He staggered against the table and Catherine reached up to help him. He apologized. He blushed. He collapsed into his chair and began to cry. He said something to the effect that no one had shown him such kindness since his mother had been prematurely taken from him. He said that he had given up hope of ever finding it again, that his optimism was restored, that he could face life again, that if it had not been for them he might have followed the example of so many New Yorkers and ended it all. There had been times, he said, when he had been known far and wide for his cheerfulness, his ability to console others less fortunate than himself, but, when his own need for consolation had materialized, there had been no one to offer that which he had given so freely and with such goodwill. Wasn't this, he asked them, always the way—or so he had thought until now.
The two women listened: Catherine with sympathy and Una with disapproval bordering on cynicism—until with a sudden sigh, like a locomotive reaching its destination after a long and difficult haul, he subsided. Catherine and Una began to clear away the dishes while Mr Bannermann toyed with his glass and murmured general apologies for his outburst.
'We're all a bit tired,' said Una kindly.
'I think we ought to get him to bed, don't you?' Catherine said when they were both in the kitchen.
'We?' Una lifted a nasty eyebrow.
'Oh, Una! You know what I mean. Don't you fancy him, though?'
‘I think you've been too long away from masculine country.'
'You do sound bitchy!' Catherine laughed without much rancour. 'You're probably right. But he does make you want to mother him a bit.'
'That isn't quite the same thing as fancying him,' said Una. 'Or maybe, in your case, it is.'
'Off and on. Shall I wash?'
'Don't you want to continue mothering Mr Bannermann?'
'I'll ask him if he wants coffee.' Catherine departed.
By the time she returned Una had almost finished the dishes. 'He kissed me,' Catherine told her, 'and then he went to sleep.' She sighed as she picked up a cloth to dry a plate. 'Actually, I'll be glad to get away. Should we leave him there, or what?'
'We'll have some coffee and then see what he looks like.' Una felt dislike for herself as she detected in her tone an increased friendliness, now that Mr Bannermann was no longer a potential rival. She hated to detect signs of jealousy in her behaviour.
Catherine kissed her. 'Let's have a really nice time tonight,' she said.
Una brightened. She indicated a sealed envelope on the kitchen table. It had Mr William Bannermann written on it. 'I'm letting him have the house and a loan of the car,' she said. ‘They might as well benefit somebody.'
‘I thought you didn't like him much.'
‘That's hardly the point.'
'You're genuinely good-hearted, Una. Much more than me. I'm so selfish, really.'
‘I'm practical, that's all. And you have more to protect. Selfishness is just unrationalized instinct in your case.'
They sat in the kitchen and enjoyed a cup of coffee together.
Later, as they lay in each other's arms in the big bed, they heard Mr Bannermann stumbling up the stairs and they grinned, wondering what he would make of Una's letter when he woke up in the morning and found them gone.
FOUR
In which our heroines give themselves up, once again, to the Tides of Time
Una, with an expertise Catherine always admired, got the little white motor-boat going and they began to move slowly out into the water. They picked up speed where the river widened at the bend. For the first time Catherine had a good view of the boy scouts. Some of them had come crawling from their tents at the sound of the engine. It's a pleasure to wake them up, for a change,' said Una. One or two of the scouts whistled and waved. Carefully, Catherine waved back. Take it easy, boys,' she called.
Una wished that she could get a better view of Catherine, standing there with her hand on her hip, her scarf fluttering in the wind. Catherine looked at her most beautiful in the white dress with the red, green and blue embroidery. 'It's funny.' She gave the wheel a quarter turn. 'I don't feel like going at all now. Still, I expect I'll get into it.'
Catherine looked up at the sky. 'I know what you mean.' She added, 'Can you feel jaded, even when you've nothing, as it were, to be jaded about?'
'Is that how you feel?'
'Not now. I didn't like to bring it up before. It would have sounded as if I were complaining.'
