Charles Snow - Homecomings

‘Good.’

‘He’s head over heels in love with her, of course.’

‘Good,’ I said again.

‘There is one other thing.’

‘Is there?’ I heard my own voice dull, mechanical, protecting me by thrusting news away.

‘She’s going to have a child.’

As I did not reply, he continued: ‘That will mean a lot to her, won’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Of course,’ said Gilbert, ‘she can’t have started it more than a month or two—’

While he was talking on, I got up and said that I must have an early night. There were no taxis outside, and together we walked up Oxford Street: I was replying to his chat affably if absently: I did not feel inimical; I already knew what I was going to do.

The next morning I sat in my office thinking of how I was going to say it, before I asked Vera Allen to fetch Gilbert in. He slumped down in the easy chair beside my desk, relaxed and companionable.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘I want you to transfer to another branch.’

On the instant he was braced, his feet springing on the floor, like a man ready to fight.

‘Why?’

‘Will it do any good to either of us to answer that?’

‘You just mean, that you want to get rid of me, after four years, without any reason, and without any fuss?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I mean that.’

‘I won’t accept it.’

‘You must.’

‘You can’t force me.’

‘I can,’ I replied. I added: ‘If necessary, I shall.’ I was speaking so that he would believe me. Then I added in a different tone: ‘But I shan’t have to.’

‘Why do you think you can get away with it?’

‘Because I need you to go to make things easier for me.’

‘Good God,’ cried Gilbert, his eyes angry and puzzled, ‘I don’t think I deserve that.’

‘I’ve got great affection for you, you know that,’ I said. ‘You’ve been very good to me in all kinds of ways, and I shan’t forget it. But just now there are parts of my life I don’t want to be reminded of—’

‘Well?’

‘While you’re about, you can’t help reminding me of them.’

‘How do you mean, I can’t help it?’

‘You can see.’

Hotly, angrily, without self-pity or excuse, Gilbert said: ‘It’s my nature. You know how it is.’

I knew better than he thought; for in my youth I had been as tempted as most men by the petty treachery, the piece of malice warm on the tongue at a friend’s expense, the kind of personal imperialism, such as he had shown the night before, in which one imposes oneself upon another. Even more I had been fascinated by the same quicksands in other men. As to many of us when young, the labile, the shifting, the ambivalent, the Lebedevs and the Fyodor Karamazovs, had given me an intimation of the depth and wonder of life. But as I grew up I began to find it not only unmagical, but also something like boring, both in others and myself. At the age when I got rid of Gilbert Cooke I found it hard to imagine the excitement and attention with which, in my young manhood, I had explored the transformation-scene temperament of an early friend. As I got near forty, my tastes in character had changed, I could not give that attention again. If I had still been able to, I could have taken Gilbert as an intimate friend.

WHEN I told Rose that I wished to transfer Gilbert Cooke, I had an awkward time.

‘Of course, I have only a nodding acquaintance with your dashing activities, my dear Lewis,’ said Rose, meaning that he read each paper word by word, ‘but I should have thought the present arrangement was working reasonably well.’

I said that I could see certain advantages in a change.

‘I must say,’ replied Rose, ‘that I should like to be assured of that.’

‘It would do Cooke good to get a wider experience—’

‘We can’t afford to regard ourselves as a training establishment just at present. My humble interest is to see that your singular and admirable activities don’t suffer.’ He gave his polite, confident smile. ‘And forgive me if I’m wrong, but I have a feeling that they will suffer if you let Master Cooke go.’

‘In many ways that’s true,’ I had to say in fairness.

‘I shouldn’t like us to forget that he showed a certain amount of moral courage, possibly a slightly embarrassing moral courage, over that Lufkin complication last year. I scored a point to his credit over that. And I have an impression that he’s been improving. He’s certainly been improving appreciably on paper, and I’ve come to respect his minutes.’

As usual, Hector Rose was just. He was also irritated that I would not let him persuade me. He was even more irritated when he learned how I proposed to fill Gilbert’s place. For, finding me obstinate, and cutting the argument short, he admitted that they could probably give me an ‘adequate replacement’; it was the end of 1943, there were plenty of youngish officers invalided out, or a few capable young women ‘coming loose’.

No, I said, I would not take a chance with anyone I did not know through and through; the job was going to get more tangled, and parts of it were secret; I wanted someone near me whom I could trust as I did myself.

‘I take it that this specification is not completely in the air, and you have some valuable suggestion up your sleeve?’

I gave the name: George Passant. The man who had most befriended me in my youth, although I did not tell Rose that. He had been working as a solicitor’s managing clerk in a provincial town for twenty years. The only point in his favour in Rose’s eyes was that his examination record was of the highest class.

Further, I had to tell Rose that George had once got into legal trouble, but had been found innocent.

‘In that case we can’t count it against him.’ Rose was showing his most frigid fairness, as well as irritation. He dismissed that subject, it was not to be raised again. But sharply he asked what proofs ‘this man’ had given of high ability. His lids heavy, his face expressionless, Rose listened.

‘It isn’t an entirely convincing case, my dear Lewis, don’t you feel that? It would be much easier for me if you would reconsider the whole idea. Will you think it over and give me the benefit of another word tomorrow?’

‘I have thought it over for a long time,’ I replied. ‘If this job’ — I meant, as Rose understood, the projects such as the headquarters administration of Barford which came in my domain — ‘is done as it needs to be done, I can’t think of anyone else who’d bring as much to it.’

‘Very well, let me see this man as soon as you can.’

Just for that instant, Hector Rose was as near being rude as I had heard him, but when, three days later, we were waiting to interview George Passant, he had recovered himself and, the moment George was brought in, Rose reached heights of politeness exalted even for him.

‘My dear Mr Passant, it is really extremely good of you, putting yourself to this inconvenience just to give us the pleasure of a talk. I have heard a little about you from my colleague Eliot, whom I’m sure you remember, but it is a real privilege to have the opportunity of meeting you in person.’

To my surprise George, who had entered sheepishly, his head thrust forward, concealing the power of his chest and shoulders, gave a smile of delight at Rose’s welcome, immediately reassured by a display of warmth about as heartfelt as a bus conductor’s thanks.

‘I don’t get to London very often,’ said George, ‘but it’s always a treat.’

It was a curious start. His voice, which still retained the Suffolk undertone, rolled out, and, as he sat down, he smiled shyly at Rose but also man-to-man. They were both fair, they were both of middle height, strongly built, with massive heads; yet, inside that kind of structural resemblance, it would have been hard to find two men more different.