by C. P. Snow
A few times in my life, there came moments I could not escape. This was one. I could not escape the moment in which I heard her voice, high, violent, edged with regret and yet with no pity for herself or me.
In time, I asked: ‘Must it always be so?’
‘How do I know?’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘You can answer that – maybe better than I can.’
‘Tell me what you feel.’
‘If you must hear,’ she said, ‘I think I shall never love you.’ She added: ‘You may as well hear the rest. I’ve been hoping I should love you – for a long time now. I’d rather love you than any of the others. I don’t know why. You’re not as nice as people think.’
At that, having heard the bitterest news of my young manhood, I burst out laughing, and pulled her down on to my knee to kiss her. That final piece of ruthless observation took away my recognition of what I had just heard; and suddenly she was glad to be caressed and to caress. For now she was radiant. Anyone watching us then, without having heard the conversation, would have guessed that she had just received a proposal she was avid to accept – or, more likely, that she was out to win someone of whom she was almost but not quite sure. She was attentive, sleek, and shining. She was anxious to stroke my face when I looked downcast. She wanted to rub away the lines until I appeared as radiant as she did. She was reproachful if, for a moment, I fell into silence. She made me lie on the bed, sat by me, and then went out to buy supper. About that we had what to all appearance was a mild, enjoyable lovers’ quarrel. She proposed to fetch fish and chips: I told her that, despite her lack of snobbery, she was enough a child of the upper middle class to feel that the pastimes and diet of the poor were really glamorous. The romance of slumming, I said. You’re all prostrating yourselves before the millions, I said. And I had a reasonable argument: I had to live in that room; her sense of smell was weak, but mine acute. She pouted, and I said that classical faces were not designed for pouting. We ended in an embrace, and I got my way.
She left late in the evening, so late that I wondered how she would get home. Wondering about her, suddenly I felt the lack of her physical presence in the room. Then – it came like a grip on the throat – I realized what had happened to me. The last few hours had been make-believe. She had spoken the truth. That was all.
It was no use going to bed. I sat unseeing, just where I sat while she answered my proposal. She had spoken with her own integrity. She was as much alone as I was – more, for she had none of the compensations that my surface nature gave me as I moved about the world. She had spoken out of loneliness, and out of her craving for joy. If my heart broke, it broke. If I could make her love me, well and good. It was sauve qui peut. In her ruthlessness, she had no space for the sentimentalities of compassion, or the comforting life. She could take the truth herself, and so must I.
Had I a chance? Would she ever love me? I heard her final voice – ‘if you must hear’ – and then I thought, why had she been so happy afterwards? Was it simply that she was triumphant at hearing a proposal? There was a trace of that. It brought back my mocking affection for her, which was strongest when I could see her as much chained to the earth as I was myself. She could behave, in fact, like an ordinary young woman of considerable attractions, and sit back to count her conquests. There was something predatory about her, and something vulgar. Yes, she had relished being proposed to. Yet, I believed, with a residue of hope, that did not explain the richness of her delight. She was happy because I had proposed to her. There was a bond between us, though on her side it was not the bond of love.
But that – I heard her final voice – was the only bond she craved.
I did not know how to endure it. Sitting on my bed, staring blindly at where she had stood, I thought what marriage with her would be like. It would only be liveable if she were subjugated by love. Otherwise she would tear my heart to pieces. Yet, my senses and my memories tore also at my heart, even my memories of that night, and I did not know how to endure losing her.
I did not know on what terms we could go on. I had played my last card, I had tried to cut my suspense, and I had only increased it. Would she sustain the loving make-believe of the last few hours? If she did not, I could not stand jealousy again. I was not strong enough to endure the same torments, with no light at the end. Now it rested in her hands.
I had not long to wait. The first time we met after my proposal, she was gay and airy, and I could not match her spirits. The second time, she told me, quite casually, that she had visited the town the day before.
‘Why didn’t you let me know?’ The cry forced itself out.
