The Black House

11

“Awdry,” said Munday, putting the receiver into its cradle. “He’s invited us over to his New Year’s Eve thrash.” Emma removed her reading glasses before she spoke. She said, “Tomorrow?”

“Someone must have backed out.” "

“Still, it might be fun. I hope I can find something to wear.”

But Munday was saying to Mrs. Branch, “What do you know about Mr. Awdry?”

Mrs. Branch smiled and paused, and for a few moments she nodded, considering slowly what she would say. It was a habit of response she had picked up since Munday had begun questioning her, and Munday felt that her delay, miming reflection, was a purposeless show of self-importance he had encouraged in her. She said, “They say that in the manor they had these painters doing pictures on the ceiling—lying on their backs they was.” She shook her head at the madness of it. “Keeps his dishes locked up in a safe, and he’s got this little gold bell on the table, very expensive, that he rings when he calls the cook—that’s Mrs. Hosmer. He gave her twenty pounds at Christmas. He’s posh, is Mr. Awdry, but they say he’s ever so kind.”

“I’m sure,” said Munday. He doubted that, and the late invitation annoyed him; but he was glad to have it.

Lewesdon Manor was at the end of a long gravel drive lined with boxwood hedges whose fullness and size told the age of the house. In its facade of warm floodlit stone, made mild by the lights, were twelve bright windows—there were candles in the upper ones—and through one of the ground floor windows they could see some people standing before a fire flickering in a hearth. Large, open, and well lighted, it was a house which welcomed with its warmth and its close arched doorway, female with wisteria which, even leafless, retained a look of complicated clinging elegance.

“So glad you could make it,” said Awdry, and he introduced the Mundays to Mrs. Awdry, who had just entered the high-ceilinged hall in a dress of green watered silk; she was also wearing a frilly white apron —‘Tm helping out in the kitchen,” she explained. “We’ve got flu.”

“We haven’t had it, thank goodness,” said Emma.

“It’s worse than malaria,” said Mr. Awdry. “And I know, because I’ve had malaria!”

“It sucks one so,” said Mrs. Awdry.

“I once had cerebral malaria,” said Munday.

“I knew a chap who died from a bout of that,” said Mr. Awdry.

“It’s usually fatal,” said Munday. “A mission doctor prayed for me. Fortunately he also had the foresight to treat me with chloroquine.” Mr. Awdry said “We’ve got lots to talk about” to Munday, and Mrs. Awdry took Emma aside and explained how at a country auction they had picked up the Jacobean church pew Emma was admiring, which served as a bench in the hall. Then Mrs. Awdry excused herself saying, “I must see to the turkey.” Standing near the fire in the living room were the vicar and Mrs. Crawshaw, and two young couples who were introduced as the Stricks and the Motherwells.

“This is Doctor Munday, the writer,” said Awdry.

Munday tried to correct him.

Anne Motherwell said, “We’re talking about children.”

“My favorite subject,” said Munday.

“How many do you have?” asked Janet Strick.

“None that I know of,” said Munday, “which means I can be perfectly objective.”

“Punch?” asked Awdry.

“Lovely,” said Emma.

“Whisky for me,” said Munday. “No ice, a little water.”

“Won’t be a moment,” said Mr. Awdry and went for the drinks.

“We’re all having the punch,” said Janet Strick to Munday, as Emma drifted over to the vicar and his wife.

Munday made a face. “But one never knows what they put in punch, does one?”

“Mr. Awdry’s punch is quite famous,” said Janet eagerly. “He makes it with the local cider and some secret ingredients.”

“You see what I mean?” said Munday. But his attempt at humor failed. Though his intentions were friendly his irony was always too peevish to seem like anything but aggression. The woman frowned and took a step back.

“Tell Doctor Munday what you just told us,” said Peter Motherwell.

Janet laughed. “Well, only that”—and here her husband began to snicker—“my Rachel’s nappy smells like mangoes.”

“Incredible,” said Peter Motherwell. He was beaming; the vicar’s eyes darted, making his smile one of dismay.

“It does," Janet protested. “When she makes a poo. There’s something about it.”

“I should say,” said Munday, “you’re a lot luckier than most young mothers. Your child must have phenomenal bowels.”

“Used to have a delicious mango tree in my garden,” said Mr. Awdry, approaching with the drinks. He gave Emma and Munday their glasses and said, “They were like this.” He measured with his hands. “Cook used to steal them.” “Cooks are very good at that sort of thing,” said Emma.

