ISSUE 7
cover size 210 x 148 mm (A5)
ISSUE 7
cover size 210 x 148 mm (A5)
I recently reviewed "Crisis and Criticism" by Alick West (Lawrence and Wishart £4) for the "Labour Monthly". The Introduction, by Elizabeth West, quotes him as rejecting the slogan "Culture is a weapon in the fight for socialism", and quotes from his autobiography as follows:"I said that culture, as Caudwell had written of poetry in "Illusion and Reality" heightens our consciousness of the world we want to win and our energy to win it. In this sense it was true that culture is a weapon in the fight for socialism. But the truth depended on recognition of the greater truth that socialism is a weapon in the fight for culture. For our final aim was not the establishment of a political and economic structure, but the heightening of human life. Without this recognition, the slogan became a perversion of the truth, since it degraded culture into a means to a political end." "Voices takes this stand. Of course, culture is a weapon in the fight for socialism: but of course Socialism takes its justification from the necessity of creating the social conditions in which men can live free from want, free to live life more fully.
From this issue "Voices" will be quarterly, and its format will be stabilised in the shape and size of Voices 6 and 7. When we prepared the issue of Voices 7 we had material sufficient to have produced three or four such issues. We can never have too many contributors. The more people who write for us, the wider our range, the greater our appeal. We try to deal sympathetically with all contributors, but haven't the resources to do so as fully as circumstances demand. One 'thing we want to arrange as a regular feature, the meeting of writers and readers of "Voices" where writers will read their material and dialogue about it can follow.
With this issue we will be continuing our approach to Trade Unions and Labour Party Organizations, to student bodies and English staffs at Training Colleges. For the first time, we are beginning an experimental approach to a limited number of Left bookshops.
Finally the flow of generous donations continues, and we have every confidence that a growing number of friends will fight to keep "Voices" singing, arguing, shouting, whispering, in various ways adding their sounds to the fight for a better world.
Ben Ainley
(translated by C. Cobham)
You may believe me or not believe me, but forgive me if I say that what you think about it is of no interest to me at all. It is enough for me that I have seen him and talked to him, standing face to face with him, and that I have seen the chair, and thought that I was witnessing a miracle. But what was more miraculous, and so awful, was that neither the man nor the chair nor the story made anyone stop, not one of the people passing in Opera Square at the time, nor anyone in the crowds going to and fro in Republic Street or anywhere in Cairo, perhaps not even one person in the whole world.
It was an extraordinary chair which looked as if it had descended from another world or been built for a festival, so huge that it was like a whole establishment in itself. Its broad seat, softly furnished with leopard skin and silk cushions, would have evoked in you, had you seen it, an overwhelming desire to sit down on it, even if only for a moment. It was a moving chair, which went forward slowly at the pace of a religious procession and seemed to move of its own volition: it would have aroused fear and wonder in you, and you might have prostrated yourself before it, and offered sacrifices to it, as if it had been an idol. But at the last minute I noticed, between the four massive legs with feet shaped like gold hooves, a fifth leg. This leg was small and thin, a strange sight in the midst of that monstrous luxury, and then I saw that it was no leg, but a slightly-built man upon whose body the sweat had formed ditches and canals and made the hair grow. into woods and forests. You must believe me for I swear by all that's holy that I'm not lying, not exaggerating, but just telling you what I saw, because I can't help it. I wondered how such a thin, fragile creature could carry a chair that weighed at least a ton and probably much more. It seemed like a conjuring trick, but prolonged scrutiny at close quarters revealed that no trickery was involved, and that the man was really carrying the chair, and moving along with it.
The thing that I found so amazing and so strange, and that really frightened me, was that not one of the passers-by in Opera Square or in Republic Street, or possibly anywhere in Cairo, showed the least surprise, or treated it as if it were anything out an ordinary event that they had ceased to question, as if the chair were as light and mobile as a butterfly carried by a young boy, who passed by them and was gone. I watched the people and the chair and the man, expecting to catch sight of a raised eyebrow or lips drawn in in wonder, or to hear someone uttering a cry of astonishment, but there was absolutely nothing.
Just when I had begun to feel that the whole situation was too incredible and complicated to think about any longer, the man with his burden came within a few inches of me, and for the first time I could see that he had a good face in spite of its many wrinkles, although it was impossible to tell his age. I noticed a much more striking fact about him: he was naked except for a girdle tied firmly round his waist, from which hung a piece of canvas covering him in front and behind. It was enough to make you pause and realise, as your mind gave back echoes like an empty room, that in these clothes the man was alien not only to Cairo but to the whole age, and that you had seen drawings of men like him in History books or among archaeological remains. So I was surprised when he gave a submissive smile, like the smiles beggars give, and then spoke:
"God have mercy on your father, my son. Have you seen the good Batah Ra?
(Batah Ra - an ancient Egyptian king, supposed to possess divine power.)
Was he speaking hieroglyphics in Arabic, or Arabic in hieroglyphics? Could the man be an ancient Egyptian? I turned upon him.
"Just a minute. You're not going to say that you' re an ancient Egyptian?"
"There's no such thing as ancient Egyptians and modern Egyptians. I'm just an Egyptian."
"And what's that chair?"
"It's my load. But why do you think I'm going around looking for Batah Ra? So that he can give me the order to put it down, as he gave me the order to carry it about. I'm exhausted."
"Would you say you've been carrying it for long?"
"For a long, long time. I don't know how long."
"For a year?"
"What do you mean a year, my son? Tell anyone who asks you, a year plus a few thousand."
"A few thousand what?"
"Years."
"Since the time of the pyramids, you mean?"
"Before, since the time of the Nile."
"What do you mean, the time of the Nile?"
"From the days when they didn't call it the Nile, and they moved the capital from the mountain to the river bank. The good Batah Ra came to me and said:
'Carrier, carry.' I carried. And since then I have gone all over the place looking for him, so that he could say to me, 'Put it down', but from that day to this I have never found him."
All power and indeed all inclination to 'feel astonishment had quite left me. If he had been able to carry a chair of such great size and weight all that time, he could go on carrying it for thousands of years, without provoking astonishment or opposition, but only a question:
"Suppose you can't find the good Batah Ra, will you go on carrying it?"
"What else can I do? I'm a carrier, and I've been entrusted with it. I had an order to carry it, so how can I put it down without another order?" Perhaps out of anger.
"Put it down. Aren't you fed up? Aren't you tired? Throw it down. Break it. Burn it. Chairs are made to carry people not people to carry chairs."
"I can't. I've got used to carrying it. I carry it to earn my living."
