The Heart of the Matter (14 page)

It took him a moment to get this other face into focus. His brain adjusted itself achingly from the phrase ‘so happy’ to the phrase ‘do not trust.’ He said, ‘What are you talking about, Yusef?’ He could feel the mechanism of his brain creaking, grinding, scraping, cogs failing to connect, all with pain.

‘First, there is the Commissionership.’

‘They need a young man,’ he said mechanically, and thought, if I hadn’t fever I would never discuss a matter like this with Yusef.

‘Then the special man they have sent from London …’

‘You must come back when I’m clearer, Yusef. I don’t know what the hell you are talking about.’

‘They have sent a special man from London to investigate the diamonds—they are crazy about diamonds—only the Commissioner must know about him—none of the other officers, not even you.’

‘What rubbish you talk, Yusef. There’s no such man.’

‘Everybody guesses but you.’

‘Too absurd. You shouldn’t listen to rumour, Yusef.’

‘And a third thing. Tallit says everywhere you visit me.’

‘Tallit! Who believes what Tallit says?’

‘Everybody everywhere believes what is bad.’

‘Go away. Yusef. Why do you want to worry me now?’

‘I just want you to understand, Major Scobie, that you can depend on me. I have friendship for you in my soul. That is true, Major Scobie, it is true.’ The reek of hair-oil come closer as he bent towards the bed: the deep brown eyes were damp with what seemed to be emotion. ‘Let me pat your pillow. Major Scobie.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, keep away,’ Scobie said.

‘I know how things are, Major Scobie, and if I can help … I am a well-off man.’

‘I’m not looking for bribes, Yusef,’ he said wearily and turned his head away to escape the scent.

‘I am not offering you a bribe, Major Scobie. A loan at any time on a reasonable rate of interest—four per cent per annum. No conditions. You can arrest me next day if you have facts. I want to be your friend, Major Scobie. You need not be my friend. There is
a
Syrian poet who wrote, “Of two hearts one is always warm and one is always cold: the cold heart is more precious than diamonds: the warm heart has no value and is thrown away.”’

‘It sounds a very bad poem to me. But I’m no judge.’

‘It is a happy chance for me that we should be here together. In the town there are so many people watching. But here, Major Scobie. I can be of real help to you. May I fetch you more blankets?’

‘No, no, just leave me alone.’

‘I hate to see a man of your characteristics, Major Scobie, treated badly.’

‘I don’t think the time’s ever likely to come, Yusef, when I shall need
your
pity. If you want to do something for me, though, go away and let me sleep.’

But when he slept the unhappy dreams returned. Upstairs Louise was crying, and he sat at a table writing his last letter. ‘It’s a rotten business for you, but it can’t be helped. Your loving husband, Dicky,’ and then as he turned to look for a weapon or a rope, it suddenly occurred to him that this was an act he could never do. Suicide was for ever out of his power—he couldn’t condemn himself for eternity—no cause was important enough. He tore up his letter and ran upstairs to tell Louise that after all everything was all right, but she had stopped crying and the silence welling out from inside the bedroom terrified him. He tried the door and the door was locked. He called out, ‘Louise, everything’s all right. I’ve booked your passage,’ but there was no answer. He cried again, ‘Louise,’ and then a key turned and the door slowly opened with a sense of irrecoverable disaster, and he saw standing just inside Father Clay, who said to him, ‘The teaching of the Church …’ Then he woke again to the small stone room like a tomb.

II

He was away for a week, for it took three days for the fever to run its course and another two days before he was fit to travel. He did not see Yusef again.

It was past midnight when he drove into town. The houses were white as bones in the moonlight; the quiet streets stretched out on
either
side like the arms of a skeleton, and the faint sweet smell of flowers lay on the air. If he had been returning to an empty house he knew that he would have been contented. He was tired and he didn’t want to break the silence—it was too much to hope that Louise would be asleep, too much to hope that things would somehow have become easier in his absence and that he would see her free and happy as she had been in one of his dreams.

The small boy waved his torch from the door: the frogs croaked from the bushes, and the pye dogs wailed at the moon. He was home. Louise put her arms round him: the table was laid for a late supper, the boys ran to and fro with his boxes: he smiled and talked and kept the bustle going. He talked of Pemberton and Father Clay and mentioned Yusef, but he knew that sooner or later he would have to ask how things had been with her. He tried to eat, but he was too tired to taste the food.

