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it.
    â€˜Artistic? What does that mean?’ Colin was frowning.
    â€˜Oh – I don’t know the details. Anyway, really it’s up to us to develop the refugee idea in a way that’ll interest Radu. If he takes the bait, well and good, if he doesn’t then –’ and he shrugged, ‘we try something else.’

three

    ALAN AND I HAD OUR FIRST BIG QUARREL outside the Communist Party HQ. Covent Garden seemed an odd place for the Communist Party to have their headquarters, I thought, as we picked our way over the cobbles, trying not to slip on the packed snow or trip on potatoes and broken orange boxes. I’d passed through Covent Garden from time to time – after we’d been to the Charing Cross Road bookshops, once to the ballet – but I’d never guessed that Communists occupied the ordinary-looking building on the corner, across the street from Moss Bros, who hired out evening clothes. It was just another office block, and it seemed incredible that behind its façade lurked that secret, mysterious entity, that shadowy – shady – organisation: ‘The Party’ – as Colin referred to it, as though it were the only political party.
    We waited for Colin outside. Alan stamped his feet and banged his gloved hands together. He’d wrapped his woollen scarf, which I’d knitted him, right round his mouth and jaw, and was wearing a wide-brimmed black hat. I huddled into my musquash. My toes had gone numb.
    A man in a heavy overcoat and a homburg hat hurried out, followed by a woman in belted tweed. ‘Are you waiting for someone?’ She sounded suspicious, as though we were spying on ‘The Party’. Her hair, permed into ringlets, sprang out stiffly, like iron filings, from a dark green beret.
    â€˜Colin Harris. He’s expecting us.’
    The woman looked us up and down in appraisal. ‘Why don’t you wait inside? It’s unbearably cold out here.’ There was a pile of Daily Workers in a bin outside the door. She handed us one. ‘You could read that while you’re waiting.’
    I smiled. ‘Thanks. We often get it from Colin, actually.’
    â€˜Do you?’ The woman hesitated. I thought she might be sizing us up as potential recruits. But her companion, who had walked on, called back.
    â€˜Come along, Doris. We’ll be late.’
    Alan watched them go: ‘Doris Tarr,’ he said, ‘I remember her. It was her job to recruit intellectuals, the workers by brain. Thank God, she didn’t recognise me. Ugh, so patronising and proselytising.’
    â€˜What does proselytising mean?’
    He looked down at me with a kind smile. ‘Always trying to convert you, get you to sign up to their beliefs.’
    â€˜Colin doesn’t do that.’
    â€˜That might be because he’s having problems,’ said Alan, darkly.
    â€˜I don’t think he thinks I’m worth arguing with. He thinks I’m stupid – or just some flighty deb you’ve unfortunately got mixed up with.’ This actually wasn’t what I thought at all, and the moment I’d said it, I couldn’t think why. Perhaps I was wanting to quarrel.
    â€˜Don’t be ridiculous. Communists believe in female equality.’
    I’d been planning my next move for some time, and this seemed a good moment to grasp the nettle. ‘I’m going to get a job. I’m sick of moping about the flat all day. And it doesn’t make sense, we haven’t any money, we’re broke.’
    I wasn’t sure how it had happened in the first place. While I was still at the Ministry, I’d discovered an amateur theatre group in Notting Hill. They’d given me a small part – that was how I’d first met Alan. After I’d holidayed with Mother in Devon, I’d meant to start looking for a job, but by that time Alan and I were talking of marriage. Three months later I found myself married and a