A Man Over Forty

ERIC LINKLATER

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thriteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eightteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Every man over forty is a scoundrel

George Bernard Shaw

The Face grew larger until it filled, and over-filled, the luminous panel of the television-box; for to magnify its mobile parts, and show the emotion they might record, the top of his head was sliced off, and all that remained visible – the head was in profile – was the area between eyebrows and Adam's apple.

It was a clean-shaven face, oddly young for his known years; his hair still curled, though not with the golden efflorescence of his nonage. His detractors had sometimes called him an overgrown schoolboy: a lanky, tall, indignant schoolboy who had been overtaken by rich living. Now in his middle forties, the luminous eyes retained a semblance of innocence, and the mouth betrayed his intemperance. The animation of his features defied a positive analysis, however, for they could be at home to innocence and wrath and arrogance, and were not quite exempt from silliness.

Perhaps his voice was more important. It was musical and deep, it could thunder or woo at will; and with practice he had made it a magnificent instrument for the person he had become. That is to say, for a man of forthright and determined character – notorious, indeed, for intransigent, often unpopular opinions, and vigorous expression of them – and when, after the interrogation had been going on for several minutes, he was startled by an inadvertent noise and turned full-face to the nearer camera, most of the several million people who were watching him thought the pinpoints of light reflected in his eyes were a premonitory flash of the sudden temper for which he was admired. Only to a very few did it look like a sign of alarm.

‘You have just been acclaimed as Television Personality of the Year,' said the smooth voice of the Interrogator. ‘You have been recognized, that is, as a leader, a person of great importance, in a new profession. But your profession has been called a profession without form or purpose—'

‘That may be so, but it isn't new. Or rather, it's new in scale, but not in sort. In every village, when villages were centres of life, there was someone to whom people got into the habit of listening. Sometimes he was a clown, sometimes a home-grown philosopher; often enough a mixture of both.'

‘Is that how you see yourself?'

‘It's how a lot of people see me. And it's their vision that matters, not mine.'

‘The image in their minds is that of a village philosopher who, on occasion, isn't above a bit of clowning? Would you accept that?'

‘If you'll accept the fact that when they think I'm clowning I'm usually more serious than when they fancy I'm philosophizing.'

‘Is that true?'

‘I always speak the truth. And the world today – the life of the world – is more like a habitation of clowns than a well-swept promenade of philosophers. You can't deny that.'

‘The world of today hasn't treated you badly, Mr Balintore. It has made you a rich man.'

‘I might be, if I could keep what I earn. But the Government takes most of it.'

‘Do you resent having to pay taxes?'

‘I resent having to subsidize inefficiency! I resent having to pay for an educational system that doesn't educate – for fighting services that couldn't defend us – for workers who don't work, for prisons that only breed criminals, and for roads I can't drive on. I resent having to give my money to fat farmers who spend it on noxious chemicals to poison their fields. They're poisoning the whole countryside, and doing it with my money!'

‘But in spite of taxation you manage to live fairly comfortably?'

‘I do.'

‘You haven't always been rich, have you? I want you to tell me something about your early life.'

‘For a while, when I was young, I lived pretty thinly. But that was my own choice.'

‘You ran away from home, didn't you?'

‘I have always done what I wanted to.'

‘Was that your only reason?'

‘There was no compulsion on me to go.'

‘Boys don't run away unless they're unhappy; or so I've always thought. Were you unhappy?'

‘Who isn't, at fifteen or sixteen?'

‘What made you unhappy?'

‘Initially, I suppose, my father's death. When I was twelve.'

‘You were very fond of him?'

‘I was devoted to him.'

‘You were an only child?'

‘An only child. And I deserted my widowed mother – who, incidentally, had married again – and ran away to sea. At sixteen I signed aboard a sailing-ship in the proper romantic style.'

‘Thirty years ago? I thought sailing-ships had disappeared by then.'

‘There weren't many left. But a man called Erikson, a Finn, had found it was possible to make money out of them when everyone else thought they were obsolete. He economized on food, and economized on his crews; which were small and young.'

‘Where did you sail to?'

‘Australia for grain, and back round the Horn. I made the trip three times.'

‘And that was the prelude to your Spanish adventure?'

‘If you like to call it an adventure—'

‘You fought in the Civil War?'

‘I did.'

‘And a few years later you were a commissioned officer in our army, when we were at war with Germany and Japan?'

‘I was in the Intelligence Corps. That wasn't uncomfortable.'

‘Perhaps not, by your standards. But it all adds up – everything you've told me – to a romantic story. And then, as if to cap it, you write a novel called
Scorpio My Star
, and your first novel – your first and only novel – becomes a best-seller.'

