Читать книгу A Ripple from the Storm - Doris Lessing - Страница 8

Cecil John Rhodes Vista spreadeagled at its upper end into a moneyed suburb known by the citizens as Robber’s Roost. In the lower town it expired in a sprawl of hot railway lines and a remnant of oily evil-smelling grass-laden soil, beyond which, side by side, lay the white cemetery and the Native Location.

Before it came to the railway lines, the Vista ran for several hundred yards bordered by hovels, shops and laundries, and it was one of the four parallel streets known collectively as the Coloured Quarter. Along these four streets Martha sold The Watchdog from house to house. In theory this activity was to take two hours once a week. But in practice it took three or four afternoons, and three of the RAF men had been allotted to help her. Since the Coloured Quarter was out of bounds to the RAF for the purposes of discouraging immorality and miscegenation, the three joined a large number of RAF men who kept civilian clothes hidden in various nooks and corners of the town and changed into them so that they could visit their Coloured friends or women.

The rendezvous for The Watchdog sellers was an Indian shop near the end of the Vista. At six o’clock one afternoon, Martha had deposited the four dozen copies of the paper the shop sold for her, and was idling outside it, looking for her colleagues, when a small girl came running across the street, her thin hips pistoning through a large rent in her dress. ‘Missus, missus,’ she said: ‘Mam wants you.’ A hundred yards away Murdoch Mathews came into sight surrounded by a swarm of small boys who were shouting joyously: ‘The Watchdog!’ ‘Uncle Joe,’ ‘Stalingrad.’ His lean jerky body was swathed in clothes three sizes too large, borrowed from Anton, and with his flaming hair and sun-hot face he was so spectacular a figure that groups of people had stopped to stare all down the street. These streets were wide, three times as wide as those in the upper town, for they had been built in the days when ox-wagons were expected to turn in them: ox-wagons often still did. A strip of tarmac, car-wheels width, held the dust down in the centre, but on either side the rutted gritty earth was thick with a haze of dust, reddened by the glare of the setting sun, which must have been shining into Murdoch’s eyes, for she had to gesticulate several times before he saw her. She indicated that he should wait for her; he replied in a hushed shout that he would wait around the corner where he could not be seen, and went around the corner, followed by the stares of several dozen interested people.

Martha followed the child across the ruts and furrows of the road into the entrance of Mansion Court. The court was built on a common pattern of the old days fifty years before: single rooms opening off a three-sided veranda. The square in the middle was a filthy dust, and covered all over with washing-lines. Sitting in the middle of the court on a candlebox was a fat dark woman, whose ancient hat was skewered to her head with broken knitting-needles. She stared suspiciously at Martha from small, squashed-up, yellowing eyes, and said: ‘Why can’t I have a paper, why can’t I have it?’ and held out her hand for a Watchdog as if her being given it were a test. Her eyes became even more suspicious when Martha held out her hand for the penny.

‘Didn’t a man come around with The Watchdog this afternoon?’ asked Martha – for this street was supposed to have been covered by Murdoch.

‘A man never came. Men are not wanted here. The police don’t want men here.’ And then, insistent and suspicious: ‘When will I get my room in the new flats?’

‘I haven’t anything to do with the housing.’

‘You said I could have a flat when I signed the papers,’ she said, fanning some flies away from her face with the The Watchdog.

‘If the man didn’t sell the papers in this court, then I’d better do it now.’

‘Yes, we all want new rooms in this court,’ said the woman.

There were twelve rooms to the court, and over a hundred people living in them. The first door, standing open, showed a man in his shirt-sleeves lying, arm over his face, on the bed; a woman knitting as she sat on the floor, four children, a baby in a candlebox, and a half-grown girl in a pink celanese petticoat who turned her head with a wide swing of her thick black plait as she hooked up a dish-cloth on a peg already loaded with clothes. The woman on the floor said to the dozing man: ‘The Watchdog.’ He brushed the sleep off his face with his forearm, plunged his fist into his trouser pocket, brought out a sixpence, took the paper, gave Martha a comradely nod, and fell backwards on to the bed again, arm over his face. The next room was locked, but felt as if it were full of people, listening, waiting for her to go away: they were afraid of the rent collector or a summons, and Martha quickly passed on to the next room. Six men squatted around the floor in the space between two beds, dicing, with a pile of pennies beside each. There were two babies asleep on one of the beds, and a woman asleep, rolled in a blanket, on the other. A young man rose, leaned across the heads of the dice-throwers, handed over two pennies, took two Watchdogs, said: ‘How’s the Reds this week?’ and settled down to his dice. Martha went on, accompanied by the small girl who had summoned her from the Indian store, and who was hopping on one leg after and around her, watching her with steady curiosity from very bright black eyes.

The next door was closed, but did not have about it the feeling of people waiting behind it in anxiety. Martha knocked, and it was opened by a young white man who said in a Yorkshire voice: ‘Come in, we was waiting for you and all.’ Martha saw he had taken her for a white-skinned Coloured girl; but when he saw The Watchdog, the moment’s flash of suspicion on his face went, and he said: ‘Oh, The Watchdog. T’revolution for me, right enough.’ He took the paper and gave her a shilling, shaking his head when she offered change. Behind him through the half-open door Martha saw two half-naked girls, and another young man on the bed. One of the girls came, rested her naked breasts on the shoulder of the man at the door, and shouted over his head to the woman sitting on the candlebox: ‘Mam, did you buy the bread?’ The woman, without turning her body around, but with prim hoity-toity movements of her shoulders said: ‘Dirty bitch, I’ll put the police on to you.’ And she continued to fan herself with The Watchdog. ‘Did you see the police?’ said the RAF man to Martha, one ally to another.

‘No,’ said Martha. ‘There’s two in the next street.’

‘Then we’d better get moving on.’ He hastily pulled the door inwards, saying: ‘I’ll be along to one of the meetings one of these days, you’ll be seeing me.’

Here the small sparrow-like girl, still hopping on one leg, said to Martha again: ‘Mam wants you.’ Martha had imagined the woman on the candlebox was her mother, but now the girl darted off across the court shouting excitedly, ‘Mam, mam, mam.’

A half-open door across the court shifted and a youngish tired-looking woman put her face around it. She said to Martha: ‘Are you the Welfare?’

‘No.’

‘I thought you was the Welfare,’ she said disappointedly.

‘Can I do anything?’

The woman promptly opened the door. It was a small room, identical with the others, rough-plastered, with a red cement floor which was cracked. Small black ants swarmed along the cracks. There were clothes hanging from hooks and in a low bed a long knobbly body under a patched sheet. A shock of black hair protruded from the top of the sheet. The body was heaving with sharp, hard and irregular breath.

