Page 70 of The Gathering Storm

He wasn’t even sure he’d said it to be heard, but the earnest young man was thrown off his stride. He turned the headlamps of his spectacles towards him. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Marx didn’t say property was theft. That was Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Nineteenth-century French anarchist.’ He only knew that because, purely by chance, he’d had to look it up for an article.

The young man gave him a stern but kindly look. ‘I think you’ll find it was Marx,’ he said. And then, ‘Are you an anarchist?’

All eyes swivelled on Basil. Plainly being an anarchist wouldn’t go down well – though he had no idea how they differed from Communists. He waved a dismissing hand. ‘Do carry on,’ he said.

After a doubtful pause, the young man resumed. ‘All work should command the same wages. Why do managers get more than workers? We all have to buy food and clothes and pay rent. The bosses’ wages should be taken away from them and divided up among the workers. That’s how they do it in Russia.’

Basil saw the beauty of that idea. He would like to receive a slice of the salary of the top earners at the Messenger. He had a sneaking suspicion, however, that it could not be quite as easy as that.

‘But how do you motivate people to work hard and get on if their efforts won’t earn them any more wages?’ he asked, when the earnest young man drew breath.

‘That’s a capitalist question,’ the young man said disapprovingly. ‘You’re coming at it from the wrong direction. You see, in the Communist state we all belong to one another, and the good of one is the good of all. You work hard for love of your brother man.’

Basil could see a problem right there, but the young man went straight on.

‘You have to purge the population of individualism. Where you have individualism, you have ownership. Ownership fosters greed, and greed leads to war. You only have to look at Germany. Capitalism means war. It’s inevitable. Eventually, when Communism spreads over the whole world, conflict will be a thing of the past.’

Someone raised the question of free love, and Basil stopped listening. He wondered where Miranda was. He had got separated from her, and then had become marooned in this corner. Presumably she was in the other room, where more voices were having more discussions, with the addition of music from a gramophone – though turned down disappointingly low. You couldn’t dance to that. He was afraid they weren’t intending to dance. But he wanted another drink – and he hoped the sausages might be ready by now. It was enough to be worth the effort of getting to his feet.

He just wished the comrades weren’t so earnest all the time. Surely laughing wasn’t a capitalist evil.

The weather, though it was November, did its best for Charlotte: it was cold and a little blowy, but it stopped raining at about half past ten, and by eleven there was even a glimmer of sunshine. It came and went, but it allowed the newly united couple to pause on the steps of the church long enough for the society and magazine photographers to get their shots.

The wedding breakfast was at the Belgrave Square house, which was another reason for Violet to be happy. There was something just a little vulgar, she thought, about having it in a hotel, though of course many people had no choice. And because this time they were marrying a daughter, they were not at the mercy of other people’s taste. ‘I wish we had another daughter to marry one day,’ she whispered to Avis in the reception line.

He pressed her hand, rather than reply. The doctor had said she mustn’t have any more babies. Besides, even if she did have a daughter now, they would be in their sixties by the time she was old enough to marry, and surely, he thought, the strange female urge to arrange weddings would have worn off by then.

Almost the best thing about the wedding, in Violet’s view, was that Jessie and Bertie had come, and were staying on afterwards in Belgrave Square for several days. It was years since they’d had time together. Jack and Helen had also come, though Jack could not get leave from work to stay on. But they would have Sunday to be all together again, they who had played together as children.

After the receiving line and before sitting down, when everyone was circulating, Richard found his sister. ‘Happy?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said.

‘I’m glad Robert came.’

‘He hardly waited to say hello before telling me his wife is expecting,’ Charlotte said. ‘She looked embarrassed, but he was as smug as could be.’ She looked cautiously at her brother. ‘Are you and Cynthia—?’

‘No,’ he said, with a forgiving smile. ‘You sound just like my pa-in-law. Every time we see them. Handshake for me, kiss for Cynthia, then, “Anything to tell me?” “Daddy, stop!” says Cyn, blushing like a rose. And he looks unrepentant and says, “Time waits for no man. I want to hold my grandson in my arms before I die.” I have the greatest difficulty in not saying, “You could hardly hold him afterwards, could you?”’

Charlotte laughed. ‘I suppose that’s something I have to look forward to.’

‘Except that I can’t imagine Avis ever being so vulgar as to enquire. Have you and Launde decided where you’re going to live?’

‘We’ve taken a flat at Hertford Street, in one of those new buildings. Straight lines, lots of light, parquet floors. Nothing old or dusty or splintery,’ Charlotte said happily. ‘Mummy was a bit put out at first, but she’s so glad we’re on the right side of the Park, and not somewhere like Kensington, she’s willing to overlook it. She and Avis want me to choose things out of Tunstead Hall – you know, antiques – and I don’t know how to tell them I want everything modern.’

‘We didn’t have that problem,’ Richard said. ‘Pa-in-law just provided a cheque, and Cynthia and her mother chose everything from Heal’s.’

Charlotte looked hesitant. ‘You didn’t mind—?’

‘Lord, no. Men don’t care about interiors – haven’t you learned that yet?’

‘Not true. Milo cares. Luckily we have the same taste. We’re going to have fun doing the flat together.’ She hesitated.

‘What?’

‘Oh, nothing. Well, he did say doing up the flat would keep me busy while he’s at work. As if he doesn’t expect me to be going back to work at Dolphin.’