by C. P. Snow
Like all Aunt Milly’s activities, the procession had been organized with extraordinary thoroughness and clockwork precision. But some of my form-mates who had seen it – perhaps some had even taken part – discovered that she was my aunt and decided that to have such an aunt was preposterously funny. I then found out that shame is an unpredictable thing. For I should have said that I could take any conceivable joke against Aunt Milly without a pang: in fact, I was painfully ashamed.
The incident of the subscription list took place in November, a couple of months after I first attended the school. Each boy in each form had been asked to make a donation to the school munitions fund. The headmaster had explained how, if we could only give sixpence, we should be doing our bit; all the money would go straight to buy shells for what the headmaster called ‘the 1918 offensive – the next big push’.
I reported it all to my mother. I asked her what we could afford to give.
‘We can’t afford much really, dear,’ said my mother, looking upset, preoccupied, wounded. ‘We haven’t got much to spare at the end of the week. I know that you’ve got to give something.’
It added to her worries. As she had said before, she was not going ‘to have me suffer by the side of the other boys’.
‘How much do you think they’ll give, Lewis?’ she inquired. ‘I mean, the boys from nice homes.’
I made some discreet investigations, and told her that most of my form would be giving half a crown or five shillings.
She pursed her lips.
‘You needn’t bother yourself, dear,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to have you feel out of it. We can do as well as other people.’
She was not content with doing ‘as well as other people’. Her imagination had been fired. She wanted me to give more than anyone in the form. She told herself that it would establish a position for me, it would give me a good start. She liked to feel that we could ‘still show we were someone’. And she was patriotic and warlike, and had a strong sense of wartime duty; though most of all she wanted me to win favour and notice, she also got satisfaction from ‘buying shells’, from taking part in the war at second hand.
She skimped my father’s food and her own, particularly hers, for several weeks. After a day or two my father noticed, and mildly grumbled. He asked if the rations were reduced so low as this. No, said my mother, she was saving up for the subscription list at school.
‘I hope you don’t have many subscriptions,’ said my father to me. ‘Or I expect she’ll starve me to death.’
He clowned away, pretending that his trousers had inches to spare round his middle.
‘Don’t be such a donkey, Bertie,’ said my mother irritably.
She kept to her intention. They went without the small luxuries that she had managed to preserve, through war, through the slow grind of growing poverty – the glass of stout on Saturday night, the supper of fish and chips (fetched, for propriety’s sake, by Aunt Milly’s maid), the jam at breakfast. On the morning when we had to deliver our subscriptions, my mother handed me a new ten-shilling note. I exclaimed with delight and pressed the crisp paper against the tablecloth. I had never had one in my possession before.
‘Not many of them will do better than that,’ said my mother contentedly. ‘Remember that before the war I should have given you a sovereign. I want you to show them that we’ve still got our heads above water.’
Under the gaslight, in the early morning, the shadow of my cup was blue on the white cloth. I admired the ten-shilling note, I admired the blue shadows, I watched the shadows of my own hands. I was thanking my mother: I was flooded with happiness and triumph.
‘I shall want to hear everything they say,’ said my mother. ‘They’ll be a bit flabbergasted, won’t they? They won’t expect anyone to give what you’re giving. Please to remember everything they say.’
I was lit up with anticipation as the tramcar clanged and swayed into the town. Mist hung over the county ground, softened the red brick of the little houses by the jail: in the mist – not fog, but the clean autumnal mist – the red brick, though softened, seemed at moments to leap freshly on the eye. It was a morning nostalgic, tangy, and full of well-being.
In the playground, when we went out for the eleven-o’clock break, the sun was shining. Our subscriptions were to be collected immediately afterwards: as the bell jangled, my companions and I made our way chattering through the press of boys to the room where we spent most of our lessons.
Mr Peck came in. He taught us algebra and geometry; he was a man about fifty-five who had spent his whole life at the school; he was bald, fresh-skinned, small-featured, constantly smiling. He lived in the next suburb beyond ours, and occasionally he was sitting in the tramcar when I got on.
Some boy had written a facetious word on the blackboard. Peck smiled deprecatingly, a little threateningly, and rubbed out the chalk marks. He turned to us, still smiling.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘the first item on the programme is to see how much this form is going to contribute to make the world safe for democracy.’ There was a titter; he had won his place long ago as a humorist.
‘If any lad gives enough,’ he said, ‘I dare say we shall be prepared to let him off all penalties for the rest of the term. That is known as saving your bacon.’
Another titter.
‘Well,’ he went on, ‘I don’t suppose for a moment that you want to turn what you are pleased to call your minds to the problems of elementary geometry. However, it is my unfortunate duty to make you do so without unnecessary delay. So we will dispose of this financial tribute as soon as we decently can. I will call out your names from the register. Each lad will stand up to answer his name, announce his widow’s mite, and bring the cash up here for me to receive. Then the last on the list can add up the total and sign it, so as to certify that I haven’t run away with the money.’
Peck smiled more broadly, and we all grinned in return. He began to read out the names. The new boys were divided into forms by alphabetical order, and ours ran from A to H.
