Charles Snow - Corridors of Power

‘You’re no good,’ she said, practical and open. ‘You’ve got a wife.’

In the great drawing-room, most of the faces looked happy. Happier than in most gatherings, I thought. Then I saw Caro walking out on Roger’s arm, an impressive smiling couple, unselfconscious, used to catching the public eye. Were there others there with this kind of secret? There were bound to be some: if one knew these lives, there would be some surprises. But not, perhaps, so many as one might think. In this drawing-room the men and women were vigorous and hearty. ‘Peach-fed’ I had heard them called, though not by themselves. There were some love-affairs floating around. But most of them didn’t chafe against the limits of the sexual existence. Often they got more out of it than those who did. But they didn’t live, or talk, or excite themselves, as though there were, there must be, a sexual heaven round the corner. Perhaps, I sometimes thought, that was a pre-condition for the active life.

Anyway, most of them were happy. That night, they seemed to be getting a special happiness out of one another’s reflected glory: even the Prime Minister, though the glory reflected was his own. It was one of their rewards. What others were there?

In the hall, after Margaret and I had made our goodbyes, we waited while car after car, government car, firm’s car, were shouted for by name. Lord Bridgewater: Mr Leverett-Smith: the Belgian Ambassador: Sir Hector Rose. Margaret asked me why I was smiling. I had just remembered that I had once asked Lord Lufkin what rewards he thought he got, for a life which many people would have judged arduous beyond compare. Power, of course, I said. We took that for granted. The only other thing, I had suggested, was transport. He had not used a public vehicle in London for a generation: transport was always laid on. In the midst of his dog’s life, he travelled as though on a magic carpet. Lord Lufkin had not been amused.

When I saw the other men, brought together for dinner in Lord North Street the following night, I thought Roger had made a tactical mistake. Monty Cave was there, Leverett-Smith, Tom Wyndham: both Rose and Osbaldiston, and also Francis Getliffe. It was easy to see the rationale. Cave was Roger’s closest political ally, Leverett-Smith and Wyndham had had to know what was going on. The rest of us had all through been close to Roger’s policy. But everyone there, except Francis, had attended the reception the night before. If I had been Roger, I should have waited for the afterglow from the charmed circle to fade; then they might not mind so much the risk of being out of it.

As I sat at the dinner-table, Islamic except for Caro at the far end, I began to wonder what Roger’s intentions were. He wasn’t likely to speak openly, in front of Hector Rose or Douglas, or several of the others. He and Caro, who was working like an ally who has been rehearsed, seemed to be casting round for opinions: just how were the reactions coming in? They weren’t asking specific questions. They were sitting back, waiting for any information that was collecting in the air.

Just as when Roger talked to me about religion, I could not rely on my judgement of him, or even be sure, because it was flickering, what my judgement was. Was this the way he would start, if he were looking for an opportunity to withdraw? Perhaps he was not making a tactical mistake after all.

Certainly — and this was clear and explicit — he was giving everyone present the chance to come out with his doubts. He was not only giving them the chance, he was pressing them to do so.

After dinner, Caro did not leave. She was one of the junta, she sat over the port like the rest of us. Before the port was put on the table, something happened that I did not remember having seen in that house or anywhere else. The maids took off the tablecloth, then laid the wine-glasses on the bare and polished rosewood. It was, so she said, an old nineteenth-century custom which had been kept up in her father’s house. The glasses, the silver, the decanters, the rounded pinkness from a bowl of roses, were reflected in the table-top: perhaps that was what her ancestors had enjoyed, perhaps that was how she imagined them sitting, forming Victoria’s governments, handing out the jobs.

Sliding a decanter to Getliffe on his left, Roger said casually that everyone there knew pretty well who was for them and who against. For any sort of decision, one had to know that. Then he added, in the most detached of tones, rather like a research student at the Harvard School of Government: ‘I sometimes wonder how much freedom any of us have to make decisions? Politicians I mean. I wonder if the area of freedom isn’t smaller than one’s inclined to think.’

Hector Rose must have been sure of what he had expected all along, that Roger was preparing a loophole of escape. But Rose took up the argument, as though he were being either judicious or perverse.

‘With respect, Minister, I think it’s even smaller than that. The older I grow the more public decisions I have assisted at — in the French sense, I need hardly say — the more I believe that old Count Tolstoy was in the right of it.’

Tom Wyndham looked stupefied but obstinate, as though Hector’s opinions — obviously Russian-influenced — might well be subversive.

‘It’s slightly instructive to ask oneself’ — It was rare for Rose to go out to dinner, but he seemed, as he aged, suddenly to be enjoying company — ‘exactly what would be the effect on the public decisions, if the whole of your delightful party, Lady Caroline, were eliminated at one fell swoop? Or in fact, which I don’t think is really very likely, if we extended the operation and eliminated the whole of Her Majesty’s Government and the higher Civil Service? With great respect, I strongly suspect that the effect would be precisely nil. Exactly the same decisions would be taken within negligible limits, and they would be taken at almost exactly the same time.’

Douglas joined in. He was not averse to disagreeing with Rose, and yet they shared their service solidarity. They did not want the talk to become too concrete: so Douglas took his cue from Rose. He didn’t believe in predestination quite so much, he said. Perhaps other men could do the same jobs, make the same choices: but one had to act and feel as though that wasn’t so. When one was at the centre of things, said Douglas, one did make the choices. No one believed in predestination when he was making a choice.

He looked round the table. For an instant, his dégagé air had quite gone. ‘And that’s why we wanted to be at the centre of things.’

‘ We , my dear Douglas?’ asked Rose.

‘I wasn’t speaking only for myself,’ said Douglas.

Monty Cave, sitting opposite to me half-way down the table, had been watching Roger with quick eyes. His dinner-jacket rumpled, so that his body looked stubbier than it was, Monty caught everyone’s attention. Turning away from Douglas and Rose, he asked Roger, in a quiet and confidential tone: ‘Weren’t you saying — something else?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean,’ said Monty, and suddenly he could not resist the malicious fat grin, ‘weren’t you saying something a little nearer home?’

‘What do you think, Monty?’

‘I thought you were telling us that in politics, what’s going to be dead right ten years hence may be dead wrong now. That is unfortunately true. We all know that.’

‘Well?’ Roger had no expression.

‘I may have misunderstood you, but I thought you were asking us whether there was the faintest chance that mightn’t be the present situation.’

‘Was that the impression I gave you?’

‘In which case,’ said Monty, ‘wouldn’t you be in favour of going into reverse? Wouldn’t you tend to be just a little cautious?’