‘Is she pretty?’
‘Yes.’
‘Very pretty.’
I said nothing. She buried her face in her arms. I stroked her warm shoulder.
‘She’s totally unlike you. Unlike any modern girl. I can’t explain.’ She turned her head away. ‘Alison.’
‘I must seem just … ‘ but she didn’t finish.
‘Now you’re being ridiculous.’
‘Ami?’
There was a tense silence.
‘Look, I’m trying desperately, for once in my miserable life, to be honest. I have no excuses. If I met this girl tomorrow, okay, I could say, I love Alison, Alison loves me, nothing doing. But I met her a fortnight ago. And I’ve got to meet her again.’
‘And you don’t love Alison.’ She stared away. ‘Or you love me till you see a better bit of tail.’
‘Don’t be crude.’
‘I am crude. I think crude. I talk crude. I am crude.’ She knelt, took a breath. ‘So what now? I curtsy and withdraw?’
‘I wish to God I wasn’t so complicated –’
‘Complicated!’ She snorted.
‘Selfish.’
‘That’s better.’
We were silent. Two coupled yellow butterflies flitted heavily, saggingly, past.
‘All I wanted was that you should know what I am.’
‘I know what you are.’
‘If you did you’d have cut me out right at the beginning.’
‘I still know what you are.’
And her cold grey eyes went through me, till I had to look down. She stood up and went to wash. It was hopeless. I couldn’t manage it, I couldn’t explain, and she could never understand. I put my clothes on and turned my back while she dressed in silence.
When she was ready, she said, ‘Don’t for God’s sake say any more. I can’t bear it.’
We got to Arachova about five and set off to drive back to Athens. I twice tried to discuss everything again with her, but she wouldn’t allow it. We had said all that could be said; and she sat brooding, wordless, all the way.
We came over the pass at Daphni at about eight-thirty, with the last light over the pink and amber city, the first neon signs round Syntagma and Ommonia like distant jewels. I thought of where we had been that time the night before, and glanced at Alison. She was putting on lipstick. Perhaps after all there was a solution; to get her back into the hotel, make love to her, prove to her through the loins that I did love her … and why not, let her see that I might be worth suffering, just as I was and always would be. I began to talk a little, casually, about Athens; but her answers were so uninterested, so curt, that it sounded as ridiculous as it was, and I fell silent. The pink turned to violet, and soon it was night.
We arrived at the hotel in the Piraeus – I had reserved the same rooms. Alison went up while I took the car round to the garage. On the way back I saw a flower-seller and bought a dozen carnations from him. I went straight to her room, and knocked on the door. I had to knock three times before she unlocked it. She had been crying.
‘I brought you some flowers.’
‘I don’t want your bloody flowers.’
‘Look, Alison, it’s not the end of the world.’
‘Just the end of the affaire.’
I broke the silence. ‘Aren’t you going to let me in?’
‘Why the hell should I?’
She stood holding the door half shut, the room in darkness behind her. Her face was terrible; puffed and unforgiving; nakedly hurt.
‘Just let me come in and talk to you.’
‘No.’
‘Please.’
‘Go away.’
I pushed in past her and closed the door. She stood against the wall, staring at me. Light came up from the street, and I could see her eyes. I offered the flowers. She snatched them from my hand, went to the window and hurled them, pink heads, green stems, out into the night; remained there with her back to me.
‘This experience. It’s like being halfway through a book. I can’t just throw it in the dustbin.’
‘So you throw me instead.’
I went behind her to try to put my hands on her shoulders, but she jerked angrily away.
‘Fuck off. Just fuck off.’
I sat on the bed and lit a cigarette. Down in the street monotonous Macedonian folk-music skirled from some cafe loudspeaker; but we sat and stood in a strange cocoon of remoteness from even the nearest outside things.
‘I came to Athens knowing I ought not to meet you. I did my damnedest that first evening and yesterday to prove to myself that I don’t have any special feeling for you any more. But it didn’t work. That’s why I talked. So ineptly. So at the wrong time.’ She gave no sign of listening; I produced my trump. ‘Talked when I could have kept quiet. Could still be deceiving you.’
‘I’m not the one who’s deceived.’
‘Look –’
‘And what the hell does “special feeling” mean?’ I was silent. ‘Christ, you’re not just afraid of the thing love. You’re even afraid of using the word now.’
‘I don’t know what love is.’
She spun round. ‘Well let me tell you. Love isn’t only what I said it was in that letter. Not turning back to look. Love is pretending to go to work but going to Victoria. To give you one last surprise, one last kiss, one last … it doesn’t matter, I saw you buying magazines. That morning I couldn’t have laughed with anyone in the world. And yet you laughed. You fucking well stood with a porter and laughed about something. That’s when I found out what love was. Seeing the one person you want to live with happy to have escaped from you.’
‘But why didn’t you – ‘
‘You know what I did? I crept away. And spent the whole godawful day curled up on our bed. Not because I loved you. Because I was so mad with rage and shame that I loved you.’
