The Sleep of Reason
Page 45
Glancing round with bright, apprehensive eyes (the same treacle-brown eyes that one could see in her son and daughter), Irene said: “Well, perhaps we ought to be thinking of–” her voice trailed off.
Martin, once more over-hearty, was saying to the Sperrys: “Now are you all right for transport? Are you sure you’re all right? Or else I can get you home–” The vicar and the undertaker assured him that they had room for the Sperrys.
More thanks. At last that party moved towards the hearse, and we to our own cars. My niece said to me, through the hair which obscured half her face: “That’s over, isn’t it, Uncle Lewis?” She might have said it by way of comfort. Charles, who was walking with her, flashed me a hard and searching look, as though I had mismanaged things.
42: A Bit of News
WE were all staying at the hotel which Martin had used during the trial. There were too many of us to go to friends: and in fact, we shouldn’t have chosen to. Without a word passed between us, Martin and I hadn’t wanted to see a person we knew on this last family occasion in the town. Let it be as obscure as the old occasions. The local paper had printed a one-inch paragraph about our father’s death, and that was all.
As our party was walking past the reception desk towards the lifts, Martin hung behind.
“Get down before the rest, for a few minutes,” he said to me, very quietly.
“Where?”
“Oh, the old bar.”
It was the bar, aquarium-lit, in which he had spoken to me with pain and ruthlessness in the middle of the trial. I was down a little before him, and when he entered and we looked at each other, I hadn’t forgotten and knew that nor had he. This time the bar was emptier: it was later, the pre-dinner drinkers had sifted away. Just one single acquaintance called out to Martin: “You here again?” Here again, Martin, affably, impersonally, called back.
The alcove, where we had talked before, was vacant. We sat ourselves there, and I asked him what he would drink. No, he said, the drinks were on him. As he carried them to our table, I watched his face, set, controlled: yet somehow, as I had seen once or twice in his life, it was illuminated from within, like one of the turnip heads in which we used to place candles when we were boys.
“I have a bit of news,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Pat is going to get married.”
“Is he, by God?”
Then I asked, who to: but I thought I knew.
“Muriel. Roy Calvert’s Muriel.”
Martin was so happy that I had to be happy for him. I said, using our own cipher, well, Pat might have done worse.
“He might have done worse,” said Martin, all cautiousness gone. It would have seemed strange thirty years before, I said, to think of his son marrying Roy Calvert’s daughter. Actually (though I didn’t bring it back to mind) he and Roy had never been more than acquaintances. If Roy were alive now, he would have been fifty-three.
“It’s hard to imagine him like that, isn’t it?” said Martin.
“Anyway, you’re obviously glad.”
“I’m very glad.”
The engagement would be announced the following Monday, he said. He didn’t want any mention of it at dinner that night.
“Why ever not?”
He shook his head.
“Whatever could be more natural?” I meant, an old man dies, his grandson gets married: after all that we had said, and felt, in this alcove a few weeks before, we were back in the flow of things. It mightn’t be very grand: there was the splendid, of which we had seen a little, there was the hideous, of which we had seen enough: yet this was neither, it was what we lived in, in order to endure.
“I don’t think Irene would like it,” he said.
Well, I said, he knew his wife better than I did. But didn’t he remember her at the Christmas Eve party, shouting out birth, copulation, children, death, as though that was the biography of us all?
“At that party,” Martin broke in, “you knew what we were in for? About the trial?”
“I had an idea.”
“I only realised later that you must have done.”
He went back to talking of Irene.
“She’s more conventional than I am, you know.”
That sounded strange, after the life she had led. But he was certain. She wouldn’t consider it proper to celebrate an engagement on the day that we had buried our father.
“Also,” he added, “I don’t think she’s too happy about the marriage, anyway.”
In that case, I said, she was pretty hard to please. The girl was attractive: she was said to be clever, not surprising for Roy’s daughter: she had a small fortune of her own. They wouldn’t have to support Pat any further, presumably. Martin, with a brotherly grin, said he had thought of that.
“To be perfectly honest,” I said, “I’m surprised you didn’t get more obstruction from the other side.”
“The young woman,” said Martin, “made up her mind.”
He added: “But still, Irene doesn’t really like it.” He shrugged. “That doesn’t count. It’s going to happen soon.”
“When?”
“Very soon. In about a month.”
“What’s the hurry?”
Martin smiled. After a moment, he said, off-hand: “Oh, the good old-fashioned reason.” His smile spread, masculine, lubricous, paternal. He gazed across the table. “In any case, it’s time there was another generation.”
He explained, he explained with elaborate detail, that they had been planning to marry weeks before she became pregnant – they were already planning it when we sat in the Gearys’ garden and he warned me about Vicky (whose name had not been mentioned in our alcove that night), and some time before that. All the while Pat had been in some sort of conflict with his father, and still so intimate that Martin knew it all. Again, I thought, it takes two to make a possessive love. Pat might be one of the more undesirable sons, but he wanted his father. Whereas, if Martin had had Charles for a son, he would have been spared most of the suffering, and found that the son had slipped away.
That night in the Gearys’ garden, Martin had – in the midst of all that had gone wrong – been sustained by a kind of content. Talking to me in the alcove, the night after the funeral, he felt more than content, he felt sheer simple joy.
“It will be the making of him,” he repeated. No one could have thought Martin a simple man. What he had been saying to me, over the past weeks, wasn’t simple: it wasn’t comfortable, it didn’t leave him much, or me either. He meant it, he continued to believe it, it was what he had to say. Yet that night he was full of joy, because of one of the simplest of all things.
