O Freedom — Nigel Tasane

y wife gives me money. There's a sort of hidden affection in it. She's like an estranged father giving the train fare to a visiting child. The child already has a return ticket in its pocket. It's an excuse for showing no affection, an alternative. A hidden affection is no affection at all, now I think about it.

I spend most of it on beer. That's an excuse as well. If I waste it on beer I can plead poverty: I can't go to the theatre or buy books, fix up the flat, put stamps on letters, pay the phone bill. I think I'm making sacrifices to feed the cat. I doubt if my wife minds. I doubt if she cares. It's unlikely she even knows.

I admit I spend some of it on tobacco. I smoke most when I'm drinking, so that's alright. I live in a sort of concrete encampment which most politicians would call a community: a lot of people living together in such conditions that they come to hate each other.

My wife, Sharir used to live in a swish house in an inner-London conservation area. That means they maintain the buildings properly and don't destroy the plants. I know it sounds odd, but it's only in selected areas that they do these things. She bought it after her parents died, with proceeds from the sale of their own prim house, which since she was an only child they naturally bequeathed her. That house was always full, always busy, with the large extended family and friends dropping in at all times. And when it was empty, my mother-in-law's industry seemed to fill it, as she prepared rice and chicken for a Quran-sherif or made dahl or sweets and savouries in enormous amounts for some occasion of celebration or mourning. In contrast my wife's home is said to have been entered by no-one but herself during all the time she lived there. Certainly, none of my acquaintances ever entered it. As some of them are also amongst her best friends, I have good reason to believe that what is said is true.

It was a mystery, this house. It was probably built around 1900 for a family from the middle stratum of the bourgeoisie. Its bricks were mild in colour, like a subtle eyeshadow, the paint clean. There were large windows with plain net curtains, gleaming white, and at the rear a garden perhaps 20 yards long, with roses, a strawberry bed, in spring bizarre tulips and tarragon and mint. Wild cats breed kittens near the toolshed. But everyone's terrified of the place.

There was a rent strike and an all-night vigil; then the petition (few dared sign) and, after some negotiation, agreement that Sharir would walk on one side of the street only, that she would not be hindered in it, and that she would take no action about her cat. (Her cat had been killed and left at her door, quite like in "Cabaret".)

These demands were made, and cruelties occurred, because she is a politician. But the exclusion of friends from the house was her own choice. That's what she told me.

In politics she is unique. When she was elected to parliament she sang her speech.

O Freedom, Freedom
O, Freedom -
Freedom after a while;
But before I'll be a slave
I'll be buried in my grave
And see peace in the world
And be free.

It was mournful and glorious and hopeful. The Returning Officer wasn't surprised, because he knew her already. She didn't stay to listen to the losers' speeches. There were more important things to attend to. Nonetheless the losers considered it rude.

She was introduced to the Commons by two right-wing, middle-aged men. One was something in the Whips' Office, the other some subtler kind of hack. She'd picked them on purpose. When she was asked to swear an oath to the Crown, she refused. The two gentlemen were rather taken aback. She said she could not swear an oath to a power that was oppressing her people. She sought the replacement of the existing state with a workers' state. The only oath she would be prepared to take would be of loyalty to her class - but in any case she preferred to be judged not by her oaths but by actions. The House refused to admit her and she was denounced by her own party's leadership. It was all exactly as she had planned. (Eventually she was persuaded by comrades to take the oath, her point having been made: there were practical advantages to be gained.)