She frowned, and said: ‘I thought we’d cleared the air.’
‘Not in that way.’
She said: ‘I thought now we knew where we stood.’
I had no intention then. But, unknown to me, one was forming.
Three days later, we met again, in the usual alcove in the usual café. She had come from her hairdresser’s, and looked immaculately beautiful. I thought, with resentment, with passion, that I had seen her dishevelled in my arms. Through tea we kept up a busy conversation. She made some sarcastic jokes, to which I replied in kind. She said that she was going to a dance. I did not say a word, but went back to the previous conversations. We were talking about books, as though we were high-spirited, literary-minded students, who had met by accident.
She went on trying to reach me – but she knew that I was not there. Her face had taken on an expression of puzzled, almost humorous distress. Her eyes were quizzically narrowed.
She asked the time, and I told her five o’clock.
‘I’ve got lots of time. I needn’t go home for hours,’ she said.
I did not speak.
‘What shall we do?’ she persisted.
‘Anything you like,’ I said, indifferently.
‘That’s useless.’ She looked angry now.
Automatically I said, as I used to: ‘Come to my room.’
‘Yes,’ said Sheila, and began powdering her face.
Then my intention, which up to then I had not known, broke out.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t bear it.’
‘What?’ She looked up from her mirror.
‘Sheila,’ I said, ‘I am going to send you away.’
‘Why?’ she cried.
‘You ought to know.’
She was gazing at me, steadily, frankly, unrelentingly. She said: ‘If you send me away now, I shall go.’
‘That’s what I want.’
‘Once I shouldn’t have. I should have come back and apologized. I shan’t do that now, if you get rid of me.’
‘I don’t expect you to,’ I said.
‘If I do go, I shall keep away. I shall take it that you don’t want to see me. This time I shan’t move a single step.’
‘That’s all I ask,’ I replied.
‘Are you sure? Are you sure?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I am sure.’
Without another word, Sheila pulled on her coat. We walked through the smoky café. I noticed our reflections in a steam-filmed mirror. We were both white.
At the door we said the bare word, goodbye. It was raining hard, and she ran for a taxi. I saw her go.
29: Second Meeting With a Doctor
One day, between my proposal to Sheila and our parting, I met Marion. I was refreshed to see her. I found time to speculate whether Jack had, in fact, slipped in a word. She was much more certain of herself than she used to be. Of us all, owing to her acting, she had become most of a figure in the town. She threw her head back and laughed, confidently and with a rich lilt. I had no doubt that she had found admirers, and perhaps a lover. Her old earnestness had vanished, though she would always stay the least cynical of women.
With me she was friendly, irritated, protective. Like many others at that time, like Mrs Knight at the ball, she noticed at once that I was looking physically strained. It was easy to perceive, for I had a face on which wear and tear painted itself. The
lines, as with Sheila, were etching themselves while I was young.
Marion was perturbed and cross.
‘We’ve got to deliver you in London on the–’ It was like her to have remembered the exact date of Bar Finals. ‘We don’t want to send you there on a stretcher, Lewis.’
She scolded George.
‘You mustn’t let him drink,’ she said. ‘Really, you’re like a lot of children. I think I’m the only grown-up person among the lot of you.’
Against my will, she made me promise that, if I did not feel better, I would go to a doctor.
I was afraid to go. Partly I had the apprehension of any young man who does not know much of his physical make-up. There might be something bad to learn, and I was frightened of it.
But also I had a short-term fear, a gambler’s fear. Come what may, I could not stop working. It was imperative to drive myself on until the examination. Nothing should stop that; a doctor might try to. After the examination I could afford to drop, not now.
I parted from Sheila on a Friday afternoon. The next morning, as I got out of bed, I reeled with giddiness. The room turned and heaved; I shut my eyes and clutched the mantelpiece. The fit seemed to last, wheeling the room round outside my closed eyelids, for minutes. I sat back on the bed, frightened and shaken. What in God’s name was this? Nevertheless, I got through my day’s quota of reading. If I broke the programme now, I was defeated. I felt well enough to remember what I worked at. But the next morning I had another attack, and for two days afterwards, usually in the morning, once at night.
