ANOTHER VOICE
Damned if they hid and damned if they were visible
MATTHEW PARRIS
My grandmother was the kindest of creatures; good-hearted and sociable, she would not have hurt a fly. In the course of her life she befriended a series of the lonely and the isolated — from German prisoners of war to the milliner who lived over the road, a Jewish refugee from Austria who became one of her best friends.
But it is in relation to that lady that I recall a conversation which seemed out of character for Nana. I was a student at the time. My grandmother had made some passing derogatory remarks about 'Jews' in general. She spoke as though there were some kind of secret brotherhood whose members, aiding and supporting each other behind the scenes, were likely in some unspecified way to do her down. `But Nana,' I said. 'How can you say that? Your best friend when she was alive was that lady from Vienna, the milliner. She was Jewish and you knew her very well and didn't distrust her at all. She wasn't part of anything.' `I didn't mean her, dear,' said my grand- mother, embarrassed. The very thought that she should bear ill will towards any real human being! 'Of course not. I mean Jews in general.' Against this kind of reasoning it Was impossible to argue. To Nana's discred- it (I suppose), no citation of individual instances seemed to alter her general theo- ries; to her credit, her general theories never made the least difference to her atti- tude to individual instances.
And it hardly matters now. In outward particulars my grandmother was a woman of her times. What distinguished her inwardly was her kindness. The half-baked ideas to which she may have paid lip-service are interesting only as examples of a collec- tive paranoid unreason which we have surely outgrown these days. Or so I had thought when, last year, I found myself at a generous dinner, given at his home by a prominent public figure, for a little group of us in politics and the Media, and for a few of his friends. Paddy and Jane Ashdown were the guests of hon- our and naturally the focus of our host's attention. I was some way down the table, and soon fell into conversation with one of my host's friends, a lady seated near me. She was a lively and intelligent woman of strong opinions and, I think, some wealth. I later learnt that her'family were great phil- anthropists and this did not surprise me. I was drawn to her forthrightness, public- spiritedness and sharp mind. Her sublime carelessness of whether her opinion was unfashionable or likely to shock was attrac- tive. I like such people. I liked her. But her opinion was harsh. 'They're everywhere,' she said. 'Very prominent in commerce and industry, often behind the scenes.'
I had challenged Nana 30 years ago and I ought, I suppose, to have challenged this lady now. I should have embarrassed her by citing the example of someone we both knew and respected, but this was not my dinner party; I was unsure how much of a confrontation it was appropriate to engen- der over the soup. Besides, I wanted to draw her out. So I raised an eyebrow and asked her to elaborate.
She was still elaborating as the main course ended. I cannot remember every word, but recall some phrases and para- phrase others. 'What happens,' she said, 'is that one of them gets into a position of power or influence, and then uses it to pro- mote other ones. But it's never stated, of course, so you can never prove anything. They recruit each other all over the place. `Also in business; they give each other special deals. I'm not saying backhanders necessarily, but they favour each other in all sorts of ways you can't prove. Many of them are very rich.' They had learnt how to signal to each other, she said, so that one of them could recognise another one without third parties realising. I let her continue. 'And politics! Don't tell me about politics. All three parties. And then they use their position as insiders to give each other a hand up.' But the worst, she said, was the media and entertainment. Riddled with them. Journalism, too, she said. (Yes, I thought, though even in today's Britain I hear they don't yet feel entirely comfortable on the Daily Telegraph.) Are you a life gay or a hereditary?' I tried to establish what it was she partic- ularly objected to: the fact of their exis- tence? Did she think they should all be expelled or subjected to some sort of lat- ter-day pogrom? No, she did not. Her sense of unease was as tangled as it was strong. She was not so much unkind as uneasy. In the back of her mind lurked this impression of an unacknowledged brother- hood, a sort of conspiracy insinuating itself into power, working away in the shadows for ends of its own and for the advance- ment of its own kind. Though a modern and tolerant country like ours should never (she insisted) actively persecute any minor- ity, we should remain always on our guard against the machinations of a group which had its place, but should know its place, and stay there.
In particular, she thought that placing these people on any kind of a pedestal sent 'the wrong signal'. But, surely, I ven- tured, that was the best way to bring a minority group out of its ghetto, and encourage an opening of ranks? I won- dered whether, perhaps, centuries of per- secution, of being encouraged to hide, are what teach a minority culture the habits of background networking — the very habits to which she now so much objected? Was this discretion, this Mafia of quiet support systems (if, indeed, it existed), not more a matter of self-defence than a malign con- spiracy against the public? But she would have none of this. In her eyes they were damned if they hid and damned if they were visible.
I thought of mentioning Hitler and his campaign to exterminate them altogether, but judged that a crude way to argue. We were, after all, at the table of the Chief Rabbi. Dr Sacks had not heard a word of this argument and I was very glad he had not: a gentle and learned man, he would not have wished to see offence given to any of his guests. Besides, I had taken none.
And so I let the matter drop. My Jewish lady companion had not intended any dis- courtesy. She did not know I was gay, and had no reason to. As one of the invisible conspiracy, I suppose you might say I hid it from her. Anyway, like Nana, she didn't mean me. She meant homosexuals in general.
Matthew Parris is parliamentary sketchwriter and a columnist of the Times.
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