6

Philip Summers had always loved his wife, but in the first week or two after Beehive Amber he found himself falling in love with-her. The experience took him completely by surprise – or rather, Betty's changed persona did, illuminating the busy bewilderment of their new existence. He was almost afraid to tell her, lest the spell be broken.

Most people would have described Betty Summers at thirty-one as a typical middle-class suburban housewife. Philip's mother, who was a self-conscious aesthete, did in fact call her that, though only to her husband ('I ask you, Charles – ducks on the wall!') and to chosen intimates, for she had given up Philip as lost when he insisted on studying engineering instead of the sculpture for which he had some limited talent. To be fair to Philip's mother, Betty had looked the part. Neat but unexciting figure, neat but unexciting clothes, soft mouse-coloured hair and regular features in an unmcmorable face. Still, Philip had seemed contented in their neat but unexciting home, and at least Betty had the saving grace that she was studying with the televised Open University – though a geography degree was hardly an 'in* ambition. Philip's mother had shrugged and left them to it.

Philip had indeed been contented, until the shadow of Beehive had entered their lives – a secret which he had kept from her, as instructed, for he was a meticulous man. He enjoyed his work as a ventilation engineer; he made good money; Betty was a good cook and a welcoming if quiet bedmate. Their life together was pleasant, unturbulent and planned. When Betty had her degree, they would try for two children; her interest in the degree was purely amateur. And so on, milestone by modest milestone – had it not been for Beehive.

Beehive, as a secret, had been a worm in their bud. As a realized fact, it had a surprising effect on Betty Summers.

During their hasty packing, she had been stunned, querulous and tearful, lapsing into silence as the two men drove them to the designated Beehive entrance off Essex Road. Philip, watching her anxiously, believed that she was hardly aware of the three-kilometre subterranean journey by electric shuttle-car to the Centre. It was not until the door closed behind them on their four-metre-square cubicle in Centre Married Quarters that her eyes came to life.

Philip held a privileged position by accident. He had been enlisted for the London Beehive as one of five Area Ventilation Officers, under his own chief, who had been recruited earlier as Senior VO for the central governmental hub under Primrose Hill. Then, a month before Beehive Amber, his chief had been seriously injured in a car smash – and from his hospital bed (to Philip's surprise, for he was not the oldest in service) had nominated Philip as his replacement. So Philip, though a mere engineer, was to work cheek-by-jowl with Cabinet ministers, senior civil servants, generals and other elevated figures; to sit as a suitably respectful adviser on various key committees; and even (which amused Philip inexplicably) to undertake personally in the Royal Apartments the routine ventilation maintenance which in other places was left to his thoroughly competent Area staff of three technicians. He had, in addition, to supervise his colleagues in the other four Areas; so he expected to be fully occupied.

There were personal fringe benefits from being SVO. He and his wife would use the Senior Central Mess, only one degree less exalted than the Ministerial Mess (already nicknamed 'the Athenaeum'). Theoretically, all Beehive rations were identical, but one could not escape the fact that the Senior Central Mess kitchen was run by the head chef of Claridges. Again, the SVO's cubicle in Centre Married Quarters was forty centimetres wider and longer than those of his Area colleagues.

Suddenly alone with Betty in their air-conditioned concrete cell, Philip had it on the tip of his tongue to make a joke about those extra forty centimetres to coax her out of her silence. But he saw the look on her face and kept silent himself.

It was a strange, bright-eyed, secret look.

Still unspeaking, Betty gazed around: at the recessed bed with the storage cupboards over and under it, the fold-back table between bench scats, the tiny snacks-only kitchenette corner (communal feeding had to be the rule), the built-in wardrobe, the handbasin unit (showers and toilets communal, too), the two compact armchairs, the wall-mounted television screen and radio with their channel-selector switches, the telephone whose closeness to the bed seemed to emphasize that privacy was strictly provisional, the ever-whispering extractor grill… More like a ship's cabin than a room.

Betty turned to her husband and kissed him, suddenly and briefly, without smiling. 'Well, darling, this is it. Put those suitcases on the bed, and let's get cracking.'

He asked, tentatively: 'Arc you all right, love?'

Then she did smile. Her face seemed to him, in some indefinable way, both harder and warmer than he had ever seen it before.

‘Yes, Phil, I'm all right. Are you?'

'If you are. I've been… lonely, since I knew about this.'

'I know.'

They unpacked, Betty briskly dictating where things were to go. When the suitcases were empty, Philip took them away to Baggage Store. He returned a few minutes later to find Betty hanging a poster on the only available wall space, its string tied to the extractor grill. He realized that she had been carrying it in the car, rolled up, though he had been too preoccupied to ask what it was. Now he saw. It had hung on the landing at home; a reproduction of one of the Zodiac paintings by Johfra – the Virgo sign in which both their birthdays fell. Its central figure was a winged, half-naked woman, carrying a stem of barley in one hand and a flame-enclosing crystal egg in the other. Behind her were tilled fields and an open sky, which Philip did understand; the whole picture was framed with many symbols which he did not. On the woman's face was a secret smile that was somehow akin to the new look on Betty's.

He nodded and said 'Good'; he did not know what else to say, because the winged figure transformed the cubicle. He felt at once disturbed and comforted.

'The kettle's on,' Betty said. 'Will a sandwich do, or do you want to go to the Mess?'

'Not tonight. A sandwich'll be fine. I don't want to see anyone but you, right now.'

'Second thoughts, to hell with the kettle. Can you buy a bottle of wine from that Mess of yours?'

'Oh, I'm sure. Want me to try?'

'Yes, but don't be long.'

'Ten minutes.'

He came back with the bottle to find Betty in a negligee, with her hair brushed loose and shining and her make-up renewed. When he had poured the wine, she clinked glasses with him and then held hers towards the winged figure on the wall. 'Here's to us – and to Her. Whatever happens.'

'Whatever happens,' he echoed, and they drank.

Philip could never remember, afterwards, what they talked about during that strange supper; much of it was like the symbols around the winged Virgo, numinous but only half comprehended. What he did remember was that for the first time in their marriage, instead of him making love to her, she made love to him.

Philip, next morning, had no time for self-analysis. He was more than fully occupied at once. He had to arrange a rota for his three maintenance men; organize his corner of the office which he shared with his power, water and sewage opposite numbers; make himself known (and agreeable) to the head of the Typing Pool (fed by Claridges' chef he might be but he still did not rate an individual secretary); make a fuss about indented stores which had still not arrived – and at the same time to try to get Area North organized, by telephone and a flying visit by shuttle-car, because its AVO' had been on holiday when Beehive Amber was ordered and had not yet reported in; so the Area was in charge of its senior maintenance man, who was brilliant with equipment but out of his depth with administration. Philip managed to cope reasonably well but he had to skip lunch and he reached 'home' just after six, exhausted.