The Black House

15

It was a custom among the Bwamba to let their hair grow after a member of the family had died. During this time of mourning their hair sprouted stiffly in a round bushy shape, like a thick wool helmet pulled over their ears. This hair, with their sparse beards, made their faces look especially gaunt, like the pinched ones of defeated men driven into hiding in deep jungle. After a suitable period, and when the affairs of the deceased were settled—all the debts apportioned—the hair was cut with a certain amount of ceremony.

Silvano’s hair was uncut, and Munday was sorry his self-consciousness had prevented him from welcoming the African on the platform. A mourner deserved better than to arrive at a country railway station and to find his own way to the exit. Munday had driven to the station and parked, and he stayed in the car until the other arriving passengers had been met and driven away—visiting friends with expensive luggage; weekending couples; the tall son rather formally introducing the smartly-dressed girl to his parents, pipe-clutching father, beaming mother; the yawning wife meeting her husband in her station wagon, two children in the back seat, kisses all around and the wife sliding over and letting the husband take the wheel. Then Silvano. And Munday was ashamed of himself when he saw the African, smaller than he remembered, and not black but gray—the gloss was gone from his face. He emerged awkwardly from the station exit after the other people, with a large suitcase and the long hair, looking worried and overwhelmed in the English setting.

Seeing Munday get out of the car, Silvano brightened and called out a Bwamba greeting, “M’okolel” Munday replied softly, “Bulunji,” and was glad there was no one around to hear him. He took the suitcase —it was surprisingly light—and offered his condolences.

“No one is dead,” said Silvano. “Everyone very fit —I got a letter just the other day.”

“But your hair—”

“Oh, that,” said Silvano, and he pushed at it with his hand. “Only the new style. London style, so to _Cn,, »

“Of course,” said Munday. “Very fashionable.” He noticed that Silvano was wearing a new pin-striped blue suit, a maroon velvet tie and pink shirt, pointed shoes; Munday had never seen him in anything but gray drill shorts and molded plastic sandals.

In the car, passing through Mosterton, Silvano said, “So—grass on the roofs!” and Munday explained the thatch. Silvano said, further on, “Very narrow road,” and Munday replied, “It’s perfectly adequate. By the way, have you had your lunch?”

“Yes, on the train,” Silvano said. “Chicken-something.”

Munday saw him looking out the car window. They were driving along a stretch of road that ran for about half a mile between some hills and then opened on a prospect of the southeast, an uncluttered sweep of landscape, plowed fields and pastures. It was early afternoon and still sunny; the clouds were beginning to gather, rising against the sun, giving height to the sky and dramatizing the mottled fields. The visibility was good, and for miles Munday could see hills like overturned bowls, and forested hollows and severe hedges dividing the farmland. Past a man plowing, surrounded by flights of wheeling seagulls, layered shadings of green and tweedy winter brown marked the distances.

“Look at that,” said Munday. It was a vista of country so open and empty he wanted to stop the car and march directly across it and lose himself in that expanse.

“Cows,” said Silvano.

“Where?” asked Munday. Then he saw them, at the roadside, cropping grass.

Silvano settled back in the seat and lit a cigarette. He said, “I didn’t know there were so many cows in England.”

“They keep them to pay bride-price,” said Munday. “I had to give half a dozen to Emma’s father when I married her.”

“I think you’re playing, Doctor Alfred,” said Silvano.

“You’re too quick for me.”

“Postgraduate,” said Silvano, and held up his smoking cigarette to examine it.

“Actually, England’s still heavily agricultural,” said Munday. Silvano remained silent, and Munday felt all his old weariness return in the effort of making conversation with -an African, commenting on what was most obvious, spelling out the labored joke. Munday would have preferred to speak in the Bwamba language to mask his insincerity. Somehow, things sounded less trivial spoken in the local dialect. Munday spoke the language well, he used the idioms with ease. He had often said that he knew more about the Bwamba than the Bwamba themselves—it accounted, he thought, for his depressions and their unreasonable cheer.

“Is this your first time out of London?” asked Munday.

“First time,” said Silvano. “So much work to do— always writing and more writing.” Munday said, “Pressure of work.”

“Yes,” said Silvano. He added gravely, “And I have a girl friend.”

“Lucky fellow,” said Munday.

“Young men need to have girl friends,” said Silvano. “Otherwise!” His laughter was full of teeth and greed. Munday knew that Silvano was thirty-five years old; he had a wife who worked in his sizable garden; he supported a pair of aged relatives; he had a bicycle, a short_:wave radio, and four children.

“Which reminds me,” said Munday. “How’s your wife?”

“Quite all right,” said Silvano. “Expecting number five.” He continued to smoke calmly. They were passing The Rose and Crown in Broadwindsor. Silvano said, “Are the pubs open?”

“They close early around here,” said Munday. “Two-thirty.”

“We have time for a pint,” said Silvano, looking at his watch. Munday saw that it was a new one. “I always have a pint at this time.”

“I never do,” said Munday.

“There was no beer on the train.”

