Read Online Various Pets Alive and Dead by Marina Lewycka - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Marina Lewycka
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theoretical practice to practice in itself,’ he declared.
She had no idea what he meant, but it sounded inspirational.
‘We’ll use our education to enrich society, not just ourselves,’ added Marcus, in his thoughtful rumbly voice that sent tingles through her, ‘bearing in mind that the economy is determinant, but only in the last instance.’
‘We’ll build a society where everyone has a chance to fulfil their human potential?’ she said hesitantly, afraid they might laugh at her naivety.
‘Because the personal is political,’ simpered Moira, in that breathless way she had of stating the totally obvious.
When the five of them – Fred and a friend called Nick Holliday, and Marcus and Doro and Moira – made the journey up to South Yorkshire in Nick’s orange VW Beetle, they could barely conceal their disappointment that it wasn’t right beside the coal mine, but set apart on a country lane towards Campsall village half a mile from Askern colliery, whose gaunt twin winding wheels dominated the flat landscape of square fields stitched together by ragged hedges, as far as the eye could see.
Solidarity Hall, as they named their new home, was a huge draughty red-brick Gothic mansion, a sort of scaled-down St Pancras Station, halfway between Pontefract and Doncaster. It had been built for a pit owner in 1890, close to the small pretty town of Askern, once famous only for its spa, and it reflected the grandiose ambitions of its age – when Britannia ruled the waves, and the great Yorkshire coalfield fuelled the nation’s manufacturing boom and powered the trains and ships that carried trade to every corner of the empire. In 1946, in the fervour of post-war nationalisation, it had been taken over by the National Coal Board for offices, and an annexe built for the manager to live in. But then functional new offices had been built near the colliery, and the latest pit manager had long since decamped to a cosy modern bungalow in Askern, so the building had been empty for several years before the commune moved in.
It smelled of damp, the narrow Gothic windows let in little light, and the puke-green decor had last been renewed in the 1950s; but it was in better condition than the house in Hampstead, with six chilly bedrooms, plus four in the attic eaves where the kids would one day have their domain. They removed the plywood office partitions to reveal two cold cavernous reception rooms and a vast draughty kitchen full of crusty Formica and chipped enamel. And there was the pit manager’s annexe, which Moira said would be a perfect art studio, while Marcus and Fred immediately earmarked it as a Marxism Study Centre for the local community. Doro was entranced by the half-acre of straggly garden with its lilac and apple trees, overgrown vegetable plot and runaway vines leaping through the hedges.
The Althusserian girl was furious at the proposed move and, accusing Fred of dilettantism and interpellation of function by ideology, stormed off, slamming the door of the Hampstead house so hard that a shower of glass from the window above tinkled down on to the footpath. And so Nick, a small, intense maths postgrad, not part of the original collective but owner of the orange VW, was invited to move in. When Doro admitted to Moira that she found him quite attractive in a geeky kind of way, with his big brown eyes and thick curly eyelashes blinking behind black-framed spectacles, Moira made a point of bedding him at once. She was like that.
Nick also had an occasional girlfriend called Jen with noisy high-drama ways, who claimed that feminism was descended from witchcraft and tried to persuade the women to dance naked around a bonfire in the garden on midsummer’s night (they were saved by the Yorkshire weather). It was hard to imagine what Nick saw in her, apart from the attraction of opposites. She went off to live with a guy in a Reichian therapy commune where they practised rebirth and primal screaming, and Doro felt
She had no idea what he meant, but it sounded inspirational.
‘We’ll use our education to enrich society, not just ourselves,’ added Marcus, in his thoughtful rumbly voice that sent tingles through her, ‘bearing in mind that the economy is determinant, but only in the last instance.’
‘We’ll build a society where everyone has a chance to fulfil their human potential?’ she said hesitantly, afraid they might laugh at her naivety.
‘Because the personal is political,’ simpered Moira, in that breathless way she had of stating the totally obvious.
When the five of them – Fred and a friend called Nick Holliday, and Marcus and Doro and Moira – made the journey up to South Yorkshire in Nick’s orange VW Beetle, they could barely conceal their disappointment that it wasn’t right beside the coal mine, but set apart on a country lane towards Campsall village half a mile from Askern colliery, whose gaunt twin winding wheels dominated the flat landscape of square fields stitched together by ragged hedges, as far as the eye could see.
Solidarity Hall, as they named their new home, was a huge draughty red-brick Gothic mansion, a sort of scaled-down St Pancras Station, halfway between Pontefract and Doncaster. It had been built for a pit owner in 1890, close to the small pretty town of Askern, once famous only for its spa, and it reflected the grandiose ambitions of its age – when Britannia ruled the waves, and the great Yorkshire coalfield fuelled the nation’s manufacturing boom and powered the trains and ships that carried trade to every corner of the empire. In 1946, in the fervour of post-war nationalisation, it had been taken over by the National Coal Board for offices, and an annexe built for the manager to live in. But then functional new offices had been built near the colliery, and the latest pit manager had long since decamped to a cosy modern bungalow in Askern, so the building had been empty for several years before the commune moved in.
It smelled of damp, the narrow Gothic windows let in little light, and the puke-green decor had last been renewed in the 1950s; but it was in better condition than the house in Hampstead, with six chilly bedrooms, plus four in the attic eaves where the kids would one day have their domain. They removed the plywood office partitions to reveal two cold cavernous reception rooms and a vast draughty kitchen full of crusty Formica and chipped enamel. And there was the pit manager’s annexe, which Moira said would be a perfect art studio, while Marcus and Fred immediately earmarked it as a Marxism Study Centre for the local community. Doro was entranced by the half-acre of straggly garden with its lilac and apple trees, overgrown vegetable plot and runaway vines leaping through the hedges.
The Althusserian girl was furious at the proposed move and, accusing Fred of dilettantism and interpellation of function by ideology, stormed off, slamming the door of the Hampstead house so hard that a shower of glass from the window above tinkled down on to the footpath. And so Nick, a small, intense maths postgrad, not part of the original collective but owner of the orange VW, was invited to move in. When Doro admitted to Moira that she found him quite attractive in a geeky kind of way, with his big brown eyes and thick curly eyelashes blinking behind black-framed spectacles, Moira made a point of bedding him at once. She was like that.
Nick also had an occasional girlfriend called Jen with noisy high-drama ways, who claimed that feminism was descended from witchcraft and tried to persuade the women to dance naked around a bonfire in the garden on midsummer’s night (they were saved by the Yorkshire weather). It was hard to imagine what Nick saw in her, apart from the attraction of opposites. She went off to live with a guy in a Reichian therapy commune where they practised rebirth and primal screaming, and Doro felt
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