‘The Welfare said they would come this day,’ said the woman, looking at the bed. At which the sheet fell back and showed a very thin young man, in a grey shirt, which was open down the front, showing a cage of knobbed ribs. His face was extremely thin, his black eyes fevered and enormous. His skin had a dry greyish look.

‘What do you want?’ he asked Martha angrily.

‘She’s not the Welfare lady,’ said the woman. ‘It’s my son,’ she said to Martha. ‘He’s very sick.’

He said: ‘I told you, I’m not going to hospital.’

‘It’s your sickness makes you talk,’ said his mother. She stood at a short distance from the bed, hands folded before her. Her feet, in canvas shoes, moved irritably on the cement. Martha was reminded of a gesture of her mother’s: the way she would sit smoothing the stuff of her dress on her knee with the flat of her hand, over and over again, in a tired irritable gesture. So did the feet of this woman move on the floor, in a compulsive, pawing way, like a horse which has been standing too long. She said to Martha: ‘It’s his sickness makes him bad. It makes him hard to please.’

A spasm of anger crossed the bony sick face. The boy flung himself down again, his back turned, and again became a heavily-shrouded body breathing hoarsely.

‘Shall I fetch someone for you?’ asked Martha.

‘The Welfare said they would come this day.’

During this conversation the small girl twirled and twiddled her thin black legs as she hung from the doorknob, her eyes fixed relentlessly on Martha’s face. ‘Oh, leave off,’ said her mother, and smacked her lightly across the face, to relieve her own exasperation. The child moved her face sideways, automatically, from the sting of the blow, and continued to dangle from the knob, splaying out her legs over the floor.

Murdoch’s flaming mop of hair appeared on the veranda.

‘What’s up?’ he said.

Martha went to the veranda and the woman followed them. Her eyes moved from Martha’s face to Murdoch’s in a patient undemanding query.

‘A good day to ye,’ said Murdoch to her. ‘How’s the patient?’ His tone struck Martha as facetious, but the woman said, moving nearer to Murdoch, ‘It’s his chest, it’s not doing better.’

‘TB,’ said Murdoch to Martha, and the woman nodded, adding practically: ‘He will die soon, I think.’

Martha was shocked by the directness of this, but Murdoch nodded and said simply: ‘Aye, and he’d be better in hospital, with the right things for him.’

At this moment a large car stopped outside the entrance of the court, and a well-dressed young woman got out of it. Martha recognized Ruth Manners, now a young matron with children: two small girls sat in the back of the car with a native nanny. She came picking her way across the court on large well-polished shoes, and did not raise her eyes to see the group of people until nearly on them. She recognized Martha, and gave her a polite smile, while her pale cautious eyes were animated for the space of a startled second at the sight of Murdoch, before she decided that he, like Martha, was outside her radius of interest. On Murdoch’s face was a wild irreverent grin: ‘The Welfare,’ he said, audibly and derisively.

Ruth Manners ignored him, and said to the woman: ‘How is he?’

‘Very bad, miss.’

‘Has he changed his mind about coming into hospital?’

‘No, miss, sorry to tell you, he hasn’t, the sickness has him unreasonable, miss.’

Ruth Manners looked full of patient distaste for the whole situation. She asked in cold clear tones: ‘Shall I try and make him see reason?’

‘If you like, miss, but he’s not himself.’

Martha and Murdoch stood to one side while the young woman went to the doorway and stood looking down at the long knobbly form under the white sheet.

‘Ronald,’ she said, or rather stated.

The form did not stir.

‘It’s the Welfare,’ said the mother helplessly, but on a note of warning.

There was a growl and a mutter of obscenities from under the sheet. Ruth came back and stood in front of the mother, her expression of distaste even more marked. ‘You must see,’ she said in a high patient voice, ‘that there’s nothing at all we can do. Is he taking his medicines?’

‘Yes, miss, I make him.’

Ruth Manners continued to stand, frowning, looking around the court as from a long distance. Suddenly all her distaste focused: her pale eyes under the black crooked brows moved in a snap towards Murdoch and Martha; her face contracted with hatred, and she said: ‘I suppose you communists have been putting ideas into his head.’

The colour flamed into her thin angry cheeks and she walked stiffly back to her car.

Murdoch grinned and said: ‘It’s the Red Hand again. Man, but we get into everything, we’re under every bed.’

The woman, tugged backwards and forwards out of her stoic and patient stance by the pull of the lively swinging little girl on her hand, said: There was a baas here yesterday talking to Ronald. Ron liked him. Perhaps he could make him go to hospital.’

‘Who was it?’ asked Martha, slowly translating the ‘baas’, in her mind, into who it must be – one of the men from the camp.

The woman, with her eyes on Murdoch’s extraordinary assortment of clothes, said with delicacy: ‘I think he was from the camp too.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘He was selling your newspaper.’

‘We’ll see if we can find out who it was,’ said Martha,

She and Murdoch left the court together, while the patient tired woman and the lively child looked after them, and the woman on the candlebox shouted: ‘You promised me faithfully my room. You promised it.’

‘I don’t see who it can be,’ said Martha, ‘unless Bill’s been doing our street. And by the way, you should have done this court – you forgot it.’

‘I was getting around to it, I was getting around to it,’ said Murdoch instantly, in an aggrieved voice. He had a way of suggesting he was unfairly accused at the slightest suggestion of criticism, but he was, above all, humorous. Now he grinned clowningly at Martha and said: ‘Give me a chance, comrade. I was having a talk to a nice girl in the street behind this one.’

Martha asked: ‘What girl,’ realized that she was thinking ‘white’ – because her first thought had been, there are no girls in this area, meaning white girls, was shocked at herself, and out of her guilty anger said: ‘You know quite well the group has taken a decision you’re not to have affairs with Coloured girls, it’s against the group decision.’

‘Have a heart,’ he said, ‘I was only talking to her.’

He looked as guilty as a schoolboy, and Martha, disliking herself, said: ‘But in any case, why shouldn’t you? It’s a bad decision, it’s undemocratic.’

‘Och, we should listen to Anton now, he knows his stuff, he’s the real mackay,’ said Murdoch with sentimental earnestness, and Martha, irritated by the sentimentality, said: ‘But Anton doesn’t have to be right all the time, does he?’

A tall lanky figure approached along the dusty broken pavements, wearing clothes several sizes too small. It was Bill Bluett.

‘Wotcher,’ he said, lingering at a short distance. His face was stiffly serious, but he winked at Martha with a pantomimic sideways twist to his mouth. ‘Finished?’

