by Mary Stewart
Max said: ‘You can’t argue with a man with an obsession. Humour him, Miss Waring.’
‘I’ll do no such thing! If a theory’s worth holding, it’s worth fighting over! What about the story, then, Sir Julian? Take the start of it, the shipwreck. If the ship was on its way from Tunis to Naples, you’d think Corfu was just a little too far off course—’
‘Ah, yes, you run up against the same thing in the Odysseus story, where they’re supposed to have rowed – rowed, mark you – from Scheria to Euboea in a single night. But to my mind that does nothing to discount Corfu’s claim to be Scheria. It’s poetic truth, the kind of telescoping that you find in the seven days of Creation – one assumes that the gods helped them. The same with the Neapolitan ship in The Tempest. The storm was a tremendous one, an historic tempest. The ship was blown right off her course, and could have driven blindly along for days before fetching up on these coastal rocks. Can’t you see that what makes the story plausible is its very unlikelihood?’
‘Have a heart,’ said his son, ‘of course she can’t.’
‘It’s very simple. The fact that the ship did end up here, so fantastically off course, made it necessary later on to explain the storm as being magical, or somehow supernatural.’
‘Just a minute,’ I said quickly. ‘“The fact?” Are you trying to say that the business of the shipwreck is true?’
‘Only that like all legends it could be founded on the truth, just as there really was a Cretan labyrinth, and a Troy that burned. It’s my guess – strictly as a visionary – that there was in fact some spectacular wreck here, that became the basis of a legend.’
‘No more than a guess? You haven’t found any actual Corfiote story, or any real record?’
‘No.’
‘Then why here? Why Corfu? Your geographical details don’t prove a thing. They might confirm, but they’re hardly a start.’
Sir Julian nodded, smoothing the cat’s head with a gentle finger. ‘I started at the wrong end. I should have begun, not with the ‘facts’, but with the play – the play’s king-pin, Prospero. To my mind, the conception of his character is the most remarkable thing about the play; his use as a sort of summing-up of Shakespeare’s essay on human power. Look at the way he’s presented: a father-figure, a magician in control of natural forces like the winds and the sea, a sort of benevolent and supernatural Machiavelli who controls the island and all who are in it.’
He finished on a faint note of inquiry, and looked at me with raised eyebrows, waiting for my reply.
‘Saint Spiridion?’
‘Saint Spiridion. Exactly!’ He glanced up at Max, as if showing off the cleverness of a favourite pupil. I saw Max smile faintly. ‘Even the name … you’ll notice the similarity; and its abbreviation, Spiro, makes it even closer.’ The shadow which touched his face was gone immediately. ‘Saint Spiridion – his body, that is – was brought here in 1489, and in no time at all he had the reputation for all sorts of magic, miracles if you like, especially weather-magic. There was another saint, a female, brought with him. Her mummy is also in a church in the town, but she didn’t catch the public imagination, so she doesn’t get the outings. In fact, I can’t even remember her name.’
‘I’ve never even heard she existed,’ I said.
He smiled. ‘It’s a man’s country. But she may well be the origin of the idea of Miranda, the magician’s daughter. She would hardly survive into legend merely as a female companion, or even as a wife. Magicians don’t have them, for reasons which I suppose it would be fascinating to explore, but which you might disagree with, Miss Lucy Waring.’
‘I know, Delilah and Co. All right, I don’t resent it, it’s a man’s world. If it comes to that, witches don’t have husbands, not the real old fairy-story witches, anyway.’
‘Fair enough.’ Sir Julian leaned back in his chair. ‘Well, there you have your starting point, the fabulously fertile island of Corfu, guarded by a Saint who is believed to control the weather. Now we postulate a tempest, some historic humdinger of a storm, when some important ship – perhaps even with a few Italian VIPs on board – was driven far off course and wrecked here, but with her passengers saved from drowning by some apparent miracle that would be imputed to the Saint. So, a legend starts to grow. Later the Germanic elements of fairy-tale are added to it – the “magic”, the beautiful daughter, the fairy characters.’ He paused, with a mischievous gleam at me. ‘It would be nice if one could somehow equate the elementals with the facts of the island’s history, wouldn’t it? I’ve tried my hardest to see the “foul witch Sycorax” from ‘Argier’, as a sort of personification of the Moslem rulers who penned the heavenly power – Ariel – in a cloven pine till the Saint-magician released him … But I’m afraid I can’t quite make that one stick.’
