Everyone laughed. Most of them shoplifted in an impulsive way, but Geoffrey made a business of it. He went regularly around bookshops, pilfering. School textbooks when he could, but anything he could get away with. He called it ' liberating' them. It was a Second World War joke, and a wistful link with his father, who had been a bomber pilot. Geoffrey had told Colin that he thought his father had not really noticed anything since the end of that war. ' Certainly not my mother or me. ' His father might just as well have died in that war for all the good his family got of him. ' Join the club, ' was what Colin had said. ' The War, the Revolution, what's the difference?'
' God bless Foyle's, said Geoffrey. ' I've liberated more there than anywhere else in London. A benefactor to humankind, is Foyle's. But he was glancing nervously at Frances. He said, ' Frances doesn't approve. '
They knew Frances didn't approve. She often said, ' It'smy unfortunate upbringing. I was brought up to think stealing is wrong. Now, whenever she or anyone else criticised or did not go along with the others, they would chant, ' It's your unfortunate upbringing. ' Then Andrew had said, ' That joke's getting a bit tired.'
There had been a wild half-hour of variations on tired jokes with unfortunate upbringings.
Now Johnny began on his familiar lecture, ' That's right, you take anything you can get from the capitalists. They've stolen it all from you in the first place.'
'Surely not from us?' Andrew challenged his father.
' Stolen from the working people. The ordinary people. Take them for what you can get, the bastards. '
Andrew had never shoplifted, thought it inferior behaviour fit only for oiks, and said in a direct challenge, 'Shouldn't you be getting back to Phyllida?'
Frances could be ignored, but his son's rebuke took Johnny to the door. ' Never forget, ' he admonished them generally, ' you should be checking everything you do, every word, every thought, against the needs of the Revolution.'
'So what did you get today?' Rose asked Geoffrey. She admired him almost as much as she did Johnny.
Geoffrey took books out of the carrier bags and made a tower of them on the table.
They clapped. Not Frances, not Andrew.
Frances took from her briefcase one of the letters to the newspaper which she had brought home. She read out, '' 'Dear Aunt Vera' '... that's me...' ' Dear Aunt Vera, I have three children, all at school. Every evening they come home with stolen stuff, mostly sweets and biscuits...' ' ' Here the company groaned. '' 'But it can be anything, school books too...' ' ' They clapped. '' 'But today my oldest, the boy, came back with a very expensive pair of jeans.'' ' They clapped again. '' 'I don't know what to do. When the door bell rings I think, That's the police. ' ' ' Frances gave them time for a groan. And I am afraid for them. I would very much value your advice, Aunt Vera. I am at my wits' end. ' ' '
She inserted the letter back in its place.
And what are you going to advise?' enquired Andrew.
Perhaps you should tell me what to say, Geoffrey. After all, a head boy should be well up in these things. '
Oh, don't be like that, Frances, said Rose.
Oh, ' groaned Geoffrey, his head in his hands, making his shoulders heave as if with sobs, she takes it seriously. '
Oh, don't be like that, Frances, said Rose.
Oh, ' groaned Geoffrey, his head in his hands, making his shoulders heave as if with sobs, she takes it seriously. '
I do take it seriously, said Frances. It's stealing. You are thieves, she said to Geoffrey, with the freedom licensed by his practically living with them, for years. You are a thief. That's all. I'm not Johnny, she said.
Now a real dismayed silence. Rose giggled. The newcomer's, James's, scarlet face was as good as a confession.
Sophie cried out, 'But, Frances, I didn't know you disapproved of us so much.'
'Well, I do,' said Frances, her face and voice softening, because it was Sophie. ' So now you know. '
'It's her unfortunate upbringing...' began Rose, but desisted, on a look from Andrew.
And now I'm going to catch the news, and I have to work. ' She went out, saying, ' Sleep well, everyone. ' Giving permission, in this way, to anyone, James for instance, who might be hoping to stay the night.
She did catch the news, briefly. It seemed that some madman had shot Kennedy. As far as she was concerned, another public man was dead. He probably deserved it. She would never have allowed herself to voice this thought, so very far from the spirit of the times. It sometimes seemed to her that the one useful thing she had learned in her long association with Johnny, was how to keep quiet about what she thought.
Before settling down to work which, this evening, would be going through a hundred or so letters she had brought home, she opened the door to the spare room. Silence and dark. She tiptoed to the bed and bent over a shape under the bedclothes that could have been a child's. And, yes, Tilly had her thumb in her mouth.
Im not asleep, said a little voice.