by C. P. Snow
I went as though I had no will.
The glass of the restaurant door was steamed over in the cold. Inside, I stared frenziedly round. She was sitting alone, her face pallid and scornful.
Still in my hat and coat, I went to her.
‘Where is this man?’ I said.
She said: ‘He was useless.’
We talked little over the meal. But I could not rest without asking some questions. He was another of her lame dogs: she thought he was deep and mysterious, and then that he was empty. She was dejected. I tried to console her. I was stifling the rest, and fell silent.
Afterwards we walked into Soho Square, on the way home. Abruptly she said: ‘Why don’t you get rid of me?’
‘It’s too late.’
‘You’d like to, wouldn’t you?’
‘Don’t you think I should?’ I said flatly, in utter tiredness. She pressed my fingers, and there was no more to say.
All through those months when I was struggling to get started, I could not talk to her about my worries. It was to Charles March that I had to trace and retrace the problems, boring to anyone else, acutely real to me. Was Percy giving me my share of the guinea and two-guinea briefs? Would Getliffe let me off the last instalments of my pupil’s fees? Had I won any kind of backing yet? Would Getliffe give me a hand, if it cost him nothing, or would he stand in my way?
Sheila could not imagine that daily life of trivial manoeuvre, contrivance, petty gains and setbacks. She concerned herself about my need for money, and she bought presents which saved me dipping into my scholarship. In that way she was generous, for, since Mr Knight parted with money only a little more easily than Getliffe, she had to go without dresses, which she did not mind, and beg her father for an extra allowance, which she minded painfully. But the frets and intrigues – those she could not enter. Since we first met, she had taken it for granted that I should prevail. As for my struggles with Getliffe, they did not matter. She could not believe that I cared so much.
34: A Friend’s Case
Percy did me no favours in my first year. But he did me no disfavours either. He was neutral, as though I were still under supervision, might be worth backing or might have to be written off. I received my share of the ‘running down’ cases, the insignificant defences of motoring prosecutions, that came Percy’s way. Percy also advised me how to pick up more at the police courts. I used to attend several, on the off chance of a guinea. Those courts were only a few miles apart, but in society the distance was vast – from the smart businessmen showing off their cars on the way home from the tennis court, to the baffled, stupid, foreign prostitutes, the ponces and bullies, the street bookmakers, the blowsy landladies of the Pimlico backstreets.
From that police-court work, in the year from October 1927 to July 1928, I earned just under twenty-five pounds. And that was my total professional income for the year. I mentioned the fact to Percy.
‘Yes, sir,’ he said impassively. ‘It’s just about what I should have expected.’
He took pleasure in being discreet. But he relented to the extent of telling me that many men, perhaps the majority of men, did worse. And he said, by way of aside, that I ought not to start lecturing or marking papers; I had plenty of energy, but I might need it all; this was a long-distance race, not a sprint, said Percy. It was then I realized that Percy was judiciously, cold-bloodedly, watching my health.
I intended to press Getliffe about my last instalment of fees. He had promised to remit it if I had earned my keep; I had done more than that, I had saved him weeks of work, and he must not be allowed to think that I was easy prey. I knew more of him now. The only way to make him honour a bargain, I thought, was to play on his general impulse and at the same moment to threaten: to meet expansiveness with expansiveness, to say that he was a fine fellow who could never break his word – but that he would be a low confidence trickster if he did.
The trouble was, as the time came near I found it impossible to get an undisturbed half an hour with him. He could smell danger from afar, or see it in one’s walk. Somehow he became busier than ever. When, for want of any other opportunity, I caught him on the stairs, he said reprovingly and matily: ‘Don’t let’s talk shop out of hours, Ellis. It can wait. Tomorrow is also a day.’
At the beginning of the long vacation he went abroad for a holiday; the first I knew of it was a genial wave from the door of our room and a breathless, strident shout: ‘Taxi’s waiting! Taxi’s waiting!’ He left with nothing settled, I still had not edged in a word. He also left me with a piece of work, arduous and complex, on a case down for October.
