The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene [81]
He said, ‘What’s the way out you’d recommend, Dr Sykes?’
‘Well, there are bathing accidents - but even they need a good deal of explanation. If a man’s brave enough to step in front of a car, but it’s too uncertain ...’
‘And involves somebody else,’ Scobie said. ‘Personally,’ Dr Sykes said, grinning under her glasses, ‘I should have no difficulties. In my position, I should classify myself as an angina case and then get one of my colleagues to prescribe.. .’
Helen said with sudden violence, ‘What a beastly talk this is. You’ve got no business to tell...’
‘My dear,’ Dr Sykes said, revolving her malevolent beams, ‘when you’ve been a doctor as long as I have been you know your company. I don’t think any of us are likely...’
Mrs Fellowes said, ‘Have another helping of fruit salad, Mrs Rolt.’
‘Are you a Catholic, Mrs Rolt?’ Fellowes asked. ‘Of course they take very strong views.’
‘No, I’m not a Catholic.’
‘But they do, don’t they, Scobie?’
‘We are taught,’ Scobie said, ‘that it’s the unforgivable sin.’
‘But do you really, seriously, Major Scobie,’ Dr Sykes asked, ‘believe in Hell?’
‘Oh yes, I do.’
‘In flames and torment?’
‘Perhaps not quite that. They tell us it may be a permanent sense of loss.’
‘That sort of Hell wouldn’t worry me! Fellowes said.
‘Perhaps you’ve never lost anything of any importance,’ Scobie said.
The real object of the dinner-party had been the Argentine beef. With that consumed there was nothing to keep them together (Mrs Fellowes didn’t play cards). Fellowes busied himself about the beer, and Wilson was wedged between the sour silence of Mrs Fellowes and Dr Sykes’ garrulity.
‘Let’s get a breath of air,’ Scobie suggested.
‘Wise?’
‘It would look odd if we didn’t,’ Scobie said.
‘Going to look at the stars?’ Fellowes called, pouring out the beer. ‘Making up for lost time, Scobie? Take your glasses
with you.’
They balanced their glasses on the rail of the verandah. Helen said, ‘I haven’t found your letter.’
‘Forget it’
‘Wasn’t that what you wanted to see me about?’
‘No.’
He could see the outline of her face against the sky doomed to go out as the rain clouds advanced. He said, ‘I’ve got bad news.’
‘Somebody knows?’
‘Oh no, nobody knows.’ He said, ‘Last night I had a telegram from my wife. She’s on the way home.’ One of the glasses fell from the rail and smashed in the yard.
The lips repeated bitterly the word ‘home’ as if that were the only word she had grasped. He said quickly, moving his hand along the rail and failing to reach her, ‘Her home. It will never by my home again.’
‘Oh yes, it will. Now it will be.’
He swore carefully, ‘I shall never again want any home without you.’ The rain clouds had reached the moon and her face went out like a candle in a sudden draught of wind. He had the sense that he was embarking now on a longer journey than he had ever intended. A light suddenly shone on both of them as a door opened. He said sharply, ‘Mind the blackout,’ and thought: at least we were not standing together, but how, how did our faces look? Wilson’s voice said, ‘We thought a fight was going on. We heard a glass break.’
‘Mrs Rolt lost all her beer.’
‘For God’s sake call me Helen,’ she said drearily, ‘everybody else does, Major Scobie.’
‘Am I interrupting something?’
‘A scene of unbridled passion,’ Helen said. ‘It’s left me shaken. I want to go home.’
‘I’ll drive you down,’ Scobie said. ‘It’s getting late.’
‘I wouldn’t trust you, and anyway Dr Sykes is dying to talk to you about suicide. I won’t break up the party. Haven’t you got a car, Mr Wilson?’
‘Of course. I’d be delighted.’
‘You could always drive down and come straight back.’
‘I’m an early bird myself,’ Wilson said.
‘I’ll just go in then and say good night.’
When he saw her face again in the light, he thought: do I worry too much? Couldn’t this for her be just the end of an episode? He heard her saying to Mrs Fellowes, ‘The Argentine beef certainly was lovely.’
‘We’ve got Mr Wilson to thank for it’
The phrases went to and fro like shuttlecocks. Somebody laughed (it was Fellowes or Wilson) and said, ‘You’