The Heart of the Matter (27 page)

‘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 be 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’re right there,’ and Dr Sykes’ spectacles made a dot dash dot on the ceiling. He couldn’t watch the car move off without disturbing the black-out; he listened to the starter retching and retching, the racing of the engine, and then the slow decline to silence.

Dr Sykes said, ‘They should have kept Mrs Rolt in hospital a while longer.’

‘Why?’

‘Nerves. I could feel it when she shook hands.’

He waited another half an hour and then he drove home. As
usual
Ali was waiting for him, dozing uneasily on the kitchen step. He lit Scobie to the door with his torch. ‘Missus leave letter,’ he said, and took an envelope out of his shirt.

‘Why didn’t you leave it on my table?’

‘Massa in there.’

‘What massa?’ but by that time the door was open, and he saw Yusef stretched in a chair, asleep, breathing so gently that the hair lay motionless on his chest.

‘I tell him go away,’ Ali said with contempt, ‘but he stay.’

‘That’s all right. Go to bed.’

He had a sense that life was closing in on him. Yusef had never been here since the night he came to inquire after Louise and to lay his trap for Tallit. Quietly, so as not to disturb the sleeping man and bring
that
problem on his heels, he opened the note from Helen. She must have written it immediately she got home. He read,
My darling, this is serius. I can’t say this to you, so I’m putting it on paper. Only I’ll give it to Ali. You trust Ali. When I heard your wife was coming back
…

Yusef opened his eyes and said. ‘Excuse me, Major Scobie, for intruding.’

‘Do you want a drink? Beer. Gin. My whisky’s finished.’

‘May I send you a case?’ Yusef began automatically and then laughed. ‘I always forget. I must not send you things.’

Scobie sat down at the table and laid the note open in front of him. Nothing could be so important as those next sentences. He said, ‘What do you want, Yusef?’ and read on.
When I heard your wife was coming back, I was angry and bitter. It was stupid of me. Nothing is your fault
.

‘Finish your reading, Major Scobie, I can wait.’

‘It isn’t really important,’ Scobie said, dragging his eyes from the large immature letters, the mistake in spelling. ‘Tell me what you want, Yusef,’ and back his eyes went to the letter.
That’s why I’m writing. Because last night you made promises about not leaving me and I don’t want you ever to be bound to me with promises. My dear, all your promises
…

‘Major Scobie, when I lent you money, I swear, it was for friendship, just friendship. I never wanted to ask anything of you,
anything
at all, not even the four per cent. I wouldn’t even have asked for
your
friendship … I was
your
friend … this is very confusing, words are very complicated, Major Scobie.’

‘You’ve kept the bargain, Yusef. I don’t complain about Tallit’s cousin.’ He read on:
belong to your wife. Nothing you say to me is a promise. Please, please remember that. If you never want to see me again, don’t write, don’t speak. And, dear, if you just want to see me sometimes, see me sometimes. I’ll tell any lies you like
.

‘Do finish what you are reading, Major Scobie. Because what I have to speak about is very, very important.’

My dear, my dear, leave me if you want to or have me as your hore if you want to
. He thought: she’s only heard the word, never seen it spelt: they cut it out of the school Shakespeare.
Good night. Don’t worry, my darling
. He said savagely, ‘All right, Yusef. What is it that’s so important?’

‘Major Scobie, I have got after all to ask you a favour. It has nothing to do with the money I lent you. If you can do this for me it will be friendship, just friendship.’

‘It’s late, Yusef, tell me what it is.’

‘The
Esperança
will be in the day after tomorrow. I want a small packet taken on board for me and left with the captain.’

‘What’s in the packet?’

‘Major Scobie, don’t ask. I am your friend. I would rather have this be a secret. It will harm no one at all.’

‘Of course, Yusef, I can’t do it. You know that.’

‘I assure you, Major Scobie, on my word—’ he leant forward in the chair and laid his hand on the black fur of his chest—‘on my word as a friend the package contains nothing, nothing for the Germans. No industrial diamonds, Major Scobie.’

‘Gem stones?’

‘Nothing for the Germans. Nothing that will hurt your country.’

‘Yusef, you can’t really believe that I’d agree?’

The light drill trousers squeezed to the edge of the chair: for one moment Scobie thought that Yusef was going on his knees to him. He said, ‘Major Scobie, I implore you … It is important for you as well as for me.’ His voice broke with genuine emotion, ‘I want to be a friend.’

Scobie said, ‘I’d better warn you before you say any more, Yusef, that the Commissioner
does
know about our arrangement.’

‘I daresay, I daresay, but this is so much worse, Major Scobie, on my word of honour, this will do no harm to anyone. Just do this one act of friendship, and I’ll never ask another. Do it of your own free will, Major Scobie. There is no bribe. I offer no bribe.’