"So what? Instead of wearing yourself out and breaking your back, why don't you throw it down. You should have done it a long time ago."
"That's what you think, because you're on the outside. You're not a carrier and it doesn't matter to you. I'm a carrier and I've been put in charge of it, so it's my responsibility."
when, for God's sake?"
"Until the command comes from Batah Ra."
"He's as dead as a doornail."
"From his successor or his deputy, from his great grandchildren, from anyone with a sign from him"
"All right. I'm ordering you to put it down."
"Your order will be obeyed. I'm much obliged to you. But have you seen him?"
"I haven't."
"Then I beg your pardon."
But I cried out to stop him, for he had begun to move away. I had noticed something like an announcement or a message fastened to the front of the chair. To be precise, it was a piece of gazelle hide with ancient writing on it, that looked like the early script of the Holy Books. With some difficulty I read:
O bearer of chairs
You have borne enough
And the time has come for the chair to bear you
This mighty chair
Like which there is no other
Is yours alone
Carry it
Take it to your house
Put it in the centre of the house
Sit upon it all your life
And when you die
It will belong to your sons.
This is Batah Ra's order, Bearer of Chairs. An order given clearly at the same time as he ordered you to carry the chair, and sealed with his signature in his writing."
All this I said with great joy, excessive joy so that I felt almost strangled with emotion. Since I had set eyes on the chair and learned its story, I had felt as if I were carrying it, and had carried it down thousands of years, and as if it were I whose back was being broken, and now it was as if the delight which had seized me was for the release which had finally come.
With bowed head the man listened. Not a tremor passed through him. He just waited, still bowed, for me to finish, and as soon as I had done so he raised his head. I had been waiting for some demonstration of joy, even an explosion of delight, but none came.
"This order' s written above your head there and it must have been written ages ago."
"But I can't read."
"Haven't I just read it for you?"
"I'll only believe it if you give me a sign. Did you bring a sign?"
And when I didn't answer, he muttered angrily as he turned to go, "You've just been wasting my time. All that for nothing. And the day's short enough as it is."
I stood watching him. The chair had begun to go forward at its steady, dignified pace, as if it were moving by itself, and the man had become once more the thin fifth leg, strong enough to move it alone.
I stood watching him as he went away from me, panting and grunting, his sweat running freely. I stood bewildered, asking myself if I should follow him and kill him, to give vent to my frustration, if I should rush forward and push the chair off his shoulders forcing him to rest in spite of himself, or if I should content myself with feelings of annoyance and irritation towards him or calm down and merely bewail his condition?
Or perhaps, indeed, I should pour blame upon myself because I do not know the sign?
Usuf Idris
(Translated by Catherine Cobham from a collection of short stories by Usuf Idris called House of Flesh, published in Cairo in 1971. This story was first published individually in a Cairo magazine at the end of 1968).
| Years starved of beauty, cheated by drabness, skies blocked by buildings; |
| And now almost too much splendour day after day. |
| My heart will burst, it cannot contain the |
| beauty, the riches of the scene |
| Colours, shapes, light, which fill the mind. |
| This is too good a life, too soft; |
| Cradled in the lap of greenness, |
| Tall trees, and ever changing sky, |
| The world's problems a myth; |
| War an unimaginable science fiction! |
| Never before such a spring |
| Every sense aware; colour, shape, light, shade, sound; |
| Above all the greening; the all embracing greening. |
| Behind this, humanity; the throb of the human race; |
| Some places atune, each growing, striving |
| For the good of all; in others the screaming discord |
| Of greed, sadism, lust, |
| Makes a mockery of the natural world. |
| And why this year has spring been so superb? |
| Because there will be only four more for me. |
| Isabel Baker |
| Nightingale in a warm valley by the sea |
| and blackbird singing on a city steeple |
| you are to me; |
| no less that birds do not always sing |
| and there are winters when one despairs if ever spring will be |
| to bring the frivolous cocks and hens displaying |
| on every ledge and tree. |
| And you are Bach and Shakespeare and John Donne |
| and Picasso and clean woodcuts |
| of wild horses; none |
| easy or soft or compromising life; |
| you are high places and bleak seas where keen |
| winds hustle the incapable and screen |
| the sturdy and the obstinate and strong; |
| you are the fireside when the day is gone, |
| the hour of rest when, her assignment done, |
| this worker lounges to recover |
| energy for another. |
| You are the man |
| to my unconformable and restless woman. |
| We cannot sit, |
| until not only our own place is fit, |
| but must be fidgetting till all in common |
| have peace and prospect and enough to eat. |
| Come home, |
| smarting and savage from the daily rough |
| struggle with heart breaking labour, |
| bitter and gruff, |
| till being together gentles our irritation to that quiet |
| which is our inner therapy against the riot |
| of market place and shop floor, school and street, |
| where today's pressures of class interest meet. |
| So be old age when strength ebbs and we take |
| time off in the last days of our December |
| maintained through separation and heartbreak |
| our love our banner to its final ember. |
| Frances Moore |
| If truth is what you want |
| the news is bad. |
| From this place where |
| suitcases happen to explode |
| where the last legal bomb waits |
| ready to retaliate in your defence. |
| And the last bad luck |
| enemy or friend |
| who waited for a letter |
| that now no-one will send |
| from the place where |
| suitcases happen to explode |
| screams through broken teeth. |
| Certain assurances |
| made in private |
| haven't been confirmed. |
| Certain witnesses |
| questioned in public |
| have remained evasive. |
| All the stained bedclothes |
| All the dirty linen |
| cannot be washed whiter. |
| Here comes our political correspondent |
| Here comes our economics correspondent |
| Here comes blurb and blab |
| Here comes your bleeping news. |
| If truth is what you want |
| The news is bad. |
| Here comes our parliamentary expert |
| Here comes our religious expert |
| Here comes gab and grab |
| Here comes your news views blues. |
| Legality is a knackers yard |
| where social systems tear apart |
| the maker from the thing he makes. |
| He that makes and that which mutilates, |
