Read Online Last Things by C. P. Snow - Free Book Online Page B

that in the midst of a crowd of decent clever men anyone who became a permanent secretary had of necessity to be something of a shit.’
    Rose delivered that apophthegm as blandly as his normal courtesies. His wife chortled, and Margaret grinned.
    ‘Well,’ said Rose, ‘I qualified to that extent.’
    ‘Hector,’ I said, ‘you haven’t answered my question.’
    ‘Haven’t I, my dear Lewis? I really do apologise. I am so very, very sorry.’
    We gazed at each other. We were less constrained that night than we had been during the years in the office. And yet he was just as immovable, it was like arguing with him over a point on which I was, after all the paraphernalia, going inevitably to be overruled.
    Rose was continuing, in his most unargumentative tone.
    ‘Recently I had the pleasure of introducing my wife to the Italian lakes. Actually we chose that for our honeymoon–’
    ‘Lovely,’ said Jane.
    ‘Yes, we thought it was a good choice. And, as a very minor bonus, I happened to come across an inscription which might interest you, Lewis. Perhaps, for those whose Latin has become rusty, I may take the liberty of translating. It is pleasantly simple. GAIUS AUFIDIUS RUFUS. HE WAS A GOOD CIVIL SERVANT.
    ‘Don’t you think that is remarkably adequate? Who could possibly want a more perfect epitaph than that?’
    I knew, and he knew that I knew, that he was parodying himself. I nodded my head, in acquiescent defeat. Impassively he let show a smile, but, unlike his committee smile, it contained a degree of both malice and warmth. Then he gave us, his wife for the first time assisting in the conversation, a travelogue about Como and Garda, the hotels they had stayed in, the restaurants they would revisit when, the following spring, they proposed to make the same trip again. This honeymoon travelogue went on for some time.
    Then, when we got up and began our goodbyes, Rose encircled us with thanks for coming. At last we got out into the road, waiting for a taxi: the two of them, while they waved to us, stood on the doorstep close together, as though they were ready to be photographed.
    As we drove past Victoria through the Belgravia streets, Margaret, in the dark and sheltering cab, was saying: ‘How old is she?’
    ‘Late thirties?’
    ‘Older. Perhaps she’s too old.’
    ‘Too old for what?’
    ‘A child, you goat.’ Her voice was full of cheerful sensual nature. ‘Anyway, we’d better watch the births column next year–’
    She went on: ‘Good luck to them!’
    I said yes.
    She said: ‘I hope it goes on like that.’ She added: ‘And I hope something else doesn’t.’
    We had both enjoyed the bizarre but comforting evening, and I had remembered only intermittently (and that perhaps had been true for her) that she had news to break. Now she was angry again – at me, at herself, at the original cause – for having to fracture the peace of the moment.
    ‘What is the matter?’
    ‘Your nephew.’
    Muriel had told her the story that afternoon. Pat was having other women, certainly a couple since the marriage, with the baby due in the New Year. It was as matter-of-fact as that.
    ‘He’s a little rat,’ said Margaret.
    With the lights of Park Lane sweeping across us, I remarked: ‘You can’t do anything.’
    ‘You mustn’t defend him.’
    ‘I wasn’t–’
    ‘You want to, don’t you?’
    I had never been illusioned about Pat. And yet Margaret was reading something, as though through the feel of my arm: an obscure male freemasonry, or perhaps another kind of resistance she expected, whenever her judgments were more immediate and positive than mine.
    We didn’t say much until we were inside our bedroom.
    ‘It’s squalid,’ said Margaret. ‘But that makes it worse for her.’
    ‘I’m sorry for her.’
    ‘I’m desperately sorry for her.’
    Her indignation had gone by now, but her empathy was left.
    ‘I know,’ I said. I asked how Muriel was taking it.
    ‘That’s a curious thing,’