by Nevil Shute
“Do tell me if you would like to have the money back and I’ll send it at once, because honestly I don’t feel as though it’s mine at all.
“Yours sincerely,
“JENNIFER MORTON.”
She got this off by air mail at midday on Sunday, and relaxed.
That was a time of strain and gloom in England, with the bad news of the war in Korea superimposed upon the increasing shortages of food and fuel and the prospect of heavy increases in taxation to pay for rearmament. In the week that followed Jennifer’s return to work the meat ration was cut again, and now reached a point when it was only sufficient for one meagre meal of meat a week. When shortages are shared equally they are nothing like so painful as they would be in a free economy; if the Smiths can afford to buy meat and the Jones not, the strain may be intolerable, but if nobody can have the meat the lack of meat soon ceases to annoy. Nevertheless the present cut produced some serious and heated discussion at the lunch table between the men, which Jennifer listened to with interest. There were about three hundred clerical staff in that office of the Ministry of Pensions, and they mostly lunched together in one large canteen.
Forsyth, head of Department D.S. in Rehabilitation, said, “The plain fact of it is that these Argentinos have got us where they want us. They’ve got the food and we’ve got to have it or go under.”
Morrison, in the Accounts Branch, said, “We can’t pay the prices that they’re asking. The economy won’t stand it.”
“We’ll have to do without something, then. Free spectacles and false teeth. We’ve got to eat something.”
Somebody said something about the Minister of Food, “—that—fool. Getting the Argentinos’ back up.”
Sanders, from the Assessment Branch, said, “I don’t agree at all. It’s easy to sling mud at him, but he’s done a marvellous job.”
“In what way?”
Sanders said, “Well, the country’s never been so healthy as it is now. Everybody gets enough to eat. The only thing that you can say against the food is that it’s a bit dull sometimes. But everybody gets enough of it. Nobody dies of starvation in this country, like they do in France. That’s the difference between a controlled economy and laissez faire.”
Jennifer thought of one old lady who had died of starvation, but she said nothing. Her grandmother could have applied to the relieving officer, of course…. She could not speak without showing indignation, and it was better not to make a row before the men.
Morrison said, “There’s one big difference between this country and France.” He spoke with the deliberation of an accountant, and with a slight North Country accent.
“What’s that?” asked Sanders.
“You take a successful professional man,” said Morrison slowly. “A leading surgeon, maybe, or a barrister. With taxes and costs the way they are, he really hasn’t got a chance of saving for his old age, not like he could before the war. He’ll save something, of course, but a man like that, he doesn’t get into the big money much before he’s forty-five or fifty, and in the few good years that he’s got left he can’t save enough to retire on in the way of life that he’s accustomed to. He just can’t do it, with the tax and surtax as it is. You’ve only got to look at the figures to see that it’s impossible.”
Forsyth said, “That’s right.”
“Well, if a man like a first-class surgeon can’t save properly for his old age, nobody can,” said Morrison. “That means that nobody in England can feel safe. Everybody in this country today is worried sick for what may happen to him and to his wife when they get old, except the very lowest paid classes, who can get by on the retirement pension.”
“Well, how do you make out that things are any better in France?” asked Sanders.
“This way,” said the accountant. “In France the man like the surgeon or the barrister is taxed much less than he is here, and the working man pays proportionately more. I don’t say that’s a good thing—it may be, or it may not be. The fact is that it’s different. In France, the leading surgeon or the leading barrister can save for his old age, and save enough to give him security in the way of life he’s used to. He’s not worried sick for what may happen to him. In France, if you’re successful enough, you’re all right. That means that in France you’ve got some happy and contented people. Here you’ve got none.”
“Yes, but hell!” said Sanders. “That’s at the expense of the under-dogs.”
“I don’t say it’s not,” said the accountant equably. “I’m just saying that the French system does produce some happy people, and ours doesn’t.”
The argument drifted inconclusively along till it was time to get back to the offices.
A day or two later, to Jennifer’s interest, the subject of emigration came up. None of the older men seemed particularly interested in it. “My nephew, he went out to Canada,” one said. “He’s an engineer; got a job in a tractor factory in Montreal. He was out there in the war with the R.A.F., so he knows the country. He’s doing all right, but he says the winter’s terrible.”
“It’s not right, the way these young chaps go abroad,” said Sanders. “If it goes on, the Government will have to put a stop to it.”
Jennifer spoke up with suppressed indignation. “Why should they do that?” she asked. “Why shouldn’t people go abroad if they want to?”
Sanders was about to answer, but the accountant intervened. “Because the country can’t afford it.”
The girl said, “They pay their own passages, don’t they?”
“I’m not speaking about that, Miss Morton,” said the accountant. “Look, suppose it was you who wanted to go to Canada.” It was uncomfortably near home, but the girl nodded. “How much do you think you cost?”
“Me? In money?”
“That’s right,” said Morrison.
“I don’t quite know what you mean,” she said.
“I’ll tell you, very roughly,” he said. “When did you start working?”
“I got my first job when I was eighteen,” she told him.
