The Children of Men

by P.D. James

What possible interest can there be in the journal of Theodore Faron, Doctor of Philosophy, Fellow of Merton College in the University of Oxford, historian of the Victorian age, divorced, childless, solitary, whose only claim to notice is that he is cousin to Xan Lyppiatt, the dictator and Warden of England. No additional personal record is, in any case, necessary.

Twenty years ago, when the world was already half-convinced that our species had lost for ever the power to reproduce, the search to find the last known human birth became a universal obsession, elevated to a matter of national pride, an international contest as ultimately pointless as it was fierce and acrimonious.

There have been many diseases which have been difficult to diagnose or cure and one which almost depopulated two continents before it spent itself. But we have always in the end been able to explain why.

Our interest in sex is waning. Romantic and idealized love has taken over from crude carnal satisfaction despite the efforts of the Warden of England, through the national porn shops, to stimulate our flagging appetites.

equality is a political theory not a practical policy,

Pornography and sexual violence on film, on television, in books, in life, had increased and became more explicit but less and less in the West we made love and bred children. It seemed at the time a welcome development in a world grossly polluted by over-population. As a historian I see it as the beginning of the end.

We were polluting the planet with our numbers; if we were breeding less it was to be welcomed. Most of the concern was less about a falling population than about the wish of nations to maintain their own people, their own culture, their own race, to breed sufficient young to maintain their economic structures.

It was in that year, 2008, that the suicides increased.

I tell myself this, but do I believe it when the pleasure now comes so rarely and, when it does, is so indistinguishable from pain?

We can experience nothing but the present moment, live in no other second of time, and to understand this is as close as we can get to eternal life.

In our universal bereavement, like grieving parents, we have put away all painful reminders of our loss. The children’s playgrounds in our parks have been dismantled.

If from infancy you treat children as gods they are liable in adulthood to act as devils.

History, which interprets the past to understand the present and confront the future, is the least rewarding discipline for a dying species.

In the light of these mass extinctions it really does seem unreasonable to suppose that Homo sapiens should be exempt.

It wasn’t sexual, except that in nearly all close friendships there is a subcutaneous pricking of sexual attraction.

He had charm, of course; he still has. Charm is often despised but I can never see why. No one has it who isn’t capable of genuinely liking others, at least at the actual moment of meeting and speaking. Charm is always genuine; it may be superficial but it isn’t false.

“The thing is this, schoolmasters want to understand you, that’s what they think they’re paid for. I keep them puzzled. Hard worker, top marks, housemaster’s pet, safe for an Oxford scholarship one term; next term big, big trouble.”

He had absolutely no commitment to me, no responsibility for me, not even the commitment of friendship or the responsibility of personal choice. He hadn’t chosen me. I was his cousin, I was wished on him, I was there.

After the second time I said: “We’re not pretending to feel affection. We don’t even like them; they certainly don’t like us. So if both parties only want sex why don’t we just say so and cut out all these embarrassing preliminaries?”

On the morning of the Quietus, Theo awoke to a weight of vague unease, not heavy enough to be called anxiety, but a mild unfocused depression, like the last tatters of an unremembered but disagreeable dream.

He had been more ready to hurt his wife’s feelings and deprive his daughter than to inconvenience a pub bar full of strangers. He wished there could be one memory of his dead child which wasn’t tainted with guilt and regret.

He couldn’t hear the beating heart, but he could hear and feel the movements of the child, feel its life. He was swept by a tide of emotion which rose, buffeted and engulfed him in a turbulent surge of awe, excitement and terror, then receded, leaving him spent and weak.

Theo thought: He thinks he’s supporting his wife. But all he really cares about is getting the child safely born before Xan and the Council find out about the pregnancy.

This birth is the concern of the whole world, not just England. The child belongs to mankind.” Luke said: “The child belongs to God.”

He could get away, telephone Xan, put an end to it. But if he did, Julian would die. At least she thought she would, and the conviction might be powerful enough to kill both her and her child. He had been responsible for the death of one child. That was enough.

As soon as he pushed open the door he knew what he would find. The smell choked him, strong and evil as a contagion: blood, faeces, the stink of death. Jasper had made himself comfortable for the final act of his life. He was seated in the armchair before the empty fire, hands hanging loosely over the arms.

He had put the muzzle of a revolver in his mouth and blown off the top of his head. What remained of it was slumped forward on his chest, where there was a stiffened bib of brown blood which looked like dried vomit.

“It’s a quotation from Horace. It says that there’s no pleasure in getting rid of one thorn among so many. If you can’t live well, get out. He probably found the Latin in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.”

“We can’t have two leaders of this expedition.”

Luke’s face had gone. Even in the distant ruddy light cast by the flaming car they could see that the whole head had been battered into a mess of blood, skin and cracked bones. The arms lay askew, the legs seemed to buckle as Theo braced himself to lift him. It was like trying to take hold of a broken marionette.

His voice was low and harsh, and so distorted that it might have been forced through a diseased larynx. He said: “Whose child is she carrying?”

She said: “Luke’s. The child is Luke’s.”

Julian had been wrong about the sex. The child was male. Its sex, seeming so dominant, so disproportionate to the plump, small body, was like a proclamation.

This child will be born in comfort and safety. The mother will be treated like the miracle she is; she has to know that. If she trusts you, then you can be the one to tell her. Reassure her, calm her, let her know she has nothing to fear from me.”

“Isn’t it obvious? If it’s a boy and he’s fertile, he’ll be the father of the new race. If he produces sperm, fertile sperm, at thirteen—at twelve maybe—our female Omegas will only be thirty-eight. We can breed from them, from other selected women. We may be able to breed again from the woman herself.”

She may be the most important woman in the world but she isn’t the Virgin Mary. The child she is carrying is still the child of a whore.”

But it was with that remembered shout in his ears that he shot Xan through the heart.

Theo held up the ring, then deliberately placed it on his finger and held the back of his hand towards them.

The towel between her legs was heavily stained. He removed it without revulsion, almost without thought, and, folding another, put it in place. There was very little water left in the bottle, but he hardly needed it. His tears were falling now over the child’s forehead. From some far childhood memory he recalled the rite. The water had to flow, there were words which had to be said. It was with a thumb wet with his own tears and stained with her blood that he made on the child’s forehead the sign of the cross.