(1958) Robinson

by Muriel Spark

  Towards the end of the second tunnel we had to stoop very low, and to crawl for several yards, the smell of the Furnace increasing as we approached the exit. The cave widened gradually, and still stooping we assisted our progress by clutching at various shelves and protrusions in the walls. The last few steps, and I slipped, grazing my knee. Jimmie heaved me up, and it was not until we were standing outside that he handed me the automatic which, unnoticed by me, had fallen out of my pocket when I fell.

  ‘Thanks, Jimmie,’ I said, giving him a sort of pleasant smile.

  But he was not deceived; he seemed to expect such tactics from me.

  It was impossible to be near the Furnace without being drawn to gaze into it. . We walked across to the crater’s edge and stood staring into the wide bubbling basin. Jimmie unlodged a rock and shoved it down the slide. It entered the turmoil with a scream. I looked up, and caught him watching my face. It came to me with a shock that he might be testing my reaction to the scream. I had never thought that I myself could be under suspicion. Immediately, of course, I felt myself to be looking guilty, and quickly to cover it I said, ‘That scream makes me feel ill’, which immediately seemed the wrong thing to say. That I should be thought a potential killer was a large new idea. Nervously, I unloosed a rock substantially bigger than that which Jimmie had thrown in, and I sent it screaming into the Furnace. I suppose my intention was to prove that I was not really afraid of the scream. Jimmie looked at the large patch of earth from which I had heaved the boulder, and remarked, ‘You are strong.’

  Just then, from the depth of the turbulent mud there came a sudden splutter, followed by a loud sigh. Jimmie looked as startled as I was, but instantly I remembered that Robinson had told me, of the Furnace, ‘Sometimes it sighs.’

  I said to Jimmie, ‘Did you get a fright?’

  ‘Ah, no.’

  I said, ‘I thought you had lost your nerve.’

  He said, ‘Is not at this moment that I lose my nerves. Is when I have descended from the skies into this island of sorrows.’

  Our last excursion under the mountain took forty minutes. This tunnel we approached by a grotto on the narrow beach of Vasco da Gama’s Bay, at the North Arm. The light was so refracted from its walls that one did not see, until one had fairly penetrated the cave, that a flight of steps had been hacked out of the rock, leading into a deep dark pit. It smelt of lime and lava, and a fairly deep stream gurgled along the floors at about twenty feet below sea level. The path along the edge of the river was jagged and slippery. Miguel produced a rope from a corner of the cave where it had been left in readiness, and bade us make a chain, walking in single file clutching the rope. He showed off a bit, which was a cheering sight, and I saw that Jimmie, too, smiled. Eventually we came to a precipitous dip, where further steps had been hewn in the path. The stream here splashed over the underground rocks in a waterfall which drenched us with its spray. At the foot of these steps a boat was moored. The tunnel spread wide, and now the stream covered the whole ground. Miguel warned us that it was too deep to wade through. We got into the boat, and splashed along for a few yards until we came to a circular chamber of the tunnel, over which Jimmie flashed his torch. Its walls were fluted fan-wise like the surface of a shell. Here the river ended in a large pool which swirled in a constant eddy. We landed on a mooring stage at the far shore and from there climbed steadily to the light and air of the exit at the North Arm. It was a boulder-strewn landscape which, if one half-closed one’s eyes, resembled a battle-field newly deserted. On our return late that afternoon Tom Wells said, ‘Been through all the caves?’

  Jimmie said, ‘Yes, but they lack.’

  ‘Lack what?’

  ‘Robinson,’ said Jimmie. ‘Naturally,’ said Wells.

  Chapter IX

  I WAS on the patio, pulling faces, when I noticed Tom Wells standing in the shadow of the fountain. I do not know how long he had been standing there, watching me.

