Homecomings by C. P. Snow

excited, little like her own. ‘The other day, three weeks ago next Monday, it was in the afternoon just after the post came, I realized that on January 1st I was going to get into the same state as I did over R S R. It is bound to happen, you do see that, don’t you? There will be just the same kind of trouble, and it will all gather round me day after day.’
    ‘Look,’ I said, reasoning with her carefully, for long ago I had found the way that reassured her most, ‘I daresay there’ll be trouble, but it won’t be the same kind. There’s only one R S R, you know.’
    ‘There’s only one me,’ she said, with a splinter of detachment. ‘I suppose I was really responsible for the fiasco.’
    ‘Truly I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘Robinson would have behaved the same to me.’
    ‘I doubt it,’ she said. ‘I’ve never done any good.’
    Her face was excited and pressing. ‘You must understand, as soon as I get among new people, I shall be caught in the same trap again.’
    I was shaking my head, but she broke out, very high: ‘I tell you, I realized it that afternoon just after the post came. And I tell you, in the same second I felt something go in my brain.’
    She was trembling, although she was not crying any more. I asked her, with the sympathy of one who has heard it before and so is not frightened, about her physical symptoms. Often, in a state of anxiety, she had complained of hard bands constricting her head. Now she said that there had been continual pressure ever since that afternoon, but she would not describe the physical sensation that began it. I thought she was shy, because she had been exaggerating. I did not realize that she was living with a delusion, in the clinical sense. I had no idea, coaxing her, even teasing her, how much of her judgement had gone.
    I reminded her how many of her fears had turned out nonsense. I made some plans for us both after the war. Her body was not trembling by this time, and I gave her a tablet of her drug and stayed by her until she went off to sleep.
    Next morning, although she was not anxiety-free, she discussed her state equably (using her domesticating formula – ‘about twenty per cent angst today’) and seemed a good deal restored. That evening she was strained, but she had a good night, and it was not for several days that she broke down again. Each night now, I had to be prepared to steady myself. Sometimes there were interludes, for as long as a week together, when she was in comfortable spirits, but I was tensed for the next sign of strain.
    My work at the office was becoming more exacting; the Minister was using me for some talks face-to-face where one needed nothing else to think about and no tugs at the nerves; when I left Sheila in the morning, I wished that I were made so that I could forget her all through the day – but at some time, in the careful official conversation, a thought of her would swim between me and the man I was trying to persuade.
    More than once, I found myself bitter with resentment against her. When we first married she had drained me of energy and nerve, and had spoiled my chance. Now, when I could least afford it, she was doing so again. That resentment seemed to exist simultaneously, almost to blend, with pity and protective love.
    The first week in December, I was in the middle of a piece of business. One afternoon, about half past five, when I was counting on working for an hour or two more, the telephone rang. I heard Sheila’s voice, brittle and remote.
    ‘I’ve got a cold,’ she said.
    She went on: ‘I suppose you couldn’t come home a bit early? I’ll make you some tea.’
    It was abnormal for her to telephone me at all, much less ask me to see her. She was so unused to asking that she had to make those attempts at the commonplace.
    I took it for granted that something more was wrong, abandoned my work, and took a taxi to Chelsea. There I found that, although she was wretched and her tic did not leave