(1958) Robinson

by Muriel Spark

  I wandered round the room, looking at Robinson’s books behind their glass, and recalling my first repulsion to the neat sets carefully arranged, at this moment I could not see why they had affected me in this way. The book-cases were graceful and the glass fronts enhanced their dignity. And I could think of numerous respectable people who kept their books behind glass. The books themselves seemed admirable, quite enviable; thirty-eight volumes of Bohn’s Antiquarian Library, twelve volumes of Bohn’s Historical Library, a run of Johnson’s Lives of the Poets, a number of Pickering reprints, a complete set of the works of Hegel in German alongside some handsome impressive philosophers — Bosanquet, and some whose names I now learned for the first time, Green, Caird, Wallace. The major English and German poets, nothing minor, but possibly Robinson did not care for poetry. There were also numerous publications of the Bacon Society, and I thought, why not? Shakespeare isn’t a religion. Some bound monographs of the Aristotelian Society, the complete Golden Bough. All the Greek dramatists and the Greek and Roman philosophers in the Loeb Classics. Lamennais, Von Hügel, Lacordaire, hundreds of others, and in a case by themselves, the uncut first editions.

  When I had first seen the books I had felt sickly, had thought: whole sets of everything. Big names everywhere. But now, after all, it was a reference library, suitable for an island.

  I opened a book-case by the window wall, where the light was poor, and peering close I found the top shelves filled with mystical theology, about a hundred books — writings of the Christian mystics, concordances and commentaries. The lower shelves were occupied by patristic literature in Latin and Greek, and all the English volumes of the Library of the Fathers. Placed to the left of these, a corner book-case was devoted to the Marian section, all heavily thumbed and annotated. I thought, well, poor Robinson did at least give thought to the question, Ian Brodie only gives his screeching disapproval supported by misapplied theological quotations.

  ‘Should you desire to possess some of the volumes around us, please to make a choice.’ This was Jimmie, standing in the door of Robinson’s study. ‘Please to retain those which you fancy.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t take Robinson’s books,’ I said.

  ‘Is not now the property of Robinson,’ he said mournfully. ‘Is mine.’

  Jimmie would not avoid me, and so prove his innocence. It was like a game, I played the pipe and he would not dance. I went out of my way to be by his side, watching surreptitiously to see if he flinched from contact with me. He seemed only relieved by this apparent melting on my part. Clearly, I argued with myself, he did not suspect me of murdering Robinson, and his remark, ‘You are strong,’ had been, most likely, intended to check my intrusive suspicions of himself, as who, whether innocent or not, should say, ‘Be careful. If you blame me, I can equally blame you.’

  At times I asked myself, what purpose is served by the worry? what was Robinson to you? why bother? It was, I thought, always desirable that justice should be done, but I had never thought of myself as an avenger, a hunter-down of evil. It was one thing to applaud justice, another to bring it about. My fervour surprised me, of course. One thing I do know: I was just as anxious to prevent injustice as to cause justice. There, I was personally endangered, and I could not help feeling that so, to a greater extent, was Jimmie. In fact, without evidence, I suspected Tom Wells of the murder.

  And because Jimmie would not treat me as a candidate for the crime, rather than put this down to his guilt I concluded that he, too, had fixed on Tom Wells as the criminal.

  It had come as a new idea to me that the island now belonged to Jimmie. Soon afterwards, when Tom Wells and Miguel were out of the way, I said to him,

  ‘We ought to discuss the murder.’

  ‘Is not to be endured. I lose my nerves.’

  ‘If the island is yours, you are responsible for what happens. You must call a conference.’

  ‘Wherefore a conference? Is enough that I grieve in my heart.’

  I had not intended confiding in Jimmie, but his answer annoyed me, it struck me as irresponsible.

  I said, ‘Tom Wells is a killer.’

  Jimmie said, ‘As for my part, I do not accuse.’

  I stood by the open door, actually ready to run for it in case of trouble, since really I knew very little of Jimmie, and said, ‘If it wasn’t him it must have been you, Jimmie.’

  ‘Not so,’ he said.

