‘I think most people would agree that his firm hasn’t got the technical resources of the other two—’ I named them.
‘What has Lufkin got?’
‘I’m afraid the answer to that is, Lufkin himself: He’s much the strongest figure in the whole game.’
‘He’s a good chap,’ said Hector Rose incongruously. He was not speaking of Lufkin’s moral nature, nor his merits as a companion: Rose meant that Lufkin was a pantocrator not dissimilar from himself.
He stared at me.
‘My dear Eliot,’ he said, ‘I’m sure it’s unnecessary for me to advise you, but if you do decide that he is the right man for us, then of course you’re not to feel the least embarrassment or be too nice about it. The coincidence that you know something about him — the only significance of that is, that it makes your judgement more valuable to us. It’s very important for us not to fall over backwards and, for quite inadequate reasons, shirk giving the job to the right man, that is, if we finally decide that he does turn out to be the right man.’
I was a little surprised. No one could have doubted that Hector Rose’s integrity was absolute. It would have been high farce to try to bribe him; he assumed the same of me. Nevertheless, I expected him to be more finicky about the procedure, to talk about the necessity of justice not only being done, but being seen to be done. In fact, as the war went on and the state became more interleaved with business, Civil Servants like Rose had made themselves tougher-minded; nothing would get done if they thought first how to look immaculate.
In the same manner, when I asked whether I might as well let Lufkin entertain me, Rose replied: ‘The rule is very simple, my dear Eliot, and it remains for each of us to apply it to himself. That is, when some interested party suddenly becomes passionately desirous of one’s company. The rule is, do exactly as you would if the possibility of interest did not exist. If you wouldn’t normally accept an invitation from our excellent friend, don’t go. If you would normally accept, then do go, if you can bear it. I can’t say that I envy you the temptation,’ said Rose, whose concept of an evening out was a table for two and a bottle of claret at the Athenaeum.
When I came to spend the evening at Lufkin’s, I would have compounded for a table for two myself. As in the past when I was one of his entourage, I found his disregard of time, which in anyone else he would have bleakly dismissed as ‘Oriental’, fretting me. In his flat at St James’s Court, his guests were collected at eight o’clock, which was the time of the invitation, standing about in the sitting-room drinking, nine of us, all men. Lufkin himself was there, standing up, not saying much, not drinking much, standing up as though prepared to do so for hours, glad to be surrounded by men catching his eye. Then one of his staff entered with a piece of business to discuss: and Lufkin discussed it there on the spot, in front of his guests. That finished, he asked the man to stay, and beckoned the butler, standing by the dinner-table in the inner room, to lay another place. Next, with the absence of fuss and hurry of one in the middle of a marathon, which he showed in all his dealings, he decided to telephone: still standing up, he talked for fifteen minutes to one of his plants.
Meanwhile the guests, most of whom were colleagues and subordinates, stood up, went on drinking and exchanged greetings to each others’ wives. ‘Give my regards to Lucille.’ ‘How is Brenda?’ ‘Don’t forget to give my love to Jacqueline.’ It went on, just as it used when I attended those dinners, and men heartily inquired after Sheila and sent messages to her: not that they knew her, for, since she never went to a party, they could only have met her for a few minutes, and by accident. But, according to their etiquette, they docketed her name away and afterwards punctiliously inquired about her, as regularly as they said good evening. No doubt most of those husband-to-husband questions that night, so hearty, so insistent, were being asked about women the speakers scarcely knew.
It was nearly half past nine when Lufkin said: ‘Does anyone feel like eating? I think we might as well go in.’
At the crowded table Lufkin sat, not at the head, but in the middle of one side, not troubling to talk, apparently scornful of the noise, and yet feeling that, as was only right, the party was a success. There was more food and drink than at most wartime dinners: I thought among the noise, the hard male laughter, how little any of these men were giving themselves away. Orthodox opinions, collective gibes, a bit of ribbing — that was enough to keep them zestful, and I had hardly heard a personal remark all night. It made me restless, it made me anxious to slither away, not only to avoid conversation with Lufkin, but also just to be free.
The walls pressed in, the chorus roared round me: and, in that claustrophobia, I thought longingly of being alone with Margaret in her room. In a kind of rapturous day-dream, I was looking forward to marrying her. In the midst of this male hullabaloo my confidence came back. I was telling myself, almost as one confides, brazenly, confidently, and untruthfully to an acquaintance on board ship, that it was natural I should trust myself so little about another marriage after the horror of the first.
Listening to someone else’s history, I should not have been so trustful about the chances of life. Thinking of my own, I was as credulous as any man. Sitting at that table, responding mechanically and politely to a stranger’s monologue, I felt that my diffidence about Margaret was gone.
When one of Lufkin’s guests said the first good night, I tried to go out with him. But Lufkin said: ‘I’ve hardly had a minute with you, Eliot. You needn’t go just yet.’
That company was good at recognizing the royal command. Within a quarter of an hour, among thanks and more salutations to wives, the flat was empty, and we were left alone. Lufkin, who had not stirred from his chair as he received the goodbyes, said: ‘Help yourself to another drink and come and sit by me.’
I had drunk enough, I said. As for him, he always drank carefully, though his head was hard for so spare and unpadded a man. I sat in the chair on his right, and he turned towards me with a creaking smile. We had never been intimate, but there was a sort of liking between us. As usual, he had no small talk whatsoever; I made one or two remarks, about the war, about the firm, to which he said yes and no. He started off: ‘Quite frankly, I still don’t like the way Barford is being handled.’
He said it quietly and dryly, with a note of moral blame that was second nature to him.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ I said.
‘It’s no use being sorry,’ he replied. ‘The thing is, we’ve got to get it right.’
‘I’m at a bit of a disadvantage,’ I said, ‘not being able to say much about it.’
‘You can say quite enough for the purpose.’
I asked straight out: ‘How much do you know?’
‘I hear,’ Lufkin replied, in his bluntest and most off-hand tone, ‘that you people are wasting your own time and everyone else’s debating whether to shut the place up or not.’
‘I hope they’ll come down in favour,’ I said, feeling my way. ‘But I’m by no means sure.’
‘In that case you’re losing your grip,’ Lufkin gave a cold, jeering smile. ‘Of course they’ll keep it going.’
‘Why do you say that?’
For a second I did not put it past him to have inside knowledge, but he answered: ‘No one ever closes a place down. Governments can’t do it; that’s one of the things that’s wrong with them.’ He went on: ‘No, you’d better assume that they’ll keep it ticking over. But not putting enough behind it, blowing hot and cold the whole wretched time. That’s what I call making the worst of both worlds.’
‘You may be right,’ I said.