The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene [14]
‘Now iodine.’ The smallest scratch in this country turned green if it were neglected for an hour. ‘Again,’ he said, ‘pour it over,’ wincing at the sting. Down below out of the swing of voices the word ‘beauty’ detached itself and sank back into the trough. ‘Now the Elastoplast’
‘No,’ Ali said, ‘no. Bandage better.’
‘All right. Bandage then.’ Yean ago he had taught Ali to bandage: now he could tie one as expertly as a doctor.
‘Good night, Ali. Go to bed. I shan’t want you again.’
‘Missus want drinks.’
‘No. I’ll attend to the drinks. You can go to bed.’ Alone he sat down again on the edge of the bath. The wound had jarred him a little and anyway he was unwilling to join the two downstairs, for his presence would embarrass Wilson. A man couldn’t listen to a woman reading poetry in the presence of an outsider. ‘I had rather be a kitten and cry mew ...’ but that wasn’t really his attitude. He did not despise: he just couldn’t understand such bare relations of intimate feeling. And besides he was happy here, sitting where the rat had sat, in his own world. He began to think of the Esperança and of the next day’s work.
‘Darling,’ Louise called up the stairs, ‘are you all right? Can you drive Mr Wilson home?’
‘I can walk, Mrs Scobie.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘Yes, really.’
‘Coming,’ Scobie called. ‘Of course I’ll drive you back.’ When he joined them Louise took the bandaged hand tenderly in hers. ‘Oh the poor hand,’ she said. ‘Does it hurt?’ She was not afraid of the clean white bandage: it was like a patient in a hospital with the sheets drawn tidily up to the chin. One could bring grapes and never know the details of the scalpel wound out of sight. She put her lips to the bandage and left a little smear of orange lipstick.
‘It’s quite all right,’ Scobie said.
‘Really, sir. I can walk.’
‘Of course you won’t walk. Come along, get in.’
The light from the dashboard lit up a patch of Wilson’s extraordinary suit. He leant out of the car and cried, ‘Good night, Mrs Scobie. It’s been lovely. I can’t thank you enough.’ The words vibrated with sincerity: it gave them the sound of a foreign language - the sound of English spoken in England. Here intonations changed in the course of a few months, became high-pitched and insincere, or flat and guarded. You could tell that Wilson was fresh from home.
‘You must come again soon,’ Scobie said, as they drove down the Burnside road towards the Bedford Hotel, remembering Louise’s happy face.
8
The smart of his wounded hand woke Scobie at two in the morning. He lay coiled like a watch-spring on the outside of the bed, trying to keep his body away from Louise’s: wherever they touched - if it were only a finger lying against a finger -sweat started. Even when they were separated the heat trembled between them. The moonlight lay on the dressing-table like coolness and lit the bottles of lotion, the little pots of cream, the edge of a photograph frame. At once he began to listen for Louise’s breathing.
It came irregularly in jerks. She was awake. He put his hand up and touched the hot moist hair: she lay stiffly, as though she were guarding a secret. Sick at heart, knowing what he would find, he moved his fingers down until they touched her lids. She was crying. He felt an enormous tiredness, bracing himself to comfort her. ‘Darling,’ he said, ‘I love you.’ It was how he always began. Comfort, like the act of sex, developed a routine.
‘I know,’ she said, ‘I know.’ It was how she always answered. He blamed himself for being heartless because the idea occurred to him that it was two o’clock: this might go on for hours, and at six the day’s work began. He moved the hair away from her forehead and said, ‘The rains will soon be here. You’ll feel better then.’
‘I feel all right,’ she said and began to sob.
‘What is it, darling? Tell me.’ He swallowed. ‘Tell Ticki.’ He hated the name she had given him, but it always worked.