“Your handler won’t have anything tae identify you by except these codes. And no one else will know them.” Eddie seemed to be trying to say it in a reassuring way.

“I don’t want to leave a trace of who I am.”

“That’s already agreed. Ah think ris wull work out just fine. The codes for the first contact just need to be quite exact so rut, wance we’ve goat a use fur ye, we assign a handler. He gets ra code words and then gets in touch with ye.”

“It’s all good Eddie.”

“Ruh hing is, you may never hear frae anyone. This all depends on you getting into some sort ae position where yu’re goannae be useful. It also depends on you no aborting when yu’re coantacted.” Eddie paused. He wasn’t sure if he was allowed to say this but he was going to anyway. “By ruh way if you want tae abort fur ideological reasons dae it now, right? I don’t want tae be part ay a complete waste ay time.”

“No problem, Eddie. I don’t know why you doubt me. I trust the Party. I’m in agreement with its overall objectives. As far as I’m concerned, aborting is only for operational reasons – if there’s an obstacle. We can suspend and resume if we have doubts and only abort if we know for sure there’s an insurmountable problem. We discussed it all in detail back at your place. We went through lots of different scenarios. We even did some role play exercises, as you know.”

“Remember, frae now oan yu’re no going tae be dealing wi’ pals. There’s gonnae be no Stuart, no Eddie, no naebuddy tae help frae now oan. I know ruh guy that I’m handing this envelope tae, but I don’t know what kind of person or group that it goes tae efter rat. We have tae trust that it’s someone competent.”

“I’m sure it will be. I’ve never met anyone in the Party that was a fool.” He hesitated and then decided he’d better say it. “One thing though, Eddie. As you know, I’m not interested in marches or any of that sort of agitprop shite. I want this to be something real. If I’m going to do anything, I want it to be something significant. I don’t want to find that my mission is to unplug the photocopier or put some scratch marks on the boss’s car.”

“Fur this idea of yours to work, we have to hope that you end up somewhere useful.”

“That’s not looking too good at the moment. I might need to try to change the course of my degree a bit. Accountancy would be good but I don’t fancy it. I might have to add in a bit more Economics.”

“Ah wish ah could just casually say stuff like that. I struggled tae get a few O levels.”

“Well, I’m not saying it will be easy, but I need to find something that gets me somewhere.”

“Ah’m still worried. As soon as you get a decent job as an accountant, or whatever, you’ll be wan ay ‘them’ – the bosses. You’ll be driving around in a fancy car waving two fingers at yur old coamrades.” Eddie’s face was already starting to twist in anger at the thought.

“It’s not like that at all, Eddie. This is more important than making a few quid for myself. I want to see a new kind of society. If an advanced country like Britain can give a lead, the world will follow. It will transform the lives of millions of people. The way society’s organised just now, money and status are intertwined. In the society we want, the link will be broken. Do you see what I’m saying? Money …” he gave a grunt of disgust. He’d said stuff like this before anyway. He didn’t need to finish his sentence. Eddie knew what he meant.

“Right, OK, let’s get oan wi’ it. So this is what you need tae do. This is the list ay actions that need codes.” Eddie pushed a form towards Richard. “You already have this list from our last meet. I’ll go out tae ruh bookstore and leave you tae write codes that corre- spond to each of these actions. When yu’re done, droap it aw in ruh envelope here and I’ll come back in and get it. Take yur time. Yu’ve got aw day. I’m just going to go outside and chat to Linda while you get ruh codes written.”