used to be friends, would you believe it? He knows where I stand, so we have to watch him.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He didn’t answer for a moment, puffing at his pipe. Then he looked at David. ‘Fitzgerald, that’s an Irish name.’
‘Yes, my father was from Dublin.’
‘You were brought up in England, though?’
‘Yes. Dad has the accent. He’s in New Zealand now.’
Mr O’Shea sighed. ‘Well, there’s nothing good for the Irish left in De Valera’s republic, unless you’re a pro- German Catholic like him and his friends.’
‘I’ve never been that,’ David said.
‘No,’ Mr O’Shea said. ‘You sound like you went to some English public school.’
‘Grammar school, actually.’
‘Yes. Well.’
‘You’ve got children?’ Geoff nodded at a box of comics under the table.
‘Eamonn and Lucy. Eleven and twelve.’ Mr O’Shea’s voice softened. ‘We’ve sent them to their auntie’s. Little pigs have big ears and even at their age the school goes on at them to beware of terrorists everywhere. That and teaching them about the endless glories of English history,’ he added bitterly. ‘Bringing civilization everywhere, even to Ireland. The history teaching’s got even more nationalistic and imperialistic since that Fascist fellow-traveller Sir Arthur Bryant got made Education Minister.’ He looked curiously at Frank. ‘Well, so you’re the man everybody wants.’
Frank shrank back in his chair. ‘I can’t say anything about it. I mustn’t.’
‘You wouldn’t believe the effort that’s been put into getting you out the country.’
‘Leave ’im, pal,’ Ben said firmly.
‘Is he safe?’ Mr O’Shea asked brutally. ‘I know he’s been in a loony bin.’
‘He’s safe.’
Frank said, ‘I don’t feel good, Ben. My mouth’s dry, my heart’s started jumping.’
‘I think you need your pill, Frank. I’ll get you a glass of water.’
Frank looked at Mr O’Shea. ‘I don’t want to take it in front of everyone,’ he said with a touch of defiance.
Mrs O’Shea came in from the kitchen. ‘Got a cludgie I can take him to, missus?’ Ben asked.
‘Yes. I might as well show you where you’re sleeping, while I’m at it.’ She smiled at Frank. ‘Poor lamb.’
There were three small bedrooms upstairs. Mr and Mrs O’Shea had one and mattresses had been laid on the floors of the other two, little children’s beds pushed into a corner. Frank and Ben would have one room, David and Geoff the other. Natalia would sleep downstairs. As they had at the Brocks’ they would each take turns to stay awake during the night, though, as Mrs O’Shea said, there would be little enough to see in the fog. The television news, which they watched when they went back downstairs, showed buses crawling along London streets led by policemen carrying lanterns; people queuing to buy facemasks at London chemists; theatres and cinemas being closed. Two women had been attacked and robbed in the smog. There was no sign of it lifting, and people with chest problems were being urged to stay indoors.
Natalia and Mrs O’Shea brought in the food and they all crowded round the table. Frank was quiet, half- asleep. Natalia began by thanking the O’Sheas on behalf of them all. ‘We know what we are asking of you,’ she said.
‘Call me Eileen,’ Mrs O’Shea said. ‘This is Sean.’ Her husband nodded briefly. ‘I’ll go out tomorrow and get some supplies, then I’m meeting my contact to get some news.’ She looked at David. ‘I’ll get them to tell your wife you’re safe.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Sean’ll be leaving early in the morning for his shift. I may be out a good while, it won’t be easy getting around even in daylight by the look of this. Remember you mustn’t go out, any of you.’ There was steel in her clear blue eyes as she looked at each of them in turn.
‘We’ll stay in,’ Natalia answered firmly.
Geoff coughed again. ‘If you’re near a chemist, could you get me one of those facemasks? Sorry, it sounds silly.’
‘It’s not silly at all. I’ll be sure I do.’
‘Even in here my throat’s rasping.’ David looked at his friend. He did look uncomfortable. The bitter smell of the fog was starting to seep into the house.
Mr O’Shea asked, ‘What’s the phrase the Germans use, when they make people disappear?’
‘Night and fog,’ Geoff answered. ‘
‘It would. We hear enough of that bastard on the radio.’
‘It’ll be all rock ’n’ roll when you get to America, I expect,’ Eileen said, resolutely cheerful. David shook his head; it was hard to imagine.
‘The arch-bastion of capitalism,’ Ben said ironically. ‘Still, needs must when the devil drives.’ He turned to Sean. ‘You work on the railways, then?’
‘Have done since I came over here in ’23. After the Irish War of Independence.’
‘Did you fight?’ David asked.
Sean nodded. ‘In the Civil War, too. I was a Michael Collins man. My people are dirt-poor farmers. From Wexford.’
‘What d’ye think about the railwaymen’s pay claim gettin’ settled?’ Ben asked. ‘I didnae think the government would give way.’
‘Ah, they got the union leaders in and offered them just enough to buy the men off. They’ll need them if they’re going to transport the Jews. The so-called union,’ he added bitterly, ‘full of right-wing Coalition Labour people.’
Ben nodded agreement. ‘They’re crafty. They know the minimum the men will accept. Real unions would have the men out, like the Liverpool dockers. But the workers will win in the end, they must.’
Sean looked at him askance. ‘That sounds like the Communist line.’
‘It’s the truth, mac.’
Sean shook his head. ‘No, it isn’t. The railwaymen have always been right-wing. Have you forgotten Jimmy Thomas, that betrayed the miners in the General Strike?’ He pointed the stem of his pipe at Ben. ‘You’d be surprised how many union people supported the peace in 1940, and have ever since. Even now it’s low wages that brought the threat of the railway strike, not politics.’
‘The shop stewards should’ve held out for more. The railwaymen could bring the whole country to a stop.’
‘Then they’d bring the army in.’
‘My husband’s been a shop steward over twenty years.’ Eileen raised her voice. ‘It’s getting more dangerous all the time, all it needs is for him to make some pro-Resistance comment to the wrong fella and he’d be charged with sedition.’ She stabbed an angry finger at Ben. ‘So don’t tell him all he needs to do is snap his fingers to bring the revolution.’
‘But they’re fighting up North,’ Ben countered fiercely. ‘Demonstrating, facing down the police, fightin’ back. What about the Liverpool dock strike, the Yorkshire miners, the Scottish printers—’
Geoff said, ‘They’re desperate in the North, with wages driven down to nothing by unemployment—’
‘And there are special circumstances there,’ David said. ‘Everyone knows the mine owners are hopeless, all those little inefficient companies, and they keep going by driving wages down—’
‘Wages are bad down here, too,’ Ben responded. ‘Though on a civil servant’s pay I dare say you widnae notice,’ he added sarcastically. ‘The tide’s turning, and that’s what it is, the tide of history. The pro-German newspaper magnates have controlled the press since before the war – we’ve got one as bloody Prime Minister – and the BBC, and the radio, but they cannae keep us down for ever, the ordinary people—’
‘The proletariat, you mean,’ Natalia said, sounding weary.
‘Aye, the proletariat. The working class. We’ll win in the end, like Lenin did in Russia—’
‘So, Ben, you’d like Europe to be as Russia was?’ Natalia said. ‘With those huge prison camps the Germans found there?’
