‘Is Julie just another part?’
‘I’ll show you my passport. I haven’t got it with me, but … next time. I promise.’
‘That last time … you might have warned me the schizophrenia thing was coming.’
‘I did warn you something was coming. As much as I dared.’
I could feel our doubts and suspicions mounting once more, and I had to concede that yes, she had warned me in her fashion. There was something much more submissive about her now, on the defensive.
‘All right … but whatever he isn’t, he is a psychiatrist?’
‘We’ve known that for some time.’
‘So the whole thing here is along those lines?’
Again I was assessed. Then she looked sideways down at the tiles. ‘He talks a lot about experimental situations. About the behaviour patterns of people faced with situations they don’t understand. A lot about schizophrenia.’ She shrugged. ‘How people split themselves … ethically, all sorts of ways, before the unknown. One day he said something about the unknown being the great motivating factor in all human existence. He meant not knowing why we’re here. Why we exist. Death. The after-life. All that.’
‘But what does he actually want us to prove for him?’
She still looked at the ground; now shook her head.
‘Honestly, we’ve tried and tried to pin him down, but he … he always comes up with the same argument – if we know the final purpose, what he expects, then obviously it will effect how we behave.’ She let out a reluctant breath. ‘It does have a sort of logic’
‘I’ve had that line. When I asked to know your supposed case-history.’
Her eyes met mine. ‘It does exist. I’ve had to learn it by heart. What he’s invented.’
‘One thing’s clear. For some reason he’s feeding us every lie under the sun. But we don’t have to be what he wants us to imagine. I’m no more a syphilitic than you’re a schizophrenic’
She bowed her head. ‘I really didn’t believe it.’
‘I mean, if it’s a part of his game, experiment, whatever it is, I don’t care a damn how many lies he tells you about me. But I do care if you start believing them.’
There was a silence. Her eyes, it seemed almost against her will, rose to meet mine again. They said something beyond the present situation, in a much older language than that of words. A doubt dissolved in them, a candour was restored; and they tacitly accepted my judgment. For a fleeting moment there was the tiniest conceding curl, a wry admission, at the comers of her mouth. She lowered her eyes again, and then her hands slipped behind her back. Silence, a hint of little girl’s penitence, a timid waiting to be forgiven.
This time it was a shared thing. The lips were warm and they moved under mine, and I was allowed to hold her body close, to know its curves, its slenderness… and also to know, with a delicious certainty, that all was much less complicated than it seemed. She wanted to be kissed. The tips of our tongues touched, for a few seconds the embrace became tight, passionate. But then she abruptly pulled her mouth away and turned her head against my shoulder, though she stayed close against my body. I kissed the crown of her hair.
‘I’ve nearly gone mad thinking about you.’
She whispered, ‘I’d have died if you hadn’t come today.’
‘This is real. Whatever else is unreal.’
‘That’s what frightens me.’
‘Why?’
‘Wanting to be sure. But not being sure.’
I tightened my arms a little round her. ‘Can’t we meet tonight? Alone somewhere?’ She was silent and I said quickly, ‘For God’s sake trust me. I’d never hurt you.’
She detached herself gently, took my hands, still looked down. ‘It’s not that. Just that there are more people about than you imagine.’
‘Where do you sleep here?’
‘There’s a … a sort of hiding-place.’ She said quickly, ‘I will show you. I promise.’
‘Is there something planned for tonight?’
‘He’s telling us another supposed episode from his life. I’m going to join you after dinner.’ She smiled up. ‘And I honestly don’t know what it is.’
‘Then we could meet after that?’
‘I’ll try. But I can’t…’
‘How about midnight? By the statue?’
‘If I possibly can.’ She glanced back towards the table, and pressed my hands. ‘Now your tea’s cold.’
We went back to the table and sat. I stopped her making any fresh tea, and we drank it tepid. I ate a sandwich or two, she smoked, and we talked. Like myself neither she nor her sister could understand the old man’s paradoxical determination to lure us into his game, yet seeming preparedness to abandon it.
‘Every time we show qualms, he offers to fly us straight back to England. One evening on the cruise we went at him – what was he doing, couldn’t he please … all the rest. In the end he was as near being upset as I’ve seen. We almost had to plead with him the next morning. Ask his forgiveness for being so nosy.’
‘He’s obviously using the same technique on all of us.’
‘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 offered 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 offers 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 grinned 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.
44
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 offering.’
I smelt it. ‘That’s sweet of you.’
She sat. Conchis poured her a cup of coffee, while I offered her a cigarette and then lit it. She seemed chastened, and carefully avoided my eyes after that first look.
Conchis said, ‘Nicholas and I have been discussing religion.’
It was true. He had brought a Bible to table, with two reference slips in it; and we had got on to God and no-God.
‘Oh.’ She stared down at her coffee, then raised the cup and sipped; but at the same time I felt a minute pressure on my foot, under the long table-cloth.
‘Nicholas calls himself an agnostic. But then he went on to say that he does not care.’
She raised her eyes politely at me. ‘No?’
‘More important things.’
She touched the small spoon in the saucer beside her cup. ‘I sho
uld have thought nothing was more important.’
‘Than one’s attitude to what one will never know? It seems to me a waste of time.’ I felt for her foot, but it had disappeared. She leant forward and picked up the box of matches I had left on the table between us, and shook out a dozen matchsticks on the white cloth.
‘Perhaps you’re afraid to think about God?’
She was not being natural, and I realized that this was some kind of pre-arranged scene … she was saying what Conchis wanted.
‘One can’t think about what cannot be known.’
‘You never think about tomorrow? About next year?’
‘Of course. I can make reasonable prophecies about them.’
She played with the matches, pushing them idly into patterns with her fingers. I watched her mouth, wished I could end the cold dialogue.
‘I can make reasonable prophecies about God.’
‘Such as?’
‘He is very intelligent.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because I don’t understand Him. Why He is, who He is, or how He is. And Maurice tells me I am quite intelligent. I think God must be very intelligent to be so much more intelligent than I am. To give me no clues. No certainties. No sights. No reasons. No motives.’ She stared briefly up at me from her matches; her eyes had a kind of dry query that I recognized from Conchis.