Martha said: ‘There’s a man in there who’s ill and he won’t go to hospital.’ Bill Bluett responded to her agitated voice instantly, by saying with a soft jeer: ‘Dear me, naughty naughty. These people don’t trust hospitals. They should be taught for their own good.’

‘She’s right,’ said Murdoch, one airman to another. ‘He should be in hospital.’

‘Of course he should.’ The voice was still a soft jeer. Bill Bluett had cast Martha in the role of ‘middle-class comrade’ and never let her forget it.

She said to Bill: ‘Was it you who made friends with him? His mother said there was someone.’

‘Perhaps I have.’

‘But why be mysterious about it?’

Bill Bluett, patiently explaining to an imbecile, said: ‘These people don’t like going to the native hospital, being treated like that.’

‘Obviously not – on the other hand I don’t see it’s sensible to die before you need for a political principle on this level. He’s not going to hospital because the Coloured people don’t want to be treated as “Kaffirs”. They want their own hospital.’

Bill Bluett and Martha, natural antagonists since they first set eyes on each other, faced each other now, frowning.

‘OK, OK,’ he said. ‘Nothing like an intellectual for reducing everything to its principles. But he won’t go. And that’s all. He’s one of the few around here with any political understanding at all. He influences quite a few of their lads. I’ve dropped in on their sessions once or twice. What would he do in hospital?’

‘Perhaps he wouldn’t die so quickly?’

All at once Bill decided he had sufficiently made his position clear, for he gave her a warm grin, and said:

‘OK, Matty, I’ll go and smooth his brow for you. But first there’s another little problem. There’s a bloke in the next street who’s going to have his furniture taken away if he can’t raise two pounds by six o’clock this evening. That’s half an hour from now. We’re quite a bunch of charity workers, aren’t we? Fork out.’ He pulled his trouser pockets out and picked out a sixpence from the lining of one. Murdoch found three shillings. Martha opened her handbag and found five.

That’s not going to keep the baby off the cold floor,’ said Bill Bluett. He nodded at the satchel over Martha’s shoulder and said: ‘Hand over.’

‘But that’s The Watchdog money.’

‘We’ll have to borrow from it, that’s all. We can make it up in collections from the group.’ He appropriated the satchel, and counted out two pounds in pennies and threepenny bits, tied the greasy mass of coin in a handkerchief, and said, ‘Ta. I’ll take this back to the poor bastard and go sick-visiting to please you afterwards. He’s four kids and another one coming.’

‘Perhaps you should start a birth-control clinic while you’re about it,’ said Martha, for he had spoken about the four children with dislike, as if they were a form of self-indulgence on the part of the ‘poor bastard’.

‘Now, now,’ said Bill, ‘I’m a clean-mouthed working lad, I don’t like sex talk like that.’

‘Oh go to hell,’ said Martha, finally losing her temper, and he laughed, gave her another solemn pantomimic wink and departed along the street.

‘You shouldn’t get upsides with Bill,’ said Murdoch, seriously. ‘He only tried to get a rise out of you.’

Martha shrugged irritably; every contact with Bill left her feeling bludgeoned and sore. She capitulated at last by saying: ‘Well, I suppose for a worker from Britain we must seem pretty awful.’

Murdoch said: ‘Worker, is it? He’s no more worker than you. He’s proper bourgeois, his father was a painter, a real painter, not what I’d call a painter, mind you.’

‘Then I’m getting tired of middle-class wolves in workers’ clothing.’

To which Murdoch responded with indignation: ‘He’s a fine lad.’ He added, sentimental again already: ‘The lads in the camp think the world of him.’

‘Oh let’s get back to the exhibition,’ she said, too confused and angry to want to think about it. ‘Why does he take it out on me if he doesn’t like being middleclass?’

‘Keep your hair on, Matty,’ he said earnestly, following her. ‘Keep your hair on.’

They were walking past the Indian store, where the assistant was locking the door for the night. He nodded at them and said shyly: ‘How’s the Red Army?’

‘Fine,’ said Martha, her irritation gone because of the reminder of what they all stood for.

‘I’ve collected seventeen shillings for your newspaper.’

‘Coming to the exhibition?’

‘You let us in?’

‘Of course,’ said Martha.

‘Of course,’ he said, ironical but friendly. ‘The first time in our fine city Indians can enter an exhibition like that, and you say, “Of course, of course.” ‘

‘We don’t believe in race prejudice.’

He kept his ironical smile, nodded, and said: ‘So the Reds don’t believe in race prejudice, and so race prejudice is at an end in our city?’ He dropped his irony, and said simply, smiling: ‘You are good people, we know who are our friends.’ He got on to his bicycle and went off towards the railway lines.

Martha and Murdoch walked along the bicycle-crammed street towards the centre of the town. Murdoch’s expression had changed and he was looking steadily sideways at Martha. Martha, responding, thought: If he does it too, then …

‘Let’s drop in for a beer at McGrath’s,’ he said sentimentally.

‘But we’re half an hour late.’

‘Being a Red’s as bad as the army,’ he said ruefully.

‘But we have to have discipline.’

‘Not even one wee drappie of beer? Well, you’re right. You’re right enough.’ He sighed. ‘It’s a fine thing,’ he said, ‘to see a girl like you giving up everything for the working-class.’

‘I don’t see that I’m giving up anything,’

‘I suppose you can take it that way. I admire you for it, and that’s a fact.’

They were pushing their way along crowded pavements, separated at every moment by the press of people. Martha thought: I’ve delivered Watchdogs with him half a dozen times, and sat in the same room with him at meetings. We have nothing in common. Surely it isn’t possible …

He said: ‘What do you say if we get married?’ Martha said: ‘But, Murdoch, we hardly know each other.’

‘You’re a fine comrade,’ he said sentimentally. ‘And you’re an attractive lass too.’ As she said nothing, frowning, he added, on his familiar weakly humorous note: ‘There’s no harm asking, is there?’

‘But, Murdoch, how can you go around getting married just like that?’

‘There’s not much time for courting in the Party.’ He said resentfully: ‘I can see a working-man’s life is not much to tempt you. Specially for you white girls out here – never had to lift a finger for yourselves in your lives. Believe me, you’d make a fine wife for a working-man!’

‘Then why ask me?’

‘Forget it,’ he said, and began to whistle. They walked on, hostile to each other.

‘No beer?’ he asked, as they passed McGrath’s.

‘But I would if we weren’t so late.’

