LITMIR.BIZ

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feel. She tried to retreat into some cold, white, locked place inside her head.

      ‘Oh God!’ Peter shouted, and then came a roar, so pain-filled that her arms tightened protectively around him. He jerked involuntarily, his face distorted and drops of his sweat falling on her face.

      At last the jerking stopped and his full weight sank on top of her, the roar dropping away into a sob.

      Isabel stroked his damp shoulders, staring up past him at the curlicued wallpaper on the ceiling. If it wasn’t so horrible, she thought, it would be funny. It was so absurd. And it was pathetic, and hardly human.

      Peter slid away, leaving his hot stickiness all over her.

      ‘Was it all right?’ he whispered, like a child asking for a sweet.

      ‘Not very,’ Isabel said, longing for him to comfort her.

      ‘I’m sorry.’ He sounded huffy. ‘I was too excited, and I’d had a bit too much to drink You’ll like it better in the morning.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘Good night, darling. I love you.’

      Isabel lay very still, listening to his breathing deepening into snores. When he was properly, deeply asleep, she promised herself, she would get up and wash.

      At least it was quick, she consoled herself as she waited. At least it was quick.

       FIVE

      Appleyard Street, just off Bloomsbury Square. That was where Tony Hardy had said they were going. Amy peered out of the grimy window of the bus as they rumbled past Selfridges. The lit-up windows were full of spring fashions, print frocks and little straw hats, although the daffodils were barely out in Hyde Park and a week’s icy rain and high winds had already flattened them to the grass.

      Outside the front doors in Bruton Street, Amy had stood poised on the steps, automatically expecting Tony to wave to a cab. But he had taken her arm and steered her briskly towards Park Lane.

      ‘Only a twopenny bus ride to Appleyard Street,’ he said.

      ‘Yes, of course.’

      Amy could almost count the number of times she had been on a bus before. Past Selfridges she turned to Tony. He was smoking and frowning over a sheet of typewritten paper.

      ‘What’s the meeting about, exactly?’

      ‘Oh, the usual sort of thing. Welcome to new members of the group. A paper, read by one of the old guard. This month’s is entitled “From Dialectic to Daily Practice. A Pan-European Approach”. Then a guest speaker. Tonight’s is Will Easterbrook from the Trades Union Congress Executive. He should be interesting. And then there will be a discussion of arrangements for the hunger march.’

      Seeing Amy’s blank stare Tony began to laugh. ‘You did ask to come.’

      ‘Hunger march?’ she asked quickly. ‘What’s that?’

      ‘Don’t you know? This one is one of my friend Jake Silverman’s projects. You’ll meet Jake tonight. And you’ll hear plenty about the march.’

      Not wanting to betray any more ignorance, Amy went back to studying the Oxford Street windows. The shops were familiar but she felt that she was travelling past them into new territory. It was if by simply stepping on to the bus she had set out in a new direction. She was looking forward to what the evening would bring, with an eagerness that she hadn’t felt for a long time.

      When the bus reached High Holborn, Tony rang the bell and they jumped off together.

      Amy had never penetrated into this corner of London before. She peered interestedly at the shops, mostly small grocers, and bookshops with pavement display cases emptied and locked up for the night. There was hardly anyone in the streets, and no traffic at all, but the lights behind curtained windows over the shops spoke of tiny flats full of people.

      Appleyard Street was exactly like the others. Tony stopped in front of a bookshop with a smeared window crammed full of haphazardly arranged books. A violently lettered poster stuck to the glass commanded UNITE. FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS. Tony rang the side door bell and then pushed the door open. The hallway and steep stairs facing them were completely bare, and lit by a single bulb with a cracked glass shade.

      Tony waved her inside with an ironic flourish. ‘Welcome to the Centre for Socialist Studies. First floor. Jake has a flat at the top, where we shall adjourn later. Shall I lead the way?’

      Amy nodded. She was very cold, and annoyed to find that she was disconcerted by the bleakness of their destination.

      The big first-floor room had three uncurtained windows overlooking the street. It was packed with rows of upright wooden chairs, most of them occupied. At the front was a table covered with a red cloth, with another half-dozen chairs arranged behind it. The room was warm, heated by a glowing gas fire. At the rickety card table beside the door Tony stopped to sign his name in a register. Underneath it he wrote ‘A. Lovell. Guest.’

      ‘It’s not a public meeting,’ he told her. ‘You have to be a member, or an invited guest.’ Then he guided Amy to a pair of empty chairs, mercifully close to the fire. It welcomed her with a gentle hiss.

      Tony smiled at her as they sat down, acknowledging her sense of disorientation, and mocking her a little for it. Amy peeled off her suède gloves and he saw that her fingers were white with cold. ‘Poor Amy! Where have I dragged you to?’ He took her hands and rubbed them in his own warm ones, and Amy was sorry when the circulation was restored to her fingers and he laid them gently back in her lap. She made herself stop looking at the way his fine, rather long hair fell over his ear, and turned her attention to the rest of the room.

      Her first reaction was relief that she didn’t look too conspicuous. She had been right not to come in her dinner dress. Amy had dined alone with her father, and as soon as Gerald had left for his club Amy had gone upstairs again and exchanged her dress for a cashmere sweater and a tweed skirt. With a plain woollen coat, low-heeled shoes and a soft hat pulled down to cover her hair, she imagined she looked exactly like any of the girls in Tony’s office. If anything, she thought now, she was conspicuous for her ordinariness. A girl just in front of her was wearing her hair wound up in a brilliant green turban with a big fake emerald pinned to the front. Her eyes were shadowed in the same green as the turban. She was talking to another girl with a mass of black curly hair and big brass earrings that jangled as she shook her head. Her skirt was a tight tube of scarlet flounces and her legs, hooked casually over the chair in front of her, flashed stockings in the same colour. Another woman, grey-haired, in a raincoat and a rakish velvet beret, was smoking a man’s cigar. The men, much more numerous, had nothing in common from their appearance. One or two, in blue suits and stiff collars, might have been bank officials. Others were clearly working men, with red faces and flannel shirts. The rest were like Tony, somewhere between the two, with an occasional touch of flamboyance. Not a single person wore evening clothes, although it was well after nine o’clock.

      Amy’s feet were beginning to thaw out, and her interest revived with them. She was looking around the room again when without ceremony a big man stood up and went to the table. He was young, Tony’s age or a little older. He had a full black beard that made his lips look very red, a big nose, and glittering dark eyes. He was wearing a red and black plaid shirt, with a red handkerchief tied at the throat.

      ‘Comrades,’ he said quietly. Silence fell immediately. ‘The meeting is called to order.’ He nodded at two or three other men, and they filed up to join him behind the table.

      Tony nudged Amy. ‘Jacob Silverman,’ he whispered. His manner, and the attention given to him by his audience, told Amy that Jacob Silverman was someone to be reckoned with. He welcomed them all briefly to the meeting, greeted new members by name, and added that other guests were welcome too. As he looked along the rows his eyes fixed briefly on Amy, and she knew that Jake Silverman would miss nothing.

      A patter of applause met the first speaker who stood up and began to talk, very fast and rather loudly.

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