The Heart Of The Matter Part 18

'Whatever for?' Wilson asked. 'There are only two of us.'

'We could invite a guest each.'

'I don't see the point.'

Harris said bitterly, 'Well, you are the real Downhamian, not me. I never joined the a.s.sociation. You get the magazine. I thought perhaps you had an interest in the place.'

'My father made me a life member and he always forwards the b.l.o.o.d.y paper,' Wilson said abruptly.

'It was lying beside your bed. I thought you'd been reading it.'

'I may have glanced at it'

'There was a bit about me in it. They wanted my address.'

'Oh, but you know why that is?' Wilson said. 'They are sending out appeals to any old Downhamian they can rake up. The panelling in the Founders' Hall is in need of repair. I'd keep your address quiet if I were you.' He was one of those, it seemed to Harris, who always knew what was on, who gave advance information on extra halves, who knew why old So-and-So had not turned up to school, and what the row brewing at the Head's special meeting was about. A few weeks ago he had been a new boy whom Harris had been delighted to befriend, to show around. He remembered the evening when Wilson would have put on evening dress for a Syrian's dinner-party if he hadn't been warned. But Harris from his first year at school had been fated to see how quickly new boys grew up: one term he was their kindly mentor - the next he was discarded. He could never progress as quickly as the newest unlicked boy. He remembered how even in the c.o.c.kroach game - that he had invented - his rules had been challenged on the first evening. He said sadly, 'I expect you are right. Perhaps I won't send a letter after all.' He added humbly, 'I took the bed on this side, but I don't mind a bit which I have...'

'Oh, that's all right,' Wilson said.

'I've only engaged one steward. I thought we could save a bit by sharing.'

'The less boys we have knocking about here the better,' Wilson said.

That night was the first night of their new comradeship. They sat reading on their twin Government chairs behind the black-out curtains. On the table was a bottle of whisky for Wilson and a bottle of barley-water flavoured with lime for Harris. A sense of extraordinary peace came to Harris while the rain tingled steadily on the roof and Wilson read a Wallace. Occasionally a few drunks from the R.A.F. mess pa.s.sed by, shouting or revving their cars, but this only enhanced the sense of peace inside the hut. Sometimes his eyes strayed to the walls seeking a c.o.c.kroach, but you couldn't have everything.

'Have you got The Downhamian handy, old man? I wouldn't mind another glance at it. This book's so dull.'

'There's a new one unopened on the dressing-table.'

'You don't mind my opening it?'

'Why the h.e.l.l should I?'

Harris turned first to the old Downhamian notes and read again how the whereabouts of H R. Harris (1917-1921) was still wanted. He wondered whether it was possible that Wilson was wrong: there was no word here about the panelling in Hall. Perhaps after all he would send that letter and he pictured the reply he might receive from the Secretary. My dear Harris, it would go something like that, we were all delighted to receive your letter from those romantic parts. Why not send us a full length contribution to the mag. and while I'm writing to you, what about membership of the Old Downhamian a.s.sociation? I notice you've never joined. I'm speaking for all Old Downhamians when I say that we'll be glad to welcome you. He tried out 'proud to welcome you' on his tongue, but rejected that. He was a realist.

The Downhamians had had a fairly successful Christmas term. They had beaten Harpenden by one goal, Merchant Taylors by two, and had drawn with Lancing. Ducker and Tierney were coming on well as forwards, but the scrum was still slow in getting the ball out. He turned a page and read how the Opera Society had given an excellent rendering of Patience in the Founders' Hall. F.J.K., who was obviously the English master, wrote: Lane as Bunthorne displayed a degree of aestheticism which surprised all his companions of Vb. We would not hitherto have described his hand as mediaeval or a.s.sociated him with lilies, but he persuaded us that we had misjudged him. A great performance, Lane.