“Mine wore pink dancing pumps/’ said Awdry. “Except when he climbed the mango tree. They were my daughter’s. She threw them in the dustbin and the next thing we knew he was wearing them. Hate to think what he would have done if she’d thrown away her gym slip. Odd fish that cook.” “Obviously keen on dancing attendance,” said Munday.

“Yes,” said Awdry coOlly, but the others laughed.

“I’d love to be in a place where mangoes grew,” said Anne Motherwell. “So would I,” said her husband.

“Africa,” said Awdry. “Doctor Munday and I were both there.” He turned to Munday and said, “I always say it’s as if we’d gone to the same school.”

“But sent down in different years,” said Munday. “We enjoyed your talk at the church hall,” said Peter to Munday.

“Were you there?” asked Munday.

“All of us were,” said Peter, surprising Munday: why had he only seen those aged people? He wondered if his failing eyes had obstinately sought those failures to address. He didn’t like to be reminded of details he had missed, for he was certain there must be more.

“We were fascinated,” said Michael Strick, drawing close to his wife and adding, “Weren’t we? Janet and I have been reading some anthropology lately— The Naked Ape. So we were especially interested.”

“You should write something like that,” said Janet. “You could make a fortune.”

“Color supplement stuff,” said Munday, “written for the credulous semi-educated. And in any case I already have a fortune—my wife is quite wealthy. So you see the whole enterprise would be rather pointless.”

“Have you read Levi-Strauss?” asked Peter.

Munday turned to Awdry and said, “People I meet are always recommending books to me. Why is that? Very curious.” Now he spoke directly to Peter: “I haven’t opened an anthropology book since I was an undergraduate. It’s not necessary—not when one has a people to study. Books aren’t much use in the field—even Malinowski agreed with me on that. He was a character. ‘Alfred,’ he said to me once, ‘I can swear in seven languages.’ So, honestly, I haven’t read Levi-Strauss,” he went on, “but on the other hand I’m fairly sure Levi-Strauss has read me ”

“Caroline Summers said your lecture was the best one she’s heard,” said Janet.

“She’s smashing,” said Anne.

“She’s coming tonight,” said Awdry. “Late as usual.” He smiled “Dear Caroline.”

“She’s so funny,” said Anne. “She showed up at the Hunt Ball in a beautiful dress and gloves, very elegant! But she was wearing—wait for it!—orthopedic shoes. Did we laugh!”

“Caused quite a commotion,” said Awdry. “Some of the lady members went a bit glassy-eyed.”

“I didn’t know you were at the Hunt Ball,” said Janet, coldly.

“Peter had tickets,” said Anne. “It seemed a shame to waste them.”

“I think hunting is ridiculous and cruel,” said Janet.

“Now Janet,” said the vicar, “everyone has a right—”

“Princess Anne hunts,” said Peter.

“She’s a horse,” said Michael. “She doesn’t count.”

“All we did was dance,” said Anne to Munday. “Do you hunt, Doctor Munday?” asked Michael. “I don’t,” said Munday. “But if I did I’d look a bit silly admitting it after what your wife has just said.”

“Are you happy now?” said Michael to Janet. He was exasperated, but she showed no contrition.

“Of course I feel sorry for the poor fox,” said Anne.

Munday said, “Anyone who’s been to Africa knows how a fox feels.”

“But I love to watch the huntsmen gathering on a hill, all the horses stamping—the steam shooting out of their nostrils. And the other chaps scattering and blowing their horns, and the hounds sniffing everywhere. It’s a beautiful sight.” She looked at Janet. “I don’t care what anyone says.”

“Something very military about it,” said Awdry, “and at the same time very colorful. Takes a lot of courage really.”

“Courage?” Janet Strick snorted and crossed her arms. “It’s just torture, and it chills me to the bone. I stand in my kitchen and hear the horns and the hounds baying and I think of that helpless animal. They tear it to pieces. I can’t understand why people do it.”

“Thrill of the chase,” said Awdry. “The village people love it.”

“They love it,” said Janet disgustedly to Munday —but .they were all speaking to Munday, appealing, looking to him for approval, as if he were judging them. “The local people don’t know any better. They chase around on foot while the wealthy ones are on horseback..It’s a class thing in actual fact.”

“Hunting,” said Munday, and everyone listened, “is the perfect expression of the English tribal character. Formal murder, a lot of ceremony, a little blood, the classes together, the aristocrats in the saddle, the poorer on foot, the middle classes gaping from their gardens. It’s how all our best wars have been fought. You can be sure that when someone is dealt with that way the English mean business.”