‘I wasn’t to know.’
She turned away. ‘I wasn’t to know. Christ!’ Violence hung in the air like static electricity. ‘Another thing. You think love is sex. Let me tell you something. If I’d wanted you just for that, I’d have left you straight after the first night.’
‘My apologies.’
She looked at me, took a breath, gave a bitter little smile. ‘Oh God, now he’s hurt. I’m trying to tell you that I loved you for you. Not for your blasted prick.’ She stared back out into the night. ‘Of course you’re all right in bed. But you’re not the
Silence.
‘Best you’ve had.’
‘If that was what mattered.’ She came to the end of the bed and leant against it, looking down at me. ‘I think you’re so blind you probably don’t even know you don’t love me. You don’t even know you’re a filthy selfish bastard who can’t, can’t like being impotent, can’t ever think of anything except number one. Because nothing can hurt you, Nicko. Deep down, where it counts. You’ve built your life so that nothing can ever reach you. So whatever you do you can say, I couldn’t help it. You can’t lose. You can always have your next adventure. Your next bloody affaire.’
‘You always twist – ‘
‘Twist! Holy Jesus, don’t you talk of twisting. You can’t even tell a simple fact straight.’
I looked round at her. ‘Meaning?’
‘All that mystery balls. You think I fall for that? There’s some girl on your island and you want to lay her. That’s all. But of course that’s nasty, that’s crude. So you tart it up. As usual. Tart it up so it makes you seem the innocent one, the great intellectual who must have his experience. Always both ways. Always cake and eat it. Always –’
‘I swear … ‘ But her impatient jerk away silenced me. She walked up and down the room. I tried another excuse. ‘Because I don’t want to marry you – or anyone – it doesn’t mean I don’t love you.’
‘That reminds me. That child. You thought I didn’t notice. That little girl with the boil. It made you furious. Alison showing how good she is with kids. Doing the mother act. And shall I tell you somethin
g? I was doing the mother act. Just for a moment, when she smiled, I did think that. I did think how I’d like to have your children and … have my arm round them and have you near me. Isn’t that terrible? I have this filthy disgusting stinking-taste thing called love … God, syphilis is nice compared to love … and I’m so depraved, so colonial, so degenerate that I actually dare show you
‘Alison.’
She took a shuddery breath; near tears.
‘ I realized as soon as we met on Friday. For you I’ll always be Alison who slept around. That Australian girl who had an abortion. The human boomerang. Throw her away and she’ll always come back for another weekend of cheap knock.’
‘That’s a long way below the belt.’
She lit a cigarette. I went and stood by the window and she spoke at my back, across the bed and the room, from the door. ‘All that time, last autumn … I didn’t realize then. I didn’t realize you can get softer. I thought you went on getting harder. God only knows why, I felt closer to you than I’ve ever felt to any other man. God only knows why. In spite of all your smart-alec Pommie ways. Your bloody class mania. So I never really got over your going. I tried Pete, I tried another man, but it didn’t work. Always this stupid, pathetic little dream. That one day you’d write … so I went mad trying to organize these three days. Betting everything on them. Even though I could see, God how I could see you were just bored.’
‘That’s not true. I wasn’t bored.’
‘Thinking about this bit on Phraxos.’
‘I missed you too. Hellishly, those first months.’
Suddenly she switched the lights on.
‘Turn round and look at me.’
I did. She was standing by the door, still in her blue jeans and the dark-blue shirt; her face a grey-and-white mask.
‘I’ve saved some money. And you can’t be exactly broke. If you say the word, I’ll walk out of my job tomorrow. I’ll come on your island and live with you. I said a cottage in Ireland. But I’ll take a cottage on Phraxos. You can have that. The dreadful responsibility of having to live with someone who loves you.’
It was vile, but my one reaction when she said ‘a cottage on Phraxos’ was of profound relief that I hadn’t told her of Conchis’s offer.
‘Or?’
‘You can say no.’
‘An ultimatum.’
‘No sliding. Yes or no.’
‘Alison, if–’
‘Yes or no.’
‘You can’t decide these things
Her voice sharpened a pitch. ‘Yes or no.’
I stared at her. She gave a tiny humourless twist of her lips and answered for me.
‘No.’
‘Only because
She ran straight to the door and opened it. I felt angry, trapped into this ridiculous either-or choice, this brutal demand for total commitment. I went round the bed towards her, yanked the door away from her grip and slammed it shut again; then caught her and tried to kiss her, reaching past her at the same time to flick off the light. The room was plunged into darkness again, but she struggled wildly, jerking her head from side to side. I pulled her back towards the bed and fell with her across it, making it roll and knock both lamp and ashtray off the bedside table. I thought she would give in, she must give in, but suddenly she screamed, so loud that it must have pierced all through the hotel and echoed over on the other side of the port.
‘let me go!’
I sat back a little and she hit me with her clubbed fists. I caught her wrists.
‘For God’s sake.’