‘What a pity!’ I said it quite without irony: I was enjoying myself vastly. ‘And Caliban? Paganism or something?’
‘If you like. There’s the brutality, the sexuality, and the superbly sensitive poetry. And he was certainly a Greek.’
‘How d’you work that out?’ I asked, startled.
He chuckled. ‘He welcomed Prospero to the island with “water with berries in it”. Haven’t you come across the Greek custom of giving you berried jam in a glass of water?’
‘No, I haven’t. But really, you can’t have that! It could even be coffee! What would that make him? French?’
‘All right,’ he said amiably, ‘We’ll leave poor Caliban as an “infernal” seeking for grace. Well, that’s all.’ Here the white cat stretched, flexed its claws, and yawned, very loudly. Sir Julian laughed. ‘You shouldn’t have encouraged me. Nitwit has heard it all before, and so, I’m afraid, has poor Max.’
‘Well, I hadn’t, and it’s fascinating. One could have endless fun. I must read it again and look for all these things. I wish I thought my sister had a copy here.’
‘Take mine,’ he said immediately. ‘It should be somewhere on top of the bookcase, I think, Max … Thanks very much.’ This as his son went to get it.
I said quickly: ‘But if you’re working on it—’
‘Working?’ The word, lightly spoken as it was, sounded somehow out of tune. ‘You’ve just heard how seriously. In any case I use a Penguin for working, one I can mark and cut up … Ah, thank you, Max; and here are your roses, too. That’s my own copy; it’s a bit ancient, and I’m afraid it’s been scribbled in, but perhaps you can ignore that.’
I had already seen the pencilled notes. Holding the book as if it were the original Blackfriars prompt copy, with the author’s jottings in the margin, I got to my feet. Sir Julian rose with me, and the white cat, displaced, jumped down and stalked with offended dignity off the terrace and down the steps to the rose garden.
‘I’ll really have to go,’ I said. ‘Thank you for the book, I’ll take great care of it. I – I know I’ve stayed far too long, but I’ve really loved it.’
‘My dear child, you’ve done us both a kindness. I’ve enjoyed your visit enormously, and I hope you’ll come back soon. As you see, there’s a limit to the amount of my conversation that Max and the cat will stand, and it’s pleasant to have a good-mannered and captive audience again. Well, if you must …’
The woods were dark already with the quickly falling twilight. Mr Gale, accompanying me politely to the edge of the rose garden, pointed out the path which led down to the clearing where the pool lay. The beautiful Nitwit was there, dreamily regarding a large moth which hovered near some honeysuckle. Max Gale picked him up, said goodbye to me, and went quickly back. A very few minutes later I heard the sound of the piano. He had lost no time in getting back to work. Then the woods closed in and I was out of hearing.
The woods were always quiet, but now, with the darkness muffling their boughs, they seemed to hold a hushed and heavy stillness that might be the herald of storm. The scent of flowers hung like musk on the air.
As I picked my way carefully down the path I was thinking of the recent interview; not
of the ‘theory’ with which Sir Julian had been beguiling his exile, but of Sir Julian himself, and what Phyl and Godfrey had said about him.
That there had been – still was – something badly wrong seemed obvious: not only was there the physical evidence that even I could see, there was also that attitude of watchful tension in the younger man. But against this could be set the recent conversation, not the normal – and even gay – tone of it, but the use of certain phrases that had struck me. Would a man who had recently emerged from a mental home talk so casually and cheerfully about the ‘lunatic fringe’ inhabited by his son? A son had, after all, a big stake in his father’s sanity. And would the son, in his turn, speak of his father’s ‘obsession’, and the need to ‘humour’ him? Perhaps if the need were serious, this was Mr Gale’s way of passing off a potentially tricky situation? Perhaps that edgy, watchful air of his was on my behalf as much as his father’s?
