Devices and Desires by P. D. James Page A

about Amy, about his family. Thrusting his hand in his pocket, he felt the crumpled envelope of his mother’s last letter.
    He knew that his parents were disappointed in him although they never said so openly, since oblique hints were just as effective: “Mrs. Reilly keeps on asking me, What is Neil doing? I don’t like to say that you’re living in a caravan with no proper job.” She certainly didn’t like to say that he was livingthere with a girl. He had written to tell them about Amy since his parents constantly threatened to visit and, unlikely as this was actually to happen, the prospect had added an intolerable anxiety to his already anxiety-ridden life.
    “I’m giving a temporary home to an unmarried mother in return for typing help. Don’t worry, I shan’t suddenly present you with a bastard grandchild.”
    After the letter had been posted he had felt ashamed. The cheap attempt at humour had been too like a treacherous repudiation of Timmy, whom he loved. And his mother hadn’t found it either funny or reassuring. His letter had produced an almost incoherent farrago of warnings, pained reproaches and veiled references to the possible reaction of Mrs. Reilly if she ever got to know. Only his two brothers surreptitiously welcomed his way of life. They hadn’t made university and the difference between their comfortable lifestyle—houses on an executive estate,
en suite
bathrooms, artificial coal fires in what they called the lounge, working wives, a new car every two years and time-shares in Majorca—provided both with agreeable hours of self-satisfied comparisons which he knew would always end with the same conclusion, that he ought to pull himself together, that it wasn’t right, not after all the sacrifices Mum and Dad had made to send him to college, and a fine waste of money that had proved.
    He had told Amy none of this but would have happily confided had she shown the least interest. But she asked no questions about his past life and told him nothing about hers. Her voice, her body, her smell were as familiar to him as his own, but essentially he knew no more about her now than when she had arrived. She refused to collect any welfare benefits, saying that she wasn’t going to have DHSS snoopers visiting the caravan to see if she and Neil were sleeping together.He sympathized. He didn’t want them either, but he felt that for Timmy’s sake she should take what was on offer. He had given her no money but he did feed both of them, and this was difficult enough on his grant. No one visited her and no one telephoned. Occasionally she would receive a postcard, coloured views usually of London with non-descript, meaningless messages, but as far as he knew she never replied.
    They had so little in common. She helped spasmodically with PANUP but he was never sure how far she was actually committed. And he knew that she found his pacifism stupid. He could recall a conversation only this morning.
    “Look, if I live next door to an enemy and he has a knife, a gun and a machine gun and I’ve got the same, I’m not going to chuck mine before he chucks his. I’ll say, OK, let the knife go, then the gun maybe, then the machine gun. Him and me at the same time. Why should I throw mine away and leave him with his?”
    “But one of you has to make a start, Amy. There has to be a beginning of trust. Whether it’s people or nations, we have to find the faith to open our hearts and hands and say, ‘Look, I’ve nothing. I’ve only my humanity. We inhabit the same planet. The world is full of pain but we needn’t add to it. There has to be an end of fear.’”
    She had said obstinately: “I don’t see why he should chuck his weapons once he knows I’ve got nothing.”
    “Why should he keep them? He’s got nothing to fear from you any more.”
    “He’d keep them because he liked the feeling of having them and because he might like to use them some day. He’d like the power and he’d like knowing he