‘Everyone writes a novel nowadays.'

‘But not many write as well as you did, or sell 40,000 copies. Why did you never write another?'

‘I didn't want to.'

‘It was that novel which made you famous, and gave you an introduction, at first to journalism, and then to this curious profession to which we both belong. And I still find it difficult to understand how you, after so varied a life – a life that we stay-at-homes all regard as romantic – how you find contentment, or satisfaction, in a career that certainly offers no physical adventure.'

‘I don't. But I like my comfort.'

‘But for a good many years – for quite a long time – you seem to have gone out of your way to avoid comfort. And I still don't know why. I don't know what was the impulse that made you leave home, or the mainspring that kept you going. Was it only the normal unhappiness of a growing, imaginative boy?'

‘That may be the reason. It's as good as any other.'

‘Was it a persistent unhappiness?'

‘Call it recurrent.'

‘You said you were devoted to your father?'

‘And the corollary to that is that I didn't get on with my mother.'

‘Was there any special reason for that?'

‘I may shock a lot of people – I may shock you – by saying that, as far back as I can remember, I never liked her. And her second marriage, after my father's death, did nothing to make me like her better.'

Several million of the people who were watching him – most of them in their own homes, many united by family affection – heard this admission through a murmur of disapproval; and saw, with a rising interest, that Balintore himself appeared to share their disquiet. Little beads of sweat, glistening in the light, showed on his upper lip, then on his forehead, and a narrow rivulet ran down his nearer cheek. He mopped his face with a coloured handkerchief, and the Interrogator asked him: ‘So, then, when you went to war in Spain, there was anger in your heart – an anger that had nothing to do with politics – but you hoped to get rid of it by political action?'

‘That's a shallow explanation. And glib. Far too glib.'

‘Well, it may be. It's never easy to analyse a motive—'

‘I didn't want to go home: that was my motive. And the Civil War gave me an excuse for going to Spain.'

‘Did you enjoy it?'

‘No.'

‘But when another war began, in 1939, you joined the army again. A different army—'

‘And don't ask me why I did that.'

‘I wasn't going to. No one has ever doubted your patriotism, Mr Balintore. But in your second war you did find some opportunity for enjoyment?'

‘I didn't join the infantry. I got a commission – as I've told you already – in the Intelligence Corps.'

‘And in India, where you spent a year or so—'

‘Longer than that.'

‘In India you found time to get married?'

Leaning forward in his chair, Balintore shook a menacing finger at the Interrogator. Anger tautened the contours of his face, and the beating of a pulse in his temple – perhaps by some accident of lighting – became suddenly conspicuous.

‘If you want to make a parade or raree-show of married life – my married life! – just tell me and I'll save you a lot of trouble,' he said. ‘I'll give you the whole story, if that's what you're after.'

His domestic audience of several million viewers now watched and listened with a rising expectancy. Now, they thought, he's going to cut loose! Now there'll be an explosion! —'

‘I didn't want to go home: that was my motive. And the Civil War gave me an excuse for going to Spain.'

‘Did you enjoy it?'

‘No.'

‘But when another war began, in 1939, you joined the army again. A different army—'

‘And don't ask me why I did that.'

‘I wasn't going to. No one has ever doubted your patriotism, Mr Balintore. But in your second war you did find some opportunity for enjoyment?'

‘I didn't join the infantry. I got a commission – as I've told you already – in the Intelligence Corps.'

‘And in India, where you spent a year or so—'

‘Longer than that.'

‘In India you found time to get married?'

Leaning forward in his chair, Balintore shook a menacing finger at the Interrogator. Anger tautened the contours of his face, and the beating of a pulse in his temple – perhaps by some accident of lighting – became suddenly conspicuous.

‘If you want to make a parade or raree-show of married life – my married life! – just tell me and I'll save you a lot of trouble,' he said. ‘I'll give you the whole story, if that's what you're after.'

His domestic audience of several million viewers now watched and listened with a rising expectancy. Now, they thought, he's going to cut loose! Now there'll be an explosion! —'

‘I didn't want to go home: that was my motive. And the Civil War gave me an excuse for going to Spain.'

‘Did you enjoy it?'

‘No.'

‘But when another war began, in 1939, you joined the army again. A different army—'

‘And don't ask me why I did that.'

‘I wasn't going to. No one has ever doubted your patriotism, Mr Balintore. But in your second war you did find some opportunity for enjoyment?'

‘I didn't join the infantry. I got a commission – as I've told you already – in the Intelligence Corps.'