I was afraid: and above all I was savagely angry. It would be intolerable to be cheated at this stage. Despite Sheila, despite all that had happened to me, I had got myself well-prepared. That I knew. It was something I had to know; I should suffer too much if I deceived myself this time. George was speaking not with his cosmic optimism, but as a technical expert, when he encouraged me. Recently I had asked him the chances. George did not think naturally in terms of odds, but I pressed him. What was the betting on my coming out high in the first class? In the end, George had answered that he thought the chances were better than even.
It would be bitter beyond bearing to be cheated now. My mind was black with rage. But I was also ignorant and frightened. I had no idea what these fits meant. My fortitude had cracked. I had to turn to someone for help.
I thought of calling on old Dr Francis – but, almost involuntarily one evening, after struggling through another day’s work, I began walking down the hill to the infirmary. I was going to ask for Tom Devitt. The infirmary was very near, I told myself, I should get it over quicker; Tom was a modern doctor, and the old man’s knowledge must have become obsolete; but those were excuses. She had spoken of him the afternoon that I proposed, and I went to him because of that.
At the infirmary I explained to a nurse that I was an acquaintance of Devitt’s, and would like to see him in private. She said, suspiciously, formidably, that the doctor was busy. At last I coerced her into telephoning him. She gave him my name. With a bad grace she told me that he was free at once.
I was taken to his private sitting-room. It overlooked the garden, from which, in the April sunshine, patients were being wheeled. Devitt looked at me with a sharp, open, apprehensive stare. He greeted me with a question in his voice. I was sure that he expected some dramatic news of Sheila.
‘I’m here under false pretences,’ I had to say. ‘I’m presuming on your good nature – because we met once. I’m not well, and I wondered if you’d look me over.’
Devitt’s expression showed disappointment, relief, a little anger.
‘You ought to have arranged an appointment,’ he said irritably. But he was a kind man, and he could no more forget my name than I could his.
‘I’m supposed to be off duty,’ he said. ‘Oh well, You’d better sit down and tell me about yourself.’
We had met just the once. Now I saw him again, either my first impression had been gilded, or else he had aged and softened in between. He was very bald, his cheeks were flabby and his neck thickening. His eyes wore the kind of fixed, lost look that I had noticed in men who, designed for a happy, relaxed, comfortable life, had run into ill luck and given up the game. I should not have been surprised to hear that Devitt could not bear an hour alone, and went each night for comfort to his club.
There was also a certain grumbling quality which overlaid his kindness. He was much more a tired, querulous, professional man than I had imagined him. But he was, I felt, genuinely kind. In addition, he was businesslike and competent, and, as I discovered when I finished telling him my medical history, had an edge to his tongue.
‘Well,’ said Tom Devitt, ‘how many diseases do you think you’ve got?’
I smiled. I had not expected such a sharp question.
‘I expect you must have diagnosed TB for yourself. It’s a romantic disease of the young, isn’t it–’
He sounded my lungs, said: ‘Nothing there. They can X-ray you to make sure, but I should be surprised.’ Then he set to work. He listened to my heart, took a sample of blood, went through a whole clinical routine. I was sent into the hospital to be photographed. When I came back to his room Devitt gave me a cigarette. He seemed to be choosing his words before he began to speak.
‘Well, old chap,’ he said, ‘I don’t think there’s anything organically wrong with you. You’ve got a very slight mitral murmur–’ He explained what it was, said that he had one himself and that it meant he had to pay an extra percentage on his insurance premium. ‘You needn’t get alarmed about that. You’ve got a certain degree of anaemia. That’s all I can find. I shall be very annoyed if the X-rays tell us anything more. So the general picture isn’t too bad, you know.’
I felt great comfort.
