The Heart Of The Matter

e stood in the doorway of the hut while Wilson moved cautiously forward bet

n said cautiously, pointing his muz

ined the Nissen hut into three: a bedroom for each of them and a common sitting-room. ‘

y played the game

it seems almost a

are our ne

rks, and somebody called Clive from the Agricultural Department, Boling, who’s in charge o

‘

hree long rows of boys on a lawn: the first row sitting cross-legged on the grass: the second on chairs, wearing high stiff collars, with an elderly man an

me Snakey convey

.’ He looked closer. ‘So

and I fished this out to surprise you. I

a Prog,’ W

ps among the Progs.’ He laid the photograph flat down again as though it were somethin

Wilson asked. ‘Ther

ld invite a

on’t see

an, not me. I never joined the association. You get the mag

mber and he always forwards the b

de your bed. I thought

y have gla

t about me in it. Th

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 thei

t’s all right

e steward. I thought we co

ave knocking about here

f 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.

ndy, old man? I wouldn’t mind anothe

w one unopened on

n’t mind my

the hell

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 w

ll 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

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 s

’ and it was dedicated to ‘L.S.’. He wasn’t very keen on poetry, but it struck him as interesting

tram on this dist

poisoned chali

rk upon the pal

ches his lo

n such close quarters as they now shared it was necessary to be circumspect. There wasn’t space to quarrel in. Who is L.S., he wondered, and thought, surely it can’t be ... the

‘

arris said. ‘But I

on lied behind the ba

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 wa

son 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 jac

cobie said, ‘I didn’t k

,’ Wilson said, watching the

was still a novice in the world of deceit: he hadn’t lived in it since childhood, and he felt an odd elderly env

r. Surreptitiously, 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

‘Who

e says

e safe and pulled the door to. Pouring himself out a glass of water he looked out on the street; the mammies, their heads tied up in bright cotton cloths, passed under their coloured umbrellas. Their shapeless cotton gowns fell to the ankle: one with a design of matchboxes: another w

hut the

orning call: a white cotton shirt fell outside his white shorts. His gym

small boy

‘Yes,

‘from my boy. He tell you what I want,

‘Yes,

Same f

‘Yes,

boy, honest. You want

‘Yes,

Can yo

‘No,

‘Wr

‘No,

ek 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

en shil

f you stay with Yusef one year and give me good information - true information -

o to prison. Maybe they shoot you. I

‘Yes,

e. 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 a

h.’ They were the first words apart

e him at you

‘Yes,

‘How

ce, twic

ur master - the

e broke furiously out, ‘I don’t want to hear whether he’s good or not. I want to know where he meets Yusef

the boy brought ingratiatingly out, as i

. I want to know all

way one time, my master he p

earth do you

s eyes in a gesture of great dignity

son said, ‘what an e

sleep - ten, twelve hours. Then he go to his

‘

ay they hu

at got to do wi

Wilson had the sense of a door closed in his

hip 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 passenger 1st class repeat P. Ferreira passenger 1st class. Ferreira

watched the water trickling down between the two thin wing-like shoulder-blades. He remembered there was a time when he had not n

is asked with sur

son said, loosening the kn

can you find to do i

iness,’ W

l 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 a

han of lust 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

ceman on duty at the top of the hill. The road was never made up, so that nobody drove by the brothel on the way to the wharf or the Cathedral: it could be ignored. Now it turned a shut

, 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 passage there were little cells nine feet by four with curtains instead of doorways and beds made

p 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,

e feet coming up the passage 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 s

r cases. ‘You stay here,’ the mammy said to Wilson, and mechanically like a hostess whose mind is elsewhere but who must make conversation with howe

ldn’t bluster as a white man could elsewhere: by entering this narrow plaster passage, 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

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 bloc

ls of rain, the musty smell of his companion, the dim and wayward light of the kerosene lamp reminded him of a vault newly opened for another body to be let do