Alice had not thought of this for years; it was her arms stretched round the great silvery saucepan that brought it all back. And she could have gone on standing there, but someone touched her on the shoulder: a man, a workman, for he was in white overalls and carried a bag of tools - yes, the shop she stood outside was being done over - and he said, "Are you all right, love?"
"Yes," said Alice, "yes." As if to say, "Why ever should you think I wasn't?"
"We were beginning to wonder about you," said he. "You'd taken root, from the look of it!" He laughed, hoping she would; his kindly face - almost certainly a father's, not to mention a husband's - was concerned for her. And she laughed, and went on to number 43, where she carried in her saucepan to applause because of its magnificence and scope and potential, and she smiled as she stood in the kitchen working at her soup while comrades came in and out to sample it, or to make sandwiches, or sit down to eat take-away. She was, quite simply, dissolved in grief because of the loss of her real, her own home, and because of what she had been remembering as she stood there on the pavement. Good Christ, she was thinking as she stood in the kitchen smiling away (everyone's Alice, dependable, helpful, a treat), how could they have done that to me? They took my room away from me, just like that, as if it wasn't my room at all, as if they had only lent it to me - "Alice, you'll just have to give up your room again." It went on for years. What the fucking hell did they think they were doing? Why, every time she had felt that it was not really her home at all, she had no right to a place in it, and at any moment her parents would simply throw her out altogether....
But this is all silly, Alice was thinking, chopping, slicing, mixing, smiling. Most of the people in the world don't have half what I had, and as for their own rooms...
Never mind, the Congress would be such hard work, she would have to stop thinking about it all, thank goodness.
On the Friday night, when everyone had arrived, and there were twenty-four people crowding in, the amazing soup pot fed them all, and was stocked again, at one in the morning, when everyone went to bed, to be ready for next day.
By half past nine next morning, all the London comrades had arrived. They went over the house, exclaiming, as well they might, at its size, its comfort, its amenities. More than one, from less well endowed squats, took baths at once. The stacks of bread in the kitchen were immediately depleted, and Alice quickly ran out for some more. This weekend was going to cost... she did not want to think about it.
Everyone praised, too, the decoration of the sitting room.
Over the mantelpiece was an enormous red flag, with the emblem of the CCU in one corner, embroidered last night by two of the girls from Birmingham. In one corner of the soft living red was a hammer and sickle in gold, and in another a rooster and a rose, in green.
A picture of Lenin was on the wall opposite the flag. Next to Lenin, and several times the size, was a poster of a whale: "Save the Whales!" On other walls were posters saying "Save Britain from Pollution!,"
"Save Our Countryside!,"
"Remember the Women of Greenham Common!," and an IRA poster with a picture of a British soldier hitting a young boy whose arms were tied. On a table in the hall were pamphlets: The Case for the IRA, all the Greenpeace pamphlets, several books about Lenin, a long poem in free verse about Greenham Common, a large variety of pamphlets from the Women's Movement, and on antivivisection, vegetarianism, the use of chemicals in foodstuffs, Cruise, Trident, the dumping of radioactive waste in the sea, the ill-treatment of calves and chickens, and the conditions inside Britain's prisons.
In the familiar, heady, but comforting atmosphere that attends the opening of such events, forty-odd people crowded into the sitting room, seating themselves as they found places, on the floor, or on the window sills. Outside was a fitfully sunny day. Inside, the new heating was too much for some, and windows had to be opened.
Nearly all were under thirty. Alice, she believed, was by far the oldest. Except, that is, for Roberta, who only laughed when asked her age.
It was to Bert and Jasper that everyone looked, though it had been agreed that if Pat did in fact come, she would give the opening address.
Bert had been listening and watching for her for days, as all the residents in number 43 knew.
Now Bert stood at ease by the fireplace, in which was a great jar of daffodils and narcissus, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece to show informality, and said, "This is the first National Congress of the Communist Centre Union. From small seeds grow great trees." Energetic applause. Smiles, pleased laughter. Mary Williams and Reggie were clapping, sober but emphatic. Muriel was in a corner, on the floor. She was here as a spy, Alice reminded herself.
Bert did not laugh. Or smile. His problem with Pat had fined him down, giving him a look of suffering restrained by thought. His easy affability had gone. He nodded briefly at the applause, and went on to say that the CCU proposed to be a nonsectarian party, taking the best from the existing socialist parties, learning from their mistakes and failures. It was determined to base itself on the great traditions of the British working class, working for radical social change towards a revolution "if needs be - and every day teaches us that the class that controls this country of ours is not going to let itself be dislodged without force...." Applause and laughter and jeers. A revolution that would learn from the experience of the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, and, if necessary, the French Revolution, for it was not too much to say that the lessons of the French Revolution had by no means been exhausted. The Congress this weekend had not been called with the aim of formulating a detailed policy, for much more work would have to be done; but to lay down broad principles. And now he, Bert Barnes, would stand down and let a much more accomplished and developed revolutionary, Comrade Willis, take the floor.
Jasper took Bert's place. He did not lean on the mantelpiece, but stood like an arrow, arms down by his sides, his reddish-gold crest of hair glistening, and his eyes fixed on the portrait of Lenin. He began his speech in a voice higher than his usual one, which made it sound to Alice rather strained. But, then, she was used to his platform style, and judged him by other criteria: for instance, she knew he had hardly slept last night, for he had been engaged in passionate and voluble discussion, and going without sleep did not suit him.
His style was to use the familiar phrases of the socialist lexicon, but as though he had only just that moment discovered them, so that when he began, there was often a moment when people showed a tendency to laugh. This stopped at once, because of his desperate, even ecstatic seriousness.
"Comrades! Welcome to you all, comrades. This is for all of us a historic moment. There are very few of us in this room today, but we are a chosen few - chosen by the time we live in, chosen by history itself! - and there is nothing we cannot achieve if we set ourselves to do it." Here, if Bert or anyone else had been speaking, there would have been applause. There was a tense silence. The truth was, the comrades had not expected this note of high seriousness; or, at least, not so early in the proceedings.