‘Adnitt.’ ‘Two shillings, sir.’ The routine began, Adnitt walked to the front of the class and put his money on the desk. I was cherishing my note under the lid of the desk; my heart thudded with joyful excitement. ‘Aldwinckle.’ ‘Two and sixpence.’ ‘Brookman.’ ‘Nothing.’
Brookman was a surly, untidy boy, who lived in the town’s one genuine slum. Peck stared at him, still smiling. ‘You’re not interested in our little efforts, my friend?’ said Peck.
Brookman did not reply. Peck stared at him, began another question, then shrugged his shoulders and passed on.
‘Buckley.’ ‘A shilling.’ ‘Cann.’ ‘Five shillings.’ The form cheerfully applauded. ‘Coe.’ ‘A shilling.’ ‘Cotery.’ ‘Three shillings and twopence.’ There was laughter; Jack Cotery was an original; one could trust him not to behave like anyone else. ‘Dawson.’ ‘Half a crown.’ There were several other D’s, all giving between a shilling and three shillings. ‘Eames.’ ‘Five shillings.’ Applause. ‘Edridge.’ ‘Five shillings.’ Applause. My name came next. As soon as Peck called it out, I was on my feet. ‘Ten shillings, sir.’ I could not damp a little stress upon the ten. The class stamped their feet, as I went between the desks and laid the note among the coins in front of Peck.
I had just laid the note down, when Peck said: ‘That’s quite a lot of money, friend Eliot.’ I smiled at him, full of pleasure, utterly unguarded; but at his next remark the smile froze behind my lips and eyes.
‘I wonder you can afford it,’ said Peck. ‘I wonder you don’t feel obliged to put it by towards your father’s debts.’
It was cruel, casual, and motiveless. It was a motiveless malice as terrifying for a child to know as his first knowledge of adult lust. It ravaged me with sickening shameful agony – and, more violently, I was shaken with anger, so that I was on the point of seizing the note and tearing it in pieces before his eyes.
‘Let me give you a piece of advice, my friend,’ said
Peck, complacently. ‘It will be to your own advantage in the long run. You’re a bright lad, aren’t you? I’m thinking of your future, you know. That’s why I’m giving you a piece of advice. It isn’t the showy things that are most difficult to do, Eliot. It’s just plodding away and doing your duty and never getting thanked for it – that’s the test for bright lads like you. You just bear my words in mind.’
Somewhere in the back of consciousness I knew that the class had been joining in with sycophantic giggles. As I turned and met their eyes on my way back, they were a little quieter. But they giggled again when Peck said: ‘Well, I shall soon have to follow my own advice and plod away and do my duty and never get thanked for it – by teaching a class of dolts some geometrical propositions they won’t manage to get into their thick heads as long as they live, But I must finish the collection first. All contributions thankfully received. Fingleton.’ ‘Two shillings, sir.’ ‘Frere.’ ‘A shilling.’
I watched and listened through a sheen of rage and misery.
At the end of the morning, Jack Cotery spoke to me in the playground. He was a lively, active boy, short but muscular, with the eyes of a comedian, large, humorous, and sad.
‘Don’t mind about Pecky,’ he said with good nature and a light heart.
‘I don’t mind a scrap.’
‘You were as white as a sheet. I thought you were going to howl.’
I did not swear as some of the boys in the form habitually did; I had been too finically brought up. But at that moment all my pain, anger, and temper exploded in a screaming oath.
Jack Cotery was taken aback. ‘Keep your shirt on,’ he said.
On the way to the tram stop, where we travelled in different directions, he could not resist asking me: ‘Is your old man in debt, really?’
‘In a way,’ I said, trying to shield the facts, not to tell an actual lie – wanting both to mystify and to hide my own misery. ‘In a way. It’s all very complicated, it’s a matter of – petitions.’ I added, as impressively as I could, ‘It’s been in the solicitor’s hands.’
‘I’m glad mine’s all right,’ said Jack Cotery, impressive in his turn. ‘Of course, I could have brought a lot more money this morning. My old man is making plenty, though he doesn’t always let on. He’d have given me a pound if I’d asked him. But’ – Jack Cotery whispered and his eyes glowed – ‘I’m keeping it in reserve for something else.’
When I arrived home, my mother was waiting for me with an eager question.
‘What did they think of your subscription, dear?’
‘All right,’ I said.
‘Did anyone give more than ten shillings?’
‘No. Not in our form.’
My mother drew herself up and nodded her head: ‘Was ours the highest?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘What was the next highest?’
‘Five shillings,’ I said.
‘Twice as much,’ said my mother, smiling and gratified. But she was perceptive; she had an inkling of something wrong.
‘What did they say, though, dear?’
‘They thanked me, of course.’
‘Who was the master who took it?’ she asked.
‘Mr Peck.’
‘Was he pleased with you?’
‘Of course he was,’ I said flatly.
‘I want to hear everything he said,’ said my mother, half in vanity, half trying to reach my trouble.
‘I can’t now, Mother. I want to get back early. I’ll tell you everything tonight.’
‘I don’t think that’s very grateful of you,’ said my mother. ‘Considering what I did to find you all that money. Don’t you think I deserve to be told all about it now?’