“What Janet really objects to is the blooding,” said Michael.

“God,” said Janet, “they take the fox’s brush, dripping with blood, and they wipe it—”

“Yes, yes,” said Munday, who had just thought of a Bwamba custom which was an appropriate comparison, one of the puberty rites.

But Awdry interrupted. “They rarely sight a fox— that should give you some consolation, surely? Though on Christmas day,” he said, turning to Munday, “we saw one up by the Black House. We lost him behind the mill at Stoke Abbot.”

“I’m glad,” said Janet.

“Earth-stoppers didn’t do their job properly,” said Awdry.

“They be drinking,” said Peter Motherwell, trying to imitate a local accent; but it was not a good imitation, he was embarrassed, there was a guilty hesitance in his delivery—he blushed—and after he finished by saying, “Oy zeed ’em over yere at The Yew Tree,” there was a silence, the vicar expressed frank disapproval and several of the women glanced nervously in the direction of the door.

Breaking the silence, in what was clearly intended to help out her husband by diverting attention away from his galfe, Anne said, “I wonder what’s happened to Caroline.”

“And Jerry’s coming as well,” said Awdry. “I suggest we all have another drink while we wait. Help yourselves to the punch.”

“Maybe they’re coming together,” said Michael confidentially to Anne.

“I don’t believe all those things they say about Caroline,” Anne said. “Do you?”

“Yes,” said Michael, and smiled, but became serious again when he saw that the rest were listening.

“How long have you lived here?” Emma was asking the Motherwells.

“Two years,” said Peter. “The Stricks have been here five—they’re old-timers!”

“We’re starting our seventh year,” said the vicar proudly. He smiled at his wife. But she looked apprehensive, as if she were being called upon to speak.

Munday made himself a drink and then wandered to a side table where he had spotted an African carving. He picked it up and turned it over and weighed it in his hand.

“Kamba,” he said.

“I know,” said Awdry, who had followed him to the table. “I’m told they’re becoming quite valuable.”

“Nowadays they make them in a factory in Nairobi,” said Munday. “To sell to tourists. Horrible shiny things.”

“I’ll show you some more,” said Awdry, and led Munday to the library. “Here, these are rather fun.” On a table, covered by a kaross of tawny sewn deerskins, there were rows of small carved figures and African clay pipes and bracelets of silver. On the bookshelves there were more carved things, many with woodworm; several Munday recognized as the work of his people. On another table there was a collection of snuffboxes, some silver and brass and others of plugged bamboo. A water-buck’s head stared serenely from under long lashes on the wall between two windows, and over the fireplace was the dark brutish head of a buffalo.

“Head shot?” asked Munday.

“Heart,” said Awdry, “but he kept coming. Then I winged him. It took three shots to bring him down. My gun bearer bolted.”

“That shows he had some common sense.”

On other sections of the walls there were hide shields and crossed spears, and ebony masks grinning under mops of straw hair, with grotesque mouths, like simplified masks of comedy and tragedy superimposed.

“I suppose you recognize this,” said Awdry. He showed Munday a soapstone carving of a woman with exaggerated breasts and a pot belly.

“Fertility figure,” said Munday. “Probably Luo, from the look of it, and,”—he held the piece and glanced at Awdry—“without question, a fake.” There were daggers mounted on a varnished board, rusty-bladed knives with beaded handles, and some Masai broadswords in neatly stitched leather sheaths. Munday looked for his stolen dagger, but saw none that resembled it.

“Didn’t you say in your lecture how African tools look so much like weapons?”

“They do the work of both,” said Munday. “That panga,” he said, pointing at a foot-long machete. “It’s used for clearing land, but a Bwamba would say—” There was a loud rapping in the front hall.

“That must be one of the guests,” said Awdry. “Excuse me.”

Munday quickly searched the room for his dagger; he looked on the top shelves and opened a Zanzibari chest. He could not find it, but he was convinced that Awdry had it, and he considered stealing one of Awdry’s own daggers. They were an inconvenient size. He slipped one of the silver snuffboxes into his pocket and took up his drink and started out of the room. But the theft made him self-conscious. He looked back and saw the high active fire in the hearth as having a life of its own, making a sound like ridicule—intimidating, accusing. He turned to go, but the fire crackling in the empty library remained, a witness to his theft, a crazy threatening presence. Munday returned to the table and put the snuffbox back.

