by Paul Theroux
It had not been hard for him to find the house. It was prominent, announcing its color in a long terrace of bay-windowed three-story brick houses on a road just off the south side of the park. The road stretched to a lighted corner, where more blacks, whose idleness he instantly resented, lingered under a street lamp. The conversion of the Mills’s house reproached the other gloomy house fronts. The brick had been painted white, there was a yellow window box, and the door was bright yellow; the iron gate was new and so was the brass knocker and the mat on the top step. In the little plot in front there was a square of clipped grass and a small bare tree: on one limb a florist’s tag spun.
He tapped the knocker and waited. He was trembling; his heart worked in troubled thumps—he always heard it when he was nervous, and hearing it increased his nervousness.
The door opened on a woman’s thin face. “Yes?”
“Is Mrs. Mills at home?” Munday spoke sharply to the stranger.
The question bewildered the woman. She said, “What is it you want?” And then she smiled and said, “Alfred?” and flung open the door.
“Claudia,” he said in a weak expression of surprise. He did not dare to look closer. He almost said, Is that you?
He could not hide his embarrassment, his kiss was ungainly, he bumped her chin. He wanted to stare at her, to compare her with his memory, she was so thin and sallow, and her hair was brown. It had been blond. He was disappointed—in her, in himself; was deeply ashamed, a shame so keen he heard himself saying, “I’m sorry—” Then he was moving into the lounge and talking, apologizing for being early, explaining the train he had to catch, complimenting her on the decoration, the bookshelves, the chrome and marble coffee table. She was naming stores, Liberty, Heals, Habitat, as he named objects of furniture. He avoided her eyes and now he was talking about the carpet—it was orange—but his eyes were fixed on the narrow bones showing in her feet. He wished he had not come; he wanted to go.
“And a color television,” he was saying. It was on, a large screen swimming with yellow and blue, and the deep orange face of a talking man. He felt obliged, having made the comment, to watch it. The man was talking very slowly, as if to a child, and tearing a newspaper into strips.
“Not ours,” said Claudia. “It’s on loan. The BBC gives them to all their senior staff.”
“I’ve never seen one before,” said Munday, and at a loss for words he went on watching the program. Now a small-breasted girl was singing a nursery rhyme in a halting way and waltzing foolishly with a stuffed bear.
“Do sit down, Alfred.” Claudia picked up a glass. “Are you sure you want tea or would you like something stronger? I’ve been drinking gin ever since you rang—for courage!”
“Tea’s fine,” said Munday. He sat in a chair which had a spoon-shaped seat. He swiveled awkwardly.
“I was so surprised to hear from you.”
“Really? I thought you might have seen my letter to The Times ”
“We get the Guardian” said Claudia. “Not that I ever read it. That Northern Ireland business is so awful. Have you been back long?”
“A little over a month—we’re in the country. Dorset.”
“Dorset’s lovely,” said Claudia. “I can’t remember the last time I saw you. Was it—?"
“Years ago. That party,” said Munday. “At Margaret’s.”
“Poor Margaret.”
“Jack’s driving a bus.”
“He deserves to,” said Claudia, pouring herself another gin. “They ruined my theory, you know, breaking up like that in Africa. That ludicrous court case.”
“What theory is this? You never told me.”
“About divorces. As an anthropologist you might be interested,” said Claudia. She sipped her gin. “Not very complicated. It’s just that everyone says that marriages go to pieces in the tropics. That’s a myth. Why should they break up there? There’s no housework to do, the kids are off your hands, no worries. It’s like a holiday. I don’t know where these writers get the idea it’s such a great strain on a marriage— that scene at the club where the outraged husband throws his drink into the lover’s face and says, ‘You’ve been seeing my wife.’ That sort of rubbish.”
“I’ve seen it happen, but not in those precise words.”
“It never happens! No one cares. Do you remember when we did those Maugham plays? ‘Sybil, have you betrayed me?’ and all that?”
“The Uganda Players,” said Munday.
“What a farce,” said Claudia. “And that pansy director—I forget his name. Those plays made me laugh.
I don’t know why I joined that silly drama group. Emma wasn’t in it, was she?"
