by John Fowles
"It's nothing, old boy. Really."
"Oh for God's sake. What's it matter?"
"All damned absurd." The fish took the fly. "Actually I was out walking one day. May or June, I can't remember. Bit browned off at the school. Went over to Moutsa to swim and well, I came down, you know the place, through the trees and what did I see — not just a couple of girls. But a couple of girls in bikinis. Quick recce. Niftiest beeline I knew how towards them, said something in Greek, and damn me they answered in English. They were English. Gorgeous creatures. Twins."
"Good Lord. Let me get you another gin."
I stood at the bar waiting for the drinks and watched myself in the mirror; gave myself the smallest wink.
"Sygeia. Well you can imagine, I moved in poly fast. Consolidated position. Found out who they were. Old boy's godchildren up at the villa. Bang out of the top drawer, both been to Roedean, finished in Switzerland. All that. Said they were there for the summer and that the old boy would very much like to meet me, why didn't I come up for tea. Nuff said. Off we trotted. Meet the old boy. Tea."
He had the same old habit of stretching his neck up, as if his collar was too tight; to make himself look a man of the world.
"This what's-his-name spoke English?"
'Perfect. Moved round Europe all his life, best society and all that. Well, actually I found one of the twins a shade off. Not my type. Rather marked the other for my area of ops. Okay, the old man and the not-on twin faded away after tea and this girl, June, that was her name, took me round the property."
"Nice work."
"Didn't actually get round to unarmed combat at that point, but I sort of felt she was ready and willing. You know how it was on the island. Full magazine on and nothing to shoot at."
"Rather."
He flexed his arm, caressed the back of his hair. "Right. I trotted off back to the school. Tender farewell. Invitation to dinner the next weekend. Week passes, I present myself over there in my number ones. Other necessary equipment. Drinks for dinner, girls looking smashing. But then." He gave me a taut, suspenseful look. "Well as a matter of fact the other girl, not June, got stinkers."
"Christ."
"I'd got her number the week before. One of these bloody intellectual girls. Pretend to be as tough as nuts, but a couple of gins put 'em out stone cold. Well, it got pretty bloody dicey during dinner. Damned embarrassing. This Julie girl took against me. Didn't take much notice at first. I thought, well, the girl's a bit squiffy. Time of the month or something. But . . . actually she began, well she began to make fun of me in a damn silly sort of way."
"How?"
"Oh . . . you know, copied my voice. Way I say things. I suppose she was quite good at it. Damned offensive, all the same."
"But what was she saying?"
"Oh a load of stupid cock about pacifism and the bomb. You know the type. And I just wasn't having any."
"Didn't the others join in?"
"Hardly said a word. Too damn embarrassed. Well anyway suddenly wham this Julie girl shouted a whole string of really bloody nasty insults. Lost her temper completely. And then all hell broke loose. This other June girl got up and went for her. The old man flapped his hands like a wounded crow. Then the Julie one rushed away. Then her sister. I was left sitting there with the old man. He started talking about them being orphans. Load of guff. Sort of apology."
"What were these insults she shouted?"
"Old boy, I can't remember now. The girl was pissed." He dredged his memory. "Called me a Nazi, actually."
"A Nazi!"
"One of the things we were rowing about was Mosley."
"You're not a —"
"Of course not, old boy. Good God." He laughed, then flicked a look at me. "But let's face it, not all Mosley says is rot. If you ask me this country has got bloody sloppy." He stretched his neck. "Bit more discipline. National pride . . ."
"Maybe, but Mosley?"
"Old man, don't get me wrong. Who the hell do you think I was fighting against in the war? It's just that . . . well, take your Spain. Look what Franco's done for Spain."
"I thought all he'd done was build a lot of dungeons in Barcelona."
"Ever been to Spain, old man?"
"No, I haven't, as a matter of fact."
"Well, till you have I'd keep quiet about what Franco has and hasn't done."
I silently counted five, and shrugged.