‘Yesterday I cleared up his office and wrote my report—and that was that.’ He hesitated, ‘That’s all my news,’ and went reluctantly on, ‘How have things been here?’ He looked quickly up at her face and away again. There had been one chance in a thousand that she would have smiled and said vaguely, ‘Not so bad’ and then passed on to other things, but he knew from her mouth that he wasn’t so lucky as that. Something fresh had happened.

But the outbreak—whatever it was to be—was delayed. She said, ‘Oh, Wilson’s been attentive.’

‘He’s a nice boy.’

‘He’s too intelligent for his job. I can’t think why he’s out here as just a clerk.’

‘He told me he drifted.’

‘I don’t think I’ve spoken to anybody else since you’ve been away, except the small boy and the cook. Oh, and Mrs Halifax.’ Something in her voice told him that the danger point was reached. Always, hopelessly, he tried to evade it. He stretched and said, ‘My God, I’m tired. The fever’s left me limp as a rag. I think I’ll go to bed. It’s nearly half-past one, and I’ve got to be at the station at eight.’

She said, ‘Ticki, have you done anything at all?’

‘How do you mean, dear?’

‘About the passage.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll find a way, dear.’

‘You haven’t found one yet?’

‘No. I’ve got several ideas I’m working on. It’s just a question of borrowing.’ 200, 020, 002 rang in his brain.

‘Poor dear,’ she said, ‘don’t worry,’ and put her hand against his cheek. ‘You’re tired. You’ve had fever. I’m not going to bait you now.’ Her hand, her words broke through every defence: he had expected tears, but he found them now in his own eyes. ‘Go up to bed, Henry,’ she said.

‘Aren’t you coming up?’

‘There are just one or two things I want to do.’

He lay on his back under the net and waited for her. It occurred to him, as it hadn’t occurred to him for years, that she loved him. Poor dear, she loved him: she was someone of human stature with her own sense of responsibility, not simply the object of his care and kindness. The sense of failure deepened round him. All the way back from Bamba he had faced one fact—that there was only one man in the city capable of lending him, and willing to lend him, the two hundred pounds, and that was a man he must not borrow from. It would have been safer to accept the Portuguese captain’s bribe. Slowly and drearily he had reached the decision to tell her that the money simply could not be found, that for the next six months at any rate, until his leave, she must stay. If he had not felt so tired he would have told her when she asked him and it would have been over now, but he had flinched away and she had been kind, and it would be harder now than it had ever been to disappoint her. There was silence all through the little house, but outside the half-starved pye dogs yapped and whined. He listened, leaning on his elbow; he felt oddly unmanned, lying in bed alone waiting for Louise to join him. She had always been the one to go first to bed. He felt uneasy, apprehensive, and suddenly his dream came to mind, how he had listened outside the door and knocked, and there was no reply. He struggled out from under the net and ran downstairs barefooted.

Louise was sitting at the table with a pad of notepaper in front of her, but she had written nothing but a name. The winged ants beat against the light and dropped their wings over the table. Where the light touched her head he saw the grey hairs.

‘What is it, dear?’

‘Everything was so quiet,’ he said, ‘I wondered whether something had happened. I had a bad dream about you the other night. Pemberton’s suicide upset me.’

‘How silly, dear. Nothing like that could ever happen with us.’

‘Yes, of course. I just wanted to see you,’ he said, putting his hand on her hair. Over her shoulder he read the only words she had written, ‘Dear Mrs Halifax’ …

‘You haven’t got your shoes on,’ she said. ‘You’ll be catching jiggers.’

‘I just wanted to see you,’ he repeated and wondered whether the stains on the paper were sweat or tears.

‘Listen, dear,’ she said. ‘You are not to worry any more. I’ve baited you and baited you. It’s like fever, you know. It comes and goes. Well, now it’s gone—for a while. I know you can’t raise the money. It’s not your fault. If it hadn’t been for that stupid operation … It’s just the way things are, Henry.’

‘What’s it all got to do with Mrs Halifax?’

‘She and another woman have a two-berth cabin in the next ship and the other woman’s fallen out. She thought perhaps I could slip in—if her husband spoke to the agent.’

‘That’s in about a fortnight,’ he said.