‘i hate you!’
‘Keep quiet!’
I forced her on her side. Someone in the next room banged on the wall. Another nerve-splitting scream.
‘I hate you!’
I slapped the side of her face. She began to sob violently, twisted sideways against the bed-end, fragments of words howled at me between gasps for air and tears.
‘Leave me alone … leave me alone … you shit… you fucking selfish … ‘ Explosion of sobs, her shoulders racked. I stood and went to the window.
She began to bang the bedrail with her fists, as if she was beyond words. I hated her then; her lack of control, her hysteria. I remembered that there was a bottle of Scotch downstairs in my room – she had brought it for me as a present, the first day.
‘Look, I’m going to get you a drink. Now stop wailing.’
I hovered over her. She took no notice, went on beating the bedrail. I got to the door, hesitated, looked back, then went out. Three Greeks, a man and woman and an elder man, were standing two open doors away, staring at me as if I were a murderer. I went downstairs, opened the bottle, swallowed a stiff shot straight out of it, then went back.
The door was locked. The three spectators continued to stare; watched me try it, knock, try it again, knock, then call her name.
The older man came up to me.
Was anything wrong?
I grimaced and muttered. The heat.
He repeated it unnecessarily back to the other two. Ah, the heat, said the woman, as if that explained everything. They did not move.
I tried once more; called her name through the wooden panels. I could hear nothing. I shrugged for the benefit of the Greeks, and went back downstairs. Ten minutes later I returned; I returned four or five times more during the next hour; and always the door, to my secret relief, was shut.
I had asked to be and was woken at eight, and I dressed at once and went to her room. I knocked; no answer. When I tried the handle, the door opened. The bed had been slept in, but Alison and all her belongings were gone. I ran straight down to the reception desk. A rabbity old man with spectacles, the father of the proprietor, sat behind it. He’d been in America, and spoke English quite well.
‘You know that girl I was with last night – has she gone out this morning?’
‘Oh yeah. She wen’ out.’
‘When?’
He looked up at the clock. ‘About one hour since. She lef’ this. She said give it you when you came down.’
An envelope. My scrawled name: N. Urfe.
‘She didn’t say where she was going?’
‘Just paid her check and went.’ I knew by the way he was watching me that he had heard, or heard about, the screaming the evening before.
‘But I said I’d pay.’
‘I said. I told her.’
‘Damn.’
As I turned to go he said, ‘Hey, you know what they say in the States? Always plenny more fish in the sea. Know that one? Plenny more fish in the sea.’
I went back to my room and opened her letter. It was a scrawl, a last-moment decision not to go in silence.
Think what it would be like if you got back to your island and there was no old man, no girl any more. No mysterious fun and games. The whole place locked up for ever.
It’s finished finished finished.
About ten I telephoned the airport. Alison had not returned, and was not due to return until her flight to London at five that afternoon. I tried again at eleven thirty, just before the boat sailed; the same answer. As the ship, which was filled with returning boys, drew out from the quay I scanned the crowds of parents and relations and idlers. I had some idea that she was there among them, watching; but if she was, she was invisible.
The ugly industrial seafront of the Piraeus receded and the boat headed south for the svelte blue peak of Aegina. I went to the bar and ordered a large ouzo; it was the only place the boys were not allowed. I drank a mouthful neat, and made a sort of bitter inner toast. I had chosen my own way; the difficult, hazardous, poetic way; all on one number; though even then I heard Alison bitterly reverse those last two words.
Someone slipped on to the stool beside me. It was Demetriadcs. He clapped his hands for the barman.
‘Buy me a drink, you perverted Englishman. And I will tell you how I spent a most amusing weekend.’
43
Think what it would be like if you got back to your island and … I had al
l Tuesday to think nothing but that; to see myself as Alison saw me. I drafted a long letter, several letters, to her that evening, but none of them said what I wanted: that I hated what I had done to her, but couldn’t do otherwise. I was like one of Ulysses’ sailors – turned into a swine, and able now only to be my new self. I tore the pages up. What I really wanted to say was that I was enchanted and that I had, absurd though it was, to be free to be enchanted.
It was a help to teach hard, conscientiously for once, to get through the suspense. On Wednesday evening, when I returned from the last lesson of the day to my room, I found a note on my desk. My heart leapt. I recognized the handwriting at once. The note said: ‘We look forward to seeing you on Saturday. If I do not hear to the contrary I shall know that you are coming. Maurice Conchis.’ It was dated above ‘Wednesday morning’. I felt an enormous relief, a surge of renewed excitement; and suddenly everything during that last weekend seemed, if not justified, necessary.
I had marking to do, but I couldn’t stay in. I walked up to the main ridge, to my natural gazebo. I had to see the roof of Bourani, the south of the island, the sea, the mountains, all the reality of the unreality. There was none of the burning need to go down and spy that had possessed me the previous week, but a balancing mixture of expectation and reassurance, a certainty of the health of the symbiosis. I was their still; they were mine.