"Sorry. Forget it. Do go on."
"As it happens I've read some of Mosley's stuff, and a lot of it makes sense." He articulated the words with curt clarity. "Quite a lot of sense."
"I'm sure."
He metaphorically preened his ruffled feathers and went on.
"My twin came back, old boy left us for a few minutes and actually she was, seemed, damn sweet. Course I played up the hurt line and sort of indicated that a little stroll in the moonlight later would help me get back to normal. And then, she said wham — Stroll? How about a swim? And believe me, old boy, you only had to hear her say it to see swimming might lead to very interesting other activities. Midnight on the dot, at the gate. Okay, we go to bed at eleven, I sit round waiting for zero hour. Slip out of the house. No problems. Get to the gate. Five minutes later, along she comes. And old man, I can tell you, I've been in some clinches in my time, but that girl lit up like a bomb. Lit me up like a bomb, too. Began to think Operation Midnight Swim was going to be canceled for a more important exercise. But she said she wanted to cool off for a while."
"I'm glad you didn't tell me about this before I went. The disappointment would have killed me."
He grinned condescendingly. "We get down to the beach. She says, I haven't got a costume, do you mind going in first. I think, well maybe she's shy, maybe she wants to do the necessary. Fine. Operation undress. She retires into the trees. Charley does exactly what he's told, swims out fifty yards, treads water, waits two minutes, three, four, actually in the end about ten, begins to feel damn cold. Still no girl."
"And your clothes had gone."
"You've got it, old boy. Stark naked. Standing on that bloody beach hissing the damn girl's name." I laughed, but his smile was very thin. "So. Big joke. Message received. You can imagine how damned angry I was by then. I gave her half an hour to come back. Searched round. No go. So I marched off to the house. Didn't do my feet much good. Tore a bit of pine branch off to cover the old privates if necessary."
"Fantastic." I was beginning to find it difficult not to grin all over my face; but I was clearly meant to share the outrage. "Through the gate, up the drive thing, towards the house. Go round the front. What do you think I see there?" I shook my head. "A man hanging."
"You're joking."
"No, old boy. They were doing the joking. Actually it was a dummy. Like one of those things you use in bayonet practice, yes? Filled with straw. Strung up with a rope round its neck. And my clothes on. Head painted to look like Hitler."
"Good God. What did you do?"
"What could I do? Pulled the bloody stupid thing down and got my clothes off it."
"And then?"
"Nix. They'd gone. Hooked it."
"Gone?"
"Caϊque. Heard it down at Moutsa. Thought it was a fisherman. Left my bag out for me. Nothing pinched. Just that bloody four mile walk back to the school."
"You must have been furious."
"Was slightly chokka. Yes."
"But you didn't let them get away with it."
He smiled to himself.
"Right. Quite simple. I composed a little report. First about the thing during the war. Then a few little facts about where our friend Mr. Conchis's present political sympathies lay. Sent it to the appropriate quarters."
"Communist?" Since the civil war ended in 1950, Communists had been hounded relentlessly in Greece.
"Knew some in Crete. Just said I'd seen a couple on Phraxos and followed them to his house. That's enough, that's all they want. A little bit goes a long way. Now you know why you never had the pleasure."
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I fingered the stem of my glass.
"And so you had the last laugh."
"Habit of mine, old boy. Suits my complexion."
"Why on earth did they do it in the first place? I mean, all right, they didn't like you . . . but they could have given you the brush-off from the beginning."
"All that stuff about their being the old boy's godchildren. All my eye. Course they weren't. They were a pair of high-class tarts. Language the Julie one used gave the game away. Damn funny way of looking at you. Suggestive." He glanced at me. "It was the sort of setup you run across in the Mediterranean — especially your Eastern Mediterranean. I've met it before."
"You mean . . ."
"I mean, quite crudely, old boy, that the rich Mr. Conchis wasn't quite up to the job, but he . . . shall we say . . . still got pleasure from seeing the job performed?"