‘But still,’ went on Tom Devitt, ‘it doesn’t seem to account for the fact that you’re obviously pretty shaky. You are extremely run down, of course. I’m not sure that I oughtn’t to tell you that you’re dangerously run down.’ He looked at me, simply and directly: ‘I suppose you’ve been having a great deal of worry?’
‘A great deal,’ I said.
‘You ought to get rid of it, you know. You need at least six months doing absolutely nothing, and feeding as well as you can – you’re definitely undernourished – and without a worry in your head.’
‘Instead of which,’ I said, ‘in a month’s time I take the most important examination of my career.’
‘I should advise you not to.’
At that point I had to take him into my confidence. I was not ready to discuss Sheila, even though he desired it and gave me an opening. ‘Some men can have their health break down – through something like a broken engagement,’ said Tom Devitt naïvely.
‘I can believe that,’ I said, and left it there. But I was quite open about my circumstances, how I was placed for money, what this examination meant. For every reason I had to take it this year. If my health let me down, I had lost.
‘Yes,’ said Devitt. ‘Yes. I see.’ He seemed taken aback, discomfited.
‘Well,’ he added, ‘it’s a pity, but I don’t think there’s a way out. I agree, you must try to keep going. Good luck to you, that’s all I can say. Perhaps we can help you just a bit. I should think the most important thing is to see that you manage to sleep.’
I smiled to myself; on our only other meeting, he had been concerned whether I got enough sleep. He gave me a couple of prescriptions, and then, before I went, a lecture.
He told me, in an uncomfortable, grumbling fashion, that I was taking risks with my health; I was probably not unhealthy, but I was liable to over-respond; I was sympathetotonic; I might live to be eighty if I took care of myself. ‘It’s no use telling you to take care of yourself,’ said Tom Devitt. ‘I know that. You’ll be lucky if you have a comfortable life physically, old chap.’
I thanked him. I was feeling both grateful and relieved, and I wanted him to have a drink with me. He hesitated. ‘No. Not now,’ he said. Then
he clapped me on the shoulder. ‘I’m very glad you came. I hope you pull it off. It would be nice to have been some good to you.’
I rejoiced that thought, and, though I had another bout of giddiness next day, I felt much better. Perhaps because of Devitt’s reassurance, the bouts themselves seemed to become less frequent. I read and wrote with the most complete attention that I could screw out of myself. I was confident now that I should last the course.
On the Saturday I travelled out to the farm later than the rest, because I could not spare the afternoon. I had not said much to George about my health. To the little I told him, he was formally sympathetic; but in his heart he thought it all inexplicable and somewhat effeminate.
I was so much heartened that I needed to tell someone the truth, and as soon as I saw Marion among the group I took her aside and asked her to come for a walk. We struck across the fields – in defiance. I headed in the direction of the vicarage – and I remarked that I had kept my promise and gone to a doctor. Then I confessed about my symptoms, and what Devitt had said.
‘I’m very much relieved, I really am,’ cried Marion, ‘Now you must show some sense.’
‘I shall arrive at this examination,’ I said. ‘That’s the main thing.’
‘That’s one thing. But you mustn’t think you can get away with it for ever.’ She nagged me as no one else would have done: I was too wilful, I tried to ride over my illnesses, I was incorrigibly careless of myself.
‘Anyone else would have gone to a doctor months ago,’ she said. ‘That would have spared you a lot of worry – and some of your friends too, I may say. I’m very glad I made you go?’
I could hear those I’s, a little stressed, assertive in the middle of her yearning to heal and soothe and cherish. In all tenderness such as hers, there was the grasp of an ego beneath the balm. I had never romanticised Marion. People said she was good, full of loving-kindness, so free from sentimentality in her unselfish actions that one took from her what one could not from another. Much of that was true. Some of us had generous impulses, but she carried hers out. She never paraded her virtues, nor sacrificed herself unduly. If she enjoyed acting, then she spent her time at it, took and revelled in the applause. She was no hypocrite, and of all of us she did most practical good. And so Jack Cotery and the rest admired her more than any of our friends.