Red Plenty

by Francis Spufford

Better not, she thought. ‘All right,’ she said.

Yet, since his was the level at which competence was known to reach its ceiling, people at it were sometimes, paradoxically, a good deal more important than their job title suggested.

‘Pfft,’ said Kosygin. ‘As if people would blame the machine and not us, when it suddenly doubled the price of heating oil in December.

Money will never be allowed to have the last word here. It will never be allowed to be “active". It will never be permitted to become an autonomous power.’

She did not think about it when it was not happening, but in bed Fyodor made her tremble and shake and break loose from herself in a way she had no idea how to fit together with the person she was in daylight. It had been true right from the beginning,