She was praised in both the socialist and the capitalist press. They loved her. News Line praised her as the true inheritor of Trotsky's mantle; in the Morning Star she was said to uphold the spirit of militant Trades Unionism; Socialist Worker praised her selflessness and discipline in struggle. The Daily Mail, while demanding she be tried for subversion, found much to praise in "her honesy and independence. How refreshing a change from the canting and hypocritical protestations of patriotism made by most socialist politicians." Even The Sun found her personality "charming". The Mirror had no good word for her, but she made The Times crossword. (2 DOWN Quiet! Republicans - retreat, Right.) A plate-glass University invited her to give a guest lecture as part of its Sociology foundation course. She was most amused by it all. She enjoyed a good laugh, as one MP from the north-east put it, in his column in a popular tabloid. For a few years all was fine, apart from the trouble with the neighbours. Everything she did or said was misreported, increasing the loyalty of the converted and drawing in more and more of the curious, to whom she taught the truth and who would then work hard for the revolution. They wrote leaflets Sharir could find no fault with. They arranged distribution networks and collected funds. A bank robbery provided some money. Dope-dealing provided more. (Only hash and bush, though. Harder drugs were counter-revolutionary.) Most funds came from voluntary donations. They bought computers and modems and scanners and printers and the freehold on an office in Covent Garden. Since Sharir was infamous there were problems at first with property agents, but finally money was listened to. She had most of the material essentials of a party structure.

But it was not a party, nor pretended to be. It was a sect with the potential to become a faction. Sharir issued a statement. It was also signed by two other MPs, both white.

THE STATEMENT

"1.

We believe that without unity between the black and white working class and unity between all oppressed people, power can not be taken away from the capitalists and militarists.

The task of all socialists is to organise the working class to take power through its own autonomous institutions.

White-blouse and white-colour workers are as exploited and oppressed as manual workers. Service work is productive work.

Work in the home is as valuable as work elsewhere.

Racism, sexism and heterosexism must be fought constantly, bitterly and unyieldingly wherever they are found. Socialism is a necessary but not sufficient precondition for the elimination of these forms of oppression.

We are aware that the State (the Rich) will use arms against us. We will defend ourselves."

The statement became known by its last two words, and the parliamentary group, which expanded over the next few months, as the Self-Defence Group of MPs, or usually just Self-Defence.

The period of Fleet Street indulgence was well past by now and the Times, the old Thunderer, though it had been whimpering of late under the hand of a vulgar proprietor, vented spleen, giving a concise exegesis of the Establishment position.

THE EDITORIAL

"Brevity is a virtue rare in politics. The statement issued on Monday by Ms Sharir Jagam MP is remarkable and laudable for that quality at least. In every other respect it is remarkably dangerous, though how it is to be interpreted is not always clear.

Its main themes are fourfold: economics; the nature of political institutions; the nature of political change; and the position of what we may term disadvantaged minorities.

The underlying economic assumption seems to be that all work is of equal value. This is clearly not the case. An hour's labour spent digging coal or nursing a seriously ill patient is clearly more valuable than an hour's labour spent painting the swings in the park. And an hour spent considering decisions that will help keep a pit viable or a hospital running smoothly is clearly more valuable again. Such propositions are so elementary that it is surprising to have to repeat them for the benefit of a purportedly intelligent woman.

So perhaps the author simply intends to abolish the market. The human consequences of such a policy would inevitably be undesirable - witness the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge or Stalin's enforced collectivisation of Soviet agriculture - but rather than put our own case, we suggest that Ms Jagan could do well to look at the thinking of the mainstream British Left. As Peter Kellner has written in the New Statesman: 'If we define our socialist objectives in a complex, modern society to be the fairest feasible distribution of wealth and power - rather than the narrower definition of absolute equality - then the abolition of markets becomes not only unnecessary but undesirable.'

On the questions of political change and institutions, no more need be said than that the model proposed is totalitarian and the means of achieving it violent. However, the Labour Party leadership has been asked often enough to do something about such tendencies within its membership, and it has signally failed to respond. With the publication of this document, serious consideration should be given to legislation to keep our democracy healthy: perhaps some form of register, independently administered, of persons eligible to seek election to parliament.

Finally, Ms Jagan makes specific reference to minority groups, and indeed such concern has been one of the most prominent features of her political life. In a democracy care must always be taken to safeguard the rights and the welfare of minorities. But it is wrong to assume that prejudice and discrimination are part of the essential fabric of our way of life. They are not, and we would ask Ms Jagan this question: if her analysis of racism is correct, how has she herself attained such prominence? Might it not rather be the case that she is mistaken?

