Under the Net (15 page)

Here our agreement broke down, largely because of the operation of the
rallentando
referred to earlier. I was beginning to think by now that it was unlikely that we should meet Hugo, but that we might as well complete the circle. As we went back across Cheapside and turned down Bow Lane they were putting the street lights on. Yellow light from swinging lamps in alleyways fell upon the white walls, revealing ancient names, and darkened the upper air towards night. We noticed a few stars which looked as if they had been there a long time. We turned into the old Tavern in Watling Street. This was just the sort of pub Hugo liked; but he was not therein. As we drank I told the other two that we should visit the Skinners' Arms and then double back to Ludgate Circus.

They had no objection. ‘So long,' Finn said, ‘as we don't have to waste too much of the good time in walking.' I pulled them out and we approached the Skinners' Arms. This pub stands at the junction of Cannon Street and Queen Victoria Street, under the shadow of St Mary, Aldermary. We rolled in.

When we were well inside the door and I had satisfied myself that Hugo wasn't there, Dave gripped my arm and said, ‘There's someone here I'd like you to meet.'

At the end of the long bar, leaning against the counter, was a slim pale individual wearing a red bow-tie. He saluted Dave, and as we came up to him I was impressed by his enormous eyes, which looked at us sad and round and luminous as the eyes of a wombat or a Rouault Christ.

‘Meet Lefty Todd,' said Dave, and uttered my name too.

We shook hands. I had of course heard a great deal about the eccentric leader of the New Independent Socialists, but I had never met him before and I studied him now with considerable interest.

‘What are you doing here?' he said to Dave. His exhausted anaemic look contrasted with the vigour and abruptness of his speech, and as he spoke he waved vaguely to Finn as if he knew him. Finn is someone who never gets introduced.

‘Ask Donaghue,' said Dave.

‘What are you doing here?' said Lefty to me.

I don't like being asked direct questions, and on such occasions I usually lie. ‘We've been visiting a friend at the office of the Star,' I said.

‘Who?' said Lefty. ‘I know everyone at the Star.'

‘A man called Higgins,' I said, ‘he's new.'

Lefty stared at me. ‘All right,' he said, and turned back to Dave. ‘You don't often come to these parts,' he said.

‘I suppose you've been putting the
Independent Socialist
to bed,' said Dave.

‘It's not strictly in bed yet,' said Lefty. ‘I've left it to the others!'

He turned back to me. ‘I've heard of you.'

I was still feeling annoyed. I didn't make the gauche error of replying to this remark, when uttered by a famous person, with ‘I've heard of you too.' Instead I replied, ‘What have you heard?' This often disconcerts.

Lefty was not disconcerted. He pondered for a moment and then said, ‘That you are a talented man who is too lazy to work and that you hold left-wing opinions but take no active part in politics.'

This was plain enough. ‘You were not misinformed,' I told him.

‘About the former,' said Lefty, ‘I don't care a damn, but I'd like to ask you a few questions about the latter. Have you got time?' He showed me the dial of his watch.

I felt a bit confused by the former and the latter, as well as by the brusqueness of his manner and the amount of beer I had drunk. ‘You mean you want to talk to me about politics?'

‘About your politics.'

Dave and Finn had drifted away and were sitting in the far comer.

‘Why not?' I said.

‘WELL, now, let's get clear about where we stand, shall we?' said Lefty. ‘What political experience have you had in the past?'

‘I was in the Y.C.L. once,' I said, ‘and now I'm in the Labour Party.'

‘Well, we know what
that
means, don't we?' said Lefty. ‘Practical experience nil. But do you at least keep up to date in a theoretical way? Do you study the political scene?' He spoke with the brisk cheerfulness of a physician.

‘Scarcely,' I said.

‘Could you say at all clearly why you've given up?'

I spread out my hands. ‘It's hopeless...'

‘Ah,' said Lefty, ‘that's the one thing you mustn't say. That's the sin against the Holy Ghost. Nothing's ever hopeless. Is it, Dave?' he said to Dave, who at that moment was at the counter buying another drink.

‘Nothing except trying to shut you up,' said Dave.

