by Hilary Green
Two days later Clare came home unexpectedly in the middle of the afternoon. She came into the kitchen and said, “Nell, would you come into the lounge, please. I want to talk to you.”
I said, “Hello. What are you doing back so early? Would you like some tea? The power’s on.”
She looked at me, her lips tightening. She had taken to wearing her hair very tightly drawn back from her face and in a pleat at the back of her head and her clothes, too, had become severely elegant rather than pretty. She looked, I thought, as if she were in uniform. She said, “I haven’t come back because I’ve finished at work. I’ve been sent to talk to you.” And she moved away into the living room.
I washed my hands and followed her, drying them on the kitchen towel. She had seated herself in front of the gas fire with her slim legs elegantly crossed.
“Well?” I said.
She looked at me. “Nell, I’ve been asked to give you a bit of advice. Some people think that you’re being rather foolish, and you could end up by making yourself extremely unpopular.”
I dropped the towel onto the back of a chair and sat down opposite her. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about.”
“Did you write to the Area Education Officer complaining about the talk at the school the other day?”
“Yes, I did. I think it was an awful thing to do, trying to involve kids in all this.” I stopped and looked at her. “How did you know I had written?”
She shrugged the question aside. “Never mind that for the moment.”
“But I do mind!” I over-rode her angrily. “How did you know?”
For a moment she hesitated. Then she drew in a sharp breath and said crisply,
“All right. Let’s get it absolutely straight. You must realize that Jocelyn is —well, associated with the KBG.”
“You can hardly miss that,” I said, dryly.
“What you perhaps don’t realize is that he is a very important person in the KBG organization—both nationally and in this particular area.”
“And Jocelyn doesn’t like people criticizing them.”
“Jocelyn knows that the only chance this country has is to unite behind the KBG and stand up to the people who are trying to undermine our society.”
“So I suppose you told him that I objected to my children being recruited into — into an organization they can’t possibly understand?”
Clare shook her head calmly. “No, Nell. I didn’t tell him anything. I didn’t need to. He’s been getting reports about you from several sources.”
“What sources?” I felt suddenly chilled.
“I don’t know them all. I only know that you have been writing letters and trying to persuade other people to write them too. And then, of course, there’s your association with Jane Grant.”
“For God’s sakel” I exploded. “What has Jane got to do with it?”
“Oh don’t be naive, Nell!” Her voice was sharp. “Everyone knows that Jane is a left-wing agitator. Whenever there is a meeting or a committee or any function where the Marxists and the Trots are in control, there she is, in the thick of it.”
“Clare! Will you stop putting meaningless labels on people? Jane believes in certain causes —good ones; ones I wish I had the courage or the —the unselfishness to do something about. She isn’t a Marxist or a Trot!”
Clare rose and stood looking down at me.
“Well, I’m afraid you don’t really understand what’s going on here. So just be advised, will you? If you go on spreading anti-KBG propaganda you are going to be very unpopular with a lot of people who have a lot of influence and that could be very difficult for you — and for Mike and the children. It’s already making things awkward for me and Alan, but I suppose you would say we have no right to complain about that. Anyway, I’ve done what I was asked to do, so now I’ll get back. Just think about it, will you?”
The back door crashed open. Instantly I could hear Tim sobbing and Simon shouting, “Mum! Mum! Come here, Quick!”
I rushed into the kitchen. Tim stood on the doormat. His coat was tom and muddy and his nose was bleeding. His face was streaked with mud and tears. I went down on my knees and put my arms round him.
“Timmy, darling, what happened?”
Simon answered. “Some KBG boys beat him up. They were waiting for us on the way home from school. They said you’d been writing letters to the Headmaster complaining about the badges and that made us Arch-Enemy No 1. They didn’t hurt me much because I was too tough for them, but they knocked Timmy down. I tried to stop them, but there were six of them onto us two.”
