On the way home Franklin’s scepticism returned. The idea of the conspiracy was preposterous, and the economic arguments were too plausible. As usual, though, there had been a hook in the soft bait Hathaway dangled before him — Sunday working. His own consultancy had been extended into Sunday morning with his appointment as visiting factory doctor to one of the automobile plants that had started Sunday shifts. But instead of resenting this incursion into his already meagre hours of leisure he had been glad. For one frightening reason — he needed the extra income.
Looking out over the lines of scurrying cars, he noticed that at least a dozen of the great signs had been erected along the expressway. As Hathaway had said, more were going up everywhere, rearing over the supermarkets in the housing developments like rusty metal sails.
Judith was in the kitchen when he reached home, watching the TV programme on the hand-set over the cooker. Franklin climbed past a big cardboard carton, its seals still unbroken, which blocked the doorway, kissed her on the cheek as she scribbled numbers down on her pad. The pleasant odour of pot-roast chicken — or, rather a gelatine dummy of a chicken fully flavoured and free of any toxic or nutritional properties mollified his irritation at finding her still playing the Spot Bargains.
He tapped the carton with his foot. ‘What’s this?’
‘No idea, darling, something’s always coming these days, I can’t keep up with it all.’ She peered through the glass door at the chicken — an economy twelve-pounder, the size of a turkey, with stylized legs and wings and an enormous breast, most of which would be discarded at the end of the meal (there were no dogs or cats these days, the crumbs from the rich man’s table saw to that) — and then glanced at him pointedly.
‘You look rather worried, Robert. Bad day?’
Franklin murmured noncommittally. The hours spent trying to detect false clues in the faces of the Spot Bargain announcers had sharpened Judith’s perceptions. He felt a pang of sympathy for the legion of husbands similarly outmatched.
‘Have you been talking to that crazy beatnik again?’
‘Hathaway? As a matter of fact I have. He’s not all that crazy.’ He stepped backwards into the carton, almost spilling his drink. ‘Well, what is this thing? As I’ll be working for the next fifty Sundays to pay for it I’d like to find out.’
He searched the sides, finally located the label. ‘A TV set? Judith, do we need another one? We’ve already got three. Lounge, dining-room and the hand-set. What’s the fourth for?’
‘The guest-room, dear, don’t get so excited. We can’t leave a hand-set in the guest-room, it’s rude. I’m trying to economize, but four TV sets is the bare minimum. All the magazines say so.’
‘And three radios?’ Franklin stared irritably at the carton. ‘If we do ii1vite a guest here how much time is he going to spend alone in his room watching television? Judith, we’ve got to call a halt. It’s not as if these things were free, or even cheap. Anyway, television is a total waste of time. There’s only one programme. It’s ridiculous to have four sets.’
‘Robert, there are four channels.’
‘But only the commercials are different.’ Before Judith could reply the telephone rang. Franklin lifted the kitchen receiver, listened to the gabble of noise that poured from it. At first he wondered whether this was some offbeat prestige commercial, then realized it was Hathaway in a manic swing.
‘Hathaway!’ he shouted back. ‘Relax, for God’s sake! What’s the matter now?’
‘- Doctor, you’ll have to believe me this time. I climbed on to one of the islands with a stroboscope, they’ve got hundreds of high-speed shutters blasting away like machine-guns straight into people’s faces and they can’t see a thing, it’s fantastic! The next big campaign’s going to be cars and TV sets, they’re trying to swing a two-month model change can you imagine it, Doctor, a new car every two months? God Almighty, it’s just—’
Franklin waited impatiently as the five-second commercial break cut in (all telephone calls were free, the length of the commercial extending with range — for long-distance calls the ratio of commercial to conversation was as high as 10:1, the participants desperately trying to get a word in edgeways between the interminable interruptions), but just before it ended he abruptly put the telephone down, then removed the receiver from the cradle.
Judith came over and took his arm. ‘Robert, what’s the matter? You look terribly strained.’
Franklin picked up his drink and walked through into the lounge. ‘It’s just Hathaway. As you say, I’m getting a little too involved with him. He’s starting to prey on my mind.’
He looked at the dark outline of the sign over the supermarket, its red warning lights glowing in the night sky. Blank and nameless, like an area for ever closed-off in an insane mind, what frightened him was its total anonymity.