Harris skimmed through the account of five matches, a fantasy called 'The Tick of the Clock' beginning There was once a little old lady whose most beloved possession ... The walls of Downham - the red brick laced with yellow, the extraordinary crockets, the mid-Victorian gargoyles - rose around him: boots beat on stone stairs and a cracked dinner-bell rang to rouse him to another miserable day. He felt the loyalty we feel to unhappiness - the sense that that is where we really belong. His eyes filled with tears, he took a sip of his barley-water and thought, 'I'll post that letter whatever Wilson says.' Somebody outside shouted, 'Bagster. Where are you, Bagster, you sod?' and stumbled in a ditch. He might have been back at Downham, except of course that they wouldn't have used that word.

Harris turned a page or two and the t.i.tle of a poem caught his eye. It was called 'West Coast' and it was dedicated to 'L.S.'. He wasn't very keen on poetry, but it struck him as interesting that somewhere on this enormous coastline of sand and smells there existed a third old Downhamian.

Another Tristram on this distant coast, he read Raises the poisoned chalice to his lips, Another Mark upon the palm-fringed sh.o.r.e Watches his love's eclipse.

It seemed to Harris obscure: his eye pa.s.sed rapidly over the intervening verses to the initials at the foot: E.W. He nearly exclaimed aloud, but he restrained himself in time. In such close quarters as they now shared it was necessary to be circ.u.mspect. There wasn't s.p.a.ce to quarrel in. Who is L.S., he wondered, and thought, surely it can't be ... the very idea crinkled his lips in a cruel smile. He said, 'There's not much in the mag. We beat Harpenden. There's a poem called West Coast. Another poor devil out here, I suppose.'

'Oh.'

'Lovelorn,' Harris said. 'But I don't read poetry.'

'Nor do I,' Wilson lied behind the barrier of the Wallace.

2.

It had been a very narrow squeak. Wilson lay on his back in bed and listened to the rain on the roof and (he heavy breathing of the old Downhamian beyond the curtain. It was as if the hideous years had extended through the intervening mist to surround him again. What madness had induced him to send that poem to the Downhamian? But it wasn't madness: he had long since become incapable of anything so honest as madness: he was one of those condemned in childhood to complexity. He knew what he had intended to do: to cut the poem out with no indication of its source and to send it to Louise. It wasn't quite her sort of poem, he knew, but surely, he had argued, she would be impressed to some extent by the mere fact that the poem was in print. If she asked him where it had appeared, it would be easy to invent some convincing coterie name. The Downhamian luckily was well printed and on good paper. It was true, of course, that he would have to paste the cutting on opaque paper to disguise what was printed on the other side, but it would be easy to think up an explanation of that. It was as if his profession were slowly absorbing his whole life, just as school had done. His profession was to lie, to have the quick story ready, never to give himself away, and his private life was taking the same pattern. He lay on his back in a nausea of self-disgust.

The rain had momentarily stopped. It was one of those cool intervals that were the consolation of the sleepless. In Harris's heavy dreams the rain went on. Wilson got softly out and mixed himself a bromide; the grains fizzed in the bottom of the gla.s.s and Harris spoke hoa.r.s.ely and turned over behind the curtain. Wilson flashed his torch on his watch and read 2.25. Tiptoeing to the door so as not to waken Harris, he felt the little sting of a jigger under his toe-nail. In the morning he must get his boy to scoop it out. He stood on the small cement pavement above the marshy ground and let the cool air play on him with his pyjama jacket flapping open. All the huts were in darkness, and the moon was patched with the rain-clouds coming up. He was going to turn away when he heard someone stumble a few yards away and he flashed his torch. It lit on a man's bowed back moving between the huts towards the road. 'Scobie,' Wilson exclaimed and the man turned.

'Hullo, Wilson,' Scobie said, 'I didn't know you lived up here.'

'I'm sharing with Harris,' Wilson said, watching the man who had watched his tears.

'I've been taking a walk,' Scobie said unconvincingly, 'I couldn't sleep.' It seemed to Wilson that Scobie was still a novice in the world of deceit: he hadn't lived in it since childhood, and he felt an odd elderly envy for Scobie, much as an old lag might envy the young crook serving his first sentence, to whom all this was new.

