The Children of Men

As he walks, Theo notices that people are gathering with their own kind, increasingly isolated.

When Theo meets up with Julian’s group, Julian’s unsmiling husband, Rolf, treats Theo with barely disguised hostility. Besides Rolf and Julian, the group comprises Miriam, a middle-aged Black midwife, Luke, a tall and melancholy priest without a parish, and short and innocent Gascoigne. The group meets in churches to avoid Xan’s Secret Service Police (SSP).

Asking Theo to talk with Xan, whom Rolf calls a “despot and a tyrant” (67), the group explains their political demands: stopping semen testing and gynecological exams, the Quietus, and the removal of Sojourners. Rolf calls what the Sojourners go through “legalized slavery” (68): They live in camps and do work that no one else wants. Theo doesn’t think that these practices mean Xan is evil, but agrees that reinstating Local Councils will be the start of a return to democracy. Seeing Theo’s hesitation, Miriam tells him about her brother Henry, who pushed an Omega while stealing her purse. After the SSP caught him, Henry was tried without a jury, got a life sentence, and was “sent to the island” (71), where people starve and there are rumors of cannibalism. When Henry escaped, SSP killed him and incinerated his body.

Theo isn’t convinced that the island’s conditions mean the whole system is broken. He argues that they have the best government they can, given the circumstances. After all, the public supported the creation of the penal colony on the Isle of Man. Theo wants to see a Quietus before giving them a decision. There is a female Quietus in three days. If Theo is willing to help, he’ll leave a secret message at the Cast Museum for Julian.

After the meeting, Theo is frustrated that he let Miriam’s story move him. He hasn’t seen Xan in three years, and wonders if he’ll have any influence.

Theo is nervous on the day of the Quietus. He goes to village of Blythburgh, where he last came when Natalie was six months old and sees a group Sojourners with their “overseers” (82). The town feels empty because of the Quietus. On the beach, elderly people go into small huts, don white robes, and walk towards the pier to board two boats. Most go quietly, but suddenly, one woman struggles and jumps into the water, swimming back to shore. It is Hilda Palmer-Smith, Jasper’s wife.

A soldier gets into the water and clubs her with his pistol. Theo reaches for Hilda as a wave knocks her down, and the soldier hits him with his pistol. Theo wakes between two huts on the beach. In town, he goes to a bed and breakfast, where he is the only guest. He remembers his last holiday with his parents, and how little joy his parents ever seemed to feel. The worker at the bed and breakfast tells him he is “an answer to a prayer” (93)—proof that she should keep going. When he asks her if she saw the Quietus, she says that things like that don’t happen there.

Theo writes the word YES on a postcard and goes to the Cast Museum. Xan introduced him to the museum as a child. Theo went there often after Natalie’s death, but he only liked it when he was alone. He remembers Hilda’s body as he places the message at the base of the statue. He sees the museum custodian, Digby Yule, a retired professor of classics. Digby seems afraid, so Theo offers Digby a place to stay, but Digby demurs. Then Theo imagines Digby dying in the museum, his body slowly decaying before anyone knows.

Theo makes an appointment to see Xan with a Grenadier, one of Xan’s special guards. As a man named Hedges drives him, Theo remembers defecting from the Council and Xan, and wonders how he will be received. Of the other Council members, Xan is closest with Martin Woolvington, whom Theo always liked. He is uneasy with Felicia Rankin, a caustic, almost-beautiful woman. Harriet Marwood is the “wise old woman” (102) of the group, while Carl Inglebach is the brain of the group and the “most sinister” (103). Whenever a Parliament vote is not unanimous, the issue goes to the Council for a final judgment.

Theo sees a group of half-naked flagellants in a park, where their performance is still legal. When he asks Hedges whether he believes in God, the driver replies that God may have performed a bad experiment and is now baffled by the results. Hedges “hopes He burns in His own hell” (106).

Theo meets with the full Council. Xan sits in the middle, wearing the coronation ring, the wedding ring of England. Theo tells them about the Quietus, describing it as murder: Not everyone at the Quietus looked willing, and some looked drugged. Felicia blames bad management for that particular Quietus. Xan would prefer a pill when he dies, and does not understand the appeal of a dramatic, mass suicide.

When Theo asks about starvation and crime at the Man Penal Colony, Felicia reminds Theo that he was there when they ruled on the island penitentiary. Harriet says that all freedoms are pointless without freedom from fear. The Isle of Man—another name for the prison— protects those outside of it from fear. Xan sees coddling criminals as an indulgence.

When Theo mentions the struggles of the Sojourners, Woolvington argues against immigration without limits. Inglebach, who looks deathly ill, is more interested in the bigger picture. The Council and Xan have kept the country more successful than the rest of the world, so the plight of the Sojourners and the Isle of Man’s inhabitants is relatively unimportant. Before Xan leaves, he accuses Theo of wanting the same results, but without having to participate in anything unpleasant.