The Magus, A Revised Version (31 page)

‘
Yes.
’

‘
Along with your twin sister.
’

‘
I was an only child.
’

It was too much. Before she could move, I had knelt up and forced her on her back, gripping her shoulders, so that she had to look me in the eyes. I saw a distinct tinge of fear in hers, and I worked on it.

‘
Now listen. All this is very amusing. But you
’
ve got a twin sister, and you know it. You do these disappearing tricks, and you have this fancy line in period dialogue and mythology and all the rest. But there are a couple of things you can
’
t hide. You
’
re intelligent. And you
’
re as physically real as I am.
’
I gripped her shoulders harder through the thin blouse, and she winced.
‘
I don
’
t know whether you
’
re doing this because you love the old man. Because he pays you. Because it amuses you. I don
’
t know where you and your sister and your other friends hang out. I don
’
t really care, because I think the whole idea
’
s fantastic, I like you, I like Maurice, in front of him I
’
m prepared to play along every
bit as much as you want … but
don
’
t let
’
s take it all so bloody seriously. Play your charade. But for Christ
’
s sake stop flogging a dead horse. Right?
’

I remained staring down into her eyes, and I knew I had won. The fear had given way to a surrender.

She said,
‘
You
’
re killing my back. There
’
s a stone or something.
’

Victory was confirmed; I noted those two verbal contractions.

‘
That
’
s better.
’

I knelt away, then stood and lit a cigarette. She sat up, straightened a little and rubbed her back, I saw there had indeed been a cone where I had pressed her to the ground; then she drew up her knees and buried her face in them. I stared down at her, thinking that I ought to have realized earlier that a little force would do the trick. She buried her face deeper in her knees, her arms enlacing her legs. There was a silence, the pose went on too long. I belatedly realized she was pretending to cry.

‘
That won
’
t wash either.
’

She took no notice for a few seconds, but then she raised her head and looked ruefully up at me. The tears were real, I could see them on her eyelashes. She looked away, as if she were being foolish, then brushed the eyes with the back of her wrist.

I squatted beside her;
off
ered her my cigarette, which she took.

‘
Thanks.
’

‘
I didn
’
t mean to hurt you.
’

She drew on the cigarette, normally, not as a tyro.

‘
I did try.
’

‘
You
’
re
wonderful … you
’
ve no idea how strange this experience has been. Beautifully strange. Only, you know, it
’
s one
’
s sense of reality. It
’
s like gravity. One can resist it only so long.
’

She gave me a shy, and oddly glum, little grimace.
‘
If you only realized how well I know exactly what you mean.
’

I was shown a new vista: the possibility that she had been playing her part under some form of duress.

‘
I
’
m all ears.
’

Once more she looked beyond me.

‘
What you said this morning … there is a kind of script. I
’
m meant to take and show you something. Just a statue.
’

‘
Fine. Lead me to it.
’
I stood up.
She turned and screwed the end
of the cigarette carefully into the ground, then gave me a distinctly submissive glance.

‘
Would you let me just… recover ? Not bully me for five minutes ?
’

I looked at my watch.
‘
I
’
ll even give you six. But not a second more.
’
She reached a hand and I helped her to her feet, but kept the hand.
‘
And I don
’
t call wanting to know better someone I find quite extraordinarily attractive bullying.
’

She lowered her eyes.
‘
She doesn
’
t have to act being … rather less experienced than you.
’

‘
That doesn
’
t make her any less attractive.
’

She said,
‘
It
’
s not far. Just up the hill.
’

We began to walk hand-in-hand up the slope. After a while I squeezed hers, and there was a small pressure back. It was more a promise of friendship than anything sexual, but I found her last remark about herself credible. It was partly her looks, since she had that exceptional delicacy of feature that often goes with a blend of timidity and fastidiousness about physical contact. I sensed, behind the outward daring, the duplicities of the past she had been playing, a delicious ghost of innocence, perhaps even of virginity; a ghost I felt peculiarly well equipped to exorcize, just as soon as time allowed. I had also a return of that headlong, fabulous and ancient sense of having entered a legendary maze; of being infinitely privileged. There was no one in the world I wanted to change places with, now that I had found my Ariadne, and held her by the hand. I knew already that all my past relationships with g
irls, my selfishnesses, caddish
nesses, even that belittling dismissal of Alison to my past that I had just perpetrated, could now be justified. It was always to be this, and something in me had always known it.