Two days after his return, at last I seized the chance to talk.
‘I’ve not paid you my last quarter’s fees,’ I said. ‘But–’
‘All contributions thankfully received,’ said Getliffe.
‘I’d like to discuss my position,’ I said. ‘I’ve done some work for you, you know, and you said–’
Getliffe met my eyes with his straightforward gaze.
‘I’m going to let you pay that quarter, Eliot,’ he said. ‘I know what you’re going to say. I know you’ve done things for me, I know that better than you do. But I’m thinking of my future pupils, Eliot. I’ve tried to give you more experience than you’d have got in the Chambers of most of our learned friends. I make it a matter of principle to give my pupils experience, and I hope I always shall. But if I start letting them off their fees when they take advantage of their opportunities – well, I know myself too well, Eliot, I shall just stop putting things in their way. So I’m going to accept your cheque. Of course this next year we must have a business arrangement. This just wipes the slate clean.’
Before I could reply, he told me jollyingly that soon he would be inviting me to a party.
That party was dangled in front of me in many conversations afterwards. Now that my pupil’s year was over, I was not called so often into Getliffe’s room. For his minor devilling, he was using a new pupil called Parry. But for several cases he relied on me, for I was quick and had the knack of writing an opinion so that he could master its headings in the midst of his hurrying magpie-like raids among his papers. In return, I wanted to be paid – or better, recommended to a solicitor to take a brief for which Getliffe had no time. Some days promised one reward, some days another. When I was exigent, he said with his genial, humble smile that soon I should be receiving an invitation from his wife. ‘We want you to come to our party’ he said. ‘We’re both looking forward to it no end, L S’ (He was the only person alive who called me by my initials.)
It was nearly Christmas before at last I was asked to their house in Holland Park. I found my way through the Bayswater streets, vexed and rebellious. I was being used, I was being cheated shamelessly – no, not shamelessly, I thought with a glimmer of amusement, for each of Getliffe’s bits of sharp practice melted him into a blush of shame. But repentance never had the slightest effect on his actions. He grieved sincerely for what he had done, and then did it again. He was exploiting me, he was taking the maximum advantage of being my only conceivable patron. And now he fobbed me off with a treat like a schoolboy. Did he know the first thing about me? Was it all unconsidered, had he the faintest conception of the mood in which I was going to my treat?
Their drawing-room was large and bright and light. Getliffe himself looked out of place, dishevelled, boyishly noisy, his white tie not clean and a little bedraggled. He wife was elegantly dressed; she clung to my hand, fixed me with warm spaniel-like eyes, close to mine, and said: ‘It is nice to see you. Herbert has said such a lot about you. He’s always saying how much he wishes I had the chance of seeing you. I do wish I could see more of you all–’
Watching her later at the dinner table, I thought she was almost a lovely woman, if only she had another expression beside that of eager, cooing fidelity. She was quite young: Getliffe at that time was just over forty and she was a few years less. They were very happy. He had, as usual, done himself well. They talked enthusias
tically about children’s books, Getliffe protruding his underlip and comparing Kenneth Grahame and A A Milne, his wife regarding him with an eager loving stare, their warmth for each other fanned by the baby talk.
Once Mrs Getliffe prattled: ‘Herbert always says you people do most of his work for him.’ We laughed together.
They talked of pantomimes: they had two children, to what show should they be taken? Getliffe remarked innocently how, when he was an undergraduate, he had schemed to take his half-brother Francis to the pantomime – not for young Francis’ enjoyment, but for his own.
That was the party. I said goodbye, in a long hand clasp with Mrs Getliffe. Getliffe took me into the hall. ‘I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself, L S,’ he said.
When I thanked him, he went on: ‘We may not be the best Chambers in London – but we do have fun!’
