The Heart Of The Matter

rs Carter has contributed a magnificent parrakeet - look at it - from somewhere in South America. And here’

e: it seemed to both of them for

mps?’ he asked. ‘It’s an odd

it’s not just habit. I do love the things. Do you see this green George V halfpenny stamp? It’s the first I ever collected. I was eight. I s

portable. People who collect china - they can’t carry it around with them. O

old me about your hu

‘

aring out a page because you can s

‘

over a thing,’ Scobie sai

e hadn’t believed she was old enough to have reached that stage in her lessons, that particular turn of the screw. She sai

live without you,’ what we really mean is, ‘I can’t live feeling you may be in pain, unhappy, in want.’ That’s all

was so tough,’ Helen s

o’clock in the morning - a dead time of day for any news.’ He had never mentioned this before to anyone, not even to Louise. Now he brought out the exact words of each cable, carefully. ‘The cable said, Catherine died this afternoon no pain God bless you. The second cabl

rible for you

must be still alive. For a moment until I realized what had happened, I was - disappointed. That was the terrible thing. I thought ‘now th

you forgo

ten. You see, I escaped seein

become friends. They came together over two deaths without res

would have loo

hey are scared

He la

pretending to be happy about something and I sat there grinning and it didn’t work. Do you remember when you went to your first party and coming up the stairs you heard all

l be going

here I can shut the door and not answer whe

ely you aren’

fraid of the s

you dream

s had bad dreams of him and I still have bad dreams of him. I mean we

id you

s it a year ago? Sometimes he saw her lying back in the boat on that oily featureless sea day after day with the other child near death and the sailor going mad and Miss Malcott, and the chief engineer who felt his responsibility to the owners, and sometimes he saw her carried past him on a stretcher grasping

ll from Bury, poor dear. He doesn’t know anybody at all. He cabled too about John, of course.’ She lifted a cushion

our loving father. The date stamp with the Bury mark made him aware of the enormous d

ves in God and heaven,

‘You

t mind. But he never knew I felt the way John did. If you are a clergyman’s daughter there are a lot of things you h

man to accept responsibility, and how could anyone lay the responsibility for any action, he thought, on this stupid bewildered

she said, ‘they’

sergeant with the big bust, the cook-house and the potato peelings, the Lesbian officer with the thin lips and the tidy gold hair, and the men waiting on the Common outside the camp, among the go

, ‘I’m not really a

eing saved from the sea and then Sung ba

aid, ‘Can

along quite fast

retaries. All the wives, you know, are working in the secretariat

Let’s have a drink on it

ere so frightened of him...’ The boy came in with a tra

the boy I talked

went. You talked to

d this o

‘

t’s your

Vande,

en you before

‘No,

‘Who

big police

hten this one aw

o were y

Pemberton up bush, s

ose I did. You look after this missus well now, and

looked at the st

him that he had not felt so much at ease with another human being for years - not since Louise was young. But this case was different, he told himself: they were safe with each other. He was more than thirty years the older; his body in this climate had lost the sense of lust; he watched

stamp’s spoilt. I’

‘it goes in as it is. I’

or which nobody would go out of his way, the face that would never catch the covert look, the face which would soon be used to rebuffs and indiffer

whenever I see that sta

it’s like a

at it’s ever been there.’ She turned suddenly to him and said, ‘It’s so good to talk to you. I can

rain surrounded them, fallin

ommand he would have to obey however difficult. Her hands were full of the absurd scraps of pa

a voice said, ‘Freddie Bagster. It’s

and watched the door with her mouth a little open as though she were out

dled. ‘Be a sport, Helen. Only Freddi

ed against him with

hey kissed. What they had both thought was safety proved to have been the

atch had been broken by a squall of wind. Now the rain had blown in, his dressing-table was soaking wet, and there was a pool of water on the floor. His alarm clock pointed to 4.25. He felt as though

his walk home with an odd jubilation, as though he had rediscovered something he had lost, something which belonged to his youth. In the wet and noisy darkness he

d the light She lay in the odd cramped attitude of someone who has been shot in escaping. It seemed to him for a moment even then, before his tenderness a

re you d

ed I was lost in a mars

Like a criminal he began to fashion in his own mind the undetectable crime: he planned the moves ahead: he embarked for the first time

ink. I don’t know. H

he end of it all he had left his umbrella standing against the wall. It seemed to him the typical action of a criminal. When the rain reminded him of it, it was too late to go back. He would have

what he was about. He had sworn to preserve Louise’s happiness, and now he had accepted another and contradictory responsibility. He felt tired by all the lies he would some time have to tell; he felt the wounds of those victims wh