  ‘In that case,’ I said, ‘you believe me to be the murderer.’

  ‘Please not to utter such a declaration.’

  ‘Look here,’ I said, ‘you don’t suppose Miguel——’

  ‘Is not within reason. I do not study to accuse.’

  ‘Then perhaps you share the view,’ I said, ‘with Wells that Robinson was stabbed by a spook?’

  ‘Is folly,’ he said, ‘to imagine such an irrational occurrence.

  ‘What is your opinion?’

  ‘Opinion? Alas, is not a time for opinions. I sorrow, I lose my nerves.’

  After that I reluctantly and tentatively placed Jimmie again under suspicion.

  Less than three weeks remained before the pomegranate boat was due. Miguel was off his food. When we managed, by coaxing, to get him to eat something he frequently vomited half an hour later. Sometimes he lay in a fever which lasted about two hours. We dosed and injected him, but his sickness kept recurring. We put it down to ‘the terrible strain’, without ever mentioning of what. In between his sick attacks he lolled about the patio with Tom Wells, or followed me about the house. He did not seem to take to Jimmie. Not that he took against him, it was only that he seemed to regard Jimmie as a fool, not worth considering.

  I often wondered how he worked out Robinson’s death in his mind, and whether the question of its cause and agency had occurred to him at all. He was not apparently afraid of us, but had acquired a general nerviness.

  I found it hard to believe that Robinson had made no provision for Miguel in the event of his death. I said to Jimmie, ‘Robinson must have left a will. Perhaps it is among his papers. Perhaps the island is not yours, after all.’

  ‘Is mine, as I have knowledge, seeing that I already discover the will of Robinson among his papers.’

  ‘Well, you might have mentioned it before.’

  ‘Is our family business.’

  ‘Ah well, so is the murder, I suppose.’

  ‘Is so, mayhaps.’

  ‘What is to happen to Miguel?’

  ‘Is our family business. I take him to the aunties.’

  On Thursday, the 22nd of July, a plane flew fairly high over the island. There was a drizzle that day. I was in Robinson’s study at the time making a rosary for Miguel out of a string of amber beads that had been amongst the salvage. I had become quite callous about the salvage, and had already made free of the frocks.

  Miguel’s temperature was normal that day, though he was still sickly and restless. He had been wandering about the house, watching Tom Wells at his writing and me at my rosary making, and he had drifted silently down to the mustard field where Jimmie had already erected his memorial to Robinson and was now carving some words on the base. About half-past two in the afternoon Miguel came bursting into the house.

  ‘There’s an aeroplane coming over from the sky.’

  Outside I could see the mist was partially covering the island from the west. The plane approached from the north-east. Jimmie had hurried in from the mustard field and made for the gun-room where the rockets were kept. I fetched the big red signal kite from Robinson’s study and brought it out to the patio where I found Tom Wells gazing skyward and clutching his ribs. The plane was over the island and away before Jimmie came back to demand the key of the gun-room which I kept on a string round my neck.

  I handed him the kite. ‘Unwind it,’ I said. ‘I’ll fetch the rockets.’

  ‘Too late,’ said Tom Wells, ‘the plane’s gone.’

  ‘It may come back.’

  There was insufficient breeze to carry the kite but we
fired rockets at intervals throughout the afternoon and the following night. There was no further sign of the plane, which must have observed nothing special to report about our island, a minute green rock in the Atlantic. But the excitement of our rockets far into the night had a good effect on Miguel. Although he had a fever next morning, he was in better spirits and by the afternoon he was recovered. As there was a high breeze that day, I gave him Robinson’s splendid red kite with its long sequin tail which previously had been forbidden to him. I showed him how to fly it, and as he stood unwinding, holding the heavy apparatus with difficulty, he said,

  ‘Is it mine to keep?’

  ‘See if you can signal the aeroplane to come back,’ I said.

  ‘Is it mine to keep?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask Jimmie,’ I said.

  ‘Does it belong to Jimmie now that Robinson’s dead?’ he said, quite casually, with his eye on the kite.