“I really think we should be getting along,” said Munday as he accelerated past the pub. “Emma’s expecting us. Besides, there’s plenty to drink at the Black House.”

“The Black House,” said Silvano. “Is that a pub?”

“No, no,” said Munday, and he realized that he had spoken the name aloud for the first time. It was like an admission of his acceptance—he had said it quite naturally. “That’s what the locals call my house, don’t ask me why.”

“Interesting,” said Silvano.

Munday explained the English practice of naming houses, illustrating it with the signboards they passed, until, much to his annoyance, Silvano began to call each one out. Munday hoped he would stop, but he kept it up. “The Thistles,” he was saying, “Ladysmith, Aleppo, Bowood House.”

“We’ll let Emma open the door,” said Munday. “She likes the drama.”

“Ah, Silvano,” said Emma, opening the double doors one at a time. “So good to see you.” She had changed into her wool dress and wore a wooden Bwamba brooch, one of the ineptly carved curios they had started to make in the last years of Munday’s residence, to sell in the mission craft-shop.

“He’s eaten,” said Munday. He saw Mrs. Branch lingering at the scullery door, unable to suppress her look of astonishment at the black man chatting in the kitchen. “And this is Mrs. Branch.” She hesitated; in her nervousness she traced a water stain on the wall with her finger. Then she came forward in halting steps, twisting her hands. She said, “Pleased to meet you.” Silvano smiled and put his hand out, but Mrs.

Branch didn’t take it. She locked her fingers together and continued to stare.

“Won’t you have a coffee?” asked Emma.

“Doctor promised me a beer,” said Silvano. He laughed, trumpeting his hilarity with a wide-open mouth.

“So I did,” said Munday. “It’s too early for me, but have one yourself.”

“Let’s go into the other room,” said Emma. “Pauline’s made a fire. It’s lovely and warm.”

“I’ll fetch his case from the car,” said Munday. “Won’t be a minute.” He carried the suitcase upstairs to one of the larger bedrooms (Emma had put flowers in the vase, and a hot-water bottle and towel on the bed), and on an impulse he opened it. It was a large suitcase, heavy cardboard with two leather straps around its middle, the kind that was sold in Indian shops in Uganda. But it contained surprisingly few things—pajamas, a string vest, a sweater, a paperback with Nigger in the title, shaving equipment, several deodorants in aerosol cans (Body Mist, Ban, aftershave lotion). And a picture in a small metal frame. It was a slightly blurred photograph of a rather thin and not young English girl smiling sadly on a bench in a public park. There were thumbprints on the glass. Munday’s first emotion was embarrassment, then great rage at the foolishness of carrying such a picture. But he recognized his anger as unworthy and he returned the picture to the case feeling only pity for the girl, and pity for Emma, and against his will feeling a bit ridiculous himself, as if the glimpse of another man’s desire had devalued and exposed his own.

Emma handed .Munday a cup of coffee when he entered the living room. She said, “Silvano’s telling me about his flat in Earl’s Court.” Munday moved in front of the fire, warming his back. “I thought you had a room at London House.”

“Yes,” said Silvano. “Then I moved. I’m sharing with some other chaps—fellow Ugandans.”

“I should say you’re damned lucky to have a flat,” said Munday. He said peevishly to Emma, “I think of Alec with his bedsitter in Ealing.”

“A flat’s more comfortable,” said Silvano.

“A flat’s more expensive,” said Munday. “But, then Alec’s not on a government grant. His money’s frozen in a Uganda bank account.” Silvano had spoken inoffensively; he was eager to please and impress. But Munday felt a growing resentment against the hair, the new watch, the stylish suit —Silvano plucked at the creases in his trousers—the casual mention of the girl friend, the flat. He was a villager who had for years shared a one-room, grass-rooted hut with his large family. He had served as a subject for one of Munday’s monographs on Bwamba agriculture—he was typical enough for that: a herd-boy, then a clearer of elephant grass, then a family man, indistinguishable from any of the forest people except that he was less quarrelsome, more intelligent, and didn’t drink beer. When Munday first met him, Silvano was convinced that God intended him to be a priest, and it was on the mission’s motorcycle that Silvano went to his extramural classes in Fort Portal. Munday persuaded him against joining the priesthood and, tutoring him privately, got him a place at Makerere. Silvano married; Silvano switched from the School of Agriculture to the English Department; Silvano wrote poems; and on his holidays, when he visited Munday at the Yellow Fever Camp, he had a sharp muhoro in the belt of his drill shorts, and he carried, as a proof of his literacy, a geography book with a faded, soiled cover which gave off the hut smell of dirt and wood-smoke.

“I thought we might go out a bit later and drive to Whitchurch Canonicorum,” said Emma to Silvano. “There’s an English saint buried in the church, and it’s a charming village. We could have a cream tea on the way back. You don’t want to come all this way and miss a cream tea.”

“That sounds super,” said Silvano.

“It doesn't go very well over beer,” said Munday. “But I never miss my tea,” said Silvano.

“Really.”

“I know Alfred wants to take you around the village.”

