by MARY HOCKING
‘And what opportunity has society had to decide on this particular issue?’
At this point. Sir Noel had studied the man in front of him thoughtfully. He still had that dedicated look, but Sir Noel no longer found it reassuring. Dedication to science was one thing, idealism quite another. Idealists were not rational. There was a quality of intransigence about Kerr’s face which Sir Noel did not at all like; something about the eyes gave Kerr the look of a man who has passed beyond argument. Better not to argue with him.
‘And what do you propose to do about this?’ Sir Noel asked.
‘I propose to leave.’
‘You can’t do that! The Department posted you here. Where would you go?’
‘I have nothing in mind at the moment.’
Sir Noel wrote ‘totally impractical’ on the pad. A scientist needs a lot of very expensive equipment to enable him to carry on his work. Sir Noel had once had a Persian student who had told him that when he returned home ‘Mummy will buy me a laboratory’. This, in Sir Noel’s experience, was a rare occurrence.
‘What on earth are you thinking about, man?’ he said impatiently. ‘Resigning when you have no other post in mind. You’re not one of these arts fellows who can just opt out and go it alone. Whoever heard of a free-lance scientist!’
Kerr said, ‘I shall manage.’
There was something ominous about the man’s inability to appreciate either the delicacy of the subject or the inadvisability of this kind of gesture from a man in his position. Sir Noel looked down at his pad. He had written ‘militant manner’, ‘naïve’, ‘intransigent’, ‘totally impractical’, ‘ominously ill-advised’. He added to the portrait ‘politically immature’. There was one thing he had not recorded; it was the thing which irked him most of all because there had been something personal in it, an unspoken accusation levelled against himself. Sir Noel did not think it would be proper to bring a personal element into his report, so he did not add ‘angry contempt’ to his list. He wrote instead, ‘The man is undoubtedly a fanatic’. Fanaticism included anger and contempt; all fanatics were motivated by unreasonable anger which usually stemmed from some personal problem quite unconnected with the social and moral evils which they denounced. He wondered about Kerr’s relationship with his wife.
Chapter Ten
‘Why did you do it, Daniel?’ Erica asked the next day when the children had reluctantly departed for school. ‘Why?’ She was desperate, not so much for understanding as for something which would clarify the situation so that she could begin to move around in it, establish a few landmarks.
‘I couldn’t stay there.’ Now, when she needed facts, he had none to offer; he was no longer lucid or even articulate, and could only mumble irrelevancies like a man in a state of shock. ‘The laboratory . . . It’s in the middle of parkland. Did you know that? Very leisured . . . peaceful . . . very English.’ He looked earnestly at Erica who stared back at him in dismay. ‘Come and sit beside me,’ he pleaded.
‘No.’ She gripped the arms of her chair. ‘I’m all right here.’
He turned his head away and looked out of the window. ‘The laboratory . . . it was quite unrelated to the landscape,’ he said.
‘What does it matter about the landscape?’ she asked fretfully.
‘Each time I entered the laboratory, I felt I had left the earth behind . . . that what went on in it was so unconnected with reality that nothing mattered.’
‘Nothing mattered? But you resigned!’
‘I felt I was beginning to lose myself. Can’t you understand?’ Even now, as he looked out of the window at the dazzling snow, he had the stunned look of a person not quite sure of his whereabouts. ‘I wonder whether the Nazi scientists were victims of this sensation in an acute form. Do you think so?’ He closed his eyes and, raising one hand, applied pressure with thumb and forefinger just above the bridge of his nose. ‘My head feels fuzzy. I’ve had sinus trouble since I came back to England.’
‘Science!’ She crouched forward, clenched fists drumming on her knees. ‘Science! All this is about science! What about us? Your family. Did you think of us when you did this?’
Somewhere on the edge of vision, brightness flashed, sunlight reflecting from some object in the room. He frowned. ‘I had to get out of there quickly.’
‘You only thought of yourself!’