| in the marketplace where |
| suitcases happen to explode, |
| where dreams casually rip apart |
| and the last legal bomb |
| maintains the 'national interest'. |
| If truth is what you want |
| watch the bubbles bursting in the beer |
| and hear something ticking through the ring of the till. |
| Yes, the news is bad |
| in this land of the last legal bomb, |
| in the sad case of the place where |
| suitcases happen to explode. |
| Paul Lester |
| Freeway Flier |
| leaping forward to attack, |
| then standing back |
| to laugh at the blood. |
| Cheek-bones gleam chrome l |
| like motor-way direction signs |
| without direction. |
| Freeway Flier, |
| eyes like black holes |
| without soul, |
| sucking in light, |
| sucking in concrete and glass, |
| sucking in chrome and vinyl, |
| reflecting them all |
| in perfect mirror image, |
| like an autowrecker |
| regurgitating crippled steel. |
| Freeway Flier rapes to love |
| as he rapes to live, and keeps score. Freeway Flier read a poem once, |
| on the wall of an abandoned tenement. |
| Read a book once, but |
| he keeps that to himself. |
| Watches the sunset over |
| the flyover and pylons |
| like some crazy belisha beacon, |
| plays pinball with girls whose |
| names he remembers occasionally, |
| where midnight jukeboxes spin records at 49 r.p.m. |
| when the night is p.v.c. |
| subdivided by cones |
| of symmetrical light. |
| Watches the sun rise over the railway bridge through the condensation |
| of his own breath framed by |
| arches of mildewed brick-work. |
| Freeway Flier feels pain, |
| but even feeling pain |
| is better than feeling nothing |
| at all. |
| A. Darlington |
| Every movement |
| must have its martyrs, |
| though high the price |
| they pay. |
| Take |
| The Shrewsbury Two, |
| put away |
| for something |
| they didn't do, |
| as a lesson |
| to the others. |
| O my brothers, |
| pity any comrade |
| taken alone, |
| but pity more |
| the movement |
| that fails to |
| cherish its own. |
| Bill Eburn |
| Hurled up, stranded out, smoothed, shaped out and blazed; |
| the timbers rack-out livings, whip places |
| up. Brick, width, and span, flipped up, make buildings. |
| This hard way creates the places used, gazed |
| at that we Know, our ends, our traces, |
| shacked dreams and bedded nightmares, silly lights |
| and hopes. Plants upwrenched rootless, in bandings |
| taping-up existence, bulge with nails. Razed |
| earth provides the living shaking places, |
| the steps and seats and standpoints, life's bursting |
| seams of wood and rust. On the heaved up heights |
| of man able we scuttle and slither and |
| slap down the hard slates. Come evenings and nights |
| the wood is cold, sprized out. The structures stand. |
| Keith Lloyd Jones |
| We are the people |
| We |
| Scrabble in river beds when |
| They |
| Sweep away our farms |
| We know them well |
|
-They come like snakes |
| From the pit over the horizon |
| To swallow our world |
| They button their sleek coats |
| With our Eyes |
| But we see them |
| Marching with night |
| Between their shoulders |
| As they plunge |
| To gouge gold |
| From our land |
| They run like wolves |
| When the cloud above us bursts |
| And we glow |
| In the ashes of our scorched dead |
| Every day is a new start |
| Our women scream |
| And spill our children |
| On the hungry earth |
| We listen as our ploughshares |
| Uproot our past |
| Which is cast in sand and clay |
| And written in the path of |
| Every star |
| In every twig is twisted |
| A death |
| Every flower trumpets freedom |
| In every blade of corn |
| Is the sudden power to |
| Cut through these bonds |
| Which fell on us which |
| Scar our soil |
| We have been waiting for centuries |
| We waste nothing |
| In every pebble a dream |
| We build the fires |
| From the mouths |
| Of our starving children |
| And the flames flying high |
| They singe the wings |
| Of the vulture |
| which dices with our lives |
| In his throat |
| We have luck |
| And our rice shines on the terrace |
| We turn the devils out |
| From our villages |
| They spit on us |
| As they burst from Hell |
| To spill our blood through the vineyards |
| But we build our fires higher |
| And sing from the flames |
| Their faces shake with sweat |
| As we burn from their bones |
| Their claws shiver |
| As we wrench |
| The sun |
| From their stomachs. |
| John Salway |
| Listen to me |
| The grains of the desert are in my hair, |
| on my damp forehead, |
| weighing down my eyelids. |
| The green moisture of the oasis is on my knees and elbows. |
| Disillusionment stares at you from the blood and grit in my fingernails. |
| I am weary from digging too long. |
| Listen to me for with this match I give you as my last gift |
| you may burn concrete: |
| You may mimic the lark with your mind |
| But you will never sing, |
| You will see the death of mountains and the birth of icebergs |
| But no eyes can ever follow the line of your pointing finger; |
| I have travelled long to tell you this |
| I have come from the land you wish to see |
| Come from the eyes of all who went before |
| Descending like a melancholy October mist upon the shores of your expectancy |
| I have come to give you ashes |
| Come from the heart of anger |
| Come from the throat of perception |
| Come from the lips of bitterness |
| I am the voice of desolation |
| Listen to me and understand now |
| Or forever be haunted by my receding echo. |
| Alan Arnison |
| Time has no beginning, |
| Time has no end. |
| A word with meaning and measure. |
| To Youth it stretches into eternity, |
| Golden with unfilled days, month, years. |
| To Age it echoes into the past, |
| Mirrored years, months, days, rushing by. |
| Time, given in work, |
| Time, lost in sleep, |
| Time spent in leisure, |
| Time, pass through, past, present and future, |
| Has no beginning, has no end. |
| Today I saw the cottage of my youth, |
| Dingy, broken, derelict and deserted. |
| Yesterday, I recall the cottage of boyhood days, |
| Cosy, solid, curtained, and warmly lighted. |
| One is real, the other was. |
| Who created the real? What killed the other? |
| Time, then moved slow. |
| Now,it races by in furious haste. |
| Time, then with so much to do. |
| Time, now, with all too little done. |
| Crispin |
| The chapel is set back from the road |
| As if shy of passing traffic |
| Its doors are quietly open |
| Offering a bowl of roses in invitation |
| In the patchwork of a mining village |
| It alone is white painted |
| The Father strolls past the Club |
| The men have strayed there after Mass |
| He waves to self-conscious grins |
| And pats the heads of milling children |
| His Irish heart is glad of the fine morning |
| He had spoken fine words this morning |
| They had been stirred, he knew it |
| The chapel walls had echoed his lesson |
| God-granted stereo preaching for the needy |