“She had her painting to occupy her,” said Munday. “And we were at the camp.”
“You lived so damned far from town,” said Claudia. She smiled. “I’ll bet she’s not doing any painting here.”
“How do you know?”
“I know. She’s doing housework, going to the launderette, shopping, cooking. What a bore. I know— that’s what / do. That’s my theory—marriages don’t break up when people go to the tropics, they break up here, when they get back. There’s a name for it.” Claudia snapped her fingers.
“Culture shock,” said Munday.
“Right, right—culture shock. There’s none of it in Africa, but there’s masses here.”
“I suppose I’m having a bit of it myself,” said Munday. It slipped out, and he was angry with himself for having revealed it: she might ask why. But she hadn’t heard, she was still talking.
“I’m not saying that Martin and I are thinking of separating. We’re muddling along well enough. But it’s tough sometimes. You’ll see. You haven’t been in England for a long time, Alfred. Marriage is hard here.”
“It’s hard everywhere, let’s face it.”
“No, not in Africa—it’s easy there,” she said. “Everything is easy there, isn’t it?”
“Is it?”
“You know it is!” she said. “But here—it’s part of my theory—every married couple is on the verge of divorce.”
“You don’t say.” He could see she was drunk; he wanted to calm her, and leave.
“You see, marriage is grounds for divorce,” she said. “Marriage as we know it. Young people don’t even think about it any more.”
“So the younger sociologists say,” said Munday.
“But marriage has never been sacred among the Bwamba. They’re always swapping partners. I worked it out once—the divorce rate among the Bwamba is twenty times that of the English. As for adultery— they simply choose a woman and stick a spear in the dirt in front of her hut to show she’s occupied. The husband won’t interrupt.”
“Did you bring your spear with you today?” She laughed coarsely.
Munday said, “I’ve got a train to catch.”
“You and your Africans,” she said. “Didn’t you get sick of them? I’m sick of them. I’m not a racist, I’m just sick of them—seeing them, hearing about them. They’re always on television, and Battersea’s full of them. Why don’t people ever talk about the Chinese? There are more Chinese than there are Africans, and there’s more to talk about.” Claudia had finished her drink. She licked the lemon peel and said, “The Head Prefect at Alice’s school is an African. That’s why they made him Head Prefect.”
“He’s actually a West Indian,” said Alice, entering the room with a tray. She looked at Munday and said hello with a coolness that seemed so calculated he could not reply immediately. He thought: She knows me.
“Just put it down there,” said Claudia.
“You’re a big girl now,” said Munday at last. “Sixteen,” said Claudia. “Though she thinks she’s a few years older.”
“Mummy, please.”
“She hates me,” said Claudia. “It’s a phase.”
Alice was attractive; she wore denim slacks that fit her high buttocks tightly, and her hair was long, in a single rope of braid, with the blondness that had gone out
of her mother’s. She poured the tea and brought Munday his cup and a plate with a slice of fruitcake on it. Munday smiled, but she did not respond. She maintained that sceptical, knowing look, which was an adult frown of accusation, worn deliberately, Munday guessed, for her mother’s former lover. It put Munday on his guard, but disturbed him, because it rubbed at the memory of his lust. All the old forgotten feeling he had had for the mother, who inspired nothing in him but a vague pity and shame for the woe in her eyes, came awake in the presence of the pretty daughter, for whom he felt a twinge of desire. And that awakening was enough of a reminder of his lust for the mother to make him uneasy.
He said, “I have to be at Waterloo—”
The phone rang in another part of the house.
“Excuse me,” said Claudia, and went to answer it. Alice was seated cross-legged on the floor, her hand lightly resting on her crotch. “Where’s your hat?” she asked. “You used to have a funny hat.”
“I still have it somewhere,” said Munday. “You do have a good memory.”
“I remember you,” she said. Her stare was as solemn as any adult’s.
Munday looked away. He had seen the same face at the bedroom door. He said, “How do you like living in London?”
Alice said, “Mummy fucks my friends.”
Munday was shocked by the simple way she said the brutal sentence, but managed to say, “Oh? And do you disapprove of that?”