Ms Jagan should look deep within herself in her search for prejudices, for not only does she threaten the vast majority of the British people with her malicious aphorisms, she also deliberately misleads the very minorities for whom she purports to speak, with the intention not of improving their condition but only of glorifying herself. Ambition, we suggest, has given rise in Ms Jagan to a racism of the most venal kind: the abuse and exploitation of black British citizens by one of their own number."

One of the main reasons for such concern was her oratorical potency. The ruling class had got used to socialist politicians who communicated well from the television studio. The orthodoxy of the time, Left and Right, was that such televisual skills were far more important than the ability to speak to a crowd. Sharir confuted such opinions, showing mob oratory and the small screen not incompatible.

Possibly the Government's most significant act, it now seems with hindsight, was its sponsoring of the Broadcasting (Political Balance) Act, originally a Liberal private member's bill intended to clarify the rules governing political television programmes. One of its main side-effects was that Sharir's speeches and rallies could be broadcast in their entirety if the TV people wished - which they often did.

This was partly because her speeches were always preceded by performances from popular musicians of the day. But the music was simply a prelude. The speech was the thing. (Interestingly, according to British Audience Research Board figures, every one of her speeches broadcast during her third year in parliament had a larger audience than any contemporary music programme shown on the same or any other channel.)

The effect when she spoke was of a pleasurable shudder, followed by the need to act. She always began nervously, especially in the early days before her national fame, but the trait persisted even at the height of her confidence. I don't think she ever pretended. Nonetheless, the crowd would sense the fury and compassion gleaming compressed behind her eyes, and they sympathised. She would shake visibly. But her voice never quivered. The final huge rally staged by the Greater London Council prior to its abolition was the scene of perhaps her greatest moment. She was still largely unknown outside socialist and anti-racist circles (though there she was idolised) and the two other speakers were probably the best known socialists in the country. She was greeted with polite applause by the sudience. There was a pause. She seemed to want to see the mood of every face. Then the first word, the inevitable "Comrades..." boomed out. She trembled. They trembled back, a little afraid. She made them feel, each one, that they were on the platform, trying to say, as she was, that Capitalism Must Be Destroyed. And after the faltering, when her breath came more regularly (I was standing nearby, so I know), they listened closely and heard her denunciations.

The miners had not been left isolated. Nor in future would the struggles of women and black people be isolated. All sections of the class were uniting. Violence was justifiable. Unity was all. To be black was to be angry. Anger was insufficient. It had to be channelled. The party must organise itself so anger could be used. Use was all...

And so on. The content mattered to no-one. The rich, deep voice reverberated from the imposing block of County Hall, back through the throng in the open Thames-side gardens, back into her own ears, and billowing over the water's edge rolled out across the evening to Westminster and Whitehall.

Her eyes grew wide, immense black moons large as the slogan bearing barrage balloons afloat over the canopy of the stage, two satellites in a dark grey sky. She sang. O Freedom. The final tonic rumbled through the crowd, all assuming now a common role in a common historical struggle, all seeming to glimpse a more bearable future and certain, moreover, that they could build one. She ended with a string of victories, to various socialist guerrilla movements around the world and to various governments beleaguered by contras. A final Victory to the Working Class, fist punching at the stars, elicited a tremendous roar as she stepped away from the microphone and lit a cigarette before disappearing into the gloom at the back of the platform. The incoherent cheering and clapping and stomping resolved into a regular andante handclap over which was chanted "The Workers United Will Never Be Defeated." It went on for fifteen minutes. We slipped away and caught a bus back home.

I remember we were plagued with cat fleas at the time. I switched on the TV to catch the news. We both flopped onto the sofa and put up our feet on an old chest covered with a cloth, which served as a coffee table. Soon our legs were bitten and itching around the sock-line. We would pull up our trouser legs and pick off the fleas, which we put in a small bowl of water we kept there. They drowned, if you held them under long enough.

