Death Comes to the Ballets Russes by David Dickinson Page A

religion, was a key part of being a true revolutionary.
    Arthur Cooper, the bus driver and active trade unionist, called the meeting to order.
    ‘Comrades,’ he began, ‘let me begin by thanking you all for coming to this meeting, especially when I didn’t feel able to tell you what it was about.’ He paused and took a long draught of his pint of mild and bitter. ‘Now I can give you the full story. Very soon now we are all going to take part in a major assault on the capitalist system. We are going into enemy territory. We’re going into the banks.
    ‘Let me explain. Several years ago our colleagues in Russia organized what the capitalist Press would calla bank robbery in the Georgian city of Tiflis. You and I would say it was setting the people’s money free. So tight-fisted were those bankers that they kept notes of all the numbers on the five-hundred-rouble notes. Five-hundred-rouble notes, comrades, are for so large a sum that no worker could possibly have owned one, let alone seen one. Those notes were indeed the fruits of the oppressing and exploiting class. Comrade Lenin and Comrade Stalin couldn’t change these notes in Russia. They tried to change them abroad but were foiled by counter-revolutionary forces. Now it is our turn. We will have a series of bundles of notes, one for each man present, ready for distribution shortly. We will have prepared individual street maps with bank addresses so that you will all be going to different banks. This revolutionary action should start at precisely eleven o’clock. The reason for the coordination is to stop the capitalist bankers ringing up their collaborators and raising doubts about our plan. If the lackeys at the counter ask where the large note came from, you are to say that it was sent to you by the lawyers looking after the will of a rich relation in Moscow. Please ask to change the money into pounds. Please be polite. Revolutions are not won by guns alone. You are asked by Comrade Lenin to bring the money back here. We will organize its transfer to Lenin’s current location to further the work of the revolution. I will try to answer any questions but I feel that revolutionary discipline should prevail. The less you know the better.’
    Cooper looked round his little audience. Nobody asked any questions.
    ‘Inside a week we shall further the cause of progress. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity! Let us close our meetingwith “The Internationale”.’ The song had been used by socialists, communists, anarchists, democratic socialists, all the different varieties of revolutionary factions.
    This is the final struggle
    Let us group together and tomorrow
    The Internationale
    Will be the human race.

    Powerscourt had suspected for some time that his wife Lucy slipped bad news into the conversation at times when he could not complain very loudly. They were just about to go to the theatre in a taxi when she announced that her Great Aunt Theodosia was coming to stay for a few days. She was a Stratton, this Theodosia, related to Lady Lucy on her mother’s side, and very rich. Her family lived in a vast house with more servants than rooms on top of one of the largest and richest coal seams in the country. This aunt was extremely old, extremely deaf and extremely difficult. Powerscourt had once claimed that in any contest to find the most reactionary person in Britain, Great Aunt Theodosia would win at a canter.
    ‘Why is she coming to stay with us, Lucy? Why can’t she take a room at the Ritz or book a suite at the Savoy?’
    ‘Honestly, Francis, she’s a relation. People don’t want to stay in strange hotels when they’re as old as she is. They want to be in the bosom of their family.’
    ‘What happens if the bosom of the family don’t want them?’
    ‘You’re being unreasonable, Francis, you know youare. Anyway, she has to come up to town on business. That’s what she said, anyway.’
    ‘What sort of business? Doctors? Wills? Solicitors? That sort of