The Magus - John Fowles

by John Fowles

  "Probably." She looked pensive. "Shouldn't I have said that?"

  She nodded. "It's just that I can't stand dishonesty in personal relationships."

  "Nor can I. That's why I've broken off this other thing."

  She sat up and smoothed down her skirt. "I think I shall go wild sometimes. All this sun and sea and never being able to really enjoy it. How women lived fifty years ago in these miserable . . ." But she looked at me, saw by my eyes I wasn't listening, and stopped.

  I said, "How long have we got?"

  "Till four."

  "What happens then?"

  "You must go."

  "I want to kiss you."

  She was silent. Then she said quietly, "Don't you want to know about the real me?"

  "If you lie back."

  So she turned and lay flat on her stomach again, with her head pillowed on her arms. She talked about her mother, their life in Dorset, her own boredom with it; about her scholarship to Cambridge, acting, and finally, about the man in the photograph. He had been a don, a mathematician, at Sidney Sussex. Fifteen years older than Julie; married and separated; and they had had not an affaire, but a relationship "too peculiar and too sad to talk about."

  I asked what made it so sad.

  "Physical things." She stared into the ground, chin on arms. "Being too similar. One day I realized we were driving each other mad. Torturing each other instead of helping each other."

  "Was he cut up?"

  "Yes."

  "And you?"

  "Of course." She looked sideways. "I loved him." Her tone made me feel crass, and I let the silence come before I spoke again.

  "No one else?"

  "No one who matters." After a moment or two she turned round on her back, and spoke at the sky. "I think intelligence is terrible. It magnifies all one's faults. Complicates things that ought to be simple."

  "One can learn to simplify."

  She said nothing. I moved a little closer, and began to caress, with a timidity I felt but would in any case have simulated, the side of her face, her cheek. She closed her eyes, and I traced the lines of the eyelids with my forefingers; then the mouth, then kissed the unresponding mouth, then the side of the neck and the top of the shoulder where the white-trimmed collar gaped a little; then remained looking down. It seemed to me a face one could never tire of, an eternal source of desire, of love, of the will to protect; without physical or psycho- logical flaw. She opened her eyes and I could see in them something still reserved, unsure, not giving.

  So we lay side by side, our faces only two feet apart, staring at each other. She reached out her hand and took mine, and we interlocked fingers, twisted them, wrestled gently, mock-coupled. Some of her reserve melted away, and I could see that she took this thing, this exchange of trivial caress, with a seriousness no other girl I had ever met had felt — or had the independence of mind to show. I saw in Julie fear of man and something that hinted at craving for him. Her natural aloofness and coolness suddenly seemed rather pitiable, a mere social equivalent of some neurosis about frigidity. I kissed her hand.

  She allowed it, and then, withdrawing her hand, suddenly turned her back on me.

  "What's wrong?"

  She spoke in a whisper. "When I was thirteen I was — well the stock euphemism is . . ." her voice sank lower than the wind ". . . interfered with."

  It was like hitting an air-pocket; my mind plunged — some terrible wound, some physical incapacity . . . I stared at the back of her head. She kept her face averted. "I've rationalized it and rationalized it, I know it's just biology. Mechanism. But I've . . ." her voice trailed away.

  I kissed her shoulder through the fabric.

  "It's as if — with even the nicest men, men like you — I can't help suspecting that they're just using me. As if everyone else was born able to distinguish love and lust. But I wasn't." She lay curled up, head on hand. "I'm so sorry. I'm not abnormal. If you could just be patient with me."

  "Infinitely patient."

  "You're only the second man I've ever told this to."

  I took her hand and kissed it again.

  There was a silence. She turned, gave me a little self-ashamed smile. Her cheeks were red.

  "I think about you all the time."

  "I think about you all the time."

  For a long time we said nothing; lay in the warmth of a new closeness.

  Then the bell rang.

  I said, "To hell with it. I'm not going."

  "You must."

  "No."