I held Tim close to me, knowing that the blood from his nose must be getting onto my jersey, and looked up to see Clare standing in the doorway.
“If Alan wasn’t Mike’s best friend I’d never have had you in this house in the first place,” I said viciously. “But now you’d better start looking for somewhere else to go, before I kick you out into the street.”
A few days later two very polite young men knocked at my door and asked me to identify myself. To my annoyance the sight of the KBG badges in their lapels made my heart thump and my knees tremble. They carried copies of the electoral roll and explained that a number of empty houses in the area had been taken over by squatters and they were checking to make sure that only the rightful owners were in occupation. I wondered, but did not ask, what they would do if they found some squatters. They wanted to know if we had anyone else in the house. When I mentioned Clare’s name their manner underwent a subtle change and I could see that it was known to them.
Mike came in late that evening and announced that the railwaymen had started an unofficial go-slow.
At supper Alan said, “I left Town a bit earlier than usual today. There didn’t seem to be much point in hanging around, with the trains likely to stop at any moment. I took a walk round by our house—just to have a look at it, you know. I think there are squatters in there.”
“What!” Clare exclaimed.
“Well, there are definitely people in there,” Alan said.
“How do you know they are squatters?” Mike asked. “Couldn’t they just be the new owners?”
Alan shook his head. “There was a dreadful old heap of a car outside and half a dozen grubby children in the garden. They look like squatters to me.”
I said, as gently as I could, “After all, it isn’t your responsibility, Alan. It isn’t actually your house any more.”
Clare’s voice was harsh. “As far as I’m concerned that is still our house. We were virtually robbed by being forced to sell it to that dreadful man and one day we’re going back to it. Meanwhile I’m not having it turned into a slum by squatters.”
“What I don’t understand is,” I said, “if you sold it, why isn’t it occupied?”
Alan sighed and shook his head. “I’m afraid the man we sold it to had no intention of using it. He’s a property speculator, buying up houses at knock-down prices from people like us and hoping to re-sell them when things improve.”
“He would have looked more at home with a horse and cart than behind the wheel of that Rover,” Clare added bitterly. “He has obviously made money on some black market operation and now he is putting it into property. Well he and his like have got a nasty shock coming to them.”
“What do you mean?” Mike asked.
“When we . . . when we get a proper government in this country people like that will get what they deserve. And it won’t be much longer now.”
“Meanwhile houses are left empty and become an open invitation to squatters,” Alan’s voice was flat and tired. I had a feeling that he was coming to the end of his tether.
“You can hardly blame people, I suppose,” Mike said. “If they’re wandering the streets homeless and jobless and afraid that their children will be taken away from them and the family broken up, it must seem unjust that there are houses standing empty.”
“That’s typical of your type, Mike!” Clare said sharply. “Typi
cal wet liberal thinking! Don’t you understand that our society is founded on the idea of private property? Once you start saying that in certain circumstances the laws of property can be ignored then you open the way to total disintegration. Anyway,” she rose, ignoring Mike’s attempt to argue, “I’m not seeing it happen to us.”
She left the room and we heard her lift the telephone extension in the kitchen. There was a silence. Mike and I exchanged glances and then looked at Alan. He stared at his plate. We both knew that he had lost any power or influence over Clare’s actions in relation to Jocelyn Wentworth and the KBG.
Shortly Clare came back. She looked composed and satisfied, like an efficient secretary who has just dealt with a tricky problem for her boss. “They’ll go tonight,” she said briefly.
Alan looked at her. “What have you done?”
She returned his gaze serenely and spoke in a detached voice, as if to an importunate child. “Don’t worry about it. Those people will be moved on tonight. I’ve spoken to someone who deals with these things.”
“You mean you’ve set your KBG thugs onto them!” I surprised myself by the anger in my voice.
Clare returned my look composedly but I did not miss the glint in her eyes.
