The Human Factor Read Online Free PDF Page A

the movies? Haven’t been to one in ten years. So they still sell Maltesers?’
    â€˜You can buy them in shops too.’
    â€˜I never knew that. Where did you find them?’
    â€˜In an ABC.’
    â€˜ABC?’
    Daintry repeated dubiously what Castle had said, ‘Aerated Bread Company.’
    â€˜Extraordinary! What’s aerated bread?’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ Daintry said.
    â€˜The things they do invent nowadays. I wouldn’t be surprised, would you, if their loaves were made by computers?’ He leant forward and took a Malteser and crackled it at his ear like a cigar.
    Lady Hargreaves called down the table, ‘Buffy! Not before the steak-and-kidney pie.’
    â€˜Sorry, my dear, Couldn’t resist. Haven’t tasted one since I was a kid.’ He said to Daintry, ‘Extraordinary things computers. I paid ’em a fiver once to find me a wife.’
    â€˜You aren’t married?’ Daintry asked, looking at the gold ring Buffy wore.
    â€˜No. Always keep that on for protection. Wasn’t really serious, you know. Like to try out new gadgets. Filled up a form as long as your arm. Qualifications, interests, profession, what have you.’ He took another Malteser. ‘Sweet tooth,’ he said. ‘Always had it.’
    â€˜And did you get any applicants?’
    â€˜They sent me along a girl. Girl! Thirty-five if a day. I had to give her tea. Haven’t had tea since my mum died. I said, “My dear, do you mind if we make it a whisky? I know the waiter here. He’ll slip us one!” She said she didn’t drink. Didn’t drink!’
    â€˜The computer had slipped up?’
    â€˜She had a degree in Economics at London University. And big spectacles. Flat-chested. She said she was a good cook. I said I always took my meals at White’s.’
    â€˜Did you ever see her again?’
    â€˜Not to speak to, but once she waved to me from a bus as I was coming down the club steps. Embarrassing! Because I was with Dicky at the time. That’s what happened when they let buses go up St James’s Street. No one was safe.’
    After the steak-and-kidney pie came a treacle tart and a big Stilton cheese and Sir John Hargreaves circulated the port. There was a faint feeling of unrest at the table as though the holidays had been going on too long. People began to glance through the windows at the grey sky: in a few hours the light would fail. They drank their port rapidly as if with a sense of guilt – they were not really there for idle pleasure – except Percival who wasn’t concerned. He was telling another fishing story and had four empty bottles of beer beside him.
    The Solicitor-General – or was it the Attorney-General? – said heavily, ‘We ought to be moving. The sun’s going down.’ He certainly was not here for enjoyment, only for execution, and Daintry sympathized with his anxiety. Hargreaves really ought to make a move, but Hargreaves was almost asleep. After years in the Colonial Service – he had once been a young District Commissioner on what was then the Gold Coast – he had acquired the knack of snatching his siesta in the most unfavourable circumstances, even surrounded by quarrelling chiefs, who used to make more noise than Buffy.
    â€˜John,’ Lady Hargreaves called down the table, ‘wake up.’
    He opened blue serene unshockable eyes and said, ‘A cat-nap.’ It was said that as a young man somewhere in Ashanti he had inadvertently eaten human flesh, but his digestion had not been impaired. According to the story he had told the Governor, ‘I couldn’t really complain, sir. They were doing me a great honour by inviting me to take pot luck.’
    â€˜Well, Daintry,’ he said, ‘I suppose it’s time we got on with the massacre.’
    He unrolled himself from the table and yawned. ‘Your steak-and-kidney pie, dear, is too