In the living room he headed for Emma, who was talking to Peter Motherwell. But Awdry called to him, “I want you to meet an admirer of yours.” It was the new guest, Caroline Summers. She was Munday’s own height, but gave the impression of being taller. She wore a long blue sleeveless dress of a silky material which clung and emphasized her shape. Her neckline was cut low, revealing part of the rounded undersides of her breasts; a small blue jewel on a chain rested at an angle just between her breasts which, unsupported, sloped against the soft cloth that draped them. Though she stood still and held a wine glass without drinking from it, Munday found himself staring at the slight movements in the cords of her neck and throat and the thin poised bones of her hands. He felt he could read those bones and the shadows on the planes of her face.

“I’m delighted to meet you,” she said, and took the wine glass in two hands. Munday saw the jewel right itself between her breasts.

“We’ve just been discussing your lecture,” said Janet Strick.

“No complaints, I hope,” said Munday. Outlined in the long blue cloth was her leg, from hip to ankle; its unadorned completeness more than its shape attracted him.

“Only praise,” said Caroline.

Drawn to her he avoided her eyes, and having examined her he looked closely at the others, Motherwell with his pipe, Awdry’s Foreign Office tie and suede shoes, Strick’s flowered shirt and tie in matching material, and next to him Janet Strick in her short skirt. Janet was pretty, her skin was young, she had a smooth face, a large head and a good fleshy figure. Her hair was long; Caroline’s was short, and yet there was something luxurious about Caroline, the message on her mouth, the angle of her chin, the bones lifting at the base of the neck, the distinct edges of her hips and the thrust her dress hugged. She was not thin, but her short hair and the proportions of her features made her appear so, the way she stood—her weight on one leg—the length of her fingers which circled the glass. From the moment he saw her he wanted to be near her, to touch her; he felt a mingled desire and respect, the same helpless yearning he had experienced watching Alice crouch in her denim jeans. But he saw in Caroline a power that could be terrible, not the youthful pleasingness of Alice, but the sensual wisdom of a woman who knows that she is within a few years of losing her beauty. Though she had a veneer of glamour, what cowed him was the destroying bloom he saw in her bones. She could hold him and crack him.

She said, “I imagined you’d be very severe and scientific.”

“Perhaps I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“My Africans used to do imitations of me, behind my back. They thought I was a bit of a taskmaster.”

“Did that upset you?”

“They can be tricky little bastards.”

Then she did something that aroused Munday; she closed her eyes and smiled and rocked her head back on her long neck.

“I agree,” Awdry said, and he began to tell a story of African treachery.

In an effort to conceal his submissive interest in Caroline, Munday pretended to listen to the story (it concerned an African’s clumsy forgery of a local chief’s official papers), for he sensed the interest was obvious on his face. But attempting to suppress it he felt it more deeply, as he had with Alice. He remembered that he had fled the daughter, not the mother, and he saw himself as a weak man, incomplete, who had denied himself passion, though he had seen it enacted close to him, while he had stayed on its periphery, observing, sometimes mocking, never venturing nearer. He saw that his severity was fear, and what virtue he had always claimed for himself was cowardice.

“What happened to the African?” Caroline was saying.

“Him? Oh, we let him go,” said Awdry. “The Crown had a case against him, but we weren’t sure how it would go down locally. He was in the wrong, of course—everyone knew that. As it turned out, he would have been safer with us.”

“Safer?” Caroline became interested. “But you said he was free.”

“He got a dose of village justice,” said Awdry. He winked at Munday. Munday shrugged.

“That sounds ominous,” said Caroline.

“It was quite a field-day,” said Awdry. “Mob of people pounced on him, sank their teeth into him and spat out the pieces. Everyone was laughing—Africans find torture frightfully amusing. When the poor chap died they assumed he must have been guilty.”

“I never believe a word you say,” said Caroline. “They can’t be as bloodthirsty as that.”

“Doctor Munday will vouch for me,” said Awdry.

“Two points,” said Munday in his tutorial manner. “One, there’s usually some kind of deliberation before a man is found guilty. And, two, where property is involved the punishment is fairly harsh.” He went on, though in doing so he felt an awkward sense of betraying people he knew for people who were only interested in discrediting Africans. It was the penalty of his long residence among Africans, he believed: his knowledge of them only seemed to incriminate them. But he was anxious to hold Caroline’s attention. He said, “I remember an African who got a five-inch nail hammered into his skull. He had killed his wife at a beer party. I’ve heard of others who’ve had their feet chopped off—and they still use the ant-hill in some parts of Uganda. A Chiga girl who commits incest is thrown over a cliff by her father—”

“Why that’s savage,” said Caroline, her eyes flashing.

