Night was falling as I left the Savoy, the rain had stopped, leaving the air moist and heavy, brassy on the tongue; it seemed to hold sounds – footsteps, voices, the swish of car tyres – long after it should have let them go. But it was fresh air of a kind, it hadn’t been conditioned; I was outside, I was walking, I was alone, I’d just had a shower and I was clean from top to toe. One bath a week it had been once, on Saturday, the big night; and no one had brought me a large Scotch-on-the rocks either. I stopped to look at the Savoy Taylors’ window; suddenly I realized that I had all the clothes I wanted.

I walked on in the direction of Charing Cross Road, feeling better with every step. I turned up St. Martin’s Lane and went past the New Theatre and then stopped at the British and Colon­ial showrooms to look at a pink Thunderbird. And then there was something else you couldn’t afford – so you worked still harder. . . .

I turned away from the Thunderbird and hailed a taxi. It wasn’t as simple as all that; in the first place, I didn’t want the Thunderbird. I wouldn’t have refused one, just as I wouldn’t have refused a vicuna overcoat; but I had stopped wanting things. I wanted power, power to put through my own ideas; I wanted to be taken seriously, I wanted to be something more than the boss’s son-in-law.

I leaned back for safety and comfort as the notice told me: taxis remained a great pleasure, I didn’t want to undervalue the things which came along with four thousand a year and an ex­pense account. The power would come; Brown couldn’t live for ever. Or with luck he might have a stroke; he was exactly the right build and age and temperament. And I was the father of the Crown Prince. I would have to get to know him better, we’d have to become chums, real chums. Because if we didn’t, one of these days Daddy might be pushed out in the cold. It had hap­pened before in family businesses; my position wasn’t unique.