The Magus, A Revised Version (85 page)

Again she was silent, calculating. She had changed now, I noticed the pretence that she had come over to my side was dropped. She looked me in the eyes.

‘
Nicholas, this is very important. You
’
re not lying?
’

‘
I have proof in my room. Do you want to see it?
’

‘
Please.
’

Her voice was tentative, apologetic now.

‘
Right. Be at the gate in two minutes. If you
’
re not there, then forget it. You can all go to hell, as far as I
’
m concerned.
’

I turned and strode away before she could answer, and resolutely refused to look back to see if she was following me. But as I unlocked the side-gate into the school, there was lightning again, closer, a huge forked streak, and I glimpsed her slowly coming down the road a hundred yards away.

Two minutes later, when I came back with Ann Taylor
’
s letter and the press cuttings, I saw
h
er at once, standing at the side of the road opposite the gates. Barba Vassili stood in his lit doorway, but I ignored him. She came to meet me, took the envelope I silently thrust at her. Her nervousness was unconcealed now, she even dropped the letter as she took it out of the envelope, and had to stoop to retrieve it. Then she turned to catch the light from the lodge and began to read. She finished Ami Taylor
’
s covering letter, but remained staring at it a moment; then lifted the page and looked briefly at the newspaper cuttings. Suddenly her eyes closed and she bent her head, almost as if she were praying. Then she very slowly folded the papers back together, put them inside the envelope, and passed it back to me. Her head stayed bowed.

‘
I
’
m so sorry. I don
’
t know what to say.
’

‘
That makes a welcome change.
’

‘
We honestly didn
’
t know.
’

‘
Well now you do.
’

‘
You should have told us.
’

‘
And have Maurice inform me it
’
s all part of the comedy of life?
’

She looked up quickly, stung.
‘
If you knew … that honestly isn
’
t fair, Nicholas.
’

‘
If
I knew.
’

She contemplated me gravely, then looked down.
‘
I
really don
’
t know what to say. It must have been

‘
Wrong tense.
’

‘
Yes, I can …
’
then she said,
‘
I
’
m so sorry.
’

‘
You
’
re not the most to blame.
’

She shook her head.
‘
That
’
s the thing. In a way, I am.
’

But she did not explain why. For a few moments we stood there like two strangers at a graveside. There was lightning again, and it seemed to force her to a decision. She gave me the ghost of a sympathetic smile, touched my sleeve.

‘
Just wait here a moment.
’

She turned and walked through the side-gate up the path towards Barba Vassili, who had been idly watching us from his doorway.

‘
Barba Vassili …
’
then I heard her speak Greek, rapidly, far more fluently than myself. After the first words it was in too low a voice for me to follow. I saw the old man bow his head once, then twice more, accepting some instruction. Then June came back through the gate and stopped six feet from me; gave me a wry, confessing look.

‘
Come on.
’

‘
Come on where?
’

‘
To the house. Julie
’
s there. Waiting.
’

‘
Then why the hell
–’

‘
It doesn
’
t matter now.
’
Her eyes flicked towards the approaching rain-clouds.
‘
Match abandoned.
’

‘
You seem to have learnt Greek very fast.
’

‘
Because I
’
ve spent three summers here.
’

She smiled, but gently, to appease my lost, angry face; then came abruptly and caught my arms, so that I had to look at her.

‘
I want you to forget every single thing I
’
ve said this evening. My
name is June Holmes. She is Julie. We do have a dotty mother, though not in Cerne Abbas.
’
I still wouldn
’
t surrender. She said,
‘
She does write like that. But we made up the letter.
’

‘
And Joe?
’

‘
Julie … likes him.
’
There was a transient dryness in her eyes.
‘
But I can assure you she doesn
’
t go to bed with him.
’
She seemed almost impatient now, at a loss how to convince and mollify me. She raised her hands in a prayer gesture.
‘
Nicholas? Please,
please
trust me. Just for a few minutes, till we get there. I swear to God we didn
’
t know about your friend. That we
’
d have stopped tormenting you at once if we had. You must believe that.
’
There was a force, a convincingness about her now; a different girl, a different nature.
‘
If one minute with Julie doesn
’
t make you realize you have nothing to be jealous about, you may drown me in the nearest cistern.
’

Still I refused to budge.

