of a new storm already poured over the town. Sitting with her back turned, she did not see that Solly had come in, and missed the moment when she could judge why he was here. For a moment the two stared deeply at each other. She broke it by saying: ‘I’m waiting for a man to come from the African group.’ She had decided on this admission to save half an hour of fencing. A bad liar, she knew it, and had thus acquired the reputation: Matty is such a sincere person. Meanwhile, part of her mind juggled to find convincing lies to put him off.
‘It’s such a pleasure having dealings with you, Matty, always as honest as the day.’
‘It occurred to me recently there’s no point in being anything else, living in this – ant-nest.’ Her voice was shrill, and she set guards on herself; noting meanwhile that ‘enemy’ Solly ceased to be one when she thought of him as a fellow victim of the provinces. She smiled at him: as a cat which has been scampering about a crouching tom suddenly rolls over and lifts meek paws. Not quite, however. But the flash of seriousness on this young man’s face (whatever the reason for it) when he had first seen her under the window had after all weakened the force of her decision not to like him. So would he look into her face from a few inches’ distance if. But he was now saying, vibrant with sarcastic hostility: ‘You have a point, I grant you. Yesterday I met a comrade of yours from the camp who said, how was Matty? I said what did he mean? It seems our liaison is common gossip.’
‘What fun for you.’
‘Well, I do hope so, Matty.’
‘The thing is, I have to meet Athen at seven and it must be that now.’
‘Well, I would be only too happy to wait to seduce you until you had finished conferring with comrade Athen.’
He was on the bench beside her. His face grinned into hers from not six inches away. Luckily, however, not at all ‘serious’, far from it, so she was saved. She got up and began piling pamphlets about the Second Front (now unsaleable) into the cupboard.
‘Solly, are you seeing Clive de Wet?’
‘Why should I tell you, comrade Matty?’
‘Well, if you want to be childish.’
‘It’s you who are childish. This is Solly Cohen, the Trotskyist.’
‘But it looks as if the African group want help?’
‘There isn’t an African group.’
‘But a group of Africans?’
‘What can you do for them I can’t do?’
She shrugged and then laughed. The laughter was because of a picture so sharp to her imagination it was hard to believe it wasn’t in his also: ‘the African group’, like a small starving child, its hands held out for help, was being torn to pieces by a group of adults fighting for the right to help it.
At that moment came a knock on the door. Martha shouted ‘Come in’ and a small black boy came in, looking nervously from one to the other of the two white people.
‘Missus Mart,’ he said.
‘No Mrs Mart here,’ said Martha.
‘Idiot, it’s you.’
Solly was already grinning: he knew what was in the dingy envelope that the small boy held out.
A single sheet of exercise paper said:
‘Dear Mrs Martha, I apologize for not coming this afternoon, I have been prevented by unavoidable circumstances. Hoping I may have the pleasure of your acquaintance at another time. Yours sincerely, Signature illegible.’
Probably purposely so.
‘Who sent you?’
The little boy shifted his feet and his eyes and said: ‘Don’t know, missus.’
Martha gave him a shilling and he started to run off. She said: ‘Please tell whoever sent you that I will be here tomorrow afternoon at the same time.’
‘Yes, missus.’
He vanished and Solly jeered: ‘Ever faithful Matty, waiting day after day in pursuance of duty. But he won’t come, I’ve seen to it.’
‘Luckily you’re not the only influence abroad. There’s Athen and Thomas as well.’
He grinned. ‘Dear Matty. What makes you think it’s the same group?’
‘Oh, isn’t it? Well, never mind, I’m late for Athen.’
‘May I have the pleasure of walking you to Dirty Dick’s?’
‘How do you know it’s Dirty Dick’s?’
‘Where else?’
On the pavement large drops of warm rain fell all about them. She wriggled her shoulders inside damp cotton. The warm wet was lashed by cold. Overhead, miles overhead, very likely, air masses had shifted, had clashed, and here spears of acid-cold water mingled with fat warm drops from a lower region of sky. Lightning splurged across the dark, and Solly pulled Martha under an awning. He put his hot arms about her, and dropped a hot cheek close to hers, while ice from the clouds bounced around their feet.
‘But Solly, there’s absolutely no point in it.’
‘Look where all this highmindedness has got you. The arms of Anton Hesse. Not to mention the divorced arms of Douglas Knowell. Why didn’t you listen to Joss and me? We told you, didn’t we, and you’d never listen.’
‘All right. But I’m late for Athen.’
The Piccadilly was empty. Rather, it had half a dozen civilians in it. Unpredictably the RAF flowed in and out of the town, and tonight the tide was out: not a uniform in sight. The big oblong room, with its shiny yellow walls, that were usually hung with hundreds of caps, jackets, coats; its hundred tables tightly massed with grey-blue uniforms, was empty. At the end of the room, a neat dark little man in a light suit rose to meet them. Athen himself. Martha had never seen him out of uniform and she examined him while Solly said to Johnny: ‘Where are all our gallant boys?’ But Johnny spread out his palms, empty of information, and shrugged.
‘Any news from home?’ Martha asked politely, as usual.
‘It’ll soon be over now. We’ve offered them …’ here he nodded towards Athen, ‘… an amnesty. Yes, Elas and Elam will give themselves up now, you’ll see.’
Athen watched Martha approach and smiled. But he saw Solly and his face went on guard. Athen despised Solly. Not for being a Trotskyist: Solly was not a serious person, said Athen. Before taking a person’s beliefs seriously, he must be worthy to have beliefs. At any rate, when Solly was mentioned he simply shrugged. As for Solly, since it was not possible to despise Athen, he regarded him as the dupe of Stalin. Martha was angry with herself for letting Solly be here. It was going to be another awful evening, another among hundreds. It was her fault. She could never remember that because she ‘got on’ with people, it didn’t mean they should ‘get on’ with each other. She was always creating situations full of discordant people. It did not flatter her that she could: on the contrary. If such tenuous ties she had with people, easy contact, surface friendship, yet had the strength to bring them together, what did that fact say about them, about her, and – she would not be Martha if she did not go on – about associations, groups, friendships generally? And it was no quality to be admired in herself that made her a focus. She was, at this time, available. That was all. If not her, it would be someone else – just as, before her, it had been the du Preez’ and before them Jasmine Cohen.
Very well then, it seemed that for this period of her life, her role was to – well, this evening for instance, there was a group consisting of Athen and Solly and herself; and then these three (unless she could shed Solly and there seemed no likelihood of that) and Anton and Joss and Thomas Stern would all go to the pictures. And afterwards everyone would come home to their flat (Anton’s and hers) and she would cook eggs for them. This was