  The object of my facial contortions was to attempt to discover what it felt like to be Jimmie and Tom Wells respectively. My method was not infallible, but it sometimes served as an aid to perception. I had practised it since childhood. You simply twist your face into the expression of the person whose state of mind and heart you wish to know, and then wait to see what sort of emotions you feel. I had begun with Jimmie. First I considered myself to be standing high and lean, very fair, with a straight wide mouth; and I pulled my mouth straight and wide, I made my eyes close down at the far corners, widening at the inner corners; I raised my eyebrows and furrowed my brow; I put my tongue inside my lower lip, pulled my chin long; my nose, so concentratedly did I imagine it, curving up slightly at the bridge. Then I was self-consciously Jimmie. I said ‘Is so’, and nodded my head sagely. A sense of helplessness came over me, and I said to myself, though not aloud, ‘I lose my nerves.‘ I placed Robinson in the picture and was filled with awe and exasperation by his standing before me, righteous, austere, a living rebuke. I clasped the fingers of my right hand round an invisible knife, but I did not stab. I was overwhelmed with cousinly love. Widening the inner corner of my eyes, and moving my straight lips soundlessly, I said, ‘Is the motor-scooter business’, and Robinson replied, ‘I have no need of motor-scooters on the island.’ But still Jimmie did not stab him, and, as I resumed my normal face, I did not see how he could, in fact, have done so.

  I do not know how much of this pantomime was observed by Tom Wells, concealed in the shadow of the fountain, for I had not seen him yet.

  Next, I was Tom Wells. I placed my legs solidly apart and sat staring ahead with my bag of lucky charms on my lap, some of them spread out on the patio by my side. I opened my mouth and let the lower lip droop. I turned down the corners of my mouth, and pressed my chin down to make other chins, as flabby as I could think them to be. My skin was mottled and scored with red veins. I rounded my eyes, made them small and light blue, rather watery, and felt beneath them the drag of sallow pouches. My hair was crinkly, partly grey. Moving my lower lip freely I formed the words, ‘We’re lucky to be alive. A very natural type of woman is my wife.’ I had a profound sensation of heat, of sweating about the neck, and my hands were podgy and damp. A longing came over me for the region of Piccadilly Circus and Soho on a summer afternoon; Dean Street, Frith Street, with the dust and paper on the pavement, the smell of garlic and thin people scuttling shiftily from door to door, plump men on business, small men popping out of shops in their grey suits and rimless glasses. I longed to be there. But in the middle of this longing I thought, ‘No, this isn’t Tom Wells. I’m doing Curly Lonsdale.’

  And so I started again, the round pouchy eyes, the chin. This time I smiled Tom Wells’ smile, which was unlike Curly’s, and which showed his upper gums. This made all the difference, and I felt myself raging against the inconvenience of the plane crash, still showing the gums in the smile, and suffering a sensation of furious impatience at the waste of time, the loss of money, and the doubtful fate of my magazine Your Future. The more I felt this anger, the more I smiled. When Robinson appeared before me and said ‘How are you feeling to-day?’ I clutched my ribs and said, ‘Pretty bad. But we’re lucky to be alive,’ meanwhile closing my fingers round Ethel of the Well, and wishing upon her, ‘Bring me luck, Ethel. Don’t let Henry marry my wife. Make the Airline company pay compensation. Make the insurance pay up. Make Robinson pay up. Ethel of the Well changed into a knife. Robinson had stolen my lucky charms. He had done away with my luck. I kept on smiling. ‘Where’s Ethel, what have you done to Ethel?’ I mouthed. Robinson replied, ‘They are bad for Miguel. They are evil.’ I desired to murder Robinson but I couldn’t bring Tom Wells to do that to a goose that might yet lay eggs of gold. Instead, I said contemptuously, ‘Talking of evil, how’s your boyfriend?’ Robinson looked at me wearily and walked away. I was still smiling after him with the loose moist lower lip curling like a cup and the wet artificial gums glistening above the top teeth, when I noticed Tom Wells himself in the shadow of the fountain,
watching me with his smile. When he saw that he had been observed he nodded, as if to say, ‘I can see you.’ He walked across to me and said, ‘Feeling all right?’ I had not pulled my face straight immediately, hoping to mislead him into thinking there was some obvious physical cause for my facial contortions. Instead, I screwed up my eyes and wrinkled my nose, finally passing my hand in an exaggerated gesture across my eyes. I said, ‘The sun’s horribly strong. I have a headache.‘ I screwed up my face again so that there should be no mistake.