| The children had sung so sweetly |
| Life is good where salvation may be had |
| For the price of a Hail Mary |
| Vivien Leslie |
| He spat the raw November morning out |
| A small part of him abandoned among the dog shit. |
| His overalls firmly gripped by his stocking tops |
| Rides off to sell the rest at the shipyard |
| The load no lighter or the journey shorter for the parting |
| A deposite until tomorrow, |
| When the next payment will be met. |
| A.M. Horne |
| My love 's a river flowing relentlessly |
| It narrows and it widens nervously |
| It trickles and it surges, |
| Goes forward and diverges; |
| My love. |
| My love is a lake, |
| with a stream running into a river. |
| The river reaches the sea, |
| And with changing tides we both take; |
| we're both the giver. |
| But love is more than a metaphor; |
| it's a sledgehammer to break down doors. |
| It's an axe to free the chained. |
| Free each other, work for each other, love each other, |
| Enough to feel each other's pain. |
| Tony Harcup, of the Basement Writers |
| Society is sick, sick, sick, |
| Send for the Doctor quick, quick, quick. |
| The Doctor arrives with a box of pills |
| Guaranteed to cure all ills. |
| And prescribes, with some severity, |
| A generous dose of austerity. |
| Take it from me" says he, |
| That hard work and less to eat |
| Will soon put us on our feet."Now this is very odd you see |
| For it was this same remedy . |
| That put us on our back, |
| And got us all the bleeding sack. |
| Bill Eburn |
| I walked out on Xmas Day, stale and glutted, |
| From the warm womb of the family, |
| From meaningless chatter, |
| From manufactured music, |
| From television culture, |
| From plastic tree |
| And met two tramps striding ahead of me. |
| One was silent with many coats, the other chattered |
| About the I.R.A. |
| About the police |
| About the world |
| And I walked quietly close and listened |
| Catching pieces, fragments of philosophical |
| conversation. |
| Later we walked together through the Xmas forest |
| Amongst the peaceful trees. |
| His words were wisdom |
| His talk idealistic music |
| His cherished hope - a workers' state |
| And I shook his hand and returned to my comfortable mediocrity. |
| Peter Relph |
| I'm red in a time of black, hot in bliss, |
| unharmonized wholes; in front of me slurred |
| persons glide. Life's burned at the dogs, retches |
| and binds, catches and grinds, things jolt and press. |
| But thou are time's bliss, colours' echoes heard |
| when points shade to one, sounds hang wingless, free. |
| Thou'art the X and apex, grip and latches |
| of my swinging soul freed, singing time's mass |
| and evensong. You are the Autumn's bird, |
| the colour of blood, the sweet in snatches |
| of time and living, all I wish to be |
| to sew or scan, with the song from my lip, |
| the red from my hands. With myself I thee |
| adore, with my body I thee worship. |
| Keith Lloyd Jones |
Ten years of exile had made him distrustful. He started work at six in the morning and for a month after they had met he refused to give her his keys.
She had to get up with him - she only started at nine and from six till nine she had to wait in a bistro drinking one coffee after the other. Curiously enough she did not mind. Only one thing worried her: at this time of the day she was the only one to drink coffee. A few customers were also drinking coffee but, it was always accompanied by a little glass of wine. From eight o'clock , though, she was not the only one to drink coffee.
And everything seemed normal…
They used to take the first metro. And from the way they were looked at people must have thought that there was something strange about them.
Maybe because they used two languages in their conversation. He used to speak Spanish to her and she answered in her language. sometimes when she was not tired she answered in Spanish. And when he wanted her to understand something that she had not understood in Spanish, he used her language.
When she met him he was paid 900 F a month as a cleaner and he paid 400 F for his sordid little room. Paris is full of such places. In his country he was not a cleaner but it is known that cleaners in France are preferably among the Arabs, Portuguese or Spaniards.
He was working ten hours a day ... after the real life started ... he had political commitments.
She arrived almost always before him. A 'charitable neighbour', used to stick her head out of her door as soon as she heard her steps, to tell her "He is out."
Every night she was there to tell her that "he was out". She then used to slam her door behind her with a contented smile on her face.
Between 8 and 11 she used to buy all the Spanish papers that she could find. He spent all his money on Spanish papers. She used to cut a few articles for him, or translate others.
He used to arrive at eleven and in the meantime the neighbour's husband had come back, and through the thin walls of the room they could hear the same arguments every night, over everything and nothing, money probably ... And it was the only entertainment they could afford. Usually it ended with a plate falling in pieces somewhere or they stopped suddenly without reason.
He never told her much about the time he had had spent in the Carabancel prison.
"You and I we are the future" he answered to her numerous questions.
One day he received a sunny postcard from his country which made him angry. It was only from a well intentioned friend but he kept repeating, "He does not understand, he does not understand or he would not have sent this stupid card "His friend was not Spanish and this is what he could not stand. The roles were reversed.
Sometimes a few Spanish friends visited him and then his exile ended for a while. They opened a bottle of wine and he was happy. She had noticed that he laughed only when he could speak his language. He was never pessimistic or cynical about the future when he could speak Spanish. It was only when people did not know his language that he was sad or even arrogant.
This truce never lasted for long. One of them usually announced that such and such had been arrested. Another one had received a letter from Madrid ... It was the end of the illusion, the silence, again in the room.
The glasses remained on the table, half empty; After a year he had lost a lot of weight ...
One morning he received a letter from the French Police.
They wanted to see him. He did not feel like seeing them. Lately he had been talking more and more about going back to his country.
She never answered anything. What could she say?
One night she came back and waited for him all night. She had the key now.
She came back the next day. The neighbour was at her post.
"He is out", she said, "He is out ..." Out.
A few weeks later there was a wave of arrests in the town where he had come from. She wondered if he was one of them.