“It embarrasses me,” said Alice, as simply as before.
“Yes, I suppose it does,” said Munday. “But don’t be too hard on her. I mean, don’t judge her too harshly. Maybe you’ll see when you’re her age that there’s not that much love around. And it can be a frightening thing—” He stopped, at the girl’s stare, her look of total innocence; he felt he could only disappoint her if he went on.
She lifted the plate. “Would you like another piece of fruitcake?”
“I’m fine,” said Munday. But he was shaken, his mouth was dry. He took a sip of tea and said, “I must go—I’ll have to find a taxi.”
“I’m sure mummy would love to take you to the station.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Munday.
“I’ll just have half,” said Alice, reaching for the cake. “I shouldn’t—I’m supposed to be dieting.” She broke a piece and ate it, taking large girlish chews. “Because I’m on the pill.”
“Then you are a big girl,” said Munday, and now he saw her as only insolent, made so by the mother.
“Mummy doesn’t think so.”
“That was Martin,” said Claudia, entering the room. “He’s going to be late.” And as if she had guessed at the conversation that had been going on, intuited it from the silent man and girl, she said accusingly, “What have you been talking about behind my back?”
“Doctor Munday was telling me about his African tribes,” said Alice, gathering the plates.
“That’s right,” said Munday, astonished at the girl’s invention. In that girl was a woman, but a corrupt one.
“You’re not going?” Claudia said, seeing Munday stand.
“I’ll miss my train if I don’t hurry,” said Munday. He kissed Claudia at the door; she held on and made him promise to come again. She pressed against him, and he was nearly aroused, because he was looking past her at the girl with the tray on one arm walking through the room on long dancer’s legs, showing her tight buttocks as she picked up an ashtray, straightened a lampshade.
“You haven’t forgotten,” said Claudia, feeling him harden. He pulled her head to his shoulder and watched Alice slowly leaving the room, tossing the loose rope of her hair. Then he said, “No.”
Waiting with Emma at the platform gate in Waterloo Station, Munday heard “Hello there,” and felt a tug on his sleeve.
He turned and greeted the stranger in a polite way, and then he remembered the face and said nothing more. It was the tall man from the lecture who had contradicted him.
“You’re Munday,” said the man. “I thought I recognized you. Up for the day?”
“Yes.”
“Shambles, isn’t it?” They were in a crowd, pressing toward a gate, where a conductor stood clipping tickets.
Inside the gate the man said, “We’ve got to be up front—Crewkeme’s got a rather short platform.”
“I know,” said Munday. “We’ve been this way before.”
“Will you join me?” The man was smiling at Emma. “That would be nice,” said Emma.
“We haven’t been introduced,” said the man. “My name’s Awdry.”
He shook Munday’s hand and they made their way up the platform and boarded the train. Awdry slid open the door of a first-class compartment. He said, “This one looks as good as any.”
“I’m afraid we’re in second,” said Munday, relieved that he would not have to endure the man’s company for three hours, and embarrassed at having to admit he had a cheaper ticket.
“Oh, what a shame,” said Awdry. “You’re way down there.” He pointed down the passage with his umbrella.
“Perhaps we’ll see you in the village,” said Emma.
“I hope so,” said Awdry. “I’ve got a crow to pluck with your husband.” He turned to Munday and said genially, “Your letter—‘confused observations of a generation of misfit District Commissioners’—all that.” He laughed. “I was livid when I read it, but I think I can discuss it sensibly now.”
“That’s good to hear,” said Munday.
“I’ll be in touch with you—you’re up at the Black House still, I take it? Say, you’d better get a move on or you won’t find a seat!”
They didn’t find a seat. The train was filled with returning commuters, who had taken all the seats while they had been standing talking to Awdry. Munday and Emma stood in a drafty passage outside a second-class compartment as far as Basingstoke. Inside the overbright compartment they drowsily read the evening papers, which were full of news of an impending miners’ strike; and when, at Salisbury, the compartment emptied, and they were alone, Emma spoke of Margaret: she was doing part-time secretarial work, she was seeing a man, she had put on weight.