‘Aye, I’ll bet you would. Waste five minutes of Party time – not you!’ He went off towards the office at Black Ally’s, saying: ‘I’ll change back into my jail-clothes. See you later.’

They had rented a showroom on Main Street for the exhibition which was called: ‘Twenty-six years with the Red Army.’

The large room was filled with light movable screens that had posters and photographs pinned all over them. At the table near the door, Jasmine sat with Tommy Brown. He had a book open in front of him, and she was looking over his shoulder.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ said Martha.

‘You are late,’ said Jasmine, formally, speaking as group secretary. Changing her tone, she said: ‘Hey, Matty, what’ve you done with Murdoch? You haven’t let him go, have you – he’ll get tight again.’

‘I can’t help it,’ said Martha, furious.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ Jasmine examined Martha calmly, nodded to Tommy to stay where he was, and followed Martha out to the pavement. ‘What’s eating you?’

Martha said laughing, but in genuine despair: ‘Murdoch has just proposed to me.’

‘Well, he proposed to me last week. And he proposed to Marjorie the day before yesterday and went and got drunk when she said she was going to marry Colin.’

‘They’re all mad,’ said Martha. ‘That means that all the RAF members have proposed to us all in the last month.’

‘Oh well,’ said Jasmine.

‘It obviously doesn’t matter to them who they marry.’ Martha was laughing but she was filled with dismay and discouragement. She was relieved when Jasmine rolled up her eyes and said sedately, ‘It’s the spirit of the times.’ Jasmine always made such remarks as if they were being made for the first time. Martha felt: Well, it is the spirit of the times, and laughed, and Jasmine departed to a hall down-town, where she was helping to organize a public meeting.

Tommy Brown was taking admittance money from a group of girls just out of their offices. They went to examine the posters and photographs of the Civil War that had the look of stills from an old film. Martha recognized the look on their faces, which was an idle, rather startled interest: it represented the feeling she had had herself, a year ago, when the ‘Russian Revolution’ was offered to her for the first time. She thought: But they’ll all be married inside a year, so what’s the point?

She sat beside Tommy, who was waiting for her with one finger marking the place in his book. She said: ‘It would have been better if this exhibition had been about this war, about the Red Army in this war, instead of the Revolution as well.’

His round eyes searched her face. His face had a look of strain. There was a pause while he thought over what she said. Five minutes with Tommy always made Martha feel frivolous, because of the depths of attention which he offered to all the older members of the group.

‘You mean, we shouldn’t push communism down their throats?’ he asked. He frowned. ‘But that’s what we are for.’

‘Oh I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.’

Outside the door a group of dark-skinned people hesitated, and Martha looked, wondering: Indians? Coloureds? She saw the assistant from the Indian store and smiled. They came in, with nervous glances at the group of white girls who were making their way around the exhibition.

‘OK?’ said the assistant.

‘OK,’ said Martha. The group of Indian youths started at the other end of the exhibition from the girls, with an air of wary self-respect, as if to say: We’d prefer not to come here at all if it means trouble.

‘Oh hell,’ said Martha, suddenly utterly depressed, and instantly felt that to let go into private moods was irresponsible with Tommy.

He said, blushing scarlet: ‘I don’t think that I can be a communist. I mean to say, I feel bad things all the time. I know it’s the way I’m brought up. But when I see Coloured people or Indians in a place like this, then I think of them as different from us, and that’s wrong, isn’t it?’

‘We can’t help the way we were brought up.’

‘And it’s not only that. I mean, sitting here selling tickets, I mean selling tickets to anyone, it makes me feel funny. I feel self-conscious. That’s snobbish, isn’t it?’

‘Well, I felt like that to start with.’

‘I mean, ever since I joined the group I feel funny. I don’t know what I feel, half the things I feel seem to be wrong but I feel them. I know they are wrong but I can’t help it.’ He ended, very defiant, his honest urchin’s face hot with confusion.

‘But, Tommy, it’s because we’re both brought up in this country. We’ve got bad attitudes to people with a different colour. We’ve just got to change our attitudes.’

‘But it’s so hard to change. Today on the job I did something very bad. I was fitting a pipe with my mate. And one of the Kaffirs brought the wrong pipe and I shouted at him. But if I did different, then the blokes on the job’d think I was mad. I’m just an apprentice, and it’s hard to be different from the grown-ups. And there’s Piet. I saw him today on the job with some Kaffirs unloading stuff and he was talking to them just the way he always does – and listen to me, I use the word Kaffir and I shouldn’t, it just slips out.’ He ended in despair, almost in tears.

The group of white girls, having finished their tour, went out. Slowly the group of Indians scattered out of their defensiveness and began wandering around the exhibition at their ease.

‘The point is,’ said Tommy, ‘it’s easy for you, because you’re better educated.’

She laughed in astonishment. ‘I don’t think that’s true.’

‘Well, it is, I’m telling you.’

His finger, insistent on a point in the page, drew Martha’s attention. The book was War and Peace.

‘Did Jasmine tell you to read this?’

‘She said it was the greatest novel ever written. Is that right?’

“Yes, I suppose so.’

‘But man, it takes such a long time to read. I thought this was the whole book but there are two others when I’ve finished this.’

On the open page half a dozen phrases had been underlined in pencil, with definitions scribbled opposite.

‘Your eloquence would have taken the king of Prussia’s consent by storm,’ she read. And in pencil: ‘eloquence: the power of speaking with grace.’

‘I don’t even understand half the words,’ he said.

‘But Tommy, you shouldn’t read books unless you really want to.’

‘I’ve never read books before, except just adventure stories. Jasmine said this book explained why there was a Russian Revolution; she said if I read this I would understand about Russia before the Revolution. But perhaps there’s a shorter book somewhere?’

‘Don’t you enjoy it?’

His eyes lit into enthusiasm. ‘Oh yes, I do. But you don’t see what I’m saying, Matty. I watched Jasmine the other day, reading. I thought about the way she reads books. It was just another book to her, Because she’s read so many books, don’t you see? I asked her about the book she was reading and she said: It’s a useful description of reactionary circles in Paris. Then she said: But it’s a bad book. Don’t you see, I wouldn’t know if it was bad or not. It’s just a book. When I read this stuff here, I mean about all these generals and maids-in-waiting and the courtiers, it makes me feel …’ He hesitated, looking angry and stubborn. ‘What I mean is, I couldn’t say: This is a useful description.’ He was suddenly scarlet with anger. ‘Don’t you see, it’s just snobbish when you and Jasmine say things like that. Well, anyway, that’s what I think. All the time I’m reading this, I feel – mixed up in it. I mean to say, if I were there, I’d be thinking just what all these generals and old ladies think. I’d be the same as them. And that makes me confused. Because they were all a bunch of reactionaries, weren’t they? And this girl, Natasha, I like her.’

