The Time Before This by Nicholas Monsarrat

Author:Nicholas Monsarrat [Monsarrat, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf, fiction, sci fi
Publisher: Pan Books Ltd
Published: 1962-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Great Ice Box

Who could have left, at such a moment? Not I. His bizarre words touched a number of chords; some of them had to do with my job, but getting a good story was not what made me stay and listen. It was already something deeper, and more important to me; something grounded in my own past, some need unfulfilled, some quest not yet undertaken. I felt, as strongly as I had ever felt before, that if I went away without hearing what he had to say – however strange, however nonsensical – I would never log my due ration of experience, I would never really catch up.

I felt the same sort of thing, on a more light-hearted plane, in the past: the conviction that if I left a party early, I would lose something worth while; that if I didn’t kiss a certain person, I would be short of one girl for the rest of my life; even that if I missed a television show, I would miss it for ever.

Such things can scarcely ever be true; but I had the same feeling now, and this time it was not related to a significant meeting, a pretty girl, a classic performance. For some reason, I knew that a stage had been set for a drama on a grand scale. I had been invited; if I walked out, I would be a traitor to my own future, and would mourn the fact for ever.

It was very late, on an Arctic nigh far from home; an apt moment for wayward fancy, a moment not to be trusted, not to be measured against the cold reason of broad daylight. But I did not hesitate. To do so would have been like edging away down a side alley of history, turning one’s back on the Battle of Waterloo, the murder of Caesar, the birth at Bethlehem… A web of such fantasies seemed to be brushing the inside of my skull. Common sense was overdue. I hung up my coat behind the door, on top of the shabby rucksack, and sat down in the armchair.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘You must explain.’

‘It’s a very long story.’

He was still sitting up in bed; he was not less eager than when he had made his last plea for me to listen, but his pale exhausted face showed what an effort it had been to capture my attention. Some doubt of his strength must have shown in my face, for he smiled gently, and said: ‘If Mary brings us some more coffee, I promise to last out the night.’

She was off in a moment, and back very soon, with the re-heated coffee; silence ruled the room, and indeed the whole house, for when Mary returned, and shut the door behind her, she said: ‘I guess she’s gone to bed.’ There was only one enemy ‘she’ in our lives… The old man settled back again; Mary sat at the foot of the bed; I made myself as comfortable as I could in the wrecked armchair.

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