Dominique Hughes
| Always when he goes out I am afraid. |
| Is not one's love always disaster's target? |
| The bricks that fall, the fool behind, his wheel, |
| bacteria of horrible diseases |
| -they lie in wait, they gang up on my love. |
| One learns to use a habit of stoicism |
|
-such as we had to fadge up in the war |
| and never to admit one is afraid. |
| Surely', say Common Sense and Cynicism, |
| fashionably contemptuous of such folly, |
| Sure after all these years you cannot still |
| so freshly tremble! |
| Cannot I indeed? |
| (And let's rejoice that after all these years |
| I am so vulnerable - a sign of grace, |
| the green leaves of the living rose, |
| its very thorns symptom that it grows. |
| Frances Moore |
| Puce of face, dark of suit, tongue in cheeked, |
| Bowler hatted, umbrella shod syncronised marionettes; |
| Look left |
| Look right |
| Straight ahead! |
| Glassy glances, awkward stances, |
| Ramrod stiff, bottomless, belly paunched, |
| Oiled, groomed, fed; |
| But dead |
| Or frozen |
| Or waiting for the train; |
| Thin girl on a platform seat |
| Underweight, undersized, underfed, |
| She moves, she sees and smiles; |
| Part of her is still asleep, |
| Not dead. |
| From her bag she takes a coin, |
| Insert here," says green machine, |
| As from its bowels |
| A groan pours out; |
| Followed by a plate |
| Of smash; |
| Two pink capsules, |
| A knife, a fork, a slip of paper, |
| Marked thanks customer |
| The smash is grey, |
| The fork is red, |
| The knife is cracked; |
| Two ruby lips entice |
| Capsulated meat |
| On smash enveloped |
| Tongue; |
| How strange; |
| An egg drops; |
| Silent waiting trains |
| See it fall and break: |
| See its yolk dribble |
| On the line; |
| Yet dare not move to hide it |
| From the public eye; |
| It's go-slow day, |
| Not one train shall move today; |
| A bomb explodes; |
| Where has the station gone? |
| Where to, the trains? |
| Where the automated men? |
| Are they |
| That row of bats in bowler hats? |
| Hanging from a telegraph wire |
| Open brollies upside down; |
| Quite dead. |
| Thin girl, white, still, flat, |
| Not dead; |
| Ill from her undigested pill. |
| J. McFarlane |
| TRY ON A HYPOTHESIS |
| (to the Women's Liberation Movement) |
| A blanket is too simple, too final, |
| We must be able to know what we see |
| I do not wish to die of asbestosis at thirty nine |
| I do not want the wages and hours of a farm worker |
| Being a teacher and barmaid to make ends meet |
| Is no ideal to wave angry placards for |
| Scurrying around with slack breasts and hysteria |
| I do want to buy my own Tampax |
| I want to write a novel |
| And my children sometimes irritate me |
| I am not disabled with pneumoconiosis |
| Nor have I been crushed on a building site |
| I do not want equality of opportunity |
| To be unemployed, exploited or poor |
| Cancers before pimples is what I say |
| Vivien Leslie |
Once I slept for a hundred years. That was alright. It was waking again in the chill dawn - being woken, they said, by a kiss. That, certainly, was disenchanting. Now I go on happily ever after, which is almost sleepless and certainly endless and not at all of my own choice; and I'm not the only one. There's Cinderella, Snow-White, Rapunzel and other assorted beauties, princesses, goose-girls and kitchen maids who share this dilemma. We are left happily ever after with men who claim their privileges solely on account of elevated rank, who, having fitted on a shoe or cut down a few briars, do nothing ever after, and about whose conduct the history books are misleading - that story about the princess being bruised because she slept on a pea, for instance; so now we've started to organise and demand the following basic rights: The right to complain, be angry, be depressed. The right of divorce, spinsterhood or sexual deviation.
The right to revert to our original state or to write our own endings and to repeal sentences on various wicked step and godmothers who were merely protecting us from a worse fate.
Footnote: Rumplestiltskin deserves compensation. Please note: I have patented the spinning wheel with the lethal needle. Insomniacs may contact me Once Upon a Time. Proceeds to our campaign - the goose that lays the golden eggs isn't ours.
Sleeping Beauty, Organiser
Pat Sentinella
| To the honest folk surrounding Beith, |
| Our dying system did bequeath |
| Factory, bereft of wheel or lathe, |
| the Admiralty, |
| where waste and non-creation both exist in parity. |
| A branch of that great Woolwich store, |
| Where guns and shells are placed galore, |
| The whims to please, of yon hard core, |
| among politicians |
| Impetuous sponsors shout, 'Encore!' |
| in secret sessions. |
| With conscience clear they justify, |
| This great deterrent without which we'd die, |
| From some onslaught right out the sky, |
| like some doomsday. |
| Myself, I think it's all a lie, |
| I'm glad to say. |
| No grass will grow if this death rains, |
| No towns or cities that life sustains. |
| No people left to wash their brains, |
| so where's the reason? |
| Will the foe like cannibals, eat remains? that's out of season. |
| Our masses here with theirs compare. |
| Against them should we war prepare? |
| When the enemy we in common share, |
| within our prism. |
| This paper tiger in its lair, |
| Imperialism. |
| Our foes alleged I will concede |
| Are well endowed with arms they need. |
| So, if in the arms race, they speed |
| with undue haste |
| Not for profit, or for personal greed are they abased. |
| Can all our Arms-kings claim likewise? |
| As all their victims drop like flies |
| With every sample the Government buys, |
| up goes their profit, |
| Whilst humanity suffering, unheard cries, 'Will they come off it!' |
| Their counterparts in the Feudal age, |
| For similar gaining, war did stage, |
| But frequently, whilst battles rage, |
| did often lead. |
| Today's men count their grizzly wage, whilst others bleed. |
| They claim in unison (but acquiesce), |
| To keep the peace and war suppress. |
| If profits suffered, they couldn't care |
| less if mortals breathe, |
| Forgive, ere I too long digress, |
| and so to Beith. |
| The ground this depot did deface, |
| To better use the cows did place, |
| A benefit to the human race, |
| a cause worthwhile, |
| Not shells explode in human face, mankind defile. |
| Some say, 'Employment we've enjoyed, |
| In place of economic void, |
| Where hundreds would be unemployed, |
| with no prospects,' |
| What's left? When myth has been destroyed the bureau's annexe. |
| No credit to mankind is known, |
| Our labours to the winds are blown, |
| As thoughtlessly the seeds we've sown, |
| of self destruction. |
| Posterity will blame when shown |
| our non-production. |
| Is this to be our valley's lot's' |
| Man's proud creative urge to rot, |
| To blame (whilst Keeping cold war hot) |
| the Iron Curtain. |
| For better things we were begot. |
| Of that, I'm certain. |
| Oh! would not these men happier be? |
| If fruits of labour they could see, |
| Blossoming forth, on life's great tree |
| of man's endeavour, |
| The tales to offspring tell with glee a joy forever. |
| There's time left yet to make amend, |
| This paradise of fools to end. |
| Great men of calibre we must send |
| down to Westminster, |
| All thoughts of self, they must transcend. like William Gallacher. |
| They will when there, I'm certain sure, |
| The ills of this society cure. |
| And henceforth, we'll have memories fewer |
| of men like Heath, |