His face was merry. On the way home, grinning at my own expense, I could not be certain whether his eyes were innocent, or wore their brazen, defiant stare.
In that bitterly cold winter of 1928-9 I reached a depth of discontent. I ached for this suspense to end. In my memory it remained one of the periods I would least have chosen to live through again. And yet there must have been good times. I was being entertained by the Marches, I was making friends in a new society. Long afterwards Charles March told me that I seemed brimming with interest, and even he had not perceived how hungry and despondent I became. That is how I remembered the time, without relief – I remembered myself dark with my love for Sheila, fretting for a sign of recognition in my job, poor, seeing no sign of a break. It was worse because Charles himself, in that December, was given his first important case. It was nothing wonderful – it was marked at twenty-five guineas – but it was a chance to shine, and for such a chance just then I would have begged or stolen.
Charles was working in the Chambers of a relation by marriage, and the case was arranged through other connections of his family. Nothing could be more natural as a start for a favourably born young man. As he told me, I was devoured by envy. Sheer rancorous envy, the envy of the poor for the rich, the unlucky for the lucky, the wallflower for the courted. I tried to rejoice in his luck, and I felt nothing but envy.
I hated feeling so. I had been jealous in love, but this envy was more degrading. In jealousy there was at least the demand for another’s love, the sustenance of passion – while in such envy as I felt for Charles there was nothing but the sick mean stab. I hated that I should be so possessed. But I was hating the human condition. For as I saw more of men in society I thought in the jet-black moments that envy was the most powerful single force in human affairs – that, and the obstinate desire of the flesh to persist. Given just those two components to build with, one could construct too much of the human scene.
I tried to make conscious amends. I offered to help him on the brief; the case was a breach of contract, and I knew the subject well. Charles let me help, and I did a good share of the work. He was himself awkward and conscience-stricken. Once, as we were studying the case, he said ‘I’m just realizing how true it is – that it’s not so easy to forgive someone, when you’re taking a monstrously unfair advantage over him.’
The case was down to be heard in January. I sat by the side of Charles’ father and did not miss a word. The judge had only recently gone to the bench, and was very alert and sharp-witted, sitting alone against the red upholstery of the Lord Chief Justice’s court. Mr March and I placed ourselves for a day and a half near the door, so as not to catch Charles’ eye. Charles’ loud voice resounded in the narrow room; his face looked thinner under his new, immaculate wig. The case was a hopeless one from the start. Yet I thought that he was doing well. He impressed all in court by his cross-examination of an expert witness. In the end he lost the case, but the judge went out of his way to pay a compliment: the losing side might, the judge hoped, take consolation from the fact that their case could not have been more lucidly presented.
It was a handsome compliment. It should have been mine, I felt again. Men stood around Charles, congratulating him, taking his luck for granted. I went to join them, to add my own congratulations. Partly I meant them, partly I was pleased – but I would not have dared to look deep into my heart.
I went back to Chambers and told Getliffe the result. It happened that his half-brother, Francis, had been a contemporary and friend of Charles’ at Cambridge. Getliffe scarcely knew Charles, but he had a healthy respect for the powerful, and he assured me earnestly ‘Mark my words, Eliot, that young friend of ours will go a long way.’
‘Of course he will.’
‘Mind you,’ said Getliffe, ‘he’s got some pull. He is old Philip March’s nephew, isn’t he? It helps in our game, Eliot, one can’t pretend it doesn’t help.’
Getliffe gazed at me, man to man.
‘Don’t you wish you were in that racket, Eliot?’
I explained, clearly and with some force, how the brief had arrived at Charles. As a pupil, he had not done much work for his master, Albert Hart, who stood to Charles as Getliffe did to me; but Hart had used much contrivance to divert this brief to Charles.
‘I’ve been thinking’, said Getliffe, his mood changing like lightning, ‘that you ought to do some shooting yourself before very long. Would you like to, L S?’
