A SONG IN THE MORNING by Gerald Seymour Page B

had searched out Duggie to beg and borrow the library books from college that he knew Duggie had squirreled away. He had an address that was a squat off Camden High Street. He thought they were all Marxists, or they might have been Stalinists, and there was a Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party poster sellotaped to the wallpaper in the hall. He was given a second address.
    Duggie had nearly been a friend in the little more than two years they had shared at London University. They had known each other first when they had adjoining rooms in the hall of residence, when they shared coffee, or were short of sugar, or needed to borrow a book. Duggie was an idealist.
    In his first term he had joined DebSoc, LabSoc, AASoc, and DramSoc. Jack hadn't joined the Debating Society nor the Labour Society nor the Anti-Apartheid Society nor the Dramatic Society. He had joined the rugby club. Jack would have been satisfied to end up with a 2nd (Lower) in Modern History, he knew Duggie had kicked himself for ending up with that grade. Jack had dogged application, Duggie had brains. He'd gone to Duggie for the books because he was damned if he was going to go back to college and request library facilities.
    He went gingerly down the dark basement steps in Pad-dington. When he rang, a woman shouted at him from a window above. She gave him a third address. She said she'd been chasing the bastard herself for his unpaid rent. She may have been misled by Jack's suit to supposing him another creditor, because she wished him well.
    They had drifted apart during the second year. But it would not have been possible for Jack to lose sight of Duggie.
    Duggie Arkwright was the darling of the Left's societies, the regular lambaster of government and institutions. He wrote in the student paper under a photograph and a by-line.
    He made principal speeches at debates. He had twice been arrested in Trafalgar Square, once on the Anti-Apartheid ticket and once on a C.N.D. demonstration.
    He ended up in Dalston, quite a long way east over the tracks from tarted-up Islington. It was the doorway beside a newsagent. The newsagent was open. He went inside and asked if next door was right for Duggie Arkwright. He got a cold nod from the young Pakistani at the cash till.
    Last year Jack had seen Duggie's photograph, second row in a demonstration in Liverpool. He couldn't think of anywhere else to start.
    Jack had rung the bell and a girl had opened the street door and led him upstairs. It wasn't really a flat. It was a room with a table and some chairs, a baby asleep in one of them, and a line of washing and a paraffin stove and a collapsible cot and an electric cooker. For a bed there was a mattress on the floor with rumpled sheets and blankets.
    Posters on the wall, and Jack fancied they hid the damp.
    They looked at each other and Duggie beamed.
    "Bloody hell, it's priggy Curwen, the refugee from Modern History. What in God's name . . .?"

    "Nice to see you, Duggie."
    "I suppose you want my notes now, and my essays."
    "No."
    "Ditched it all, have you? Come to tell me you've chucked it?"
    "I'll take my degree the year after next, and pass."
    "God, what a crass prig. Do I have to wait till then for my books back?"
    "When I've finished with your books I'll be sending them back to the library."
    Duggie was laughing out loud, Jack was grinning. The student that Jack had hit had been standing in front of Duggie Arkwright. Duggie had said at the time that it didn't matter, the student having his jaw broken, because he was unsound, a revisionist.
    "Come on in, sit yourself down."
    But there wasn't anywhere to sit down. The baby was in the one comfortable chair, and of the two chairs at the table one was deep in washing bags and the other was a book store.
    "Bloody good to see you, Jack bloody Curwen. Jack, this is Anthea."
    The girl stared coldly at Jack. He could measure her dislike. His suit and his raincoat, wasn't it? His hair that was cut every fortnight. She turned