Sam looked away and Willie thought , he &apos;s got you , Sam , you &apos;re afraid . you &apos;re not a socialist now . you see , Parnell said . it shows the power of a newspaper which has strong beliefs and acts on them and perseveres . he waved a sheaf of letters . congratulations pouring in . so what ? Willie said . you &apos;ve proved the power of dirty propaganda . that &apos;s been done before . Parnell came around the desk and embraced his shoulders . Willie , when will you realize ? every newspaper makes propaganda . you know what Beaverbrook told the royal commission . he owns his newspapers for no other purpose . it may be propaganda for the left or right , it may be for the middle way . but it &apos;s all propaganda and with good reason . his white hand tightened on Willie &apos;s shoulder . what you &apos;d have is a sheet which tells the truth , the whole truth and nothing but the truth . but what is the truth , Willie ? I do n&apos;t know . I only know what I think is true . I act on it and try to show others , like the politician on his platform and the parson in his pulpit . you must allow me that , Willie - the freedom of holding an opinion and expressing it with every force at my command . very plausible , Willie thought , except for one thing . you hold the opinion , then make others express it . you do n&apos;t allow them the freedom which you claim as a right . I know you &apos;re a socialist , Willie . with your background you have to be . you &apos;ve never got 1926 out of your memory . but you must n&apos;t take it so hard . you should learn to lose more gracefully . Willie looked at the white hand , then at Parnell . he kept his gaze steady until the hand fell away . then he said : it &apos;s not the victory , it &apos;s the means . you &apos;ve done your bit towards making journalism a shameful thing . he turned slowly and went out . Miss Simpson raised a hand to him , slightly and secretively , because he was her favourite . as he raised his hand in mild answer , his thoughts said , something happened in there just now . we moved another step nearer the inevitable , the show-down . Parnell on one side , me on the other , and no compromise in between . he went up the stairs to Joe &apos;s room . the news editor was cleaning his pipe ; pushing the white cleaner in one end and waiting for it to come out brown at the other . have you seen the letters ? Joe said . all the congratulations ? Willie went to the window , looking out at nothing . I could puke . you do n&apos;t want to take it personal , Willie . you and me and the rest of us . we do what we &apos;re told . we do n&apos;t make the policy . that &apos;s no answer . no excuse . Joe dropped the cleaner into the waste-basket . he replaced the stem in the bowl , twisting it another squeak so that the mouthpiece became comfortable to his teeth . he took out his tobacco-pouch and filled the bowl , fingering down a shred which curled over the edge . then he tapped his pockets for matches . it does n&apos;t matter , Willie , he said , finding them . it is n&apos;t worth the trouble . Willie did not answer . he knew that in this room it was n&apos;t worth the trouble ; that nothing mattered except Joe &apos;s do-nothing , say-nothing , be-nothing . he knew that if he stayed long enough , here in this room which this man had made , he would do nothing , say nothing . he went out to the corridor and along it to his room . in the reporters &apos; room Ritchie &apos;s voice was plain : on some newspapers there &apos;d be champagne to celebrate . through the opened door of another room he saw the sub-editors , crouched over their copy like cold hens on a perch . Willie opened the door which said Mr Whittaker and slumped into his chair ; biting his thumb , his thoughts boiling with anger and disgust and humiliation . he reached for the telephone and half a minute later her voice was there . Helen , will you eat with me , drink with me &amp;hellip; somewhere ... anywhere ? he imagined her surprise . she said : why , yes , Willie , of course . we could go out in the country somewhere . one of those places where we used to go . before , he hesitated and added , before the war . that would be nice . he knew she was perplexed by the peremptory invitation , by his sudden need of her . he said : I want a drink , a good long drink . I &apos;ve a bad taste in my mouth . that was the beginning . chapter nineteen . no , not the beginning , Willie thought . our beginning is years ago , when I thought my tie was a propeller and you were on the outside , always looking in . since then it &apos;s been there , like a star in the night . they lay in the green shade beneath trees , where the river ran away with the sunshine and the leaves went up and down , like the sleeping breath . he told her about Slack Lane and his boots and Blonkin ; of the great , wagging head and the yellow teeth and the watchful cruelty . but that was not all about Blonkin . there was more to him than hooligan boots . during the war , Willie said , Blonkin was a prisoner of the Japanese and they thought he knew something , so they filled him with water and held him upside down and hit him with rifle-butts while the water fell out . at ten o&apos;clock each day they hit him , and at half past nine each day he was mad with waiting . of course he did n&apos;t know what they wanted him to tell , and though he tried to guess what they wanted and told them all of it , his poor mind was n&apos;t clever enough to guess what they wanted , so they clubbed him again for trying to deceive them . now Blonkin is back in Slack Lane , living on medical certificates because of what the Japs did to him , and other men say there he goes , always boozing , living free and doing nothing . see what happens when there &apos;s a welfare state . he told her of Creedy ; tall and pale and intense , for ever dependent on his wife who knew about his studs and socks and what he had done with the tickets . I used to hate Creedy , when I was twelve and he forced me to learn more than I believed I could learn . I used to lie awake planning how to kill him , how I would kill him when I was a man and big enough . all my love was for his wife . she was my first love and when she smiled at him I was jealous , and when he bullied her I changed the gun to a knife because it would last longer . but now I see what he tried to do and what it cost him . now I &apos;m grateful for all he tried to do and ashamed of the boy who gave him nothing in return , not even thanks . he wrote me long letters during the war , clever letters but excited , too , excited not about the war but about what would happen afterwards . in Greece , the Balkans , in Arabia and Egypt and Africa , in India and Burma and Malaya . he was always looking ahead to what the war meant to those countries and what freedom would mean to them . Helen murmured : is he a communist ? and Willie smiled as he shook his head . everybody these days has to be something . conservative , socialist , communist , as though you must belong to some party to have any opinion worth calling an opinion . but Creedy does n&apos;t belong to any opinion . he &apos;s an individual . he thinks for himself . sometimes he sounds like a communist . sometimes like St Francis . sometimes like a boy lost in the dark . but to me he &apos;ll always be what he was all those years ago . a sincere man , for ever crusading , if not against ignorance , then for a boy from Slack Lane who sat in the back row and made raspberry noises . I know now what I did n&apos;t realize then , that without Creedy I &apos;d have been in Slack Lane for ever , doing nothing and learning to know that it was nothing . dying by eight-hour stints . then he told her of Aunt Nance and the dream ; a white cottage in the country with the wood-smoke pottering from the chimney and the delphiniums blue . she asked questions about this cottage , probing him , so that he told her about the logs of wood , criss-crossed in the hearth , about the kettle-holder on its hook and the red curtains and the low beam at the bottom of the stairs . he could not understand her interest in this cottage , for , of course , there was no such cottage and could never be ; it was just the creation of a dream . he did not ask why she probed for details . it was enough just to talk . they began to go everywhere , so that people learned to say : hello , Willie , hello , Helen , nice to see you , Helen . he loved to hear them linking their names in this way . the link was a form of marriage . at the races they said it . Harry Carr said : hello , Willie , then touched his cap for Helen . at the theatre they said it . Charlie Chester welcomed them to his dressing-room - only milk , Charlie said , I &apos;m drinking milk - then pulled up a chair for Helen . at the City ground they said it . Stanley Matthews said : always nice to see you , Willie , then gave his shy nod and smile to Helen . Willie was grateful to the big names ; to Colin Cowdrey and Jack Hawkins and Ted Ray . they could see how much it meant to him . and when there were parties to celebrate a new play , new book , new hit-song , new exhibition , Helen was there to help him through , although he &apos;d always said he despised parties ; you paid too high a price for the free drink . he said : it &apos;s all right as long as I look across the room and see you , Helen . never mind the crap talk , the scratch-my-back talk , the men pretending to be women and the women wishing they were men . as soon as I see you and know you &apos;re still there , then it &apos;s all right , Helen . they never mentioned Parnell , but he seemed to be there ; in the back seat , his forearms on their seats , watching with amusement , because the more they shared the more vulnerable they became . once Helen said : we &apos;re not married , not really married , and slowly , reluctantly , disjointedly it came out . how it had begun by Parnell sleeping in the dressing-room , because he came home so late and did not wish to disturb her . then he had put aside pretence and slept in another room , making it plain to the girl who could not understand . that was 1939 , Helen said , the year of the war . his glance was shocked and the car swerved . that &apos;s a long time , the glance said . Helen &apos;s smile still showed the hurt . it took me a long time to realize that he did n&apos;t find me attractive any more . I made excuses . hundreds of excuses . I pretended not to know about the other women . then there was the war and the evacuees , such beautiful children , and my letters to you and yours to me and in the end there was this , Willie , what we have now . you and me . you could divorce him . he knew at once that she would not . before she died Mummy wanted me to divorce him . she &apos;d learned to hate , she who was always so gentle , she &apos;d learned to hate and cared about nothing except that hate . not the scandal , not the gossip , nor the harm it would do to the newspaper . but I can n&apos;t . the herald means too much for that . he drove with sudden anger , glancing at the speedometer , then boosting it higher . it flickered around seventy and she glanced in alarm . he saw the alarm and let the rage go out of him . the needle flickered down to sixty , to fifty , and the old car relaxed like a horse when the race is done . careful , Willie , or we &apos;ll never get there . 