The Black House

18

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.

Munday did not contradict Emma. He was glad to be relieved of the burden of conversation and he was pleased Caroline was responding with such kindness. He said, “Tell Caroline about the mysterious Mrs. Seaton.” They ate in the kitchen, because Emma’s hours of cooking had made it the warmest room. But they might have been anywhere in the house: there was a rightness in their gathering there, and Munday passed beyond his superficial guilt to the feeling he had experienced on New Year’s, when he had made love to Caroline before the gasping fire, while Emma slept on upstairs. He saw that the three of them belonged to the Black House, they were its first tenants, and all those rooms, the low ceilings, the protecting shadows, the unusable and makeshift modernity, the sweating windows in the thick walls made an appropriate shelter for a love that had to be conspiratorial. What else could it be? Love was exclusive, a lucky couple making a meal amid famine. It had to be hidden, dragged into the dark; and the Black House, the object of his return, which was for him the whole of England, as the Bwamba village had been the whole of Africa, was the perfect place for this feast. Dining together, it was as if they had now acknowledged what he had always suspected, the November impression he had called a fear, that it was a house so veiled you imagined a victim in one of its darkened rooms. He had thought it was himself; for a while—but without knowing her name—he believed it was Caroline; now he knew it was Emma.

Emma said, “You don’t expect the countryside to be so oppressive.” She wrinkled her nose. “Alfred says it’s my own fault—he’s a great one for holding people responsible. He blamed that poor Mrs. Branch for the noisy tractors that go by the window with the bales of hay. And he’s so wrapped up in his work. It was the same in Africa.”

“Africa,” said Caroline. “Everyone has an uncle who’s been there. Or am I thinking of India?”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Emma. “My uncle never set foot out of Roehampton.”

“But what made you go to Africa in the first place?” Caroline asked.

“I went with Alfred.”

Caroline turned to Munday and said, “Well?”

“For my research,” said Munday. “But I never wondered why. At the time I would have been more surprised by someone who said he didn’t want to go. The name was always magic to me. Africa, Africa— and the Mountains of the Moon. I thought of lions and craters and people whom no one had set eyes on before. It’s infantile, I suppose, but there it is. If a chap told me he wanted to go to Istanbul or Java, I wouldn’t ask why.”

“I’ve been to Istanbul,” said Caroline. “On that vastly overrated train. I’d never do it again.”

“It’s a bewitching name,” said Munday.

“That’s why my first husband went to Dubrovnik,” said Caroline. “He hated it, and a Jug picked his pocket.”

“I found Africa disappointing,” said Emma. “Such sad people.”

“The Africans,” said Caroline.

“Well, I was thinking of the expatriates,” said Emma. “But the Africans as well. There was nothing one could do.”

“You had your painting,” said Munday.

“Humped Cattle, Tea Harvesting,” said Emma. “I’ve tried that here. It doesn’t work. I’m afraid I’ve become a television bug. Alfred hates it. I watch the news and those awful discussions. The Irish business, the miners. It’s like one of those third-rate serials with a complicated plot, in endless installments. You have to keep up with it, all the new developments and characters.” She reached for a dish. “Will you have some more meat? And there’s lots more Yorkshire pudding.”

“I’m doing fine with this,” said Caroline. “It’s delicious.”

“I’m not much of a cook,” said Emma. “I never got any practice in Africa. We always had help, fetching and carrying, cooking, anything you can name.”

“It sounds idyllic.”

“It was beastly,” said Emma. “Have you read Eliot? The Cocktail Party? ‘When these people have done with a European, he is, as a rule, no longer fit to eat.’ ”

“Tripe,” said Munday.

“But you must have loved it to have stayed so long there,” said Caroline to Munday.

“It began to wear a bit thin,” said Munday. “I sometimes feel I could have discovered all I needed to know about isolation and perhaps even tribalism right here in Four Ashes.”

“Not witchcraft surely?”

“And witchcraft,” said Munday, “of a sort. Anyway, that love of Africa or the exotic anywhere is like sexual voyeurism. You go on watching and you think you’re perfectly detached. But you’re involved in a rather pathetic way. It changes you. You’re violated by just seeing it.”

“So you stopped being a voyeur,” said Caroline.

“I never started.”

Emma coughed. She passed the salad to Caroline and said, “There are avocados in it. I hope they’re ripe.”

“Who is Mrs. Branch?” asked Caroline.

“She used to do for us,” said Emma. “Alfred was forever scaring her half to death with African stories.”

