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with my own money. Have you a bottle opener, George?’
    Balfour went into the kitchen, taking with him the paraffin lamp, leaving the others in near-darkness, finding the corkscrew
hanging from a nail on the wall. He thought, not for the first time, surveying the pan scrubbers and ladles, the weighing
scales, the cake trays, the jars of herbs in a row on the shelf, that there were more things in this hut than in most normal
houses. He brought the corkscrew and the light back into the room.
    ‘Here we are,’ he said, giving Dotty the corkscrew and going back for the glasses. Dotty withdrew the cork herself.
    ‘Must be fair,’ she said, pouring the colourless liquid into the tumblers.
    ‘Why only four glasses?’ asked Joseph in triumph, anxious to put her in the wrong. He turned to look at the corner of the
hut where Kidney was sitting, face completely in shadow, only his legs and feet illuminated.
    Balfour hurried to fetch another glass from the kitchen.
    When they were all drinking, Joseph leaned forward in his chair and looking directly at Balfour asked, ‘What do you do?’
    ‘I’m in a factory.’ Tongue thick with alarm, Balfour moistened his worker lips. ‘That is, I’m a tool-fitter.’ He drank quickly,
disliking the taste, hearing Joseph say, ‘A tool-fitter. How very obscene, but fascinating, I’m sure. A man who works with
his hands.’
    ‘Not with his hands,’ said George. ‘With machines.’
    Gratefully Balfour echoed, ‘That’s right. I work with machines.’
    ‘It’s not very fascinating either,’ added George, swilling his wine round in the thick tumbler. ‘He’s been wanting to escape
for years. My father says – ’ his shoulders slumped somewhat, as some part of him always did at mention of Mr MacFarley – ‘that
Balfour is needed for better things than machines.’
    Oh God, blasphemed the inward Balfour, hating to be reminded of the better things. He drank his wine, not noticing the taste
as much.
    ‘What things do you feel you are needed for?’ asked Joseph.
    ‘I-I don’t feel that I’m needed at all,’ said Balfour. ‘It’s Mr MacFarley that seems to think that. I don’t think about it.’
    ‘Ah come now, tell me,’ Joseph persisted. ‘Tell me the truth. What do you do with your life apart from your machines?’
    ‘I w-work with young people,’ said Balfour. Then, in a rush, feeling liberated by the wine and compelled to answer, he added:
‘We have a c-club and we take lads into the country and we bring them here.’ Giving credit where credit was due, he continued:
‘Mr and Mrs MacFarley and George let us have the huts and we let them climb the mountain and we try to help them appreciate
the c-countryside.’
    ‘It sounds marvellous,’ said Joseph, ‘and very unselfish. Now me, I’m afraid – I’d find it difficult to devote my time to
young people in that way for so little return.’
    Dotty banged her glass down contemptuously on the table.
    Balfour wanted to ask Joseph what he was doing with Kidney if it wasn’t to help him, but he didn’t know exactly what Kidney’s
problems were and he couldn’t guess the kind of returns Joseph meant. Instead he said, gulping his Chablis: ‘But there’s enormous
returns. It’s very r-rewarding, believe me. I could tell you a lot of things about that. Very r-rewarding.’ He was aware that
his speech was becoming unsteady. Shaking his head, he affirmed: ‘Very rewarding. If you c-could see the kind of homes I go
into in the course of my d-duties you’d know what I mean. You see, I go to some houses to f-find out why some kid hasn’t been
to the club and there’s a bloody big tenement block of flats with a stone courtyard like a kind of barrack square and I …’
    ‘I know exactly what you mean,’ interrupted Joseph with enthusiasm. ‘Terrible architecture, no sense of community life, no
feeling of life at all. How can people grow and flourish with such ugliness all around them? How can their lives