Free Jack of Spies by David Downing Page B

to let in light. There was not much to see, just a few pots, a makeshift bed, and a stub of candle. It would be cold in winter, wet and mosquito-infested in summer. And they were less than ten miles from the Shanghai Club.
    Caitlin was trying, and failing, to say thank you in Mandarin.McColl handed the man the coin he had promised, helped her back aboard, and gave the driver the nod to proceed.
    “Did you notice?” she said. “They were all men. The women are in the fields.”
    “It’s the same the world over. In poor countries the women work the land.”
    “I know. But why is that? And how do you square that with the situation back home, where women who want a career are frowned upon? Talk about having your cake and eating it!”
    He knew better than to smile at her outrage. “Did you find it hard getting into journalism? There can’t be that many women writing for newspapers.”
    She looked slightly sheepish. “I had help. A friend of the family. But once I was in, I had no trouble proving I could do the job. And well. I’ve been doing it for six years now.”
    “What area are you in?” he asked. He found it hard to imagine her writing about fashion or cooking recipes.
    “Politics, mostly. I was on the city desk for the first three years, and then I persuaded the editor to send me to England to do pieces on the suffragettes and the situation in Ireland. Two years ago I covered the strike in Lawrence—did you hear about that?”
    “I did.” Twenty thousand textile workers in the New England town—most of them poorly paid recent immigrants—had come out in protest when their pay was inexcusably cut and eventually won a famous victory. “Being there in the thick of it must have been something.”
    “It was at the time, but go there now and it’s hard to believe they won. When last year’s strike in Paterson was lost, it all felt very depressing, as if nothing would ever really change.”
    “You were there as well?”
    “Oh, yes. And I met some wonderful people.”
    “You love your work, don’t you?”
    She glanced across at him, as if to check that he wasn’t pulling her leg. “I do,” she said simply.
    They traveled for several minutes in renewed silence, the ponies picking their way down the rutted road. In the fields on either side, rows of plantings stretched toward the flat horizon. Winter wheat, he thought, but he wouldn’t have put money on it.
    She asked what sort of business he was in.
    “Automobiles.”
    “Oh. There can’t be much of a market in China.”
    “Just a few rich Europeans, a few rich Chinese. But my boss in England likes the idea of having our cars on every continent, even if it’s only a handful of them. He says it’s an investment, but I think it just makes him feel important.”
    “He might be right about this country. Ch’ing-ling thinks that once things really begin to change, there’ll be no stopping China.”
    “But she’s had to flee to Japan.”
    She grimaced. “True.”
    “The world never changes as fast as we want it to.”
    She turned her face to his, challenge in her eyes. “Yes, but do you want it to? Do you want women to have the vote? Your empire to end? Everyone to get a fair share of the wealth?”
    He held her gaze. “Yes,” he said, “I do. And what’s more, I’m pretty sure all those things will happen, whether
I
want them to or not. Women should have the vote, and they will—it’s just a matter of time. And all empires come to a sticky end sooner or later, even those that do some good. As to sharing out the wealth … well, I can’t see it happening anytime soon. But state pensions and unemployment benefits have been introduced in the last few years, at least in England and Germany. Things
are
changing …”
    “Just not as fast as I want them to,” she quoted him.
    “Exactly.”
    “Maybe. On bad days I think like you do. When I was in Lawrence, covering the strike, I saw how terrible the workers’conditions were—it was