3.

Wilson sat in his little stuffy room in the U.A.C. office. Several of the firm's journals and day books bound in quarter pigskin formed a barrier between him and the door. Surrept.i.tiously, like a schoolboy using a crib, Wilson behind the barrier worked at his code books, translating a cable. A commercial calendar showed a week old date - June 20, and a motto: The best investments are honesty and enterprise. William P. Cornforth. A clerk knocked and said, 'There's a n.i.g.g.e.r for you, Wilson, with a note.'

'Who from?'

'He says Brown.'

'Keep him a couple of minutes, there's a good chap, and then boot him in.' However diligently Wilson practised, the slang phrase sounded unnaturally on his lips. He folded up the cable and stuck it in the code book to keep his place: then he put the cable and the code book in the safe and pulled the door to. Pouring himself out a gla.s.s of water he looked out on the street; the mammies, their heads tied up in bright cotton cloths, pa.s.sed under their coloured umbrellas. Their shapeless cotton gowns fell to the ankle: one with a design of matchboxes: another with kerosene lamps: the third - the latest from Manchester - covered with mauve cigarette-lighters on a yellow ground. Naked to the waist a young girl pa.s.sed gleaming through the rain and Wilson watched her out of sight with melancholy l.u.s.t. He swallowed and turned as the door opened.

'Shut the door.'

The boy obeyed. He had apparently put on his best clothes for this morning call: a white cotton shirt fell outside his white shorts. His gym shoes were immaculate in spite of the rain, except that his toes protruded.

'You small boy at Yusef's?'

'Yes, sah.'

'You got a message,' Wilson said, 'from my boy. He tell you what I want, eh? He's your young brother, isn't he?'

'Yes, sah,'

'Same father?'

'Yes, sah.'

'He says you good boy, honest. You want to be a steward, eh?'

'Yes, sah.'

'Can you read?'

'No, sah.'

'Write?'

'No, sah.'

'You got eyes in your head? Good ears? You see everything? You hear everything?' The boy grinned - a gash of white in the smooth grey elephant hide of his face: he had a look of sleek intelligence. Intelligence, to Wilson, was more valuable than honesty. Honesty was a double-edged weapon, but intelligence looked after number one. Intelligence realized that a Syrian might one day go home to his own land, but the English stayed. Intelligence knew that it was a good thing to work for Government, whatever the Government. 'How much you get as small boy?'

'Ten shillings.'

'I pay you five shillings more. If Yusef sack you I pay you ten shillings. If you stay with Yusef one year and give me good information - true information - no lies, I give you job as steward with white man. Understand?' 'Yes, sah.'

'If you give me lies, then you go to prison. Maybe they shoot you. I don't know. I don't care. Understand?'

'Yes, sah.'

'Every day you see your brother at meat market. You tell him who comes to Yusef s house. Tell him where Yusef goes. You tell him any strange boys who come to Yusef's house. You no tell lies, you tell truth. No humbug. If no one comes to Yusef's house you say no one. You no make big lie. If you tell lie, I know it and you go to prison straight away.' The wearisome recital went on. He was never quite sure how much was understood. The sweat ran off Wilson's forehead and the cool contained grey face of the boy aggravated him like an accusation he couldn't answer. 'You go to prison and you stay in prison plenty long time.' He could hear his own voice cracking with the desire to impress; he could hear himself, like the parody of a white man on the halls. He said, 'Scobie? Do you know Major Scobie?'

'Yes, sah. He very good man, sah.' They were the first words apart from yes and no the boy had uttered.

'You see him at your master's?'

'Yes, sah.'

'How often?'

'Once, twice, sah.'

'He and your master - they are friends?'

'My master he think Major Scobie very good man, sah.' The reiteration of the phrase angered Wilson. He broke furiously out, 'I don't want to hear whether he's good or not. I want to know where he meets Yusef, see? What do they talk about? You bring them in drinks some time when steward's busy? What do you hear?'

