The Magus, A Revised Version (47 page)

‘
He keeps saying I must keep you at arm
’
s length. Runs you down.
’
She flicked ash on the tiles, and smiled.
‘
He even apologized for your being so slow-witted the other day. I thought that was rather rich, considering you
’
d seen through the Lily thing in the first five seconds.
’

‘
He hasn
’
t tried to sell you the idea that I
’
m some kind of assistant
–
a young psychiatrist?
’

I could see that that both surprised and unsettled her. She hesitated.
‘
No. But it had crossed our minds.
’
Then she added,
‘
Are you?
’

I grinned.
‘
He told me just now that he
’
d extracted it from you under hypnosis. That it
’
s what you suspect. We must watch it, Julie. He wants us on a quicksand.
’

She put out her cigarette.
‘
And also to realize we are?
’

‘
The last thing he can really want is to drive us apart.
’

‘
Yes, that
’
s what we feel.
’

‘
So the enigma is why?
’
She gave a little nod of the head.
‘
And also why you have any remaining doubts about me.
’

‘
No more than you must feel about me.
’

‘
But you said it last time. We ought to behave as if we
’
d met naturally away from here. The more we know about each other the safer we are. The surer.
’
I gave her a small smile.
‘
So far as I
’
m concerned, the most incredible thing about you is that you got away from Cambridge unmarried.
’

She looked down.
‘
I very nearly didn
’
t.
’

‘
But past now?
’

‘
Yes. Very past.
’

‘
There are so many things I want to know about the real you.
’

‘
The real me
’
s a lot less exciting than the imaginary one.
’

‘
Where do you live at home?
’

‘
Real home
’
s Dorset. My mother. My father
’
s dead.
’

‘
What was he?
’

But I never got an answer. She gave a lightning shocked look behind me. I twisted round. It was Conchis. He must have crept up on us, I hadn
’
t heard a sound. In his hands he held poised a four-foot axe, exactly as if he were in two minds about raising and sinking it in my skull. I heard Julie
’
s sharp voice.

‘
Maurice, that
’
s not funny!
’

He ignored her, staring at me.

‘
Have you had your tea?
’

‘
Yes.
’

‘
I have found a dead pine. I wish it chopped up.
’

His voice was ludicrously abrupt and peremptory. I threw a glance back at Julie. She was on her feet and staring furiously at the old man. I knew at once that something was very wrong. It was as if I was no longer there. Conchis said, with a bizarrely grim irrelevance,
‘
Maria needs wood for her stove.
’

Julie
’
s voice was scalding, very nearly hysterical.

‘
You gave me a shock! How
could
you do that!
’

I jerked another look back at her. Her eyes were dilated, as if mesmerized by Conchis. She almost spat her next words at him.

‘
I hate you
!
’

‘
My dear, you are over-excited. Go and rest.
’

‘
No!
’

‘
I insist.
’

‘I hate you!’

It was said with a mixture of venom and despair that sent all my newly acquired confidence in her crashing to the ground. I looked in a panic from one face to the other, trying to see some sign of collusion. Conchis lowered the axe.

‘
I insist, Julie.
’

There was a brief battle of wills over my head. Then abruptly she turned and kicked into the espadrilles by the doors of the music-room. As she came back past the table
–
through all this she had not
given me one look
–
apparently to go away from the house, she suddenly snatched up the cup of tea in front of me and dashed it in my face. There was hardly any liquid left, and it was nearly cold, but the gesture had a terrible infantile spitefulness. It took me totally by surprise. She had moved on at once. Conchis spoke sharply.

‘
Julie!
’

She stopped at the eastern edge of the colonnade, but kept a resentful back turned to us.

‘
You are behaving like a spoilt child. That was unforgivable.
’
She did not move. He took a few steps towards her and spoke in a lower voice, but I heard his words.
‘
Actresses may show temperament. But not to innocent bystanders. Now go and apologize to our guest.
’

She wavered, then swivelled round and marched back past him to where I sat. Her cheeks were faintly flushed and her eyes still avoided mine. She stopped in front of me, but stared mutinously at the ground. I searched her face, her downcast eyes, then in desperation looked past her at Conchis.

‘
You did give us a shock.
’

Unseen by her, he raised a pacifying hand for my benefit, then addressed her back.

‘
We await your apology, Julie.
’

Suddenly her eyes were on mine.

