The Heart of the Matter Read Online Free PDF Page B

mean of them, Ticki. You can’t take it lying down. You’ve got to think of me.’
    ‘Yes, I do. All the time.’ He sat down on the bed and put his hand under the net and touched hers. Little beads of sweat started where their skins touched. He said, ‘I do think of you, dear. But I’ve been fifteen years in this place. I’d be lost anywhere else, even if they gave me another job. It isn’t much of a recommendation, you know, being passed over.’
    ‘We could retire.’
    ‘The pension isn’t much to live on.’
    ‘I’m sure I could make a little money writing. Mrs Castle says I ought to be a professional. With all this experience,’ Louise said, gazing through the white muslin tent as far as her dressing-table: there another face in white muslin stared back and she looked away. She said, ‘If only we could go to South Africa. I can’t bear the people here.’
    ‘Perhaps I could arrange a passage for you. There haven’t been many sinkings that way lately. You ought to have a holiday.’
    ‘There was a time when you wanted to retire too. You used to count the years. You made plans—for all of us.’
    ‘Oh well, one changes,’ he said.
    She said mercilessly, ‘You didn’t think you’d be alone with me then.’
    He pressed his sweating hand against hers. ‘What nonsense you talk, dear. You must get up and have some food …’
    ‘Do you love anyone, Ticki, except yourself?’
    ‘No, I just love myself, that’s all. And Ali. I forgot Ali. Of course I love him too. But not you,’ he ran on with worn mechanical raillery, stroking her hand, smiling, soothing …
    ‘And Ali’s sister?’
    ‘Has he got a sister?’
    ‘They’ve all got sisters, haven’t they? Why didn’t you go to Mass today?’
    ‘It was my morning on duty, dear. You know that.’
    ‘You could have changed it. You haven’t got much faith, have you, Ticki?’
    ‘You’ve got enough for both of us, dear. Come and have some food.’
    ‘Ticki, I sometimes think you just became a Catholic to marry me. It doesn’t mean a thing to you, does it?’
    ‘Listen, darling, you want to come down and eat a bit. Then you want to take the car along to the beach and have some fresh air.’
    ‘How different the whole day would have been,’ she said, staring out of her net, ‘if you’d come home and said, “Darling, I’m going to be the Commissioner.”’
    Scobie said slowly, ‘You know, dear, in a place like this in wartime—an important harbour—the Vichy French just across the border—all this diamond smuggling from the Protectorate, they need a younger man.’ He didn’t believe a word he was saying.
    ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
    ‘That’s the only reason. You can’t blame anyone. It’s the war.’
    ‘The war does spoil everything, doesn’t it?’
    ‘It gives the younger men a chance.’
    ‘Darling, perhaps I’ll come down and just pick at a little cold meat.’
    ‘That’s right, dear.’ He withdrew his hand: it was dripping with sweat. ‘I’ll tell Ali.’
    Downstairs he shouted ‘Ali’ out of the back door.
    ‘Massa?’
    ‘Lay two places. Missus better.’
    The first faint breeze of the day came off the sea, blowing up over the bushes and between the Creole huts. A vulture flapped heavily upwards from the iron roof and down again in the yard next door. Scobie drew a deep breath; he felt exhausted and victorious: he had persuaded Louise to pick a little meat. It had always been his responsibility to maintain happiness in those he loved. One was safe now, for ever, and the other was going to eat her lunch.
    IV
    In the evening the port became beautiful for perhaps five minutes. The laterite roads that were so ugly and clay-heavy by day became a delicate flower-like pink. It was the hour of content. Men who had left the port for ever would sometimes remember on a grey wet London evening the bloom and glow that faded as soon as it was seen: they would wonder why they had hated the coast and for a space of a