declined. In France, Brother Peter was offered the Presidency, and declined. In Italy, Brother Peter was offered the Presidency, and declined. In Spain he was given a suspended jail sentence for indecent exposure in that he did wear nothing but a loincloth on the Costa del Sol. In the U.S.A. he consented to become the first honorary half-Russian Governor of California in memory of his dear departed brother.
By this time, the Perfect Universal Love movement, existing on entirely unsolicited funds, had become big business, challenging even the might of Romaprot. Throughout Christendom, computerless P.U.L. tabernacles (lacking even such elementary facilities as central-heating, rest-rooms, pools, baths and restaurants) were doing almost as much trade as the big Romaprot churches and cathedrals.
Brother Peter became surrounded by campaign-managers, accountants, public relations officers and even a few disciples. After a successful tour of Europe, during which he toppled two governments he did not desire to topple and received many millions of francs, D Marks and lire he did not want, his campaign managers decided he would launch a P.U.L. campaign in England, where he did not particularly wish to go.
All he wanted to do now was to go somewhere quiet — like a wilderness, if indeed any were left — be alone and meditate. But, as his accountants assured him with great conviction, Perfect Universal Love had certain moral obligations.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Camilla and Gabriel were neither happy nor unhappy. They were tranquil. They did not indulge any more in gargantuan feasts, in prolonged orgies of sex or in disseminating P 939
throughout the nation. They were quiescent. Sometimes, in an occasional black mood, Gabriel doubted gloomily if they were still alive.
They slept, they woke, they ate, they exercised, they made love, they went to restaurants or theatres, they came home, they drank tea or hot chocolate and then they slept once more. It was, at least, a cycle of existence. But, Gabriel realized, even cabbages had cycles of existence. He thought that he and Camilla had become cabbages. Cabbages that could talk, demonstrate affection, even make love after a fashion. But still cabbages. He was too tranquil to weep about it.
At the beginning of the P 939 crusade, Gabriel had acquired one hundred and fifty tablets of InSex in the belief that they would be necessary to spread the spirochete of non-aggression with all possible speed. He had greatly overestimated the sales resistance, prejudice and moral fibre of the public. Once off the ground, as it were, P 939 joyously spread its own metaphorical wings and flapped merrily forth in all directions. Now, as was evident from strange happenings in all parts of the world, Eustace Greylaw’s synthetic venereal disease was well on the way to establishing planetwide control of its host.
Gabriel still illegally possessed well over a hundred tablets of InSex. Occasionally, out of sheer boredom, he and Camilla would use a couple to jazz up their otherwise routine, mechanical and entirely unexciting sex-life. The InSex was potent enough to temporarily override the inhibiting and tranquillizing effect of P 939, so that under its stimulus Gabriel and Camilla would rush at each other like two deprived animals in season, scratching and biting and squeezing each other towards orgasm until the aphrodisiac had run its course. But the sexual mania was brief; and afterwards they were always bitterly sorry, even ashamed, as they tenderly nursed each other’s love wounds, recalling with horror the violence that had occasioned them. After such lapses, they would drink hot chocolate and take sleeping pills and go to sleep with their backs towards each other, determined never to indulge in such beastliness again.
But, while supplies of InSex remained, there was always the next time. It was the drug of desperation, their only release from everlasting peace and domestic harmony. Gabriel did not have the heart to flush the tablets away — partly because the original one hundred and fifty had cost one thousand pounds and partly because the occasional bouts of sexual violence they induced were at least breaks in the monotonous round of non-aggression. The only trouble was the unhappiness that came afterwards.
Eventually, Gabriel had an idea. He would sell the remaining tablets back to the pusher in Soho, no doubt at a greatly reduced price. In that way temptation would be removed, and he and Camilla could use the money thus realized to buy expensive and totally unnecessary presents for each other or at least to enjoy a few really sumptuous meals.
Camilla approved of the scheme. But she did not care to allow Gabriel to brave the hazards of Soho alone. It still was, she understood, an area of vice and temptation wherein an unaccompanied and tranquillized ex-book sculptor might find himself exposed to corrupting influences.
So, one warm spring evening, Gabriel and Camilla descended from their twenty-fifth storey apartment in Margot Fonteyn House, Shepherd’s Bush, found an auto-cab and programmed it to take them to the West End. Nervously, Gabriel carried the InSex tablets in an antique snuff box in his pocket. He hoped it wasn’t going to be difficult to find the pusher and fix the price.
The charge for illegal possession of InSex was attempted rape.
As the auto-cab sped along the Bayswater Road, Camilla looked out through the window at the dusky twilight settling gently over Kensington Gardens. Hardly anyone was about, and the expanse of grass and trees seemed quite enchanting in the fading light. She had a sudden uncontrollable desire to walk barefoot on the grass. It was a long time since she had walked barefoot on grass. Half a lifetime ago, it seemed.
“Stop the cab, Gabriel.”
“Why?”
“It’s spring. I want to walk in the park. I want to listen to the birds. I want to feel the grass under my feet. I want to look at the statue of Peter Pan. I want to stroll by the Serpentine.”
“What about the InSex? We are supposed to be dumping it for folding money, remember?”
“The InSex can wait. We can always drop it in the water.” She giggled. “It might have an odd effect on the fish… Anyway, we don’t need the money, really. It was a crazy idea to try to sell it back… Yes, that’s what we’ll do — we’ll drop it in the Serpentine. Then we’ll forget all about InSex, P 939 and everything. Spring is spring is spring.”
With a sigh, Gabriel stopped the car and paid it off. They got out.
It was, he had to admit, a very fine spring evening — warm with a delicious after-scent of rain in the air. Odd that he had not noticed himself that the only possible thing to do on such an evening was to stroll in the park. He was grateful to Camilla for reminding him. It was a long time since he had strolled with her in the park. That, too, was what marriage was all about.