‘But why shouldn’t you like her?’

‘She was the daughter of an aristocrat, wasn’t she? So why should I like her?’

‘But, Tommy, suppose someone wrote a novel about you. The Africans might say: Why should I like that reactionary white man, Tommy Brown? But it would help them to understand the way things are, do you see?’

No, I don’t see. That’s it,’ he said, ‘I just don’t see. And sometimes when I tell you and Jasmine and Piet what I’m feeling, you have a smile on your faces, and I know you’re thinking: Tommy’s just a stupid boy.’

‘But I haven’t got a smile on my face,’ said Martha. ‘I don’t know why you think everything’s easy for us either. The thing is, now we’re communists we’ve all got to go on learning for the rest of our lives.’

‘I can’t say what I mean,’ he said. He put up his burned fist and began banging at the top of his head where the tufts of hair stood up. ‘You say: “We’ve got to go on learning,” but I don’t even know half the words I see.’

‘But we’ll all help you, we’ll all help each other.’

‘Do you know what I think, Matty? Well, I know what you are going to say when I tell you. But it’s this. I don’t think any people brought up here, white people, can ever be good communists. It’s different for people like the RAF, because they weren’t living here all their lives, and so everything comes easy to them, but I don’t think we can change ourselves.’

‘But we are changing all the time.’

‘Well, all right. I’ll try.’ He pushed the book towards her. ‘If you tell me what the words mean then I won’t have to look them up in a dictionary.’

They bent together over the book, but almost at once a large sheet of cardboard slid over the print. It was bordered with black an inch thick, and it was headed ‘Homage to Heroes’. Solly Cohen, grinning heavily, stood beyond the piles of pamphlets on the table, hands in his pockets.

A short while before, at a Progressive Club lecture on the necessity for switching support from Michailovitch to Tito, for this was before Michailovitch’s collaboration with the Germans had been officially confirmed, Solly had come with a group of local Yugoslavs and stood at the back of the hall chanting steadily, every time Tito was mentioned: ‘Communist propaganda, communist propaganda.’ At the end of the meeting, when the chairman wound up, Solly had leaped up to shout over and over again: ‘Down with Stalin the Assassin.’

In the interval Allied policy had switched: Tito was now officially principal guerrilla leader in Yugoslavia, and Michailovitch a dubious collaborationist. Martha therefore faced Solly triumphantly.

But he seemed unconscious that she had any right to. He indicated the large black-bordered cardboard and said: ‘I’ve brought this for the exhibition.’

Martha examined it. There were on it the names of a couple of hundred Red Army officers, none of which she had heard of. ‘What are you up to now?’ she asked.

‘Short list of Red Army officers murdered by Stalin,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you hang them up too? They died in a good cause.’

She handed him back the cardboard and said: ‘You mean you’ve gone to all the trouble of printing these names just to come here and be irritating?’ She was genuinely astounded. Solly continued to grin: he was perfectly satisfied, it seemed, with the reaction he was getting. It was the look of satisfied malice, which he wore now whenever he encountered ‘the group’ in public, which made it easy for Martha to dismiss him entirely.

‘You’re so damned childish,’ she said.

He said: ‘You aren’t going to hang that list? You haven’t room?’ He took a rapid glance around the exhibition and said: ‘You could take down one of those six pictures of Father Stalin to make room for it.’

Tommy Brown shouted: ‘Capitalist propaganda,’ and Solly, delighted, roared with laughter. He sobered to say: ‘The truth is what I want. As a Marxist, I want truth.’

‘Such as, that Tito was an invention of the communist party?’

He waved this aside, and said: ‘This is an exhibition of the Red Army, and I want some of the hundreds of Red Army officers murdered by Stalin to get some recognition, that’s all.’

‘You’re mad,’ said Martha. ‘You’re corrupted by capitalist propaganda.’ And now Solly had got what he had come to get, apparently; for he again burst into peals of laughter and went laughing to the door. There he turned and made a low bow towards the picture of Stalin nearest to him: ‘Salaams, Lord, Salaams.’ He went out.

Tommy and Martha dismissed the existence of Solly with a contemptuous shrug. Martha tore up the piece of cardboard and, looking for a place to deposit the pieces, found a large packing-case under the table. It was covered in heavy oiled paper, and full of pamphlets called: ‘Fascist Vipers Crushed Under Stalin’s Heel’. She opened one and read: ‘As the Fascist Scum leave their deposits of filth over the sacred soil of our Russian Motherland, our Heroic Russian Soldiers march on, armed with the unerring faith of true patriots and the inspiration of the Glorious Communist Party of the Soviet Union and its leader Comrade Stalin!’ She grimaced humorously and looked at Tommy who, however, was not humorous.

There you are,’ he said, again in despair. ‘That’s what I mean. All that motherland stuff, it simply makes me want to laugh, that’s all.’

Some people had come in and were handing their money over. Martha unconsciously slid the pamphlet out of sight. Tommy assisted her in covering the packing-case over, and said: ‘Jasmine had them on sale. Everyone who came in saw them and laughed, so she hid them.’ He looked guilty. Martha realized she was feeling guilty too. ‘After all, it stands to reason the Russians feel more strongly about the war than we do,’ she said, weakly.

Tommy said: ‘But they say scum. I mean the Germans are human beings. They’re soldiers.’ He added, hastily: ‘Though of course the Russian communist party knows best, doesn’t it? Comrade Stalin must know what he’s doing.’

‘We’ve got four packing-cases of pamphlets from Russia,’ said Martha. ‘What are we going to do with them? Well, we’ll bring it up at the group meeting and take a formal decision on policy.’

At this point Bill Bluett came in, back in his uniform.

Tommy produced the doubtful pamphlet and showed it to him. He read it, dead-pan, until Martha said: ‘What do you think? I think it’s silly,’ when he reacted instantly with: ‘Naughty naughty Russians, so crude, aren’t they?’

‘It’s no use selling pamphlets that make people laugh.’

‘They’d laugh out of the other side of their mouths if they had the Germans here.’

‘Yes, but we haven’t.’

‘Well, we’ll bring it up at the meeting and Daddy Anton will make a decision for us.’

Martha, confused, for Bill had always seemed to have respect for Anton, said: ‘Why, what’s wrong with Anton?’

Bill said, grinning: ‘But what on earth could be wrong with Daddy Anton?’ There was a personal implication in it, and she demanded: ‘What’s that in aid of?’ He shrugged and said airily: ‘Well, if you’ll move, I’ll take over now. You should be at the meeting, and you’d better be quick because it’s going to rain.’