  ‘Yes. The island belongs to Jimmie.’

  I could see that he was beginning to forget his loss of Robinson, less than three weeks after his death, and I was thankful, because his brooding had been a worry; and I wondered if Brian, though older and different, might by now have accepted my death.

  The pomegranate boat was expected between the eight and tenth of August. I allowed myself to sit gazing out to sea in the hope that it would appear before time, and also in dread, since the boat would find us with a murder on our hands. Meanwhile I made the rosary for Miguel. It was a difficult process, for the tiny holes in the golden beads were too small for the needle; and as I had to make each hole larger with a canvas-bodkin, I worked slowly. I had not quite finished it when Jimmie announced the completion of the memorial. Miguel and I went down to the mustard field. The memorial had been placed at the spot where Robinson’s blood-stained jacket and the clasp-knife had been found. It consisted of a wooden cross, very neatly made and joined, although the left arm was longer than the right, and the shaft was set at a slight angle. On the plain block base was inscribed in uneven lettering,

  IN MEMORIAM

  MILES MARY ROBINSON

  1903 — 1954

  This filled up the whole of the space on the front of the block. ‘Is no further room for R.I.P.,’ said Jimmie. ‘Initially I did aim to insert R.I.P. but is not possible. The first letters I create too tall, and then, behold, is no more space.’

  Miguel said to Jimmie, pointing at the memorial, ‘Is that Robinson?’

  ‘How is it that you mean?’ said Jimmie.

  Miguel looked baffled at this question and though Jimmie pressed him he would not answer. I supposed he thought of the memorial as a sort of statue of Robinson when, later on in the house, he asked me, ‘Why is one of Robinson’s arms longer than the other?’ and after considering his meaning I said, ‘Oh, you mean the memorial?’ And sometimes, though he referred to it as the memorial, he seemed to hold some sort of pathetic fallacy: ‘Won’t the memorial be cold out there all night?’ He seemed to feel that Robinson’s real presence had been transformed into the memorial. It was always impossible to know exactly what was going on in his mind.

  The more I pondered the murder the more did I come to think of Robinson as a kind of legendary figure since it was hard to believe that only a few weeks had passed since he had led me on my first visit to the Furnace. Perhaps, even at that time, he had assumed near-mythical dimensions in my eyes. I saw him now as an austere sea-bound hero, a noble heretic who, to follow his mystical destiny, had hidden himself away from the world with only a child-disciple for company. I supposed he had recognised in Miguel a strong unformed religious potentiality. Robinson himself was essentially a religious man. Jimmie had once, in the manner of one who had a relative bitten with an eccentric ambition, referred to Robinson’s desire for spiritual advancement. In thinking of Robinson, I had to perform an act of imaginative distortion in that I could not think of him as a part of the present tense, a human creature who had been born into a particular age and at a particular point of developed doctrine—I vaguely thought of him as having no proper station in life like the rest of us. I thought of his rescue work at the time of the crash, his nursing us to health, the burial of the dead, and his patience with our ungrateful intrusion into his elected solitude. That he should have met his end at the hands of one of his beneficiaries seemed to me the essence of his tragedy. And in this interesting light he took on the heroic character of a pagan pre-Christian victim of expiation.

  I used to spend a lot of time in Robinson’s rooms, recalling his attempts to entertain us with his Rossini recordings, and sometimes imparting information about the history and legends of the island. Robinson’s evenings had clearly been an effort to him; I recalled the prevalent feeling of his trying to bring order out of chaos in a schoolmasterly way, never really trusting the evening to go smoothly unless he organised it for us.

  I was surprised at the clarity and number of his incidental remarks, which my memory, like a recording instrument, now played back to me. And for the first time I recalled certain pieces of information which I had not really listened to when Robinson had imparted them.

