Read Online Without the Moon by Cathi Unsworth - Free Book Online Page A

light-coloured eyes, goldishblond hair and a clipped moustache. She swept the beam down to take in the rest of him. He was tall and athletic-looking, he was the right age, but he wasn’t wearing a uniform.
    â€œWell,” she said, offering him her arm. “I don’t mind if I do.”
    â€“ . –
    Inside the Conway Hall in Red Lion Square, three hundred pairs of eyes rested on Swaffer. Not because of the headlines he had produced earlier in the day, nor because he was about to bring them news from the Other Side. Tonight, the pews of the austerely magnificent home of the Ethical Society were packed with people eager to hear him hold forth on another of his great passions: politics.
    His age might have prevented him from the frontline reporting he had produced in the last war, and the coalition government had called an uneasy truce on party politicking for his beloved Labour Party, but Swaffer had not been idle on the Home Front. He had been the first national journalist to report from the East End when the Blitz began. He had seen the fire and carnage and had listened to the stories of the people who preferred to take refuge in the tube stations or under their own staircases than risk their lives in the flimsy shelters that the government provided. Then he had taken their concerns to his old friend Herbert Morrison, the Home Secretary, via a march from Bethnal Green to Whitehall. His efforts had brought about another coalition: of ministers, Trades Unionists and Communists, who continued to harangue MPs about the building of deep shelters and the bringing of relief to London’s beleaguered communities. Tonight’s meeting was both a progress report and a rallying of troops to keep the pressure on.
    As Swaffer spoke, he became aware of one pair of eyes in particular, staring at him with a peculiar intensity. Throughout his address and that of the next speaker, through the question-and-answer session that followed, they continued to stare – but the mouth said nothing.
    After the last cups of tea had been drunk, the cups washed up and the banners packed away, after the last hands had been shaken and the people dispersed, the owner of that pair of eyes lingered by the door like a shade. As Swaffer approached, she placed a hand on his arm and whispered a greeting.
    â€œMr Swaffer,” she said, “my name is Daphne Maitland. We have never been introduced, but I have attended many of your rallies as a member of the CP and I am a great admirer of all your works.”
    Her appearance was that of an aesthete: tall and thin, encased in a dark grey suit and felt hat. The emphasis she placed on the last sentence sent a tingle up the arm where her hand still rested, to Swaffer’s brain, which began to replay the conversation he had had with Greenaway the previous afternoon.
    â€œI wondered,” she continued, “if I may speak to you about a matter of great concern to me. I’m afraid it is to do with that article you wrote in today’s paper.”
    â€œOf course, my dear,” Swaffer said, indicating that they should sit down.
    She shook her head. “No, not here, not in public.” When she looked back up at him, tears were brimming in her eyes, but she kept her voice level. “Would you do me the favour of accompanying me home? I won’t take much of your time, I promise, and I’ll have my driver take you anywhere you wish to go afterwards.”
    Swaffer did not laugh at the idea of an avowed Communist ordering her driver to chauffeur him home. Nor did he look at his watch and inform her of the prior engagement he had at the Savoy, to which he really should have been heading.
    â€œBut of course,” he said instead. He put his stovepipe hat down on top of his snow-white locks, gave the lady his arm and escorted her to her car.
    â€“ . –
    Greenaway stood at the foot of the stairs, behind the unlocked door that the last careless punter had not bothered