“Right. For eighteen years somebody in this country fed you and clothed you and educated you before you made any money, before you started earning. Say you cost an average two quid a week for that eighteen years. You’ve cost England close on two thousand pounds to produce.”
Somebody said, “Like a machine tool.”
“That’s right,” the accountant said. “A human dictaphone and typewriter combined, all electronic and maintains itself and does its own repairs, that’s cost two thousand quid. Suppose you go off to Canada. You’re an asset worth two thousand quid that England gives to Canada as a free gift. If a hundred thousand like you were to go each year, it’ld be like England giving Canada a subsidy of two hundred million pounds a year. It’s got to be thought about, this emigration. We can’t afford to go chucking money away like that.”
She said puzzled, “It’s not really like that, is it?”
“It is and all,” said Morrison. “That’s what built up the United States. Half a million emigrants a year went from Central Europe to America for fifty years or so. Say they were worth a thousand quid apiece. Right—that was a subsidy from Central Europe to America of five hundred million quid a year, and it went on for fifty years or so. Human bulldozers.”
He leaned forward on the table. “Believe it or not,” he said, “Central Europe got very poor and the U.S.A. got very rich.”
There was laughter at the table. “It’s a fact, I’m telling you,” said the accountant. “Central Europe got very poor. If all that manpower had stayed at home in Poland and in Czechoslovakia we might have had a good deal less trouble from Hitler. We want to watch the same thing doesn’t happen here. It could do, easily, if too many people start emigrating.” He paused. “It could be the ruin of this country.”
“I don’t see how you can keep people here if they want to go,” the girl said. “After all, what’s the Commonwealth or Empire or whatever they call it these days—what’s it for? Yo
u can to go Australia if you want to, can’t you?”
Sanders said, “You can at present, but it’s got to be controlled. People can’t always do the things they want to.”
“I’m sick of the word control,” said Jennifer. “We didn’t have to have all these controls before the war.”
“No,” said Sanders. “We had three million unemployed instead.” He leaned across the table. “I’ll give you a better reason than the money why people ought to stay here.”
“What’s that?” asked Forsyth.
“To do a good job for the world,” said Sanders. “I’ll tell you. Here in England we’ve got the most advanced form of government of any country in the world. It’s experimental, and I know there’ve been mistakes. Some things that have been tried out aren’t so hot, like ground nuts in Tanganyika, and they’ve had to be written off. But what this country has tried to do, and what it’s doing, is to plan a new form of government and put it into practice, a new form of democracy where everyone will get a square deal. When we’ve shown it can be done, the world will copy it, all right. You see. But it can’t be worked out if people are allowed to run away to other countries. It’s their job to stay here and get this one right.”
Jennifer said, “You mean, one ought to stay here because there’s an experiment in Socialism going on, and if we go away we’ll spoil it?”
“That’s right.”
Forsyth said, “Too bad when the guinea-pig escapes from the laboratory before the research is finished. It kind of spoils the experiment, Miss Morton.”
There was laughter, and Sanders flushed angrily. “It’s not like that at all. It’s for the good of everyone to stay in England. This is the most advanced country in the world.”
Forsyth said, “Maybe. I’d trade the brave new world for an old-fashioned capitalistic porterhouse steak.”
Jennifer said, “If there’s one thing that would make me want to go and emigrate it’s what you’ve just said—that one’s got to stay here for the sake of an experiment.”
Morrison laughed. “She’s got a bourgeois ideology,” he said. “She’s nothing but a ruddy Kulak, Sanders.”
Jennifer went back to her work that afternoon, but the incident stayed in her mind, and rankled. She had no particular aversion to Mr. Sanders; indeed he was a healthy, youngish man who had been an officer in the R.N.V.R. during the war and had commanded an L.C.T. in the invasion of Normandy. What irked her was the display of Socialist enthusiasm that pervaded her office, which seemed to her slightly phoney. It was manifestly impossible for anyone who derided the Socialistic ideal to progress very far in the public service; if a young man aimed at promotion in her office he felt it necessary to declare a firm, almost a religious, belief in the principles of Socialism. Jennifer felt instinctively that Mr. Sanders was less concerned with the Brave New World than the progress of Mr. Sanders in the Ministry of Pensions, and she wondered what would happen to his views if an election should bring in a Conservative Government.
In the meantime she felt constrained and restricted by bureaucracy; it could not seriously be true that she would have to stay in England if she wanted to go. Abruptly the thought of going to Australia for a time became attractive to her; if they said she couldn’t go, she’d darned well go.
On Monday she got a cable at her boarding-house. It read,
“Deeply grieved Aunt Ethel but so glad you were with her of course keep money and do come out here and visit us plenty of jobs Melbourne about ten pounds weekly writing air mail.
“JANE DORMAN.”
She stared at this in amazement that she could have got an answer to the letter she had written only a week before; it made Australia seem very near. Frequently when she wrote on Sunday to her parents in Leicester and missed the evening post she did not get an answer till Thursday; true, Jane Dorman had cabled, but even so … Jennifer felt as if Jane Dorman lived in the next county, and Australia no longer seemed to be upon the far side of the world.