‘You mean, I might get my feet wet?’

‘That’s right.’ But now, as he usually did, he gave in, and his aggression disappeared in a half-cajoling, half-comradely smile. ‘Run along, Comrade Matty.’

Tommy took up War and Peace and Bill pounced on it. ‘Well, well,’ he said, ‘why not T. S. Eliot?’

‘What’s the matter with War and Peace?’

‘You are a bourgeois, aren’t you? Why not T. S. Eliot while you’re about it.’ He began reciting: ‘April is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land.’

Martha listened critically: he missed nothing of it. She interrupted to ask: ‘If you despise it so much, why do you take the trouble to learn it by heart?’

‘That belongs to my decadent period. Thought you’d appreciate it. Ta ta.’

The street was hot and stuffy. The evening sky was loaded with black sulphurous clouds. A few large sparkling drops fell. She ran down the street as the storm broke, feeling the warm sting of the rain on her shoulders with acute pleasure.

By the time she reached the Sympathizers of Russia committee meeting it had already started and she was soaked.

They were discussing how to restore the status of the society, for as Anton had predicted, the episode with Jackie Bolton had caused all the respectable patrons to resign, including the Reverend Mr Gates who had had second thoughts. The policy, exactly the same now as it had been before, was being overseen by Boris Krueger, chairman, Betty Krueger, secretary, and a committee of people co-opted by them. Martha and Marjorie were on it with instructions to keep ‘an eye on the Trotskyists’. While the hostility between the Krueger faction and the communist faction was extreme, so that before or after meetings they could scarcely bring themselves to exchange more than the minimum of politeness, their political views, at least so far as this society was concerned, caused the work to go on much faster than it had in the past when the susceptibilities of the respectable had to be pandered to in the wording of every resolution. The Kruegers and Martha and Marjorie were in one way and another raising large sums for Russian Aid, and in addition were selling propaganda leaflets all over town in numbers which took them by surprise. When the meeting was over, Betty Krueger, who had been eyeing Martha with elaborate hostility throughout, suggested she had better go and change her dress before she caught cold. Martha had forgotten she was soaked, and said: ‘But I haven’t got time.’

‘Such busy little bees you Reds are,’ said Betty, her fair and delicate face ugly with dislike.

‘I thought you were a Red,’ retorted Martha, and she and Marjorie left.

‘Those Trotskyists are really so awfully childish,’ said Martha explosively, thinking of Solly that afternoon.

Marjorie said: ‘But they are all right for that kind of work.’ She was looking embarrassed, and Martha knew why: she liked to slip off for a meal alone with Colin before or between meetings, and always felt as if this submission to ‘personal feelings’ was disloyal to the group.

‘Meeting Colin?’ Martha asked; and Marjorie, relieved, said: ‘You know we are getting married next week.’

‘But that’s wonderful.’

Marjorie was hesitating on the edge of the pavement, giving Martha lingering glances of appeal. The wet street swam blue and red and gold as the cars swished by. It was still raining a little, and though it was a warm rain, Martha had started to shiver.

‘Do you think I’m doing the right thing?’ demanded Marjorie.

‘To get married?’

Marjorie’s face, usually open with enthusiasm and response, seemed pinched. She was wearing a red shirt, open at the neck, but she was holding it close in front of her throat with her thin brown hand, clenched like a fist.

‘What’s wrong?’ said Martha.

‘I don’t know; I feel I haven’t known Colin very long. He’s so nice.’ She added humorously – and the moment the humorous note entered the conversation Martha knew that the impulse to confess had passed: ‘He’s so nice, and he’s just what I wanted – a solid man, you know.’ She grimaced, staring across the street at the cinema which was showing some war film. Spitfires and Focke-Wulfs dived, spitting fire, across a vast wall-high poster. The reflection from the reddish lights of the cinema shone on her face. ‘You know I always said I didn’t want that kind of marriage, I mean a dull marriage – I don’t mean dull, of course; no, I don’t mean that. But I’ve been playing around quite a bit now and you get fed up …’

‘You talk as if you were forty,’ said Martha, suddenly angry.

‘Well, I’m twenty-five, and if you want to have children, though of course if we’re in a revolutionary situation we won’t be able to have children … but I suppose everyone feels like this when they’ve committed themselves,’ she added, smiling, again reaching out firmly for the support of humour. She nodded, and went off, saying hastily: ‘I’ll see you in half an hour at the meeting.’

So she’s not in love, Martha thought, disapproving, feeling that Marjorie had betrayed something. Then she thought: Well, what does it matter, what matters is we should all work hard for the Party. And with this she walked off towards the group office. She had had no lunch and proposed not to have supper. She was still damp and shivering and thought she might warm herself in the office by doing some work, whatever needed to be done.

Anton was first into the office, and at once sat in his chairman’s place at the table, looking at his watch. ‘We cannot tolerate unpunctuality,’ he said. The comrades are late.’

Marjorie and Colin came in. She was being gruffly humorous; he was eyeing her uneasily. Martha thought that the supper together must have been an uncomfortable one. They accepted Anton’s reproof for being five minutes late with nervous apologies.

Soon Andrew came in with two of the men from the camp: there should have been five more, but he said they had all promised to be here and did not know where they were. They all sat around on the hard benches, waiting, while Anton watched the door.

‘Why can’t we start?’ asked Marjorie.

‘This is a full organization meeting; we have one only once a week and everyone should be here.’

‘I’ve a mind that Murdoch will not be with us,’ said one of the airforce men.

‘And why not?’

‘He’s had a wee drop too much,’ said the lad apologetically.

Anton let his cold eyes settle on him, and Andrew protected him hastily with: ‘Murdoch’s a good lad. He’ll be here if he can.’

Martha remembered the scene of that afternoon, and thought: He couldn’t possibly have got drunk just because I said I wouldn’t marry him … Acutely depressed all of a sudden she thought: Are we all going to pair off? But it’s like cards being shuffled, something quite arbitrary. It’s frightening.

Fifteen minutes passed and Piet and Marie du Preez came in. They were late because they had been at the Hall with Jasmine, who sent a message to say she was not coming.

‘And why not?’ demanded Anton.

Marjorie said: ‘I don’t blame her for not wanting to leave, after last time,’ but Anton quelled her with his pale glance.

A month before, a representative of the Johannesburg Medical Aid for Russia had paid a visit to this town. He was essentially ‘respectable’, being a Professor at the Rand University.

