The Heart Of The Matter

ed at the bank. The manager’s office was shaded and cool: a glas

ecause he hadn’t been posted to Nigeria. He said, ‘Whe

started in the

, ‘one always knew where one was

u mind if I

his office on legs like stilts: he took a sip of the iced water with distaste as though it were medicine. On his desk Scobi

ifty pounds,’ Scobie said with

made of money,’ Robin-son mechanicall

Three

your balance

thirty pounds. It’s

akes a mile. I try and put in three miles before lunch. It keeps one healthy. In Nigeria I used to walk a mile and a half to breakfast at the club, and then a mile and a half back to the office. Nowhere fit to

send my wife t

Oh yes

do it on a bit less. I shan’t be able to

ally don’t

m, don’t they? Do you know I believe I only had one once - for a few weeks - for about fifte

s to be very strict about overdrafts. It’s the war, you know,

t stirring from here. No submarines for me. And the job’s secure, Ro

’t he?’ Robinson said, reaching the sa

es, but

r that Scobie. There’

way off. I’d much rather die in my boots. There’s always my l

dropped one insuran

year Louise went ho

id-up value of the other t

otect you in case o

the premiums. We haven’t

not,’ Scobie sai

nal. It’s the policy of the bank. If you’d wan

.’ He gave his embarrassed laugh. ‘The boys at the Secretari

thank you. Wish

y of those medica

’s wrong with him. Going

how it is before the rains. Sorry to have kept you

d been detected in a mean action - he had asked for money and had been refused. Louise ha

ccepting his hospital-ity they tried to ease down for the neutral the bitter pill of search; below the bridge the search party would proceed smoothly without them. While the first-class passengers had their passports examined, their cabins would be ransacked by a squad of the F.S.P. Already others were going through the hold - the dreary hopeless bu

e and said, ‘Of course for the English I

you know,’ the lieutenant said

ent. Some of my people feel resentment. Me none.’ The face streamed with sweat, and the eyeballs were contused. The man kep

the lieutenant said. ‘A

glass of por

Nothing like this on sho

No, th

ind it necessary to keep

here’s any possibility of your get

best, of course,’

my heart, you will find no bad hats among my

formality, captain, whi

said. ‘Throw away that cigar-et

gentlemen. Quite harmless. I keep the box for my friends. The English have a wonderful sense o

pre-sumably set off by the captain’s finger, began to play a little tinkly tune. Druce jerked again: he was overdue for

He passed it to Scobie to read. Steward, who is under notice of

nd make them hustle down below. Coming, E

the navicert system. You never knew in a search what you would find. A man’s bedroom was his private life. Prying in drawers you came on humiliations; little petty vices were tucked out of sight

our duty, major,’ t

ook-ing out on to the bridge; it was as if he preferred not to em-barrass his guest in the odious task. Scobie came to an end, closing the box of French letters and putting them careful

obie said, ‘what wou

only the bathr

k I’d better

t there is not much cover

you don’t

rse not. It

ldn’t linger here without disclosing the fact that he had special information. The search had got to have all the ap-pearances of formality - neither too lax nor too thorough. ‘This won’t

search gave him time to think. He went next to the taps, turned the water on, felt up each funnel with his finger. The floor engaged his at-tention:, there were no possibilities of concealment there. The porthole: he exami

his hand on the lavatory chain, and in the mirror became aware for the first time of a tension: the brown eyes were no lon

away and the Portuguese said with a smugness he was unable to conceal, ‘You see, major.’ And at that moment Scobie did see. I’m bec

rry, captain,’ and because the man didn’t answer, he looked up and saw the tears begin-ning to pu

he captain burst out,

e to hate it too, yo

ed because he write

‘Daug

u Groener. Open it an

he censorship. Why didn’t you wait to

ck of his hand like a child - an unattractive child, the fat boy of the school Against the beautiful and the clever and the successful, one can wage a pitiless war, b

you’d under-stand. You haven’t got one,’ he ac

‘

ing his tear-drenched face as though he must drive the unli

om Lisbon?’ Scobie asked a

u know how things go - friends, wine. I have a little woman there too who is jealous even of my daughter.

war-time one must sometimes exercise the faculty of belief if it is not to atrophy.

e. You know what that means. The consul will not give a navi

said, ‘in these matters. Files get mi

ray,’ the man s

not?’ Sc

lishman. You wouldn’

atholic, too,

t and the captain repeated again and again. ‘You will understand.’ He had discovered suddenly how much they had in common: the plaster statues with the swords in the bleeding heart: the whisper behind the confessional curtains: the holy coats and the liquefaction of blood: the dark side chapels and the intricate movements, and somewhere behind it all the love of God. ‘And in Lisbon,’ he said, ‘she w

r man, but I have enough money to spare ...’ He would never have attempted to bribe an

sorry,’ Sc

u twenty English pounds... fifty.’ He implo

k from the door of the cabin, he was beating his head against the cistern, the tears catching in the folds of his cheeks. As he went down to joi

to see the Commissioner, but his office was empty, so he sat down in his own room under the handcuffs and began to write his report ‘A special search was made of the cabins and effects of the passengers named in your telegrams . -.. with no result’

