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enlarged the tendency, had set it forth, exaggerated. For of course, when someone approaches us, we are all caution; we take that person’s measure; a thousand incredibly rapid measurements and assessments go on, putting him, her, in an exact place, to end in the silent judgement: yes, this one’s for me; no, we have nothing in common; no, he, she, is a threat … watch out! Danger! And so on. But it was not until Emily heightened it all for me that I realized what a prison we were all in, how impossible it was for any one of us to let a man or a woman or a child come near without the defensive inspection, the rapid, sharp, cold analysis. But the reaction was so fast, such a habit - probably the first ever taught us by our parents - that we did not realize how much we were in its grip.
    ‘Look how she walks,’ Emily would say, ‘look at that fat old woman.’ (The woman, of course, was about forty-five or fifty; she might even be thirty!) ‘When she was young, people said she had a sexy walk - “Oh what a sexy little wriggle you have there, ooh you sexy thing you!” ‘ And her parody was horrible because of its accuracy: the woman, the wife of a former stockbroker who had become a junk-dealer, and who lived on the floor above, was given to a hundred little winsome tricks of mouth and eyes and hips. This is what Emily saw of her: it was what everybody must see first of her; and on these tricks she was likely to be judged, by most people. It was impossible not to hear Emily without feeling one’s whole being, one’s sense of oneself, lowered, drained. It was an assault on one’s vitality: listening to her was to acknowledge the limits we all five inside.
    I suggested she might like to go to school - ‘for something to do’, I added hastily, as I saw her quizzical look. This look was not measured: it was her genuine reaction. So I was catching a glimpse of what I had needed for some time: to know what she thought of me, made of me - it was tolerance.
    She said, ‘But what’s the point?’
    What was the point? Most schools had given up the attempt of teaching; they had become, for the poorer people at least, extensions of the army, of the apparatus for keeping the population under control. There were still schools for the children of the privileged class, the administrators and overseers. Janet White went to one of them. But I thought too much of Emily to offer to send her to one, even if I was able to get a place for her. It was not that the education there was bad. It was irrelevant. It merited - a quizzical look.
    ‘Not much point, I agree. And I suppose we won’t be here long, anyway.’
    “Where do you think you’ll go, then?’
    This broke my heart: her forlorn isolation had never shown itself so sharply; she had spoken tentatively, even delicately, as if she had no right to ask, as if she had no right to my care, my protection - no share in my future.
    Because of my emotion, I was more definite about my plans than I felt. I had, in fact, often wondered if a certain family I had known in North Wales would shelter me. They were good farming folk - yes, that is exactly the measure of my fantasies about them. ‘Good fanning folk’ was how safety, refuge, peace - Utopia - shaped itself in very many people’s minds in those days. But I did know Mary and George Dolgelly, had been familiar with their farm, had visited their guest house, open through the summers. If I made my way there, I might perhaps live there for a while? I was handy, liked to live simply, was as much at home out of cities as in them … of course, these qualifications belonged these days to large numbers of people, particularly the young, who could increasingly turn their hands to any job that needed doing. I did not imagine the Dolgellys would find me a prize. But at least they would not, I believed, find me a burden. And a child? Or rather a young girl? An attractive, challenging girl? Well, they had children of their own … you can