'Last time they have big palaver,' the boy brought ingratiatingly out, as if he were showing a corner of his wares.

'I bet they did. I want to know all about their palaver.'

'When Major Scobie go away one time, my master he put pillow right on his face.'

'What on earth do you mean by that?'

The boy folded his arms over his eyes in a gesture of great dignity and said, 'His eyes make pillow wet.'

'Good G.o.d,' Wilson said, 'what an extraordinary thing.'

'Then he drink plenty whisky and go to sleep - ten, twelve hours. Then he go to his store in Bond Street and make plenty h.e.l.l.'

'Why?'

'He say they humbug him.'

'What's that got to do with Major Scobie?'

The boy shrugged. As so many times before Wilson had the sense of a door closed in his face; he was always on the outside of the door.

When the boy had gone he opened his safe again, moving the k.n.o.b of the combination first left to 32 - his age, secondly right to 10, the year of his birth, left again to 65, the number of his home in Western Avenue, Pinner, and took out the code books. 32946 78523 97042. Row after row of groups swam before his eyes. The telegram was headed Important, or he would have postponed the decoding till the evening. He knew how little important it really was - the usual ship had left Lobito carrying the usual suspects - diamonds, diamonds, diamonds. When he had decoded the telegram he would hand it to the long-suffering Commissioner, who had already probably received the same information or contradictory information from S.O.E. or one of the other secret organizations which took root on the coast like mangroves. Leave alone but do not repeat not pinpoint P. Ferreira pa.s.senger 1st cla.s.s repeat P. Ferreira pa.s.senger 1st cla.s.s. Ferreira was presumably an agent his organization had recruited on board. It was quite possible that the Commissioner would receive simultaneously a message from Colonel Wright that P. Ferreira was suspected of carrying diamonds and should be rigorously searched. 72391 87052 63847 92034. How did one simultaneously leave alone, not repeat not pinpoint, and rigorously search Mr Ferreira? That luckily was not his worry. Perhaps it was Scobie who would suffer any headache there was.

Again he went to the window for a gla.s.s of water and again he saw the same girl pa.s.s. Or maybe it was not the same girl. He watched the water trickling down between the two thin wing-like shoulder-blades. He remembered there was a time when he had not noticed a black skin. He felt as though he had pa.s.sed years and not months on this coast, all the years between p.u.b.erty and manhood.

4.

'Going out?' Harris asked with surprise. 'Where to?'

'Just into town,' Wilson said, loosening the knot round his mosquito-boots.

'What on earth can you find to do in town at this hour?'

'Business,' Wilson said.

Well, he thought, it was business of a kind, the kind of joyless business one did alone, without friends. He had bought a second-hand car a few weeks ago, the first he had ever owned, and he was not yet a very reliable driver. No gadget survived the climate long and every few hundred yards he had to wipe the windscreen with his handkerchief. In Kru town the hut doors were open and families sat around the kerosene lamps waiting till it was cool enough to sleep. A dead pye-dog lay in the gutter with the rain running over its white swollen belly. He drove in second gear at little more than a walking pace, for civilian head-lamps had to be blacked out to the size of a visiting-card and he couldn't see more than fifteen paces ahead. It took him ten minutes to reach the great cotton tree near the police station. There were no lights on in any of the officer's rooms and he left his car outside the main entrance. If anyone saw it there they would a.s.sume he was inside. For a moment he sat with the door open hesitating. The image of the girl pa.s.sing in the rain conflicting with the sight of Harris on his shoulder-blades reading a book with a gla.s.s of squash at his elbow. He thought sadly, as l.u.s.t won the day, what a lot of trouble it was; the sadness of the after-taste fell upon his spirits beforehand.