“There's not an awful lot to see,” said Munday. “I’m sure we’d be more comfortable right here.” But the visit was unavoidable. They drove to the village of Whitchurch shortly after, found St Candida's altar with the three openings, and Munday explained how it was thought that a diseased limb could be cured if it was inserted in one of the holes. Emma was over at the baptismal font. Munday said in a low voice to Silvano, “Or I daresay you could stick your tumba in, if circumstances required.” Silvano giggled and said, “That’s interesting!”

The coarse joke was for the African, and it made Munday view the next days with dread. In Uganda he had been friendly with Silvano, and Silvano had informed part of his research; the relationship had been an easy one. Munday was grateful for that; he had recommended Silvano for a Commonwealth scholarship. But here, and really from the moment Silvano had said, “Only the new style. London style—Munday had viewed him as someone of ponderous weight whom he had managed easily enough in Africa but whom he would struggle with in England—like the gliding sea-animal which becomes insupportable out of water. It wasn’t Silvano's fault, but Munday saw him posing problems to the smallest venture; he was like an invalid guest whose affliction had to be carefully considered before any move could be made. And even then he would remain helpless; he had to be shown things—this church, that house, that view—and for this Munday was required to carry him. Munday was newly conscious of Silvano’s color, and while feeling a prompt sympathy for the African, he knew he might have to defend that color to the villagers. He did not relish the possibility; he wanted to hide him.

More than this (now they had left the churchyard and were driving down a country lane to Shave’s Cross), Munday had the separated lover’s regret, of spending time and effort with people who knew him as the figure he had been in the past, a personality he had outgrown, but one for which they retained a loyal respect: the regret that he was not with his lover, giving her the attention he felt he was wasting on his wife and that burdensome acquaintance. The duties of sentiment and friendship, accumulated obligations, intruded on this secret life. So he drove and he could smell Caroline on his hands and taste the crush of her mouth and breast on his tongue, as pungent as apples.

“Why don’t we give the tea a miss?” said Munday.

“I’d love a cup of tea,” said Emma. “I’m sure Silvano wants one, too. Don’t be a wet blanket, Alfred. You’re brooding so.” Eager to get it over with, he stopped at the first signboard that said Teas. It was a small bungalow of cob and hatch, set back from the road on a stony drive. The cob had been whitewashed and showed large smooth patched places; its windows were set deep in the bulging walls, as if retreating into sockets. It had a satisfying shape, as natural as a ground-swell, and a well-tended look; but dense clouds now filled the late-aftemoon sky, and the gray light on the dark grass that surrounded the dwelling gave it a cheerless air. Smoke billowed from the end chimney, and Munday found it hard to see all that streaming smoke and not think that the bungalow was about to go into motion and chug out of the garden like a locomotive.

A middle-aged woman in a blue smock met them at the door and greeted them uncertainly, avoiding Silvano’s gaze. She showed them to a parlor jammed with small tables. There was a fire crackling in the grate, and two other customers, a man and woman, seated near it. Munday wanted to leave as soon as he saw them. But the proprietor was seating Emma, and Silvano had already taken his place at the table—he was toying with a small oil-lamp which was the centerpiece. The couple at the other table did not look up. The man was wearing an overcoat, the woman a hat, and both were buttering toast with raised arms to keep their sleeves out of the tea.

“Not many customers,” said Silvano.

The woman in the blue smock frowned at her pad. She poised her pencil stub and said, “Will that be three teas?” Munday said, “With clotted cream.”

“Thank you.” She scribbled on the pad, and with deft simultaneous movements of her hands dropped the pad into her apron pocket and pushed the pencil into her hair. She removed the fourth place mat. Emma slipped her coat off; she leaned forward, her arms behind her back, her breasts brushing the table, as she worked her arms out of the sleeves. Munday had always found this one of the most attractive things a woman could do. He saw Silvano staring.

“Believe it or not,” said Munday, “this cottage is made out of mud. The walls are about two feet thick, of course, but it’s mud sure enough—clay, actually—on a wooden frame. Could be a few hundred years old.”

“Mudded walls and grass roof,” said Silvano. “Just like Bundibugyo!”

“But not as civilized,” said Munday.

“Oh, I think so,” said Silvano, seriously.

“Down here for a holiday?” It was the man by the fire who had spoken, and it was some while before Munday realized the man was addressing their table from across the empty room. The man hadn’t looked up. His hands were still raised, stropping a sliver of toast with butter.

“You might say that.” Munday was gruff; he hated the man’s probing question.

“It’s not a bad place,” said the man. “For a holiday, that is.”

“The weather’s been splendid lately,” said Emma.

“It’s holding,” said the man. “It’s been a mild winter—that’s why everyone’s down with flu.” Now he crunched his toast, and his chewing was like muttering, as if he had more in his mouth that a bite of toast. “It’s going to be a terrible summer—it always is after a winter like this.” He took another bite of toast and sipped his tea.

His wife spoke up: “We’ll pay for these warm days!” She stared at Munday from under her crooked hat.