‘I’ll tell you everything tonight.’
‘Please not to worry yourself if it’s too much trouble,’ she said haughtily, feeling that I was denying her love.
‘It’s not too much trouble, Mother. I’ll tell you tonight,’ I said, not knowing which way to turn.
I did not go straight home from school that evening. Instead, I walked by myself a long way round by the canal; the mist was rising, as fresh and clean as that morning’s mist; but as it swirled round the bridges and warehouses and the trees by the waterside, it no longer exalted me. I was inventing a story, walking that long way home through the mist, which would content my mother. Of how Mr Peck had said my contribution was an example to the form, of how he had told other masters, of how someone said that my parents were public-spirited. I composed suitable speeches. I had enough sense of reality to make them sound plausible, and to add one or two disparaging remarks from envious form-mates.
I duly repeated that fiction to my mother. Nothing could remove her disappointment. She had thought me inconsiderate and heartless, and now, if she believed at all, she felt puzzled, cast-off, and only a little flattered. I thought that I was romancing simply to save her from a bitter degradation. Yet I should have brought her more love if I had told her the truth. It would have been more loving to let her take an equal share in that day’s suffering. That lie showed the flaw between us.
There were nights that autumn, however, when my mother and I were closer than we had ever been. They were the nights when she tried to learn French. She saw me with my first French grammar, and she was seized with a desire to follow my lessons. French to her was romantic, genteel, emblem and symbol of the existence she had so much coveted. Her bold, handsome eyes were bright each time we spread the books on the front-room table. Her health was getting worse, she was having frightening fits of giddiness, but her interest and nervous gusto and hope pressed her on as when she was a girl.
‘Time for my French lesson,’ she said eagerly when Saturday evening came round. We started after tea and she was downcast if I would not persevere for a couple of hours. Often on those Saturday nights the autumn gales lashed rain against the windows; to that accompaniment, my mother tried to repeat my secondary-school phonetics.
Actually, she found my attempts to retail the phonetic lessons quite impossible to imitate. She learned entirely by eye, and was comfortable when she could pronounce the words exactly as in English. But she learned quickly and accurately by eye, as I did myself. Soon she could translate the simple sentences in my reader. It gave her a transfiguring pleasure; she held my hand, and translated one sentence after another. ‘Is that right? Is that right?’ she cried wildly and happily, and laughed at me. ‘You’re not ashamed of your pupil, are you, dear?’
6: The First Start
I buried deep the claims my mother made on me and which I could not meet. I could forget them more easily because, in my successes at school, I provided her, for the only time for years, with something actual for her hopes to feed on. She still read the cards and teacups, she had taken to entering for several competitions a week in Answers and John Bull, but when she studied my terminal reports, she felt this was her solitary promise for the future. As soon as she had received one and read it through, she put it in her bag, changed into her best dress, and, pointing her toes, set off in dignity for Aunt Milly, the doctor, and the vicar.
When I took the Senior Oxford, I gave her something more to flaunt. My last term at school was over and I waited for the result. It was the brilliant summer of 1921, and one night I came home after baking all day at the county ground. As I came up our street in the hot and thundery evenings I saw my mother and brother waving to me from the window.
My mother opened the door herself. She was displaying the evening paper. She looked flushed and well, her eyes were flashing, although she had had a heart attack that summer.
‘Do you know, dear?’ she cried.
‘No. Is it–?’
‘Then let me be the first to congratulate you,’ she said with a grand gesture. ‘You couldn’t have done better. It’s impossible for you to have done better!’
It was her way, her romantic and superb way, of saying that my name appeared in the first class. She was exultant. My name was alone! – she was light-headed w
ith triumph. I was recklessly joyful, but each time I caught my mother’s eye I felt I had never seen such triumph. She had none of the depression of anticlimax that chases after a success; she had looked forward to this moment, one of many moments to come, and her spirit was strong enough to exult without a single qualm.
My mother at once sent my young brother out for foods that we could not usually afford. She intended to have a glorious supper – not that she could eat much nowadays, but for the sake of style and for my sake. My father had, a year past, ceased to be a traveller and had moved back to ‘Mr Stapleton’s’ as a cashier at four pounds a week. He was competent at paperwork, but my mother ground the aching tooth and told herself that it was shameful to return to such a job when he had been second-in-command, that the job was just a bone thrown in contemptuous friendliness and charity. Thus, with the fall in the value of money, our meals were not as lavish as they had been even immediately after my father’s bankruptcy. Even so, my mother never lost her taste for the extravagant. She still paid each bill on Saturday morning; but if luxuries were required for a state occasion, such as that night, luxuries were bought, though it meant going hungry for the rest of the week.
That night we ate a melon and some boiled salmon and éclairs and meringues and millefeuilles. My mother’s triumph would have been increased if she could have had Aunt Milly there to gloat over; but she could not have Aunt Milly as well as a glass of wine, and my mother’s sense of fitness would not be satisfied without wine on the table; she wanted to fill the wine glasses which she had received as a wedding present and which were not used more than once a year. So young Martin had been sent on another errand to the grocer, and the glasses were filled with tawny port.