He had forgotten to bring his umbrella and he was wet through before he had walked a dozen yards down the hill. It was the pa.s.sion of curiosity more than of l.u.s.t that impelled him now. Some time or another if one lived in a place one must try the local product. It was like having a box of chocolates shut in a bedroom drawer. Until the box was empty it occupied the mind too much. He thought: when this is over I shall be able to write another poem to Louise.

The brothel was a tin-roofed bungalow half-way down the hill on the right-hand side. In the dry season the girls sat outside in the gutter like sparrows; they chatted with the policeman on duty at the top of the hill. The road was never made up, so that n.o.body drove by the brothel on the way to the wharf or the Cathedral: it could be ignored. Now it turned a shuttered silent front to the muddy street, except where a door, propped open with a rock out of the roadway, opened on a pa.s.sage. Wilson looked quickly this way and that and stepped inside.

Years ago the pa.s.sage had been white-washed and plastered, but rats had torn holes in the plaster and human beings had mutilated the whitewash with scrawls and pencilled names. The walls were tattooed like a sailor's arm, with initials, dates, there was even a pair of hearts interlocked. At first it seemed to Wilson that the place was entirely deserted; on either side of the pa.s.sage there were little cells nine feet by four with curtains instead of doorways and beds made out of old packing-cases spread with a native cloth. He walked rapidly to the end of the pa.s.sage; then, he told himself, he would turn and go back to the quiet and somnolent security of the room where the old Downhamian dozed over his book.

He felt an awful disappointment, as though he had not found what he was looking for, when he readied the end and discovered that the left-hand cell was occupied; in the light of an oil lamp burning on the floor he saw a girl in a dirty shift spread out on the packing-cases like a fish on a counter; her bare pink soles dangled over the words 'Tate's Sugar'. She lay there on duty, waiting for a customer. She grinned at Wilson, not bothering to sit up and said, 'Want jig jig, darling. Ten bob.' He had a vision of a girl with a rain-wet back moving forever out of his sight.

'No,' he said, 'no,' shaking his head and thinking, What a fool I was, what a fool, to drive all the way for only this. The girl giggled as if she understood his stupidity and he heard the slop slop of bare feet coming up the pa.s.sage from the road; the way was blocked by an old mammy carrying a striped umbrella. She said something to the girl in her native tongue and received a grinning explanation. He had the sense that all this was only strange to him, that it was one of the stock situations the old woman was accustomed to meet in the dark regions which she ruled. He said weakly, 'I'll just go and get a drink first.'

'She get drink,' the mammy said. She commanded the girl sharply in the language he couldn't understand and the girl swung her legs off the sugar cases. 'You stay here,' the mammy said to Wilson, and mechanically like a hostess whose mind is elsewhere but who must make conversation with however uninteresting a guest, she said, 'Pretty girl, jig jig, one pound.' Market values here were reversed: the price rose steadily with his reluctance.

'I'm sorry. I can't wait,' Wilson said. 'Here's ten bob,' and he made the preliminary motions of departure, but the old woman paid him no attention at all, blocking the way, smiling steadily like a dentist who knows what's good for you. Here a man's colour had no value: he couldn't bl.u.s.ter as a white man could elsewhere: by entering this narrow plaster pa.s.sage, he had shed every racial, social and individual trait, he had reduced himself to human nature. If he had wanted to hide, here was the perfect hiding-place; if he had wanted to be anonymous, here he was simply a man. Even his reluctance, disgust and fear were not personal characteristics; they were so common to those who came here for the first time that the old woman knew exactly what each move would be. First the suggestion of a drink, then the offer of money, after that...

Wilson said weakly, 'Let me by,' but he knew that she wouldn't move; she stood watching him, as though he were a tethered animal on whom she was keeping an eye for its owner. She wasn't interested in him, but occasionally she repeated calmly, 'Pretty girl jig jig by-and-by.' He held out a pound to her and she pocketed it and went on blocking the way. When he tried to push by, she thrust him backwards with a casual pink palm, saying, 'By-an-by. Jig jig.' It had all happened so many hundreds of times before.