There was an advertisement for a journal called the Universities and Left Review and Betty bought a copy in Dillon’s, reading it on the Tube back to Willesden. Their offices were in Carlisle Street and she thought she could try her hand at writing for them. She could start with a letter, since they said that’s what they wanted. Discussion. She had time now, and one or two ideas, though they probably weren’t good enough as everyone who wrote for them seemed awfully clever. They were all men, too. But they were young and even though she hadn’t gone to Oxford, she did have a degree and she was a woman and, well, she wanted to write about that, about the women’s side of things, as no one considered that. Not about peace, not about how they’d just been left to pick up the pieces, like Lieselotte had said.

Nobody answered the phone when she rang, so she thought she’d pay them a visit. It was a coffee bar. She checked the address. This was 7 Carlisle Street. She was in the right place, but this was the Partisan Coffee House. Perhaps they’d moved. The new people might be able to tell her where. She pushed open the door. There were young men and women sitting around tables, chatting or reading. Someone had a portable typewriter and was working on it. It had the air of a club, though there’d been no bouncers at the door. The place was packed, the rumble of conversation punctuated by laughs and in the distance the sounds of a skiffle band rehearsing. It was nothing like the espresso bars around them, reminded her of the cafés in Berlin that she remembered from before the war, the ones Mutti had dragged her to when she went to meet her friends. It had the same buzz, the same hum of people spending time, and although the decorations were nothing like the ones there, Betty could see they were well designed, and tasteful and probably rather expensive. Nor, Betty thought, were the clientele remotely similar. This was as far from the Berlin bourgeoisie as it was possible to get. This lot were bohemian. Probably believed in free love and all that. In fact, on reflection, it was nothing like the Kranzler Café or the Bauer.

She walked over to the counter. ‘Excuse me.’ The server was a young woman with a smiley face. ‘Do you know where the Universities and Left Review have moved to?’

‘U & LR? They haven’t moved,’ she said. ‘They’re on the top floor. But they’re all at a meeting now.’

‘When will it be over?’

‘Oh, you can go up,’ she said. ‘It’s the Direct Action Committee. All are welcome.’

‘Direct action?’

‘Ban the bomb and all that.’

‘I’d be interested,’ Betty said. ‘Where do I go?’