  "Please." Such tender regret in her eyes. "If we're going to go on."

  "I'll come tomorrow."

  "We're going away for two days."

  "To Nauplia?"

  "I suppose."

  "There's so much."

  "I know."

  Silence; eyes.

  The bell rang again: dang, dang, dang, dang, dang.

  She stood up.

  "Julie."

  "Nicholas."

  "It seems so simple to me."

  "You must teach me. I'll be your pupil."

  "Wednesday?"

  "I promise."

  We stared at each other intensely for a moment; then I picked up my bag and set off. After a few paces I looked back, and she touched her fingers to her lips. And later still, waved. Twice, three times, till I went out of sight.

  I got to the house. Hermes the donkey driver was waiting there solemnly, but with no air of urgency. He wanted to know if I had my prammata, my things: he had to lock up. I said impatiently, I have them.

  Did I want to ride his donkey back?

  No.

  I went quickly to the gate. Once outside I struck off to the northeast, until I came to a place where I could see the bluff that ran inland along the eastern boundary, and the bay with the three cottages. I leant against a tree, and waited for a pink or a black shape to come running through the trees towards the cottages; or for the sound of a boat beyond Bourani, or down at Moutsa. But the bay lay silent, the afternoon sea stretched out down towards Crete, ninety miles away. The fleet had disappeared. I watched the steepling shadows thrown by some cypresses near the cottages lengthen, stab into the golden earth. An hour passed. And then a small caϊque did come chugging round the headland to the east of the bay. It looked like a small island boat. I could make out a man with a white shirt aboard. It disappeared behind the cliffs of Bourani; but it did not seem to halt, and a quarter of an hour later I could tell it was still heading east, beyond Moutsa. By then I was resigned to not seeing Lily. Perhaps the caϊque had picked them up, although it was the hour when the island fishermen often set out for their night's work.

  So I walked back to the school, temporarily detumescent, but buoyed on by a deep excitement; a clear glimpse of a profound future happiness; of at last having in my hand, after a long run of low cards, the joker and all four aces. Or three, at any rate.

  48

  That same Sunday evening I threw away the thread in the envelope; and I composed letters to Mrs. Holmes at Cerne Abbas, to Mr. P. J. Fearn, and the headmistress of the grammar school. In the first I explained that I had met Julie and June in connection with their film; that the local village schoolmaster had asked me to find a rural school in England that would provide "pen pals"; and that the two girls had suggested that I should write to their mother and ask her to put me in touch with the primary school at Cerne Abbas — and as soon as possible, as our term was ending shortly. In the second I said that I wanted to open an account and that I had been recommended by two customers at the branch. In the third I gave myself the principalship of a language school opening in the autumn in Athens; a Miss Julie Holmes had applied for a post. On Monday I read the drafts through, altered a word or two, then wrote the first two in longhand and laboriously typed the last in the bursar's office, where there was an ancient English-character machine. I knew the third letter was a bit far-fetched; film stars do not normally become down-and-out teachers abroad. But any sort of reply would serve.
/>   And then, deciding I might as well be hung for a suspicious sheep as for a suspicious lamb, I wrote two more letters, one to the Tavistock Rep., and another to Girton, at Cambridge. I posted those five letters; and with them one to Leverrier. I had half hoped that there might be a letter waiting for me from Mitford. But I knew mine to him had probably to be forwarded; and even then he might well not answer it. I made the letter to Leverrier very brief, merely explaining who I was and then saying: My real reason for writing is that I have got into a rather complicated situation at Bourani. I understand that you used to visit Mr. Conchis over there — he told me this himself. I really need the benefit of someone else's advice and experience at the moment. I'd better add that this is not only for myself. Others are involved. We should be very grateful for any sort of reply from you, for reasons that I have a feeling you will appreciate.

  Even as I sealed that letter I knew that Mitford's and Leverrier's silence was the best possible augury of what would happen to me. If in previous years something had happened to annoy them at Bourani, they would surely have talked; and if they were silent, then it must be with the silence of gratitude. I had not forgotten Mitford's story of his row with Conchis; or his warning. But I began to doubt his motives.