The BBC reported the speech, showing a thirty second clip of the peroration, the last verse of the Freedom Song and ten seconds or so of the ovation. The reporter concluded, with a peculiar mixture of superciliousness and respect, that a new figure had arrived on the national stage (his words not mine).

I got up to put the kettle on. In the fridge there was one unopened carton of fresh milk. Next to it were three opened and nearly empty cartons of sour milk and a carton of rancid orange juice. I took them into the bathroom to flush their contents down the loo (the kitchen sink being jammed with dirty dishes). I threw the milk in first, then the juice. The milk globulated. Then I had a piss. The urine was a darker colour than normal, perhaps because I'd had little to drink that day.

Back in the kitchen the kettle was beginning to steam. I stood waiting for it to boil, dishcloth in hand, for a minute or so. Then, coffee made, I went back through to the front room. She wasn't there. Nor was she in the bathroom the bedroom or the boxroom or out in the common entrance lobby or the street. She'd just gone.

I didn't see her for a long while, except on television or from a distance at rallies. Her fame grew. Cheques arrived regularly by post, enough money to live on, never with any kind of covering note. When her parents died I sent condolences, which she didn't acknowledge. I often felt tempted to phone her but never dared. It seemed that in leaving she had shed a great burden. She seemed healthier, and her energy, which had always been prodigious , soared to inbelievable levels. She worked harder than ever before and seemed less taxed by it. She was everywhere.

Sharir ubiquitous, I hid away. I ventured out only to the local shop or the pub, where I sat in my corner with my books or argued politics, safe from the real struggles that were going on, a bar-room know-all. I read everything. I was comfortable in this world of signs, with my cat for company (and fleas in summer). In the party, the caucus, the committee, I had always felt, and must have appeared, awkward, even at times ridiculous. I could not speak their irregular rhythms. Now with no reason to try and continue, I was relieved to be able to withdraw, and though my conscience, a marxist Jimminy Cricket, kept telling me "Agitate, Educate, Organise" it was easy enough to ignore him.

It was surprising, then, that she should turn to me when she faced probably political destruction and possibly a long time in jail. The obscurer corners of newspapers had suggested trouble brewing. Usually such rumour indicates correctly that something is wrong; but what is wrong bears no relation, usually, to the rumour. So I knew little, nothing of substance, nor wanted to. I didn't want to think about her.

I was standing on Waterloo bridge, looking towards St. Paul's, culture palace to the right, skyscrapers and old facades to the left. London's heart seemed lying still from here, but Soho throbbed, a bruise, and many a nearby High Street threatened convulsions. A seemingly healthy heart, stricken with thrombosis. She strode into the silence of the bridge and asked me to go for a drink with her at a pub close by.

People stared at us when we went in. I was unsure whether this was because she was famous or because she was black and I was white. During our years together it was always for the latter reason. Now I couldn't be certain. Anyhow, I felt acutely, pleasurably self-conscious in a way I hadn't known since she'd left me. We sat near a window in an upstairs bar.

"I've arranged for someone to meet us here later", she said. "You'll probably think he's stupid."

She was wearing green and looked like a tree, brown limbs as elegant as ever. We looked out over the bridge and the river. Her lips were fleshy, kissable, perfect. I said nothing. The river flowed upstream.

"Now," she said when we'd settled, "we have some business."

"I don't want any business. I dislike politics now, and public life."

"Yes. I know."

"And in any case your reputation has only ever been danaged by any visible association with me."

"It won't be visible. It won't be what it seems."

I was silent for a while. I was only thinking, but she took it for interest.

"The business", she said, "is only this: I'm liable to be arrested soon."

"For what?" I asked.

"For conspiracy to cause explosions."

"I see", I said.

I looked out of the window. A bus to Hackney Wick was passing. The top deck was empty but for a group of five young people at the back, chatting and laughing. I started to get up but she told me to sit down. I did.

