A Quiet Life(21)
It was a few weeks after her arrival, when Winifred was meeting up with her boyfriend again and they had told Aunt Dee that they were going to the cinema, that Laura went to see Florence at the local party headquarters in King’s Cross. She had telephoned her that morning when Dee was busy with Mrs Venn, and Florence had told her where to come and explained they would go on to a meeting that Elsa was to speak at. But when Laura got to the little basement office, she found everything in confusion. Elsa was unwell, apparently, with a horrible sore throat, and Florence was talking to one Bill Ellis, the local party leader, about what to do. ‘It’s just a women’s group,’ Bill said.
‘It’s a branch of the Co-operative Women’s Guild,’ Florence said, ‘Elsa was keen to bring them in – said that they should be receptive to the message about the struggle on two fronts.’
‘Well, could you trot along and give them her apologies? If she really can’t speak, there’s nothing to be done about it.’
‘She gave me her notes,’ Florence said, and Laura noted the hopeful confidence that had so entranced her on the boat. ‘I’ll give the talk for her, it’s fine. I did lots of talks to women’s organisations in New York.’
‘This 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.