Not many people walked these streets and those not known were soon inspected. Identification, please, sir. May I have your identification, please, madam? These were quiet streets, clean and well-patrolled.
This was a pompous place where no one ever shouted or got angry, where there were no dramas and all was under control. It was an area built generations ago when people knew their place and nothing ever changed. Imposing grey stone buildings lined the streets. They were old, with real windows and beautifully polished carved wooden doors, brasswork shining. The cars in the street had rich dark bodywork with touches of gleaming chrome. They were silent with drivers in dark uniforms.
Lincoln Marsh got out of his car slowly and looked at his driver holding open the door.
“In two hours, Maitland.”
The driver nodded but said nothing.
As Marsh walked up the granite steps, the driver flicked some dust from the cream leather seating and softly closed the door. Back in the driver’s seat, he took off his sunglasses and sat still for thirty seconds or so. Then he took a deep breath and started to drive away.
Marsh was tall and slim, about sixty years old, and impeccably tailored with the air of a lord. He moved easily up the steps. Smiling absently at the man on the door, he dipped his head in greeting, and went in.
Inside, the club was gracious in the eternal style of the country gentleman. There was rich polished wood on every surface and heavy dark red carpeting underfoot. Well-dressed men were speaking in low voices. Mozart played so softly that only few heard it. The bar on the left was mainly lit by soft light from the street diffused through heavy net curtains. The members could see out if they wished, but any chance walkers-by could not see in at all.
Marsh gave a slight nod to the waiting barman, who took a key out of his pocket and unlocked the glass-fronted top shelf where the special gins and whiskies were. He sat upright at a high stool by the bar, signed for the drink, sipped his whisky and waited.
He did not have to wait long. Three or four minutes later, Bulford walked up with a friendly smile and shook hands.
“Good evening, Bulford. I am so glad you could be here.”
“Naturally. It would have to be a national emergency for me to refuse your invitation.”
Bulford nodded at the barman who had been waiting, and soon he was holding a gin-and-tonic with gin from the top shelf.
“You’re too kind,” said Marsh. “How are things professionally?”
Bulford smiled.
“You know as well as I do. The wind goes this way, and the wind goes that.”
They both laughed.
“And sometimes,” said Marsh. “The wind goes round and round and round.”
Bulford was the same age as Marsh and they had known each other for most of their lives. Bulford was a little shorter, a little heavier, but he had the same tailoring. His suit was a dark-grey cashmere that flattered him perfectly.
The manager of the day arrived. A man with a lot of stress in his face, he was wearing a suit that cost him a month’s salary, but no one would ever confuse him with a member.
“Good evening, sirs.”
They both nodded in reply.
“Are there just the two of you this evening?”
Another nod from Marsh.
“Would you like to dine now or would you rather wait?”
Marsh finished his whisky.
They followed the manager up broad wooden stairs to a locked private dining room that had been electronically swept clean by Marsh’s men an hour earlier. The room had a heavy wooden table big enough for six that the manager was now setting for two. On the pale green papered walls there were prints of elegant life in the city two hundred years ago. Through the tinted window there was a modest courtyard of washed gravel in many shades, with some bushes flowering in pink and blue. On one side there was a metal plate with a stack of wood that burned at night to give light. This was a tradition of the club. The courtyard was overlooked by a few mirror windows. Only an expert would have noticed a tiny black square in the corner of each window pane. This was a window vibrator that made it impossible to overhear any conversation within.
“Only two of us this evening?” said Bulford after the manager had gone.
“Let’s look at the menu,” said Marsh. “I think I’ll try the beef. What do you think? It doesn’t matter how many fancy things we can have for dinner, it always comes down to good old beef in the end.”
Later, after a bottle between them of a good rosé from Portugal with the salmon canapés, and two bottles of a fine red from the heart of France with the beef, they were still talking about the old days at school, the beginnings of their careers, and laughing disrespectfully at their absent wives.
“After a hard day there is little better than a fine cognac in good company,” said Marsh.
“I agree,” said Bulford.
He was smiling happily.