"There's nothing you can do about it." She was momentarily pathetic.

"Then why do you want me?" I said, feeling as though I'd been called in to solve a crossword for her.

"Because I have a logistical problem. I have in my possession three hundred Kalashnikov rifles. I'd intended to use them in a series of armed robberies in the Midlands."

I wondered whether a crowded bar was the most appropriate place for such a conversation. I wondered whether one really needed three hundred Kalashnikovs for a few mundane armed robberies.

"So?" I said.

"So now my uncle needs them in Guyana." I'd heard a lot about Guyana once, and her revolutionary relatives.

"So why do you want me?"

"I have to get them from here to Guyana as soon as possible. At the very least I need them out of my house before I'm arrested. I want you to sort something out for me."

My experience of guns was limited to having once fired a Browning semi-automatic pistol under strict supervision on an army firing-range when I'd been in the Scouts. In any case my flat was tiny. Where could I keep three hundred Kalashnikov rifles? Certainly I couldn't throw out my books for them.

"Surely", I said, "you have people you can trust to do such things for you, and premises you can use."

"All watched."

"And I, if I'm seen talking to you, will be watched as well?"

"We're not being seen at the moment."

"I assume your house is permanently watched."

"Yes."

It was certainly an interesting problem. She went to the bar, stared at again. It was odd she should seem so confident. When she came back I asked whether she thought it likely that I was being watched already.

"No", she said. "We've had you followed to check."

"But if I were to visit your house, wouldn't I be seen and then followed - by them?"

"I wouldn't let you in. No-one comes in. But yes, you'ld be seen and followed, like any other visitor."

"And any vehicles", I said, "seen removing anything of any kind from the house, would be stopped and searched?"

"Yes. Eventually."

"I see", I said. "It's certainly an interesting problem."

A tall, quasi-intellectual-looking man came to the table and greeted Sharir with casual affection. His features, though, were rounded and immobile. Sharir introduced him as Roger. My first impression was that he was indeed stupid.

"Are you going to let them arrest you?" I asked Sharir, after a suitable pause for Roger.

"Probably. But that's none of your business. You're only concern is the weapons."

I thought I saw a hint of smugness in Roger's face at this remark.

"I'll need some time to think about it", I said.

"But you'll do it?"

"Yes."

"Good. Another drink?" I nodded. She went to the bar. She'd always drunk a lot. Roger was evidently teetotal.

I expected that he'ld speak now we were alone, but he didn't so neither did I. He looked around the bar. At first he seemed interested in some horse-brasses, then his attention shifted to some cheap Balkan crockery on the shelf above the counter. A strange choice of lover, I thought, for Sharir. But perhaps I shouldn't judge him yet.

"How's your work?" asked Sharir when she'd settled back in her chair. Her tone was informal for the first time.

"Fine." We chatted for a while about theatre and a couple of humorous events on one of Sharir's Commons committees. No further reference was made to the more important side of her political activity or to her personal feelings about her situation. She was pleasant, amusing, that was all. When the conversation came to a suitable pause, she said she'd better be going. She put her cigarettes and lighter in her bag, picked up her coat and said "See you", smiling. Roger said "Bye", the only word he had spoken since our initial greetings.

I stayed behind to think. Sharir had said, in effect, that she wouldn't be speaking the truth; and I was the only person to whom she could tell only the truth. All her lies would be reported, perhaps by Roger, perhaps by some lip-reading drunk, unobtrusive at the bar. Only I knew how she thought. Only I could translate. No word of hers was a lie to me.

Evidently it was impossible for the guns to be moved. And even if it were possible, they could not be stored. I could hardly call on my semi-political friends (the only ones with large houses) and ask them to find a bit of extra room in their deep-freezes or to squeeze a few pieces into the spare bedroom.

An obvious solution was for them not to be moved at all, at first. All that was neeeded was to give the impression that they had been moved. But another thought occurred to me. If the house were under such close surveillance, how had the guns been put there unseen in the first place? Either they had been cached a considerable time ago, when the watch was less strict, or there was some secret way in and out of the house. If the former the problem was not materially affected; if the latter I would not have been asked to help. Perhaps there were no guns at all.

