Lucky Jim

'Well, I must admit I have been beginning to hope…" Now that the hope was voiced, it seemed ludicrously naive. 'Oh, I don't know. It doesn't make much difference anyway.'

'You sound pretty miserable about the whole business.'

'Do I? It hasn't been easy, certainly.'

' No, and it's not going to get any easier, is it?' When Dixon, irritated by this question, said nothing, she went on, tapping ash into a saucer: 'I don't suppose you want me to say this, but you must realize it yourself, I should think. I don't see how either of you can be very happy with the other one.'

Dixon tried to suppress his irritation. 'No, I don't suppose /zoo/ we can, but there's nothing to be done about it. It's just that we can't split up, that's all.'

'Well, what are you going to do, then? Are you going to get engaged to her or anything?'

It was the same curiosity as she'd shown some weeks ago about his drinking habits.' I don't know,' he said coldly, trying not to think about getting engaged to Margaret. 'I suppose it's possible, if things carry on as they are for a time.'

She didn't seem to notice his unfriendly tone. Shifting in her seat, she glanced round the room, then said didactically:' Well, it looks as if we're both taken care of, doesn't it? It's just as well.'

The authoritative vapidity of this reacted with Dixon's general feeling of peevish regret and made him begin to talk fast. 'Yes, there's not really much to choose between us when you look into it. You're keeping up your little affair with Bertrand because you think that on the whole it's safer to do that, in spite of the risks attached to that kind of thing, than to chance your arm with me. You know the snags about him, but you don't know what snags there might be about me. And I'm sticking to Margaret because I haven't got the guts to turn her loose and let her look after herself, so I do that instead of doing what I want to do, because I'm afraid to. It's just a sort of stodgy, stingy caution that's the matter with us; you can't even call it looking after number one.' He looked at her with faint contempt, and was hurt to see the same feeling in the way she looked at him. 'That's all there is to it; and the worst of it is I shall go on doing exactly what I was going to do in the first place. It just shows how little it helps you to know where you stand.'

For some reason, this last remark brought into his mind the thought that a few words from him could dispose of Christine's attachment to Bertrand; he'd only to tell her what Carol had told him. But she probably knew, perhaps she was so devoted to Bertrand that she wouldn't break with him even over a thing like that, would rather have half of him than nothing at all. And, anyway, what would she think of him if he came out with it at this point? No, he might as well forget about that.

It seemed there'd never be a valid opportunity to make that disclosure to anyone, which was cruelly unfair, considering how loyally he'd kept his mouth shut and how long he'd waited for the right moment.

Christine had bowed her head - how well-brushed her hair was - over the saucer where she was stubbing out her cigarette. ' I think you're making a bit of a fuss, more than you need, don't you? Nothing's happened between us to speak of, has it?' She still kept her face down.

'Agreed, but that's not the way to judge…'

She met his eyes now, her face flushed, and this silenced him. 'I think it's silly to talk the way you were talking,' she said, with a faint cockney intonation about her voice that he'd half-noticed before. 'You seemed to think you'd proved something by saying all that. Of course that's what we're doing; you talk as if that's all we're doing. Don't you think people ever do things because they want to do them, because they want to do what's for the best? I don't see how it helps to call trying to do the right thing caution and lack of guts. Doing what you know you've got to do's horrible sometimes, but that doesn't mean to say it isn't worth doing. There was something you said, it made me think you've got the idea I sleep with Bertrand. You can't know much about women if you think that. No wonder you're having a rough time if that's the sort of thing you think. You're the sort of man who'd never be happy whatever you did. I think I'll go now, Jim; there's not much point in…'

'No, don't go,' Dixon said in agitation. Things were happening much too fast for him. 'Don't be angry. Stay a little longer.'

'I'm not angry. I'm just fed-up with it all.'

'So am I.'

'Four shillings,' the waiter said at Dixon's side. His voice, heard now for the first time, suggested that he had a half-eaten sweet at the back of his throat.

Dixon searched his pockets and gave him two half-crowns. He was glad of the interruption, which allowed him time to recover something of his emotional balance. When they were alone, he said: 'Are we ever going to see each other again, then?'