Ned Beauman - Boxer, Beetle

‘Do you really not think breeding is important, Morton?’ said Erskine.

‘Of course it’s important,’ said Bruiseland. ‘What breed of sheep, what breed of horse, what breed of chicken could have been abandoned as modern man has been abandoned — to random, promiscuous mating — without falling into disarray?’

‘Morton, have you heard of the Kerangal family of Brittany?’ said Erskine. ‘It’s in Saint-Brieve. Between 1830 and 1890 they were found to have produced seven murderers and nine prostitutes, and most of the rest were blind or deaf.’

‘Yes, I have heard of them, and I recall that in that time they also produced one painter, one poet, one architect, one actress and one musician.’

‘But Galton says—’

‘Remind me what that fellow said about the Royal Family,’ said Bruiseland.

‘He proved that they aren’t any healthier than the rest of us, even though millions of people pray for them every Sunday, which is, er, a bit odd,’ said Erskine.

‘Exactly. The man is an idiot,’ said Bruiseland.

‘As bad as Nietzsche?’ said Evelyn.

‘As bad as Nietzsche and Wagner and Gobineau and Chamberlain and Ibsen and Rodin and Verlaine and Mallarmé and all the rest of them.’ Bruiseland had learned the latter set of names from his wife. ‘Cripples and clowns.’

‘Wagner was a titan,’ said Kasimir Mowinckel.

‘ Halt die Schnauze , Kasimir,’ said Berthold. ‘Although, yes, he was a titan.’

‘Pitt-Rivers said that, “Only the Jews will deliver us from the Jews”,’ said Erskine. ‘What he meant was that the Jews have guarded their own racial purity better than any other nation on earth, so we ought to learn from them.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, what is all this about purity?’ said Morton. ‘Britons are mongrels — part Norse, part Celt, part Roman, part Norman. Everyone knows that. Even Chamberlain said we weren’t as good as the “pure Aryans” from the frozen north.’

Then Millicent Bruiseland skipped into the room. She had so many freckles that Erskine wondered if she might have stolen some from other children.

‘You’re supposed to be in the nursery, Millicent,’ said Erskine’s mother. ‘Have you even had your tea yet? Where’s your nanny?’

‘I’m too old for the nursery, and anyway I must speak urgently to your son.’

Conversation resumed as Millicent went up to Erskine and whispered, ‘Mr Erskine, I have the most shocking news. Your friend Mr Morton has asked me to deliver this to your sister.’ Millicent then passed him a crumpled note, quite obviously in a child’s hand, that read: ‘DEAR MISS ERSKINE, I WISH TO HAVE AFTERNOON TEA WITH YOUR PUDENDA, YOUR’S FAITHFULLY, MR. MORTON.’

‘Dispose of this at once, Millicent.’

Millicent tutted and went out. Kasimir Mowinckel asked his father for the salt and his father ignored him.

‘Morton, you’ve done nothing this evening but snipe at our morals and mock our beliefs,’ said Erskine’s father later on. ‘Why on earth do you call yourself a fascist if you’re not interested in cleaning up the race?’

‘Because, as I said, there are more important things to worry about. Capitalist democracy is exhausted. It is grinding itself away. We’re told we live in a free country, but any freedom which allows a man who cannot afford food to own a newspaper or initiate a legal action is meaningless. Pure decadence. Something must be done. And we have two choices for the renewal of our society. One is communism, which is godless and anyway would never work. The other is fascism.’

‘So what exactly are you proposing?’ said Erskine’s father.

‘I don’t want to bore everyone.’

‘Come on, Morton.’

‘Well, to be brief, the whole adult population would be divided up into twenty-four corporations: Agriculture, Chemicals, Transport, Banking and Insurance, and so forth.’

‘Would there be a corporation of Music?’ said Evelyn.

‘I’m afraid not, my dear, because, to the great relief of most of us around this table, twelve-tone music is not one of Britain’s foremost industries. You might be put into Professional or into Miscellaneous Manufactures. And of course there would be a corporation for Married Women. Now, above all that there would be a National Corporation, made up of elected representatives of each lower corporation. No one would be elected any more on the back of slogans or speech-making or good looks, because men would vote for colleagues in their own trade, based entirely on competence. The National Corporation would take control of profits, hours, working conditions and so on, adjusting consumption to production by the control of wages. An end to poverty and unemployment and exploitation.’

‘Sounds like Jewish socialism to me,’ said Aslet.

‘Oh, are Jews socialists?’ said Evelyn. ‘That’s funny, I’d heard they were all haughty financiers. I must have misunderstood.’

‘Same thing — it’s just that the head of the serpent is in Moscow and the tail is in New York,’ said Berthold Mowinckel. His lips were stained with wine and it made him look vampiric. ‘They’re all Jews and they all want to bring civilised Europe to its knees, so what does it matter what we call them?’ Erskine heard ‘bring civilised Europe to its niece’, which sounded quite benign.

‘Jews love currency so much because it is abstract and homeless and slippery, just like them,’ said Amadeo. ‘They feel at home with market capitalism because their whole religion is based on a contract. And because of the desert, too. The beating sun and the clear moonlight encourage soulless intellectualism. The senses and the emotions wither, and gold is all that’s left. At the same time, in the desert, you never know whether your flock of sheep will double in number or die out from hunger and disease. So you become obsessed with unlimited acquisition and production and speculation. Such a thing could never happen in a decent, settled farming community.’

‘Oh, are Jews soulless intellectuals?’ said Evelyn. ‘That’s funny, I’d heard they were all dissolute and oversexed. This is far too complicated for me.’

‘Admittedly, what I propose is not entirely unlike what Roosevelt is doing,’ said Morton, trying to return to his subject. ‘But a great deal sterner.’

‘Morton, it seems to me that you just want to replace Parliament with something even worse,’ said Bruiseland. Although he was sitting to Morton’s immediate left, this was the first time that evening that he had directly addressed the younger man. ‘What is the point of Parliament — what has it ever been — but to prevent the government from governing? Bit by bit it broke the monarchy, it broke the Church, and finally it even broke the country squire. Then, having broken everything that could keep the country in order, it left us at the mercy of the Jews.’

‘Now, Bruiseland!’ said Aslet.

But Bruiseland ignored him. ‘A “National Corporation” would be no better. What we need is a king who’s not afraid to do what needs to be done.’

‘Fascism is not about pretending we live in medieval Albion,’ said Morton.

‘You mean to tell me, young man, what fascism is about?’ said Bruiseland. ‘Fascism is not about corporations and it is not about science and it is not about Britain. It is a great deal less fashionable than that. It is about time-honoured English traditions. It is about the crown and the soil. It is about noble blood and the working man’s loyalty. It is about George slaying the dragon.’

‘Fascism is a war as old as time,’ said Berthold Mowinckel.

‘That is all bunk,’ said Amadeo loudly. ‘You are all reactionaries. In Italy, do you see any crown or soil? Or in Germany, any war as old as time? No. Fascism is modern! Fascism is about the triumph of the machine. Fascism is about pistons and propellors. Everything else is impotence. Surely you agree with me, Mr Erskine, you who have rebuilt this wonderful house? Tell me, how long must we wait until a skyscraper is built with Buckingham Palace as its base and the dome of St Paul’s as its top? How long must we wait until we can send into Moscow tanks the size of barns?’