Charles Snow - The Sleep of Reason

Benskin was much too shrewd not to have worked this out. In fact, he wasn’t going to give her the opportunity to talk much. Not that he need have been so cautious, for she was responding as little, as deadeningly, as she had done to me. She sounded as though she were utterly remote, or perhaps more exactly as though there was nothing going on within her mind. Light, practised, neutral questions — not friendly, not indulgent, for Benskin had chosen his tone — made no change in her expression: each was answered by the one word, no.

He had begun straight away upon the killing. Did she now remember any more about it? No. Had she anything to say about it? No. Could she describe the events of the Sunday evening? No.

“You don’t deny, Miss Ross, that you were associated with the killing?”

“What’s the use?”

But she still had nothing to say of how it happened? No. Or when? No. She had no memory of it? No. Had she ever had blocks of memory before? She didn’t know. Did she remember meeting Miss Pateman for the first time? Yes. When? At the — café, in a crowd. (I didn’t glance at George: it was one of his favourite rendezvous.) Did she remember setting up house with Miss Pateman? Yes. When? November 17, 1961. The answer came out fast, mechanically. But she had no memory of the boy’s death? No.

“I have to press you, Miss Ross. Has it quite vanished?”

Cora gave something like a smile, stormy, contemptuous. Her reply wasn’t immediate.

“No,” she said.

“You mean, you have some recollection?”

“Something happened.”

“Can you say anything more definite?”

“No.”

He went on; when she said “something happened”, what did that mean? She returned to saying no. It might have been, so people thought afterwards, that she had given away more than she intended: or, as Matthew Gough believed, that there was only a vague sense of tumult, of whirling noise, remaining to her, something like the last conscious memory of a drunken night.

But she didn’t deny, Benskin asked, that there had been planning to get the boy out to the cottage? No. The planning had taken place, she hadn’t forgotten it? No. Then what had she to say about that?

“When you set out to do something, you do it.”

“Someone must have thought about it for quite a time beforehand?”

She answered, head thrown back: “I thought about it.”

“Can you tell us how you discussed it with Miss Pateman?”

“No.”

When he repeated some versions of this question, she merely answered No. Here, I at least was sure that this was a willed response: she could have told it all if she chose.

“Well. What state of mind were you in, can you tell us that?”

“No.”

“Come, Miss Ross, you must realise that you have done terrible things. Do you realise that?”

She stared to one side of him, face fixed, like the figurehead on an old sailing ship.

“If you had heard of anyone else doing such things, you would have thought they were atrocious beyond words. Isn’t that so?”

Again she stared past him.

“So can’t you tell us anything about your state of mind, say the fortnight before?”

“No.”

“You said, a moment ago, you set out to do something. Meaning those atrocious things. Why did you set out—”

She said: “I suppose you get carried away.”

Benskin said: “Miss Ross, we really want to understand. Can’t you give us an idea what you were thinking about, when you were making those plans?”

“I thought about the plans.”

“But there must have been more you were thinking about?”

“That’s as may be.”

“Can’t you give us an idea?”

“No.”

Benskin said: “Miss Ross, aren’t you sorry for what you’ve done?”

Cora Ross replied, not looking directly at Kitty: “I’m sorry that I dragged her into it.”

Suddenly, as though on impulse, Benskin nodded, sat down, examination over. Some lawyers thought later that he ought to have persevered: to me, sitting in the silent, baffled courtroom, his judgment seemed good. On his feet, Bosanquet asked his first question in a voice as always quiet, but not so punctiliously unemotional: “Miss Ross, you have just told my learned friend that you are sorry to have involved Miss Pateman. Is that all you are sorry for?”

“I’m sorry I dragged her in.”

“You know perfectly well that you have done what have just been called atrocious things. Aren’t you sorry for that?”

No answer.

“You mustn’t pretend, Miss Ross. You must have some remorse. Are you pretending not to understand?”

“You can think what you like.”

Bosanquet was, of course, meeting precisely the opposite difficulty to her own counsel’s. If he drew dead responses like that last one, or any response which seemed outside human sympathy, then he might, paradoxically, be helping her. Momentarily he had himself been shocked. With professional self-control, he started again, quite calmly.

(Remorse. I was distracted into thinking of genuine remorse. Whenever I had met it, in myself or anyone else, there had always been an element of fear. Fear perhaps of one’s own judgment of what one had done: often, far more often, of the judgment of others. I wondered if this woman was one of those, and they existed, who were incapable of fear.)

Carefully, on his new tack, Bosanquet was setting out to domesticate her life. She had lived with her mother until she died? Yes. She had had a normal childhood? She had gone to school like everyone else? She had never been under medical inspection? She had not been in any sort of trouble? She had done satisfactory work at school, she had been good at games? No one treated her as different from anyone else?

“In fact,” said Bosanquet, “no one had any reason to consider that you were?”

“I was.” For once she had raised her voice.

Bosanquet passed over that answer, repeating that no one treated her differently—?

“I’ll answer for myself.” It was an angry shout, like the tirade to the court the week before, mysterious-sounding. She might have been giving out a message — or just stating how, to her own self; she was unique.

With a smooth and placid transition, Bosanquet moved on to her ménage with Miss Pateman. They were living very comfortably when they pooled their resources, weren’t they? Their incomes added together came to something like £1,600, didn’t they? They paid Miss Pateman’s father, £200 for their room? It was an eminently practicable and well-thought out arrangement, their joint establishment, wasn’t it?

It was at this stage that I made my way out of court and round to the official box, so that I missed a set of questions and answers. From the court record, when I read it later, Bosanquet was making it clear that their domestic planning was far-sighted and full of common sense. There were exchanges about insurance policies and savings. Altogether they had been more competent than most young married couples, and as much anticipating that their relation would last for ever.

When I slipped into my place in the box, Bosanquet had just finished asking: “So you managed to live a pleasant leisurely life, didn’t you?”

“We did our jobs.”

“But you had plenty of leisure outside office hours?”

“I suppose so.”

“What did you do with your leisure?”

“The usual things.”

“Did you read much?”

“She was the reading one.”

As Bosanquet tried to discover what Cora Ross read, the answer seemed to be nothing. Certainly no books, scarcely a newspaper. Music she listened to, for hours on end: all kinds of music, apparently, pop, jazz, classical. Television, often the whole evening through. Films of any kind, but more often on television in their room (they had another set at Rose Cottage) than by going to a cinema. Yes, sometimes they went to a cinema: no special kind of film, they went to see stars that they “liked” — a word which had a sexual aura round it.