Anna put on her coat, picked up her bag, was ready to ‘cope’. She had no idea at all of what to say, or even what she thought. She was standing in the middle of her room, empty as a paper bag, ready to walk over to Marion, to Tommy, and say - what? She thought of Richard, of his conventional thwarted anger; of Molly, all her courage drained into listless weeping; of Marion gone beyond pain into a cool hysteria; of Tommy - but she could only see him, see the blinded stubborn face, she could feel a kind of force coming from him, but she could not put a name to it.

Suddenly she giggled. Anna heard the giggle: yes, that was how Tommy giggled that night he came to see me before he tried to kill himself. How odd, I’ve never heard myself laugh like that before.

What has happened to that person inside Tommy who giggled like that? He’s gone completely - I suppose Tommy killed him when the bullet went through his head. How strange I should let out that bright meaningless giggle! What am I going to say to Tommy? I don’t even know what’s happening.

What’s it all about? I have to walk up to Marion and Tommy and say: You must stop this pretence of caring about African nationalism, you both know quite well it’s nonsense?

Anna giggled again, at the meaninglessness of it.

Well, what would Tom Mathlong say? She imagined herself sitting across the table in a café with Tom Mathlong telling him about Marion and Tommy. He would listen and say: ‘Anna, you tell me these two people have chosen to work for African liberation? And why should I care about their motives?’ But then he would laugh. Yes. Anna could hear his laugh, deep, full, shaken out of his stomach. Yes. He would put his hands on his knees and laugh, then shake his head and say: ‘My dear Anna, I wish we had your problems.’

Anna, hearing the laugh, felt better. She hastily picked up various bits of paper suggested to her by thinking of Tom Mathlong; she stuffed them into her bag and ran down into the street and along to Molly’s house. She thought as she went of the demonstration Marion and Tommy had been arrested at. The demonstration was not at all like the orderly political demonstrations of the Communist Party in the old days; or like a Labour Party meeting. No, it was fluid, experimental - people were doing things without knowing why. The stream of young people had flowed down the street to the headquarters like water. No one directed or controlled them. Then the flood of people around the building, shouting slogans almost tentatively, as if listening to hear how they would sound. Then the arrival of the police. And the police were hesitant and tentative too. They didn’t know what to expect. Anna, standing to one side, had watched: under the restless, fluid movement of people and police was an inner pattern or motif. About a dozen or twenty young men, all with the same look on their faces - a set, stern, dedicated look, were moving in such a way as to deliberately taunt and provoke the police. They would rush past a policeman, or up to him, so close that a helmet was tipped forward or an arm jogged, apparently accidentally. They would dodge off, then come back. The policemen were watching this group of young men. One by one, they were arrested; because they were behaving in such a way that they would have to be arrested. And at the moment of arrest each face wore a look of satisfaction, of achievement. There was a moment of private struggle - the policeman using as much brutality as he dared; and on his face a sudden look of cruelty.