Mrs Parsons looked on helplessly.

’Of course if Tom was home he’d put it right in a moment,’ she said. ’He loves anything like that. He’s ever so good with his hands, Tom is.’

Parsons was Winston’s fel ow-employee at the Ministry of Truth. He was a fattish but active man of paralysing stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms —

one of those completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, more even than on the Thought Police, the stability of the Party depended. At thirtyfive he had just been unwil ingly evicted from the Youth League, and before graduating into the Youth League he had managed to stay on in the Spies for a year beyond the statutory age. At the Ministry he was employed in some subordinate post for which intel igence was not required, but on the other hand he was a leading figure on the Sports Committee and al the other committees engaged in organizing community hikes, spontaneous demonstrations, savings campaigns, and voluntary activities general y. He would inform you with quiet pride, between whiffs of his pipe, that he had put in an appearance at the Community Centre every evening for the past four years. An overpowering smel of sweat, a sort of unconscious testimony to the strenuousness of his life, fol owed him about wherever he went, and even remained behind him after he had gone.

‘Have you got a spanner?’ said Winston, fiddling with the nut on the anglejoint.

‘A spanner,’ said Mrs Parsons, immediately becoming invertebrate. ‘I don’t know, I’m sure. Perhaps the children -’

There was a trampling of boots and another blast on the comb as the children charged into the living-room. Mrs Parsons brought the spanner. Winston let out the water and disgustedly removed the clot of human hair that had blocked up the pipe. He cleaned his fingers as best he could in the cold water from the tap and went back into the other room.

’Up with your hands!’ yel ed a savage voice.

A handsome, tough-looking boy of nine had popped up from behind the table and was menacing him with a toy automatic pistol, while his smal sister, about two years younger, made the same gesture with a fragment of wood. Both of them were dressed in the blue shorts, grey shirts, and red neckerchiefs which were the uniform of the Spies. Winston raised his hands above his head, but with an uneasy feeling, so vicious was the boy’s demeanour, that it was not altogether a game.

‘You’re a traitor!’ yel ed the boy. ‘You’re a thought-criminal! You’re a Eurasian spy! I’l shoot you, I’l vaporize you, I’l send you to the salt mines!’

Suddenly they were both leaping round him, shouting ’Traitor!’ and ’Thoughtcriminal!’ the little girl imitating her brother in every movement. It was somehow slightly frightening, like the gambol ing of tiger cubs which wil soon grow up into man-eaters. There was a sort of calculating ferocity in the boy’s eye, a quite evident desire to hit or kick Winston and a consciousness of being very nearly big enough to do so. It was a good job it was not a real pistol he was 12

holding, Winston thought.

Mrs Parsons’ eyes flitted nervously from Winston to the children, and back again. In the better light of the living-room he noticed with interest that there actual y was dust in the creases of her face.

’They do get so noisy,’ she said. ’They’re disappointed because they couldn’t go to see the hanging, that’s what it is. I’m too busy to take them.