She led me through the pines to a point higher than where I had forced my way over the gulley the week before. There was a path across, with some rough-hewn steps. On the other side, over a further little rise, we came on a small hollow, like a minute natural amphitheatre facing the sea. In the centre of its floor, on a pedestal of
unshaped rock, stood the statue. I recognized it at once. It was a copy of the famous Poseidon fished out of the sea near Euboea at the beginning of the century. I had a postcard of it in my room. The superb man stood, his legs astride, his majestic forearm pointed south to the sea, as inscrutably royal, as mercilessly divine as any artefact in the history of humanity; a thing as modern as a Henry Moore and as old as the rock it stood on. Even then I was still surprised that Conchis had not shown it to me before; I knew a replica like that must have cost a small fortune; and to keep it so casually, so in a corner, unspoken of… again I was reminded of de Deukans
–
and of that great dramatic skill, the art of timing one
’
s surprises.

We stood and looked at it. She smiled at my impressed face, then wandered on up to a wooden seat under the shade of an almond tree at the top of the slope behind the statue. One could see the distant sea over the trees, but the statue itself was invisible to anyone close to the shore. She sat naturally, without elegance, tacitly turning her clothes into a costume. It was a kind of undressing. I sat three feet away, and she must have known I was looking at her. The
‘
breathing-space
’
was over. But she avoided my eyes, and said nothing.

‘
Tell me your real name.
’

‘
Don
’
t you like Lily?
’

‘
Splendid. For a Victorian barmaid.
’

She smiled, but in a very token way.
‘
I don
’
t like my real name much better.
’
Then she said,
‘
I was christened Julia, but it
’
s been Julie ever since.
’

‘
Julie what?
’

‘
Holmes.
’
She murmured,
‘
But I
’
ve never lived in Baker Street.
’

‘
And your sister?
’

She hesitated.
‘
You seem very convinced about her.
’

‘
Shouldn
’
t I be?
’

Again she hesitated, then came to a decision.
‘
We were summer born. My parents didn
’
t show great imagination.
’
She shrugged, as if it was silly.
‘
Her name
’
s June.
’

‘
June and Julie.
’

‘
You mustn
’
t tell Maurice.
’

‘
Have you known him long?
’

She shook her head.
‘
But it seems long.
’

‘
How long?
’

She looked down.
‘
I feel a kind of traitor.
’

‘
The last thing I
’
ll do is sneak on you.
’

And again she gave me that look, searching and uncertain, almost reproaching me for being so insistent; but she must have seen I was not going to be put
off
again. She leant forward a little, looking down at the ground.

‘
We were brought here under completely false pretences. A few weeks ago. In a way it
’
s absurd that we haven
’
t walked out.
’

I hesitated, because my mind had leapt at once to Leverrier and Mitford. But I decided to save that card.

‘
You
’
ve never been here before?
’

Her quick look of surprise seemed very genuine.
‘
Why … ?
’

‘
I just wondered.
’

‘
But why do you ask?
’

‘
I thought this might have gone on last year.
’

Her eyes searched mine, full of some suspicion.

‘
Have you heard … ?
’

‘
No, no.
’
I smiled.
‘
Just guessing. Speculating. What were the false pretences?
’

It was a little like goading a recalcitrant mule
–
a very charming mule, but one that seemed scared of every step it took forward. She stared at the ground, searching for words.
‘
I
’
m trying to say that in spite of everything we are here of our own free will. Even though we
’
re not at all sure what
’
s behind … everything that
’
s happening, we do feel a sort of gratitude
–
a kind of trust, really.
’
She paused, and I opened my mouth, but she flashed me a glance of appeal.
‘
Please let me finish.
’
She put her hands to her cheeks for a moment.
‘
It
’
s so difficult to explain. But we both feel we owe him a lot. And the point is, if I answer all the questions I fully understand you must be burning to ask, it … it would be like telling you the story of a mystery film just before you went to see it.
’

‘
But surely you can tell me how you got into the film.
’

‘
Not really. Because that
’
s part of the plot.
’

Once again I was losing her. A huge bronze maybug boomed round the upper branches of the almond. The statue below stood in the sun and eternally commanded the wind and the sea. I watched her face in the shadow, hanging a little, almost timid now.