‘
I hate yew, too!
’

The voice was petulant, exactly that of a spoilt child. But miraculously, or so it seemed to me, her right eyelid fluttered: I was not to believe a word of all this little scene. I had difficulty in keeping a straight face. Meanwhile she had turned and was walking past the old man again. He reached out a detaining hand, but she brushed it angrily aside and ran down the steps and then across the gravel; after some twenty yards she stopped running and her hands rose to her face, as if in self-dismay, as she went on at a fast walk. Conchis turned back to me and smiled at the face of concern I had managed to assume.

‘
You must not take that tantrum too seriously. A part of her is always on the brink of acutely regressive behaviour. She was pretending a little.
’

‘
She could have fooled me.
’

‘
That was her hope. To demonstrate what a tyrant I am.
’

‘
And a scandal-monger. Or so it seems.
’
He eyed me. I said,
‘
I don
’
t mind a drop of tea in my face. But I draw the line at being given syphilis. Especially when you know the facts about that.
’

He smiled.
‘
But you have surely guessed why?
’

‘
Not yet.
’

‘
I also told her you had met your friend last week. Perhaps that is a clue?
’
He must have seen by my face that it wasn
’
t. He hesitated, then
off
ered me the axe to carry.
‘
Come. I will explain.
’

I stood and took the axe and we set
off
back towards the gate.

‘
There must arrive a time this summer when all this is ended. I must therefore provide for, how shall I put it, exits that will not cause Julie too much pain. This false information I provide about you
off
ers two such exits. She knows there is someone else in your life. That perhaps you are not such a desirable young man as you seem at first sight. In addition schizophrenics, as you have just seen, are emotionally unstable. I know I can trust you not to take sexual advantage of a very sick girl. But it will help relieve the situation for you if there are additional obstacles implanted in her mind.
’

I felt a purr inside me. That one shadow of a wink had made all his deceptions hollow
–
and tolerable; it also allowed me to deceive in return.

‘
On that level… of course. I understand.
’

‘
That is why I interrupted your
tete-a-tete.
She needs little setbacks, problems to overcome. As people with broken limbs need exercise.
’
He said, And how did you find her, Nicholas?
’

‘
Very suspicious of me. As you said.
’

‘
But you managed … ?
’

‘
I was beginning to.
’

‘
Good. Tomorrow I am going to disappear. Or at least I shall lead her to believe that. You will have all day with her in apparent solitude. We will see what she makes of it.
’

‘
I
’
m delighted you trust me so much.
’

He touched my arm.
‘
I confess also that I did wish to provoke a somewhat excessive reaction in her. For your benefit. In case you had any remaining doubts about her abnormality.
’

‘
I have none now. Whatever.
’

He inclined his head, and I gri
nned in my mind. We came to the
tree, which was already on its side. He wanted it hacked into manageable lengths. Hermes would carry the wood to the house, I had only to pile it in readiness. He went
off
as soon as I started swinging the axe. I enjoyed the work much better than the previous time. The smaller stems were so dry and brittle that they broke at one stroke; and I felt each stroke was symbolic. Something more than wood was being hewn into manageable lengths. As I neatly stacked the branches, I felt I was also beginning to neatly stack the mystery of Bourani and Conchis. I was going to discover all about Julie, and I had already discovered the essential thing: that she was on my side. In some way he was using us as personifications of his irony, as his partners in exploring ambivalence. Every truth in his world was a sort of lie; and every lie a sort of truth. Like Julie I began, despite the traps and tricks and their seeming malice, to accept his fundamental benevolence. I remembered that smiling stone head he had shown me: his ultimate truth.

He was in any case far too intelligent to expect us not to see through the surface aspect of his masques; secretly he must want us to … and as for whatever deeper purpose, inner meaning they had, I was content to wait now.

Swinging the axe in the afternoon sun, enjoying the physical exercise, feeling in command again, thinking of midnight, tomorrow, Julie, the kiss, Alison forgotten, I was content to wait all summer if he wanted; and for the summer itself to wait all time.

She came towards us in the lamplight, towards the table in the southeast corner of the upstairs terrace. It was the antithesis of her first entrance there, the night I had formally met her as Lily. She wore almost the same clothes as that afternoon … the same white trousers, though she had changed into a white shirt, slightly loose-sleeved, as some sort of concession to evening formality. A coral necklace, the red belt and espadrilles; a hint of eye-shadow, a touch of lipstick. Conchis and I stood for her. She hesitated in front of me, then gave me a charged look, faintly desperate, staring.

‘
I feel awful about this afternoon. Will you please forgive me?
’

‘
Forget it. It was nothing.
’

She glanced then at Conchis, as if to see whether she had his approval. He smiled, indicated the chair between us. But she reached where her white shirt was buttoned and held out a sprig of jasmine.

‘
A peace
off
ering.
’

I smelt it.
‘
That
’
s sweet of you.
’