‘What

The why

Are pushin

at redemption on a fifteen-year-old death-bed? He wrote: A steward who had been dismissed for incompetence reported that the captain had correspondence concealed in his bathroom. I made a search and found the enclosed letter addressed to

uce to interpret. Had he ever intended it to mean: ‘The usual private correspondence we are always finding.’ Druce had taken it for ‘No’. Scobie put his hand against his forehead and shivered: the sweat seeped between his f

nt to the London censors unopened. Scobie against the strictest orders was exercising his own imperfect judgement. He thought to himself: If the letter is suspicious, I will send my report. I can explain the torn envelope. The captain insisted on opening the letter to show me the contents. But if he wrote that, he would be unjustly blackening the case against the captain, for what be

was good for me, but all my talk was of you. I was good all the time I was in port because I had promised my little money spider, and I went to Confession and Communion, so that if anything should happen to me on the way to Lisbon - for who knows in these terrible days? - I should not have to live my eternity away from my little spider. Since we left Lobito we have had good weather. Even the passengers are not sea-sick. Tomorrow night, because Africa will be at last behind us, we shall have a ship’s concert, and I shall perform on my whistle. All the time I perform I shall rem

we care for the why and the wherefore?’ On the top of the scraps lay unmistakably half a foreign envelope: one could even read part of the address -Friedrichstrasse. He quickly held the match to the uppermost scrap as Fraser crossed the yard, striding with unbearable youth. The scrap went up in flame, and in the heat of the fire another scrap uncurled the name of Groener. Fraser said cheerfully, ‘Burning the evidence?’ and looked down into the tin. The name had blackened: there was nothing there surely that Fraser could see - except a brown triangle of envelope that seemed to Scobie obviously foreign. He ground it out of existence with a stick and looked up at Fraser to see whether he could detect any

taring at the small pile of ash. Perhaps he w

l kind of a da

ked, looking down into the petrol-tin,

captain?’

old me some fello

d. ‘A dismissed steward with a grudge.

seem to be sure. Good night, sir.

mblerigg

‘Yes,

shall read on her face the story of what she has been thinking all day. She will have been hoping that everything is fixed, that I shall say, ‘I’ve put your name down at the agent’s for South Africa.’ but she’ll be afraid that nothing so good as that will ever happen to us. She’ll wait for me to speak, and I shall try to talk about anything under the sun to postpone seeing her misery (it would be waiting at the corners of her mouth to take possession of her whole face). He knew exactly how things would go: it had happened so often before. He rehearsed every word, going b

two more pink gins. There was a tacit understanding between them that ‘liquor hel

really want to

darling. What sort o

such a coward? Why don’t

‘All

in about the Esperan?a. There’s a Portuguese ship in once a fortnight. You don’t talk tha

e said. It was as if a ligament tightened in his brain with the suspense. If only I could postpone the misery, he thought, until daylight. Misery is worse in the darkness: there’s nothing to look at except the green black-out curtains, the Government furniture, the flying ants scattering their wings over the table: a hundred yards a

you been to

s,’ he a

u couldn’t g

manage it Have another g

le-aged and abandoned woman - it was like the terrible breath of the future on his cheek. He went down on one knee besid

I’ve said it before, but I mean it this time. I shall

have Wilson

don’t always mention Wilson.

t be patient a while, dear

will you

id wearily. (What a day it had been.) ‘J

me one idea

it for years. You don’t love me.’ She spoke with calm. He knew that calm - it meant they had reached the quiet centre of the storm: always in this region at about this time they began to speak the truth at each other. The truth, he thought, has never been of any real value to any human b

don’t love

dly?’ He tried to hit a light note,

aid, ‘your sense of duty. You’ve nev

of course. You alwa

I don’t th

entre he was powerless to give the comforting lie. ‘I tr

t even say you love m

ourteen years ago, at Ealing, silently, during the horrible little elegant ceremony among the lace and candles, that he would at least always see to it that she was happy. ‘Ticki, I’ve got nothing except y

want to go away

w you aren’t happy either. W

in a place he loved. How often he had been pitied for the austerity of the work, the bareness of the rewards. But Louise knew him better than that. If he had become young again this was the life he would have chosen to live; only this

d his strained attempts to leave everything unsaid: then her own calm statement of truths much better lied about, and finally the snapping of his own control - truths flung back at her as though she were his enemy. As he embarked on

she said, ‘if I go away,

g across his window like an iceberg, Arctic and destructive in the moment before the world was struck: by day he tried to win a few moments of its company, crouched under the rusting handcuffs in the locked office, reading the reports from the sub-stations. Peac

ess, ‘Poor dear, you wish I were dead

stinately, ‘I want

the other side of the scene: he thought coolly and collectedly, this one wasn’t so bad: we shall be

he time he made his terrible private vow that she should be happy, how far this action might carry him. Despair is the price one pays for setting oneself an impossible aim. It is, one is told, the unforgivable sin, but