Remember to smile a lot, John Renfrew thought moodily. People seemed to like that. They never wondered why you kept on smiling, no matter what was said. It was a kind of general sign of good will, he supposed, one of the tricks he could never master.
“Daddy, look—”
“Damn, watch out!” Renfrew cried. “Get that paper out of my porridge, will you? Marjorie, why are the bloody dogs in the kitchen while we’re having breakfast?”
Three figures in suspended animation stared at him. Marjorie, turning from the stove with a spatula in her hand. Nicky, raising a spoon to a mouth which formed an O of surprise. Johnny beside him, holding out a school paper, his face beginning to fall. Renfrew knew what was going through his wife’s mind. John must be really upset. He never gets angry.
Right, he didn’t. It was another luxury they couldn’t afford.
The still photograph unfroze. Marjorie moved abruptly, shooing the yelping dogs out the back door. Nicky bowed her head to study her cooked cereal. Then Marjorie led Johnny back to his place at the table. Renfrew took a long, rustling breath and bit into his toast.
“Don’t bother Daddy today, Johnny. He’s got a very important meeting this morning.”
A meek nod. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”
Daddy. They all called him Daddy. Not Pop, as Renfrew’s father had wanted to be called. That was a name for fathers with rough hands, who worked with caps on.
Renfrew looked moodily round the table. Sometimes he felt out of place here, in his own kitchen. That was his son sitting there in a Perse school uniform blazer, speaking in that clear upper-class voice. Renfrew remembered the confusing mixture of contempt and envy he had felt towards such boys when he was Johnny’s age. At times he would glance casually at Johnny and the memory of those times would come back. Renfrew would brace himself for that familiar well-bred indifference in his son’s face—and be moved to find admiration there instead.
“I’m the one should be sorry, lad. I didn’t mean to shout at you like that. It’s as your mother said, I’m a bit bothered today. So what’s this paper you wanted to show me, eh?”
“Well, they’re having this competition for the best paper—” Johnny began shyly “—on how school kids can help clean up the environment and everything and save energy and things. I wanted you to see it before I give it in.”
Renfrew bit his lip. “I haven’t got time today, Johnny. When does it have to be in? I’ll try and read it through tonight if I can. Okay?”
“Okay. Thanks, Daddy. I’ll leave it here. I know you’re doing frightfully important work. The English master said so.”
“Oh, did he? What did he say?”
“Well, actually …” The boy hesitated. “He said the scientists got us into this beastly mess in the first place and they’re the only ones who can get us out of it now, if anyone can.”
“He’s not the first one to say that, Johnny. That’s a truism.”
“Truism? What’s a truism, Daddy?”
“My form mistress says just the opposite,” Nicky came in suddenly. “She says the scientists have caused enough trouble already. She says God is the only one who can get us out of it and He probably won’t.”
“Oh, lor’, another prophet of doom. Well, I suppose that’s better than the primmies and their back-to-the-stone-age rubbish. Except that the prophets of doom stay around and depress us all.”
“Miss Crenshaw says the primmies won’t escape God’s judgment either, however far they run,” Nicky said definitively.
“Marjorie, what’s going on in that school? I don’t want her filling Nicky’s head with ideas like that. The woman sounds unbalanced. Speak to the headmistress about her.”
“I doubt that it would do much good,” Marjorie replied equably. “There are far more ‘prophets of doom,’ as you call them, around than anyone else these days.”
“Miss Crenshaw says we should all just pray,” Nicky went on obstinately. “Miss Crenshaw says it’s a judgment. And probably the end of the world.”
“Well, that’s just silly, dear,” Marjorie said. “Where would we be if we all just sat about and prayed? You have to get on with things. Speaking of which, you children had better get a move on or you’ll be late to school.”
“Miss Crenshaw says, ‘Consider the lilies of the field,’ ” Nicky muttered as she left the room.
“Well, I’m no bloody lily,” Renfrew said, pushing back his chair and rising, “so I’d better go off and toil for