Again I surreptitiously eyed him; knew myself lost in the interminable maze of echoes. Was he, or wasn't he?
"But they didn't actually suggest anything?"
"There were hints, old boy. I worked them out afterwards. There were hints."
He went away and got two more gins.
"You might have warned me."
"I did, old boy."
"Not very clearly."
"You know what Xan—Xan Fielding—used to do to any new chaps who were chuted in when we were up in the Levka Ore? Send 'em wham straight out on a Job. No warnings, no sermons. Just — 'Watch it.' Okay?"
I disliked Mitford because he was crass and mean, but even more because he was a caricature, an extension, of certain qualities in myself; he had on his skin, visible, the carcinoma I nursed inside me. I had to suspect, the old paranoia, that he might be another 'plant' — a test for me, a lesson; but yet there was something so ineffably impervious about the man that I could not believe he was so consummate an actor. I thought of Lily de Seitas; how to her I must seem as Mitford did to myself. A barbarian.
We moved out of the Mandrake onto the pavement.
"I'm off to Greece next month," he said.
"Oh."
"Firm's going to start tours there next summer."
"Oh God. No."
"Do the place good. Shake their ideas up."
I looked down the crowded Soho Street. "I hope Zeus strikes you with lightning the moment you get there."
He took it as a joke.
"Age of the common man, old boy. Age of the common man."
He held out his hand. I would have dearly loved to have known how to twist it and send him wham straight over my shoulder. The last I saw of him was of a dark blue back marching towards Shaftesbury Avenue; eternally the victor in a war where the losers win.
* * *
Years later I discovered that he had been acting that day, though not in the way that I feared. His name caught my eye in a newspaper. He had been arrested in Torquay on charges of issuing checks under false pretenses. He'd been doing it all over England, using the persona of Captain Alexander Mitford, D.S.O., M.C.
In fact, said prosecuting counsel, although the accused went to Greece in the occupying forces after the German collapse, he played no part whatever in the Resistance. Later there was another bit: Sometime after demobilization Mitford returned to Greece, where he obtained a teaching post by forging false references. He was subsequently dismissed from this post.
* * *
Late that afternoon I dialed the Much Hadham number. It rang a long time but then someone answered. I heard Lily de Seitas's voice. She was out of breath.
"Sorry. I was in the garden. Dinsford House."
"It's me. Nicholas Urfe."
"Oh hello." She said it with a bright indifference.
"I'd like to see you again."
There was a small pause. "I have no news."
"I'd still like to see you."
I knew she was smiling, in the silence that followed.
She said, "When?"
74
I was out the next morning. When I got back, about two, I found Kemp had slipped a note under my door: A Yank called. Says its urgent. Will come again four. I went down to see her. She was splaying great worms of viridian green with her thumb across murky black and umber explosions of Ripolin. She did not like to be interrupted when she was "making a painting."
"This man."
"Said he must see you."
"What about?"
"Going to Greece." She stood stockily back, fag in mouth. "Your old job or something."
"But how did he find where I live?"
"Don't ask me."
I stood staring at the note. "What sort of man was he?"
"Christ, can't you wait a couple of hours?" She turned. "Buzz."
He came at five to four, a tallish young man with a lean body and the unmistakable cropped head of an American. He wore glasses, was a year or two younger than I; pleasant face, pleasant smile, pleasant everything; as wholesome, and as green, as a lettuce. He thrust out a hand.
"John Briggs."
"Hello."
"You're Nicholas Urfe? Is that how I pronounce it? The lady . . ."
I made him come in. "Not much of a place, I'm afraid."
"It's nice." He looked around for a better word. "Atmosphere." We clambered up the stairs.
"I wasn't expecting an American."
"No. Well, I guess it's the Cyprus situation."
"Ah."
"I've been over here this last year at London University. All along I've been trying to figure how I could get myself a year in Greece before I return home. You don't know how excited I am."