‘Wouldn’t you in my place? Wouldn’t you?’
‘Well, one’s roping in quite a bit of paper nowadays. I must look through them and see if there’s one you could tackle. I should advise you not to start if you can help it with anything too ambitious. If you drop too big a brick, it means there’s one firm of solicitors who won’t leave their cards on you again.’
Then he looked at his most worried, and his voice took on a strident edge.
‘I must see if I can find you a snippet for yourself one of these days. The trouble is, one owes a duty to one’s clients. One can’t forget that, much as one would like to.’
He pointed his pipe at me.
‘You see my point, Eliot,’ he said defiantly. ‘One would like to distribute one’s briefs to one’s young friends. Why shouldn’t one? What’s the use of money if one never has time to enjoy it? I’d like to give you a share of my work tomorrow. But one can’t help feeling a responsibility to one’s clients. One can’t help one’s conscience.’
35: The Freezing Night
Soon after Charles’ case, the temperature stayed below freezing point for days on end. For the first time since I went to London, I stayed away from Chambers. There was nothing to force me there. During two whole days I only went out into the iron frost for my evening meal, and came back to lie, as I had done all the afternoon, on my sofa in front of the fire.
The cold was at its most intense when Sheila visited me. It was nine o’clock on a bitter February night. She came and sat on the hearth rug, close to the fire; I lay still on the sofa.
We were quiet. For a moment there was noise, as she rattled the shovel in the coal scuttle. ‘Don’t get up. I’ll do it,’ she said, and knelt, shovelling the coals. Then she stared at the fire again, the darkened fire, cherry-red between the bars, with spurts of gas from the new coal.
We were quiet in the room, and outside the street was silent in the extreme cold.
I watched. She was kneeling, sitting back on her heels, her back straight; I could see her face in profile, softer than when she met me with her full gaze. The curve of her cheek was smooth and young, and a smile pulled on the edge of her mouth.
The fire was burning through, tinting her skin. She took the poker, stoked through the bars, then left it there. She studied the cave that formed as the poker began to glow.
‘Queer,’ she said.
The cave enlarged, radiant, like a landscape on the sun.
‘Oh, handsome,’ she said.
She was sitting upright. I saw the swell of her breast, I saw only that.
I gripped her by the shoulders and kissed her on the mouth. She kissed me back. For a moment we pressed together; then, as I became mor
e violent, she struggled and shrank away.
In the firelight she stared up at me.
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ she cried. ‘No.’
I said: ‘I want you.’
I seized her, forced her towards me, forced my lips upon her. She fought. She was strong, but I was possessed. ‘I can’t,’ she cried. I tore her dress at the neck. ‘I can’t,’ she cried, and burst into a scream of tears.
That sound reached me at last. Appalled, I let her go. She threw herself face downwards on the rug and sobbed and then became silent.
We were quiet in the room again. She sat up and looked at me. Her brow was lined. It was a long time before she spoke.
‘Am I absolutely frigid?’ she said.
I shook my head.
‘Shall I always be?’
‘I shouldn’t think so. No.’
‘I’m afraid of it. You know that.’
Then suddenly she rose to her feet.
‘Take me for a walk,’ she said. ‘It will do me good.’
I said that it was intolerably cold. I did not want to walk: I had injured my heel that morning.
‘Please take me,’ she said. And then I could not refuse.
Before we went out she asked for a safety pin to hold her dress together. She smiled, quite placidly, as she asked, and as she inspected a bruise on her arm.
‘You have strong hands,’ she said.
Outside my room the cold made us catch our breath. On the stairs, where usually there wafted rich waves of perfume from the barber’s shop, all scent seemed frozen out. In the streets the lights sparkled diamond-sharp.
We walked apart, down the back streets, along Tottenham Court Road. My heel was painful, and on that foot I only trod upon the sole. She was not looking at me, she was staring in front of her, but on the resonant pavement she heard me limping.