“What makes you call them thugs? Have you ever seen one of them use force, except in response to force? Have any of them ever been less than courteous to you?”
I glared at her, knowing I was on difficult ground. “I know what I’ve seen on the television. And I’m not such a fool as to imagine that those people will move out for a ‘courteous’ request.”
Clare shrugged. “Then that’s their own stupid fault, isn’t it.”
Mike said, “Clare, there are women and children in the house. Surely they have a right to shelter somewhere.”
“Not in my house,” Clare said crisply.
It had been a depressing day. There had been fighting in the bread queue when the baker sold out. I had spent hours queuing for basic essentials and returned to a house that now seemed permanently cold without power to operate the pump on the central heating. When the electricity came on I watched the television. From all over the country came stories of demonstrations and counter-demonstrations, many of them breaking up in violence. Members of parliament and the TUC were interviewed hurrying in and out of meetings, uttering the usual formulae. In many quarters the call was going up for the Prime Minister to resign. There was talk of a vote of 'no confidence'.
I had managed to get some stewing lamb and had made it into a casserole with some lentils. It seemed to me a tasty and nourishing meal, even if the meat was mostly fat and bone, and I had put it on the table with a real sense of achievement; but obviously no-one was enjoying it. Alan looked pinched and weary and Clare’s cool self-possession had congealed into frigid hostility. Mike was depressed and touchy. Even the children, who had had until recently a boisterous disregard for adult moods and temperaments, had developed over the last few weeks a canny awareness and were silent too. Until Simon said, “Mum, this meat’s horrid. It’s all fat.”
His voice had the childish whine which he put on when he felt he was being hard done by, a tone guaranteed to annoy me at the best of times.
“Cut the fat off and eat the rest,” I said icily.
He pushed several pieces of meat to the side of his plate. “I’m not eating any of it. It’s disgusting!”
I leaned across the table and pushed the meat back to the centre of the plate with my knife. “You will eat it, Simon, if I have to push it down your ungrateful throat. You’re lucky to get any meat at all.”
“I don’t want any at all. I’d rather go without than eat that muck!” His voice was hoarse with anger and suppressed tears.
I went round the table and seized him by the scruff of the neck, pulling him out of his chair. I was shaking with fury and distress.
“Do you realize, you horrible little boy, that I stood in a queue in the cold for an hour this morning to get that meat for you? Do you realize that there are children not very far from here who haven’t got a hot meal at all tonight? Children who haven’t even got a home to go to? Now you either eat that food or you can leave the table now and go straight to bed. You’re going to have to learn to eat what’s put before you. I can’t cater to your fads and fancies any longer.”
I shoved him roughly back into his chair and resumed my place, panting, ashamed at my outburst yet still bitterly certain that I was in the right. Simon was crying and saying, “I’m not going to eat it! I shall be sick if I eat it!”
Mike said sternly, “Your mother’s quite right, Simon. We can’t waste good food. Nobody is going to make you eat the fat but you must eat the rest of it. Now get on with it and stop that noise.”
For a moment Simon sat staring from one to the other of us, his face red and tear streaked. Then he pushed away his plate, got up and stamped out of the room. I was about to call after him but Mike put a hand on my arm and said, “Let him go. If he goes to bed hungry tonight perhaps it will teach him a lesson. I’ll go and see if he wants to come down and apologize later on.”
In the silence which followed Clare, who had been toying with her own meal, quietly but decisively pushed what was left to the side of her plate and laid down her knife and fork.
I looked at her and saw the subtle, sardonic challenge in her eyes. Speechlessly I turned to Mike.
He said quietly, “Not good enough for you, Clare?”
She smiled. “Well, I think we have to admit it’s not one of your best efforts, Nell. I thought you were a little bit hard on poor Simon. It’s funny. I’ve always thought of you as a good cook.”
I found that I was gripping my knife and fork so tightly that they were visibly trembling. With a great effort I laid them down quietly on my plate and clenched my hands on the edge of the table.