“Yes, it’s not a bad place for a holiday,” said the man. “But you don’t want to move down here. Take my advice—we’ve been down here for eighteen months.”

“It’s a glorious part of the world,” said Emma.

“Hear that?” said the man to his wife.

The wife leaned in the direction of the Mundays' table. She said, “The people are so unfriendly around here. We’ve had them around to tea, but they never invite you back.”

“Just go their own way,” said the man.

“How awful for you,” said Munday.

“I know it looks very pretty,” said the man. “But I can tell you it’s no bed of roses.”

“We’re from London,” said the woman. “Retired.”

“Silvano’s from London,” said Emma.

Silvano smiled and started lighting a cigarette.

“Not from overseas?” asked the man.

“From overseas,” said Silvano, puffing on the cigarette. “And also from London, as well.”

“I knew you were strangers,” said the man. “I can always tell. London?”

“It’s rather a long story,” said Munday.

The man started to speak, then he fell silent. The door had opened and the woman in the blue smock entered with the tea things. She arranged them on the table, cups, teapot, a china pitcher of hot water, a plate of scones and fruitcake, a dish of dark jam, and a large dish of cream.

“Will that be all?” asked the woman.

“Lovely,” said Emma.

The woman scribbled again on her pad, tore off the leaf, and slipped it beside Munday’s plate. She left the room. An inner door banged.

“She’s from London,” said the man at the far table. “Barnet. Lost her husband last year. Don’t get her started.” He was biting his toast between sentences. “Road accident. Ever see such driving? They ran this as a bed and breakfast. Now she can only manage teas. That’s why we come here. Give her the business.” The man continued to chatter. Munday decided to ignore him. He split a scone, buttered it, spread it with jam, and topped it with a spoonful of clotted cream. Silvano watched him, following one step behind him in his preparations: Munday was eating his scone as Silvano was spreading the cream.

Emma said, “I’m sure you’ll be making new friends.”

“Not here,” said the man. “I don’t want them here, thank you very much.”

“It’s this retirement,” said the woman. “It’s all so new to us. We’re thinking of buying a spaniel.” The man turned to Emma and said, “The way I see it, you’ve got to have a reason for getting up in the morning.” Emma said to Silvano, “How do you like your tea?”

“Very good,” he said. His lips were flecked with cream.

“Look at him eat!” said the man, nodding at Silvano. “Chagoola mazooli?”

“Mzuri sana,” said Silvano.

“I was there during the war,” said the man.

“I’m about ready to push off,” said Munday.

“Wait, Alfred,” said Emma. She poured hot water into the teapot.

The man and wife were rising from the table, the man putting on his tweed cap, the woman her coat.

“You’ve got to have a reason for getting up in the morning,” said the man.

“Yes, dear,” said the woman.

They approached the Mundays’ table. “Nice talking to you,” said the man.

“Enjoy your holiday,” said the woman.

The man clapped a hand on Silvano’s shoulder and said, “Cold enough for you?” He left, snickering.

“Poor old soul,” said Emma.

Silvano said, “He seemed jolly friendly.”

“A sad case,” said Munday. “Now, if you’re about through, I think we’d better be going.”

“Do let him finish his cup,” said Emma.

“I’m finished,” said Silvano, and drained it.

“You’re the one who’s lagging,” said Munday to Emma.

It was dark by the time they arrived back at the Black House, and Silvano said, “It never gets this dark in London.” Munday went to his study, Emma stayed in the kitchen, and Silvano settled himself in the living room, hunched over and watching “Doctor Who.” At seven o’clock Emma came into the study. She shut the door behind her and said, “Aren’t you going to take him out?”

“He’s perfectly happy,” said Munday. He was taking the measurements of a number of Bwamba axe-heads; they were spread before him on the desk, large and small. He picked up a sharp spiked one and struck the air with it. “I’ve got my axe-heads, he’s got his telly program.”

“You’re ignoring him.”

“You know how I loathe television,” said Munday. “Why don’t you sit with him?”

“I thought you might take him to the church.”

“The church?” Munday put the axe-head down. “Emma, there’s nothing on at the church.”

“There’s a service.”

“It’s Saturday night. It’ll be shut.”

“I think you should go down there.”

“We’ve seen one church today,” said Munday. “We can go tomorrow.”

“Not tomorrow,” said Emma. “Tonight. It’s important that you go now.”

“Emma, that’s insane—”

“Oh, God, I have such a headache,” she said, and she groaned, “Why don’t you ever listen to me?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Alfred, I’m not well.”