‘Yes. I suppose that is true.’ The knowledge that he had to get out had sparked in his mind too quick for thought, but the decision had been as final as if it was part of an irreversible scientific process. He was very tired. ‘Don’t let’s talk about it any more,’ he said. ‘It’s all over now.’
In fact, it was only beginning. Two days after he left Brocklehurst, Daniel received a letter from the Department informing him that he had been suspended. This was quickly followed by a visit from the security authorities to draw his attention to the Official Secrets Act. The visit was made discreetly but Erica maintained that the whole of Yeominster must now be aware that Daniel was being watched; when she went shopping, she was sure that she was followed. She became very angry and wrote to her member of parliament complaining that she and her family were being victimised. The day following the visit of the security authorities, a paragraph appeared on the front page of The Sussex Observer, headed ‘Scientist quits Brocklehurst’. This item was picked up by the B.B.C. on its Today programme and subsequently attracted attention in the national press. The media had no idea who Daniel Kerr was, but it was well aware that it was part of the British tradition that from small beginnings a major debate can develop: Daniel Kerr might be to science what the Winslow Boy had been to justice. Daniel refused to comment, but this was of no great importance, since the issue was taken up by a number of eminent scientists. Those who had successfully compromised with their consciences took one side and those who had never been invited to do so, the other. Erica insisted that all newspapers must be thrown away at once, but as soon as she was alone, she rushed out to the dustbin and retrieved them. During the first week, her frantic search was rewarded by leaders, articles, letters on such matters as The Scientist’s Role in Society, The Scientist and Government, The Conscience of the Scientist. Dorothy came home unexpectedly one morning to find her sitting on the stairs reading. ‘Listen, listen! “The scientist must play his part in the defence of the community”,’ she read excitedly. ‘ “Why should he expect to opt out any more than the engineer who designs a floating harbour or the artist who works on camouflage?” There! What did I say!’ She had not in fact said anything of the kind.
Dorothy sat down beside her and said, ‘Erica, it’s no use going over all this. It has happened. There isn’t any going back on it.’
‘But this man says there’s no difference between Daniel and the man who designed a floating harbour. I’m sorry, Dorothy, but if you don’t think that is important, I do.’ She went into the morning- room, and a few minutes later Dorothy saw her cutting out the letter. When Emma came home from school, she thrust it at her, saying, ‘There! Read that!’ When Emma began to argue, she shouted, ‘I don’t want to hear any more about it. From you or anyone else. Do you understand? I have had enough of causes. I’m breast high in causes!’
It was worse than that: she was in danger of being drowned by them. But the rest of her family were so concerned with causes that they didn’t hear when she cried out for help.
While all this was going on, the Department was quietly considering what to do with Daniel Kerr. Brocklehurst had such a bad reputation that it could not afford a gesture such as Daniel’s. If he had defected, it would not have been so bad; but by staying around, he had added to the Department’s embarrassment since he could not be denounced as a spy. It was difficult to understand such aimlessly wilful behaviour. He appeared to have no strong political affiliations which might explain this sudden aberration, he had no religious beliefs which might have festered and pushed him into madness; there was, however, evidence that his marriage was unsatisfactory and he was known to
have had an affair with a Chinese girl in Kinbelo. There were, therefore, strong grounds for believing that he was a security risk. As this was due to character defects rather than any subversive commitment, there was reason to hope that this was one potential mischief-maker who could be dealt with before he had done any real harm. By his maladroit handling of the Brocklehurst affair, he might even be said to have dismissed himself from the service: all that was now required was that he should put his resignation in writing, and this he was invited to do.
Daniel went to London to argue his case; he had left Brocklehurst in what he regarded as exceptional circumstances and he had imagined that a more suitable post would be found for him elsewhere. It was apparent at the interview however, that while legally he might make things awkward for the Department if he chose to press his claims, he could from now on hope for little in the way of meaningful employment in Her Majesty’s Service. His union, now more militant than at any other time, was prepared to support him. But Daniel, forty and full of vigour, was not interested in a Pyrrhic victory. So, in a short time, he had lost his job, his pension, and his future prospects.