“My idea of an African story,” said Munday, “is talking about one’s servants.” But Emma ignored him: “Once, Mrs. Branch said, ‘They must be so savage,’ and Alfred said, ‘Well, they wash their hands before they eat—that’s pretty civilized.’ He’s full of remarks like that. You were at his talk, so you know.”

“You notice she took the hint,” said Munday.

“I must remember that,” said Caroline.

“Alfred uses Africans to reproach the English,” said Emma. She smiled. “Incredible isn’t it? But that’s anthropology.”

“I always think of anthropologists as having these jungle helmets and shorts, and becoming honorary chiefs of obscure tribes, and hiking for days with little native guides,” said Caroline. She had affected a stagey manner; she was acting. How strange it was to see her behaving like this, Munday thought; to see them both, Emma and Caroline, playing parts in company, assigning him his trivial part, because the role of lover was unplayable. “Oh, yes,” Caroline said, “and being terribly interested in arrowheads and blunt daggers.”

“You’ve just described my husband,” said Emma. “Not exactly,” said Munday.

Emma leaned towards Caroline, and said, “You should see Alfred’s weapons.”

“I’ll open that second bottle of wine,” said Munday. He went to the sideboard and pulled the cork, and filling the glasses he said, “I think you're going to like this one. It’s rather better than that Spanish number.” Caroline smiled and said, “This has been a lovely evening.”

“I’m enjoying myself,” said Emma. “We see so few people. We don’t do much in the way of entertaining. It’s a treat for us having you over.”

“Yes,” said Munday. “But you must have lots of friends in the area.”

“Not really,” said Caroline. “Like you, I'm a stranger here—though I’ve lived here for quite a number of years. The local people aren’t very easy to know. And the others are too easy, if you know what I mean. I live a quiet life.”

“So do we,” said Emma. “But not by choice. There are so many plays on in London I’d like to see.”

“That’s an expatriate remark if I’ve ever heard one,” said Munday.

“It’s true,” said Emma.

“My husband and I used to go up to London for the plays,” said Caroline.

“And you don't go now?” said Munday.

“Well, I lost him you see.”

“I’m sorry,” said Emma.

“It takes some getting used to.”

“You're managing, though,” said Munday.

“Just,” said Caroline. “I had to give up my dogs.”

“Dogs?” Munday reached for his glass of wine, but he saw his hand was trembling, and he didn’t pick it up. He moved the glass in circles on the table. He said, “What did you do with them?”

“I bred them,” said Caroline. “Alsatians—beautiful creatures.”

“That must have been a lot of work,” said Emma.

“I had help. Mr. Awdry found me a wonderful chap,” said Caroline. “Local. But awfully sweet.”

“Was it Hosmer, by any chance?” asked Munday.

“Why yes, but how did you know that?”

“I see him at The Yew Tree from time to time,” said Munday.

“You’re very brave,” said Emma. “It must be hard for a widow here.”

“It can be,” said Caroline. “But the day after my husband died, I overslept. I hadn’t done that for years. Perhaps that tells you something about our marriage.” At that moment the lights went out. “Power cut,” said Emma. But it had been announced as a possibility, and they were prepared for it. There were candles on the window sill. “Just a moment,” said Munday. He struck a match, but in the spurt of flame he saw the rigid corpses of two dogs, their skin peeled off, their white muscles showing a thin foam of decay. And another, more vivid image, his dagger in the throat of the foxhound. Munday found the candles and brought them to the table. The conversation continued, but in candlelight, with their faces half-hidden and their bodies in shadow, it was more confidential, with an intensity that the harshly-lit room had restrained.

“They whisper about me,” said Caroline into her fiery sherbet.

“Who does?” asked Emma.

“The locals,” said Caroline. “You must have heard the talk. They say terrible things about me. They tell stories.”

“I’ve heard nothing,” said Emma.

“What sort of stories?” asked Munday.

“Oh, you know the kind of thing,” said Caroline.

She paused. The bones and hollows in her face were set off by shadows; her eyes held two candle flames. She finally said, “I didn’t give up my dogs—they were stolen. One morning I went to the kennel and they were gone. It’s dreadful when something you care about disappears—you can’t help thinking you’re next.”

“It is dreadful,” said Emma. “That makes me angry.” She was breathing hard with her mouth shut. She said, “They talk about us, too.”

“Do they?”

“They object to our visitors,” said Emma.

Caroline said, “They can be very cruel.”

Munday said, “In Africa—”

But Emma had leaned forward and was saying, “We don’t intend to stay here.” Her panting made the candle flame dance near her face.

