The Malcontents

by C. P. Snow

  ‘No, it isn’t. The thing you can’t get over is that you may be talked about yourself.’

  ‘I still can’t credit when you knew what you were doing that you hadn’t the common decency to stop–’

  ‘Can’t you understand,’ shouted Stephen, ‘that it would have been less decent not to go on?’

  One of their silences. Thomas Freer’s hurt, miserable gaze upon his son.

  Stephen spoke more steadily: ‘There are times, and this is one of them, when the side one’s on counts more than the steps one takes.’

  ‘That’s the justification,’ said Thomas Freer, ‘for a great deal of human wickedness.’

  ‘Yes, you must have seen a lot of human wickedness. And you’ve never moved a finger to stop it, have you?’ Stephen suddenly spoke with elation, almost with triumph. ‘We’re trying to fight some wickedness right in front of our eyes. What have you ever tried to do?’ Stephen added, and his tone was light and dismissive: ‘You’re always on the right side when it’s safely over.’

  ‘Do you think that’s fair?’ But Thomas Freer spoke as though he had lost the initiative.

  ‘Do you think your kind of liberalism is any good to me?’ Stephen went on: ‘If you’d ever been in any sort of struggle, you’d always have found good reasons why you should resign. That’s why you’ve never been in a struggle, isn’t it? Do you believe in anything enough? I’ve never been certain that you believe in anything at all. In any struggle that comes anywhere near you, and that’s true here and now, all you’re concerned about is yourself.’

  Before Thomas Freer could reply, Stephen said, without emphasis or expression: ‘That’s been true in everything you’ve said tonight.’

  ‘You ought to believe me, said his father, ‘I’m concerned for you.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m proud of you. So is your mother.’ That was the first time she had been mentioned between them. ‘When we talk to each other, it’s usually about you: and that’s been so since you were very small. I’m proud of you. I’ve liked to think that you would make a name.’

  ‘That’s being proud of yourself,’ said Stephen.

  They had both spoken in low voices, as though exhausted by the quarrel. After a pause, in which the room pressed down on them, as they sat limp, facing each other, eyes not meeting, Thomas Freer made an effort: ‘I don’t want to leave it like this.’

  Stephen stiffened himself.

  ‘You’ll have to. I’ve got things to do.’

  His father’s remark might have been a timid sign of love: but to Stephen, now the inflammation, the disappointment of his outbursts (in which there had been some echoes, inaudible to him, of chagrins long before) had died down, a sense, not just of danger, but of betrayal, had reawakened: like a physical pain, as it might be neuralgia, which had been temporarily submerged in a sudden torrent of panic or desire.

  ‘Oh, have you?’

  Stephen rose, quick-moving.

  His father looked up at him: ‘I didn’t want to leave it like this.’ And, as Stephen left the room: ‘If I can be any help to you–’

  7

  Telephoning. Neil, Mark. Pass the word round. Meeting at Neil’s in half an hour. Arrange transport. Everyone provided for except Bernard Kelshall. Stephen himself would pick him up.

  As the taxi slowed towards the Kelshalls’ house, Stephen was wishing that he hadn’t to go in. He had been there – in Walnut Street, in a house similar to that in which Neil St John was lodging, except that the front door gave straight on to the pavement – once before. He had seen the delight with which Bernard’s mother welcomed him, joyful that her Bernard had such ‘nice’ friends. Meaning, from a richer class. It was bad enough having that setting one apart. It was worse, now that they would think he was taking Bernard out for a treat. Stephen, himself betrayed that night, felt like a betrayer.

  He kept the taxi waiting, but he was not let off. Mrs Kelshall was on the doorstep.

  ‘Ah, it is so good of you, Mr Freer. You must come in. Just for a minute. Just for one minute.’

  She was a small woman, bright-visaged, dignified. Her husband and Bernard were standing up in the ‘front room,’ all swept and immaculate, ready for a visitor. A plate, carrying slices of cake, was waiting on the table.

  ‘You must have something before you go, just a little something.’