“Clare, you have been living here for three weeks. I know that Alan is out of work and I know that we invited you, but you have not once offered to give me anything towards the house-keeping. I don’t know what you earn, but I know that you still run your car and you always seem to have plenty of petrol for it. Also I don’t mind betting that you get a good lunch every day with Jocelyn Wentworth. I’m sure he doesn’t want for anything, even these days. Well, some of us don’t have those advantages. It was difficult enough to manage when there were only four of us. It’s been a nightmare trying to feed six. I’ve asked you before to go. Now I’m telling you. After tonight I don’t want you in this house again!”
I sat still, with my head down, not daring to look at any of them; knowing what a blow I must have dealt Alan, fearing that I had hurt Mike too. In silence Clare rose and went to the door. There, she turned back and said, apparently to no-one in particular,
“Don’t worry about looking for me. I know where I can go.”
Alan got to his feet and blundered after her. We heard them go upstairs and the bedroom door slammed. I looked up and suddenly saw Timmy’s anxious little face, the eyes huge and round, staring at me. He had carefully cleared up every scrap of food on his plate. I caught him up into my arms and wept into the soft angle of his neck.
Mike came and put his arms round both of us.
“I’m sorry, Mike,” I wept. “I’m sorry!”
“It’s all right,” he soothed me. “She deserved it, and I’d warned Alan today that they’d have to find somewhere else.”
He went to the sideboard and brought me a glass of the brandy we had been hoarding since our last holiday abroad. I sipped it and got control of myself.
“Mike, go up and see Simon, will you? Ask him if he wants to come down and have some pudding. Tell him its apple crumble.”
Simon came down and we finished our meal in an atmosphere of family closeness which was accentuated by the absence of Alan and Clare. As we were about to leave the table we heard the front door close and after a moment Alan came slowly into the room and sat down silently in front of the fire. I exchanged glances with Mike and put another serving of p
ie onto a plate. Then I took the children up to bed.
Mike came up to find me later and we sat on the edge of our bed, huddled together with the eiderdown round our shoulders.
“Alan says he thinks Clare’s left him for good.”
“Oh God! Is it my fault, do you think?”
“No, darling.” He hugged me reassuringly. “He says it’s been brewing up ever since he lost his job. Clare’s one of these people who can’t tolerate failure.”
“Where has she gone?” I asked.
Mike shrugged. “She wouldn’t tell him, because she said she didn’t want him going round there making scenes. But he thinks she’s gone to Jocelyn.”
“You don’t mean that she’s having an affair with him, do you? He’s a ghastly man, old enough to be her grandfather, almost.”
“He’s a very successful man, to Clare’s way of thinking. Famous, well-off, influential — for the time being, anyway. She’s hero-worshipped him for years. Alan doesn’t know whether it’s anything more than that, but he says she’s become quite obsessive about him lately.”
“Well, we know that,” I agreed.
“Anyway,” Mike concluded, “that’s where Alan thinks she is, and he doesn’t think she’ll come back.”
“Poor Alan!” I whispered.
He hugged me again. “You won’t mind if he stays on with us?”
“No, of course not. I don’t mind Alan.”
The next morning Alan did not appear at breakfast. Mike went to investigate and reported,
“He’s all right, but he says he isn’t going to bother coming up to Town today. There isn’t a lot of point, really, especially with the railwaymen playing silly buggers. God knows what time I shall get back tonight. You’ll have to expect me when you see me.” He gave me a quick peck. “Keep an eye on poor old Alan, will you?”
“Yes, I will,” I promised. “I’ll take him up some breakfast shortly.”
He waved and the front door slammed behind him. I began to clear the table and put the kettle on for fresh tea. Alan came in in his dressing-gown. His hair was ruffled and his face seemed to have grown thinner over-night. I guessed he had not slept. He dropped into his chair and muttered an apology for not being dressed.
