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By Root 1107 0

were on the slippery slope to divorce. We had quarrelled and talked and made scenes, the usual sort of thing, and I daresay we were as much emotionally worn out as anything. She decided to go to her mother in Scotland, leaving the children with friends—as it happens, the Watkins. Both of whom were towers of strength throughout the whole episode. Charles drove Nancy to her mother. Nancy was in a pretty hysterical state, as she would be the first to admit. Now I find it rather hard to describe what happened in a way to convey its importance. Far from Charles behaving badly, it was the opposite. Nancy says he was kind and helpful. But before they even reached Scotland, she was pretty upset because of his attitude—which was that the whole thing was not very important. He took it absolutely for granted that she would be back with me before the year was out—but that if she were not, what of it? Now I must mention Felicity, his wife. I have a valuable relationship with her. I’ve known her since she was a tiny thing. No, I’m not in love with her, nor ever have been, but we have always known that we are close, and that if neither were married elsewhere, we might well hit it off pretty well. My wife has always known of this, so has Charles, there is nothing to hide.

Before Charles left Nancy at her mother’s he stayed over for two days, and in those days he behaved impeccably, supporting Nancy against her mother, who was cutting up rather, and taking her for walks and so on. But he was making her worse because of his attitude—not making light of the whole drama, on purpose, but it was implicit in his attitude. He spent a whole afternoon, she tells me, pointing out that he might have married her—and I, Felicity, and it would have been the same, and that we all were much too personal about the whole thing. Yes, “we are all much too personal about the whole thing.” He was talking about marriage, after all. After all, we aren’t Hottentots. Anyway, Nancy found herself half crazy, because of Charles. She describes it as feeling as if her entire life was made to look silly, and that she was not any more important than a she-cat or a bitch. Well, she was in a pretty emotional state anyway. In the end she screamed at him to go away and leave her. Of course she apologised afterwards, I insisted on it, for he had been wonderfully kind, as had Felicity. Afterwards my wife said to me that the real crisis that summer was not her leaving me to give us both a rest, but the four or five days in Charles’ company. Any more of him and she would have cut her throat, she says, or could have done if she had been able to believe it mattered whether she did or not.

I’ve chosen this last incident because again it illustrates something pretty fundamental in Charles. It is that he doesn’t even pay lip service to ordinary feelings. Perhaps they aren’t as important as we think. But perhaps I would respect him more for his attitude if I believed there was conflict involved, if he had ever thought it out, or even suffered over it, instead of its being his nature.

Now, a final incident. In spring of this year there was an evening at our house which struck me very unpleasantly indeed, but I suppose I am used to being uncomfortable where Charles is concerned. There were present myself and my wife Nancy, Charles and Felicity, a couple of other members of our team—as I like to call it!—and a visitor from America. Now I don’t like to think that we have to put on a special show for visiting firemen, but on the other hand there is such a thing as tact. Our American visitor was on his first visit to our country, and was hoping to—and may even yet succeed—spend a year with us. Charles behaved outrageously. I thought he was drunk, though he is not a drinker. It is simplest to say that he behaved like an undergraduate, if I may be permitted that oldfashioned comparison, but I am not one to be proud of flattering the youth. Charles was not even witty, which he very often is. He was boorish, badmannered, in a silly sort of way. The classics were “hogwash” and the course of