The Wanting Seed Read Online Free PDF

‘And what do you mean by “the best people”?’ he asked. ‘People like my brother Derek? That power-struck little nancy, crawling, yes, literally crawling up the –’
    ‘Calmo,’ said Joscelyne, ‘calmo.’ He had only just returned from an educational conference in Rome, that popeless city. ‘You were just going to say something very opprobrious then. “Nancy” is a very contemptuous term. The homos, remember, virtually run this country and, for that matter, the whole of the English-Speaking Union.’ He lowered his eyebrows, gazing at Tristram with foxy sorrow. ‘My uncle, the High Commissioner, he’s homo. I was nearly homo myself once. Let’s keep emotion out of this,’ he said. ‘It’s unseemly, that’s what it is, yah, unseemly. Just let’s try to parlare about this calmamente , huh?’ He smiled, trying to make the smile look homespun and cracker-barrel. ‘You know as well as I do that the job of breeding’s best left to the lower orders. Remember that the very term proletariat comes from Latin proletarius , meaning those that serve the State with their offspring or proles . You and me, we’re supposed to be above that sort of thing, huh?’ He sat back in his chair, smiling, tapping the desk with his inkpencil-0, for some reason, in Morse. ‘One birth per family, that’s the rule or recommendation or whatever you like to call it, but the proletariat breaks that rule anthe time. The race is in no danger of dying. Just the opposite, I’d say. I hear rumours from high places, but never mind, never mind. The fact is that your old man and your old lady broke the rule very nastily, very nastily indeed. Yah. He was what? – something in the Ministry of Agriculture, wasn’t he? According to this dossier he was. Well, it was just a little bit cynical, I’d say, helping to increase the national food supply with one hand and getting four kids with the other.’ He saw that this was rather a grotesque antithesis but he shrugged it off. ‘And that’s not forgotten, you know, Brother Foxe, not forgotten. The sins of the fathers, as they used to say.’
    ‘We’ll all help the Ministry of Agriculture some day,’ sulked Tristram. ‘Quite a nice lump of phosphorous pentoxide, the four of us.’
    ‘Your wife, too,’ said Joscelyne, rustling the many sheets of the dossier. ‘She’s got a sister in Northern Province. Married to an agricultural officer. Two children there.’ He tutted. ‘A kind of aura of fertility surrounds you, Brother Foxe. Anyway, as far as this post of departmental head is concerned, it’s pretty evident that, all things being equal, the Board will want to appoint a candidate with a cleaner family wreckerd.’ This pronunciation became a focus of irritation to Tristram. ‘Let’s see. Let’s look at the other candidates.’ Joscelyne leaned forward, elbows on the desk, and began to tick them off on his fingers. ‘Wiltshire’s homo. Cruttenden’s unmarried. Cowell’s married with one kid, so he’s out. Crum-Ewing’s gone the whole hog, he’s a castrato , a pretty strong candidate. Fiddian’s just nothing. Ralph’s homo –’
    ‘All right,’ said Tristram. ‘I accept my sentence. I just stay where I am and see somebody younger – it’s bound to be somebody younger; it always is – promoted over my head. Just because of my wrreckerd,’ he added bitterly.
    ‘Yah, that’s it,’ said Joscelyne. ‘I’m glad you’re taking it this way. You see how a lot of these top-brass are going to look at it. Heredity, that’s the word, heredity. A family pattern of deliberate fertility, that’s it. Yah. Like being a hereditary criminal. Things are very tricky these days. In confidence, fella, you watch your step. Watch your wife. Don’t start having any more kids. Don’t start getting irresponsible like the proletariat. One false step like that and you’d be out. Yah, out.’ He made the gesture of cutting his own throat. ‘Lots of promising young men coming up.