We came to a landing. He saw some of the sewing girls at work through an open door. Two or three of them whistled. He waved to them. "Isn't that nice? Reminds me of Thomas Hood."
"Where did you hear about the job?"
"In the Times Educational Supplement." He gave even the most familiar English institutions an interrogative intonation, as if I might not have heard of them.
We came to my flat. I closed the door.
"I thought the British Council had stopped doing the recruiting."
"Is that so? I suppose the school committee decided that as Mr. Conchis was over here he might as well do the interviewing."
He had gone into the sitting room and was looking at the view down grimy old Charlotte Street. "This is charming. You know, I love this city." I indicated the least greasy of the armchairs.
"And... Mr. Conchis gave you my address?"
"Sure. Was that wrong?"
"No. Not at all." I sat on the window seat. "Did he tell you anything about me?"
He raised his hand, as if I might need quietening down. "Well yes, he — I do know, I mean . . . he warned me how dangerous these school intrigues can get. As I understand you had the misfortune . . ." he gave up. "You still feel sore about it?"
I shrugged. "Greece is Greece."
"I bet they're rubbing their hands already at the thought of a real live American."
"They probably are." He shook his head, as if the thought that anyone could involve a real live American in a Levantine academic intrigue was almost past belief. I said, "When did you see Mr. Conchis?"
"When he was here three weeks ago. I'd have gotten in contact earlier, but he lost your address. He just sent it to me from Greece. Only this morning."
I thought quickly. "Only this morning?"
"Yep. A cable."
"A cable!"
"Surprised me too. I think he'd forgotten about it. You . . . you know him pretty well?"
"Oh I . . . met him a few times. I was actually never terribly clear about his position on the school committee."
"What he told me, no official position. Just helping out. Jesus, his English is marvelous
though."
"Isn't it?"
We sized each other up. He had a relaxed way about him that seemed inculcated by education, by reading some book on How To Be At Ease With Strangers, rather than by any intuitive gift. Nothing, one felt, had ever gone wrong in his life; but he h
ad a sort of freshness, an enthusiasm, an energy that couldn't be totally canceled by envy. Let him have his fall; but he made you hope to see him rise again.
I analyzed the situation. The natural coincidence of his appearing and my call to Much Hadham was so improbable that it was almost an argument in favor of his innocence. It might be simply Conchis's sense of humor at work; to make me doubt unnecessarily; or to make it so obvious I should doubt that I wouldn't. On the other hand Mrs. de Seitas must have deduced from my telephone call that I was undergoing a change of heart; and this was nicely timed to test my reliability, my preparedness to keep my mouth shut.
Yet telling me about the cable made him sound genuinely innocent; and though I had understood that the "subject" had to be a matter of hazard, perhaps there was some reason, some unknown result of that summer, that had made Conchis decide to choose his next guinea pig. Faced with the guileless, earnest Briggs I felt a little of what Mitford must have felt with me: a malicious amusement, bedeviled in my case by a European delight in seeing brash America being taken for a ride; and beyond that a kinder wish, which I would never have admitted to Conchis or Lily de Seitas, not to spoil his experience.
Of course they must have known (if Briggs was genuine) that I might tell him everything; and they would have some way of meeting the problem that would have caused — would make me out to be the "plant," the liar. Perhaps they even wanted me to tell him; but I did not think so. And once again I was standing with the cat in my hand, unable to bring it down.
Briggs had pulled out a pad from the briefcase he had with him.
"May I ask questions? I've got quite a list."
And again: the coincidence. He was doing exactly what I had done only a few days before, at Dinsford House. His eager, deceitless face smiled up at me. I smiled back.
"Shoot."
He was terrifyingly methodical. Teaching methods, textbooks, clothes, climate, sports facilities, medicines to take, food, the size of the library, what to see in Greece, character sketches of the other masters — he wanted information about every conceivable aspect of life on Phraxos. Finally he looked up from his pad and the notes he had copiously penciled and took up the beer I had poured him.