‘The phrasing of your question betrays certain assumptions,’ said Crimond, allowing himself, perhaps out of politeness, the faintest possible smile. ‘Our present regime is “imposed”, our old liberal notion of “consent” has faded away, we
know
that the gross injustice and the cowardly muddle which we see everywhere in this society
cannot be remedied
. The democratic state cannot govern, the people are in the streets – cannot you see the future in the streets of our cities? The conception of democratic parliamentary party government is now a barrier to thought which must be got rid of. The process of change itself is bringing into being new social structures which will in time embody a more positive and effective form of government by consent. Whether or not you call this one-party government is a question which will be obsolete when the transformation has taken place. And mean-while
– we shall be better prepared for the future if we see how terrible, how
doomed
, the present is, how much men suffer and hate, and how awful and how complete a revenge is already in preparation –’
‘So you approve of terrorism?’ said Gulliver.
‘I don’t like that emotive word,’ said Crimond frowning. ‘Our way of life rests upon violence, and invites it. Cases must be judged on their merits. Those who disapprove are usually those who don’t care.’
‘Well, I don’t like your not liking the word,’ said Gulliver, ‘you are simply shirking the issue, and you insult us by implying that we don’t care!’
‘Oh, I think you are all awfully nice people,’ said Crimond, looking not at Gull but at Gerard, ‘who imagine that the nice weather will last your life-time. I think you are wrong.’
Gerard, adopting a calm reflective tone designed to cool the rising temperature, intervened. ‘But your kind of “transformation” has already been tried, it leads to tyranny, to arrangements which are
far more
rigid and unjust and inefficient! We are imperfect, but we are a free open tolerant society governed by democratic process and law, we don’t have to destroy ourselves to make changes, we are changing all the time, and mostly for the better, if you compare fifty years ago! Are we to throw all this away in return for some chimerical hypothetical utopia set up by a few activists after a violent revolution? You told me you weren’t in touch with the working-class movement, you spoke just now of “mundane details” which didn’t concern you, I think you’re a solitary theorist, having interesting ideas, but nothing to do with real problems of power, or how societies really alter –’
‘I don’t believe he’s out of touch,’ said Gulliver, ‘and I don’t believe he’s solitary either. He wants to smash this society. That’s the only thing his lot can do, and that’s real enough.’
‘Your whole picture of western civilisation is a “theory”,’ said Crimond to Gerard. ‘Your whole way of life supports poverty and injustice, behind your civilised relationships there’s a hell of misery and violence. What do dissidents do
when they come to the west? They grieve, they fade, they find it all utterly hateful, they can
see
it. There’s something called history, I don’t just mean a concept invented by Hegel or Marx or perhaps Herodotus, I mean a deep strong relentless process of social change.
That
is what you simply refuse to notice. You think reality is ultimately good, and as you think you’re good too you feel safe. You value yourselves because you’re English. You live on books and conversation and mutual admiration and drink – you’re all alcoholics – and sentimental ideas of virtue. You have no energy, you are lazy people. The real heroes of our time are those who are brave enough to let go of the old dreamy self-centred self-satisfied morality and the old imperialistic moral person who was monarch of all he surveyed! For instance, we have to learn to live with machines, to
think
about how to live with machines, with computers, with information theory, with physics – the old complacent liberal individual is already lost, he’s a fake, he’s finished, he cannot constitute a value –’
‘Oh stop!’ said Rose. She was trembling with anger. ‘You’ve sold your soul to –’
‘Yes, I’ve sold it,’ said Crimond, ‘and I’m proud to have sold it, what’s the use of a soul, that gilded idol of selfishness! I’ve sold it, and I’m going to
do something
with the power which I’ve got in exchange. That is the essence of the new world and its new being. You all idolise your souls, that is yourselves. Ask whom you identify with, that will tell you your place and your class. The people of this planet are not like you,
they
must be served,
they
must be saved, the hungry sheep look up and are not fed –’
‘You’re poisoning them!’ said Gulliver.
‘Your “people” are abstractions,’ said Rose, ‘they’re just a vague idea that feeds your sense of power, your sort of Marxism is old and done for, that’s what’s finished! You’re not a new sort of person, you’re just an old-fashioned insolent power maniac who thinks he’s superman! You say the individual doesn’t exist – what about people who are starving in Africa –?’
