The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene [6]
‘Perhaps I could arrange a passage for you. There haven’t been many sinkings that way lately. You ought to have a holiday.’
‘There was a time when you wanted to retire too. You used to count the years. You made plans - for all of us.’
‘Oh well, one changes,’ he said.
She said mercilessly, ‘You didn’t think you’d be alone with me then.’
He pressed his sweating hand against hers. ‘What nonsense you talk, dear. You must get up and have some food...’
‘Do you love anyone, Ticki, except yourself?’
‘No, I just love myself, that’s all. And Ali. I forgot Ali. Of course I love him too. But not you,’ he ran on with worn mechanical raillery, stroking her hand, smiling, soothing. . .
‘And Ali’s sister?’
‘Has he got a sister?’
‘They’ve an got sisters, haven’t they? Why didn’t you go to Mass today?’
‘It was my morning on duty, dear. You know that’
‘You could have changed it. You haven’t got much faith, have you, Ticki?’
‘You’ve got enough for both of us, dear. Come and have some food.’
‘Ticki, I sometimes think you just became a Catholic to marry me. It doesn’t mean a thing to you, does it?’
‘Listen, darling, you want to come down and eat a bit Then you want to take the car along to the beach and have some fresh air.’
‘How different the whole day would have been,’ she said, staring out of her net, ‘if you’d come home and said, ‘Darling, I’m going to be the Commissioner.’’
Scobie said slowly, ‘You know, dear, in a place like this in war-time - an important harbour - the Vichy French just across the border - all this diamond smuggling from the Protectorate, they need a younger man.’ He didn’t believe a word he was saying.
‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘That’s the only reason. You can’t blame anyone. It’s the war.’
‘The war does spoil everything, doesn’t it?’
‘It gives the younger men a chance.’
‘Darling, perhaps I’ll come down and just pick at a little cold meat’
‘That’s right dear.’ He withdrew his hand: it was dripping with sweat. ‘I’ll tell Ali.’
Downstairs he shouted ‘Ali’ out of the back door.
‘Massa?’
‘Lay two places. Missus better.’
The first faint breeze of the day came off the sea, blowing up over the bushes and between the Creole huts. A vulture flapped heavily upwards from the iron roof and down again in me yard next door. Scobie drew a deep breath; he felt exhausted and victorious: he had persuaded Louise to pick a little meat. It had always been his responsibility to maintain happiness in those he loved. One was safe now, for ever, and the other was going to eat her lunch.
4
In the evening the port became beautiful for perhaps five minutes. The laterite roads that were so ugly and clay-heavy by day became a delicate flower-like pink. It was the hour of content. Men who had left the port for ever would sometimes remember on a grey wet London evening the bloom and glow that faded as soon as it was seen: they would wonder why they had hated the coast and for a space of a drink they would long to return.
Scobie stopped his Morris at one of the great loops of the climbing road and looked back. He was just too late. The flower had withered upwards from the town; the white stones that marked the edge of the precipitous hill shone like candles in the new dusk.
‘I wonder if anybody will be there, Ticki.’
‘Sure to be. It’s library night.’
‘Do hurry up, dear. It’s so hot in the car. I’ll be glad when the rains come.’
‘Will you?’
‘If only they just went on for a month or two and men stopped.’
Scobie made the right reply. He never listened while his wife talked. He worked steadily to the even current of sound, but if a note of distress were struck he was aware of it at once. Like a wireless operator with a novel open in front of him, he could disregard every signal except the ship’s symbol and the SOS. He could even work better while she talked than when she was silent for so long as his ear-drum registered those tranquil sounds - the gossip of the club, comments on the sermons preached by Father Rank, the plot of a new novel, even complaints about the weather - he knew that all was well. It was silence that stopped him working - silence in which he might look up and see tears waiting in the eyes for his attention.