“That’s not true,” said Munday.

“It is!”

“Why not?” Caroline put the question to Emma.

“We’re just renting this house—it’s not permanent. I’ve never liked it here, and I don’t want to stay.” Munday said, “We haven’t made any firm decision. We haven’t even discussed it.”

“I’ve made up my mind,” said Emma. “This house! At first I thought it was England, everything I’ve always disliked about England I found here—the damp, the cold, the shabbiness. That awful trap that appalled me even when I was a girl. So I thought it was me. But it wasn’t. No, it’s something else, something much worse. There are rooms in this house that Mrs. Branch refused to clean—I’ve seen things! Alfred laughs, but it’s so terrifying for me sometimes. You have no idea.”

“Calm yourself,” said Munday. “I love this house.”

“I can’t help it,” said Emma. She blinked and started again, “This house—”

“You’ll have to forgive Emma,” said Munday. “She’s not well.”

“No,” said Caroline. She looked at Emma as an adult at a child quieted by terror; Emma was very pale and small—she might have been stunned by a slap in the face. “I know what you mean,” said Caroline. “My house is no better. I’m alone, and when you’re alone in a room even a toast rack can look like an instrument of torture.”

“I’m often alone,” said Emma. “Alfred doesn’t know.”

“She paints,” said Munday. “And there’s the garden. Emma’s always had green fingers.”

“A crack in the wall or a mirror—even that can look very threatening,” said Caroline. “And the furniture seems to sit in judgment upon you.”

“Yes,” said Emma eagerly. “Yes, that’s exactly how I’ve felt.”

“And the noises,” said Caroline.

“The noises!” said Emma. “It’s worse during the day, much worse when the sun is shining, as if you’re being mocked by the light. That’s so sinister.”

“My house is empty,” said Caroline. “I shall go back there tonight and turn on all the lights. Do you know how it is, entering an empty house?”

“I do,” said Emma. “It’s the feeling I had when we came here, and it has never left me, not for a single moment! It doesn’t bother Alfred at all.”

“I don’t see why it should,” said Munday, but he had known the fear, and Emma’s outburst had reminded him of how keenly he had felt it.

“But it would be better if you did,” Emma said. “Then you’d know how I felt it, as Caroline does.” Munday was struck by how easily this first time Emma said his lover’s name.

“It just occurred to me,” said Caroline. She touched at her throat with misgiving.

“What’s wrong?” said Munday.

“I won’t be able to turn on the lights tonight. The house will be dark. These damned power cuts!”

“What a shame,” said Emma. “You see, I know just what’s going through your mind. It’s late, it’s dark— do you have very far to go?”

“I’ll see you home,” said Munday. “If it’ll make you feel any better.”

“That’s awfully kind of you,” said Caroline.

Munday tried to find an emotion in her eyes, but he could not see past the candle flames flickering there, two narrow blossoms of light that gave her cat’s eyes.

“Yes,” said Emma. Her face fell. “Then I’ll be here alone.”

“I won’t be long,” said Munday. He had visualized something like this happening, though he had not guessed that Caroline and Emma would get on so well. The darkness helped, and seeing them together he had become aware of their similarities: Caroline wasn’t glamorous, nor was Emma so plain. They both had strengths he needed and an attraction he valued. But he knew he would have to choose; it was the worst of love, the excluding choice, and he had delayed it for too long.

“It’s selfish of me,” said Emma.

“Not at all,” said Caroline.

“I wish there were something we could do,” said Munday.

“But there is!” said Emma. She turned to Caroline. “Why not sleep here—stay the night?”

“I couldn’t,” said Caroline.

“It’s no trouble. We have masses of room. That’s what people do in the country, the way I imagined it. I can lend you a nightdress.”

“Emma—”

“See to the coffee, Alfred.”

“I really could go straight home on my own,” said Caroline.

“But there’s no one there,” said Emma. “You’re not expected.”

“No,” said Caroline. “That’s quite true.”

“I want you to stay.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely,” said Emma. “Do it for my sake. So it’s settled. Now, take this candle and go into the other room, and we’ll bring in the coffee.” Caroline left the room, carrying the candle. The light wavered, a liquid glimmering on the walls, as she glided down the passage.

“I’m glad she’s staying,” said Emma. “I feel I’ve been so unfair to her. I don’t like to think of the things I’ve said about her.”

“I’ll put some wood on the fire,” said Munday.

“Such a sad woman,” said Emma. “Be kind to her, Alfred.”