At this, Monteith’s fine eyes lit up. He gave me a smile, not humorous, but comradely. I was dissatisfied with my answer. I had not been interrogated before. Now I was beginning to understand, and detest, the pressures and the temptations. What I had said was quite true: and yet it was too conciliatory.
‘Of course,’ said Monteith, ‘it’s natural for young men to be interested in politics. I was myself, at the University.’
‘Were you?’
‘Like you, but on the other side. I was on the committee of the Conservative Club.’ He said this with an air of innocent gratification, as though that revelation would astonish me, as though he was confessing to having been chairman of a Nihilist cell.
Once more he was efficient, concentrated, ready to call me a liar.
The Thirties, my start at the bar, marriage, the first days of Hitler, the Spanish Civil War.
‘You were strongly on the anti-Nationalist side?’
‘In those days,’ I said, ‘we called it something different.’
‘That is, you were opposed to General Franco?’
‘Of course,’ I replied.
‘But you were very strongly and actively opposed?’
‘I did what little came easy. I’ve often wished I’d done more.’
He went over some Committees I had sat on. All correct, I said.
‘In the course of these activities, you mixed with persons of extreme political views?’
‘Yes.’
He addressed me formally again, and then — ‘You were very intimate with some of these persons?’
‘I think I must ask you to be more specific.’
‘It is not suggested that you were, or have been at any time, a member of the Communist Party—’
‘If it were suggested,’ I said, ‘it would not be true.’
‘Granted. But you have been intimate with some who have?’
‘I should like the names.’
He gave four — those of Arthur Mounteney, the physicist, two other scientists, R— and T—, Mrs Charles March.
I was never a close friend of Mounteney, I said. (It was irksome to find oneself going back on the defensive.)
‘In any case, he left the party in 1939,’ said Monteith, with brisk expertness.
‘Nor of T—.’ Then I said: ‘I was certainly a friend of R—. I saw a good deal of him during the war.’
‘You saw him last October?’
‘I was going to say that I don’t see him often nowadays. But I am very fond of him. He is one of the best men I have ever known.’
‘Mrs March?’
‘Her husband and I were intimate friends when we were young men, and we still are. I met Ann at his father’s house twenty odd years ago and I have known her ever since. I suppose they dine with us three or four times a year.’
‘You don’t deny that you have remained in close touch with Mrs March?’
‘Does it sound as though I were denying it?’ I cried, furious at seeming to be at a moral disadvantage.
He gave a courteous, non-committal smile.
I made myself calm, trying to capture the initiative.
I said: ‘Perhaps it’s time that I got one or two things clear.’
‘Please do.’
‘First of all, though this isn’t really the point, I am not inclined to give up my friends. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to do so — either because they were communists or anything else. Ann March and R — happen to be people of the highest character, but it wouldn’t matter if they weren’t. If you extend your researches, you’ll find that I have other friends, respectable politically, but otherwise disreputable by almost any standards.’
‘Yes, I was interested to find how remarkable your circle was,’ he said, not in the least outfaced.
‘But that isn’t the point, is it?’
He bowed his fine head.
‘You want to know my political views, don’t you? Why haven’t you asked me? — Though I can’t answer in one word. First of all, I haven’t altered much as I’ve got older. I’ve learned a bit more, that’s all. I’ll have another word about that a little later. As I told you, I’ve never been dedicated to politics as a real politician is. But I’ve always been interested. I think I know something about power. I’ve watched it in various manifestations, almost all my working life. And you can’t know something about power without being suspicious of it. That’s one of the reasons why I couldn’t go along with Ann March and R—. It seemed to me obvious in the Thirties, that the concentration of power which had developed under Stalin was too dangerous by half. I don’t think I was being emotional about it. I just distrusted it. As a matter of fact, I’m not emotional about the operations of politics. That is why I oughtn’t to give you any anxiety. I believe that, in the official life, we have to fall back on codes of honour and behaviour. We can’t trust ourselves to do anything else.’
He was gazing straight at me, but did not speak.
‘But I want to be open with you,’ I said. ‘In terms of honour and behaviour, I think you and I would speak the language. In terms of ultimate politics, we almost certainly don’t. I said that I’m not emotional about the operations of politics. But about the hopes behind them, I’m deeply so. I thought it was obvious that the Revolution in Russia was going to run into some major horrors of power. I wasn’t popular with Ann March and R — and some of my other friends for telling them so. But that isn’t all. I always believed that the power was working two ways. They were doing good things with it, as well as bad. When once they got some insight into the horrors, then they might create a wonderful society. I now believe that, more confidently than I ever did. How it will compare with the American society, I don’t know. But so long as they both survive, I should have thought that many of the best human hopes stand an excellent chance.’
Monteith was still expressionless. Despite his job, or perhaps because of it, he did not think about politics except as something he had to give a secret answer to. He was not in the least a speculative man. He coughed, and said: ‘A few more questions on the same subject, sir. Your first wife, just before the war, made a large donation to a certain communist?’
‘Who was it?’
He mentioned a name which meant nothing to me.
‘Are you sure?’ I asked.
‘Quite sure.’
I knew absolutely nothing of him.
‘If you’re right,’ I said, ‘it wasn’t for ideological reasons.’
Just for an instant, he had stripped away the years. I was a youngish man, distraught, with a wife I had to look after: still capable of jealousy, but schooled to watching her in search of anyone who might alleviate the inner cold: still appalled because I did not know where she was or whom she was with, at the mercy of anyone who dropped news of her: still listening for her name.
There was a silence. With a stiff sensitivity he said: ‘I have informed myself about your tragedy. I need not ask you anything more about her.’
He broke out sharply: ‘But you yourself. You attended meetings of—?’ He gave the title of what, not at the time but later, we had come to call a ‘Front’ organization.
‘No.’
‘Please think again.’
‘I tell you no,’ I said.
‘This is very curious.’ His manner throughout had been professional. He had kept hostility out: but now there was an edge. ‘I have evidence from someone who remembers sitting next to you. He remembers exactly how you looked. You pushed your chair back from the table and made a speech.’
‘I tell you, there is not a word of truth in it.’