  ‘I really would love to, Mrs Kelshall.’ Stephen’s own manner, he couldn’t help it, was becoming effusive in return, like that of a Lady Bountiful visiting a devoted tenant or an eminent industrialist making a presentation to a long-serving employee. ‘But we’re in a dreadful hurry. Another time–’

  ‘No, please take your coat off,’ said Mr Kelshall. ‘We’ve had tea, yes we have. But our Bernard always likes a piece of cake, doesn’t he?’

  Bernard was their only child. They had picked up some of the local idiom, though one could hear the Yiddisher undertones beneath, especially in Mr Kelshall. He was bald with fringes of dark hair and a thin scholarly face, so that some of Bernard’s friends, interested in Judaism, tried to get him talking about the Talmud and the Midrash. He didn’t respond. Actually, he was a good craftsman. Much poorer than most of the thirties’ refugees, he was ending now very much where he began in Berlin. He was a technician at the Infirmary, not far away from their house. He was earning a simple living, just as he had earned it in Germany nearly forty years before.

  Resisting either sitting down or removing his coat, Stephen nevertheless had to make a concession, and nibbled at a slice of cake. It was good rice cake, but hard for him to swallow. Mrs Kelshall was talking away about her son.

  ‘Of course, he has his examinations this summer, you mustn’t let him waste his time,’ she said.

  ‘He won’t do that, I assure you,’ said Stephen, still overhearty.

  ‘We hope he’ll do well, of course we do.’

  ‘Yes. Yes. He’ll do well. He’ll do splendidly. You’ll see.’

  At last – measured on his watch, the time Stephen had been in that room was very short – at last Stephen got Bernard outside, into the taxi.

  The Kelshall parents stood on the doorstep waving, in loving miniature dignity.

  ‘Have a good time,’ cried Mrs Kelshall after them.

  They had not reached the end of the street before Stephen said: ‘Things are very bad.’

  ‘Are they?’

  Bernard was as cool as any of them. Faced with that coolness, Stephen felt the need, known to any bearer of bad news, to thrust it home.

  ‘We’re likely to be prosecuted.’

  ‘Oh.’ Bernard reflected. ‘There’s an old politico’s saying, isn’t there, when you’re chopping wood, the chips will fly.’ He paused again. ‘But I shall be a bit surprised if it comes to that, I really shall.’

  ‘I believe it will.’

  ‘Well, that would have publicity value.’

  Stephen could make no more impression. He was tempted, to the edge of frustration, to bring out the darkest fact – the one which had been at moments possessing him, to the exclusion of all the others, since early in his father’s exposition. But Stephen, even now, had the control to keep that back. It had to be reserved until they were all together.

  ‘It’ll turn out positive,’ said Bernard. ‘There are bound to be setbacks. It’ll turn out positive in the end.’ He said it clearly and intently, as the taxi drove past the gaol, up the rise towards the park: the park where, not so many years before, his mother used to take him for their Sunday walk. But he showed no sign of noticing anything round him: the present was shut out, much more so was the past. The broad and handsome road, the neon shadows, the domed hall on the skyline – happy Sundays as his mother promised him a treat – he spoke as though none of that existed, nothing existed but the future.

  ‘Setbacks,’ said Stephen, from his own thoughts.

  ‘Two steps forward, one step back.’ Bernard’s tone was calm. ‘We’re bound to win. We’ve got to keep it simple. We’ll go on te
lling them – the poor are always right in the end. Nothing can stop them. The blacks know that. So do the Arabs. That’s why we have to do the same for the Arabs as we’re doing for the blacks.’

  Stephen was listening with only the surface of his mind. But this came as no surprise. Bernard used less words than any of them, but they were often precise and confident, just as they were now. He had clarified his anti-Zionism right from the beginning. Trained as they were to forbid any thoughts of race, the others took it naturally, although coming from a Jew: though in fact on that subject several wouldn’t have committed themselves as he did.

  Past the park gates, down the now familiar back streets: the lights of Neil’s room rosy through the curtains. The other five were waiting for them, minutes late after the requirements of hospitality and politeness (and perhaps good nature) in the Kelshalls’ house. Greetings, hallo and hi. Greetings as at previous meetings quick and casual. But they all knew something of what was coming.