Here I gave up. But as for the idea of Sir Julian’s roaming the countryside with a rifle to the danger of all and sundry, I could believe it no more than formerly. I would as soon suspect Phyllida, or Godfrey Manning himself.
And (I thought) I would suspect Max Gale a darned sight sooner than any.
I could hear the trickle of water now, and ahead of me was the break in the trees where the pool lay. At the same moment I became conscious of a strange noise, new to me, like nothing more nor less than the clucking and chattering of a collection of hens. It seemed to come from the clearing.
Then I realised what it was; the evening chorus at the pool – the croaking of the innumerable frogs who must live there. I had stopped at the edge of the clearing to pick up my towel, and some of them must have seen me, for the croaking stopped, and then I heard the rhythmic plopping of small bodies diving into the water. Intrigued, I drew back behind the bushes, then made a silent way round the outer edge of the clearing towards the far side of the pool, where there was cover. Now I was above the bank. I gently pressed the branches aside, and peered down.
At first, in the dusk I could see nothing but the dark gleam of the water where the sky’s reflection struck it between the upper boughs, and the matt circles of the small lily leaves and some floating weed. Then I saw a frog, a big one, sitting on a lily-pad, his throat distended and pulsing with his queer little song. His body was fat and freckled, like a laurel leaf by moonlight, and the light struck back from eyes bright as blackberry-pips. Close by him sang another, and then another …
Amused and interested, I stood very still. Growing every moment in volume, the chorus gobbled happily on.
Silence, as sudden as if a switch had been pressed. Then my frog dived. All around the lily-pads the surface ringed and plopped as the whole choir took to the water. Someone was coming up the path from the bay.
For a moment I wondered if Phyllida had been down to the beach to find me; then I realised that the newcomer was a man. His steps were heavy, and his breathing, and then I heard him clear his throat softly, and spit. It was a cautious sound, as if he were anxious not to make too much noise. The heavy steps were cautious, too, and the rough, hurried breathing, which he was obviously trying to control, sounded oddly disquieting in the now silent woods. I let the bushes slip back into place, and stood still where I was, to wait for him to pass.
The dimming light showed him as he emerged into the clearing; Greek, someone I hadn’t seen before, a young man, thick-set and broad-chested, in dark trousers and a high-necked fisherman’s sweater. He carried an old jacket of some lighter colour over one arm.
He paused at the other side of the pool, but only to reach into a pocket for a cigarette, which he put between his lips. But in the very act of striking the match, he checked himself, then shrugged, and put it away again, shoving the cigarette behind his ear. He could not have indicated his need for secrecy more plainly if he had spoken.
As he turned to go on his way, I saw his face fairly clearly. There was a furtive, sweating excitement there that was disturbing, so that when he glanced round as if he had heard some noise, I found myself shrinking back behind my screen of leaves, conscious of my own quickened heartbeats.
He saw nothing. He drew the back of a hand over his forehead, shifted his coat to the other arm, and trod with the same hasty caution up the steep path towards the Castello.
Above me a sudden gust of wind ran through the treetops, and chilly air blew through the trunks with the fresh, sharp smell of coming rain.
But I kept quite still until the sound of the Greek’s footsteps had died away, and beside me the frog had climbed out again on to his lily-pad, and swelled his little throat for song.
6
Methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him.
I. 1.
FOR some reason that I never paused to examine, I didn’t tell my sister about my visit to the Gales, not even when next morning she decided that for once she would go down to the bay with me, and, as we passed the pool, pointed out the path that led up to the Castello.
The clearing looked very different this morning with the high clear light pouring into it. There had been a sudden little snap of storm during the night, with a strong wind that died with the dawn, and this had cleared the air and freshened the woods. Down in the bay the sand was dazzling in the morning sun, and the wake of the wind had left a ripple at the sea’s edge.
I spread a rug in the shade of the pines that overhung the sand, and dumped our things on it.
‘You are coming in, aren’t you?’
