She laughs again. Then she checks herself and sits frowning. And just as if this subversive laughter had not occurred she takes a deep breath and begins: ‘Of course you are an artist, a very fine artist, it is a privilege to meet you and talk to you, and you have a deep and natural reluctance to see anything you have written changed. But you must let me say this, it is a mistake to be over-impatient about television. It is the art form of the future - that is how I see it, and that is why I am so privileged to work with and for it.’ She stops: the solitary American is looking around for the waiter - but no, he wants more coffee. She turns her attention to me and continues: ‘Art, as a very very great man once said, is a matter of patience. If you’d like to think over what we’ve discussed and write to me - or perhaps you’d like to try and write us a screenplay on another theme? Of course we cannot commission work from an artist who has not had previous television experience, but we will be happy to give you all the advice and help we can.’ ‘Thank you.’ ‘Are you thinking of visiting the States? I would be so happy if you would give me a call and we could discuss any ideas you might have?’ I hesitate. I almost stop myself. Then I know I can’t stop myself. I say: ‘There’s nothing I’d like better than to visit your country, but alas, I wouldn’t be let in, I’m a communist.’ Her eyes snap into my face, wide and blue and startled. She makes at the same time an involuntary movement - the start of pushing back her chair and going. Her breathing quickens. I see someone who is frightened. Already I am sorry and ashamed. I said that for a variety of reasons, the first being childish: I wanted to shock her. Secondly, equally childish, a feeling that I ought to say it - if someone said afterwards: Of course she is a communist, this woman would feel as if I had been concealing it. Thirdly, I wanted to see what would happen. She sits, opposite me, breathing fast, her eyes uncertain, her pink lips, rather smeared now, parted. She is thinking: Next time I must be careful to make enquiries. She is also seeing herself as a victim - that morning I had read through a batch of cuttings from the States about dozens of people sacked from their jobs, being grilled by Anti-American committees, etc. She says breathlessly: ‘Of course things are quite different here in England, I realize that …’ Her woman-of-the-world mask cracks right across, and she blurts out: ‘But my dear, I’d never have guessed in a thousand years that …’ This means: I like you so how can you be a communist? This suddenly makes me so angry, the provincialism of it, that I feel as I always feel in these circumstances: Better to be a communist, and at almost any cost, better to be in touch than to be so cut off from any reality that one can make a remark as stupid as that. Now we are suddenly both very angry. She looks away from me, recovering herself. And I think of that night I spent talking to the Russian writer two years ago. We used the same language - the communist language. Yet our experience was so different that every phrase we used meant something different to each of us.