“Perhaps no worse than our own death penalty,” said Munday. “The gallows, what-have-you.”

“You’re way out of date,” said Awdry. He was laughing.

“Capital punishment’s been abolished,” said Caroline.

“I had no idea,” said Munday.

“Bloody silly, if you ask me,” said Awdry. “But there it is. Ah, here comes Jerry. We ean eat.” Jerry, the last guest to arrive, was out of breath, apologizing for being late as he handed his coat to Awdry. On the way over, he said, he had stopped to have a look at his cows and had found one which hadn’t been milked. The milking had delayed him.

“Jerry’s the only one who really belongs here,” said Caroline. “The rest of us are all foreigners.”

“The native among the expatriates,” muttered Munday.

“I was bom up the road,” he said to Munday. “Broadwindsor way.”

He was young, with a frank sunburned face, and square shoulders that had stretched his fashionable suit-jacket out of shape. Though his movements were shy—he glanced continually at his hands and heavy shoes—he had a clipped way of speaking, the local accent Peter Motherwell had tried to imitate (Jerry was saying, with the guileless scorn of a Bwamba, why his wife had had to stay at home). Now Munday understood the embarrassment of Peter’s mimicry. It was that of the settler joke, told when the houseboy was in the kitchen.

“Doctor Munday. Jerry Duddle,” said Caroline. “Doctor Munday’s been telling us the most horrible stories.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Jerry.

Munday was about to ask him about his farm when Janet came over and asked, “Jerry, do you have any views on hunting?”

“I don’t hunt much myself,” said Jerry. “Don’t have time for it—too busy with the farm. I do a little fishing.”

“But, don’t you agree that hunting’s cruel?” Janet had stepped in front of Munday and was facing Jerry. “Cruel? In what way?”

“It’s bloody.”

“Bloody expensive,” said Jerry. “Those floats set you back a few quid.”

Janet raised her eyes to the ceiling and said, “I suppose I’m alone in thinking it should be banned.” Jerry said, “I always say if people can afford to do something, and they enjoy doing it, who am I to tell them they’re wrong?”

“That’s our boy,” said Awdry; and Peter said, “Hear, hear!” Awdry crossed the room to show Anne Motherwell and Michael Strick and the vicar’s wife a framed photograph on the wall, a group of Africans on the bank of a flood-swollen river, near which a Land Rover was parked. Awdry said, “Five minutes after that picture was taken, this old man was drowned trying to ford the river.” Munday was on his way over to see the photograph of the doomed man. He noticed Emma near the fire, her hands clasped on a drink. She was alone.

“Are you all right?”

“I thought I was going to faint,” Emma said. “I think I startled that young man.”

Munday wondered which young man she was talking about. He looked around the room and then said, “Seems they’ve abolished capital punishment. I had no idea. That Summers woman was telling me.” '7 could have told you that,” said Emma.

“What’s wrong?” said Munday. “You seem cross.”

“I’m not well,” said Emma. “And I don’t like that woman.”

“Why? You don’t even know her.”

“I know her,” said Emma. “She wants you.”

“Don’t be silly.” Munday saw Caroline seated on the arm of a chair.

'‘I can tell—a woman can always tell. She’s making a play for you.”

Munday said, “You’ve had too much to drink.”

“This is tap water,” said Emma. “That young man fetched it. I thought I was going to faint.” But Munday was staring at Caroline. He said, “How do you know she’s making a play for me? I didn’t say two words to her.”

“Something in her face—the way she was standing,” said Emma. “She stares at you.”

“Is that all!”

“And she hates me,” said Emma. “That’s the proof.”

“You’re imagining things,” said Munday.

“When I saw her come in tonight,” said Emma in a low voice, “I thought I recognized her. I was going to go over and introduce myself. But something stopped me. I took a good look at her and she glared at me in a most hateful way. And then I knew.” Emma turned to face Munday. She said, “Alfred, that’s the woman”

“Which woman?” he asked. But he knew.

Emma pressed a handkerchief to her mouth. Her eyes were large with fright and she seemed to be on the verge of tears. The anger which had masked her fear had left her, and now she looked extremely tired and rather small and defeated.

Taking Emma by the arm Munday started towards the dining room, and though he was at some distance, nearly two long rooms away, he saw Caroline clearly in the candlelight where the other guests were shadowy; she stared, searching him with her very white face, no stranger now, but so intimate she understood his longing. She had seen his conversation with Emma, and without hearing, she knew every word they had said.