“I’ll tell you what—I’ll go down to the church alone, and if there’s something going on I’ll come back for Silvano. In the meantime, he can watch television.” Emma said, “Hurry.” Munday drove to the village and parked near The White Hart. The stained-glass windows of the church were lighted, and entering by the side door he could see baskets of flowers on the altar and all the lights burning, the flowers and the illumination giving the church interior the illusion of warmth and height. It was his first visit to the church, but there was nothing strange about it; no two African huts were the same to his eye, but all English churches seemed interchangeable, and this one, with its smell of wood and floorwax and brass polish, its sarcophagus with a recumbent marble knight and crouching hound, its dusty corners and wordy memorials—this one was no different from St. Candida’s, or the hilltop church in East Coker, St. Michael’s, which Emma had enthused over (and made an occasion for urging an Eliot play on Munday; “I can’t vouch for his poetry, but I can tell you he’s fairly ignorant about Africans,” said Munday when he had read it). He browsed among the leaflets in the wooden rack at the door, read one of the memorial stones, and then seated himself in the last pew. Above him the ribbed windows were gleaming black, gem-shaped segments of roughened glass fixed in lead.

A figure suddenly stood up in a front pew, and the pew itself growled. Shawled and seated when he had entered, she had blended with the jumble of still shapes near the carved pulpit—he hadn’t seen her. She clacked down the aisle, holding the shawl at her throat, her head down. But Munday recognized her before she had gone three steps, and he started to get up. She passed by him without lifting her eyes.

Munday followed her outside to the churchyard, the cemetery of old graves on the far side of the church. She walked along a gravel path, past illegible headstones—some leaning, some broken or tipped over—past a tall grave-marker with a burst plinth, and through the grass, where snowdrops had started, the tiny white blossoms growing in clusters close to the ground, as if they had been scattered there like handfuls of wool: they were lighted by the reflection of the church windows that fell across them. She sat on a stone bench under a large yew tree, out of the glare of the moon and nearly hidden in the shadows of the thick foliage. Munday sat next to her, and though he did not touch her, he could feel her breathing, that warm pulse in her throat, her skin warming his a foot away.

He kept apart and whispered, “What are you doing to Emma?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re smiling.”

“No.” But she was—he could see her mouth.

“What are you telling her?”

“Only that I want you.” The purr in her voice gave the words an emphatic nakedness.

He said, “Caroline—”

“Hold my Jiand,” she said. She pulled off one glove and reached over and laid her white hand on his thigh.

He covered her hand with his own and said, “You’re a witch.”

“I’m not,” she said, with a pout of amusement on her mouth. “Anyway, what do you know about witches?”

“A great deal,” he said. “You’re using her.”

“I can only reach you through her.”

He mumbled something, not words, the syllables of a sigh.

“What did you say?”

“It doesn’t seem fair,” he said.

Caroline clutched his hand; Munday could feel her fingers, her nails pricking his palm. She said, “You want me, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s fair.” She leaned over and kissed him lightly, but his cheek burned, as if she had scarred him where her lips had brushed his skin.

“I want to make love to you now.”

“We can’t,” she said.

“Please.”

“Here?” She laughed. “On this bench? In the church? Or there, behind that grave?”

“Anywhere,” he said, and looked hopelessly around the graveyard.

She took his chin and turned his face towards hers. She said, “I believe you would!”

“Hurry,” he said. He hugged her and tried to draw her up.

“No,” she said. “Never that. Don’t hurry me— don’t push me into the grass and hike my skirt up, then fumble with me and tell me you have to go when you finish.”

“I won’t.”

“But you will. You have to. It would ruin it.”

Munday said nothing; she was right—Emma was waiting.

“There’s time,” she said. “We’ll do it properly— not hurrying and half-naked and looking at your watch. I know you would if I let you, but I won’t let you cheat me that way. I want to be naked, on top of you, with a fire going like that first night. God, that was wonderful. You were babbling in some African language.”

“Was I? Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I thought you knew,” she said. “I thought you were doing it deliberately.”

“Perhaps I was,” he said.

“Next time I want to make love to you. Take you in my mouth and swallow you.”

“When?” he whispered.

“Soon,” she said. “You’ll see.”

“I’ve never known anyone like you.”

“But then you’ve been away, haven’t you?”

“For such a long time,” he said. “And so far away. You can’t imagine.”

“I can,” she said. “You still taste of Africa.”

“I used to hate the thought of coming back,” he said. “England—but you’re not English.”

“I am!”

“No,” he said, “not like any woman I’ve ever known here.”

She smiled. “So you’ve known one somewhere else.”

“Africa is full of witches,” he said.

“You’re mad,” she said. “And it’s a wonder you love me.”

“But that’s what I do love!”

The lights in the church had gone out while they were speaking, and Munday left her in darkness and stumbled through the graveyard, choosing his way among the stones and snowdrops in the moonlight which lay like water on the ground. For all he had said, he was afraid, but the fear beating in his blood animated him, caused a leaping in his mind that was next to joy. The panic he felt was vivid enough and yet so wild in him it might have been something he had learned eavesdropping on another person’s passion—emotion so unusual that it eluded memory and that for him to try to recall it would be to lose it entirely, or perhaps admit that it was too intense to be his. And a further fear, which was like a fear of his own courage, one that he had known in Africa, not of being incapable of understanding the witch-ridden mind in the village paralyzed by myth, but of understanding it too well, generating a sympathy so complete it was the same as agreement; the fear that, in time, only the most savage logic would satisfy him and everything else would seem fraudulent and unlikely. It happened, but briefly, and he had overcome it. Now he was home, freed from them by his heart—the blacks and the jungle they owned were a distant trap. He might have died there!

