"But that's what happens, surely, Mr Birt," one of them objected.

"Daisy doesn't have all," he said. "The rest goes to pig farms, I agree, but here we touch on what might be termed the ethics of political economy. I wouldn't exactly recommend your using this in exam papers, but I do put it forward that, if there is waste, then you should keep your own pigs. Clean up so to speak, behind."

"Then what are they going to eat on pig farms?"

"But, surely, that is the affair of the State?" he asked. "A mass feeding of swine should not be haphazard. The surplus of a hundred thousand State factories must be made up into balanced pig foods."

"And what if the pigs don't like?"

"They will. That is the purpose of the State," he said.

"But how can you tell, which is my whole point, don't you see?" Elizabeth rushed in. "You never know with animals, or anyone."

"Yet, Liz," he explained patiently, "the one goes thin, the other complains aloud, and both go thin."

"Oh it's not only food, I wouldn't be so silly, there's lots of things people are as silent as animals over. In what way is any single person sure how a certain matter will turn out?" She told him this with such intensity that he grew cautious. "Whether they will like it, or no?" she explained, about their sharing the cottage with Gapa.

"I'm not sure I follow," he said, as well he might.

"Wouldn't you say that was like a man, all over?" she exclaimed, favouring the girls about with a delighted smile. "Why it's quite simple." Then she sheered off again. "If you had to cook for someone, you'd soon learn," she said. "There need be no question of waste in the least. What does count is what's available. Don't you see how? Suppose I know my grandfather likes prawns and I can only get shrimps. As a matter of fact," she elaborated to the students, "he adores a prawn tea," pretending that she invariably arranged his meals every day. "But very likely I can only manage the other. What's the difference? Why, shrimps give him a pain." Then she had an urge to be open with them. "As a matter of fact," she went on, "I had a breakdown at work, you may have heard, and I haven't seemed able to do a great lot lately. Oh, Gapa's been marvellous, hasn't he, Seb? He's cooked for all of us," she said, to underline the special, though as yet unpublicised, relationship between her and the young man. "Of course, it's not a mere matter of food and cooking. There's everything comes into this. Someone wanted to know whether Daisy would like all the other pigs on either side. Well, what about us? Who can say if we shall like? D'you see what's back of my mind?"

She gave Sebastian a piercing glance. Some of the students had already had enough, were discussing other topics.

"My point was, dear, you would feel better if what you had to support was nourished on your left overs," Sebastian said.

"That's not so," she cried. "How about children?"

"When they're nursed, it exactly bears out my point."

"I don't think we need go into biological details here," she said. "Anyway, after six months or so they're weaned, surely? No, but when children are growing up. You don't give them your leavings then."

"We were on the subject of pigs," he insisted.

"You will, sometimes, be so dense, well pigheaded," she archly complained. "Oh my dears, what must you think of us?" she asked the girls who, for the most part, had long ceased to pay attention. "You know Gapa's notion, about what he might decide to do," she said with a loaded look at everyone, which even Sebastian did not seem to understand. "The last one, of course. What he suggested to Miss Edge just now? Well, could anything be better?" She referred to Mr Rock's unexpected offer to give talks on pigs. "To hold you know what," she ended, to make it doubly plain she meant their cottage.

"Isn't it splendid Mr Rock's to teach about Daisy," one of the students took her up, innocent as the day, obviously under the impression that she was opening a fresh topic.

"Why whoever told you that, then?" Elizabeth asked, delighted at what she took to be confirmation.

"Oh everyone knows. Don't they, girls?"

"Sebastian, did you hear? Isn't it marvellous?" Miss Rock crowed. "You see? It means Miss Edge must have thought of our plan first." In such a way the granddaughter both claimed the idea for her very own and assumed Edge's acquiescence, thus wilfully ignoring the heights, or depths, of gossip prevalent amongst these children.

* * *

Miss Edge, when the gramophone stopped a second time, once more found herself the centre of a slightly panting group plying her with invitations. She shooed them off towards the buffet, and stalked to the dais that she might rest herself. She had not gone far before she perceived Mr Rock up there again, alone, as though lionised. She paused. But, after all, it would be too absurd if the man's presence hindered one of the Principals taking her rightful place. So she glided over despite him.

With an acute struggle against his old joints, he rose to this approach.

"My congratulations, ma'am," he said. "A memorable sight we have tonight."

"My dear Mr Rock. Sweet indeed to bother."

"I trust your exertions will permit, later, your partnering an old man."

"My dear Sir, how could I forget? I shall hold you to it." In no time they were seated side by side, Miss Edge delicately inclined towards the sage. Her eyes roved over the Hall of her girls, in stiff pairs as if bereft at this interruption of music. He, for his part, looked on the old fashioned dancing pumps he wore, while he leaned in her direction to minimise the deafness.

"Takes me quite back to my young days," he persisted.

"And mine, if you please," she countered.

In this he lied, however. It was true the more distant past now made a sharper picture; the time at school, hard work, then six months chasing girls and finally the signal triumph; but he was concentrated now on his granddaughter, on how best to approach Miss Edge. "I do know a little about these things. It is your powers of organisation, if I may say so, which I especially applaud," he said.

"You understand our Tamashas are traditional," the lady condescended. "They run themselves. All Baker and I must do, is to watch that there are no departures."

Departures? Escapes? Was this a reference to poor Mary, he wondered?

"Ah, the sudden, the unexpected," he tested her.

The sudden, she asked herself? Could he be aiming at that unfortunate child? The whole trouble really was, too many knew about Merode and Mary.

"The odious deviations from what is usual," she corrected, dashing him a glance. "One of the things we should provide here is memories, which is why I strive for the repetitive. It is a minor function, of course, in a great Place like this, but we must send them out so they can look back on the small pleasures shared. I dare say there are several reunion parties to celebrate Founder's Day in many a State Recreation Room this selfsame moment. You know, it is not long since that Baker and I were privileged by the State to create the Institute out of a void. Believe me, Mr Rock, it was a vacuum indeed when we first came. But already our old girls would be distressed to hear of change in any shape."