‘
You
’
re, I don
’
t know, being paid to do this?
’

She hesitated.
‘
Yes, but

‘
But what?
’

‘
It
’
s not that. The money.
’

‘
Just now, down there, you didn
’
t seem at all sure you liked what he
’
s making you do.
’

‘
It
’
s because we never know how much of what he tells us can be believed. You mustn
’
t think we know everything where you know nothing.
“
We
’
ve been told a lot more about what he
’
s trying to do. But it may only be more lies.
’
She shrugged.
‘
If you like we
’
re a few steps further into the maze. That doesn
’
t mean we
’
re any nearer the centre than you.
’

I left a silence.
‘
You have acted at home?
’

‘
Yes. Not really professionally.
’

‘
At university?
’

She had a wry smile.
‘
There
’
s something else. There is a sense in which he perhaps can hear everything we say. I can
’
t tell you how, but I think you
’
ll understand by the end of today.
’
She quickly forestalled my scepticism.
‘
Nothing to do with telepathy. That
’
s just a blind. A metaphor.
’

‘
Then what?
’

‘
If I tell you … it would spoil it. I will tell you one thing. It
’
s a unique experience. Quite out of this world. Literally out of this world.
’

‘
You
’
ve had it?
’

‘
Yes. It
’
s one reason June and I have decided to trust him. It
’
s not something that could be created by an evil mind.
’

‘
I
still don
’
t understand how he can hear what we say.
’

She contemplated the empty miles of sea.
‘
If I
’
m not explaining, it
’
s also because I
’
m not sure that he won
’
t hear because you tell him.
’

‘
For God
’
s sr.ke, I
’
ve just said
–
I wouldn
’
t dream of giving you away.
’

She looked briefly at me, then out to sea again. Her voice dropped.
‘
We
’
re not sure if you
’
re what you say you are
–
what Maurice has told us you are.
’

‘
But that
’
s mad!
’

‘
I
’
m only trying to explain that you aren
’
t the only person who
doesn
’
t know what to believe. You could be hiding from us. In spite of appearances.
’

‘
You only have to cross the island. The school
’
s there. Ask anyone.
’
I said,
‘
And what about all the others here?
’

‘
They
’
re not English. And absolutely under Maurice
’
s thumb. We hardly see them, anyway. They
’
ve only been here very briefly.
’

‘
You mean I
’
ve been hired to fool you?
’

‘
It is possible.
’

‘
Jesus.
’
I looked at her, trying to force her to admit it was ridiculous; but she remained obstinately serious.
‘
Come on. Nobody could act that well.
’

That did extract a faint smile.
‘
I have rather felt that.
’

‘
Surely you can get away
– I
can take you round the school.
’

‘
He
’
s made it very clear that I mustn
’
t do that.
’

‘
It would only be paying him back in kind.
’

‘
The irony is, I…
’
but she shook her head.

‘
Julie, you
can
trust me.
’

She took a breath.
‘
The irony is that I
’
m not even sure that I
’
m not meant to break the rules. He is the most fantastic person. Hide-and-seek … it
’
s really much more like blind man
’
s buff. Being spun so much that you lose all sense of direction. You begin to see double, triple meanings in everything he says and does.
’

‘
Then break the rules. And see what happens.
’

Again she hesitated, then gave me a rather more sincere smile. It seemed to suggest both that she wanted to trust me and that I must be patient with her.

‘
Would you like it if this whole thing was called
off
? Ended tomorrow?
’