Free Saturn Over the Water by J. B. Priestley, J.B. Priestley

any more sense to me even if they plaster him all over Time magazine the rest of this year. What the hell’s he want, anyhow? Have we all to stop living because he thinks the Russians are under his bed? We’ve got ’em ringed round with bases right now. What more does he want?’
    ‘Listen, Sam, listen,’ another man said to him, an older man, who’d learnt the trick of sounding weary at the top of his voice. ‘Mike Giddings doesn’t trust the Reds – and he’s right, I guess – so he says so. He believes – and he’s right again, I’d say – that when they give us the soft talk we have to be hard – talk from strength – ’
    ‘Sure!’ This was the military type again. ‘I want to tell you I’ve had the privilege of serving under Mike Giddings – and that’s one man they can’t fool and who won’t leave this country undefended – ’
    ‘Undefended!’ Sam looked as if he was about to explode. ‘Look, man – we’ve spent billions and billions of dollars on fancy hardware – and we’ll all be going underground next – and we’re driving ourselves half nutty – for what? What do they want, these Giddingses – what are they aiming at – where do they stop? You talk about crackpots! They ’ re the crackpots – ’
    ‘If you can listen to them talking this stuff,’ said Angel, giving me a sharp nip, ‘you don’t love me. You don’t love anybody. Just argument, argument, argument. Why, darling – you never told me.’ This last remark, in a new tone of voice, wasn’t addressed to me of course, and I never saw the man who received it, the crush becoming greater just then; but without another word to me, Angel vanished, taking our beautiful friendship with her.
    When we were back in Sam’s apartment, I asked him about this Giddings. I felt pretty sure he must be the Gen . Giddings who headed Joe Farne’s list. ‘Who is he?’ I said. ‘And why did he keep coming into the argument?’
    Sam pushed out his big lower lip and wagged his head. ‘He’s one of these Washington screwballs who are a hundred per cent American patriots. They’re not going to share the same planet with the Reds, and they pretend the five hundred million Chinese aren’t there, only the Russkis. Every time we’re not too far from some sort of agreement with Moscow, somebody like Giddings starts hollering and screaming. They never say what they want or where it all ends. But we mustn’t talk to the Commies as if they were men, we must go on and on, spending more and more dollars, getting tougher and tougher. If you don’t agree, you ought to be investigated – you’re the one whose sister clapped when the speaker mentioned the Red Army in 1944 .’
    ‘If you saw Giddings’s name on a list, Sam, what would you think?’ I asked him.
    ‘I wouldn’t think I was looking at the entries for a Peace Prize.’ He gave me a sharp look. ‘I can keep my mouth shut, Tim, if there’s anything you’d like to tell me.’
    ‘It doesn’t make enough sense yet. I’d feel a fool trying to tell you.’
    ‘Okay, let’s forget it. Now tomorrow, Tim, if you can take it, we spend a day with the rich. Believe it or not, Mrs Tengleton has at least seventy-five million bucks, and though she’s a spender she’s richer every week. She has some goddam fine pictures out there – she bought a few from me – and we can mix with the quality, so long as you keep your hands off the silver, you low Limey painter. Okay?’
    A friend of his called Hirsh, even fatter than Sam was, took us out there, in a car nearly as big as a landing craft. No more snow had fallen; the day sparkled; the air was marvellous. A lot of other people, in cars nearly as large as Hirsh’s, were all going somewhere, perhaps to Mrs Tengleton’s. This was somewhere in the Westchester region, and though I gathered that it wasn’t quite as big as Luxemburg, I felt when we drove up to the gates that there ought to have been passport and customs officials. Mrs