An eager panic held him. It was that glimpse of himself in the churchyard, trampling the tufts of snowdrops he had tried to avoid, his half-remembered desire that approached and taunted him like a masked dance, and the thought of Caroline’s promptings to Emma— the witching appeal to his own body. He refused to doubt that, because simply by believing, he had Caroline to gain. He could only dismiss someone else’s ghost. But his own haunting rewarded him with desire and he remained astonished by what he would willingly risk for her.

“I was right, wasn’t I?” said Emma.

“Yes,” said Munday. “There was something. But it’s over now.”

“You can take him out tomorrow.”

“I’m off to bed,” he said. “Is he well occupied?”

“He’s watching ‘Match of the Day.’ ”

“This way,” said Munday, starting off the road near the Black House to a path partially arched with high bushes. It was a narrow path and, barely used, it promised greater narrowness further on.

“Isn’t the village on this road?” asked Silvano. He hesitated on the tarmac in his pin-striped suit and winced at the untrodden path.

“We’ll go around the back by the path,” said Munday. “Much more interesting the country way. I’m sure you get quite enough of paved roads in London.”

“I like paved roads,” said Silvano.

With Munday in the lead, they walked down the path, bent slightly to prevent bumping the overhanging branches. The path became high grass, then ceased at a sudden coil of brambles. Munday circled it and came to a gate made of rusted pipes. Munday vaulted the gate; Silvano climbed it, straddled it, and swung his legs over, taking care not to soil his suit. But he stumbled and duck-walked to his knees on the other side, and he was brushing them as Munday strode on ahead in his heavy sheepskin coat, the turtleneck sweater Emma had knitted and his already smeared gumboots. Over a small hill, Munday stopped, thwarted by a freshly plowed field. High cracked curls of drying mud were screwed out of long furrows; Munday saw himself tripping and falling. He followed the tractor ruts in the yard-wide fringe of turf at the field’s edge, and fifty yards behind him, Silvano swung his arms, walking unsteadily in his pointed shoes.

At the far end of the field Munday found a low opening in the thorny hedge fence. Without waiting for Silvano, he stooped and pushed himself through and then trotted down a long slope, steadying himself with his stick. He was on the level field below, poking at the undergrowth, when Silvano burst through the opening in the thorns and immediately began slapping the hedge’s deposits from his jacket. He caught up with Munday. Munday sprinted away.

“Please,” said Silvano, calling Munday back. “Just a minute.” He squatted on his heels like a Russian dancer, kicking one leg out, then the other, to pull at his ankle socks.

“Pick up some burrs?”

“They are paining me.”

“You want to keep to the center of the path,” said Munday. “Of course you know you’re wearing the wrong sort of socks and shoes. Finished?” Silvano stood up. He was out of breath from having run down the slope; his spotted eyes bulged, his nostrils were larged flared holes in the squashed snout of his nose, bits of broken leaf and the torn gray veil of a spider’s web clung to his hair. The wind turned one of his lapels over and sent his tie flapping over his shoulder. He hunched and jammed his hands into his pockets. A froth of cloud showed over the ridge of the hill, and in the morning light diffused by the cloud Silvano’s face was unevenly brown, brushed with various shades of pigment.

They stood at the head of another path, a trough that might have served as a water course in heavy rains, overgrown at the sides with toppling still-green swatches of grass and widening past a thicket where it was trampled by hoof prints. Munday held his chin thoughtfully. He was a methodical hiker, and country walks, never a relaxation, seemed to bring out a militarist in him, an authoritarian streak: he took charge, read the Ordnance Survey maps, chose the route, gave orders, and was usually critical of any companion’s slowness. Something that had maddened him in Africa was that when hiking from place to place with his tape-recorder and haversack of note caFds, he had always been led by a small naked man, jinking through the bush, grunting directions. But in the end he had stayed long enough to guide himself—that mastery of the featureless savannah was one of the consolations of his long residence.

He pointed with his walking stick and said, as if to a column of men instead of the single African in his pointed shoes and pin-striped suit, “You see that meadow? I think we’d be advised to skirt round there and head towards the wooded bit. That hill is our objective. You’re not tired, are you?” Silvano shook his head.

“Want my gloves?”

“No, it’s okay.” Silvano pushed his fists deeper into his pockets.

“Off we go then,” said Munday. He hurried down the path, slashing at the grass, tearing out tufts on the ferrule of his walking stick and flinging them into the air. Behind him, Silvano dodged these flying tufts.

“This is where it gets a bit sticky,” said Munday. They were at the shore of a large pool of mud. Munday took a long stride into it.

“The cows come here,” said Silvano. He was balanced, teetering on a stone which stuck up from the mud and stiffened hoofprints.

“Except that cows don’t wear shoes, do they?” said Munday. “Horses, I should say. The hunt most probably.” He continued to stride through the mud, his boots squelching, his stick waving for balance.