It wouldn’t do any harm to find out about it, anyway. She made a few discreet enquiries and took Tuesday afternoon off on a pretext that she had to help her father clear up Ethel Trehearn’s estate, which was totally untrue. She went up to London and visited the P. and O. office and the Orient Line next door, and Australia House, and Victoria House. She returned with a great mass of literature to study, fascinating windows opening upon a strange new world.
On the Thursday she wrote to the Orient Line and put her name down for a tourist-class passage to Australia five months ahead, the earliest date that she could get a berth. She sent ten pounds deposit, on the assurance of the company that this would be returnable if she changed her mind and didn’t go. She wouldn’t really go, of course, but it was nice to know she could go if she wanted to….
On the Friday she got a bulky air-mail letter from Jane Dorman in Australia, twelve days after she had written. Enclosed with it were four pages of advertisements in newspapers of situations vacant in Melbourne for secretaries and “typistes”, at salaries that made her blink. Jane Dorman wrote six pages, ending,
“As regards the money, do keep it as I said in the cable. Aunt Ethel was terribly kind to us a long time ago when we first got married, and I am only so deeply grieved that I didn’t realise before that she was in need of help, because now we’ve got so much with the wool sales as they are. Of course, we all know that it can’t go on, but the debt upon the land and stock is all paid off now so everything is ours, and even if wool fell to half its present price or less we should still be all right, and safe for the remainder of our lives.
“I need hardly say how much we should like to see you out here with us. We live in a country district a hundred and fifty miles from Melbourne. I don’t suppose you’d want to live the sort of life we do, because it’s very quiet here, rather like living in the depths of the Welsh mountains, perhaps, or in Cumberland. There’s not a great deal for young people here unless they’re keen on the land, and my children are all living now in the cities, Ethel and Jane in Sydney and Jack in Newcastle, about a hundred miles north of Sydney. I expect if you came here you’d want to work in Melbourne, and I am sending you some pages from the Age and the Argus to show you the sort of jobs available. Everybody is just crying out for secretaries, it seems, and you’d have no trouble at all in getting work.
“I do hope that you will decide to come, and that before you take up work you will come and stay with us for as long as you like, or as long as you can stand the country. I do so want to hear about Aunt Ethel from somebody who knew her. I had not met her for over thirty years, of course, but we wrote to each other every two or three months. I can’t really think of her as old, even now.
“Do come and see us out here, even if it’s only for the trip.
“Yours affectionately,
“JANE DORMAN.”
Jennifer had no very close friends in Blackheath, but she sometimes went to the pictures with a girl called Shirley Hyman who lived in the room below her. Shirley worked in the City and was engaged to a young man in a solicitor’s office; she was with him every week-end but seldom saw him in the week. That Friday evening she was washing her hair for his benefit next day, and Jennifer went down to see her, papers in hand.
She said, “Shirley. Have you ever thought of going to Australia?”
Miss Hyman, sitting on the floor before the gas stove drying her hair, said, “For the Lord’s sake. Whatever made you ask that?”
“I’ve got a relation there,” said Jennifer. “She wants me to go out and stay.”
“What part of Australia?”
“She’s outside Melbourne,” Jennifer said. “I’d get a job in Melbourne if I went.”
“Perth’s the only place I know about.”
“Have you been there?”
Miss Hyman shook her head. “Dick’s always going on about it,” she said. “He wants us to go there when we’re married. He thinks he knows a chap out there who’ll take him on, as soon as he’s got his articles.”
“Are you keen on it?”
“I don’t quite know,” the girl said. “It’s an awful long way away. When I’m with Dick it all seems reasonable. There’s not much future here and if we’re going, well, it’s better to go before we start a family. But … it’s an awful long way.”
“I’ve been finding out about it,” Jennifer said. “I got a letter back from my relation in twelve days. It doesn’t seem so far now as it did before.”
“Is that all it took?”
“That’s right.” She squatted down before the stove with Shirley and produced her papers and pamphlets. “There’s ever so many jobs, according to these advertisements.”
They turned over the brightly-coloured emigration pamphlets she had gleaned in Australia House. “Dick’s got that one—and that,” said Shirley. “It looks all right in these things, doesn’t it? But then they wouldn’t tell you the bad parts, like half the houses in Brisbane having no sewage system.”
“Is that right?” asked Jennifer with interest.
“So somebody was telling Dick. He says it’s all right in Perth, but I don’t believe it is.”
“What do people do?” asked Jennifer. “Go out in the woods or something?”
They laughed together. “They’ve cut down all the woods,” said Shirley. “I was reading somewhere about Australia becoming a dust bowl because they’ve cut down all the woods.”
“I don’t think that can be right,” said Jennifer. “They’ve got some woods left, or they couldn’t have taken these pictures.” They bent together over the pictures in the pamphlet about Tasmania, showing wooded mountain ranges stretching as far as the eye could see.
“They probably kept those just to make these pictures to show mutts like us,” said Shirley sceptically. “It’s probably all desert and black people round behind the camera.”
They laughed, and sat in silence for a time.
“What do you really think about it?” Jennifer asked at last. “Do you think it’s a good thing to do?”