The Ministry of Fear

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            THERE was something about a fête which drew Arthur Rowe irresistibly, bound him a helpless victim to the distant blare of a band and the knock-knock of wooden balls against coconuts, Of course this year there were no coconuts because there was a war on: you could tell that too from the untidy gaps between the Bloomsbury houses -- a flat fireplace half-way up a wall, like the painted fireplace in a cheap dolls' house, and lots of mirrors and green wall-papers, and from round a corner of the sunny afternoon the sound of glass being swept up, like the lazy noise of the sea on a shingled beach. Otherwise the square was doing its very best with the flags of the free nations and a mass of bunting which had obviously been preserved by somebody ever since the Jubilee.

            Arthur Rowe looked wistfully over the railings -- there were still railings. The fête called him like innocence: it was entangled in childhood, with vicarage gardens and girls in white summer frocks and the smell of herbaceous borders and security. He had no inclination to mock at these elaborately naïve ways of making money for a cause. There was the inevitable clergyman presiding over a rather timid game of chance; an old lady in a print dress that came down to her ankles and a floppy garden hat hovered officially, but with excitement, over a treasure-hunt (a little plot of ground like a child's garden was staked out with claims), and as the evening darkened -- they would have to close early because of the blackout -- there would be some energetic work with trowels. And there in a corner, under a plane tree, was the fortuneteller's booth -- unless it was an impromptu outside lavatory. It all seemed perfect in the late summer Sunday afternoon. "My peace I give unto you.

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