On the evening, more than a thousand people, the biggest public meeting the town had seen, were assembled to hear the Professor on the subject of Aid for Russia. The Prime Minister, a Bishop, and half the Cabinet had graced the platform. For an hour and three-quarters the speaker had held forth on the virtues of communism, and the utter decay and corruption of capitalism.

The members of the group had had the time of their lives, while the faces of the Cabinet Ministers had reddened and writhed, and the audience applauded each violently revolutionary sentiment.

But afterwards Anton had broken into the excited chatter of the comrades, when they were discussing the meeting, to say: ‘Yes, yes. That was all very amusing, in its way, But it has no political importance at all. The new comrades do not realize that being a communist can be very hard indeed, a matter of life and death. They have joined at a time when any Tom, Dick or Harry calls himself a communist and communism is respectable. If you called a meeting in the middle of the night to discuss social insurance in Siberia they’d turn up and shout slogans. There’s no need to lose our heads over it. And there are better ways we can occupy our time than listening to a pack of fools applauding Comrade Rochester from Johannesburg. ‘

The justice of this had been, with regret, recognized, and as a result, a decision had been taken that this second public meeting should be organized by Jasmine, but that no comrades should waste their time attending it.

‘We’ve taken a decision,’ said Anton, ‘that this kind of meeting can perfectly well be handled by the Borises and the Bettys. We have better things to do.’

Bill Bluett came in, saying casually: ‘Sorry I’m late.’

‘Half an hour,’ said Anton.

‘We are under discipline but the voluntary helpers are not. The girl who was supposed to take over from me was late.’

‘In that case you are excused,’ said Anton.

Bill said, ‘Thanks’ in such a way that Anton raised his head sharply and the two men exchanged a long, thoughtful, challenging look. Bill Bluett, by no means the loser in this contest, waited until Anton had lowered his gaze and added: ‘Besides, there was the literature. I had to lug four cases of the stuff over from the exhibition.’

‘You, I imagined, were not responsible for the literature. What have you to say, Matty?’

‘I didn’t have time,’ said Martha. ‘I was down selling The Watchdog in the Coloured Quarter this afternoon. And all the afternoons this week.’

Anton laid down his pen, pushed aside his papers, and sat back, in a way which told them all they could expect the full force of his critical disapproval. But it was deflected by the entrance of Jasmine and Tommy Brown both elated and laughing, because of the mass enthusiasm of the meeting they had come from.

You are both under severe censure,’ said Anton to them. Tommy went to sit by big Piet, as if wanting his protection. Jasmine, instantly sobering, took her place beside Anton at the table in the secretary’s position.

‘We are more or less complete,’ said Anton. ‘I now declare the meeting open. First item, Party Work. And now I propose to speak unless anybody objects.’ He did not pause for objections. ‘I propose to talk about discipline. Discipline in a group like this is voluntary. There is no means of enforcing it. But what is the use of making collective agreements if they are not kept. It is an insult to the Party.’ He turned to Jasmine. ‘Comrade, if you and Comrade Tommy had come away from that meeting in time to be here, would anything have been lost by it – except, of course, your enjoyment at seeing all the bourgeoisie popping up and down in their seats and applauding every time the Soviet Union was mentioned just for the sake of applauding.’

‘I can’t understand why we bother to organize these meetings if you despise the people who come to them,’ said Marie.

‘It’s not a question of despising, it is a question of assessing a situation rightly. Well, Comrade Jasmine?’

Jasmine said: ‘You are quite correct. I apologize to the whole group and promise not to let it happen again.’

‘Comrade Tommy?’

Tommy muttered something, banging the top of his head with his fist.

‘So that’s Comrade Jasmine and Comrade Tommy accounted for. Comrade Murdoch is drunk; there is no excuse for that. Comrades Marie and Piet have apologized. There are five RAF comrades not here. Let us hope they have a good reason.’

‘They are down in the Coloured Quarter,’ said one of the RAF men. He had just joined the group: a big-boned, hollow-cheeked, passionately serious youth from London, Jimmy Jones, who tended to make violent rhetorical speeches as if at a public meeting. ‘They seem to have made valuable contacts in the Quarter.’

‘And who took a decision that their contacts are more important than group discipline?’

Jimmy said obstinately: ‘They are good contacts. They should be maintained.’

‘Is that so?’ said Anton. He turned to Martha: ‘You have not fulfilled your duties as Literature Secretary because of your work with The Watchdog. The correct way to deal with such problems is to come to the group, say you have too much work, and get the work reallocated. Not to leave the work undone.’

At this, Bill Bluett, always derisive about Martha when he met her outside the group meetings, looked sympathetically at her and said: ‘Comrade Matty’s doing good work in the Coloured Quarter.’

The Coloured Quarter, yes, yes, yes. But we decided selling The Watchdog there would be allocated one afternoon a week. How many afternoons have you all spent running like chickens around the Quarter? And why?’

There are so many things to do: people in trouble, and the women want advice about their children.’

‘You are supposed to be selling The Watchdog and not having a social life.’

At this everyone exclaimed, and Bill said: ‘Communists should enter into the lives and the problems of the working people. That is what Comrade Matty is doing. And by the way, the group will have to raise two pounds tonight for a bloke with rent trouble – fork out.’

‘Comrade Bill,’ said Anton.

‘Comrade Anton,’ said Bill, grinning, and not pleasantly.

‘How many Coloured people are there in this Colony? A few thousand. They are unimportant, economically and politically. We can sell The Watchdog around the Coloured Quarter from now until doomsday but unless the numbers or the economic position of the Coloured people alter, they will never be a political force.’

Bill nodded, and remained silent.

‘Do you agree with my assessment of the Coloured people? I seem to remember it was you who made the analysis for us?’

‘Yes,’ said Bill reluctantly.

‘And may I expect you to draw the correct conclusions from it? We agreed that in principle our work should be done among the Africans who are the proletariat of this country. But that in view of the fact we have no contact at the moment with the Africans, since the political structure is such that no white person can easily make contact, we must work in the progressive white organizations and with the Coloured who are physically accessible. And we decided that one afternoon selling The Watchdog would be adequate.’

Here Jimmy burst out: ‘I agree we should go among the Africans, we’re wasting our time, my complaint about the work of this group is that we spend all our time with the white people. They’re all bourgeois and a waste of time.’ At this there was an outburst of agreement from the three RAF men, Bill, Andrew, and Jimmy who reinforced his words with emphatic nods and exclamations.

‘Comrades,’ said Anton patiently, ‘you were all here when we analysed the class situation in this country – well, weren’t you?’

Silence.