  He stopped smiling and looked at me closely.

  ‘Things worrying you, honey?’

  ‘Oh, just the sun. It gives me a headache.’

  I was actually sitting in the shadow of the house and the sun was shining on the opposite half of the patio. Still, it gave off a plausible glare.

  ‘Silly to sit out of doors if the sun gives you a headache,’ said Wells.

  ‘Oh, I like the fresh air.’

  ‘Where’s your boy-friend?’ he said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Pardon me,’ he said, ‘I should have said, Robinson’s boy-friend.’

  I did not reply.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘boy-friend isn’t the word after all. Boy’s the word. But hardly friend. Do you get me?’

  ‘I did get your meaning,’ I said, ‘the first time.’

  ‘Oh, you did?’ he said.

  I said, ‘If you have any complaint against Jimmie, you must make it to him.’

  He said, ‘Faithful forever. Well, you’ve no competition now, have you?’

  I went indoors. It was a question whether I was under suspicion and by whom, for the murder of Robinson. I kept thinking of Jimmie’s remark, ‘You are strong.’ Could it reasonably be held that I could have stabbed Robinson, and alone dragged him all the way from the mustard field to the Furnace? The question disturbed me profoundly for two main reasons. One, that my physical ability being proved, I might, when our existence on the island was discovered and the murder disclosed, be under equal suspicion as a killer with Tom Wells and Jimmie. Motives would be probed: what were Mrs. Marlow’s relations with the dead man? Friendly, unfriendly? I thought of other unanswerable questions that might be asked. I reflected, also, that if Jimmie truly thought it possible that I had killed Robinson, he himself was obviously innocent. The same applied to Tom Wells.

  I went into Robinson’s study and stood by his tidy desk. I lifted a corner of the desk. It was heavy. Still holding the end of the desk, tilted about nine inches above the ground, I looked at Robinson’s eight-day clock. I watched four aching minutes pass until my arms and fingers gave out. It was not a bad effort, and my strength was not impaired but for the terrible pain in my arms and hands. I supposed that it was not an improbable idea that I could drag Robinson’s body up the mountain. I had heard that some types of murderers have access to superhuman strength in the hour of their kill.

  It was the beginning of our eleventh week on the island, two weeks since Robinson’s disappearance. I had recovered my senses; the stunned feeling had gone. My moods were like a pendulum. In the mornings I was jumpy with impatience and indignation, longing to be active, to clear up the mystery and know where we stood. Towards evening I would feel desolate and nostalgic, brooding on Robinson.

  The blue exercise book which Robinson had given me for my journal was full. I took some loose sheets from the drawer of Robinson’s desk, the very drawer in which I had discovered the rosary, and this too troubled me. However, I set to write as I had intended.

  Journal, Monday 19th July.

  Supposing that

  1) Robinson was murdered by one man only.

  2) And that he was killed by stabbing with the knife, in the mustard field, probably between midnight on the 2nd July and dawn on the 3rd.

  3) That the murderer carried him to the Furnace.

  4) The evidence of this journey, the track of blood, being impossible to conceal, the murderer decided to confuse the evidence. Various garments and objects were soaked in Robinson’s blood and scattered indiscriminately along the route.

  I note that

  5) All the blood-soaked garments we found were either the possessions of Jimmie, myself or Robinson, or had been lent to Jimmie and me by Robinson. Nothing was found belonging to Tom Wells or Miguel.

  6) The murderer must be one physically capable of carrying or dragging Robinson’s body over the mountain to the Furnace.

  7) Therefore Miguel is not questionable, although an official investigator may have to rule out the possibility of his being an accomplice.

  8) From my point of view, the suspects are Jimmie Waterford and Tom Wells. One is innocent, the other guilty.

  9) Motives. Jimmie Waterford inherits Robinson’s fortune. The disposition of the fortune was under discussion at the time of Robinson’s death. The discussions were proving unfavourable to Jimmie.

  10) I may remark that he is Robinson’s cousin, was brought up by Robinson’s mother, and was emotionally attached to Robinson.

  11) Also I observe that my friendship with Jimmie did not please Robinson, and one may suppose some discussion on this subject had taken place.

