At last Jack complained: ‘I’m not inventing it for fun, George.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said George. ‘Well, what did the sunket tell you in the end?’
George just heard him out: no future in the firm, permission to stay in his present job on sufferance, the School course cut off: then George swore. He swore as though the words were fresh, as though the brute physical facts lay in front of his eyes. It takes a great religion to produce one great oath, in the mouths of most men: but not in George’s, once inflamed to indignation. When the outburst had spent itself, he said: ‘It’s monstrous. It’s so monstrous that even these bellwethers can’t get away with it. I refuse to believe that they can amuse themselves with being unjust and stupid at the same time — and at the expense of people like you.’
‘People like me don’t strike them as quite so important,’ said Jack.
‘You will before long. Good God alive, in ten years’ time you will have made them realise that they’ve been standing in the road of their betters.’ There was a silence, in which George looked at Jack. Then, with an effort, George said: ‘I expect some of your relations are ready to deal with your present situation. But in case you don’t want to call on them, I wonder—’
‘George, as far as help goes just now,’ Jack replied, ‘I can’t call on a soul in the world.’
‘If you feel like that,’ said George, ‘I wonder if you’d mind letting me see what I can do? I know that I’m not a very suitable person for the present circumstances,’ he went on quickly. ‘I haven’t any influence, of course. And Arthur Morcom and Lewis here always say that I’m not specially tactful in dealing with these people. I think perhaps they exaggerate that: anyway, I should try to surmount it in a good cause. But if you can find anyone else more adequate, you obviously ought to rule me out and let them take it up.’
As George stumbled through this awkward speech, Jack was moved; and at the end he looked chastened, almost ashamed of himself.
‘I only came for advice, George,’ he said.
‘I might not be able to do anything effective,’ said George. ‘I don’t pretend it’s easy. But if you feel like letting me—’
‘Well, as long as you don’t waste too much effort—’
‘If I do it,’ said George, returning to his loud, cheerful tone, ‘I shall do it in my own style. All settled?’
‘Thank you, George.’
‘Excellent,’ said George, ‘excellent.’
He refilled our glasses, drank off his own, settled again in his chair, and said: ‘I’m very glad you two came round tonight.’
‘It was Lewis’ idea,’ said Jack.
‘You were waiting for me to suggest it,’ I said.
‘No, no,’ said Jack. ‘I tell you, I never have useful ideas about myself. Perhaps that’s the trouble with me. I don’t possess a project. All you others manage to get projects; and if you don’t George provides one for you. As with you, Lewis, and your examinations. While I’m the only one left—’ he was passing off my gibe, and had got his own back: but even so, he brought off his mock pathos so well that he disarmed me — ‘I’m the only one left, singing in the cold.’
‘We may have to consider that, too.’ George was chuckling at Jack; then the chuckles began to bubble again inside him, at a thought of his own. ‘Yes, I was a year younger than you, and I hadn’t got a project either,’ he said. ‘I had just been articled to my first firm, the one at Wickham. And one morning the junior partner decided to curse me for my manner of life. He kept saying firmly: if ever you want to become a solicitor, you’ve got to behave like one beforehand. At that age, I was always prepared to consider reasonable suggestions from people with inside knowledge: I was pleased that he’d given me something to aim at. Though I wasn’t very clear how a solicitor ought to behave. However, I gave up playing snooker at the pub, and I gave up going in to Ipswich on Saturday nights to inspect the local talent. I put on my best dark suit and I bought a bowler hat and a briefcase. There it is—’ George pointed to the hearth. Tears were being forced to his eyes by inner laughter; he wiped them, and went on: ‘Unfortunately, though I didn’t realise it then, these manoeuvres seem to have irritated the senior partner. He stood it for a fortnight, then one day he walked behind me to the office. I was just hanging up my hat when he started to curse me. “I don’t know what you’re playing at,” he said. “It will be time enough to behave like a solicitor if ever you manage to become one.”’
George roared with laughter. It was midnight, and soon afterwards we left. Standing in the door, George said, as Jack began to walk down the dark street: ‘I’ll see you tomorrow night. I shall have thought over your business by then.’
2: Conference at Night
THE next night George was lecturing at the School. I attended, and we went out of the room together; Jack was waiting in the corridor.
‘We go straight to see Olive,’ said George, bustling kindly to the point. ‘I’ve told her to bring news of the Calverts.’
Jack’s face lit up: he seemed more uneasy than the night before.
We went to a café which stayed open all night, chiefly for lorry drivers working between London and the North; it was lit by gas mantles without shades, and smelt of gas, paraffin and the steam of tea. The window was opaque with steam, and we could not see Olive until we got inside: but she was there, sitting with Rachel in the corner of the room, behind a table with a linoleum cover.
‘I’m sorry you’re being got at, Jack,’ Olive said.
‘I expect I shall get used to it,’ said Jack, with the mischievous, ardent smile that was first nature to him when he spoke to a pretty woman.
‘I expect you will,’ said Olive.
‘Come on,’ said George. ‘I want to hear your report about your family. I oughtn’t to raise false hopes’ — he turned to Jack — ‘I can only think of one way of intervening for you. And the only chance of that depends on whether the Calverts have committed themselves.’
We were close together, round the table. George sat at the end; though he was immersed in the struggle, his hearty appetite went mechanically on; and, while he was speaking intently to Jack, he munched a thick sandwich from which the ham stuck out, and stirred a great cup of tea with a lead spoon.
‘Well then,’ George asked Olive, ‘how is your uncle taking it?’
We looked at her; she smiled. She was wearing a brilliant green dress that gleamed incongruously against the peeling wall. Just by her clothes a stranger could have judged that she was the only one of us born in a secure middle-class home. Secure in money, that is: for her father lived on notoriously bad terms with his brother, Jack’s employer; and Olive herself had half-broken away from her own family.
She had taken her hat off, and her fair hair shone against the green. Watching her as she smiled at George’s question, I felt for an instant that there was something assertive in her frank, handsome face.
‘How are they taking it?’ George asked.
‘It’s fluttered the dovecotes,’ she said. ‘I’m not surprised. Father heard about it this morning from one of my aunts. They’ve all done a good deal of talking to Uncle Frank since then.’
‘What’s he doing?’ said George.
‘He’s dithering,’ said Olive. ‘He can’t make up his mind what he ought to do next. All day he’s been saying that it’s a pity the holidays last another week — otherwise the best thing would be to send the boy straight back to school.’
‘Good God alive,’ said George. ‘That’s a singularly penetrating observation.’