He laughed, ‘Yes, “Everybody’s happy nowadays.” We begin giving the children that at five. But wouldn’t you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody else’s way.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she repeated. Then, turning to him, ‘Oh, do let’s go back, Bernard,’ she besought; ‘I do so hate it here.’

‘Don’t you like being with me?’

‘But of course, Bernard! It’s this horrible place.’

‘I thought we’d be more … more together here—with nothing but the sea and moon. More together than in that crowd, or even in my rooms. Don’t you understand that?’

‘I don’t understand anything,’ she said with decision, determined to preserve her incomprehension intact. ‘Nothing. Least of all,’ she continued in another tone, ‘why you don’t take soma when you have these dreadful ideas of yours. You’d forget all about them. And instead of feeling miserable, you’d be jolly. So jolly,’ she repeated and smiled, for all the puzzled anxiety in her eyes, with what was meant to be an inviting and voluptuous cajolery.

He looked at her in silence, his face unresponsive and very grave—looked at her intently. After a few seconds Lenina’s eyes flinched away; she uttered a nervous little laugh, tried to think of something to say and couldn’t. The silence prolonged itself.

When Bernard spoke at last, it was in a small tired voice. ‘All right then,’ he said, ‘we’ll go back.’ And stepping hard on the accelerator, he sent the machine rocketing up into the sky. At four thousand he started his propeller. They flew in silence for a minute or two. Then, suddenly, Bernard began to laugh. Rather oddly, Lenina thought; but still, it was laughter.

‘Feeling better?’ she ventured to ask.

For answer, he lifted one hand from the controls and, slipping his arm round her, began to fondle her breasts.

‘Thank Ford,’ she said to herself, ‘he’s all right again.’

Half an hour later they were back in his rooms. Bernard swallowed four tablets of soma at a gulp, turned on the radio and television and began to undress.

‘Well,’ Lenina enquired, with significant archness when they met next afternoon on the roof, ‘did you think it was fun yesterday?’

Bernard nodded. They climbed into the plane. A little jolt, and they were off.

‘Every one says I’m awfully pneumatic,’ said Lenina reflectively, patting her own legs.

‘Awfully.’ But there was an expression of pain in Bernard’s eyes. ‘Like meat,’ he was thinking.

She looked up with a certain anxiety. ‘But you don’t think I’m too plump, do you?’

He shook his head. Like so much meat.

‘You think I’m all right.’ Another nod. ‘In every way?’

‘Perfect,’ he said aloud. And inwardly, ‘She thinks of herself that way. She doesn’t mind being meat.’

Lenina smiled triumphantly. But her satisfaction was premature.