‘Your morality is sentiment,’ said Crimond, ‘I don’t say it’s
worthless, but it’s mainly a matter of cherishing your conscience. You’re awfully keen on ecology and helping animals, you deplore famine and you send a cheque, you deplore violence, then you can forget it for a while, you don’t want to look at the real causes of what’s wrong with the world. Why can’t we feed the planet, why are almost all human beings mere shreds of what they might be? There’s a huge human potential, a higher finer stronger human consciousness, a whole adventure of our species which hasn’t even started yet! And of course there are problems to be solved, which you don’t ever conceive of, let alone think about!’
‘This is too much,’ said Rose, ‘now you’re saying things simply to offend us!’
‘You’re not very polite to me, if it comes to that. You asked me to come here. You can’t think of any way of answering me, you can’t even engage in intelligent conversation about my ideas, so you get angry!’
‘You say we value being English,’ said Gull. ‘You’ve evidently got an inferiority complex about being Scottish, and not even a Highlander! I hate your ideas.’
‘Well, I hate yours,’ said Crimond, ‘and you seem to hate everything since you lost your boyish charm.’
‘Crimond –!’ said Gerard.
Rose said, ‘I hate bullies, and you’re one!’
Crimond said, ‘You all envy me because I can think, I can work, I can concentrate, I can write. All you can do is puff with indignation.’
Jenkin, who had for some time been looking down at a piece of paper which Gull had passed him which read
Vile hateful
CHARLATAN, said, ‘Look, David, it won’t do.’
Crimond said, ‘What won’t do? Exchanging insults? I entirely agree. I’m just going.’
‘No, I mean your whole position. There’s a large lie in it somewhere.’
‘Oh I daresay. But there are no hard surfaces in your world. To shift things you have to exaggerate a bit!’
‘You’ve evidently decided not to finish your book, because
you know it’s no bloody good and you’re afraid to show it!’ said Gulliver.
‘The only one of you who’s worth tuppence ha’penny is Jenkin,’ said Crimond, getting up, ‘and he’s a fool. By the way, I had better tell you that I’ve just finished the book, so you needn’t pay me any more money, if that’s what you’re worrying about.’
Crimond had gone. Rose was in tears. Gerard had brought in some sherry, to which Gulliver was helping himself. Jenkin was standing at the window looking out at the yellowish haze outside.
‘Talk about home truths!’ said Gull, who was feeling ashamed of having lost his temper and angry that he had let’ Crimond taunt him. The sherry was making him less ashamed and more angry.
Gerard who had been walking up and down was now sitting beside Rose who had buried her mouth and nose in a handkerchief. Rose was angry with Gerard. Emerging, she chided him. ‘Why did you let that happen, why did you let them shout at each other?’
‘You shouted too,’ said Gulliver.
‘Crimond didn’t shout,’ said Gerard, ‘he let us do that! Of course it won’t do, but he won the match.’
‘I don’t think he won the match,’ said Gulliver, ‘I wish I’d kicked him down the road. But fancy the book being finished! I wonder if it really is?’
‘Of course it is, if he says so. I must ring up and tell Duncan.’
‘Why did he come here then?’ said Rose. ‘He must have come simply to attack us. What extraordinary spite! Not a word of gratitude.’
‘I believe he really came to try to explain the book. We should have been less aggressive at the start. You’re right, Rose, it’s my fault, I should have taken charge, I should have thought out what to say, we ought to have discussed it beforehand.’
‘Why the hell should we –’ said Gull.
‘But, Gerard, you had that talk with him, you knew what kind of thing he was likely to say. Why did you get us all here so that he could throw mud at us?’
‘What he said today was a caricature of what he said to me. The whole thing is funny in a way.’
‘It’s a joke I can’t see.’
‘He was putting on an act, he wanted to chill our blood, he wanted to frighten us.’
‘Well, he didn’t frighten me, he just annoyed me very much,’ said Rose, blowing her nose, ‘And our side didn’t exactly distinguish itself. I think he was in deadly earnest. I wonder if he’s actually mad? There’s something awfully creepy about him.’
‘He’s certainly a fanatic,’ said Gerard. ‘His ancestors were Calvinists. He believes in magic.’