His eye went back to the letter:
My darling, this is serius
. Serius—his eye this time read it as
servus
—a slave: a servant of the servants of God. It was like an unwise command which he had none the less to obey. He felt as though he were turning his back on peace for ever. With his eyes open, knowing the consequences, he entered the territory of lies without a passport for return.

‘What were you saying, Yusef? I didn’t catch …’

‘Just once more I ask you …’

‘No, Yusef.’

‘Major Scobie,’ Yusef said, sitting bolt upright in his chair, speaking with a sudden odd formality, as though a stranger had joined them and they were no longer alone, ‘you remember Pemberton?’

‘Of course.’

‘His boy came into my employ.’

‘Pemberton’s boy?’
Nothing you say to me is a promise
.

‘Pemberton’s boy is Mrs Rolt’s boy.’

Scobie’s eyes remained on the letter, but he no longer read what he saw.

‘Her boy brought me a letter. You see I asked him to keep his eyes—bare—is that the right word?’

‘You have a very good knowledge of English, Yusef. Who read it to you?’

‘That does not matter.’

The formal voice suddenly stopped and the old Yusef implored again, ‘Oh, Major Scobie, what made you write such a letter? It was asking for trouble.’

‘One can’t be wise all the time, Yusef. One would die of disgust.’

‘You see it has put you in my hands.’

‘I wouldn’t mind that so much. But to put three people in your hands …’

‘If only you would have done an act of friendship …’

‘Go on, Yusef. You must complete your blackmail. You can’t get away with half a threat.’

‘I wish I could dig a hole and put the package in it. But the war’s going badly, Major Scobie. I am doing this not for myself, but for my father and mother, my half brother, my three sisters—and there are cousins too.’

‘Quite a family.’

‘You see if the English are beaten all my stores have no value at all.’

‘What do you propose to do with the letter, Yusef?’

‘I hear from a clerk in the cable company that your wife is on her way back. I will have the letter handed to her as soon as she lands.’

He remembered the telegram signed Louise Scobie:
have been a fool stop love
. It would be a cold welcome, he thought.

‘And if I give your package to the captain of the
Esperança?
’

‘My boy will be waiting on the wharf. In return for the captain’s receipt he will give you an envelope with your letter inside.’

‘You trust your boy?’

‘Just as you trust Ali.’

‘Suppose I demand the letter first and gave you my word …’

‘It is the penalty of the blackmailer, Major Scobie, that he has no debts of honour. You would be quite right to cheat me.’

‘Suppose you cheat me?’

‘That wouldn’t be right. And formerly I was your friend.’

‘You very nearly were,’ Scobie reluctantly admitted.

‘I am the base Indian.’

‘The base Indian?’

‘Who threw away a pearl,’ Yusef sadly said. ‘That was in the play by Shakespeare the Ordnance Corps gave in the Memorial Hall. I have always remembered it.’

II

‘Well,’ Druce said, ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to get to work now.’

‘One more glass,’ the captain of the
Esperança
said.

‘Not if we are going to release you before the boom closes. See you later, Scobie.’

When the door of the cabin closed the captain said breathlessly, ‘I am still here.’

‘So I see. I told you there are often mistakes—minutes go to the wrong place, files are lost.’

‘I believe none of that,’ the captain said. ‘I believe you helped me.’ He dripped gently with sweat in the stuffy cabin. He added, ‘I pray for you at Mass, and I have brought you this. It was all that I could find for you in Lobito. She is a very obscure saint,’ and he slid across the table between them a holy medal the size of a nickel piece. ‘Santa—I don’t remember her name. She had something to do with Angola I think,’ the captain explained.

‘Thank you,’ Scobie said. The package in his pocket seemed to him to weigh as heavily as a gun against his thigh. He let the last drops of port settle in the well of his glass and then drained them. He said, ‘This time I have something for you.’ A terrible reluctance cramped his fingers.

‘For me?’

‘Yes.’

How light the little package actually was now that it was on the table between them. What had weighed like a gun in the pocket might now have contained little more than fifty cigarettes. He said, ‘Someone who comes on board with the pilot at Lisbon will ask you if you have any American cigarettes. You will give him this package.’

‘Is this Government business?’

‘No. The Government would never pay as well as this.’ He laid a packet of notes upon the table.

‘This surprises me,’ the captain said with an odd note of disappointment. ‘You have put yourself in my hands.’

‘You were in mine,’ Scobie said.

‘I don’t forget. Nor will my daughter. She is married outside the Church, but she has faith. She prays for you too.’

‘The prayers we pray then don’t count, surely?’

‘No, but when the moment of Grace returns they rise,’ the captain raised his fat arms in an absurd and touching gesture, ‘all at once together like a flock of birds.’

‘I shall be glad of them,’ Scobie said.

‘You can trust me, of course.’

‘Of course. Now I must search your cabin.’

‘You do not trust me very far.’

‘That package,’ Scobie said, ‘has nothing to do with the war.’