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some sort, tired lettuce and wrinkled tomatoes. They drank a large bottle of sweet white wine. The claret that Patrick had brought was left unopened.
    Rachel balanced her plate on crossed legs and dug in with a fork, her brown hair falling forward over her face so that the fork had to be manoeuvred towards her mouth as if through curtains.
‘To be honest, Patrick, I don’t know how you can do it,’ she said, with energy but no annoyance. ‘I mean, you must be really determined or thick-skinned or something.
Perhaps you’re a racist under the skin. Perhaps that’s what it is.’
    Patrick paused in his eating. ‘Under the skin?’
    ‘Yes. Daddy is. Above the skin too now because he’s been corrupted by all those dreadful Lower Africans until he’s come to agree with them. He says it’s the best thing
for everyone. We had a blistering row about it over Christmas lunch and I left before the pudding and came back to London he was so awful. Mummy was in tears.’
    ‘I’ll have to see for myself.’
    ‘But the trouble is you’ve already put yourself on the side of the status quo by joining the Foreign Office. You’ve sold out just as much as if you’d gone into business
or something. You’re committed to a point of view, like it or not.’ She negotiated a piled forkful through her hair. ‘I don’t mean it personally, you know. It’s just
the position you’re in. Really I don’t think we should even recognise them diplomatically.’
    Patrick was still uncertain as to what exactly he had committed himself to in joining the Foreign Office. He hesitated. ‘Well, diplomatic recognition doesn’t signify approval or
disapproval. It’s simply the way of dealing with the acknowledged power in a country.’ It sounded like one of his briefings. He wondered how long it would be before he ceased to notice
such changes in himself.
    ‘They’re bound to get at you in one way or another,’ said Maurice. ‘I mean, look at LASS. They’re as bad as the KGB.’
    ‘Worse,’ said Rachel. They’re really really bad. They’ll probably get you in bed with a black woman then photograph you and then you’ll be tortured.’
    ‘Why should they do that?’
    ‘Or they’ll corrupt you with their point of view, which is more likely,’ continued Maurice.
    ‘Why is that more likely?’
    Maurice looked embarrassed and touched his beard. ‘Well, no, I mean, I don’t mean it’s actually likely or anything. It’s just that you’re more sort of naturally
Establishment-minded. You’re more a part of it. I mean, you don’t mind having to wear a suit every day – I have to wear one too, but – well – you know what I mean. Not
that there’s anything wrong with it but it’s just an aspect which in your case you embrace more willingly.’ He poured more wine.
    Patrick did not like arguments. He smiled. ‘Does that mean I’m more corruptible than lawyers?’
    Maurice shook his head. ‘No, no, ’course it doesn’t, nothing like that. It’s just a statement about the sort of people you’re mixing with, you know, the whole
scene.’
    ‘Perhaps I’m already corrupted.’ Patrick smiled again and Maurice began to look less awkward.
    ‘You must write and tell us all about it, anyway,’ said Rachel, scraping her plate. ‘Except that they might get our address and then get on to us if they wanted. You could send
letters via Mummy and Daddy. They’re more respectable, only better not use the title because it attracts attention.’
    ‘I could send it in the diplomatic bag.’
    ‘Is that safe?’
    ‘I think so.’
    ‘Really, what you’re doing is incredibly brave,’ Maurice resumed with more confidence. ‘I mean, going to a racist totalitarian state, even as a diplomat. You’ll
have to live with censorship and imprisonment without trial and all that. But if you find out any interesting information we could pass it on to the freedom fighters. We’ve got
contacts.’
    ‘What kind of