The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene [79]
He put his glass down and thought again, I must not get hysterical. Two people’s happiness was in his hands and he must learn to juggle with strong nerves. Calmness was everything. He took out his diary and began to write against the date, Wednesday, September 6. Dinner with the Commissioner. Satisfactory talk about W. Ceiled on Helen for a few minutes. Telegram from Louise that she is on the way home.
He hesitated for a moment and then wrote: Father Rank called in for drink before dinner. A little overwrought. He needs leave. He read this over and scored out the last two sentences. It was seldom in this record that he allowed himself an expression of opinion.
Chapter Two
1
THE telegram lay on his mind all day: ordinary life - the two hours in court on a perjury case - had the unreality of a country one is leaving for ever. One thinks, At this hour, in that village, these people I once knew are sitting down at table just as they did a year ago ‘when I was there, but one is not convinced that any life goes on the same as ever outside the consciousness. All Scobie’s consciousness was on the telegram, on that nameless boat edging its way now up the African coastline from the south. God forgive me, he thought, when his mind lit for a moment on the possibility that it might never arrive. In our hearts men is a ruthless dictator, ready to contemplate the misery of a thousand strangers if it will ensure the happiness of the few we love.
At the end of the perjury case Fellowes, the notary Inspector, caught him at the door. ‘Come to chop tonight, Scobie. We’ve got a bit of real Argentine beef.’ It was too much of an effort in this dream world to refuse an invitation. ‘Wilson’s coming,’ Fellowes said. ‘To tell you the truth, be helped us with the beef. You like him, don’t you?’
‘Yes. I thought it was you who didn’t’
‘Oh, the club’s got to move with the times, and all sorts of people go into trade nowadays. I admit I was hasty. Bit bound up, I wouldn’t be surprised. He was at Downham: we used to play them when I was at Lancing.’
Driving out to the familiar house he had once occupied himself on the hills, Scobie thought listlessly, I must speak to Helen soon. She mustn’t learn this from someone else. Life always repeated the same pattern; there was always, sooner or later, bad news that had to be broken, comforting lies to be uttered, pink gins to be consumed to keep misery away.
He came to the long bungalow living-room and there at the end of it was Helen. With a sense of shock he realized that never before had he seen her like a stranger in another man’s house, never before dressed for an evening’s party. ‘You know Mrs Rolt, don’t you?’ Fellowes asked. There was no irony in his voice. Scobie thought with a tremor of self-disgust, how clever we’ve been: how successfully we’ve deceived the gossipers of a small colony. It oughtn’t to be possible for lovers to deceive so well. Wasn’t love supposed to be spontaneous, reckless ...?
‘Yes,’ he said, I’m an old friend of Mrs Rolt. I was at Pende when she was brought across.’ He stood by the table a dozen feet away while Fellowes mixed the drinks and watched her while she talked to Mrs Fellowes, talked easily, naturally. Would I, he wondered, if I had come in tonight and seen her for the first time ever have felt any love at all?
‘Now which was yours, Mrs Rolt?’
‘A pink gin.’
‘I wish I could get my wife to drink them. I can’t bear her gin and orange.’
Scobie said, ‘If I’d known you were going to be here, I’d have called for you.