‘Sure thing. Now I’m down here, nothing will stop me from wallowing in the shallow bit, even if I do look like a mother elephant expecting twins. That’s a smashing swimsuit, Lucy, where’d you get it?’
‘Marks and Spencer’s.’
‘Good heavens.’
‘Well, I didn’t marry a rich man,’ I said cheerfully, pulling up the shoulder-straps.
‘And a fat lot of good it does me in my condition.’ She looked sadly down at her figure, sighed, and dropped her smart beach coat down beside the hold-all containing all the sun-lotions, magazines, Elizabeth Arden cosmetics and other paraphernalia without which she would never dream of committing herself to the beach. ‘It isn’t fair. Just look at me, and these things come from Fabiani.’
‘You poor thing,’ I said derisively. ‘Will they go in the water? And for Pete’s sake, are you going to bathe with that Koh-i-noor thing on?’
‘Heavens, no!’ She slipped the enormous marquise diamond off her finger, dropped it into the plastic bag that held her cosmetics, and zipped the bag shut. ‘Well, let’s go in. I only hope your friend doesn’t mistake me for the dolphin, and let fly. Much the same general shape, wouldn’t you say?’
‘You’ll be all right. He doesn’t wear yellow.’
‘Seriously, there isn’t anyone watching, is there, Lucy? I’d just as soon not have an audience.’
‘If you keep near inshore they can’t see you anyway, unless they come to the front of the terrace. I’ll go and look.’
The water in the shade of the pines was a deep, deep green, lighting to a dazzling pale blue where a bar of sand ran out into the bay. I walked out along this, thigh-deep, until I was about fifty yards from the shore, then turned and looked up towards the terrace of the Castello. There was no one visible, so I waved to Phyllida to follow me in. As we swam and splashed, I kept an eye open to seaward for the dolphin, but, though I thought once that I could see a gleaming wheel turning a long way out, the creature did not approach the bay. After a time we waded back to the beach, where we lay sunning ourselves and talking idly, until Phyl’s remarks, which had been getting briefer and briefer, and more and more sleepy, ceased altogether.
I left her sleeping, and went back into the water.
Though I had kept a wary eye on the woods and the terrace every time I bathed, I had never seen anyone since the first day, so it was with a slight feeling of surprise that I now saw someone sitting there, at the table under the stone-pine. Grey hair. Sir Julian Gale. He lifted a hand
to me, and I waved back, feeling absurdly pleased that he should have bothered. He turned away immediately, his head bent over a book. I caught the flutter of its pages.
There was no one with him on the terrace, but as I turned to let myself down into the deep water beyond the bar, something else caught my eye.
In one of the upper windows, which stood open, something had flashed. And behind the flash I saw movement, as whoever stood watching there lifted the binoculars again to focus them on the bay …
There is something particularly infuriating about being watched in this way. I should have dearly loved to return rudeness for rudeness by pulling a very nasty face straight at the Castello windows, but Sir Julian might have seen it, and thought it was meant for him, so I merely splashed back to the sand-bar, where I stood up, and, without another glance, stalked expressively (Drama School exercise; Outraged Bather driven from water) towards the rocks at the southern edge of the bay. I would finish my swim from the rocks beyond the point, out of range of the Castello.
I hadn’t reckoned on its being quite so difficult to stalk with dignity through three feet of water. By the time I reached the end of the sand-bar and the deep pool near the rocks, I was furiously angry with Max Gale, and wishing I had gone straight out on to the beach. But I was damned if I would be driven back now. I plunged across the deep water, and was soon scrambling out under the pines.
A path ran through the tumble of rocks at the cliff’s foot, leading, I supposed, to Godfrey Manning’s villa, but its surface looked stony, so I stayed on the rocks below. These, scoured white by the sea and seamed with rock pools, stretched out from the cliff in stacks and ridges, with their roots in the calm, creaming water.
I began to pick my way along between the pools. The rocks were hot, and smooth to the feet. There were crevices filled with flowering bushes, running right down to the water’s edge where the green swell lifted and sank, and here and there a jut of the living cliff thrust out into the water, with the path above it, and bushes at its rim hanging right out over the sea.