Charles Snow - The New Men

On July 4th they held a meeting in Luke’s hospital ward. How long had they got? The trial would not take place before July 20th, and American scientists had sent messages about a joint deputation. Was there a better way to stop it? How could they make themselves heard?

No one in London knew what they intended — and only those they trusted, such as Francis Getliffe and I, knew that they intended anything. All through that July, my information lagged days behind the events.

On July 5th I received a telephone call from my office: it was Emma Mounteney, whom I had known at Cambridge, but had scarcely had a word with since: she wanted to see me urgently, and had a confidential note for me. I was surprised that they should use her as a messenger, but asked her to come round at once. She entered, wearing her youthful, worn, cheeky smile, dressed in a summer frock and a pre-war picture hat. She slid a letter on to my blotting pad, and said: ‘Billet-doux for you.’

I was cross with her. I was even more cross when I saw that the envelope was addressed in Irene’s handwriting. As soon as I opened it, I saw that it had no connection with the scientists’ plans — it just said (so I gathered at the first glance) that she could not worry Martin when he was worried enough, that Hankins was still at her to pick up where they left off, would I explain as much to him as I safely could?

Unless I had seen Irene, that evening of our celebration in the Albion Gate flat, I should have wondered why she was brandishing bad behaviour to prove that she could be temporarily decent. There was no need for it; she could have turned Hankins down by letter (even if her story were true); she could have avoided this rackety fuss. The answer was that, once she felt part of Martin’s love had slipped away, she was losing her confidence: once you lost your confidence in a love relation, you made by instinct, not the right move, but the one furthest from being right.

She was trying to prove to Martin, through me, that she was thinking of his well-being. She was trying, in case the day came when she was going to be judged, to accumulate a little evidence to speak for her.

A few days later, as a result of Irene’s letter, I was giving dinner to Edgar Hankins. It was years since we had met, and at once he was exuding his own brand of interest, his bubbling malicious fun. He was getting fat now (he was five years older than I was), his fair hair had gone pepper-and-salt; as in the past, so that night, as soon as he came to my table in the restaurant, we enjoyed each other’s company. It was only when we parted that neither of us felt like meeting again.

Hearing him flatter me, recognizing that more than most men he raised the temperature of life, I had to remind myself that his literary personality contained little but seedy, dispirited, homesick despair. He was a literary journalist of the kind not uncommon in those years, who earned a professional income not so much by writing as through broadcasting, giving official lectures, advising publishers, being, as it were, high up in the civil service of literature.

We had a good many friends in common, and, sitting in a corner at the White Tower, we began to exchange gossip. Very soon we were talking intimately; I realized, finally, that part of Irene’s stories was true. There was no doubt about it; he could not get her out of his imagination, he was, despite his hesitations and comings-and-goings, in love with her.

‘It was only after she married that I realized her husband was your brother,’ he said.

‘That doesn’t make it easier to say what I’ve got to say,’ I said.

‘I don’t think that should make it any harder,’ said Hankins. He was apprehensive, but stayed considerate

‘I’d rather you told me,’ he said. Then, with the defiance of a man who is keeping his courage up: ‘But don’t if it’s embarrassing. If you don’t, I shall have to make her see me.’

I looked at him.

‘That is the trouble,’ I said.

‘Isn’t she going to see me?’

‘I’ve got to tell you that she can’t see you: that she asks you not to write: that she wants to stop communication between you, but can’t tell you why.’

‘Can you tell me why?’

For a moment he had the excitement, the excitement that is almost pleasure, of someone in touch with the person he loves, even if he is going to hear bad news. I thought how the phenomena of love did not lose their edge as one got older. Here was this middle-aged, experienced man feeling as he had felt at twenty. Perhaps it got harder to bear, that was all.

‘I can tell you the reason she gave me,’ I said. ‘My brother is in the middle of a piece of scientific politics. She says she’s not prepared to do anything that might put him off his stroke.’

Hankins’ face went heavy.

‘That’s not the real reason,’ he said. After a moment, he said: ‘There aren’t many reasons for not seeing someone you want to. What does it sound like to you?’

I shook my head.

He was too subtle a man to bluff.

‘All I can say is that she is speaking the truth—’

‘What on?’

‘There is a scientific struggle going on, and my brother is mixed up in it. I can’t tell you anything about it, except to say that she isn’t exaggerating.’

‘How do you know?’ He was the most inquisitive of men; even at that moment he could not resist the smell of a secret. I put him off, and he asked: ‘Is it important?’

‘Yes.’

Hankins’ interest faded, his head sank down, the flesh bulged under his chin.

‘It was futile, asking you whether it was important. What is important? If you were lying ill, and expected to die, what use is it if one of your scientific friends comes bounding up and says, “Old chap, I’ve got wonderful news! I’ve found a way — which won’t come into effect for a few years as a matter of fact — of prolonging the life of the human race”.’

A smile, malicious, fanciful, twisted his lips.

‘What is important? Is your brother’s piece of politics important? Is it important to know whether Irene is shouting goodbye or whether she’s just expecting me to press her?’ He continued to smile at me. ‘Would you consider that an important question, Lewis, or is it the most trivial one you’ve ever heard?’

For a fortnight after my dinner with Hankins there was no firm news from America. One rumour was, that the decision about using the bomb had been postponed. Among the people that I met, no one knew the truth, not ministers nor Hector Rose nor any of the scientists.

Late in July — from a record I could later place it as the morning of July 27th — Francis Getliffe entered my office.

He was a thin-faced, fine-looking man, with whom I had been friendly since we were both young. He was a good scientist, who had come into his own during the war. As he entered he gave a creased smile, but his face, as a young man’s high-strung and quixotic, had grown more closed. Now we usually did not speak to each other out of our immediate experience. In recent years, he had carried much responsibility, and I some; in public and in private we had each had to hide a good deal; we were becoming middle-aged.

Before he said anything to the point, he walked with his plunging stride across my room, from door to window, back again, back to the window. He made some small talk, staring down Whitehall, so that I could see his knave of diamonds profile. Then he turned full on me.

‘Look, Lewis,’ he said, ‘it might be useful if you came down to Barford with me, Can you make it?’

‘When?’

‘At once.’

I looked at my in-tray, then shook myself out of the neurosis of routine; Francis was not the man to invite one for a jaunt.