The Flame of Life

CHAPTER FIFTY

Dawley and Myra got married at St Pancras Town Hall, accompanied by the two children already born to them, and Handley who acted as best man. Nancy had divorced Frank for desertion, and she had used her freedom in the same way — as an end to independence.

Myra’s house seemed empty. Maria and Catalina had gone back to Spain. The caravans were vacant, and so was the flat over the garage. When Handley took his children Myra and Dawley were left with Mark, and Saul the new baby. The community had died.

Frank’s book was published, and went through three hardcover reprints in a year, and then into a paperback edition. It was not popular with the reviewers, but became well-known nevertheless, especially among young people and students, for it not only covered the adventurous times in Algeria, but contained his observations on street-fighting and guerrilla warfare, so that it became a technical handbook on the subject. Though it was weak on the political side, many organisations invited him to give talks and lectures, and out of these he got ideas for future essays.

But as time went on he did not know how to reconcile his revolutionary principles and writings to his life as a normal family man. It bothered him most when he was happiest, because he was happiest when he was in the garden with his children, feeling he had no right to be happy with so much misery and devastation in the world. But he could not avoid loving Myra and the children and being happy. They talked about the problem, but he could find no answer. The main thing was that the question continued to gnaw at him.

He woke up at four one summer’s morning, a slit of light at the blind. Lately he’d not been able to sleep much, and instead of tormenting himself with it he dressed in silence, and walked downstairs.

The sky was low and milky across the paddock, as if it would turn into a hot fine day. A snail lay on one of the steps, a slimy track behind, so he stepped aside to avoid crushing it. The gate squeaked on its hinges: he’d oil them later. The far hedge was tall and dark, blackberry creepers reaching out and putting new tentacles tenaciously among the grass, digging their roots in.

It seemed the end of life, this beginning of the day in which the birds were so loud from neighbouring fields and trees that it sounded as if they were getting ready to take over the earth — hoping that all men had gone from it during their brief sleep.

This end of life was the fire of life, in which the flame was often invisible, nonexistent. How could one live without this flame? You didn’t have to see it to believe it was there. If it was in your heart you could see it spring up in all different places. As long as it stayed in your heart your revolutionary principles were not at variance with the way you lived.

He could wait, and warm himself at his own flame, and let others share it when they needed it. Waiting and guarding your own flame with the faith of your life was justification enough. Because when the call came, when he had waited until he knew what to do, when it was necessary to go out to a cause and do something, then he would do so — but always finally remembering, and being troubled by, the words of Handley’s brother John. In the meantime the flame stayed plain, and as long as you loved those nearby you would know what to do when the time came.

And if it never did? he asked himself with the healthy bite of scepticism. While the flame of his heart stayed with him he did not need to answer that question. Life in any case was brief enough. If it never came he still had to live. Yet he knew beyond all doubt that it would come. The world that he knew was made that way.

Feeling good to be alive and up so early, he went back to the house to make breakfast for his family.