Judgment Day Read Free Page A

Bryan took himself to school, brought himself home.
    John Coggan sat on the Parish Council and was chairman of the Parent Teacher Association. A stocky, brown-haired man, running to fat a little, nicely paired with Sue, so small and trim and fresh-faced beneath her shiny fair fringe.
    The Coggans, all four, attended Matins every Sunday; the Bryans, never.
    The Bryans, the Coggans, Sydney Porter, George Radwell—for all these people Laddenham had come to seem a satisfactory choice. A nice locality, Sue Coggan thought, a lovely house, plenty of children for the girls to play with. Five miles from the motorway, Keith Bryan would say,two hours dead to Piccadilly. George Radwell found it a great deal pleasanter than north London. Not being a thoughtful man, he had never dwelt on the slippery nature of choice in human affairs; he felt that he had chosen Laddenham, just as he had come to feel that he had chosen to go into the Church.
    Sydney Porter, who had long since ceased to take much interest in questions of choice or blind accident, simply moved through the days, doing what had to be done. He quite liked Laddenham; it was as good a place as any. You had to feed up the soil a bit, but there was no clay. Things went on the same, on the whole, year in, year out. The odd fuss about a planning permission or a road scheme, but nothing to disturb, really. Hardly ever.
    Just sometimes, nowadays, the motorbikes. Roaring through the Green, always after dark, deep into the night, a gang of them, shattering the quiet like an explosion, the more violent because unexpected. The first time the din had had him half out of bed, wrenched from sleep, his heart thumping. And then they were gone so quickly he thought he might even have dreamed the sound. But they'd been back a week later, circling the Green two or three times.
    Thus the place, the people. In random association.

Chapter Two

    I have no friends, said Clare Paling to the bathroom ceiling. I am married to a man who is sweeping all before him in the electronics industry and I have no friends. I live in a big expensive house that would be the envy of many. I am a crack cook. My husband's success is such that it keeps him from home five and a half days out of seven and ten hours out of twenty-four. I am well educated, considered good-looking, an experienced driver and I have no friends. I don't have a lover either.
    Downstairs, the house rocked to the din of sibling warfare. Clare turned the hot tap on.
    I have a new white mini and the most expensive brandof dishwasher on the market. I can read Anglo-Saxon, speak French, respond to metaphysical poetry and I have no friends. I have no friends because all the people I used to know live somewhere else and I am somewhat off-putting in manner. I off-put by speaking sharply and smiling too expansively. When I am getting bored I show my teeth. I've seen, in mirrors. I grin and grin and there are my teeth, large and looking more yellow than they really are.
    Downstairs, a television exploded into sound.
    I have a happy marriage and a father who is a big wheel at the Treasury. When I look at my children I know that they are the most wonderful creatures I have ever seen and I do not know whether to exult or to weep. I read books and the world appalls me. Sometimes I wake in the night and shiver. And then I walk out into the beauty of it and I am amazed. All my life I have wondered how we endure it as we do, knowing what we know.
    Sometimes I feel so charged with energy that I think I might burst out of my skin. Walking across the recreation ground I know that I could go on forever without stopping, without ever tiring, could walk off the face of the earth. They should use people like me to power industries. Solve the energy crisis just like that.
    She turned the tap on again. Sang. In a deep voice, not bad sounding. Excerpts from Carmen .
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    Sue Coggan, a hundred and ten yards away, washed the tea things and thought: if we have another