Free Love Fifteen Page A

infra-dig origins.
    Many houses in Falcondale Road had For Sale Apply Within signs in the windows, as their owners were eager to bolt somewhere further off for fear they blitzed this city too. The asking prices were rock-bottom. No wonder, said Fred, with the impending likelihood of property being bombed to smithereens and/or occupied by Nazis. The jealousy that London had got it all so far was mixed with relief that they hadn’t. Rose and Tilda reckoned people here could be just as brave as the blessed Cockneys, given the chance. It wasn’t their fault this was a safe area. So far there’d only been the odd incendiary dropped for fun just so that the filthy swine could watch the damage from up above. Fred said the Jerries up there were terrified and jettisoned the fire-bombs on the way back from raiding the South Wales docks just across the Bristol Channel.
    He took the scenic route across the Downs, past the zoo and through Clifton. Theo thought of what old Mrs. Hampton had said about that part being built on the spoils of empire. In prayers, Earl Hines and visiting vicars were always on about the Merchant Venturer founders but Mrs. H reckoned they were a load of crooks and slavers who’d started the zoo to house the animals they’d caught in India or Africa, and Clifton College was a public school where the next load of rugby-prefects were trained to go out and boss natives about. This confused him so he thought instead about what would happen if the zoo was bombed and the animals escaped, running wild all over the Downs, and Alfred the gorilla came charging out of shrubberies just where some bloke had taken off one of those WAAFs’ bras. It would be quite like that flickergraph he’d done in
Songs of Praise
.
    *
    â€œWhat is a Film Society exactly?” Fred asked, as the boy climbed out of the Morris on College Green.
    â€œIt’s to see the sort of films you can’t see in the ordinary cinemas.”
    â€œHello hello! What sort’s that?”
    â€œFrench.”
    â€œI’m surprised at them allowing that in the library,” Rose said.
    â€œIs that the sort you mean, son?” Fred asked with a quickening of interest.
    â€œI don’t know, do I? German and Russian too.”
    â€œI foresee disappointment,” Kay said, “and fully expect he’ll spend a tedious hour watching tractors and peasants trying out their new milking-machines.”
    Theo slammed the car-door on her and pressed his face to the window, sliding it downwards and rolling his eyes like old Charles Laughton as Quasi.
    He watched Fred drive off past the Cathedral and made his way to the Central Library’s main doors.

SIX
    The fresh air on College Green was a relief, as the insides of cars always made him feel sick, with their pongs of petrol, leather upholstery and a scented polish the cleaners used at the firm’s garage where Fred had it serviced free. And if anyone farted – him, Dad, Mum, Kay or Tilda – it hung about for hours, because if you tried to wind down the windows Rose complained it was a gale and would make her hair look like the wreck of the Hesperus.
    He’d never used the central library, didn’t know how, only gone once on a school visit with Jimmie Lunceford. Outside it looked as old as the cathedral and Cabot Tower and he wasn’t surprised to find himself climbing another load of the sort of stone stairs they had at school, clumping along dark stony passages and ending up in a high panelled room with pointy windows that felt like church but with more books. Mrs. Hampton, wearing a headscarf and overcoat, welcomed him with a nice smile, as though she’d really been looking forward to seeing him. She introduced him as a provisional new member to three men and a woman, all still in their outer clothes. As they spoke, steam came from their mouths like visible words. George worked the projector and puffed at a pipe and Vera was his wife, a