‘Would you say that you cleared out because you didn't care what happened or because you didn't know what to do?' Lefty asked me.

‘These two things connect,' I said, and would have said more about this only Lefty cut me short.

‘How right you are,' he said. ‘I was just going to say it myself. So that you admit that you care?'

‘Of course,' I said, ‘but ...'

‘Well, it's the chink in the dam,' said he. ‘If you can care at all you can care absolutely. What other moral problem is there in this age?'

‘Being loyal to one's friends and behaving properly to women,' I answered quick as a flash.

‘You're wrong,' said Lefty. ‘It's the whole framework that's at stake. What's the use of preventing a man from stumbling when he's on a sinking ship?'

‘Because if he breaks his ankle he won't be able to swim,' I suggested.

‘But why try to save him from breaking his ankle if you can try to save him from losing his life?'

‘Because I know how to do the former but not the latter,' I told him rather testily.

‘Well, let's see, shall we?' said Lefty, who had lost none of his eagerness.

He opened a brief-case and-produced a pile of pamphlets which he flicked through rapidly.

‘This is the one for you,' he said, and held it up in front of me as if it were a mirror. In large letters on the cover was the question: Why have
you
LEFT POLITICS? and underneath: LEFT POLITICS needs
you!
At the bottom it said: price 6d. I began to fumble in my pocket.

‘No, you take it away, it's a present,' said Lefty; ‘in fact, we never sell these things. But if there's a price on it people feel they've made a good bargain, and they read it. You look it over when you've got a quiet time tomorrow.' And he thrust it inside my coat.

‘Now, are you a socialist?'

‘Yes,' I said.

‘Certain?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good. Mind you, we don't yet know what this means, but so far so good. Now, what features of the present situation make you feel that it's hopeless to fight for socialism?'

‘It's not exactly that I feel it's hopeless ...' I began.

‘Come, come,' said Lefty, ‘we've confessed to the illness, haven't we? Let's get on towards the cure.'

‘All right,' I said, ‘it's this. English socialism is perfectly worthy, but it's not socialism. It's welfare capitalism. It doesn't touch the real curse of capitalism, which is that work is deadly.'

‘Good, good!' said Lefty. ‘Let's take it slowly now. What was the most profound thing Marx ever said?'

I was beginning to be annoyed by this question and answer method. He asked each question as if there was one precise answer to it. It was like the catechism. ‘Why should any one thing be the most profound?' I asked.

‘You're right, Marx said a lot of profound things,' said Lefty, not deigning to notice my annoyance. ‘For instance, he said that consciousness doesn't found being, but social being is the foundation of consciousness.'

‘Mind you, we don't yet know what this means ...' I said.

‘Oh, yes we do!' said Lefty, ‘and it doesn't mean what some mechanistically minded Marxists think it means. It doesn't mean that society develops mechanically and ideologies just tag along. What's crucial in a revolutionary era? Why, consciousness. And what is its chief characteristic? Why, precisely not just to reflect social conditions but to reflect on them — within limits, mind you, within limits. That's why you intellectuals are important. Now what would you say was the future of a body like NISP?'

‘To get more votes than any other party and make you Prime Minister.'

‘Not a bit of it!' said Lefty triumphantly.

‘Well, what is its future?' I asked.

‘I don't know,' said Lefty.

I felt it was unfair of him suddenly to throw in a question to which he didn't know the answer.

‘But that's the essence of it!' he went on. ‘People accuse us of being irresponsible. But those people just don't understand our role. Our role is to explore the socialist consciousness of England. To increase its sense of responsibility. New social forms will be forced on us soon enough. But why should we sit waiting with nothing better to keep us company than social ideas drawn from the old ones?'

‘Wait a moment,' I said. ‘What about the people meanwhile? I mean the masses.
Ideas
occur to
individuals.
That's always been the trouble with the human race.'

‘You've put your finger on it,' said Lefty. ‘What, you are going to say, about the famous unity of theory and practice?'

‘Indeed,' I said, ‘I could wish no greater good to England than that English socialism should become inspired and rejuvenated. But what is the use of an intellectual renaissance that doesn't move the people? Theory and practice only unite under very special circumstances.'