‘So Calvinists believe in magic?’ said Gull.
‘Yes. Instant salvation.’
‘He’s got some sort of awful death wish,’ said Rose. ‘I think he’s murderous, he’s callous, he doesn’t think people are real.’
‘He said to me that people are puppets or will be.’
‘There you are.’
‘What do you think, Jenkin?’ said Gerard to Jenkin’s back.
Jenkin returned from the window and sat down beside Rose. ‘Rose, dear, don’t be distressed. Of course he’s in earnest, but Gerard’s right, he was play-acting to startle us!’
‘Well, what
do
you think?’ said Rose crossly.
‘I’m
longing
to see the book.’
‘But if it’s all tosh like that –’
‘Oh, it won’t be tosh, it’ll be deep – but I wish I could have explained.’
‘Why didn’t you then?’ said Gerard. ‘If you’d only condescended to enter the conversation a bit earlier –!’
‘I couldn’t think how to put it, and you were all being so talkative – I wish I could – see
exactly
how – all his stuff – is based on a mistake…’
‘You said a lie,’ said Gerard.
‘Yes – well – a lie – that’s what one hates – still he may be right in a way that –’
‘That what?’
‘That one has to exaggerate.’
They left one by one, Jenkin first though Gerard tried to detain him, then Gulliver who was (only of course he didn’t say so) going to have lunch with Lily and tell her everything that had happened, then Rose who wanted Gerard to have lunch with her, only he declined. When he had given them a suitable start Gerard left the house himself. Patricia and Gideon were in Paris at the Signorelli exhibition, so Gerard did not have to flee them, but he wanted to be outside and walk, sit in a pub and have a sandwich, think it all over.
He walked for some time in the chilly haze, panting out his moist breath, letting the cold air take him by the throat. He felt displeased with himself for not having controlled the meeting, but he felt too a curious exhilaration. So the book was finished; he longed to read it, but he dreaded it too. What did he fear – that it would be very bad, or that it would be very good? He found himself feeling sorry that the book was finished, as if it were the end of an era, the relaxing of a tension which had had some life-giving resonance. What nonsense. And, today, what a lot of rhetoric and demagoguery, and, when one reflected, rather childish panache! Yet what a curious being, was it after all so surprising that Jean Kowitz was this man’s slave? It flashed on Gerard’s mind that Crimond was a changeling, a mischievous destructive airy spirit, who visited the earth like Halley’s comet every so many years, perhaps every hundred, perhaps every thousand, not a great spirit, no doubt a small one, one of many, but a daemon, who seized ruthlessly upon a woman suitable to be his mate, and (so Gerard’s fantasy went on) upon his departure killed her, or by the withdrawal of his power simply brought about her death, then vanishing in a puff of smoke or a revolver shot. A daemon who could, who knows, actually mediate with other, higher, stronger powers.
Some children were singing Christmas carols in a doorway.
The haze was merging into a heavier thicker yellow light which would now persist until dark. Gerard felt full of energy. Was it possible he had actually enjoyed being denounced by Crimond?
Violet searched the flat several times before she rang Gerard’s number to say that her daughter had gone mad, and had now disappeared. The sequence of events was as follows. Violet had of course, as she told Gideon, been noticing for some time that Tamar was not eating, was in a state of anxiety, was perhaps heading for a depression. Her feelings about this state of affairs, though not by any means as callous as those she had expressed to Gideon, were certainly mixed. Part of her was actually pleased to see her daughter unhappy, the same part which would have been affronted to see her happy. There was; to this way of thinking, a sort of justice in a miserable Tamar, and of injustice in a joyful Tamar. Nor was Violet, in another part, indifferent to Gideon’s suggestion that she might be blamed for letting Tamar descend into depression, even perhaps into suicide. She did not want to be so blamed. She wanted to be the victim, not the killer. That Violet did not believe Tamar’s sufferings to be all that serious was perhaps due to yet another part of Violet’s mind which cared for Tamar as her possession, her product, indeed her daughter. Someone who maintained (as Gideon did for instance) that in spite of all appearances Violet really loved Tamar would have been telling a partial truth. Violet did have an affection for her daughter, and this helped her to believe that no serious trouble was involved, that Tamar was just going through a phase, or putting on an act.