“Alec is at the end of his tether,” said Munday. He made no mention of Claudia, but heard repeatedly Alice’s cheerless phrase about her mother, and saw the young girl in the room, dancing past him as he embraced Claudia.
“What did the doctor have to say?”
“Him? He examined me, said to take it easy,” said Munday. “He was a bit of a fool. Kept going on about Father Dowle.”
Emma put the paper down and opened her novel to the first page. She flexed the book and began to read.
Munday said, “He told me my heart’s in a rather dicky state. That scar business. Blood pressure’s way up.”
Emma looked at him closely, “Did he say it was serious?”
“I’m not well, Emma,” Munday said. “Not well at all.”
From the lighted carriage the night was black, but at Crewkeme they saw the full moon, and across the road from the black house, in the moonlight, a field of sleeping cows.
But even then, returning after a tiring day in London, their eyes heavy, their feet burning, hungry and yet unable to eat, they saw the house as no more familiar to them than it had been on that first day. Munday kicked open the gate with a clang; now he was sure of his feelings. It was in darkness, his England, all he could lay claim to; it was—everyone said it and he agreed—the Black House. The day in London taught him that he could not live there, cast up like the others whose only friends were those who had been similarly reduced in size by their years in Africa. He had expected more, but he had stayed away too long: no one was waiting for him. He was resigned to the Black House. He went inside. The stove had gone out, the rooms were cold, the dampness had crept back leaving on the crumble of its streaks a smell of mold. It was too late to make a fire, and without hot water for the bottles they slept between cold sheets.
They were not less afraid of the house, and they were conscious o
f an awful demeaning failure. They continued in the house hopelessly, habituated to their fears, with the sense that each room held the traces of a person who had left moments before—the suggestion of moving cones of air, the dying vibrancy of a word just whispered. The haunting left them with the uncertain mood of a sickness, but haunting was not the word they used; it was not a physical fear of attack—an amorphous jelly ghost rushing at them with cold arms—but rather a sense, numbing their minds, that they had put an intruder to flight and were witnessing the last vagrant clues of its presence. Emma believed she had seen a woman at the window, and so Munday had begun to see something feminine in those traces. The woman, ghostly inhabitant of the house, was like an aspect of his heart, and his ache told him that she. shared much of what he himself feared. He was linked to her, more than to Emma, and when, entering the house after the day in London, Emma said, “Someone’s been here,” he did not dispute it, it was what he felt, and he knew what Emma never would: that it was a trespasser surprised, someone like him, restless, perhaps sick and very lonely, imploring him to believe so that he might see her.
But he saw her only in his dreams, which were half of Africa, green walls of bamboo pipes with feathery branches on mountain roads, banana groves hanging thickly with clusters of fruit, heavy red blossoms, and of the warning motion of blacks in high elephant grass; the heat that rose from the slippery decaying earth, and blue four-inch dragonflies in the papyrus swamps where hairy plants choked the waterways and odd huge birds suddenly took flight, beating the air with clumsily hinged wings; but he belonged there, he had his own canoe and two solemn black paddlers with saw-toothed daggers at their waists. In some of the dreams he was swimming and speechless, and plunged in smothering foliage towards a girl-woman with the softest thighs, who showed him the flesh in her mouth as red as the blossoms. The dreams aroused him and denied him rest. He had one the night of his return from London.
The confusion over the charwoman followed a few days later.
Useless in his study, brooding among his notes and weapons—he bitterly resented the theft of the dagger—Munday saw Emma’s housekeeping as a possible source of her unhappiness. She was sad, and busy, and her work reproached his inactivity. What she did was drudgery, and the cleaning and cooking left her exhausted. There was much more to do, strenuous chores like washing the spattered windows, beating the rugs, cleaning the oven. Munday did not want to do them himself, so he could not insist that Emma do them. They remained neglected. Claudia’s comment (“She’s doing housework”) had made Munday see Emma at the sink, heaving the coal scuttle, riddling the fire in the Rayburn; he watched her examining her reddened hands or pushing a wisp of hair out of her eyes; he noticed that she borrowed books from the Bridport library and returned them unread.