Carnage on the Committee by Ruth Dudley Edwards Page A

William-friendly.'
    'Still, as you got older ... ?'
    'We were disappointing. Failed to be a credit to her.'
    'How do you mean, sir?'
    'At great expense to William we went to excellent schools that got us out from under Mama's feet during term-time, but we performed no better than competently, academically or otherwise. We are OK to look at, but nothing to write home about.' He chuckled again. 'Took after her that way rather than Dad or Aunt Flora. We ended up - to her great embarrassment - at red-brick universities. And to her even greater embarrassment we read subjects she considered naff; engineering in my case, business studies in Alex's. Can't imagine what she told them at the Groucho. Beautiful, talented, arty children were what she required. Passable mediocrities with a yen for the practical were not.'
    'Are you saying your mother didn't love you?'
    'Love isn't a word I associate with my mother. Inspector. Duty is. She behaved perfectly properly towards us even if she did strongly show her displeasure when we failed to obey orders. Most of her sins were of omission, not commission.'
    'And you felt about her?'
    'Also dutiful. I'll do my bit at the funeral and I'll try to feel sorry she's dead. But the truth is she hasn't had any impact on my life worth talking about since I ceased to be under her control. She's never even seen her grandchildren. Or shown any interest in them. Though she always sent them cheques at Christmas.'
    'Any advice on which friends I should see?'
    'None. Mama seemed to me to have colleagues rather than friends and these changed according to whatever was preoccupying her at the moment. Though of course she always kept in with the magic literary circle even when her mind was on New Labour.'
    'The literary circle is?'
    influential publishers, reviewers, literary editors, literary organisations. And she never turned down an invitation to join a committee. Preferably as chair.'
    'Can you suggest who should be top of my list?'
    'That guy she reviewed for - what's his name, Hugo something? That madman Den Smith. Probably Wysteria Wilcox. She seems to have been having dinner with them forever and they certainly know everyone.'
    'They were all with her on the Warburton committee.'
    Joshua gave a shout of laughter. 'Didn't 1 tell you there was a magic circle?'
    'His sister sounded just like him and echoed him almost word for word,' Pooley reported to Milton. 'They're obviously very close. "She'd have liked us to be stepping-stones to further advancement," she said. "Instead, more often than not, we seemed to be millstones.'"
    'Anything more about Sir William?' asked Milton.
    'Just the same sympathetic noises as Joshua. And when it came to friends she also mentioned Wysteria Wilcox and Den Smith. Said she couldn't understand how anyone could put up with him. Thought he was off his head.'
    'I'm looking forward to this encounter.' He took his glasses out of his inside pocket. 'Pass me Smith's Who's Who entry. I've come prepared.'
    Den Smith had declined to be interviewed at home ('I will not have my privacy invaded'), at the Yard ('I will not set foot in Gestapo headquarters') or Milton's club ('I refuse to obey a dress code imposed by dinosaurs'). After much negotiation, he had grudgingly suggested an upstairs room in a Notting Hill pub. 'Slow down, Sammy,' said Pooley, as they neared the rendezvous. 'Look, Jim, that's his house on the corner.'
    'That looks worth as much as Rawlinson's,' observed Milton.
    'Easily.'
    'It's very big for one person.'
    'He uses it for his various causes. That's where "Anti-Fascism '88" was launched. I've been reading about it on the Net. Reagan had just been re-elected and Smith and Hermione called luvvies, literati and smart academics of the left to arms against the Thatcher-Reagan forces of evil.'
    'What happened to it?'
    'Acres of piss-taking by the right-wing press followed by the total failure of the campaigners to decide on what they wanted to achieve. Den's desire to