The Malcontents (6 page)

‘You were out to create a scandal, that’s the least of it.’

‘It was a genuine scandal,’ said Stephen, in a hard unyielding tone. He could say that to himself, it was true. It was true that the design had begun there: but that had been only the beginning, the design had grown, even now no one outside knew it all.

As he spoke, unconceding, Stephen nevertheless, unknown to his father, was already feeling a new apprehension, darker than the others.

‘One might be prepared to admit that,’ said Thomas Freer. Stephen was too much possessed to recognize it, but his father, once he had made his disclosure, had been speaking with the precision of a competent lawyer. ‘But – money passed to this man Finlayson?’

‘Probably yes.’

‘Probably?’

‘Yes, it passed.’ Stephen would not excuse himself: in fact, the excuse was frail: though, on the first occasion, he had heard after the event.

‘That is, you were making up a story about—’ (the MP)

‘If he didn’t know the facts, he should have done.’ This time Stephen shouted, the skin reddening around his eyes.

‘You were improving the occasion. That used to be known as framing, do you realize?’

‘I realize everything we’ve done.’

‘Well, do you realize that it’s not only immoral, but also actionable?’

‘I shouldn’t be surprised.’ The words were cold. The tempers were at breaking-point.

‘It is fairly obvious that a charge of conspiracy would lie. To the best of my judgement, it is likely to be brought.’

‘They’re fools, if they want all this brought out in public–’

‘They’re not fools, but they want to make an example of people like you. And you’ve given them the best opportunity they’ll ever have.’

The edge which was frequent in Stephen’s voice was sharpening in his father’s. As they quarrelled more deeply, they sounded more alike.

‘I used to think,’ Thomas Freer went on, ‘that you weren’t a fool yourself. What did you imagine you were up against? I suppose it didn’t occur to you that if the man Finlayson could be bribed by your party, he might also take a little money from the other one? Who weren’t so stupid and hadn’t lost every conception of common honesty?’

Stephen’s face had gone white with anger. Staring at him, his father said: ‘No, I didn’t mean quite that. I didn’t know all this, of course, on Saturday night. But I think I was talking sensibly, you remember? I’ll give you the credit, I believe you were doing evil so that good might come.’

He was speaking with a blend of affection and, as he recalled his own foresight, of something like conceit. Stephen’s expression did not melt. For a while, in the doldrums of the quarrel, neither spoke. Then Thomas Freer said tentatively: ‘I don’t know whether it’s possible for you to extricate yourself.’

Stephen, with the insight of family passion, didn’t need an explanation of what his father meant.

‘You’d like me to leave the others to it, would you?’

‘So far as I understand the position legally, and I think I do, you’re not involved in the sense that St John and Forrester are–’

‘I take responsibility.’

‘Legally, it’s possible that you needn’t.’

‘You’d like me to do that.’

‘It might be possible.’

‘You’d regard that as a sign of common honesty, wouldn’t you?’

At the bitter throw-back, Thomas Freer looked away.

‘You don’t think of me,’ he said in a subdued tone. ‘You don’t think of my position.’

‘Of course it’ll be a nuisance for you. Round this place.’ Stephen swung an arm in the direction of the cathedral. ‘Of course it will be a nuisance. I’m sorry for that. It will soon be over. They’ll get over it. That’s all.’

Stephen had made an apology which wasn’t one. In each of them, the feeling of reproach, outrage, affection denied, shading into contempt or hatred, was growing wilder.

‘I can’t understand how anyone with the ability you’re supposed to have can have done anything so half-witted,’ said Thomas Freer.

‘No, you’re not capable of understanding that.’

‘Half-witted,’ Thomas Freer repeated.

‘I might listen to that, if you’d ever done anything at all.’

‘If I’d ever done anything of this kind, it wouldn’t have been crooked. You needn’t have been crooked, that’s the thing that I can’t get over.’

‘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–’

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 telling 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.