'You're only talking about boredom again.' Una straightened the bottom of her khaki fatigue jacket, keeping one hand on the wheel. 'That's all.' The water began to run faster as they neared some easily negotiated rapids. The boat bounced. 'Are you sure 1917's okay?'
'Oh, yes. Fine.'
'At least you won't meet any rock-and-roll musicians there/
Catherine considered this a bit unfair and she replied a little sharply. 'It doesn't matter where you go, Una—you'll always find politicians.'
True.'
'God,' said Catherine. 'I really need to hear some good music'
'Well, you're going to hear some in a minute,' said Una. 'Unfortunately.'
They went past a poverty-stricken town which looked as if it had been deserted.
'Don't you get cravings for music, Una?'
'Not that kind. Music hall and musical comedy's my first love. It's a different sort of sentimentality.'
Catherine laughed. 'You couldn't call Mick Jagger sentimental.'
'Couldn't I just.' Una pursed her lips and concentrated on the rapids.
Catherine settled herself on the port-side seat, humming in time to the roar of the water, but the rhythm was too erratic and so she stopped. She yawned. It had been a long while since she had got up this early. She wondered if she were wise to go back as far as 1917, when really she would have preferred what she considered to be her own period, the mid-seventies. The hills on her right had become gentler and were giving way to blackened fields. In the distance, near the horizon, black smoke boiled. She stared, without curiosity, at the smoke until another stretch of forest obscured it. The boat entered calmer waters. Una removed the canvas cover from an instrument set close to the wheel. The instrument looked a bit like a large brass ship's chronometer; engraved on the dial, where the maker's name was usually found, were the words Cornelius and Co., Ladbroke Grove, London W. It was, in fact, the work of Catherine's brother and it would help them to get to the period they had selected.
'It's beautifully made, isn't it?' Catherine was proud of her brother's craftsmanship. 'You'd think it was a hundred years old.'
Una made adjustments to the controls just below the rim. 'I sometimes wish he could produce a machine to take us right back—say to the nineteenth century. It would save so much energy.'
'He did get to 1870 once.' Catherine was almost defensive. 'But he didn't like it. He always says he's a twentieth-century person at heart and he might as well accept it.'
'Well, I'm no conservative,' Una brought an outer dial into alignment with two of the inner ones, 'but I find that remark a bit prissy. I'd love to go back, say, to St Petersburg around 1890.'
'You couldn't leave well enough alone.'
'I agree, it is dangerous. It becomes harder and harder to acclimatize, too.' The motor-boat's engine began to complain as the current flowed with increased pressure against the hull. Its note rose to a high whine. 'We're approaching the real rapids. Are you ready, dear?'
'Ready.' Catherine gripped the seat with both hands. The boat began to bounce dramatically, the water became white and up ahead she could see a wild, undulating spray. Gradually, the river began to shout.
Una had been through these rapids a hundred times, but she still liked the feeling of danger they gave her. A glance to her left showed her that Catherine was not enjoying the sensation at all. People sought different kinds of danger, physical or emotional, and Catherine tended to prefer emotional dangers which Una would go to almost any lengths to avoid. 'This is it!' she called. She felt an intense surge of
love for her friend as she turned on the sound. The Deep Fix began to play their version of Dodgem Dude at full volume (why had that bastard geared everything to cheap rock-and-roll vibrations, and his own rotten band, at that?). The boat plunged into the spray which gradually became a white, muffling mist.
'We'll give ourselves up to the darkness and danger . . .' began Catherine, quoting some popular song, but the rest was obscured by the echo of a nameless vowel.
PART TWO
GOING TO THE FRONT: WOMAN'S ROLE IN WARTIME
This girl has a mission in life ... to kill. She is one of the women soldiers in a private army fighting a civil war. The battlefield is a street in Beirut ... It is a bloody religious and political conflict tearing the country in half. On the one side are the right-wing Christians—to which the girl in the picture belongs. On the other are the left-wing Moslems, who include Palestinian guerrillas . . . BEAUTY IN BATTLE: Two girls man a barricade while another takes up a strategic position.