‘E.g. when?' said Lefty.

‘Well,' I said, ‘e.g. when the Bolshevik party fought for power in Russia.'

‘Ah,' said Lefty, ‘you've chosen a bad example for your own argument. Why are we so impressed by the very high degree of consciousness which these people seem to have had of what they were up to? Because they succeeded. If they hadn't succeeded they'd look like a little gang of crackpots. It's in retrospect that we see the whole thing as a machine of which they understood the workings. You can't judge the unity of theory and practice in a moment-to-moment way. The principle of their disunity is important too. The trouble with you is you don't really believe in Socialist Possibility. You're a mechanist. And why are you a mechanist? I'll tell you. You call yourself a socialist, but you were brought up on Britannia rules the waves like the rest of them. You want to belong to a big show. That's why you're sorry you can't be a communist. But you can't be — and neither have you enough imagination to pull out of the other thing. So you feel hopeless. What you need is flexibility, flexibility!' Lefty pointed at me an immensely long and supple finger. ‘Maybe we have lost one chance to be the leaders of Europe,' he said. ‘But the point is to deserve it. Then perhaps we'll have another one.'

‘And meanwhile,' I said, ‘what about the Dialectic?'

‘There you go,' said Lefty. ‘It's like the evil eye. You don't really believe in it, yet it paralyses you. Even the adherents of the Dialectic know that the future is anyone's guess. All one can do is first reflect and then act. That's the human job. Not even Europe will go on for ever. Nothing goes on for ever.'

Dave was at the bar again.

‘Except the Jews,' I said.

‘Yes, you're right,' said Lefty, ‘except the Jews.'

We both looked at him.

‘What?' said Dave.

‘It's time now, please,' said the barmaid.

‘So you do recognize certain mysteries?' I asked Lefty.

‘Yes, I'm an empiricist,' he said.

We handed in our glasses.

By now I had enough alcohol inside me to feel despair at the prospect of having to stop drinking. Also I was beginning to take rather a fancy to Lefty.

‘Can we buy a bottle of brandy here?' I asked.

‘I think so,' he said.

‘Well, suppose we buy one and continue this discussion somewhere?' I said.

Lefty hesitated. ‘All right,' he said, ‘but we'll need more than one bottle. Four half bottles of Hennessy, please, Miss,' he said to the barmaid.

We emerged into Queen Victoria Street,. It was a very still, hot night, burnt with stars and flooded by a moon. A few drunks reeled off and left us the scene. We stood looking towards St Paul's, each man with a brandy bottle in his pocket.

‘Whither?' said Dave.

‘Let me just collect my wits,' said Lefty. ‘I have to go to the post office and send off some letters.'

It is characteristic of central London that the only thing you can buy there at any hour of the day or night is a stamp. Even a woman you can't get after about three-thirty a.m. unless you are
bien renseigne.
We set off in the direction of the General Post Office, and as we turned into King Edward Street I took a swig from my bottle. As I did so I realized I was already very drunk indeed.

The General Post Office was spacious, cavernous, bureaucratic, sober, and dim. We entered hilariously, disturbing the meditation of a few clerks and of the people who are always to be found there at late hours penning anonymous letters or suicide notes. While Lefty bought stamps and dispatched cables I organized the singing in round of
Great Tom is Cast,
which continued, since I never have the presence of mind necessary to stop a round once it is started, until an official turned us out. Outside we studied the fantastic letter-boxes, great gaping mouths, where one can watch the released letter falling down and down a long dark well until it lands upon a tray in a lighted room far below. ‘This so fascinated Finn and me that we decided we must write some letters forthwith, and we returned inside and bought two letter cards. Dave said he already received more letters than he wanted and there was no sense in inviting yet more by pointless acts of correspondence. Finn said he was going to write to someone in Ireland. I started to write to Anna, pressing the card vertically against the wall of the Post Office; but I could think of nothing to say to her except
I love you,
which I wrote several times over, very badly. Then I added,
you are beautiful,
and sealed the letter. I put it well into the mouth of the box and let it go and it fell, turning over and over like an autumn leaf.