dispelled.
Careful feet on cottage steps, exaggerated care of the drunk. Falling into bed. Soon asleep.
Five hours later he awoke, suffering. He had been dreaming. His dreams had begun again.
The dream had been set at the Ministry of Insemination. The official in Room 511 was Cousin Percy. He was seated at the head of a large round table with twenty-four seats. Pegasus sat at the foot.
‘What’s your complaint, Baines?’ said Cousin Percy.
Pegasus felt instantly servile.
‘Well, sir, fifteen years ago I ordered a son.’
‘What sort of a son, Baines?’
‘A test cricketer, sir.’
Cousin Percy consulted a form. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Quite correct. You ordered a test cricketer, who would go in number six, bowl a well-concealed Chinaman, and win the Nobel Prize for left-arm bowling. What is a well-concealed Chinaman?’
‘It’s the left-arm bowler’s off-break, sir.’
‘I see. And what went wrong?’
‘He isn’t what I ordered, sir.’
‘You mean he isn’t a test cricketer?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Fourteen, sir.’
Cousin Percy leant forward, his face stern, his eyes flashing orbs of controlled fury. The room stretched huge and dark in all directions. Pegasus was afraid.
‘You’re not giving him much time, are you, Baines?’ said Cousin Percy.
‘He’ll never be a test cricketer, sir. He isn’t the sort.’
‘What sort is he?’
‘He’s non-co-operative, sir.’
Non-co-operative! Nothing could describe the agony of being a parent to such a child.
‘In what way?’
‘He throws things, sir.’
‘What things, Baines?’
‘Anything, sir.’
‘Anything else?’
‘No, sir, just anything.’
‘I meant does he do anything else apart from throw things?’ Cousin Percy was getting annoyed.
‘Yes, sir. He says “sweet and sour pork”.’
‘I don’t see anything so terrible in that,’ said Cousin Percy.
Pegasus felt that he wasn’t explaining it very well.
‘But he says it all the time, sir,’ he said.
‘Oh.’
‘And he’s Chinese.’
‘What’s his cricket like?’
‘He refuses to play. He just throws all the stumps at the umpire and says “sweet and sour pork”. He’s not the sort of thing we had in mind at all, sir.’
‘Fetch him in.’
His wife walked listlessly, her spirit broken. Johnny looked so nice in his school uniform, a round jolly contented Chinese face. He sat on Pegasus’s right, with his mother beyond him.
‘What’s your name?’ said Cousin Percy, not unkindly.
Pegasus had a wild hope that the boy would tell him.
‘Sweet and sour pork,’ said Johnny.
‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’
‘Sweet and sour pork,’ said Johnny.
‘What’s your favourite meal?’
‘Sweet and sour pork,’ said Johnny.
‘You see,’ said Cousin Percy. ‘He answers sensibly enough in the end, if you just show a bit of patience.’
Johnny jumped up, picked up his chair, and threw it across the table towards Cousin Percy. It didn’t reach him.
‘Why did you do that?’ said Cousin Percy.
‘Sweet and sour pork,’ said Johnny.
‘Take him away,’ said Cousin Percy.
The mother led the boy from the room, an innocent smile on his chubby little Chinese face.
‘Johnny Chinaman doesn’t always take to cricket all that easily. You haven’t been forcing it down his throat, have you?’ said Cousin Percy to Pegasus.
‘No, sir.’
‘On balance, Baines, I am inclined to think that this is just a phase he’s going through — a phase of being Chinese and throwing things and only saying “sweet and sour pork”.’
‘But, sir …’
‘Yes?’
‘I wanted an English boy.’
‘You aren’t a racialist, are you?’
‘No, sir, I’ve got nothing against the Chinese as a race. Only as my son. It seems so inconvenient.’
‘Are you suggesting that the Ministry has made a mistake?’
Courage, Pegasus.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, it’s possible. Computers are only machines.’
‘I was wondering, sir …’
‘Yes?’
‘I was wondering if the word Chinaman had confused the computer.’
Cousin Percy sat in thoughtful silence for some minutes. His eyes were dark pools, in which his thoughts leapt like trout at dusk. Pegasus could hear a clock ticking high up in the dark, endless room.
‘We’re always ready to admit our mistakes,’ said Cousin Percy at length. ‘But we must be sure. I think we ought to wait and see, and if after another twenty years he still isn’t a test cricketer, file a PXC 138b/9/7c/X3a/111359R for compensation.’
‘But, sir …’
‘If he stops being Chinese, or shows any sign of going in number six, let us know.’
‘But,
