Charles Snow - The Light and the Dark

“Why not?”

“You can’t do it. You know some of the reasons that brought Calvert to the state he was in this afternoon. They’re enough to stop you absolutely, by themselves.”

“If you’d bring it to a point—”

“I’ll bring it to a point. We both know that Calvert lost control of himself. He got into a state pretty near despair. And he wouldn’t have got into that state unless he’d seen that you were unhappy and others were pleased at your expense. Who else had any feeling for you?”

“It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other,” said Winslow.

Then I asked: “Who else had any feeling for your son Dick? You know that Calvert was upset about him. Who else had any feeling for your son?”

Winslow looked lost, bewildered, utterly without arrogance or strength. He looked sadly away from me. He did not speak for some moments. At last, in a tired, dejected, completely uninterested tone, he said, the words coming out slowly: “What shall I do with this?” He pointed to the sheet of paper.

“I don’t mind,” I said, knowing that it was safe.

“Perhaps you’d better have it.”

Winslow pushed it towards me, but did not give another glance as I walked to the fireplace, and put a match to it over the empty grate.

I went up to Roy’s room. He was lying on his sofa, stretched out and relaxed. He jumped up and greeted me with a smile contrite and remorseful.

“Have I dished everything?” he said.

He was quite equable now, affectionate, and happy because the shadow had passed over.

“Have I dished everything?” he said.

“I think I’ve settled it,” I said, in tiredness and strain. I could let myself go at last. I felt overwhelmed by responsibility, I knew that I was ageing before my time. “But you’ll do something one day that I can’t settle.”

“I’m frightened of that too,” said Roy.

“I shan’t always be there to pick up the pieces,” I said.

“You look pretty worn. I need to order you some strawberries for tea,” he said with tender, mocking concern. He went into his bedroom to telephone, and talked to the kitchens in the voice of the senior fellow, ludicrously like the life. I could not help but smile, despite fatigue and worry and unreasonable anger. He came back and stood looking down at me.

“It’s very hard on you, dear old boy,” he said, suddenly but very quietly. “Having me to look after as well as poor Sheila. There’s nothing I can say, is there? You know as much about it as I do. Or at least, if you don’t now, you never will, you know.”

“Never mind,” I said.

“Of course,” said Roy, with a joyous smile, “just at this minute I feel that I shall never be depressed again.”

In the next few days he spent much of his time with me. He was inventive and entertaining, as though to show me that I need not worry. He was quite composed and even-spirited, but not as carefree as after the first outburst. The innocence, the rapture, the hope, did not flood him and uplift him. He put on his fireworks for my benefit, but underneath he was working something out. What it was I could not guess. I caught him looking at me several times with a strange expression — protective, concerned, uneasy. There was something left unsaid.

On a night early in July, he invited me out to dinner in the town. It was strange for us to dine together in a restaurant in Cambridge: we had not done so since he became a fellow. It was stranger still for Roy to be forcing the conversation, to be unspontaneous, anxious to make a confidence and yet held back. He was specially anxious to look after me; he had brought a bottle of my favourite wine, and had chosen the dinner in advance out of dishes that I liked. He told me some gleeful anecdotes of people round us. But we came to the end of the meal and left the restaurant: he had still not managed to speak.

It was a fine and glowing evening, and I suggested that we should walk through one of the colleges down to the river. Roy shook his head.

“We’re bound to meet someone if we do,” he said. “They’ll catch us. Some devils will catch us.” He was smiling, mocking himself. “I don’t want to be caught. I need to say something to you. It’s not easy.”

So we walked to Garret Hostel Bridge. There was no one standing there, though some young men and girls on bicycles came riding over. Roy looked down into the water. It was burnished in the bright evening light, and the willows and bridges seemed to be painted beneath the surface, leaf by leaf and line by line: it was the time, just as the sun was dying, when all colours gained a moment of enhancement, and the reflections of the trees were brilliant.

“Well?” I said.

“I suppose I need to talk,” said Roy.

In a moment he said: “I know what you think. About my nature. About the way I’m made.”

“Then you know more than I do,” I said, trying to distract him, but he turned on me in a flash with a sad, teasing, acute smile.

“That’s what you say when you want someone to think you’re nice and kind and a bit of an old buffer. I’ve heard you do it too often. It’s quite untrue. You mustn’t do it now.”

He looked into the water again.

“I know enough to be going on with,” he said. “I know you reasonably well, old boy. I have seen what you believe about me.”

I did not answer. It was no use pretending.

“You believe I’ve got my sentence, don’t you? I may get time off for good conduct — but you don’t believe that I can get out altogether. A bit of luck can make a difference on the surface. And I need to struggle, because that can make a little difference too. But really, whatever happens to me, I can never change. I’m always sentenced to be myself. Isn’t that what you believe? Please tell me.”

I did not reply for a moment. Then I said: “I can’t alter what you say — enough to matter.”

“Just so,” he said.

He cried: “It’s too stark for me. I can’t believe it.”

He said quietly: “I can’t believe as you do, Lewis. It would make life pointless. My life isn’t all that important, but I know it better than anyone else’s. And I know that I’ve been through misery that I wouldn’t inflict on a living soul. No one could deserve it. I couldn’t deserve it, whatever I’ve done or whatever I shall do. You know that—”

“Yes, I know that,” I said, with anguished pity.

“If you’re right, I’ve gone through that quite pointlessly. And I shall again. I can’t leave it behind. If you’re right, it could happen to others. There must be others who go through the same. Without reason, according to you. Just as a pointless joke.”

“It must happen to a few,” I said. “To a few unusual men.”

“I can’t accept a joke like that,” he said. “It would be like living in a prison governed by an imbecile.”

He was speaking with passion and with a resentment I had never heard. Now I could feel what the terrible nights had done to him. Yet they had not left him broken, limp, or resigned. He was still choosing the active way. His whole body, as he leaned over the bridge, was vigorous with determination and purpose.

Neither of us spoke for some time. I too looked down. The brilliant colours had left the sky and water, and the reflections of the willows were dark by now.

“There’s something else,” said Roy. His tone was sad and gentle.

He added, after a pause: “I don’t know how I’m going to say it. I’ve needed to say it all night. I don’t know how I can.”

He was still gazing down into the water.

“Dear old boy,” he said, “you believe something that I’m not strong enough to believe. There might come a time — there might come a time when I was held back — because of what you believe.”