  The more I thought about it the surer I was that Demetriades was the spy. The first rule of counterespionage is to look fooled, so I was especially friendly with him after supper on Sunday. We strolled out on the school jetty to get what breaths of air still moved in the oppressive night heat. Yes thank you, Méli, I said, I've had a nice weekend at Bourani. Reading and swimming and listening to music. I even laughed at his obscene guesses as to how I really passed my time there; and I thanked him once again for keeping so-quiet about it all with the other masters.

  As we strolled up and down I looked across the dark water of the straits between the island and the Argolian mainland; there to the west, behind its hill, twenty miles away, lay Nauplia. And I dreamt a sleek white yacht riding in the silent water.

  Wednesday . . . Wednesday.

  49

  I came up to the gate, waited a few moments to listen, heard nothing, and went off the track through the trees to where I could see the house. It lay in silence, black against the last lavender light from the west; there was one light on, in the music room. The scops owl called from somewhere nearby. As I returned to the gate a small black shape slipped overhead and dipped towards the sea between the trees. Conchis, perhaps; the wizard as owl.

  I came out onto the edge of the beach at Moutsa; the beach dark, the water dim, the very faintest night lap.

  She stood, pale ghost, from the chapel wall as soon as I appeared through the trees; a pale ivory skirt with a green hem, a white blouse under a loose long Virginia Woolf-like cardigan garment of the same — almost, in that light, black — dark green. She held up her wrist with the sleeve pushed back. But I hardly glanced at the scar and we took each other's hands. A moment, suddenly shy. Then she came into my arms, and we kissed; she turned her head away almost at once but let me hold her close. It was strange; physical privileges so small that I had taken them with so many other girls for granted — granted to the point of not even realizing they existed — seemed with her things one was lucky to have.

  "I thought you weren't coming."

  "I thought you wouldn't be here."

  "Have you missed me?"

  I kissed the top of her head: a melony perfume in the hair. "Where have you been?"

  "On Maurice's yacht. At Nauplia."

  "Is he here?" She nodded. "And the Negro?"

  "Somewhere."

  "Watching us?"

  "I said I didn't want him watching me all the time. Maurice says he won't. But I don't know." She felt in her cardigan pocket. "He's given me his whistle. To blow if I need help."

  "High opinion of me."

  "It's his same old trick." We began to walk towards the sea. After a moment I put my arm round her shoulders.

  "How long?"

  "Till eleven."

  "By the way. Those names. Tsimbou and Papaioannou. Unknown."

  She nodded. "We guessed."

  We began to walk along the edge of the trees between the water and the forest. "I asked one of the teachers of demotic about Three Hearts. It seems it is a sort of modern Greek classic. But he hadn't heard they were making a film. Obviously." She was silent. "Tell me what you've been doing."

  "Maurice has been alway. He sent us on a cruise. Down to a place called Kyparissi. It was nice. Except that we have to keep out of the sun all the time. Under the awning." I thought of my own two days: catching up on a backlog of marking, a prep duty, the smell of chalk, the smell of boys . . . the split being. She was silent again.

  "Sometimes I feel you're still Lily." She gave a little downbreath of amusement, but said nothing. "Julie?"

  "I'm sorry. I'm being difficult." She bowed her head.

  "What about next weekend?"

  "We're going to discuss it tomorrow."

  "Here?"

  "No. We're going back to Nauplia tonight."

  "What does June think about it all?"

  "She wants us to fly home."

  "Is this what's worrying you?" She nodded. "Where's June now?"

  "At the house. She says you obviously don't care what risks we're running."

  "Because of you."

  "And me because of you." I pressed her shoulder. "She's agreed that we should wait till next weekend."

  The last peacock-blue light hung in the west, over the black headland. It was tropically airless. She stopped for a moment to take off her cardigan coat. I carried it over my free arm, and we went on hand in hand.

