Paul Theroux - The Black House

He was not sure how to deal with it. He was circumspect, then bullying, and finally hearty, offering encouragement, usually at mealtimes, for he was in his study the rest of the time, while she moped, watching Mrs. Branch dust, or sat before the garden window with a sketch pad in her lap.

One evening he said, “Emma, you're not eating.”

“I don't have any appetite.”

“A good walk would set you up.”

“I hate your walks,” she said. “You make them such an occasion.”

“Why don’t you invite Margaret down here one weekend?”

“It's a bother. And there's her job—she’s probably not free,” said Emma.

“But you never see anyone!”

“I see you,” she said. “Why do you talk to me as if I’m an invalid?”

“You haven't been looking well lately.”

“I'm perfectly all right,” she said. But her denial only confirmed that she was sick in a more critical way than if she had agreed with him. She didn’t know she was sick—that was worse. She went on, “But I do wish you'd finish your book. Then we could leave this place.”

“And go where?” said Munday. “Emma, this is England!”

“It’s not ” she said, and he thought she was going to cry. “It’s a miserable house, not like any house I've ever known. Even Silvano said it.”

“What did he say?”

“ ‘Your house frightens me,' ” she said. “Those were his exact words.”

“Africans scare easily.”

“I know what he meant.”

“Africans in England seem so pitiful and comic,” he said. “Like country cousins.”

“You were offhand with him,” said Emma. “I’ve never seen you treat an African that way.”

“I couldn’t help it. He said he wants to settle in England and become a bus conductor. It’s a joke! He likes England, he says, but I took him for a walk around back and he was knocked for six—couldn’t take it. Wants to live in London.”

“I don’t blame him,” said Emma. “So do I. I admit it, Alfred, I’m not suited to the country.” He snapped, “That’s what you used to say about Africa.”

“I can’t creep into a comer and thrive.”

“Who can?”

“You,” she said. “It’s in your nature.”

“Don’t be cryptic, Emma.”

“I’m not being cryptic,” she said. “I admire it in you. But I still get awfully scared sometimes in this house. We can’t all be so self-sufficient.”

“You don’t know me,” he said. “I can’t survive alone, and I’m not self-sufficient. Emma, I’m as weak as you!”

“You’re not weak at all.”

“But I am,” he said. “This move was a great strain for me. You seem to forget I have a heart condition.”

“I haven’t forgotten.”

“Why are you looking at me that way?”

“I was thinking of Silvano. You used to be so fond of him in Africa. I can remember you talking to him for hours on end.”

“They weren’t social occasions,” he said. “I made notes on those conversations. And don’t worry, he’ll get his acknowledgment in the book.”

“That weekend opened my eyes. I saw you avoiding him and I thought how much you’d changed.” Emma sighed. “He left early, you know.- He distinctly said he was going to stay over until Monday. But he wasn’t happy here.”

“He’ll get over it.”

“You didn’t go out of your way for him.”

“Who went out of his way for me in Africa?” said Munday angrily. “Ten years, Emma, ten years!”

“You’re not sorry you left Africa, are you?”

“I was at first. It was a blow—well, you know. You were in the room when Dowle told me.”

“You cried.”

“That was exhaustion,” he said. “Not grief, not grief at all. But it seems so foolish now.”

“Why foolish?”

“Because we should have come home sooner. Ten years in Africa and I thought I’d be at the top of my profession. But these poaching students who flew out from England on their vacations to do research have already published their books. They have all the jobs, and I’m ten years behind the times.”

“You’re glad you came home, though?”

“It was the only thing to do.”

Emma said slowly, with mingled relief and fatigue, “I was wondering if you’d ever admit that.”

“And if my heart holds out I’ll finish the book properly.”

“Your heart will hold out,” she said.

“You seem so sure!”

“I am sure. There’s not a thing wrong with your heart.”

“Emma, you were there when Dowle told me I’d have to leave.”

“That dear, dear man,” she said.

“A scarred heart. That’s what he said. That’s why we had to leave.”

“That’s why we had to leave, Alfred, but the scar wasn’t on your heart—it was on mine. And it’s still there.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“He knew you’d be impossible if I was the reason for our leaving. You’d never forgive me, you’d always blame me for ruining your research. You can be a frightful bully.” She smiled, as if she had at a critical moment discovered a strength she could use for defense. “But now you admit you’re glad to be home. You said that, didn’t you? So I can tell you the truth.”

“There are so many versions of the truth,” he said. “Let’s hear your smug one.”

“I’ve suffered,” she said.

“You deceived me, that’s why! He was protecting you—you and that conniving priest made all this up so you could leave gracefully 1”

“As gracefully as a bad heart allows,” she said quietly. “You see, you’re fine. I'm the one with tha heart condition.”

“You should see a doctor.”

“I did, that day in London, after I had lunch with Margaret. There’s nothing to be done. I have pills, I have a diet. My heart—”

“Why did you keep it from me?”

“I was afraid.”

“And that time I fainted? You mean there was nothing wrong with me?”

“Indigestion.”

“That’s what that damned specialist said. Dowle must have told him to humor me.” Munday held Emma’s hand. He said, “You needn’t have been afraid to tell me. I would have understood.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” said Emma. Her voice had faded to a whisper.

Munday took her in his arms and said, “I’m sorry. Poor Emma.”

“Having a bad heart’s an awful nuisance,” she said. “I know,” he said, “I used to have one.”

“But I have you,” she said.

The trust in her words nearly broke him. It was more than the news of her heart. He found it incredible that possessed by Caroline as much as he was, she could not know it—amazing that after guiding him to that love she hadn’t the slightest inkling of it. He would have told her then how she was the ghost’s accomplice. But her hcarjt: he could not sacrifice it to the truth. Emma inhabited the small world of illness from which he had been released. If he told her, You’ve seen the ghost I love, she might die of it—or she might laugh and say he was mad. But he believed, and he concealed it because there was no one to tell.

He was sorry for her, but he hated her fretting, the irritating senility that tension produced in her. Shopping one Saturday for groceries in Yeovil, he and Emma passed a shop window which had the plainness of a chemist’s. A sign caught his eye, Wonderful Way to Relax, and he thought of Emma. There were simple surgical goods in the window and medicines of various kinds, carrying doctors’ testimonies on placards, and soberly wrapped bottles of capsules with photographs demonstrating their effect—handsome men and women splashing vigorously in surf, reassured couples posed embracing. Munday was attracted by the unpretentious display, the clinical austerity of the pale colors. He walked on a bit further and when Emma was occupied he went back to the shop.