The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene Read Free Book Online

malice and snobbery of the world padding up like wolves around her. They wouldn’t even let her enjoy her books, he thought, and his hand began to shake again. Approaching, he heard her say in her kindly Lady Bountiful manner, ‘You must come and have dinner with us one day. I’ve got a lot of books that might interest you.’
    ‘I’d love to,’ Wilson said.
    ‘Just ring us up and take pot luck.’
    Scobie thought: What are those others worth that they have the nerve to sneer at any human being? He knew every one of her faults. How often he had winced at her patronage of strangers. He knew each phrase, each intonation that alienated others. Sometimes he longed to warn her—don’t wear that dress, don’t say that again, as a mother might teach a daughter, but he had to remain silent aching with the foreknowledge of
her
loss of friends. The worst was when he detected in his colleagues an extra warmth of friendliness towards himself, as though they pitted him. What right have you, he longed to exclaim, to criticize her? This is my doing. This is what I’ve made of her. She wasn’t always like this.
    He came abruptly up to them and said, ‘My dear, I’ve got to go round the beats.’
    ‘Already?’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘I’ll stay, dear. Mrs Halifax will run me home.’
    ‘I wish you’d come with me.’
    ‘What? Round the beats? It’s ages since I’ve been.’
    ‘That’s why I’d like you to come.’ He lifted her hand and kissed it: it was a challenge. He proclaimed to the whole club that he was not to be pitied, that he loved his wife, that they were happy. But nobody that mattered saw—Mrs Halifax was busy with the books, Reith had gone long ago, Brigstock was in the bar, Fellowes talked too busily to Mrs Castle to notice anything—nobody saw except Wilson.
    Louise said, ‘I’ll come another time, dear. But Mrs Halifax has just promised to run Mr Wilson home by our house. There’s a book I want to lend him.’
    Scobie felt an immense gratitude to Wilson. ‘That’s fine,’ he said, ‘fine. But stay and have a drink till I get back. I’ll run you home to the Bedford. I shan’t be late.’ He put a hand on Wilson’s shoulder and prayed silently: Don’t let her patronize him too far: don’t let her be absurd: let her keep this friend at least. ‘I won’t say good night,’ he said, ‘I’ll expect to see you when I get back.’
    ‘It’s very kind of you, sir.’
    ‘You mustn’t sir me. You’re not a policeman, Wilson. Thank your stars for that.’
    V
    Scobie was later than he expected. It was the encounter with Yusef that delayed him. Half-way down the hill he found Yusef’s car stuck by the roadside, with Yusef sleeping quietly in the back: the light from Scobie’s car lit up the large pasty face, the lick of his white hair falling over the forehead, and just touched the beginning of the huge thighs in their tight white drill. Yusef’s shirt was open at the neck and tendrils of black breast-hair coiled around the buttons.
    ‘Can I help you?’ Scobie unwillingly asked, and Yusef opened his eyes: the gold tooth fitted by his brother, the dentist, flashed instantaneously like a torch. If Fellowes drives by now, what a story, Scobie thought. The deputy-commissioner meeting Yusef, the store-keeper, clandestinely at night. To give help to a Syrian was only a degree less dangerous than to receive help.
    ‘Ah, Major Scobie,’ Yusef said, ‘a friend in need is a friend indeed.’
    ‘Can I do anything for you?’
    ‘We have been stranded a half hour,’ Yusef said. ‘The cars have gone by, and I have thought—when will a Good Samaritan appear?’
    ‘I haven’t any spare oil to pour into your wounds, Yusef.’
    ‘Ha, ha, Major Scobie. That is very good. But if you would just give me a lift into town …’
    Yusef settled himself into the Morris, easing a large thigh against the brakes.
    ‘Your boy had better come in at the back.’
    ‘Let him stay here,’ Yusef said. ‘He