Silvano contemplated a move. He stepped to another protruding stone and sank it with his weight. That shoe went deep into the mud. He swung his other leg in a new direction, placed his right foot in the mire further along and sucked his left foot out. Seeing that both shoes were irretrievably wet and large with mud he relaxed, shortened his steps and stopped looking for footholds. He splashed through like a horse, throwing his feet anywhere in the mud, which now daubed his trouser bottoms. In the field beyond, his shoes made a squishing sound and he wrung bubbly water from his toes with each step.

They hiked towards the hill as through a series of baffles, Munday moving briskly and staying far ahead, Silvano falling back, stumped by the fences and dense hedges and stopping to pluck at the barbed seeds that bristled on his suit. Again Munday waited for him to catch up. He stood impatiently at the foot of Lewesdon Hill, leaning on his stick, watching Silvano approach.

“I see you’ve made a meal of it”

Silvano brushed at his suit with muddied hands. The wisp of web had worked itself to the top of Silvano’s thick cap of hair where it fluttered like a shredded pennant.

“Pardon?” Silvano’s eyes were glazed from the wind that had drawn the scattered cloud mass together, behind which the sun showed like a pale wafer.

“You should have worn your wellingtons," said Munday.

“I don’t have any," said Silvano, shaking his head, as if asking for charity.

“No?” Munday gave him a squint of caution. “Never come to the English countryside without a good stout pair of wellies.”

“I understand,” said Silvano. “But my feet are wet.”

“Bad luck,” Munday sang, “however, there’s no sense turning back now.” And jabbing his stick ahead of him he ascended the steep rocky path, climbing into the wind. The clouds moved fast, darkening the wooded slopes, then coming apart as the sun broke through and warmed him. The sun on the dead leaves gave him a whiff of spring. He unbuttoned the sheepskin coat and took a delight in being able to recognize the trees by their bark, by the scattered husks of their nuts, beech and oak, and knobbed stumps with sea-white shells of fungus on their rotted sides. The path became level and on this hillside shelf was a grotto of low firs, contained by their own shade. The recent storms had knocked many over; some showed white flesh where they had broken off and others had taken a whole round platform of roots and earth with them—feathery branches sprouted vertically from those newly-fallen. Munday was reassured by the familiar foliage, the freshness of the moss, the cedar smells. He had not forgotten any names: he saw and remembered the light puffballs.

At the highest and most densely wooded part of the hill was a rock with an elevation marker bolted to it, and a sign-post, paragraphs of small print headed Bye-Laws. That was England, whose remotest corners bore reminding traces of others; it was her mystery, these vanished people and their lingering tracks, even here in the Dorset hills. He was no stranger to these woods—the stranger was behind him, somewhere below, kicking at the path.

Silvano was nowhere in sight. .Munday found a grassy hummock by a tree and he leaned back and closed his eyes, feeling his face go warm and cold from the sun winking past the sailing cloud mass, the glare of the sun burning on his eyes through the blood-red light of his lids. When he opened his eyes to be dazzled Silvano was standing near him, looking a sorry sight, with his mud-caked shoes and cuffs, and his hair and suit speckled with bits of brown leaf, bruises of earth on his knees, and the knot of his necktie yanked small. But it was not only that his clothes were disheveled, looking as if they hadn’t stood up to the ordeal; there was also his color, and the way he was panting—he was maroon with exertion.

He was obviously relieved to have finally caught up with Munday, and he wore a smile of exhaustion and gratitude.

Munday said, “You look worn out.”

Silvano said, “I am!” He dropped beside him and slapped at the stains on his suit. “You were always a champion hiker,” he said. “This mountain climbing is too much for me.”

“This isn’t mountain climbing,” said Munday. “Just working up an appetite for Sunday lunch. Good English habit—Emma’s doing a joint.” Silvano with his fellow Ugandans in their Earl’s Court flat (Munday could see the disorder, hear the radio, smell the stews) knew nothing of that. He didn’t know why they had been hiking or where they had been. It had only confused him. He had allowed Munday to bully him into a walk: he had followed the native through an inhospitable landscape and he had been reminded of his difference, the shallow lungs of the lowland African. And when he got back to London or Africa he would try to tell what he had seen, but description would elude him and he would be left with chance impressions of discomfort—cold, briars, spider webs, wet feet; stinging nettles he would report as ants (the dock leaf a miraculous cure), the pasture mud as swamp, the woods and windbreaks as forest, and how he had spoiled his new shoes. Munday wanted to say, “How do you like it?” But he said, “You can see four counties from here,” and he stood and named them, indicating them with his walking stick, and pausing when he saw Pilsdon Pen and trying to make out the road to Birdsmoor Gate. He said, “I saw a badger down there one night.”

“But we have lions,” said Silvano.

“There are no lions in Bwamba!”

“I mean in Africa.”

“Shall we move on?” said Munday. “I want to try a

new path. It’ll take us down there, through those pines and that farm, and eventually to Stoke Abbot.”