DAILY MIRROR, 3 November 1975
Bursts of small-arms fire and the intermittent explosion of mortars and rockets continued to paralyse Beirut's seafront hotel district today. The St George, Phoenicia, Holiday Inn, and Excelsior hotels remained in the hands of the right-wing Phalangist militia, despite mounting pressure from an array of left-wing groups who now control the Vendome and Palm Beach hotels.
GUARDIAN, 3 November 1975
FIVE
In which Miss Una Persson encounters a Hero of the Revolution
Una glanced down through the tall French window, through a broken pane, at the street. In the dusk a line of her former comrades were being marched along Lesnoye Prospekt towards the Finland Station. Dumpy and downcast, most of the women made no attempt at maintaining military step. Una had heard rumours of ill-treatment after they had been captured during their defence of the Winter Palace on the previous day, but for the most part there were no signs that they had been so much as involved in the fighting; save for their rifles, they retained their uniforms, insignia and accoutrements, and the attitude of the Red Guards escorting them was humorous; kindly rather than brutal.
'Well,' said L. Trotsky from behind her. He was in a languid, sated mood. 'So much for the Women's Battalion of Death. I thought better of you, Una. A Kerenskyite. Oh, they won't be shot. Just disbanded quietly.'
'After they're raped?' The accusation came without force.
Trotsky spread his hands. 'Which do you think they'd prefer?'
He remained attractive, as relaxed and controlled as ever, but Una was disappointed by his attitude. One such piece of easy cynicism, she thought, and a revolution was as good as lost. One act of treachery (and there had already been many) and the ideals themselves became worthless. She felt in the pockets of her black greatcoat for her cigarettes and matches. Trotsky handed her one of his, yellow and long, a Latvian brand; she lit it herself, holding it gently between her teeth so that when she spoke her words were slightly slurred. 'It wasn't merely a propaganda stunt, you know. Those women wanted to fight for the revolution.'
'Yet they allowed themselves to be mobilized against it.'
'Against your counter-revolution. Can it last?'
'We've been very successful so far.'
'Because you've been prepared to sacrifice everything for the short term,' she said. 'How many allies have you?'
'Surprisingly, quite a few, if temporary.'
'Whom you intend to betray?'
Trotsky shrugged and sat down on one of the bare desks of the office. 'Anarchists, nihilists, opportunists, bandits . . .'
'Whom you'll sacrifice?'
'They're naive. They'd betray us, many of them without realizing it. We use them. We direct their energy.'
'They're innocent and naive, at least. You're a much more depressing spectacle. You're depraved and naive. You used to be so charming. In London. This revolution will last no longer than Kerensky's.'
He considered her criticism. 'I think you're wrong. You want a bourgeois Utopia. Sweetness and light are no substitute for bread and cabbage, Una Persson. Perhaps it's the difference between weeping for the people and soiling one's hands for them. Between dying for them and killing for them. Committing their crimes for them. Taking the moral responsibility, if you like. Which is the bravest deed? Which is the hardest?'
Her smile was thin. 'All ego—a politician's logic. Very masculine and high-sounding. Very romantic, too. But one need neither die nor kill. The hardest thing to do is patiently to nurse the wounded. This war has made you as simple-minded as the rest.'
'Wars do that. But the war gave us the revolution!'
'Because it robbed us of our subtlety, our humanity. Look what a general you've become. Are you any different from Kornilov or Haig now? Where is your old voice, comrade? Do you ever listen to it these days?'
'This is merely rhetoric, Una. I'm disappointed. You're overtired. How much sleep have you had in the past few days? You must consider your nerves.' He paused. 'I must say you're not at all grateful. You could have been marching to the Pavlov Barracks with your friends.' He shook his head. 'I'd never have expected you to join anything so ludicrous.'
'I thought it had possibilities.'
'The daughters of merchants, armed with a few old rifles?'
Petersburg was dark. Electric lights burned in some buildings, others were lit by flames. The power supply to the Winter Palace had been restored. Occasionally a shot sounded or a motor-truck or a horse-drawn cart would rush urgently through the street below.
