The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene [92]
She said, ‘Jealousy? What on earth have I got to be jealous about?’
‘They’ve been careful,’ Wilson said, ‘but not as careful as all that.’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’
‘Your Ticki and Helen Rolt.’
Louise struck at his cheek and missing got his nose, which began to bleed copiously. She said, ‘That’s for calling him Ticki. Nobody’s going to do that except me. You know he hates it. Here, take my handkerchief if you haven’t got one of your own.’
Wilson said, ‘I bleed awfully easily. Do you mind if I lie on my back?’ He stretched himself on the floor between the table and the meat safe, among the ants. First there had been Scobie watching his tears at Pende, and now - this.
‘You wouldn’t like me to put a key down your back?’ Louise asked.
‘No. No thank you.’ The blood had stained the Downhamian page.
‘I really am sorry. I’ve got a vile temper. This will cure you, Wilson.’ But if romance is what one lives by, one must never be cured of it. The world has too many spoilt priests of this faith or that: better surely to pretend a belief than wander in that vicious vacuum of cruelty and despair. He said obstinately, ‘Nothing will cure me, Louise. I love you. Nothing,’ bleeding into her handkerchief.
‘How strange,’ she said, ‘it would be if it were true.’
He grunted a query from the ground.
‘I mean,’ she explained, ‘if you were one of those people who really love. I thought Henry was. It would be strange if really it was you all the time.’ He felt an odd fear that after all he was going to be accepted at his own valuation, rather as a minor staff officer might feel during a rout when he finds that his claim to know the handling of the tanks will be accepted. It is too late to admit that he knows nothing but what he has read in the technical journals - ‘O lyric love, half angel and half bird.’ Bleeding into the handkerchief, he formed his lips carefully round a generous phrase, ‘I expect he loves - in his way.’
‘Who?’ Louise said. ‘Me? This Helen Rolt you are talking about? Or just himself?’
‘I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘Isn’t it true? Let’s have a bit of truth, Wilson. You don’t know how tired I am of comforting lies. Is she beautiful?’
‘Oh no, no. Nothing of that sort.’
‘She’s young, of course, and I’m middle-aged. But surely she’s a bit worn after what she’s been through.’
‘She’s very worn.’
‘But she’s not a Catholic. She’s lucky. She’s free, Wilson.’
Wilson sat up against the leg of the table. He said with genuine passion, ‘I wish to God you wouldn’t call me Wilson.’
‘Edward. Eddie. Ted. Teddy.’
‘I’m bleeding again,’ he said dismally and lay back on the floor.
‘What do you know about it all, Teddie?’
‘I think I’d rather be Edward. Louise, I’ve seen him come away from her hut at two in the morning. He was up there yesterday afternoon.’
‘He was at confession.’
‘Harris saw him.’
‘You’re certainly watching him.’
‘It’s my belief Yusef is using him.’
‘That’s fantastic. You’re going too far.’
She stood over him as though he were a corpse: the bloodstained handkerchief lay in his palm. They neither of them heard the car stop or the footsteps up to the threshold. It was strange to both of them, hearing a third voice from an outside world speaking into this room which had become as close and intimate and airless as a vault. ‘Is anything wrong?’ Scobie’s voice asked.
‘It’s just...’ Louise said and made a gesture of bewilderment - as though she were saying: where does one start explaining? Wilson scrambled to his feet and at once his nose began to bleed.
‘Here,’ Scobie said and taking out his bundle of keys dropped them inside Wilson’s shirt collar. ‘You’ll see,’ he said, ‘the old-fashioned remedies are always best,’ and sure enough the bleeding did stop within a few seconds. ‘You should never lie on your back,’ Scobie went reasonably on. ‘Seconds use a sponge of cold water, and you certainly look as though you’d been in a fight, Wilson.’
‘I always lie on my back,’ Wilson said. ‘Blood makes me I’ll.’