The Malcontents by C. P. Snow

before, the posters might have been erotic, but probably wouldn’t have been so enthusiastically Hindu. The books, granted that an affluent young man was also raffish, hadn’t changed much: Fanny Hill , Casanova , a translation of the Satyricon , the old standbys – pornography had a survival value of its own. So had the texts which he was supposed to be studying, Middlemarch, The Mill on the Floss, Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility , collections of Matthew Arnold interspersed with Anglo-Saxon grammars, standing passively on the shelf beneath. Near the bookshelves was a portable bar, doors open, displaying bottles of whisky, gin, curaçao, fruit essences – nothing that had changed with time, except for the introduction of Coca-Cola. A squash racket had been thrown down in one corner, together with gym shoes, a scarf and shorts.
    Among all that, there were however two things which would have struck unfamiliar to a revenant from the thirties. Lance had, as Stephen knew, a set of rooms, this one, a bedroom, a bathroom: this window, by which he was sitting, looked over a side street and gave an airy view, across the roofs of lower houses, towards the park. It was an expensive flat. But nowadays he had no one to look after it, or to cook a meal. All that he made for himself was the morning coffee.
    After finishing which, he went to a cupboard beside the bar. This was the second innovation. He brought out a reefer, saying to Stephen: ‘No use to you, I suppose?’
    Stephen shook his head. So far he had said nothing but a greeting. Now, at the same moment as he caught the first whiff of the sweet and decomposing smell, he said: ‘I want to talk to you.’
    ‘I thought perhaps you did.’ Lance gave a matey, nonchalant grin. The skin, leathery for so young a man, was tight round his eyes and made them appear flat and saurian against his head.
    He had returned to his seat at the window, and exhaled. Stephen brought up a chair and sat down opposite to him at the table. ‘Was it you?’ he asked. On the way up the New Walk, he had decided that fencing, or even watching and listening, was useless. Lance stared at him, still with a grin: ‘What’s the correct answer to that, now?’ he said.
    ‘Never mind whether it’s correct or not. As long as it’s true.’
    ‘This is all a bit sudden, you know.’
    ‘Just tell me, yes or no.’
    ‘Oh relax, man, relax.’ Lance’s tone was capricious, teasing, friendly.
    ‘For God’s sake, this is serious.’
    ‘I suppose it might be serious for anyone who says he’s done it. If that man Neil means half what he told us. Once upon a time, I shouldn’t have put it past him. So we’re in the cart whether we say yes or no, aren’t we?’
    Not much missed Lance, high or not high, Stephen was compelled to recognize. He hadn’t failed to note Neil’s threats the night before, and apparently hadn’t dismissed them. Further, Stephen had a sense, maddening, tinged with envy, that Lance was keyed up by the double danger – not precisely happy nor excited because his life was running faster, but glad to have it occupied, to have nothing in front of him but the short term, with boredom, or the tasks he couldn’t or wouldn’t perform, all removed.
    Stephen himself was very far from being an adventurer, and his imagination could have been taking him too far, either in feeling that that would be any adventurer’s state of mind, or that this man really was one and was existing so. ‘Mind you,’ Lance said, with an air of dispassion, ‘if we’re talking about who did it, I should be inclined to have an eye on that chap himself. I’m not quite certain, but I think that for my money he’s the one.’
    Stephen said: ‘Was it you?’
    He was calling on all his force of will; the other man was gazing away from him, out of the window. Stephen repeated: ‘Was it you?’
    ‘Oh, if you must have it,’ said Lance, ‘the answer’s no.’
    He went on: ‘It wouldn’t have occurred to