Charles Snow - Last Things

I didn’t enquire why. It was true that he often carried security precautions to eccentric lengths. If this had happened to me in comparable circumstances, I couldn’t help thinking, I should have been a good deal less self-denying and more boastful.

After dinner Margaret went with him to his room and helped him pack: which reminded me of one of my hypercivilised acquaintances doing precisely the same for her husband, each time he left her for a new girlfriend.

In the bright warm evening the three of us stood outside on the pavement, large suitcase standing beside Charles, waiting until a taxi came along. He waved to us from inside, and then we were left gazing as it joined the traffic stream to Marble Arch.

Back in the drawing-room, Margaret looked at me.

‘Well, that’s cool enough,’ she cried. She burst out into laughter, full, sisterly, sensual.

I hadn’t been sure what she was feeling: at that moment, she was feeling exactly as I was, it wasn’t just a fatherly response, she shared it. Nothing subtle, just pleasure, the warmth of sexual pleasure at second hand. Mixed with approval that he didn’t lack enterprise. But mainly we were getting what, if you wanted to be reductive, you could think of as a voyeuristic joy. That was there: but it wasn’t quite all: it wasn’t quite so self-centred as that. It wasn’t in the least lofty, though. We were animals happy about another animal. And to parental animals, the happiness was rich.

In that sense Margaret – and it surprised me a little – felt as I did. If this had been a daughter? No, there was a disparity one couldn’t escape. I was certain that I should have been miserable. Perhaps there would have been some sexual freemasonry underneath, but worry would have overwhelmed it. I supposed that would have been true, and presumably more true, of Margaret also.

After a time, in which we had taken an evening drink, Margaret became more pensive.

‘I don’t think this is going to be good for him, you know.’

‘Oh well. If it hadn’t been her, it would have been another.’ That sounded platitudinous and non-controversial, but it provoked Margaret.

‘But it is her. You can’t brush that away.’

‘He might have done worse, in some ways–’

‘I don’t like her.’

‘I’ve told you before, I don’t like her either.’

‘You like her a lot more than I do,’ said Margaret. ‘She’s a cold-hearted bitch.’

I didn’t remind Margaret that once she had been a partisan of Muriel’s and had tried to look after her.

‘You’re not going to pretend, are you,’ she burst out, ‘that she’s in love with him?’

‘Does that matter?’

‘Of course it matters. Do you think it’s good to have your first affair with someone who doesn’t give a damn for you?’

‘My impression was, she had some feeling for him. I don’t understand what it is.’

‘She’s five years older.’ Margaret had flushed, her eyes were bright with temper. ‘You all say she’s attractive to men, she could have her pick, unless there’s something wrong with her. Why in God’s name should she throw herself at him? What has he to offer her? He’s too young. I could understand it perhaps if he were her own age, then he might be a good prospect–’

She went on: ‘I tell you, I can’t understand it. Unless – there are just two reasons why she might be doing it. And neither of them is very pleasant.’

‘Go on,’ I said.

‘Well, she might be one of those women who like seducing boys. That would be bad for anyone like him–’

‘It’s possible.’ I stopped to think. ‘I shouldn’t have thought it was likely, though. I haven’t heard her talk about his being young. I doubt if she thinks of him like that.

‘Anyway,’ I added, ‘I’d guess that he’ll soon be able to look after himself in that sort of way.’

‘If it’s not that,’ she said, ‘it’s something worse. She’s determined to get him to herself. Away from us. So that she can fix him right inside that wretched movement of theirs. And she’s chosen the one certain way to fix him.’

I had already thought something not unlike that myself: this might be the second stage of the struggle. In that case, she had all the advantages.

‘Are you happy about that?’ Margaret was distressed by now: and, as often happened, her distress turned into anger.

‘No.’

‘Do you want him to waste himself?’

‘You might remember, that I’m not responsible for any of this. Just because I’ve said one word in her favour–’

Margaret broke into a guilty smile, then hardened again.

‘But he may be wasting himself you can’t deny it, can you? If she gets control of him, and makes him sink himself in this nonsense, then he could be a casualty, of course he could. To begin with, if that takes up all his time, his work is going to suffer.’

‘He’s pretty tough, you know. And he likes doing well. I really do doubt if that will happen.’

‘Anyway, it’s a waste of anyone like him. He ought to be thinking of something worthwhile. If he spends his energy on something which anyone of his sense ought to see is useless, and worse than useless, then he can do himself harm. Whatever he wants to do later. It’ll take him a long time to recover. Just because this woman has got hold of him.’

I hadn’t any answer which satisfied either of us. She was exaggerating, I said, she was making Charles out to be weaker than he was; she was leaving out all that he would do, if Muriel didn’t exist. But none of that was comforting. She had made me apprehensive, as I hadn’t been for a long time: in a fashion which I had become released from, the future was throwing its shadows back.

OUR housekeeper, getting it both ways, mourned the departure of the last young presence from the flat and simultaneously showed robust Mediterranean enthusiasm for its cause. When Charles, becoming punctilious towards her as to Margaret, telephoned to say that he would call on us for a meal, he was welcomed by his favourite dishes. This happened regularly twice a week throughout the late summer; Charles came in at six, talked cheerfully through dinner without mentioning Muriel or his way of life, and left at ten. He did take care to dispel one of Margaret’s qualms. Yes, he was working: he was too much conditioned not to, he said, teasing her over the exploits of her academic grandfather and uncles. Their reading parties! He was prepared to bet that he did more work by himself than they did smoking their pipes, taking marathon walks, cultivating personal relations and revering G E Moore.

All was serene, on the plane of conversation. It was harder for her than for me to accept that most of his existence she couldn’t know.

Then, soon after he had returned to Cambridge for the Michaelmas term, she had news of her other son. It was in the middle of an October afternoon when, reading in the study, I heard the doorbell ring. Moments afterwards it rang again, long and irritably. No one was responding. I got up and went to open the door myself.

There, on the landing, stood Father Ailwyn, bulky, white face shimmering over black cassock. He didn’t smile: he moved his weight from one foot to the other.

I asked him to come in. His awkwardness infected me. I wasn’t fond of uninvited visitors: and also he was one of those of whom I thought kindly when he wasn’t there – and uneasily when he was. And yet, I had a regard for him after that talk – or interrogation – in the hospital.

As I led him into the drawing-room, neither of us spoke. When he was sitting down, light falling on the pale plump face, which might have looked lard-like if his growth of beard, clearly visible after the morning shave, hadn’t been so dark and strong, he was still mute. Then we managed to exchange words, but his tongue seemed as thick as it usually did, and mine more so.