‘Darling, give up trying. It’s better just to give up. Anyway, I had to let Mrs Halifax know tomorrow. And I’m letting her know that I shan’t be going.’

He spoke rapidly—he wanted the words out beyond recall. ‘Write and tell her that you can go.’

‘Ticki,’ she said, ‘what do you mean?’ Her face hardened. ‘Ticki, please don’t promise something which can’t happen. I know you’re tired and afraid of a scene. But there isn’t going to be a scene. I mustn’t let Mrs Halifax down.’

‘You won’t. I know where I can borrow the money.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me when you came back?’

‘I wanted to give you your ticket. A surprise.’

She was not so happy as he would have expected: she always saw a little farther than he hoped. ‘And you are not worrying any more?’ she asked.

‘I’m not worrying any more. Are you happy?’

‘Oh yes,’ she said in a puzzled voice. ‘I’m happy, dear.’

III

The liner came in on a Saturday evening; from the bedroom window they could see its long grey form steal past the boom, beyond the palms. They watched it with a sinking of the heart—happiness is never really so welcome as changelessness—hand in hand they watched their separation anchor in the bay. ‘Well,’ Scobie said, ‘that means tomorrow afternoon.’

‘Darling,’ she said, ‘when this time is over, I’ll be good to you again. I just couldn’t stand this life any more.’

They could hear a clatter below stairs as Ali, who had also been watching the sea, brought out the trunks and boxes. It was as if the house were tumbling down around them, and the vultures took off from the roof, rattling the corrupted-iron as though they felt the tremor in the walls. Scobie said, ‘While you are sorting your things upstairs, I’ll pack your books.’ It was as if they had been playing these last two weeks at infidelity, and now the process of divorce had them in its grasp: the division of one life into two: the sharing out of the sad spoils.

‘Shall I leave you this photograph, Ticki?’ He took a quick sideways glance at the first communion face and said, ‘No. You have it.’

‘I’ll leave you this one of us with the Ted Bromleys.’

‘Yes, leave that.’ He watched her for a moment laying out her clothes and then he went downstairs. One by one he took out the books and wiped them with a cloth: the Oxford Verse, the Woolfs, the younger poets. Afterwards the shelves were almost empty: his own books took up so little room.

Next day they went to Mass together early. Kneeling together at the Communion rail they seemed to claim that this was not separation. He thought: I’ve prayed for peace and now I’m getting it. It’s terrible the way that prayer is answered. It had better be good, I’ve paid a high enough price for it. As they walked back he said anxiously, ‘You are happy?’

‘Yes, Ticki, and you?’

‘I’m happy as long as you are happy.’

‘It will be all right when I’ve got on board and settled down. I expect I shall drink a bit tonight. Why don’t you have someone in, Ticki?’

‘Oh, I prefer being alone.’

‘Write to me every week.’

‘Of course.’

‘And Ticki, you won’t be lazy about Mass? You’ll go when I’m not there?’

‘Of course.’

Wilson came up the road. His face shone with sweat and anxiety. He said, ‘Are you really off? Ali told me at the house that you are going on board this afternoon.’

‘She’s off,’ Scobie said.

‘You never told me it was close like this.’

‘I forgot,’ Louise said, ‘there was so much to do.’

‘I never thought you’d really go. I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t run into Halifax at the agent’s.’

‘Oh well,’ Louise said, ‘you and Henry will have to keep an eye on each other.’

‘It’s incredible,’ Wilson said, kicking the dusty road. He hung there, between them and the house, not stirring to let them by. He said, ‘I don’t know a soul but you—and Harris of course.’

‘You’ll have to start making acquaintances,’ Louise said. ‘You’ll have to excuse us now. There’s so much to do.’

They walked round him because he didn’t move, and Scobie, looking back, gave him a kindly wave—he looked so lost and unprotected and out of place on the blistered road. ‘Poor Wilson,’ he said, ‘I think he’s in love with you.’

‘He thinks he is.’

‘It’s a good thing for him you are going. People like that become a nuisance in this climate. I’ll be kind to him while you are away.’

‘Ticki,’ she said, ‘I shouldn’t see too much of him. I wouldn’t trust him. There’s something phoney about him.’

‘He’s young and romantic.’

‘He’s too romantic. He tells lies. Why does he say he doesn’t know a soul?’

‘I don’t think he does.’