The Magus (57 page)

‘This is getting sick. I’ve had enough.’

I turned to go, but she caught my arm.

‘Nicholas, please … apart from anything else I don’t know where to spend tonight. I can’t go to the house in the village.’

‘Try the hotel.’

She swallowed that rebuff, then tried again. ‘They’ll probably be here tomorrow, and if I’m going to be accused of anything, I’d like you beside me. To back me up. That’s all. Honestly.’

Just for a moment there was a more authentic tone in her voice; and she had finally a little smile, a nice mixture of ruefulness and appeal for protection. I made my voice a shade gentler.

‘You shouldn’t have told me the story of
Three Hearts.’

‘Is it so improbable?’

‘You know damn well the improbability is in your bending reality to fit it.’

‘I don’t see what’s so unreal in our finding each other … she shook her head, and avoided my eyes.

‘We spend the night together. Is that the idea?’

‘I’m just saying that when you discover the truth about Julie, if…’ but again she shook her head.

‘Why do we have to wait that long?’

‘Because … I know you don’t believe me yet.’

‘I thought there’d be some snag.’

My tone had been growing more and more sarcastic, but now she looked me in the eyes. Hers had the exaggerated dilation of a dared child.

‘If that’s a challenge, I accept it. If it would make you believe me.’

‘The more I know you two, the more incredible you get.’

‘Because we both find you rather attractive? And I happen to feel sorry for you? As well as for myself. If that matters.’

I stared at her, half tempted to put her to the test. But it was so obvious that the real test was for me.

‘Did Julie tell you I’d written to your mother?’

‘Yes.’

‘I had an answer a couple of days ago. I’m just wondering what she’d think if I wrote back and told her what her two daughters are really up to.’

‘She wouldn’t think anything. Because she doesn’t exist.’

‘You just happen to have someone in Cerne Abbas who writes letters to you and forwards your mail?’

‘I’ve never been in Dorset in my life. My real name isn’t Holmes. Or June, for that matter.’

‘I see. We’re back on that one. Rose and Lily?’

‘I’m usually called Rosie. But yes.’

‘Balls.’

She contemplated me, then looked down. ‘I can’t remember the exact words, but our mythical mother’s letter to you went something like this: Dear Mr Urfe, I’ve given your letter to Mr Vulliamy, who’s head of the primary school here. Then there was something about pen-pals in France and America being old hat. And how her two daughters don’t write often enough. Yes?’

Now it was I who began to fall; as so often before, stable ground had turned in a few seconds to quicksand.

She said, ‘I’m sorry. But there’s a thing called a universal postmarker. The letter was written here, an English stamp put on it, then … ‘ she made a little postmarking gesture. ‘Now will you believe me?’

I was thinking back desperately: if they opened my outgoing letters, then …

‘Do you open mail to me as well?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Then you know about… ?’

‘About what?’

‘My Australian friend.’

She made a little movement of the shoulders: of course she knew about her. But in some intuitive way I knew that she didn’t, that I had her in a trap.

‘Then tell me.’

‘Tell you what?’

‘What’s happened.’

‘You had an affaire with her.’

‘And?’ She made another vague gesture. ‘You’ve read all my mail. So you must know.’

‘Of course.’

‘Then you know that in fact I did meet her in Athens at half-term?’

She was caught, she didn’t know which way she was being bluffed. She hesitated, then smiled back, but said nothing. I had left her mother’s letter lying about on my desk – Demetriades or anyone could have slipped in and read it. But Ann Taylor’s letter and its contents I had hidden well away, in a locked suitcase.

‘We really do know everything, Nicholas.’

‘Then prove it. Did I or didn’t I meet her in Athens?’

‘You know perfectly well you didn’t.’

Before she could move I gave her a slap across the cheeks. It was controlled, not hard, just enough to sting, but it shocked her. She put a slow hand to her cheek.

‘Why did you do that?’

Til do it a fucking sight harder if you don’t start telling the truth. Is
all my
mail opened?’

She hesitated, still clasping her cheek; then conceded.

‘Only … what looks as if it might concern us.’

‘That’s a pity. You should be more thorough.’ She said nothing. ‘If you had opened it, you’d have known I did meet that poor bloody girl in Athens.’

‘I don’t see what –’

‘Because of your sister, I asked her to kindly get out of my life.’ June looked more frightened now, at a loss, not knowing what this was leading to. ‘A couple of weeks later, she didn’t get merely out of my life, but out of her own as well. She killed herself I left a pause. ‘Now you know the cost of your fun and fireworks at Bourani.’

She stared, for a moment I thought she had believed me; but then she looked away.

‘Please don’t try to play Maurice’s game.’

I caught her arms and shook her. ‘I’m not playing games, you moronic little fool! She
killed
herself.’

She began to believe, yet still tried not to. ‘But … why didn’t you tell us?’

I let go of her arms. ‘Because I felt bad about it.’

‘But people don’t just kill themselves because

‘I think some people take life more seriously than any of you begin to imagine.’

There was a silence. Then she spoke with a kind of naïve timidity.

‘She … loved you?’

I hesitated. ‘I tried to play fair. Perhaps too fair. I’d have done it all by letter if you hadn’t called that weekend off. Then it seemed mean not to tell her to her face that… ‘ I shrugged.

‘You told her about Julie?’

I detected a true alarm in her voice.

‘You’re safe. Ashes can’t blab.’

‘I didn’t mean that.’ She glanced down. ‘She … took it badly?’

‘Not outwardly. If I’d realized … I was just trying to be honest. Set her free from waiting for me.’

There was another silence, then she said in a low voice, ‘If it’s true, I can’t think how you could have … let us go on like this.’

‘Because I was foolishly in love with your sister.’

‘But Maurice warned you.’

‘When did he ever tell me the truth?’

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 her 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, but 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.