Charles Snow - George Passant

To most of the town tonight George is ‘a solicitor accused of fraud’. ‘I hope they get him’; a good many men, as kind-hearted as any of us can ever be, said at the time that I was reading. We are none of us men of flesh and bone except to ourselves.

Should I have had that reflection later in my life? Maybe I should have thought it over-indulgent. For in time behaviour took on a significance to me at least as great as inner nature. It was a change in me: not necessarily an increase in wisdom, but certainly in severity: a hardening: not a justification, but a change.

Excusing myself from dinner, I went to George’s. He was alone listening to the wireless by the fire. ‘Hallo,’ he said. His cheeks were pale, and the day’s beard was showing. He seemed tired and lifeless.

‘I didn’t know whether anyone would come round,’ he said.

Jack and Olive entered as we were sitting in silence. Although there was a strained note in his laugh, Jack came as a relief.

‘We’d better do something,’ he said. ‘It isn’t every day one’s sent for trial—’

‘You fool,’ cried Olive and put her arm round his waist.

Soon the room was crowded. Roy came in, Daphne, several of those I had seen at the farm in September. They had made a point of collecting here tonight. George whispered to Daphne for a while, and then, as the others addressed him with a pretence of casualness, he said: ‘I didn’t expect you all.’ He was embarrassed, uncontrollably grateful for the show of loyalty.

Jack laughed at him. ‘Never mind that. We’ve got to amuse them now they’re here. This has got to be a night.’

A girl replied with a sly, hungry joke. There was a thundery uneasiness. The air was full of the hysteria of respite from strain, friendliness mixed with the fear of persecution and the sting of desire. We left the room, and packed into Olive’s car and Roy’s and another young man’s. In the early days none of us thought of owning a car. We were poorer then; but now even the younger members of the group were not willing to take their poverty so cheerfully for granted.

We drove to a public house outside the town. The streets were still shining with the lights of Christmas week; a bitterly cold wind blew clouds across the sky; the stars were pale. As Olive drove us past the last tramlines, she took a corner very fast, swerved across the road, so that for a second we were blinded in a headlight, and then brought us away by a foot — a flash of light and the road again.

‘Silly,’ Olive cried.

In this mood, I thought, she could kill herself without it being an accident. Once or twice in our lives, we all know times when some part of ourselves desires to turn the wheel into a crash; just as we shiver on a height, feel the deathwish, force ourselves from the edge.

At the public house they were quickly drunk, helped by their excitement; Olive and Jack danced on the bar floor, a rough whirling apache dance. Everyone was restless. As the night passed, some of them drove to another town, but before midnight almost the entire party had gathered in Rachel’s flat.

‘They can’t do much harm now,’ said Rachel. ‘It’s a good job there’s somewhere safe for them to come.’ The flat took up the top storey of an unoccupied house near the station. Rachel had become secretary of her firm, and it was her luxury to entertain George’s friends, while she watched them with good-natured self-indulgence.

Olive and I stayed in the inner room. Through the half-open sliding doors we saw some of the girls and heard George’s voice throwing out drunken and passionate praise. Jack came to Olive.

‘When are we going home?’

‘Not yet,’ she said. She was smiling at him. Her words were as full of excitement as George’s. ‘You want to stay, don’t you?’

He laughed — but suddenly I felt that he had become dependent on her. He went back, and from our sofa she could see him caressing a girl, and at the same time attracting the attention of the room.

Olive’s eyes followed him.

‘I don’t mind that as much as I did once,’ she said to me. She added: ‘He isn’t as drunk as the rest of us. He never has liked drinking, you know. He’s as — temperate as Arthur. It’s queer they both should be.’ She went on talking quickly about Morcom, among the noise of the other room.

‘You know,’ she went on, ‘I never felt he was such a strong man as the others did. I liked him, of course.’ Then she said: ‘He wasn’t my first lover, perhaps you don’t know that. You knew me best when I was still frightened of my virginity, didn’t you? Strange how strong that was. But it wasn’t strong enough—’ She looked into the room with a half-smile. ‘Jack seduced me one night—’

‘When?’ I had not known.

‘Before my father died.’

‘Were you attached to Jack, then? I didn’t think—’

‘I was always fond of him, of course. But not in the way that’s got hold of me since,’ she said. ‘No, it just happened — we met in London somehow. He never was a man to fail for want of trying. I had one or two weekends with him, afterwards. At odd times. You know how erratic he used to be. It didn’t matter much, just for once he’d think it might be a good idea.’

‘And you?’

‘Sometimes I refused. In the end, I was driven back, though. I suppose one’s always driven back. Then I didn’t see him for a long time.’

‘What about Arthur, then?’

‘I’d thought a lot of him. I’d heard from him all the time we were away. Then when I came back, he wanted me more than ever. Just then I didn’t see why not.’

‘She paused. ‘You’ve no idea how hard a time it was. He was jealous, madly jealous at times. Of anyone I seemed to like. And I couldn’t help it, I kept playing on it. There were times when he was so jealous that he only got any rest when we were sleeping together. I drove him to that. He wanted me not really to make love — just to be sure of me. And I couldn’t help the little hints, that would set him off tearing himself with suspicion—’

I know,’ I said.

She said: ‘He used to treat me rough now and then. I didn’t mind that, sometimes I want it. You’ve guessed that, haven’t you? But even then I couldn’t believe the will was there.’ She went on: ‘We didn’t reach happiness. We both deteriorated, we were both worse people. Counting it all up, I don’t know who got hurt more. I can’t bear to think of his life just then; jealousy going on and on. It was like that in the old days, of course. Funny that he was always more jealous of Jack than anyone else. Even when there was no reason for it in the world.’

And so you left him and went to Jack?’ I said.

It was bound to hurt him — more than if I had gone to anyone else,’ she said. ‘But that had nothing to do with it. I tell you, I was really in love for the first time in my life.’ She added: ‘You’ve seen me with Jack. I want you to tell me that I’m not deceiving myself.’

I know you love him—’

But you think it isn’t simple — even now?’ She broke out. ‘I’ll confess something. When I went to Jack — I was certain that I belonged to him — I still wondered whether it was because of Arthur. That kept coming back. You imagine, it came back when Jack was after a new girl, when I wanted him and felt ashamed of myself. But I’m certain that I belong to him more than ever. It would have happened, if I’d never let Arthur come near me. I know it isn’t simple, it isn’t just a love affair. I expect he would prefer to have picked up one of those girls in there. I’ve had too many nights when I’ve wanted to break it off — and still been making plans for keeping him. But neither of us had any choice—’

Olive’s nerves were tightened with fatigue, fear, the laughs of hysterical enjoyment from the outer room. But she was exhilarated by putting Jack off, sitting within a few yards of his drunken party, and then confiding how much she needed him. She had thrown off any covering of self-pity, however. She seemed stronger than any of us. She was still cherishing some petty sufferings, as she had always done. Her longing for humility was real, but it sprang from the depth of her intense spiritual pride. No one could have mistaken — under the surface of her restless nervousness, full of the day’s degradation — still warmed and roused by Jack’s voice, tired as she was — that she was speaking from an inner certainty of herself.