  12) Further, I note that Jimmie himself told me the facts of his inheritance. One may think this was strange, if he meditated murder for gain.

  13) Tom Wells had a grievance against Robinson for taking away his lucky charms. He discovered the loss of his bag on the night of 2nd July, during which Robinson disappeared.

  14) Wells was of the belief, or said he was of the belief, that a homosexual relationship existed between Jimmie and Robinson.

  15) As he conveyed this sentiment to me, he also expressed personal horror.

  16) I observe that Tom Wells, whether sincerely or not, ascribes the cause of Robinson’s death to a supernatural agency.

  17) And that Tom Wells exaggerates his injury. He runs about playing the fool with Miguel in the hot sun, but when there is any useful exertion demanded of him he clasps his ribs as if in pain.

  Other Observations:

  18) Jimmie Waterford’s relations with Robinson, though they were unsatisfactory, were not acrimonious.

  19) Tom Wells’ mind is opaque. One cannot tell the extent of his superstitions, whether they could so obsess him as to provoke murder, whether the removal of his samples by Robinson was sufficient cause. Of course, one side of his personality is simply materialistic, the other side extremely problematic. (Can he be mad? Can he have murdered unawares?)

  20) Further considerations. The innocent man will necessarily speculate on the identity of the murderer. His suspicions may fall on the other man. However, he will not be able to rule out the possibility that I am the murderer.

  21) It may be expected that the innocent party will avoid as far as possible the company of the likely suspects, e.g. if Jimmie is innocent he will not wish to associate very closely with Wells and me. He may fear us. Wells, if he is innocent, should also react accordingly.

  22) The murderer, on the other hand, may wish to maintain a friendly position with his companions, he will be eager to do so, for security’s sake.

  23) Is it possible to infer guilt or innocence from such attitudes? If Jimmie does not try to avoid Wells and me as if we were potentially dangerous and murderous, does it follow that he is guilty?

  24) There remains the question, whether Robinson was killed single-handed.

  25) Jimmie is making a memorial to Robinson, consisting of a plain wooden cross on a stand.

  I put down the pencil and wished I were at home in Chelsea where once, in the middle of the night, hearing voices and footsteps in the small paved back garden, simply by lifting the telephone I caused policemen to spring up all over the premises as from the dragon’s teeth. The police were instantly at the front door and over the garden wall. They marched through the hall and crowded through the kitchen to the back door. Just when they had got the man, another consignment braked up outside, while round the corner of the street four more came walking two abreast at
their steady, doom-like and almost contemplative pace. It is true that a dangerous armed lunatic was at this time at large in the district. My intruder turned out to be only the lover of my upstairs lodger making his getaway before dawn. But I appreciated the attention of the Force, as I told it many times as it streamed out of the house, dark blue and corporate, into its line of cars beneath the lamplight.

  Telling Agnes about the incident because there was so little to talk to Agnes about, I yet felt wearily sure Ian Brodie would have something to say about it. He said, next day on the telephone, ‘You must give that whore a week’s notice. A woman in your position can easily let herself in for___‘

  ‘How about minding your own business?’

  For in any case, even if I had very much wanted to, I would not have had the courage to make a fuss with the girl on such an issue; a woman in my position can easily let herself in for ridicule, can easily be marked down for a wishful widow, and the awful thing about those sort of insinuations, you never know, they might be true.

  ‘Well, if you want to keep a disorderly house…. Ian said, his voice rising an octave on the word ‘want’.

  What struck me as I sat at Robinson’s desk with my murder-dossier in front of me was wonder at how I had ever found any resemblance between squeaky Ian Brodie and solemn Robinson.

  On the walls were two engravings by Blake, an El Greco reproduction, and a remarkable picture, by or in the manner of Stubbs, of a splendid chestnut horse surrounded by rather wooden people. The question kept tapping at the door, how to reconcile Robinson’s tastes, what had been his centre? And yet since people do have inconsistencies of taste, or merely inherit the objects they have around them, this question had only symbolic importance. I was thinking of the mystery of his death; all the time I snooped around his rooms I tried to locate his destiny: what indication had he carried about within him, that he should die by murder, at whose hands?