Strangers & Brothers Series
Series in broad chronological ‘story’ order (see Synopses below for ‘Series order’)
Dates given refer to first publication dates
These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as stand-alone novels
1. Time of Hope 1949
2. George Passant (Originally entitled ‘Strangers & Brothers’) 1940
3. The Conscience of the Rich 1958
4. The Light andthe Dark 1947
5. The Masters 1951
6. The New Men 1954
7. Homecomings 1956
8. The Affair 1960
9. Corridors of Power 1964
10. The Sleep of Reason 1968
11. Last Things 1970
Synopses (Both Series & ‘Stand-alone’ Titles)
Published by House of Stratus
A. Strangers and Brothers Series (series order)
These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as stand-alone novels
George Passant
In the first of the Strangers and Brothers series Lewis Eliot tells the story of George Passant, a Midland solicitor’s managing clerk and idealist who tries to bring freedom to a group of people in the years 1925 to 1933.
The Light & The Dark
The Light and the Dark is the second in the Strangers and Brothers se
ries. The story is set in Cambridge, but the plot also moves to Monte Carlo, Berlin and Switzerland. Lewis Eliot narrates the career of a childhood friend. Roy Calvert is a brilliant but controversial linguist who is about to be elected to a fellowship.
Time of Hope
The third in the Strangers and Brothers series (although the first in chronological order) and tells the story of Lewis Eliot’s early life. As a child he is faced with his father’s bankruptcy. As a young man, he finds his career at the Bar hindered by a neurotic wife. Separation from her is impossible however.
The Masters
The fourth in the Strangers and Brothers series begins with the dying Master of a Cambridge college. His imminent demise causes intense rivalry and jealousy amongst the other fellows. Former friends become enemies as the election looms.
The New Men
It is the onset of World War II in the fifth in the Strangers and Brothers series. A group of Cambridge scientists are working on atomic fission. But there are consequences for the men who are affected by it. Hiroshima also causes mixed personal reactions.
Homecomings
Homecomings is the sixth in the Strangers and Brothers series and sequel to Time of Hope. This complete story in its own right follows Lewis Eliot’s life through World War II. After his first wife’s death his work at the Ministry assumes a larger role. It is not until his second marriage that Eliot is able to commit himself emotionally.
The Conscience of the Rich
Seventh in the Strangers and Brothers series, this is a novel of conflict exploring the world of the great Anglo-Jewish banking families between the two World Wars. Charles March is heir to one of these families and is beginning to make a name for himself at the Bar. When he wishes to change his way of life and do something useful he is forced into a quarrel with his father, his family and his religion.
The Affair
In the eighth in the Strangers and Brothers series Donald Howard, a young science Fellow is charged with scientific fraud and dismissed from his college. This novel, which became a successful West End play, describes a miscarriage of justice in the same Cambridge college which served as a setting for ‘The Masters’
The Corridors of Power
The corridors and committee rooms of Whitehall are the setting for the ninth in the Strangers and Brothers series. They are also home to the manipulation of political power. Roger Quaife wages his ban-the-bomb campaign from his seat in the Cabinet and his office at the Ministry. The stakes are high as he employs his persuasiveness.
The Sleep Of Reason
The penultimate novel in the Strangers and Brothers series takes Goya‘s theme of monsters that appear in our sleep. The sleep of reason here is embodied in the ghastly murders of children that involve torture and sadism.
Last Things
The last in the Strangers and Brothers series has Sir Lewis Eliot’s heart stop briefly during an operation. During recovery he passes judgement on his achievements and dreams. Concerns fall from him leaving only ironic tolerance. His son Charles takes up his father’s burdens and like his father, he is involved in the struggles of class and wealth, but he challenges the Establishment, risking his future in political activities.
B. Other Novels
A Coat of Varnish
Humphrey Leigh, retired resident of Belgravia, pays a social visit to an old friend, Lady Ashbrook. She is waiting for her test results, fearing cancer. When Lady Ashbrook gets the all clear she has ten days to enjoy her new lease of life. And then she is found murdered.
Death Under Sail
Roger Mills, a Harley Street specialist, is taking a sailing holiday on the Norfolk Broads. When his six guests find him at the tiller of his yacht with a smile on his face and a gunshot through his heart, all six fall under suspicion in this, C P Snow’s first novel.
In Their Wisdom
Economic storm clouds gather as bad political weather is forecast for the nation. Three elderly peers look >on from the sidelines of the House of Lords andwonder if it will mean the end of a certain way of life. Against this background is set a court struggle over a disputed will that escalates into an almighty battle.
The Malcontents
Thomas Freer is a prosperous solicitor who is also the Registrar, responsible for his cathedral’s legal business. His son Stephen is one of a secret group of young men and women known as the core. When Stephen’s group ctivities land them in terrible trouble, no one guesses that the consequences will lead to a death and more.
The Search
This story told in the first person starts with a child’s interest in the night sky. A telescope starts a lifetime’s interest in science. The narrator goes up to King’s College, London to study. As a fellow at Cambridge he embarks on love affairs and searches for love at the same time as career success. Finally, contentment in love exhausts his passion for research.
C. Non-Fiction
The Physicists
C.P. Snow’s sketches of famous physicists and explanation of how atomic weapons were developed gives an overview of science often lacking. This study provides us with hope for the future as well as anecdotes from history.
Trollope
C P Snow’s passion for Anthony Trollope makes for an interesting biography of the famous writer. His early career in the Post Office, his thwarted political ambitions and his personal life are all recounted here, along with a knowledgable and perceptive take on his ‘art’.
More Non-Fiction coming soon - including The Realists
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