  They all knew. And yet, as they sat round, watching Stephen take his place on the bed next to Tess, there were intermittences of hope. Unlike Stephen in his father’s study, one or two could not resist time playing tricks as though they were sitting in this room, not on this crisp and lucid evening (news irrevocable), but yesterday, in the dull, leaden, comforting afternoon, when everyone had wiped away the threat and was looking forward.

  Stephen, leaning forward, elbows on knees, not describing any of his father’s parabolas, said: ‘We needn’t waste any time. It’s as bad as it can be. Or worse.’

  There was a curse, unsurprised and habitual, from Neil.

  ‘Two points,’ Stephen went on. ‘The first is, everything is known.’

  ‘You can’t mean it,’ said Emma, with a defiant cry.

  ‘I said everything.’ Stephen was speaking, at this stage, without any stress. ‘Everything that we’ve planned. And everything we’ve said to each other here. Or anywhere else.’

  ‘This is quite something.’ Mark’s eyes were alight with excitement, excitement that looked almost like joy.

  ‘I can’t credit it.’ Emma’s voice was raised.

  ‘You’d better. You’ll have to soon enough.’ Stephen wasn’t looking up at her face, or at any other. ‘I can tell you all the details that I’ve heard. But you’d better believe me.’

  ‘Oh, cut that crap. We believe you,’ said Neil, businesslike, the quickest in response. ‘And, you said yourself, on Saturday night’ (to those who had been present, it seemed more than forty-eight hours before) ‘we might have to hurry up. That’s damn well certain now. We go on the attack. Blow up the whole bloody shooting match before they get us. This week.’

  ‘And take the consequences?’ said Bernard.

  ‘We take the consequences whatever we do. That’s it, isn’t it?’ Neil made Stephen raise his head, and fixed him with a glare, interrogative and impersonal.

  Stephen nodded. ‘We have to be ready for that.’

  ‘Then we get in first. Jesus, we’re not going to be caught like rabbits in a trap.’

  ‘I’m with you.’ Emma gave a great smile, complicit, comradely, respectful, straight at Neil. ‘We’ll have something to show for ourselves at any rate.’

  Stephen was sitting very still. Suddenly he stirred himself. ‘That may be right,’ he said. ‘But is it safe to talk about it? Now?’

  Lance Forrester, slumped in an armchair, said in a knowledgeable aside: ‘That’s your second point, is it? Yes, I get you.’

  Lance hadn’t uttered before, except as an absent greeting. In the badly lit room, it was difficult for the others to see if his pupils were slotted down. His speech might have been a little slurred. Yet Stephen turned to him with something like relief.

  Neil shouted ferociously: ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I mean,’ Lance had a lazy smile, ‘but I know what he means.’

  ‘What’s that?’ said Tess, but she, watching over Stephen’s mood, had half-guessed.

  ‘Oh, that the give-away must have come from inside, i.e. from one of us, dear Neil.’

  ‘Sabotage.’ Neil was on his feet. ‘You’re trying to break us up at last, are you?’

  There was incredulity, rage, upheaval in the room. ‘Take it back,’ called out Emma.

  Bernard added, in a cold quiet tone: ‘It shouldn’t have been said.’

  Unmoved, Lance waved a hand in Stephen’s direction.

  ‘Just ask him,’ he said.

  Stephen did not reply at once. Then, without expression or inflection: ‘I can’t see any alternative.’

  More angry murmurs. Neil had begun to shout. For the first time, Stephen raised his voice.

  ‘Listen.’ He had taken charge: he continued, with a depth of bitterness, coming out in harsh, clear words, that quietened them all. ‘You might realize that I’ve thought of the possible ways out. It’s just conceivable that they could have got hold of all our names – which they have. They just conceivably might have been tailing us from early on. Though in cold blood I suggest that that would be considerably flattering our own significance. They could certainly have discovered a lot of what you two (he gestured to Neil and Lance) did with Finlayson. They’ve bought him back just as you bought him to begin with. All that is conceivable. I should like to believe it. What isn’t conceivable is that they should have somehow learned from outside exactly what goes on here. Exactly who does what. Not only what we’ve planned. But what we’ve discussed. The only pieces of paper in existence have gone straight into my bank. There’s not been one word, so far as I know, certainly not by me or anyone speaking to me, over the telephone.’