| And for nobler things, like Furniture, remember Beith. |
| Alexander Jamieson |
| Where is it? That thrashing force, |
| that rage, when heaven opens up its jaws |
| to devour the Earth. When the |
| black clouds pile moodily across |
| the gun metal grey of the sky, as if |
| to drop some load across the howling |
| countryside. Where is the terror of |
| the sea, churning and tearing |
| at the shores of this black Earth. |
| Where is it? That anger of the |
| might ridden deep of the abyss |
| of the sky. That ploughing wayward |
| gale, that carves at the trembling heavens, |
| tearing it into shreds, ripping and |
| pounding at the shuddering buildings of |
| this town, this city. That carving |
| relentless inferno of sheer power. |
| The released force of heaven's temper. |
| Where is it? Where the power and |
| the wrath, let it fall, like a prophecy, |
| let it blaze its sermon across the sky. |
| Let it rip up the sea |
| into fearful emotion, until it quakes |
| and trembles and howls, and pleads |
| to be released from its prison. |
| Tears at the bars of the shore |
| in sheer frustration and rage. |
| Enough of this tranquillity, |
| enough of this complacent peace, this |
| listless aimless meandering of those |
| insignificant specks of lazy white. |
| I look out of my window at |
| this scene of frozen peace, this |
| emotionless garbage heap of this too |
| early spring. Surely the Winter, |
| surely the Earth has more to say than this. |
| Ian E. Reed |
| Adam in me, in you |
| Eve grieves to tread a world not moulded to the heart's desire. |
| 'Edgell Rickword 'Poet to Punk' |
| Do the songs of Soho sell good food and sex, |
| The easy habits men like when their thoughts race away into chaos? |
| Is this the Playland where we touch but cannot trust magic thrills? |
| Are these the sound made when an emptied head bangs on a hollow world? |
| And is it also the sparrow, whose song may be sung within? |
| Step inside gentlemen, leave your guilty minds; |
| Sit in the warm and worldly lap of your genesis. |
| The hounded brain obeys and kills the rhythm in the blood. |
| The photo doesn't show what tarted-up the shy Sicilian girl. |
| Green as young oranges when her family came awkwardly |
| To these streets, strange as her customs are narrow to us. |
| Something devious about the roses here made an earthquake |
| In the quiet childhood garden where she'd heard spring birds, |
| And when alone she sang her sad and fragrant songs |
| We threw her stares like hard flashing pennies; |
| Our suggestions, like neon, scarred the meaning of her tears. |
| Then she learnt the bitterness in our easy laughter; fancy |
| Flower that has forgotten home's provincial evergreen. |
| O what made it seem that she was not assaulted? |
| Perhaps she mistook the colour of ripeness for the sweet tang of life? |
| She is singing now in empty shaded groves, her mind |
| Out of the terrible sun of her solicitous night. |
| Step inside gentlemen, dull your guilty minds; |
| Sit in the warm and worldly lap of your genesis. |
| The hounded brain obeys and kills the rhythm in the blood. |
| What makes George believe that be can only sing in her secret holy passage |
| when his song is for us all in a frank and generous sky? |
| After his hurried act he left the pain of the world unmoved, |
| Lingering in bright alleys with the well-respected fuck. |
| Does he mistake its vigour for his freedom? Is he too unsure |
| To chance it behind her eyes? Unsung. Love |
| The chains of freedom, jeered-at |
| By the winking eye of a cynical world. Trapped |
| The dirty-old-man is murdered by the sterile lust in these streets. |
| Step inside gentlemen, forget your guilty minds; |
| Sit in the warm and worldly lap of your genesis. |
| The hounded brain obeys and kills the rhythm in the blood. |
| Along exotic pavements a youth tramples his confused soul. |
| Can the music he finds there be welcoming the chaos of change? |
| To move but not to change, to sing but not to alter |
| The image of himself is his cool and desperate hope. |
| When he finds himself different, in a new light, |
| He gives this stranger a ticket to an anonymous side-show, |
| So that no-one will see him with strange love, and forgets |
| Where he has come from. Fearfully he pockets his soul. |
| By the slot-machines of the Crystal Room his leaping notes ring bells |
| And impressively turn lights on within reflecting walls. |
| Kept inside glass his songs are surrounded by the night; |
| His sun shut-in burns a hole in his heart. |
| Now he never stops trying to bed his genesis, being so holy with his dreams. |
| Desperately he fucks the world-green sweetness out of himself. |
| O but he was born also from the midst of growing and ravaged forests, |
| The cold winds, rains and stones of rough-diamond Nature. |
| Will I and my world-joining hope of Communism be drowned in this lusting ocean? |
| Never more the pained soul's angry leap to the loving edge |
| Of an inchoate and curiously generous world? |
| Between the difficult need and the easy solace there can be no Communion. |
| I must fight against my lust, to yield a song of sweet struggle |
| In the arms of the universe I'll find the liberty of my becoming.* |
| Pierce-loving bells of Saint Martin's are tolling |
| Against the difficult cause of Man-bound History. |
| Perhaps if we could ring-out from within the frail |
| Unspoken substance of that to-be-died-for meaning |
| In our hearts, our songs would carry us to heaven. |
| I dearly hope when dead to spend eternity in Hell, |
| For when with comrades in these streets we do not sing the Internationale |
| Our painful thoughts disturb the arguments of brotherhood therein. |
| Out of weeping shadows that the lurid lights have left the persistent |
| Drumming of bitter strangers from the downtrodden Orient mocks the greyness |
| Through bloodless streets we hurry home, to bury our heads |
| Before the rosy raucous dawn of neglected brothers. |
| A rasping melody of charlady morning challenges our conscience. |
| One day her arid rain will scour Soho |
| And the man see himself out-up in its razor light. |
| Now that the hellish throbbings stopped |
| A drunk's daydreams break across unfamiliar streets, |
| And a songthrush wake his mournful love for Ireland. |
| Why can't he take his daily threnody with milk? |
| He observing the gentile flowers of Soho square through a haze of insult, |
| Fallen with conforming hours, would find them stunningly funny, |
| But that their blooms are not worth bleeding for by their thorns. |
| This evil animated by his grin simplifies the stubborn world. |
| O once when the city's smirking stars are out he'll dig up this garden |
| And plant the soft wild Irish flowers that bloom on tears. |
| Now Candy is waking choked with our consuming narrow passion |
| And he must numb the throbbing void with Whisky. |
| Here we all become outcast; English with Chinese and Italian. |
| If we could form a choir, our one and many voices |
| Would pluck the heartstrings of London. |
| The suffering Cockney must make, with his tunes and whistles, |
| Tough worldly songs of bitterness and irony and hope. |
| *see the essays of Christopher Caudwell "Studies in a Dying Culture" |
| David Kessel |
| The old order lingers, |
| though changed in ways |
| undreamt of save by |
| those who could foresee |
| the young moon |
| in the old moon's arms, |
| the sun in splendour |
| set in a sullen sky. |
| Bill Eburn |
| Man; most noble being, |
| you, who with your hands |
| have re-shaped the Earth |
| you walk upon. |