Sharir might have guessed that I would propose the solution I had thought of. To give the impression that guns are being moved is to do the same thing whether the guns exist or not. Perhaps also it was important that the impressionist be seen by the state to be someone in whom Sharir might have great trust; and someone whom at the same time Sharir knew to have no knowledge whatever of her secret organisation. I fitted perfectly. What I had to do was in effect nothing: something I had always wanted to do to perfection. I had to not-run non-guns.

I'd had a few drinks by now. So had the rest of the customers. There is something repulsive about frivolity and drunken laughter when one is drunk and oppressed with worry, so I got up to go. As I pushed through the mass of incoherent features I realised Roger's usefulness. No doubt he never forgot a face. With his simple skills and open eyes and silent mouth, Sharir could move around with a certain assurance. Perhaps that was why she loved him. Even the stupidity would help, though it didn't help him. He was later imprisoned.

The train was filthy and inadequately lit. No happy kids on a bus in the Strand. Old, miserable, filthy, coughing men and loutish clerks in their late twenties swore their way to south-east London. Eventually I got home. I flopped into bed. The bed felt filthy too.

Two days later the following headline appeared in the first edition of my newspaper: "MP DEFECTS TO CUBA - Police smash planned campaign of violence." The story or the real story, which came about very shortly after dominated television news. The BBC's current affairs section did several hour-long specials on "...the background and the extraordinary woman at the centre of it all." World In Action managed to obtain an interview with Sharir in Havana. In general she was reviled. The gutter press hung around my door, looking for muck, offering money if I would "tell all". But I'll never do that, dear reader, not even to you. I can only outline the sequence of events, or what I know of them.

The day after our meeting I awoke with the same feeling of disgust with the world, and nausea - caused by what? By the world refusing to fit, or the booze the night before? Probably the latter. I decided to call on Sharir in any case, my main intention being not so much to see her as to be seen seeing her.

The house was glowing in the morning sun. I was scruffy in t-shirt and jeans. As I went through the garden gate I saw two men sitting in a large Volvo about thirty yards up the road. Perhaps there were also cameras hidden in nearby buildings.

Sharir came to the door.

"I thought you might like a walk in the park", I said.

"Yes, alright. I'll get my jacket."

She went back into the house, leaving the door open. The entrance hall was completely bare. She was back within seconds, with jacket and bag. She wore beige, a loose jacket with square shoulders and baggy pants tucked at the waist and tapering to the ankles.

We walked up the road. Once she would have put her arm in mine. We would have frolicked, smiled sentimentally at sparrows up to summer tricks, admired wild flowers. None of that. Only once in that walk up the hill did she seem the old Sharir, off-duty. A ginger kitten pawed apparently at air, eyes intent a few inches in front of its face. Then we saw a butterfly hovering just out of its reach. Just an imago, Pussy Cat, I thought, real brief and unreachable. Sharir stood and said "Ah" and stood a moment longer. Then she strode on to the park. She always strode. You would never describe it as walking.

Hilltop Park provides, as the name suggests, a magnificent view over London and the countryside. We stretched on the grass looking south into Kent and Surrey, smoke, congestion and the necessary selfishness of the city behind us. I summarized my thoughts of the previous evening and asked whether the guns existed or not.

"No", she said. "They don't. That is to say, I have guns, but not in my house."

"I suppose you are hoping that if the police think you've moved your 'guns', they won't bother to search the house."

"On the contrary", she smiled slyly, "at the moment they have no grounds for suspecting anything. They have no right to search it."

"When has that ever stopped them?"

"You forget I'm a very important person. They have to treat me strictly according to the rules. But if they see suspicious packages being removed, they'll have reasonable grounds for believing suspicious packages might remain."

