City of Spades - By Colin MacInnes Page 0,10

all sounds a lot of nonsense to me,’ she said, ‘though I dare say it’s worth twelve pounds a week for them to keep you. The chief thing for you to remember, though, is that it’s just a job like any other, so don’t get involved in politics, race problems, and such inessentials.’

‘No.’

‘To do a job well, and get on, you must never become involved in it emotionally.’

‘Theodora, do tell me! What is it you do yourself within the BBC?’

‘You wouldn’t understand,’ she said, ‘even if I told you.’

I looked round at the bookshelves, packed to the ceiling with the kind of volume that would make this library, in thirty years’ time, a vintage period piece.

‘I thought,’ I said, ‘I might go down and investigate that hostel this evening.’

‘Why? Is it your business?’

‘To tell you the whole truth, I’m not sure what my business is. My predecessor hadn’t the time or inclination to tell me much, and my chief’s away on holiday for another week. It’s an awkward time for me to take over.’

‘Then leave well alone. Just do the obvious things till he gets back.’

‘But I’ve heard such complaints about our hostel. One student in particular, called Fortune, said it’s quite dreadful there.’

‘It probably is. All hostels are. They’re meant to be.’

She started typing again.

‘I’ll leave you then, Theodora.’

‘Very well. And do learn to use your time and get on with a bit of work. Your biography of John Knox – how many words have you written this last month?’

‘Very few. I’m beginning to dislike my hero so much he’s even losing his horrid fascination.’

‘Persevere.’

‘I shall. May I have another gin?’

‘You can take the bottle with you, if you can’t resist it.’

‘Thank you. And what are you writing, Theodora?’

‘A report.’

‘Might I ask on what?’

‘You may, but I shan’t tell you.’

‘Good evening, then.’

I went upstairs sadly, and changed into my suit of Barcelona blue: a dazzling affair that makes me look like an Ealing Studio gangster, and which I’d ordered when drunk in that grim city, thereby, thank goodness, abbreviating my holiday in it by one week. As I drank heavily into Theodora’s gin, the notion came to me that I should visit these haunts against which it was my duty to warn others: the Moorhen, the Cosmopolitan dance hall, and perhaps the Moonbeam club. But first of all, I decided, adjusting the knot of my vulgarest bow tie (for I like to mix Jermyn Street, when I can afford it, with the Mile End Road), it was a more imperative duty to inspect the Welfare hostel. So down I went by the abandoned stairs and corridors, and hailed a taxi just outside the Zoo.

It carried me across two dark green parks to that SW1 region of our city which, since its wartime occupation by soldiers’ messes and dubious embassies, has never yet recovered its dull dignity. Outside an ill-lit, peeling portico the taxi halted, and I alighted to the strains of a faint calypso:

‘I can’t wait eternally

For my just race equality.

If Mr England voter don’t toe the line,

Then maybe I will seek some other new combine’

somebody was ungratefully singing to the twang of a guitar.

I gazed up, and saw dark forms, in white singlets, hanging comfortably out of windows: surely not what the architect had intended.

I walked in.

There I was met by three men of a type as yet new to me: bespectacled, their curly hair parted by an effort on one side, wearing tweed suits of a debased gentlemanly cut, and hideous university ties. (Why do so many universities favour purple?) They carried menacing-looking volumes.

‘Can I be of assistance to you?’ said one to me.

‘I should like to speak to the warden.’

‘Warden? There is no such person here by nights.’

‘We control the hostel ourselves, sir, by committee,’ said another.

‘I, as a matter of fact, am the present secretary.’

And he looked it.

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘is Mr Fortune possibly in? A Lagos gentleman.’

‘You could find that for yourself, sir, also his room number, by consulting the tenancy agenda on the public information board.’

He pointed a large helpful finger at some baize in the recess of the dark hall. I gave him a cold official smile, ignored the baize board, and walked upstairs to examine the common rooms and empty cubicles.

This Colonial Department hostel smelt high, I soon decided, with the odour of good intentions. The communal rooms were like those on ships – to be drifted in and out of, then abandoned. The bedrooms (cubicles!), of which I inspected one