I don't think, the child said, with care, that you'll be frightened.
He said weakly, pressing his wife's hand: Well, my dear, our daughter seems to have decided ...
First you must see the policeman. I want him to go. I don't like him.
Then he must go, of course, Captain Fellows said, with a hollow unconfident laugh.
I told him that. I said we couldn't refuse him a hammock for the night, when he arrived so late. But now he must go.
And he disobeyed you?
He said he wanted to speak to you.
He little knew, Captain Fellows said, he little knew. Irony was his only defence, but it was not understood: nothing [30] was understood which was not clear-like an alphabet or a simple sum or a date in history. He relinquished his wife's hand and allowed himself to be led unwillingly into the afternoon sun. The police officer stood in front of the veranda: a motionless olive figure: he wouldn't stir a foot to meet Captain Fellows.
Well, lieutenant? Captain Fellows said breezily. It occurred to him that Coral had more in common with the policeman than with himself.
I am looking for a man, the lieutenant said: He has been reported in this district.
He can't be here.
Your daughter tells me the same.
She knows.
He is wanted on a very serious charge.
Murder?
No. Treason.
Oh, treason, Captain Fellows said, all his interest dropping: there was so much treason everywhere-it was like petty larceny in a barracks.
He is a priest. I trust you will report at once if he is seen. The lieutenant paused. You are a foreigner living under the protection of our laws. We expect you to make a proper return for our hospitality. You are not a Catholic?
No.
Then I can trust you to report? the lieutenant said.
I suppose so.
The lieutenant stood there like a little dark menacing question mark in the sun: his attitude seemed to indicate that he wouldn't even accept the benefit of shade from a foreigner. But he had used a hammock: that, Captain Fellows supposed, he must have regarded as a requisition. Have a glass of gaseosa?
No. No, thank you.
Well, Captain Fellows said, I can't offer you anything else, can I? It's treason to drink spirits.
The lieutenant suddenly turned on his heel as if he could no longer bear the sight of them and strode away along the path which led to the village: his gaiters and his pistol-holster winked in the sunlight. When he had gone some way they could see him pause and spit: he had not been discourteous, he had waited till he supposed that they no longer watched him before [31] he got rid of his hatred and contempt for a different way of life, for ease, safety, toleration, and complacency.
I wouldn't want to be up against him, Captain Fellows said.
Of course he doesn't trust us.
They don't trust anyone.
I think, Coral said. he smelt a rat.
They smell them everywhere.
You see, I wouldn't let him search the place.
Why ever not? Captain Fellows said-and then his vague mind went off at a tangent. How did you stop him?
I said I'd loose the dogs on him-and complain to the Minister. He hadn't any right ...
Oh, right, Captain Fellows said. They carry their right on their hips. It wouldn't have done any harm to let him look.
I gave him my word. She was as inflexible as the lieutenant: small and black and out of place among the banana groves. Her candour made allowances for nobody: the future, full of compromises, anxieties, and shame, lay outside: the gate was dosed which would one day let it in. But at any moment now a word, a gesture, the most trivial act might be her sesame-to what? Captain Fellows was touched with fear: he was aware of an inordinate love: it robbed him of authority. You cannot control what you love-you watch it driving recklessly towards the broken bridge, the torn-up track, the horror of seventy years ahead. He dosed his eyes-he was a happy man--and hummed a tune.
Coral said: I shouldn't have liked a man like that to catch me out-lying, I mean.
Lying? Good God, Captain Fellows said, you don't mean he's here?
Of course he's here, Coral said.
Where?
In the big barn, she explained gently.
We couldn't let them catch him.
Does your mother know about this?
She said with devastating honesty: Oh, no. I couldn't trust her. She was independent of both of them: they belonged together in the past. In forty years' time they would be dead as last year's dog. He said: You'd better show me.
He walked slowly: happiness drained out of him more [32] quickly and completely than out of an unhappy man: an unhappy man is always prepared. As she walked in front of him, her two meagre tails of hair bleaching in the sunlight, it occurred to him for the first time that she was of an age when Mexican girls were ready for their first man. What was to happen? He flinched away from problems which he had never dared to confront. As they passed the window of his bedroom he caught sight of a thin shape lying bunched and bony and alone in a mosquito tent. He remembered with self-pity and nostalgia his happiness on the river, doing a man's job without thinking of other people. If I had never married. ... He wailed like a child at the merciless immature back: We've no business interfering in their politics.
This isn't politics, she said gently. I know about politics. Mother and I are doing the Reform Bill. She took a key out of her pocket and unlocked the big barn in which they stored bananas before sending them down the river to the port. It was very dark inside after the glare: there was a scuffle in a corner. Captain Fellows picked up an electric torch and shone it on somebody in a torn, dark suit-a small man who blinked and needed a shave.
Que es usted? Captain Fellows said.
I speak English. He clutched a small attaché case to his side, as if he were waiting to catch a train he must on no account miss.
You've no business here.
No, the man said, no.
It's nothing to do with us, Captain Fellows said. We are foreigners.
The man said: Of course. I will go. He stood with his head a little bent like a man in an orderly-room listening to an officer's decision. Captain Fellows relented a little. He said: You'd better wait till dark. You don't want to be caught.
No.
Hungry?
A little. It does not matter. He said with a rather repulsive humility: If you would do me a favour ...
What?
A little brandy.
I'm breaking the law enough for you as it is, Captain [33] Fellows said. He strode out of the barn, feeling twice the size, leaving the small bowed figure in the darkness among the bananas. Coral locked the door and followed him. What a religion! Captain Fellows said. Begging for brandy. Shameless.
But you drink it sometimes.
My dear, Captain Fellows said, when you are older you'll understand the difference between drinking a little brandy after dinner and-well, needing it.
Can I take him some beer?
You won't take him anything.
The servants wouldn't be safe.
He was powerless and furious; he said: You see what a hole you've put us in. He stumped back into the house and into his bedroom, roaming restlessly among the boot-trees. Mrs. Fellows slept uneasily, dreaming of weddings. Once she said aloud: My train. Be careful of my train.
What's that? he said petulantly. What's that?
Dark fell like a curtain: one moment the sun was there, the next it had gone. Mrs. Fellows woke to another night. Did you speak, dear?
It was you who spoke, he said. Something about trains.
I must have been dreaming.
It will be a long time before they have trains here, he said, with gloomy satisfaction. He came and sat on the bed, keeping away from the window: out of sight, out of mind. The crickets were beginning to chatter and beyond the mosquito wire fireflies moved like globes. He put his heavy, cheery, needing-to-be-reassured hand on the shape under the sheet and said: It's not such a bad life, Trixy. Is it now? Not a bad life? But he could feel her stiffen: the word life was taboo: it reminded you of death. She turned her face away from him towards the wall and then hopelessly back again-the phrase turn to the wall was taboo too. She lay panic-stricken, while the boundaries of her fear widened and widened to include every relationship and the whole world of inanimate things: it was like an infection. You could look at nothing for long without becoming aware that it, too, carried the germ ... the word sheet even. She threw the sheet off her and said: It's so hot, it's so hot. The usually happy and the always unhappy one watched the night [34] thicken from the bed with distrust. They were companions cut off from all the world: there was no meaning anywhere outside their own hearts: they were carried like children in a coach through the huge spaces without any knowledge of their destination. He began to hum with desperate cheerfulness a song of the war years: he wouldn't listen to the footfall in the yard outside, going in the direction of the barn.