isn’t New York …’ Bill seemed wary of giving Florence the go-ahead, but then someone called him to the telephone and before going he succumbed, only asking whether she really did have Elsa’s notes and reminding her to stick to the line on the united front against fascism.
Florence reassured him, and turned to Laura, who was delighted at the thought of seeing her friend speak in public. It was the first time that they had seen each other alone since the protest, and as they walked to the house where the meeting was to take place, Laura tried to ask her about what had happened after the march. There was another one planned for Easter, and a fundraising pageant for Spain in a few weeks’ time, Florence told her. Laura realised it was not just her ignorance that meant she had not caught the fallout of the protest. It was true that nothing had changed, but for Florence there seemed to be nothing surprising in that failure; all the planned activities would continue regardless.
The part of London they were walking through now was closely built, the houses rearing up above them and almost cutting out the sky. It was one of those evenings that Laura had realised were characteristic of the city, with a dampness in the air which was infinitely suspended, never falling as rain, studding Florence’s hair and her old coat with tiny stars. But in the house where the meeting was to take place the light was cold from bulbs that hung bare from the ceiling, and everyone’s skin looked sallow. There were only about a dozen women in the room, sitting planted on small chairs, their bags on the floor at their sides, a stillness surrounding them. As the first speaker went through various pieces of business and reminded the women in the room to pay their membership dues, Laura waited for Florence to stand up and break through the solid atmosphere.
But when Florence did stand up, she seemed physically ill at ease and her voice fell hesitantly into the room. She was not talking in her own voice, Laura realised after a while; she was reading from the notes she had in her hand, and the urgent rhythms of her own conversation were replaced by careful arguments that Laura kept following and losing. These were mainly about the logic of history and the correct understanding of the current situation in Europe, where Fascists in Germany and Spain must be defeated by a united front. The terms of the speech were all abstract, and Laura found her attention wandering. She began to watch the knitting being done by the woman beside her, fantastically quick and accurate, spooling off into a fine pattern of purple and green. When Florence stopped, Laura came back to herself and realised to her shame how much she had missed.
The woman who had spoken first now invited questions from the floor. There was a long silence, so long that Laura began to blush for Florence, but then the knitter beside her clicked the needles into her bag and asked her why she was advocating that they go off to fight fascism in Europe, with all the problems here at home. ‘Two million unemployed,’ she said, in a hoarse monotone, ‘and that doesn’t count all the ones like my old man, working short hours, not enough even to cover the rent since I was let go on account of falling orders. That leaves only my girl working, so she’s sweating day and night now, and my boy can’t get the medicine he needs for his pain – he’s never been able to work, you know. Four mouths in the flat, damp running down the walls – that’s not something another war will solve.’
Laura was horrified at the thought of the home that the woman had left to come here. She looked at her and thought, she’s probably younger than Aunt Dee and yet she was stooped, her thin hair twisted at the back into a straggling bun. She would not know how to speak to her, but Florence was already talking again and Laura was glad to hear her voice return to the urgency Laura had first heard on the boat over the Atlantic. She was holding forth about how the workers had achieved so much in the past, and how this was no time to give up; and about what women could achieve too; and the rent strikes being led by women in the East End. As she recounted this concrete heroism, Laura felt flooded with light. But then Florence looked down at her notes again and stumbled, and started again, talking about the struggle on two fronts, about how it was important to link the struggle against capitalism at home with the struggle against fascism in Europe. Again she returned to abstraction, and when the talk finished and the women were invited by the chair to the tea table, where there was sweet, strong tea and cookies, Laura felt a kind of relief.
The woman next to her spoke to her as they stood up. ‘You’re a Red, too, are you?’ she said, and Laura nodded diffidently. ‘So you’re all for war, then? It’s an easy line. But you don’t know. If you’d lived through the last one you’d know. We all said, never again.’
Laura was conscious of her own poor understanding as she began to repeat phrases from Florence’s speech.
‘That’s what they said the last time,’ the woman said before she had finished. ‘A war to end wars. A war for a better world. They came home to higher unemployment, lower pay …’
‘But that was an imperialist war – it was fought to defend the Empire …’ Florence had come over to them. ‘This will be a war against imperialism and fascism; it’s quite different.’
The woman said something about how she sounded like the Conservatives, all this eager talk of war. Laura felt shamed by the criticism, but Florence hardly paused.
‘If Churchill and Eden and Duff Cooper can see that Chamberlain is on the wrong path,’ she said, and Laura wondered at her ease with these British personalities, ‘that’s welcome, whatever their motives. Of course that doesn’t mean that they are right on anything else. In the long run we’ll resist them just as we are resisting Adolf Hitler.’
Laura warmed to her certainty; how wonderful it must be to have such sure knowledge of what was happening and what was about to happen. But she felt, to her embarrassment, the other woman’s gaze fall on Laura’s fur coat and polished nails as she stretched out her hand for a cup. The conversation faltered, and the two young women stood in silence with their tea until it was time to go.
Outside, the air seemed to have cleared a little, and there was a frosty chill. When Laura asked Florence to show her the way back to the Underground station, Florence said she was going the same way. It was just along here, she said, that she lived with Elsa. A short silence fell, and then Florence asked if Laura wanted a quick cup of hot chocolate before going home.
So this was where Florence was living her independent life! The free life that Laura should be living if only she didn’t have her family holding her back. As Laura followed Florence up the stairs, she felt a thick excitement rising in her. To be sure, the apartment seemed unprepossessing; there was a gap in one sash window that someone had tried to fill by stuffing it with newspaper, and stacks of dusty books and papers on the floor. But still, surely it was full of the hope of freedom.
It was only two rooms, Florence explained – so Florence slept in the living room, which was also Elsa’s study, as Elsa’s bedroom was so small. It was indeed very small, and when Florence opened the door to ask Elsa if she wanted anything, Laura could see Elsa in a bed which seemed to fill the room from side to side, with a large paisley eiderdown tucked over it. ‘I think the fever’s gone down,’ Elsa croaked, and then asked Florence about the meeting. Laura heard Florence telling her that it had all gone well, that the speech had been delivered as Elsa would have done it, and that she was sure some of the women would come to the pageant. Laura sat on the edge of the hard blue couch as they talked, and then, when Florence came out to make some cocoa on the gas ring, she stood up and said she had only just realised what the time was, and that actually she should go. She asked if she could borrow a pamphlet which she had found on the floor, and Florence said she could, but hardly looked at her.
‘We’re out of sugar,’ Florence called to Elsa.
‘Open the condensed milk instead,’ she heard Elsa order her from the bedroom, ‘and help me up, for goodness’ sake.’
4