Giles was ashamed of his father. It was Giles who had told a reporter on The Sussex Observer that Daniel had quit Brocklehurst. He had expected something more spectacular to follow and felt that his father had let him down. At school, he had overheard the chairman of the governors talking to the deputy head.
‘Every major power has its Brocklehurst,’ Harry Glare had said. ‘We’d be very naïve if we thought otherwise. But then Kerr is naïve.’
He had spoken in the quiet, good-humoured tones of the man who has made his accommodation with the wicked ways of the world. And yet Giles had heard Harry Glare sounding really angry when someone spoke admiringly of the magnetism of Hitler’s personality, and he was one of those people who, after nearly thirty years, could not put Belsen out of his mind! Giles was prepared to defend his father against Harry Clare, but he was nevertheless embarrassed by the ineffectiveness of the gesture. If his father had aligned himself with a revolutionary movement, Giles could have accepted it, but as an isolated individual act it seemed to him merely ridiculous.
Dorothy could not accept Daniel himself. His return had filled her with a dismay which had nothing to do with his decision to resign. She avoided him whenever possible, but he seemed drawn to her.
‘You understand this,’ he said, coming upon her alone in the kitchen one evening. It was not so much a statement as a demand, and she reacted defensively.
‘I’m not so sure that I do.’
He picked up the teacloth and began drying plates.
‘I thought you would understand,’ he said. ‘People have made such an extraordinary fuss, but I thought that you . . .’
‘Did you really think you could just say a few rude words and walk out, and that would be the end of it?’ She was irritated beyond reason by him.
‘I thought my attitude would be fully appreciated,’ he answered with a rather precarious hauteur. ‘Not by the people at Brocklehurst, perhaps . . .’ He hesitated, uncertain where to put the plates which he had dried and irritated at having to break his train of thought in this way.
Dorothy said, ‘In that cupboard. Middle shelf.’
He went to the cupboard and addressed the plates as he put them away. ‘I didn’t imagine that any normal person would seriously question my action.’
‘I don’t see how you can have imagined it wouldn’t be questioned.’ She let the water out and vigorously rubbed around the sink.
‘If I had resigned because I wanted more money,’ he came and stood over her, ‘my motive would have been fully understood and would probably have attracted sympathy. It is because I have resigned as a matter of conscience that I have attracted so much odium.’
Dorothy wrung out the dishcloth and said, ‘I think that sounds rather pompous.’
‘Does it?’ He prowled up and down the room, pausing to reflect on a string of onions hanging from the ceiling. He was miserably aware that he had sounded pompous. He was beginning to understand Erica’s difficulty over the use of such words as ‘values’ and ‘purpose’. Certainly, it seemed almost impossible to talk about ‘conscience’ without sounding pompous. Yet he felt something very deeply and longed to be able to communicate this feeling to at least one other person. He turned to Dorothy, who was now cleaning the top of the stove, and said, ‘I have resigned because the work I was doing was completely destructive. It came as a tremendous shock to me to realise . . .’ He broke off, biting his lip, and did a more than usually energetic turn of the room, pushing the vegetable rack out of his way, while he came to terms with the Official Secrets Act. ‘Never mind exactly what it was . . . but, believe me, nobody who was prepared to do that kind of research could have any self-respect at all.’
‘But you knew it was going on!’ She slammed the kettle on top of the stove and turned to him. ‘A vast amount of money is spent on weapons of destruction of one kind or another, by the service which pays your salary. But you went off to Africa with an easy conscience and didn’t bother about the government’s evil ways until you happened to become involved personally.’
‘Yes,’ he said wretchedly. ‘That’s true.’ It was so different when one was involved personally: there was a great gulf between knowing and believing.
‘Would you want to work exclusively in one of those clinics where they do forty or fifty abortions a day?’ he asked. ‘Was this what you envisaged when you trained to become a nurse?’
She looked at him angrily. ‘Of course not.’
