Lucky Jim

'Yes, that's right. You talk as if it's the only thing that is. If you can tell me whether you like greengages or not, you can tell me whether you're in love with Bertrand or not, if you want to tell me, that is.'

' You're still making it much too simple. All I can really say is that I'm pretty sure I was in love with Bertrand a little while ago, and now I'm rather less sure. That up-and-down business doesn't happen with greengages; that's the difference.'

'Not with greengages, agreed. But what about rhubarb, eh? What about rhubarb? Ever since my mother stopped forcing me to eat it, rhubarb and I have been conducting a relationship that can swing between love and hatred every time we meet.' "That's all very well, Jim. The trouble with love is it gets you in such a state you can't look at your own feelings dispassionately.'

'That would be a good thing if you could do it, would it?'

'Why, of course.'

He gave another quiet yell, this time some distance above middle C '

You've got a long way to go, if you don't mind me saying so, even though you are nice. By all means view your own feelings dispassionately, if you feel you ought to, but that's nothing to do with deciding whether (Christ) you're in love. Deciding that's no more difficult than the greengages business. What is difficult, and the time you really need this dispassionate rubbish, is deciding what to do about being in love if you are, whether you can stick the person you love enough to marry them, and so on.'

'Why, that's exactly what I've been saying, in different words.'

' Words change the thing, and anyway the whole procedure's different.

People get themselves all steamed up about whether they're in love or not, and can't work it out, and their decisions go all to pot It's happening every day. They ought to realize that the love part's perfectly easy; the hard part is the workingout, not about love, but about what they're going to do. The difference is that they can get their brains going on that, instead of taking the sound of the word " love" as a signal for switching them off. They can get somewhere, instead of indulging in a sort of orgy of emotional self-catechising about how you know you're in love, and what love is anyway, and all the rest of it. You don't ask yourself what greengages are, or how you know whether you like them or not, do you? Right?'

Outside his lectures, this was the longest speech Dixon had made for what seemed to him years, and, not excluding his lectures, by far the most fluent. How had he managed it? Drink? No: he was dangerously sober.

Sexual excitement? No in italic capitals: visitations of that feeling reduced him punctually to silence and, as a rule, petrifaction. Then how? It was a mystery, but one he felt too contented to bother about solving. He looked idly at the ribbon of road ahead of them, unsteadily unreeling itself beneath the wheels. Hedges, bleached to a sandy pallor by the headlights, swung past, dipping and mounting. The isolation of the car's interior seemed comforting and natural.

A movement of Christine's, the first he'd noticed since the journey began, made him glance in her direction. He could see that she was leaning forward and looking out of the window. She said in a muffled voice: 'And the same applies to not liking greengages, of course.'

'Eh? Yes, I suppose so.'

He heard her yawn. 'Where are we now, do you know?'

'Oh, just over half-way, I should think.'

'I feel awfully sleepy. It is wretched; I don't want to be.'

'Have a cigarette, that'll do you a power of good.'

'No thanks. Look, would you mind if I had a nap for a few minutes? It'll make me feel much less tired, I know.'

'Of course, by all means.'

While she snuggled herself together hi her corner, Dixon fought his disappointment at this device of hers for quitting his company. He'd thought he was getting on so well; his usual policy of not talking at length was the right one after all. Just then she laid her head on his shoulder and all his senses grew alert 'You don't mind, do you?' she asked. "The back of this seat's like iron.'

'You go ahead.' Forcing himself to act before he could think, he slid his arm beneath her shoulders. She moved her head experimentally to and fro against him, then settled herself and seemed to go to sleep at once.