“I don’t think I can manage,” said Silvano.

“I thought we might have a drink in Stoke Abbot,” said Munday. “There’s a pub there, The New Inn. Lovely place—very good billiard table.” Silvano shook his head. “Maybe we should go home.”

“You’ll miss the village,” said Munday. “Eleveiith-century church. Charming cottages. Thatch. Natives. You wanted to see it.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Have it your way.” Munday was pleased; he had avoided the inquiring eyes of the villagers, the crowded Sunday morning at the pub when all the local residents drank together, sorted throughout the room according to their class, conversing formally about the weather or the road-work or a fire in a chimney. He had saved himself from that confrontation—the silence upon Silvano’s entering, the pause in the skittle game, the awkward stares, the strained resumption of convivial chatter. He led Silvano down the hill, to the road and the Black House.

After lunch, which a power cut delayed (the miner’s strike was in full swing), Silvano looked at his watch and said, “What time does the train leave?”

“But I thought you said you were staying till tomorrow,” said Emma.

“Classes,” said Silvano. “They keep us busy.”

“Pressure of work, Emma,” said Munday, jumping up. “I’ll ring the station.” And later, driving Silvano to catch the 5:25 from Crewkerne, he said, “It’s been awfully good to see you, Silvano.”

“And it was awfully good to see you,” said Silvano, the mimicry of Munday’s phrase intending politeness but sounding like deliberate sarcasm. “You are just the same as ever, Doctor.”

“We muddle along, Emma and I,” said Munday.

Silvano stammered, then said, “But she does look different.”

“Emma? In what way?”

“Thinner, I think,” said Silvano.

“She might have lost a few pounds,” said Munday. “Change of climate—it’s to be expected.”

“Not only that,” said Silvano. “Also the face is tired and the hands are shaking.”

“What you’re saying is that you think she’s sick.”

“I think,” said Silvano uncertainly.

“Don’t be a fool,” said Munday, and he drove faster in annoyance. “She’s never felt better in her life. She’s home. It’s meant a lot to her—to us both— coming back to England. Our life is here. I admit I had some reservations about coming back—it’s not easy after so long. But now I see it was what we had to do. I was wrong about Africa, I was wrong about England.” He rambled on, as if talking to himself. “You can’t stay overseas, miles and miles away in some godforsaken place, and go on denying you have a country and always trying to accommodate yourself, pretending you have a life and friends. Yes, it’s depressing. I lost ten years that way. I was a young man when I went out to Africa—I’m not young any more.” He gunned the engine and smiled. “But we’re back now, and we’re jolly glad of it. You can’t blame us for that, can you?”

“No,” said Silvano.

“And you’ll go home, of course?”

“I like London.”

“You like London,” said Munday. “You have money and a flat—you’re luckier than most English people. But what happens when your scholarship runs out and they raise your rent? Have you thought of that?”

“I can teach,” said Silvano.

“Rubbish!” said Munday. "I can’t even get a university job just now, so what chance is there for you?”

“Even bus conductors earn high salaries in England,” said Silvano.

“High? What does that mean? Higher than what? Herdboys in Bwamba, coffee-pickers in Toro, Uganda poets? You tell me—you’re an economist,” said Munday. He grumbled, “Bus conductors don’t live in Earl’s Court.”

“I would like to stay,” said Silvano in an obstinate whisper.

“Go home,” said Munday.

“It’s primitive. People starve. You know that.”

“No one starves in Bwamba,” said Munday. “You put your women to work in the fields. Your wife, Silvano, remember? The system works—inherited land, a little magic, and a bunch of bananas a day.”

“I never liked it.”

“It’s all you have,” said Munday. “Read my book.”

“I will read it,” said Silvano. “Where can I buy it?” Munday didn’t reply. He changed gears on a hill and then said, “You have no business here.”

“I have friends here,” said Silvano, insulted but controlling his anger. “You had friends in Africa.”

“I had subjects,” said Munday. “Friendship is only possible between equals.” Silvano turned to the side window. He was slumped in the seat, clutching his knees, looking at the fields whipping by. Munday was irritated anew by his hair, its absurd shape parodying mourning, and by his clothes, which Munday saw as pure folly.

Munday parked at the station. He jerked the hand brake. He said, “Don’t you dare hurt that girl.” When Silvano boarded the train, the small frivolously dressed black man, pulling his cardboard suitcase through the high metal door of the carriage, Munday felt a pang of sorrow for him, he looked so sad. Munday regretted the conversation in the car—not his ferocity, but his candor. Silvano was behind the window, alone in the compartment, wagging his yellow palm at Munday. Munday waved back, and the train hooted and pulled away. He had said too much— worse, he had simplified. How could he explain that his England was a black house whose rooms and shadows he understood, and a woman—ghostlier than any African—who had bewitched him with passion? He had returned to a house and a woman. But he knew that, as with Alec—that last glimpse of him disappearing into a crowd of London shoppers— Silvano would sink, and nothing that Munday might say could matter, neither consolation nor blame. The truth was simple: he never wanted to see him again.