The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene [88]
Scobie suddenly leant back against the wall and put his hand on his chest. He couldn’t make his muscles imitate pain, so he simply closed his eyes. Louise looking in her mirror said, ‘Remind me to tell you about Father Davis in Durban. He was a very good type of priest, much more intellectual than Father Rank.’ It seemed to Scobie that she was never going to look round and notice him. She said, ‘Well, we really must be off,’ and dallied by the mirror. Some sweat-lank hairs were out of place. Through the curtain of his lashes at last he saw her turn and look at him. ‘Come along, dear,’ she said, ‘you look sleepy.’
He kept his eyes shut and stayed where he was. She said sharply, ‘Ticki, what’s the matter?’
‘A little brandy.’
‘Are you ill?’
‘A little brandy,’ he repeated sharply, and when she had fetched it for him and he felt the taste on his tongue he had an immeasurable sense of reprieve. He sighed and relaxed, ‘That’s better.’
‘What was it, Tick!?’
‘Just a pain in my chest. It’s gone now.’
‘Have you had it before?’
‘Once or twice while you’ve been away.’
‘You must see a doctor.’
‘Oh, it’s not worth a fuss. They’ll just say overwork.’
‘I oughtn’t to have dragged you up, but I wanted us to have Communion together.’
‘I’m afraid I’ve ruined that - with the brandy.’
‘Never mind, Ticki.’ Carelessly she sentenced him to eternal death. ‘We can go any day.’
He knelt in his seat and watched Louise kneel with the other communicants at the altar rail: he had insisted on coming to the service with her. Father Rank turning from the altar came to them with God in His bands. Scobie thought: God has just escaped me, but will He always escape? Domine non sum dignus ... domine non sum dignus ... domine non sum dignus ... His hand formally, as though he were at drill, beat on a particular button of his uniform. It seemed to him for a moment cruelly unfair of God to have exposed himself in this way, a man, a wafer of bread, first in the Palestinian villages and now here in the hot port, there, everywhere, allowing man to have his will of Him. Christ had told the rich young man to sell all and follow Him, but that was an easy rational step compared with this that God had taken, to put Himself at the mercy of men who hardly knew the meaning of the word. How desperately God must love, he thought with shame. The priest had reached Louise in his slow interrupted patrol, and suddenly Scobie was aware of the sense of exile. Over there, where all these people knelt, was a country to which he would never return. The sense of love stirred in him, the love one always feels for what one has lost, whether a child, a woman, or even pain.
Chapter Two
1
WILSON tore the page carefully out of The Downhamian and pasted a thick sheet of Colonial Office notepaper on. the back of the poem. He held it up to the light: it was impossible to read the sports results on the other side of his verses. Then he folded the page carefully and put it in his pocket; there it would probably stay, but one never knew.
He had seen Scobie drive away towards the town and with beating heart and a sense of breathlessness, much the same as he had felt when stepping into the brothel, even with the same reluctance - for who wanted at any given moment to change the routine of his life? - he made his way downhill towards Scobie’s house.
He began to rehearse what he considered another man in his place would do: pick up the threads at once: kiss her quite naturally, upon the mouth if possible, say ‘I’ve missed you’, no uncertainty. But his beating heart sent out its message of fear which drowned thought.
‘It’s Wilson at last,’ Louise said. ‘I thought you’d forgotten me,’ and held out her hand. He took it like a defeat.
‘Have a drink.’
‘I was wondering whether you’d like a walk.’
‘It’s too hot, Wilson.’
‘I haven’t been up there, you know, since...’
‘Up where?’ He realized that for those who do not love time never stands still.
‘Up at the old station.’
She said vaguely with a remorseless lack of interest, ‘Oh yes ... yes, I haven’t been up there myself yet.’
‘That night when I got back,