It had not occured to me that she wanted them to search the house. I didn't ask why. No doubt some devious plot was going on. For once further curiosity failed me, but I wondered why she hadn't told me the truth the day before.

"I know you like puzzles", she said. "If I'd just told you the truth straight out you'ld have rejected it out of hand. And I make it a general rule never to tell the truth if I can help it. It just confuses people. And not to lie would be worse. It would be to become ineffective. Like you I would be tacitly condoning everything that is wrong. To weep for the world may be very noble, to sing may be even finer: but to lie, to say what might possibly be case, is to become human, to make history, to improve on things."

"Or to fake history."

"No, not at all. When you sit and ponder, and only ponder, then you are faking history. Not faking historical facts, but the nature of history itself. You are saying History just happens, there is nothing you can do about it. That is the biggest lie of all, the biggest possible lie - the one lie worth avoiding."

I supposed she was right. Suddenly Sharir's behaviour struck me as altogether rational. That remarkable air of composure and self-confidence owed nothing to the vigilance of Roger's uninspiring eyes: it was because she was living in her own invented universe, in a fiction so powerful that it might soon replace the real world and would then be a fiction no longer, since a change in our forms of perception is at least a precondition of the revolution (to steal one of her favourite phrases), if it is not the revolution itself. But now the conflict was so strong that each world made nonsense of the other. Either there had to be a revolution or Sharir would be deemed mad.

There is the story of Wittgenstein asking why the ancients believed that the Sun went round the Earth. "Because it looked like that." "I see," said Wittgenstein, "and what does it look like now?" Sharir was sane enough, like Wittgenstein. I had no choice but to approve of her.

Anyhow, that night I drove my van to her impenetrable house. The unmarked Volvo was still parked in the same place, still with two men inside it. I went to the door and rang the bell. Sharir appeared. In the hallway there were three large chests. They were filled with books - there was soon to be a fund-raising book fair at the Labour Club, which was where we were taking them. They could have contained anything.

She dragged one of them to the threshold. I carried it to the van. Likewise for the other two. We drove to the club. The Volvo apparently decided to stay put. Sharir opened the club and we left the chests, locked up and started to drive back. Then she asked me to drive her to New Cross Station. I did. That was the last I ever saw of her. She faded into the warm night, still wearing the beige. Her edges blurred as she moved further away from me and when she turned and went into the station I could distinguish her only vaguely from the objects and buildings around her.

I was stopped on the way back to my flat by uniformed officers in an ordinary police car. They found nothing. All my papers were in order. The van was in perfect mechanical condition and I hadn't had anything to drink. My flat was searched. Eventually I went to my bed, which for some puzzling reason seemed cleaner than the previous night. I was busy constructing a psychological explanation before I remembered I'd changed the sheets that morning

The headline appeared next day. A statement had been issued by the Cubans when Sharir was in a plane somewhere over the Atlantic. The sub-headline concerning the campaign of violence turned out to be somewhat inaccurate. The later editions of the paper carried the following on the front page: "FIVE POLICEMEN DEAD IN BOMB OUTRAGE: MP defects to Cuba." This rather took me aback, but it was true.

Between them the papers told the whole story. At least I have no evidence that they omitted any relevant facts or that any of the following is incorrect.

"Police say Ms Jagan took a tube to Rotherhithe on the East London Line. She was picked up by boat somewhere between Cherry Garden Pier and the Rotherhithe Tunnel. Then, according to Cuban sources, she was taken to an undisclosed location where a plane..."

"...the MP had been under close Special Branch surveillance for some time. An enquiry is under way to discover how she evaded..."

"Following suspicious movements, police obtained a warrant to search her south London home. Nine officers were in the building when the bomb went off. The booby-trap device, of a type known to have been used by the IRA, is believed to have been detonated while floorboards were being removed."

"The five dead were named as..."

So it was that I killed five policemen. Books were dangerous after all. Sharir always had a fine sense of irony, and she still gives me money. Cheques arrive monthly, not in her name of course, but from the Cuban Embassy, 167 High Holborn, London WC1.