Paul Theroux: The Black House

“I have lived in villages before,” said Munday.

“If a person has a hobby or a sport, it’s usual for him to share it. If someone has visitors they’re frequently taken to the pub and introduced.”

“I have no hobbies,” said Munday.

“But you have visitors.”

“Visitors?” said Munday. “And how do you know that?”

“Shall I tell you something?” said Awdry. “There is very little about your life in Four Ashes that we don’t know.”

“That ‘we’ again.”

“Does it alarm you?”

“Not at all,” said Munday. “Should it?”

Awdry smiled. “That depends on whether you intend to stay down here for much longer. If you leave, of course it doesn’t matter—we’ll just write you off as another inexplicable foreigner.”

“What if I decide to stay?”

“You’ll be most welcome, though I can’t help feeling you’d be much happier elsewhere,” said Awdry. “If you stay you might have some explaining to do.”

“Explaining!” Munday laughed derisively.

“And if I were you I’d watch my step.”

Munday stood up and walked to the fireplace; he considered the fire for a moment, then spat into it. “I am here,” he said. “I pay my rent and go about my own business. I owe nothing to this village—least of all an explanation. The village owes me privacy. For all practical purposes this is my home, and whether I stay or go is no one’s concern but mine.”

“You say you’ve lived in villages before?” Awdry shook his head. “I’m surprised. Astonished. It’s not as simple as you say.”

“It is that simple,” Munday said.

“There are certain courtesies here, a certain standard of behavior—”

“Stop lecturing me.”

Awdry rose from his chair, but he didn’t follow Munday to the fireplace. He said, “I like your wife.”

“I’ll tell her you said so.”

Awdry caught Munday’s eye and addressed it: “I’m equally fond of Caroline.” Munday said nothing, and Awdry added, “We all are, no matter what people might say.”

“You’re not a very subtle man,” said Munday.

“I don’t want you to misunderstand me,” said Awdry, and his voice was somber with caution when he said, “Take care.”

“I thought we were discussing a dead dog.”

“Perhaps we are,” said Awdry. “That African— was he one of your students?”

“I have no students,” said Munday. He looked at his watch. “It’s time I left.”

“Don’t you see I’m trying to do you a favor?” Awdry spoke with a kind of bullying sincerity that was the nearest he had come to pleading with Munday.

“Do me another one,” said Munday. “Leave me in peace.”

“I shall be happy to. I only hope the others do the same.”

“What ‘others’?” said Munday, reacting as if the mere uttering of the word gave him an unpleasant taste in his mouth.

“I think you know better than I.”

“Thank you for the drink.” Munday started to go. “Wait.” Awdry went to a table. “Your dagger.” Munday took the dagger. “I thought they needed it for fingerprints.”

“There were no fingerprints,” said Awdry. “Open verdict.”

Munday said, “How very odd that in a village where everyone knows everyone else’s business they should not be able to get to the bottom of a simple thing like this. Isn’t that a contradiction?”

“Well, as you say, it’s an odd village,” said Awdry. He walked past Munday to the door and held it open.

“Then we must go,” said Emma.

Munday had told her what happened at the manor. But it was an abbreviated version. He said there had been objections in the village to Silvano—“Our fair-minded friends here are beside themselves at the thought of a black man in their midst”—and that he had defended him. Emma was shocked. Munday kicked the logs in the fireplace and showers of sparks dropped frpm them. He said, “It’s just an excuse to run us out of the village.”

“We shouldn’t stay where we’re not wanted,” said Emma.

“Because the old fool says so?” Munday poked at the

logs. “I won’t let them drive me out of my own house.”

“We have no friends here.”

“You haven’t tried to make any,” said Munday. “Give a dinner party.”

“The Awdrys won’t come.”

“There are other people in the village,” said Munday. “What about those children we met on New Year’s Eve? ‘Rachel’s nappy smells like mangoes’— her, and the others.”

“You don’t want them.”

“No,” said Munday. “But we can get some people down from London. We can put them up. This is a big enough house, Emma.”

“Silvano, Alec, Margaret—”

“Use your initiative,” he said. “Make an effort!”

“My heart,” she said, and he wondered if he had sounded so feeble when he had said it.

“Not them, necessarily. There are lots more people who’d love to come down.”

“All those poor souls from Africa—they’re the only people we know now.”

“This is England.” Munday warmed his hands at the fire.

“For us this is an outpost of Africa,” she said. “I didn’t think it would ever come to this.”

“I’m staying,” said Munday. “I won’t be chased away. I’m not a poacher.”

“I wish you hadn’t seen Mr. Awdry.”

“I’m glad I did.”

“You’re awful when you’re challenged.”

“You can go if you want,” he said.

“I won’t leave without you.”

“So we’ll both stay,” he said.

“And mop the floors.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Mrs. Branch has given notice,” she said.

“What reason did she give?”

“She’s so hard to understand. That local dialect she uses when she’s sulking. She said something about our personalities.”

“Bitch,” he said.

Emma started to smile. She said, “She must have been talking about yours, because as you’ve often pointed out, I don’t have one.” The next evening after his walk he went back to the Black House and saw Emma brighter than she had been for months. She was taking a casserole out of the oven, humming to a song coming over the radio, one that Munday had heard nearly every day since his arrival back in England, “Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves.”

“You’re certainly cheerful,” said Munday. “Are you feeling better?”

“I’ve decided to take your advice.”

“Oh?”

“You said I never see anyone,” said Emma.

Munday switched off the radio. “Have you invited Margaret down?”

“No, not Margaret,” said Emma. “That Summers woman rang up while you were out.”

“What did she want?” asked Munday, and he turned away from Emma to hide his face.

“Nothing in particular—it was just a friendly call,” said Emma. “But I’ve asked her over to dinner on Friday. So you see I do have the occasional inspiration.” Munday sat between his wife and his lover, in the high-backed chair, trying to hide a discomfort that was intermittently woe by concentrating on his meal. His head was down and he was cutting his roast beef into neat cubes. He had said nothing, it was the women who did all the talking, and they spoke across the table with the good humor and husky agreement of strangers eager to know each other better.

“I know exactly what you mean,” Caroline said. She was seated sideways on her chair, the elegant listening posture of a woman with long legs.

“And not only that,” Emma went on. She was confiding her disappointment with the village, but stressing her hardship in such a genial way she made it a lively story. It was her version of those dark months, a kind of farce: “We were absolutely baffled—well, you can imagine!” In it she maintained the fiction of Munday’s bad heart; she was patient, standing by while Munday pored over his notes in his study. Self-important, calling out for coffee, he was too absorbed to notice her. She gave it all the flavor of an adventure, cherishing each mishap with uncritical comedy, in the tone of a head prefect reporting a disastrous outing. Caroline laughed appreciatively and urged her to go on.