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of disgusted anger came on to his face. This look was genuine: the flat, therefore, must also be genuine? But this is an excuse. I felt as if I had been stung into torpor by a predatory spider. I was being impelled to hand over the money. I began fumbling in my handbag, and as I did so, I knew I was a fool. The thought must have shown on my face, for he said: ‘For you. I’ll make it pounds.’ The money melted into the air above the flesh of his palm. I could hardly believe I had given it to him. So strong was this feeling that I wanted to count the money I had left to see if I had given it to him.
    A couple of policemen who had been standing against a wall, upshifted themselves with a stolid and determined movement and came towards us. Instinctively I looked around to see if Mr MacNamara had vanished. I was wrong, for he stood negligently beside me, gazing with impatience at the policemen. They, it seemed, had also expected him to vanish, for now they appeared uncertain. ‘Anything I can dofor you?’ enquired Mr MacNamara efficiently. They hesitated. He turned his back and marched off.
    ‘Everything all right?’ asked one of the policemen.
    ‘I do hope so.’
    They looked at each other, communed, and moved back to their wall, where they stood, feet apart, hands behind their backs, heads bent slightly forward, talking to each other with scarcely-moving lips, while their slow contemplative eyes followed the movements of the crowd.
    I walked slowly towards the jeweller’s shop, thinking about Mr MacNamara. It had by now occurred to me that he was what they referred to as a spiv. But he was not in the least like any of the rogues and adventurers I had known in Africa. They had all had a certain frankness, almost a gaiety, in being rogues. Mr MacNamara had nothing whatsoever in common with them. His strength was – and I could feel just how powerful that strength was, now I was recovering from my moment of being mad – his terrible, compelling anxiety that he should be able to force someone under his will. It was almost as if he were pleading, silently, in the moment when he was tricking a victim: Please let me trick you; please let me cheat you; I’ve got to; it’s essential for me.
    But the fact remained, that at a time when I had less than twenty pounds left, and counting every halfpenny, I had just parted with two pounds, knowing when I did it that I would never see it again. I was clearly much more undermined by England than I had known; and the sooner I got myself into some place I could call my own the better.
    When I told Rose I had lost the piece of paper with the address she said it didn’t matter, she’d take me home with her. The pale woman entered from the back, and said unpleasantly: ‘Closing early, aren’t you?’
    Rose answered: ‘Half past five is closing time, isn’t it?’
    ‘Like your pound of flesh, don’t you, dear?’
    ‘I don’t get paid overtime.’ She added casually: ‘I worked three nights late last week. I didn’t notice any complaints.’
    The pale woman said quickly: ‘I was only joking, dear.’
    ‘Oh no you wasn’t,’ said Rose. Without another glance at her employer, she began making up her face, not becausethere was any need to, but so she could stand negligently, back turned, absorbed in her reflection and her own affairs. Before leaving, however, she said ‘Goodnight’ quite amiably; and the pale woman returned, indifferently: ‘Sleep tight,’ just as if this exchange had not occurred.
    Rose had said the house she lived in was just around the corner; it was half a mile off. She did not speak. I didn’t know if she was offended because I had lost the address; or whether she was irritated with her employer. She replied listlessly to my remarks: Yes, dear; or – Is that so? Her face was heavy, despondent. It was difficult to guess her age. In the dimly-lit shop, she looked like a tired girl. Here, though her skin was spread thick with dun-coloured powder, under