| You who faced the mightiest |
| with bold heart |
| and overcame fear, |
| unravelling infinities secrets. |
| You who made known |
| the unknown, |
| the desert, a fertile plain. |
| You who have changed |
| the course of river and sea. |
| You, who when beaten, |
| killed, feared yet fearing |
| faced the mightiest of |
| destructions and by |
| struggle overcame them. |
| You stay eternal. |
| Man; You singer |
| of joyful songs, |
| you lover of the sunset |
| and the storm. |
| You, who have faced an |
| angry mob, bearing in your hand |
| the truth. |
| You; who have been |
| poisoned, persecuted and |
| massacred by tyranny |
| for glimpsing the future, |
| remain unbeaten. |
| You; who have built |
| and unbuilt legends, |
| along countless honest |
| crowded corridors, |
| bringing time, |
| to your heel. |
| What could defeat you? |
| Man; you thinker, |
| shedding your light |
| of understanding over fear. |
| You, whose eyes, ours |
| and other worlds |
| unfold before, |
| bringing science and beauty. |
| You seeker of truth, |
| a flame throughout |
| the universe you carry, |
| aloft and proud. |
| You, who have worked together, |
| loved together, |
| laughed together |
| and died together |
| yet grow stronger with each death. |
| You are unkillable. |
| Man; you lover, |
| you fighter of evil |
| you teacher |
| with your life. |
| You, bringer of music, |
| opener of hearts. |
| You; who carry humanities flame |
| beneath work worn sighs, |
| tired, confused and pining, |
| yet still trying. |
| You, brave soldier |
| of life, who carve |
| the way of the future |
| and reshape whole destinies |
| with one sweep of your hand |
| and with each step |
| unbloom another petal. |
| You are immortal. |
| Ian E. Reed |
Englefield sat at his favourite table in the deserted club, a whisky bottle and a smeared glass, both empty, before him. His mouth felt burned out by too many cigarettes, his head thick and heavy from all the alcohol he had put away within the past four days. Four days. Four days in which he had beaten a disorderly retreat from his responsibilities, finding his haven in whisky. Who'd have thought that I would have turned to whisky? Back in England, he had never touched it. When things got rough he had reminded himself that one day he would be going to South Africa and that life would be easier, and that had sustained him. But here, in the Republic, life was still damned hard, hence the whisky. Here in the Republic. The Republic Bar. Christ, I'm going daft.
He was in his early thirties, a heavy man, although his body had nothing about it which even suggested power; it was just heavy. His back was arched in defeat and his thick, hairy arms, as white as ever despite his year at the Cape, lay flat on the table, clumsy and awkward. Time no longer had any meaning, he had lost all track of it just sitting in this one position, afraid to move almost, as if he feared that something terrible would accompany even the slightest movement. His life was in crisis. I can't understand what's happening to me. If only I could understand, it wouldn't be quite so bad. I'm sure of it. All his life he had stumbled from one crisis to the next and now he was vaguely aware that all the time he had been on railway lines, that each crisis had been but one station on the way to this, the big one. But I don't know what it is!
Slowly, he lifted his head and gazed about the club, his club. Wonder what it would look like with proper lighting. Better not to know, maybe. Place stinks. The afternoon heat fell through the doorway, penetrating the walls, seeking out every mysterious odour. The smell reminded him of building jobs he had had in England, for it was like the smell of building sites, of the sand used to make cement. Urine. I'm sure those bastard seamen piss themselves down here.
"Englefield."
Someone was at his side. The odour of cheap perfume somehow broke through the building-site smell. Moving his head slightly to the right, he saw that it was Franky. My star fairy. He shuddered and for some reason hoped that Franky didn't notice.
"Leave me alone."
'You're nearly out of cola. You'll need some more for tonight." Franky's voice was light and sibilant, deliberately so. Englefield sighed heavily and looked up.
"Okay, I'll ... look, could you 'phone for some more?" He was repelled and yet fascinated by Franky's face. He continued to look up at him. Franky smiled, showing a line of teeth which were yellow but goods The heavy coating of makeup seemed about to crack into tiny earthquakes whenever he smiled.
"You want me to telephone?" He paused, considering the treatment he had received in the past few days. "You'll have me cooking for you next." He resumed his indignant silence for several seconds and then sighed, relenting. "Very well. Have you got any money? - They'll want cash after the trouble you've given them."
Englefield's haggard face went through the motions of wincing. Just like a wom... Bloody hell! 'There's enough in the box under the bar.
"Here," he took the key from his shirt pocket and threw it carelessly - "And if that lazy coon's about, tell him I want a steak. I've Lot to straighten out, beef up a bit." The key had missed Franky. and dropped to the floor. Franky retrieved it and straightened up, eyeing Englefield contemptuously.
"Trusting me with money at last," he sniped. Englefield tore his eyes away.
"Yea , and that's all I trust you with, you queer bastard." He watched out of the corner of his eye as Franky walked away. There had been a time when he would have had to laugh at the sight of a man in high heels, but now he groaned inwardly and placed his face in his hands. Franky represented just one insane piece in the surrealistic jig-saw puzzle of his life. According to the rules, his troubles should have ended as soon as his feet touched South African soil.
He had lost his job. The union had promised this and that, but what was the use of bringing more trouble down upon his head? Then Marion had started her damned nagging. What am I going to do for next week? What's the kid going to wear to school? .I don't even know that he's mine., he'd said, the messy little bast... She'd slapped him across the face right in front of the kid, saying that he might be able to jeopardise their security and get away with it, but he wasn't doing to use language like that in front of Bobby I jeopardised her security alright. After that slap it was down to the Shipping Federation the next morning and off to Southampton to join the ship a couple of days later.
He had jumped ship in Cape Town, gone to Johannesburg, where he had held indifferent jobs in two factories and then drifted back to the Cape. There, he had met up with a Rhodesian, a former mercenary in the Congo, and they had placed their meagre savings together to open the club. Looking back, Schuyler must have thought me a fool, all the things I told him. Sex things. He had told the Rhodesian of the highly masculine fantasies he had woven around his future in South Africa while on his way from Southampton, even back in England. Yes, I first thought of those things a long time ago. Without actually saying so, he had let Schuyler know that he was disappointed by the reality thus far - a few middle-aged women who went around the clubs and who did just the usual things were as far as he'd got. Not that I paid for them, of course. But no coon women. I bet you've had your share, he'd said to Schuyler, and Schuyler had laughed confidently, saying nothing. Hope he gets it shot off, wherever he is.