‘
What have you just told him in there?
’

‘
We have a kind of emergency codeword. Stop the experiment.
’

‘
Experiment?
’

‘
Yes.
’

‘
Is the old man here?
’

‘
At Bourani. The message will be radioed to him.
’

Behind her Barba Vassili had been locking the side-gate. I saw him set
off
up the path to the masters
’
block. June glanced round after my own look, then took my hand and pulled it.

‘
Come on.
’

I still wavered, but a coaxing determination in her won. I was drawn into walking beside her, a hand caught in hers like a prisoner.

‘
What experiment?
’

She pressed my hand, but said nothing for a few steps.

‘
Maurice will go mad.
’

‘
Why?
’

‘
Because what your friend did is what he
’
s devoted most of his life to trying to prevent.
’

‘
Who is he?
’

She hesitated, then abandoned secrecy.
‘
Very nearly what he told you he was. At one stage.
’
With one last encouraging pressure, she let go of my hand.
‘
He
’
s the French equivalent of an emeritus professor of psychiatry. Until a year or two ago he was a
pillar of the
Sorbonne medical school.
’
She gave me a quick side-glance.
‘
And I wasn
’
t at Cambridge. I read psychology at London University. Then I went to Paris to do postgraduate work under Maurice. So did Joe, from America. And several of the others here you haven
’
t met yet.
’
She said,
‘
Which reminds me … you must have got so many false impressions, but one thing
–
you must forgive Joe for what he did that evening. He
’
s really a very intelligent… and gentle person.
’
I looked at her: something in her face was shy, and she gave a little confirmatory shrug.
‘
Julie isn
’
t the one of us he might feel masculine about.
’

‘
I
’
m lost.
’

‘
Don
’
t worry. You
’
ll understand very soon. There
’
s one other thing. Julie wasn
’
t lying when she told you it was her first summer here. It is. In a way she
’
s even been a fellow-victim.
’

‘
Yet knowing what was going on?
’

‘
Yes, but … also having to find her way through the maze. We
’
ve all been through it. In the past. Joe. Me. Everyone else. We do know what it
’
s like. The being lost. The rejection. The anger. And we all know it
’
s finally worth it.
’

There were great skittering sheets of lightning behind us, almost continuous. Islands to the east, ten, fifteen miles away, stood palely out, then vanished. The smell of rain was heavy in the air, little scurries of precursory wind. We were walking fast through the village. Somewhere a shutter slammed, but there seemed no one about.

‘
An experiment in what?
’

Unexpectedly she stopped; made me turn and face her.

‘
Nicholas, first, you
’
ve been our most interesting subject yet. Second, all your secret reactions, feelings, guesses … all the things you haven
’
t even told Julie … are vitally important to us. We have hundreds of questions to ask you. But we don
’
t want to spoil their validity by giving you all the explanations beforehand. I
’
m asking you to be patient for just a day or two more.
’

Her eyes were very direct, so direct I looked down from them.

‘
I
’
ve got very short on patience.
’

‘
I know it must seem to be asking a lot. But we would be so grateful.
’

I gave no sign of acceptance, b
ut I did not argue any more. We
began walking again. She must have sensed my recalcitrance. After a few steps she threw me a sop.

‘
I
’
ll give you one clue. Maurice
’
s lifelong special field has been the nature of the delusional symptoms of insanity.
’
She put her hands in her pockets.
‘
Psychiatry is getting more and more interested in the other side of the coin
–
why sane people are sane, why they won
’
t accept delusions and fantasies as real. Obviously it
’
s very difficult to explore that if you tell your sane guinea-pig, your very sane guinea-pig in this case, that everything he
’
s going to be told is an attempt to delude him.
’
I said nothing, and she went on.
‘
You must be thinking we
’
re running a very delicate tightrope in medical ethics. We are … aware of that. But our justification is that one day the sane temporary victims like you may have helped some very sick people. Perhaps far more than you can imagine.
’

I let a few steps pass in silence.

‘
What was the delusion planned for tonight?
’