“Cheerio,” I said absently. He was out of my mind almost as soon as I went out of the room; I was busy recapitulating the information which Hillington had given me. The conclusion was obvious. There was going to be a huge snarl-up very soon. Someone would have to untangle that snarl-up. Someone who had worked his guts out for a seat on the Board. Someone who had no responsibility for the mess, but who, on the contrary, had from the beginning warned Brown against the dangers of too hasty a change-over from punched cards. Even that was a sloppy way of putting it; just as a wheel had to be round in order to function, so the work of the computer had to be organized to a certain pattern. Now that pattern would have to be changed and yet, basically, it would have to remain the same. Someone, if he wanted a seat on the Board, would have to learn a great deal more about computers very quickly. I opened the glass door and went out into the sunlight, happily chewing over the problem.

12

12

I was still chewing it over a fortnight later in London. It wasn’t as easy a problem to solve as I had supposed; for the first time I felt a sneaking sympathy for Middridge. Even a visit to the Flamville Computer head offices, made after a long lunch at l’Epicure with Tiffield, did nothing to clear my thoughts: I went away with an armful of brochures, an aching head, and ten pages of notes which I couldn’t decipher.

The day after my visit to Flamville’s I decided to go home. At the moment I made it the decision seemed clear-cut and rea­sonable. I had successfully concluded my business with Tiffield, the hotel I was staying at this time was far below the standards of the Savoy; and, above all, my return a day earlier than ex­pected might do something towards mollifying Susan, whose complaints about this trip – undertaken at precisely three hours’ notice – had been more than usually vicious.

Despite all this, as I went over to the reception counter, I found myself seized by a curious inertia. I didn’t want to stay; I didn’t want to go. I had again the sense of too many burdens, of too many decisions; I wanted to let go, to sleep, to drink tea on waking and sleep again. It didn’t, a whining voice inside me said, seem much to ask. One day . . .

The voice faded away; it was not a voice I had ever listened to for very long. I pressed the bell.

“Can I have my bill, please? Two hundred and one.”

The re­ceptionist looked up from a pile of typewritten sheets. Her harlequin spectacles didn’t make her expression any less severe.

“Just a moment, sir.”

The moment extended into five; then she consulted a card index and came over to me.