Read "Homecomings" by C.P. Snow online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
WHEN I decided to take up again with Gilbert Cooke, I knew what I was doing. Or at least I thought I did. I had left open no other line of communication with Margaret; he would have news of her; I had to hear it. Beyond that, my foresight was cut off.
So I telephoned to his new office late on a May afternoon. Was he free that night? His voice was stiff. No, he was not certain. Yes, he could find time for a quick meal. Soon we were walking together across the park; under the petrol-smell of a London summer there was another, mixed from the grass and the wall-flowers, sharpened by the rain. It brought back walking in London as a student, the smell of the park promising and denying, taunting to a young man still chaste.