  ‘They could have bugged the room,’ said Emma, suspicion brilliant in her eyes.

  ‘I’ve even thought of that. Though it’s flattering ourselves again. But we’ve met in other rooms. Most of the summer we took extra precautions and met in the open air.’

  He added: ‘We’d better all think about it. Without fooling ourselves.’

  ‘We’ve been penetrated, anyway,’ said Mark.

  ‘Without fooling ourselves.’ Stephen repeated. ‘There’s only one realistic method of penetrating a group like this.’

  No one there could be certain of the climate of the meeting, it changed so fast. Protests jarred out, and arguments, chains of rational argument, were started: but some of the protests and arguments came from those who, maybe without admitting it, were convinced. And yet being convinced didn’t become stable within them. The one certain emotion in the room was a miasma – shot with its opposite, a brilliance – of distrust. The miasma couldn’t be shifted by anything that was said or felt: except that sporadically, in one or more of them, it cleared, as it had for Emma a few minutes before, into brilliance like a fog clearing, and showing a pattern of suspicion bright as a spider’s web on a misty morning. It was distrust such as most of them had never known. Yes, they had known distrust of the forces, the people, they were fighting against: but that was abstract, but here it was, as it were in the flesh, in the central nervous system, within themselves. Before this, some hadn’t been close to each other, there had been, if they had examined their feelings, elements of dislike, as between Neil St John and Lance. But those had been swept away, made irrational, or suppressed deep down, in the common cause – or in the group loyalty which had, deeper than will or personal relations, been carrying them along.

  For Tess, who believed, who couldn’t avoid believing, what Stephen had said, it was like hearing that someone she loved had been speaking of her with malice behind her back. Like hearing that Stephen himself had, when she wasn’t present, been traducing her. She hadn’t, not once in her life, been made to realize that kind of disloyalty. Ambivalence, the coexistence of affection and spite, the interplay of kindness and cruelty, or what her father would have called good and evil – those were discoveries she had still to make. And when she made them, she would not find them much easier to accept. Nor would others there. It was only the cold who learned that
lesson lightly, or who knew it without having to learn it at all.

  Mark, less self-centred than anyone in the room, living at high pitch in others’ passions, had noticed that Tess was near to tears. He had not seen her in this state before, not in trouble or uncertainty over Stephen. She was as tough as any girl but now she would have to be looked after.

  Time was passing. None of them could have told how long they had been there, in the midst of analyses of information (Stephen had been compelled to reproduce his conversation with his father), ‘inquests’ about innocent leaks, retracking so as to unconvince themselves: they were most of them orderly and used to business, but an outsider wouldn’t have known it, hearing the spasms of conversations, the phases of incoherence, which were themselves a kind of defence.

  Neil had not produced the ritual tea and sausage: though he kept speaking with angry violence, he seemed too far gone for that. After a while, Lance said he was going to the loo, and was a long time away. During his absence the others fell into silence, a silence so strained that the room appeared to have gone darker.

  When he returned, and settled back into his chair, no one spoke. He looked round the circle, and with a smile, or at any rate a rictus, of jeering animation said: ‘Well. We might as well give a thought to who did it, don’t you think?’

  The air was dense with hate. He was hated for saying it. Yet it had been thought.

  It was Bernard who, after an interval, spoke first.

  ‘We can’t get any further without.’

  Stephen said: ‘We have to know.’

  Neil broke out, with frightening fury: ‘Whoever it is, I don’t care who, whoever it is ought to be liquidated. It would be worth nine years’ stir to get rid of a bastard like that.’

  (At that time, a life sentence, which was what Neil was referring to, usually meant not more than nine years in prison.)

  ‘That’s no use,’ said Stephen, with distaste that sounded like contempt.

  ‘Speak for your blasted self.’

  ‘I’m speaking for everyone–’ Stephen glanced round the set of faces, some pallid, some as flushed as Neil’s, excited, difficult to read.