‘You are outraged at the very idea. This is how I feel, as a scientist.’
She said, ‘Yes, I see.’ But she did not see. Other people’s crises never have real urgency, one always suspects a tendency to exaggerate.
She was standing with her back to him now, taking off her overall. It wasn’t just her mind that was vigorous. He watched her reach up to hang the overall on the hook behind the door. Her body was small, but firm; she had shapely legs with strong, muscular calves. She performed her immediate task aggressively, as though it was a test of strength; all her movements this evening had been unnecessarily forceful. He felt a surge of anger, a need to demonstrate something, he was not sure what. He followed her into the hall and grasped her arm.
‘I should like to feel you were with me in this,’ he said imperiously.
She pulled her arm away. They stood glaring at each other.
‘I can’t help how you feel,’ she said. ‘I’m not against you, and that is the most you’ll get from me.’
Whether this was true or not, could not then be tested as Giles came clattering down the stairs at that moment.
Erica was undoubtedly against Daniel. ‘Self-respect!’ she said after one argument. ‘Always self, self, self!’
Soon after this, she gave up arguing with him and gradually ceased all communication with those around her. The situation seemed to have transformed her life completely, as though an evil spirit had entered into the familiar and usually comforting apparatus of life. She was afraid to answer the telephone, which hitherto had been one of her lifelines, because there might be a reporter at the other end of the line; the post brought abusive letters, some of which were addressed to her; when she met friends in the street or at coffee mornings, they expressed sympathy but eyed her with avid interest. She woke every morning with a feeling of despair; she became lethargic and did not want to get up, she developed headaches and made excuses not to go out. She did not eat and refused to do any work about the house. She watched Daniel with dull, hopeless resentment. When Dorothy tried to rouse her by saying, ‘In a few weeks Daniel will have another job and everyone will have forgotten about this,’ Erica merely turned her head away and groaned, ‘I haven’t the energy . . .’ She hadn’t the energy to carry on for one minute more, let alone a few weeks. Had it not been for Dorothy, she would have stayed in bed most of the time, but every morning Dorothy bullied, cajoled, persuaded, until Erica w
as dressed and downstairs, confronted with a breakfast she had no intention of eating.
In the day-time, she sat by herself, staring vacantly in front of her. She had been twenty when she married Daniel. Up to that time, she had lived in a romantic adolescent dream. A year after her marriage, she had her first child. She came to marriage and motherhood completely unprepared and she had to learn as she went along; she was not intuitive, nor was she good at assembling and applying knowledge, so that she never obtained a very complete picture of either state. Her father had died when she was five and she recalled him not so much as a presence but as a source of comfort, protection and reassurance. It was these things which she sought in marriage. Disillusion was immediate. She resented her husband; he was not inconsiderate, but however gentle his violation of her body might be, it remained a violation. There was no one to whom she could turn for help. Dorothy was far more mature, but Erica, being the elder, had a strong sense of seniority in all things and would have thought it improper to discuss her marital affairs with her sister. She had never been close to her mother whose caustic realism offended her. So she managed as best she could and this became her way of life. Sometimes her approach to a problem paid off, sometimes it didn’t; she never paused to analyse either the successes or the failures, but proceeded in a hit-or-miss fashion, grateful when things went well, philosophical when they went badly. ‘You can’t win the jackpot all the time,’ she would say, but she went on pouring her energy into the machine, pulling the lever, and hoping. Now, she had used up her last ounce of energy; she could not manage any longer.
Her mother failed to help her, as she had always failed to help her. The old woman remained deliberately uninterested, refusing to discuss Daniel’s resignation or even to admit that he had in fact resigned. She behaved as though he was home on a prolonged holiday. Daniel had brought new life into the house and an element of personal conflict which she had found amusing; but she was not going to involve herself in cosmic disorder of the kind which he had now invoked. She continued to go out and meet more people, but when anyone mentioned the Brocklehurst affair to her, she assumed a puzzled expression and mumbled that she did not know what was going on. ‘They don’t tell me anything.’