angry. ‘How dare you jump on me like that! You gave me the most awful shock. Anyway, what are you doing here?’
‘I may as well ask what you are doing here. My cottage is just a quarter of a mile away and when I can’t sleep I like to walk in the garden. What about you? Why have you left your comfortable bourgeois bed to wander in the cool of the morning? Perhaps you couldn’t sleep either?’
Verity was still angry but she was also getting cold. ‘I would give anything for coffee. My feet are soaking. I had no idea the dew would be so heavy.’ He looked at her for a moment and then turned, motioning her to follow him.
The cottage, though small, was comfortable enough. There was a primitive-looking cooker on which a kettle sat. A pile of books lay on the floor. She noticed one was the bestseller no Marxist writer could be without: Stalin’s Measures for Liquidating Trotskyites and other Double-Dealers . Beneath it, she could see a well-thumbed copy of Lenin’s Socialism and War and, rather surprisingly, a polemic on the nature of Communism by Trotsky. Harvey told her to take off her shoes and gave her a dirty-looking towel with which to wipe them. There seemed to be no running water because he took the kettle out to the back door and there was the sound of water being poured into it from a can.
‘There’s a well,’ he explained grudgingly. ‘The water’s sweet but it’s not so easy having a bath.’
She recognized that he was trying to be civil so she refrained from making a smart remark indicating that she had noticed as much at dinner the previous evening. She spied a pile of paper beside a small typewriter. ‘Is that your book? Tell me about it.’
‘You don’t have to be polite, you know.’
‘I had no intention of being polite. I am still waiting for you to apologize for attacking me. You might have given me a heart attack.’ He smiled a little sourly but made no effort to apologize. ‘Anyway, I’d like to hear more about it.’
‘Well, if you really want to know, it’s an attack on the whole rotten thing – the way we live now.’
‘I see.’
‘No you don’t. I’m not sure I do. It’s the rage. It seems to blur my vision. I know I should be more effective if I were cool and clinical but I just can’t be.’
‘That’s what I feel about the war in Spain,’ she admitted.
‘I really did like your book, you know. I liked it because it was so angry. I only came to dinner to meet you.’
‘You didn’t show it,’ she said, gratified but still suspicious.
‘When I saw you dolled up in all your finery with all those men leering at you – I don’t know, it just made me mad. I wanted to smash that man’s face in but, of course, I can’t.’
‘Whose face? Roddy’s?’
‘No. He’s just an oaf. One of those bad actors who come on stage in the first scene and say, “What ho! Anyone for tennis?”’
She giggled. He had an unexpected gift for mimicry. ‘I don’t see you as a regular theatre-goer.’
‘Why should I be? Even if I had the money I wouldn’t want to see rubbish by fairies like Noel Coward. Why isn’t anyone writing plays about what is really happening in England?’
‘Like Shaw?’
‘Yes, but he goes in for satire. I want . . . I want anger. I want to make greedy pigs like Castlewood lift their snouts out of the trough for long enough to see what is going on right under their noses. When I was on the Clyde last year I saw things which . . . burned my eyes. Children starving . . . literally starving and living – if you can call it living – in dank basements without light.’ He was becoming excited and Verity, who the night before had considered him ugly, now found him disturbing, almost attractive. ‘I say – have you come across a fellow called Bill Brandt – a photographer? I met him in Sheffield. He was photographing everything he saw. He gave me this one.’
He threw over a creased photograph of three dirty, thin-faced children peering out
‘I may as well ask what you are doing here. My cottage is just a quarter of a mile away and when I can’t sleep I like to walk in the garden. What about you? Why have you left your comfortable bourgeois bed to wander in the cool of the morning? Perhaps you couldn’t sleep either?’
Verity was still angry but she was also getting cold. ‘I would give anything for coffee. My feet are soaking. I had no idea the dew would be so heavy.’ He looked at her for a moment and then turned, motioning her to follow him.
The cottage, though small, was comfortable enough. There was a primitive-looking cooker on which a kettle sat. A pile of books lay on the floor. She noticed one was the bestseller no Marxist writer could be without: Stalin’s Measures for Liquidating Trotskyites and other Double-Dealers . Beneath it, she could see a well-thumbed copy of Lenin’s Socialism and War and, rather surprisingly, a polemic on the nature of Communism by Trotsky. Harvey told her to take off her shoes and gave her a dirty-looking towel with which to wipe them. There seemed to be no running water because he took the kettle out to the back door and there was the sound of water being poured into it from a can.
‘There’s a well,’ he explained grudgingly. ‘The water’s sweet but it’s not so easy having a bath.’
She recognized that he was trying to be civil so she refrained from making a smart remark indicating that she had noticed as much at dinner the previous evening. She spied a pile of paper beside a small typewriter. ‘Is that your book? Tell me about it.’
‘You don’t have to be polite, you know.’
‘I had no intention of being polite. I am still waiting for you to apologize for attacking me. You might have given me a heart attack.’ He smiled a little sourly but made no effort to apologize. ‘Anyway, I’d like to hear more about it.’
‘Well, if you really want to know, it’s an attack on the whole rotten thing – the way we live now.’
‘I see.’
‘No you don’t. I’m not sure I do. It’s the rage. It seems to blur my vision. I know I should be more effective if I were cool and clinical but I just can’t be.’
‘That’s what I feel about the war in Spain,’ she admitted.
‘I really did like your book, you know. I liked it because it was so angry. I only came to dinner to meet you.’
‘You didn’t show it,’ she said, gratified but still suspicious.
‘When I saw you dolled up in all your finery with all those men leering at you – I don’t know, it just made me mad. I wanted to smash that man’s face in but, of course, I can’t.’
‘Whose face? Roddy’s?’
‘No. He’s just an oaf. One of those bad actors who come on stage in the first scene and say, “What ho! Anyone for tennis?”’
She giggled. He had an unexpected gift for mimicry. ‘I don’t see you as a regular theatre-goer.’
‘Why should I be? Even if I had the money I wouldn’t want to see rubbish by fairies like Noel Coward. Why isn’t anyone writing plays about what is really happening in England?’
‘Like Shaw?’
‘Yes, but he goes in for satire. I want . . . I want anger. I want to make greedy pigs like Castlewood lift their snouts out of the trough for long enough to see what is going on right under their noses. When I was on the Clyde last year I saw things which . . . burned my eyes. Children starving . . . literally starving and living – if you can call it living – in dank basements without light.’ He was becoming excited and Verity, who the night before had considered him ugly, now found him disturbing, almost attractive. ‘I say – have you come across a fellow called Bill Brandt – a photographer? I met him in Sheffield. He was photographing everything he saw. He gave me this one.’
He threw over a creased photograph of three dirty, thin-faced children peering out
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