The two men had quarrelled the first week the club was open. After the first few nights, Englefield had noticed that some of the women in the place weren't women at all and, enraged, he had confronted his partner. Schuyler had looked at him in amazement and then shrugged. "Of course," he had said. "It's the same in most clubs like ours. But don't worry about it - it's good for business. A fairy gets hold of a seaman and encourages him to spend. Besides, they're always grateful of a place to drag up - do anything for you." It was good business, but Englefield was made uneasy by them, although he was quick to realise that he was able to wield a certain amount of power over them. When he barked an order, they obeyed. Some of them, for their part, suspected that he was afraid of them, but they also sensed that he might lash out at them at any moment, and so they handled him carefully. Except Franky.
Then, last week, Schuyler had nipped of f somewhere with the takings and since then things had been chaotic. But the majority of the bills were paid with Franky's help - he put off creditors and demanded something from all his friends who used the club - and now things were just beginning to quieten down again. Englefield realised that for the past four days he had been hiding behind the whisky while Franky and Daniel, the Cape Coloured who worked behind the bar and in the kitchen, had run the place. He vaguely remembered having warned Franky to keep away from the money. Christ, what a mess. I need a woman to put me straight.
Franky came out of the kitchen and crossed the floor to the toilets. Now Englefield almost smiled in spite of himself. Bloody fairy.
"Is that steak coming?' he called. Franky halted, an eyebrow raised irritably.
"Yes, the 'lazy coon' who's been helping me to save this place is getting it now." He turned and walked off.
Englefield was considering Franky's motives in helping him when Daniel arrived at his side and placed a well-filled tray before him. He looked down at the table and cleared his throat.
"Tell me something, Daniel," he began nervously.
"Yes, Mister Englefield?" Daniel was puzzled by the man's manner. He was almost courteous.
"If a white man wanted a woman, where would he go?" His short, thick fingers played restlessly about his face. Daniel smiled inwardly, his incomprehension dispelled.
"Do you mean a coloured woman, Mister Englefield?" He was twisting the knife. Oh god.
"Yes." Englefield's voice was quiet.
"I wouldn't know, Mister Englefield. I'm an old man." He was no more than forty.
"Couldn't you fix him up?" Englefield became more embarrassed as the humiliating ordeal progressed. "He might make it worth your while." Daniel's face was a mask, unreadable.
"He would get into trouble, Mister Englefield. It's against the law. Besides I'm an old man, I don't know any women."
Englefield realised that he would get no further, that Daniel was laughing at him behind the mask and that his embarrassment had been for nothing.
"Alright, get back to the kitchen," he snapped, reasserting his authority.
It was four in the morning before the last group of customers left. Englefield listened as they made their way out, the excited jabber of the young Japanese who flirted regularly with the fairies mingling with the drunken laughter of the seamen. Franky was with them, his arm around one of the Japanese. As they reached the door, he glanced over his shoulder at Englefield, his face full of mockery and defiance. He pulled the Japanese to him, kissing him on the lips. Englefield groaned in disgust and walked to the bar. He sat for a moment, feeling the sudden stillness settle about him before he called for Daniel. The coloured man put an apprehensive head around the kitchen, door.
"Bring me the whisky and a few beers from the 'fridge'".
When the drinks arrived, he poured himself a whisky, downed it and followed, it swiftly with a mouthful of beer, straight from the bottle. He had slept for six hours and now he felt almost normal again. He poured another whisky and sipped it slowly, each sip followed by a large swallow of beer. His mind floated back to sex. I need a woman so bloody badly. Look at me, teeth clenched. What a state to get in. He considered asking Daniel again but dismissed the idea immediately. It would be like begging, and anyone who'd beg from a coon shouldn't be in this country. After his third whisky, he left the bar and walked slowly to the open door. His limbs were like lead. As he mounted the three steps leading up to the street, he almost fell and he realised that the three whiskies had acted as a fuse, igniting the alcohol still in his system. He was drunk again.
The chill breeze off the sea touched his chest and he fumbled unsuccessfully with the buttons of his open shirt. He cursed and let his hand fall limply to his side. The streets were silent except for the occasional sound of a taxi as it sped its drunken cargo to the docks or. to one of the more respectable sections of the city. Then he heard someone walking close by. As he caught sight of her, his heart began to pound. This was it. He forced his voice to work.
"Hey, coon. Want to know how a white man does it?" The words were barely coherent through his grating teeth. The girl worked in a club nearby and was out walking in defiance of the regulations. She was slim, no more than twenty and attractive. With a glance up the street, she slid into the doorway, inches from him. She placed a hand on his arm, feeling him shake. She tossed back her head and looked into his face.
"I know how a white man does it. It'll cost you ten Rand."
"Pay for a coon!" Englefield spat the words out involuntarily. The girl's very calmness seemed insulting. Something told him that she should have been cowering before him, yet here she stood, loose-limbed and insouciant, her face turned up to his, unflinching. She's beautiful. No, dammit, how could she be! Coons Coon! Coon! Ugly, stupid bitch! He became angry, for he felt like a simpleton before her, confused and slow- witted, like the seamen when the fairies began playing around with them, making fools of them. He grasped the neck of her dress and pulled her to him, thrusting his mouth to hers. It went all wrong. She was biting his bottom lip and the next thing he knew he was doubled over as she brought her knee up into his groin. Tearing her teeth free, she let out a piercing scream which chilled and horrified him. It was the last thing he had expected. A coloured night-watchman lumbered down the street, his heavy club swinging. Seeing the white man, he stopped in his tracks, frozen by the sight.
"What do you want me to do?" he hissed urgently to the girl. "Do you want a beating from the police, woman"
"Get them! Get the police!" the girl shouted, combating Englefield's frantic efforts to subdue her. A slight smile flickered across the watchman's face as he understood, then he shot Englefield a glance loaded with contempt and was gone, loping off the way he had come, shouting and waving his club in the air.
"I'll pay you! I'll do anything!" Englefield pleaded. It was too late, He pushed the girl from him and staggered down the street, his mind a confused blur. He had no idea where he was heading. For one insane moment it occurred to him that he might hide away on a ship, but where could he go now? Nowhere left to go. When it had become hard to breathe and his lungs felt as' if they were on fire, there was the sound of a car pulling up, of the tyres brushing the kerb, of several pairs of feet hitting the ground and running, this last sound echoing and resounding in his brain. Then he was in a dream state, pursued by a horde of people; by the foreman back in England; by Marion and Bobby; by the police; by Daniel; by everyone he had ever known. And it seemed, just before he felt the