  He had told us that if the island was the southernmost part of Atlantis, as the legends suggested, this would extend the current speculations about the size of Atlantis by fifteen hundred miles. The island had been a peninsula, famous for its pomegranate orchards which had been planted by King Arthur. Another legend told of a beautiful northern princess who had been carried there by a half-human demon and imprisoned in the mountain beneath the Furnace. From there her screams attracted a shepherd who gallantly threw himself in the Furnace to be imprisoned with her. The scream could still be heard whenever the crater was disturbed by an object entering it. The lovers can only be released if a priest is prepared to bless them and die immediately afterwards. Another group of legends claimed the island to be the home of the Greek Hesperus, and assigned an oracular function to the Furnace.

  Chance fragments of Robinson’s conversation recurred to me at this time, although when he told these stories I had usually been thinking of something else, had been occupied with Jimmie’s intriguing qualities, or burned-up with irritation at Tom Wells, or daydreaming about Chelsea. In fact, it was not until some months after I had left the island, when I was questioned about its history, that I remembered points in Robinson’s conversations that I had previously forgotten. And even now I keep remembering new facts which Robinson gave us then, night after night, as if compelled to do so lest we should run amok.

  When I sat in Robinson’s rooms summoning up his presence, it was not only the substance of his conversation that returned to me, but also the tone of his voice, even, rhythmical, almost a chant, which had a slightly mesmeric effect:

  ‘The history is obscure….

  ‘Traditional hermits’ home. Five of them … one on each Arm, one on each Leg, and one….

  ‘A few Arabs, Danes….

  ‘A line of Portuguese have successively owned the island.

  ‘Yes, eccentrics, I daresay….

  ‘The history is obscure….

  ‘The island has always been privately owned.

  ‘Bought and sold….

  ‘Smugglers’ hide-out, of course….

  ‘Too small to need more than nominal protection….

  ‘Ruling powers not really interested….

  ‘The history is obscure….

  ‘Most of the craters active six hundred years ago….

  ‘Vasco da Gama’s fleet nosed in….’

  In the late afternoon of the day when Jimmie finished the memorial I mooned round Robinson’s rooms, flicking a duster, touching books and almost hearing his voice intone on the subject of the island. On a side table lay his reading glasses face-down with the shafts upright, in the position in which he had left them. From curiosity, and because I had been considering the peculiar essence of Robinson, I tried on the glasses . Usually when, for some idle reason, I have tried on other people’s glasses everything has looked out of focus,
has appeared to swim, as if I were unwell. I expected some mild sensation of this kind when I tried on Robinson’s glasses, but I did not expect what happened. The room swung over and round in a swivel movement. The books leaped from the shelves and piled over the carpet. Everything on the tables and the desk whirled on to the floor, and even then did not stay still. I myself staggered and reeled with the room, and as I clung to the back of a heavy leather chair the El Greco Agony flew off the wall, to which it had been very tightly clamped, just missing me. As for Robinson’s glasses, they had not been on my nose for the space of a blink, but I did not need their absence to tell me that the room was rocking in any case, without their aid. The pitch and toss grew gradually milder. I fixed my eye on one of the books spread open on the floor. It steadied up, so that I could see the book-plate on the inside of the cover, and it remained quite still, ‘Nun-quam minus solus quam cum solus.’ I caught sight of Miguel running past the window with a grin on his face. He came inside and opened the study door, smiling excitedly.

  ‘Mr. Tom is under his bed,’ he said.

  ‘Do you often have earthquakes here?’

  ‘I think so. Jimmie has cut his hand on a piece of glass.’

  ‘Are they all as severe as this?’ I said.

  ‘All what?’

  ‘Severe. Bad. Are they all bad, like this?’

  ‘They aren’t bad. Robinson said so.’

  ‘I call it bad,’ I said.

  ‘Mr. Tom is under his bed.’

  Tom Wells must have emerged from his shelter, for he was now crossing the patio looking pale, flabby and troubled, in the half-light.

  ‘Where’s your boy-friend?’ he said sharply to me.

  Jimmie emerged from the kitchen door with his hand bound in a towel like a huge stump.

  ‘I have received a shock,’ he said.

  ‘Look here, Waterford,’ said Tom Wells, ‘you own this island, don’t you?’

  ‘Is mine,’ said Jimmie, unwinding the towel slightly, then quickly, at the sight of his blood, replacing the fold.