“Specially with beef of that quality. I wonder if it’s true about the massaging?”
“Massaging the beef, you mean? I’m sure it is. With gorgeous women doing the massaging in front of cameras, I should think.”
Bulford sat back.
“In my grandfather’s day, we would be sitting here with rich Cuban cigars.”
Marsh grimaced as if he had just seen a wasp in the beer he was going to drink.
“Those were the days,” he said. “Before the rot set in.”
“I know what you mean. It was like a golden age.”
“A gilded age.”
“I’ll give you that. A gilded age. No rationing all the time, no black markets, no hiding the good stuff because of envy everywhere.”
“Also,” said Marsh. “Johnny had a job, so he was quite useful. Not like now.”
“Meant he was quiet all the time.”
“Except for football and Saturday night. Not so many murders then.”
Marsh raised his glass.
“To the fine man who invented football.”
They drank to that.
“Now what have we got?” said Marsh. “Millions of useless eaters.”
“True,” said Bulford. “Useless mouths that belong to useless humans. We feed them and they shit. They waste their time, they waste our resources.”
“They waste our time too. We have to police them to keep them contained.”
“You’re right. The world doesn’t need them.”
“We work hard,” said Marsh. “We pay taxes.”
“Some.”
“We pay too much, though.”
Marsh poured more cognac for them.
“They don’t work,” he said. “They don’t do anything.”
“Yes, they do. They eat and drink and take drugs. They kill each other from time to time, and they like setting fire to things.”
“And they watch shit on TV with their mouths open.”
“Day after day, night after night. Awful stuff, as far as I know.”
“Where do they get the money from?” said Marsh. “As if we didn’t know.”
“From us. We pay our taxes. And they waste our money on the useless eaters. Why? is a good question.”
“Officially, it’s humanitarian.”
Marsh looked a little disgusted.
“But the real reason is fear,” he said.
“What about surveillance?” said Bulford. “We’re supposed to be good at that.”
“Works fine against an intelligent enemy. Useless against a mindless horde, out of their little brains and covered with tattoos. Planning goes out of their heads after the first drug injection.”
“They’re so dirty.”
“They’re filthy. They stink.”
He paused.
“They attack the rubbish men for some reason.”
“Or no reason at all.”
“No reason a rational mind can find. A moron doesn’t need a reason. So the rubbish men don’t go in there unless they’re ordered. They collect the trash with armed police.”
He sneered.
“Not very often, though.”
Bulford sat very still for a few moments. And then he spoke in a very quiet voice.
“What would happen to the money we waste on these vermin if we didn’t waste it?”
Marsh looked at him.
“Isn’t that a good question?”
They smiled together and Marsh poured another drink.
“There’s so many of them. And they’re dragging us down. The world doesn’t need them.”
“More than that,” said Bulford. “The world would be much better off without them.”
…
A few months later Lincoln Marsh and his friend Bulford were enjoying more cognac in the same private dining room, but this time there were four more men with them. The conversation was flowing with the drink, and useless eaters were back on the menu.
“Have you noticed,” said one. “That the so-called Black Holes are usually separate from civilisation?”
“What do you mean?” said Bulford.
“I mean, look at a map.”
“Easy to surround? Is that it?”
“I could be thinking that way.”
He shrugged and poured himself some more.
“I have been looking at maps and talking to my police friends. Black Holes always have a border, they say. It’s not always marked, not always official, but it’s always there. A child can see it, and will not cross it unless he really has to.”
“Either way?”
“Either way.”
He smiled.
“No one wants to go in one, of course. They’re called Black Holes for a reason. Once you’re in, you never get out. But the thing is that none of them want to leave.”
“Better,” said one of the others.
He had the angry red face of a man who drinks for breakfast. He called for another bottle.
“All these fucking parasites just take our food and drink our water. It costs a fortune to police the damn places, and what do we get for it? Crime and disease. Crime and disease.”
Marsh suddenly put down his glass with a big grin.
“Crime and disease, gentlemen. Crime and disease. That gives me an idea. Let’s talk about it.”
