Free The Flame of Life by Alan Sillitoe

Ralph’s vacant stare, caused by too much deadbeat drum-and-tonic pounding in, was really the pleasant conflict of clear thinking against the opposition of the music. But he didn’t know this, and was angered by Ralph being cut off from what was about to be discussed.
    He swallowed more coffee to take the waves of blue cigar smoke into his stomach. Between one painting and the next he pondered on ways to get rid of Ralph, which seemed vital if he weren’t to eat his own liver for the rest of his life.
    In the idealism that set the community going (in fact it had come together by accident) it was decided that there should be no constitution – or set of rules. Handley came to see this as an absolutely hare-brained state of affairs, even though to an outsider the community seemed harmonious enough. But that hypothetical swine of an outsider, Handley argued with himself in his studio the night before, has not, and never will have, anything to do with the community. He felt the need of a constitution because it was impossible to expel any member without one. To try and get them voted out on his sole recommendation was too risky, and might split the whole system. Also, Ralph was married to his favourite daughter Mandy, and if he were to be expelled it would have to be by her connivance, which at the present rate of progress would be a long time coming.
    Meanwhile, to give Ralph no inkling of his possible fate, Handley would push his quarrel with Cuthbert to the limits of civilised decency. He grinned at how the phrase fitted in with the sophisticated terms of the community. While he appeared to be savagely involved with Cuthbert he could sort out his moves to get Ralph either on to the psychiatrist’s scrap-heap or back at his mother’s tit.
    But nothing was simple and straightforward, not even violence and change, because to force his fiery unpredictable daughter and her husband into the wilderness would be to destroy the community. Handley was enough of a socialist to believe in the power of the family, as well as enough of an artist to get on his knees before it now and again.
    They were still drinking coffee, as if wanting to be even more awake for this particular meeting. The sky was clear outside, and Cuthbert felt drawn to lie on his back in some field and look into that flay-mouthed pit of widening mild blue. Meetings bored him – apart from the novelty of the first few minutes, after which he dwelt on how to turn his favourite obsession into a long-term policy, and pursue it to a favourable but acrimonious end.
    He saw Dawley as the central pillar of the establishment, and realised that if he could get rid of him then he, Cuthbert Handley, would take control with firm but flamboyant ease. In order to deceive Dawley as to his true purpose he would engage in a deadly duel with his father, and while everyone watched this mummers’ bitter fight for the seasons of the world, Cuthbert would do what he could to destroy Dawley. Everything must be done thus, as far as Cuthbert was concerned: chased into coal and cornfield, through street or tunnel, forest of mud-swamp even if it took as long as death to get there, otherwise how could you ever reach what you wanted?
    He caught Dawley looking at him, and smiled. Dawley lifted his hand to signal that he had seen. There was something about him that mystified Cuthbert, which may have been why he was so dead set on getting rid of him. Cuthbert wanted to dispense with mystery, because his soul had been poisoned by it. It had been pumped into him for years, scorching the most vulnerable part of his youth.
    He had seen through it, however, and undergone all forms of repudiation, but now sensed phenomena in Dawley which disturbed him just as much. There was a depth of purpose in Dawley’s face, which recalled his original antagonism at the idea of being threatened by a mystery which had been artificially created in order to oppress and enslave the spirit