  She said, "Whatever happens June won't play that part. I think Maurice knows she won't."

  "Where's he been away to?"

  "I don't know. He only came back tonight." She smiled briefly in the darkness. "On the way here he apologized to me twice more. Advice. About keeping you at arm's length."

  "Which you apparently take."

  We walked perhaps another five steps and then she said, "Please kiss me."

  She turned into my arms. Her mouth twisted under mine in a nervous need to shed all her masks, real and imposed. When we separated she gave me one of those slightly sullen under-the-eyebrows looks girls one has just aroused seem unable to repress. I put my arm round her shoulders again and we went on.

  She said, "I feel so desperate for Englishness sometimes. For knowing where you are with things."

  "I know."

  "Then I think it's cowardly. It's part of growing up, not clinging to England as if we'd drown if we ever let go. But if you hadn't come tonight . .

  We came to where the beach curved away out to the headland. I led her a little way into the trees, up a bill, and then sat down against a pine and made her curl against me. We kissed; tender-mouthed, though I felt too excited for tenderness. She let me undo the top button of her blouse and I caressed her throat, her shoulders. I ran my hand lower over a silky slip — her breast underneath, almost naked. She caught my wrist then, holding my hand still, where it was.

  "Please don't."

  "It's so nice."

  "Please don't. Not because it isn't nice."

  Gently, firmly she pushed my hand out, then sat up; then stood, turned, buttoned her blouse, and swiftly knelt beside me, her face in her hands, elbows on her knees. I stroked her hair.

  "I'm not using you."

  "I know you aren't."

  "Your body's so pretty. It's meant to be caressed."

  She took my hand and kissed it; then let herself be cradled again.

  She said, "Talk to me."

  "What about?"

  "About England. About Oxford, about anything."

  So I talked; and she was touchingly like a child, lying there with her eyes closed, occasionally asking a question, sometimes saying little bits about herself, but mainly content to listen. The sky became dark. I kissed her once or twice, but it became a silent closeness, a lying to
uching, in which time soundlessly hurtled on.

  She made me hold my wrist so that she could see the dial. It was five to eleven. "I must go."

  "Just a few minutes more."

  "I shouldn't . . ." but even while she was saying it her arms came up and around me and as if she had been restraining herself all evening she suddenly began to kiss me with passion. If at the first moment it seemed a degree desperate, more a determination than a desire to be passionate, it soon became real. The kiss went on and on, our positions changed, so that she was lying half on top of me. I could feel rising within me the exasperation of sexual desire, of the feel of encumbering clothes, everything that stands between skin and skin. Finally we were half struggling, half kissing. And then she was pushing, pulling herself away, on her feet, and shrill shock, the whistle sounded. I sprang up and caught her by the arms.

  "Why did you do that?"

  She gave me a racked look, mixed reproach and asking for forgiveness.

  "You make me wild."

  It seemed torn out of her, a kind of self-horror. Then she was in my arms again, being gripped frantically to me and wanting to be gripped, a brutally fierce kiss. But we both heard the quick pad of the running feet. She twisted round and free. Said in a low voice to him, "Stop there."

  He rocked on his feet, as if in two minds, then stood twenty yards away.

  I whispered, "I love you. I'm mad about you."

  She turned back to me; her hair had fallen loose and she looked strange, struck silent, her eyes so intense; as if she had begun to suspect me all over again. I took her face in my hands and drew her a little towards me, then whispered the words again; begging her to believe.

  "I love you."

  She bowed her head, then pulled on her cardigan, saying nothing, but standing so close that it said everything. I pulled her against me for a moment, and then she answered, in a voice so low I hardly heard.

  "I want you to love me."

  A last moment; then she ran past the Negro and down through the trees towards the shingle of the beach. For an instant the mothlike whiteness of her skirt showed; was swallowed up in darkness.

  The Negro leaned against a pine. He was without his mask and I felt more relaxed with him than before; sure that I was the tricker this time, he the tricked.