'I'm letting you leave,' he said. ‘For old time's sake.'
'I don't want to leave. I worked for this revolution.'
'No. You worked for the other revolution. The wrong revolution.' His dark eyes were sardonic.
The same one you were working for until you thought it might fail.'
He laughed. 'Well, it did fail.'
'Do you think that if I stay I will try to sabotage what you're doing?'
'I hadn't considered that. You're not Russian, after all. We're facing purely domestic problems at present.'
'Your problems aren't even domestic any more, Leon. They're entirely personal.'
He scowled at this. 'I don't really need your criticisms, Una. Not on top of everything else. I do accept certain responsibilities, you know.'
'You saved me, because you needed my moral support?'
'Scarcely.'
'Because you wanted to make love to me?'
'You won't allow me any expression of altruism?'
'Is that it? Sentimentality. I'm not sure I like being free, if it's merely to let you salve your conscience a little.'
'Una, you're trying my patience.' He removed his spectacles. It was a threatening gesture. She refused to acknowledge it. 'It would be easy to make out a case for your being a foreign spy.'
'My record's too well-known.'
'You overestimate the memory of the people.'
'Oh, maybe.' She had indeed had very little sleep in the past few days and felt too tired to continue this silly argument. 'I think I should have stayed in 1936.' The scene before her began to flicker. She became alarmed.
'What?' he said.
'It doesn't matter.' The scene stabilised. 'Are you kicking me out of Petersburg, then?'
'Out of Russia,' he said.
'All my friends are here.' The words sounded feeble to her own ears.
'Cornelius and his sister?'
'And the others.'
‘They're leaving, too, if they haven't gone already. The train should be on its way to Germany by now. I signed the safe-conduct papers myself.'
It was her turn for self-pity. 'After all I've done . . .'
'You can't change history,' he said.
He rang a bell.
SIX
In which Mrs and Miss Cornelius hear some news of the past
Mrs Cornelius was flustered, and the weight of her overloaded hat, with its feathers, ribbons, lace and imitation flowers, had caused a sweat to gather on her b
road, red forehead and run between her eyes and down her nose; but in spite of this she was able to set her features in the expression of prim disapproval she always reserved for her encounters with authority (in this category she included doctors, dentists, postmen and anyone employed by the Town Hall). Catherine was beginning to regret her impulse to visit home. She had found her mother in a state of unusual agitation, having that morning received a letter from Whitehall telling her that if she could call at the Ministry's offices she might learn something to her advantage.
'About bloody time,' Mrs Cornelius had said. 'You'd better come along, too. Caff.'
Catherine had said that she was tired and that, anyway, she hadn't been sent for. Secretly she knew that her mother wanted her moral support and refused to admit it.
'Yore comin', my gal,' Mrs Cornelius had insisted and, to make things worse, had found her an off-white old-fashioned linen frock with a sailor collar, a boater with a broad, faded ribbon (which looked and felt as if it had been cut from deckchair canvas) and a pair of brown boots which, with some polishing, looked fairly respectable. The underwear, stiff with starch, had not been worn for years, and she was sure to discover patches of red, rubbed skin when she took it off. The spring weather was bright, but hardly hot, and she shivered as she sat beside her mother in the waiting room. Mrs
Cornelius had given her name to the uniformed man at the desk. Now they sat on a dark mahogany bench in a draughty green-tiled hall opposite the desk watching the uniformed man pretending to check a type-written list while actually reading the racing page of the Daily Sketch.
Catherine, with her hair brushed back at her mother's insistence and pinned under her hat, remembered that she had felt a bit like this when she had appeared in court, several years before, when they had sent her to the Reform School. She had almost forgotten those days; she had run with an all-girl gang in Whitechapel until her mother had moved to Notting Dale. They had all worn more or less the same clothes in the gang—dark blue coats and skirts trimmed with red ribbon. They had worn grey in the Reform School; they had been training her to be a housemaid.