Charles Snow - George Passant

‘The first I ever had,’ said George, ‘happened on the night before my eighteenth birthday. She told me that she did it for a hobby. Afterwards, when I was walking home, it seemed necessary to shout, “Why don’t they all take up a hobby? Why don’t they all take up a hobby?”’ The words would have resounded boisterously three hours ago, when we entered that room; but now they were subdued. He was not randy sad, as Jack and I had been; this was a different, a deeper sadness. He knew the pleasure he had gained; and turning from it, he — whose pictures of the future usually glowed like a sunrise — felt all that he might miss.

‘I should have wanted something better before now,’ said Jack, ‘if I’d been you.’

‘It serves my purpose,’ said George. ‘I don’t know about yours.’

Jack smiled. ‘Why don’t you try nearer home?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that some of the young women in our group would be open to persuasion. You’d get more happiness from one of them, George. Clearly you would.’

‘That would destroy everything I want to do,’ George said. ‘You realise that’s what you’re suggesting? You’d put me into a position where people like Morcom could say that I was building up an impressive façade of looking after our group at the School. That I was building up an impressive façade — and that my real motive was to cuddle the girls on the quiet.’

Jack looked at George in consternation. For once in a quarrel, he had not raised his voice; yet his face bore all the signs of pain. Affectionately, Jack said: ‘I want you to be happy, that’s all.’

‘I shouldn’t be happy that way,’ said George. ‘I can look after my own happiness.’

‘Anyway, for my happiness, I’m afraid I shall need love,’ said Jack. ‘Love with all the romantic accompaniments, George. The sort of love that makes the air seem a remarkable medium to be moving through. I’m afraid I need it.’

‘I don’t know whether I need it,’ I said. ‘But I’m afraid that I’ve got it.’

‘Don’t you ever want it, George?’ Jack asked.

‘Of course I want it,’ said George. ‘Though I shouldn’t be prepared to sacrifice everything for it. But of course I want it: what do you think I am? As a matter of fact, I’ve been thinking tonight that I’m not very likely to find it.’ He looked at me with a sympathetic smile. ‘I don’t know that I’ve ever been in love — at least not what you’d call love. I’ve made myself ridiculous once or twice, but it didn’t amount to much. I dare say that it never will.’

It seemed strange that George, not as a rule curious about his friends’ feelings, should have recognised from the start that my love for Sheila (which had begun that summer) would hag-ride me for years of my life. Yet that night he envied me. George was a sensual man, often struggling against his senses; Jack an amorous one, revelling in the whole atmosphere of love. In their different ways, they both that night wanted what they had not tasted. Saddened by pleasure, they thought longingly of love.

I said to Jack: ‘I think that Roy would have understood what we’ve been saying. It would have been beyond us at fifteen.’

‘I suppose he would,’ said Jack doubtfully.

‘He’s been in love,’ I said.

‘I still find it a bit hard to credit that,’ said Jack.

‘No one would believe me,’ I said, ‘if I told them that you were a very humble creature, would they?’

At the mention of Roy’s name, George had become preoccupied; his eyes, heavy-lidded after the evening, looked over the now empty room; but that abstracted gaze saw nothing, it was turned into himself. Jack and I talked on; George sat silently by; until he said suddenly, unexpectedly, as though he was in the middle of a conversation: ‘I accept some of the criticisms that were made before we started out.’

I found myself seized by excitement. I knew from his tone that he was going to bring out a surprise.

‘I scored a point or two,’ George said to Jack. ‘But I haven’t done much for you.’

‘Of course you have,’ said Jack. ‘Anyway, let’s postpone it. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘There’s no point in postponing it,’ said George. ‘I haven’t done much for you, as Lewis said before ever Morcom did. And it’s got to be attended to. Mind you, I don’t accept completely the pessimistic account of the situation. But we ought to be prepared to face it.’

Clearly, rationally, half-angrily, George explained to Jack (as Jack knew, as Morcom and I had already said, though not so precisely) how the committee’s decision gave him no future. ‘That being so,’ said George, ‘I suppose you ought to leave Calvert’s wretched place.’

‘I’ve got to live,’ said Jack.

‘Is it possible to go to another printer’s?’

‘I could get an identical job, George. With identical absence of future.’

‘Well, I can’t have any more of this fatalistic nonsense,’ said George, irascibly, and yet with a disarming kindness. ‘What would you do — if we could provide you with a free choice?’

‘I could do several things, George. But they’re all ruled out. They all depend on having some money — now.’

‘Do you agree?’ George asked me. ‘I expect you know Jack’s position better than I do. Do you agree?’

I had to, though I could foresee what was coming. If Jack’s fortunes were to be changed immediately, he must have a loan. My little legacy had given me a chance: each pound at our age was worth ten to a man whose life was fixed. Jack was young enough to get into a profession — or ‘to have a shot at that business we heard about the other day,’ as he said himself.

‘Yes,’ said George. ‘So in fact with a little money now, you’re confident that you could laugh at Calvert and his friends?’

‘With luck, I should make a job of it,’ said Jack. ‘But—’

‘Then the money will have to be produced. I shall want you to let me contribute.’ George’s manner became, to stop Jack speaking, bleak and businesslike. ‘Mind you, I shall want a certain number of guarantees. I shall want to be certain that I’m making a good investment. And also I ought to warn you straightaway that I may not be able to raise much money myself.’ He went on very fast. ‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t put my financial position on the table. It’s all a matter of pure business. And I’ve never been able to understand how people manage to be proud about their finances. Anyway, even people who are proud about their finances couldn’t be if they had mine. I collect exactly £285 per year. (Such incomes, because of the fall in the value of money, were to seem tiny within thirty years.) Of that I allow £55 to my father and mother. I’m also insured in their interest. I think if I decreased the £55 a bit, and added to the insurance, they oughtn’t to be much upset. And then I could probably raise a fair sum from the bank on the policy — but I warn you, it’s a matter of pure business. There may be difficulties.’

Neither Jack nor I fully understood the strange nature of George’s ‘finances’. But Jack was moved so that he did not recover his ready, flattering tongue until we got up to catch our train. Then he said: ‘George, I thought we set out tonight to celebrate a triumph.’

‘It was a triumph,’ said George. ‘I shall always insist that we won at that meeting.’

IT took some days for Jack to settle what he wanted to do (from that night at Nottingham, he never doubted that George would find the money): and it took a little longer to persuade George of it.

Those were still the days of the small-scale wireless business. An acquaintance of ours had just started one; Jack had his imagination caught. He expounded what he could make of it — and I thought how much he liked the touch of anything modern. He would have been a contemporary man in any age. But he was inventive, he was shrewd, he had a flair for advertisement; he persuaded us all except George.