‘And from that analysis we drew certain conclusions and with those conclusions we all agreed, and took a vote on them.’

An uncomfortable and uneasy silence.

‘Well, comrades? Is it that you wish us to make a fresh analysis?’

‘Jesus, no,’ said Jimmy angrily.

‘And what does that mean? That such analyses are unnecessary?’

Jimmy said stubbornly: ‘All I know is that we have developed good relations with a number of the Coloured people. They are working people, like us – or some of us. We understand each other. And Comrade Matty has been doing good work. Why throw it away? I don’t see it.’

‘I shall put the question formally,’ said Anton. ‘Do you wish us to pass a resolution that we should make a fresh analysis of the class forces of this country, and, based on that fresh analysis, review our work?’

‘No,’ said Jimmy heatedly. ‘No, hell, no.’

‘In that case, logically, the previous decisions stand. Matty will spend one afternoon in a week selling The Watchdog from house to house in the Coloured area. The RAF comrades may help her if necessary. None of you will get involved with rent problems, birth-control problems, or any other such problems. And we shall from now on not only resolve to be punctual, but in fact be punctual. Now, next item on the agenda.’

‘Literature,’ said Jasmine.

‘Just a minute, comrades,’ said Marie du Preez. She faced Anton. Her tone combined anxiety and a sort of easy maternal warmth for him, as if she could only subdue her disapproval of him by a tone of voice she might have used to a child.

‘Comrade Marie,’ said Piet impatiently.

Tm not happy about it. But I would find it hard to say why. Logically I agree with you. When you put it logically no one could disagree. But humanly – there is something wrong. Certain comrades here have made real friendly contacts with the Coloured people, and now you say it should all be thrown up and cut short – they are human beings and so are we.’

‘Comrade Marie, the work of a communist party in any given country is based on an intellectual analysis of the class structure, the class forces in that country at a given time. It is not based on individual and private feelings. Otherwise it’s not a communist party at all.’

Marie frowned, and at last said stubbornly: ‘I’ve told you I can’t argue with you intellectually. But I feel you are wrong.’

Her husband, Piet, who had been grinning throughout this exchange, now let out a great laugh, and said: ‘Women. She feels it is wrong, and so that’s enough.’

His wife said: ‘That’s enough from you.’

‘I resent that,’ said Marjorie. ‘I demand Comrade Piet should withdraw his remark unconditionally.’

‘And I too,’ said Martha heatedly.

‘And I,’ said Jasmine.

‘I withdraw,’ said Piet, still grinning.

‘You aren’t really withdrawing at all,’ said Marjorie. ‘You’re just humouring us. You’re showing a bad attitude towards women.’

Anton said: ‘Comrade Marjorie, he has formally withdrawn.’

‘Formally,’ said Marjorie.

The women looked with resentment at the big, good-natured, laughing trade unionist, who was trying hard to look contrite.

Suddenly Andrew took his pipe out of his mouth and said, also grinning: ‘Comrades, I have to catch the station bus in half an hour and so have the lads.’

‘O?,’ said Marjorie. ‘I see that Comrade Andrew shares Comrade Piet’s attitude.’

‘As for Comrade Piet,’ said Marie, looking at her husband, ‘I’ll fix him later.’

‘Well?’ said Anton, ‘have we now dealt with this important problem?’

‘I hope,’ said Marjorie, ‘you are not suggesting it is unimportant.’

‘As chairman,’ said Anton, ‘I now propose we take the second item on the agenda. Literature.’

Jasmine said: ‘The position is we have four cases of pamphlets from Voks in Moscow. I consider their style is quite unsuited to our present conditions.’

There was another chorus of agreement. It seemed everyone had seen the pamphlets. But on every face was a look of discomfort: they felt disloyal at having to criticize the Soviet Union: more, they felt subtly betrayed, and even threatened.

Anton said calmly: ‘I have studied the pamphlets and I agree that the comrades in Moscow are out of touch with our needs and have sent us unsuitable propaganda. I propose we write a serious letter explaining why and suggesting lines on which they might frame more suitable pamphlets.’

‘They never answer letters,’ said Jasmine, bringing out this fresh criticism of the beloved country with an effort.

‘They probably have more important things to do than worry about the problems of Zambesia,’ said Anton.

‘Then why do they bother to send the pamphlets at all?’ said Marjorie.

Anton said coldly: ‘I suggest this is not such a very serious problem. Next item on the agenda.’

‘I consider you are dealing with this meeting in a very high-handed manner,’ said Bill Bluett suddenly.

‘So do I,’ said Jimmy, who was sitting clenched up, frowning, his big red hands trembling with excitement on his knees.

Anton said: ‘There are twenty minutes before the RAF comrades must leave, and eight items still remaining on the agenda. We will have to cut political instruction because punctuality is not considered important by the comrades.’

‘I still think you are high-handed,’ said Bill.

‘In that case I suggest you elect another chairman?’

Anton sounded huffy and impatient, and Marjorie said: ‘I consider your attitude towards Bill’s remark incorrect.’

‘So do I,’ said Jasmine, in her sedate way: ‘You should not react like that to criticism.’

Anton lowered his eyes to the table and played with a pencil, jabbing it again and again into some paper. The fine lines were quivering around his mouth.

‘Which brings me to something I must say,’ said Bill. He got up, fitting his cap over his thick lank hair. ‘I propose that this group undertakes to keep its agreement to have criticism and self-criticism.’

‘Agreed,’ said Jasmine promptly.

‘Since it is not a question of taking a vote, but since it is a question of putting into effect a decision already made, there is no need to agree or disagree,’ said Anton. To Bill he said politely: ‘Thank you for reminding me, comrade. You are quite correct.’

‘Oh, don’t mention it,’ said Bill airily, moving to the door. The other two RAF men followed him.

The remaining people said they would continue the meeting without them, but all at once Anton got up, nodded to them, and said he had to leave. He went, leaving the group headless.

‘Surely he’s not upset at being criticized?’ said Marie.

‘Of course not,’ said Jasmine. ‘He’s an old comrade and knows how to take criticism. Let us continue the meeting.’ But here Martha, who had been shivering spasmodically throughout the meeting, shivered so deeply that her teeth chattered. They all looked at her, and exclaimed that she was sick. The meeting broke up on this. Marie and Piet du Preez took Martha home and put her into her bed. Martha was thinking feebly that to get sick was an act of irresponsibility and disloyalty to the whole group. She was also thinking that it would be pleasant to be ill for a day or two, to have time to think, and even – this last thought gave her a severe spasm of guilt – to be alone for a little, not always to be surrounded by people.