The Magus - John Fowles

by John Fowles

  I said, "I want to make one thing clear from the start." She said nothing. "I forgive you that foul bloody trick you played this summer. I forgive you whatever miserable petty female vindictiveness made you decide to keep me waiting all this time."

  She shrugged. A silence. Then she said, "But?"

  "But I want to know what the hell went on that day in Athens. What the hell's been going on since. And what the hell's going on now."

  "And then?"

  Those gray eyes; her strangeness made them colder.

  "We'll see."

  She took a cigarette out of her handbag and lit it; and then without friendliness offered me the packet. I said, "No thanks."

  She stared into the distance, towards the aristocratic wall of houses that make up Cumberland Terrace and overlook the park. Cream stucco, a row of white statues along the cornices, the muted blues of the sky.

  A poodle ran up to us. I waved it away with my foot, but she patted it on the head. A woman called, "Tina! Darling! Come here." In the old days we would have exchanged grimaces of disgust. She went back to staring at the houses. I looked round. There were other seats a few yards away. Other sitters and watchers. Suddenly the whole peopled park seemed a stage, the whole landscape a landscape of masquers, spies. I lit one of my own cigarettes; willed her to look at me, but she wouldn't. She was still punishing me; not now with absence, but with silence.

  I had imagined this scene so often; and it was always in essence a melting, a running into each other's arms.

  "Alison."

  She looked at me briefly, but then down again. She sat, holding the cigarette. As if nothing would make her speak. A plane leaf lolloped down, touched her skirt. She bent and picked it up, smoothed its yellow teeth against the tweed. An Indian came and sat on the far end of the bench. A threadbare black overcoat, a white scarf; a thin face. He looked small and unhappy, timidly alien; a waiter perhaps, the slave of some cheap curryhouse kitchen. I moved a little closer to her, lowered my voice, and forced it to sound as cold as hers.

  "What about Kemp?"

  "We went to see her."

  "We?"

  "Yes. We."

  "Have you seen them? All of them?"

  "Nicko, please don't interrogate me. Please don't."

  My name; a tiny shift. But she was still set hard and silent.

  "Are they watching? Are they here somewhere?"

  An impatient sigh.

  "Are they?"

  "No." But at once she qualified it. "I don't know."

  I said, "Look at me. Look at me."

  And she couldn't do it. Face to face she could not lie to me. She looked away and said, "It was the one last thing. One last time. It's nothing."

  There was a long pause.

  I said, "You can't lie to me. Face to face."

  She touched her hair; the hair, her wrist, a way she had of raising her face a little as she made the gesture. A glimpse of the lobe of an ear. I had a sense of outrage, as if I was being barred from my own property.

  "You're the only person I've ever felt that about. That they could never lie to me. So can you imagine what it was like in the summer? When I got that letter, those flowers..

  She said, "If we start talking about the past."

  All my overtures were in some way irrelevant; she had something else on her mind. My fingers touched a smooth dry roundness in my coatpocket: a chestnut, a talisman. Jojo had passed it to me wrapped in a toffeepaper, her pawky joke, one evening in a cinema. I thought of Jojo, somewhere only a mile or two away through the brick and the traffic, sitting with some new pick- up, drifting into her womanhood; of holding her pudgy hand in the darkness. And suddenly I had to fight not to take Alison's.

  I said, "Allie?"

  But coming to a decision, determined to be untouched, she threw the yellow leaf away.

  "I've returned to London to sell the flat." She looked briefly at me; she wasn't lying. "I'm going back to Australia."

  Terrible; we were like total strangers.

  "Long journey for such a small matter."

  "And to see you."

  "Like this?"

  "To see if I . . ." but she cut her sentence short, as if by some previous resolution. Or advice?

  "If you?"

  "I didn't want to come. They made me."

  "Made you?" I sounded unbelieving.

  "Made me feel I ought to come."

  "Just to see me."

  "Yes."

  "So you're here against your will."

  "You could call it that."

  "And now you've seen me."

  But she would not answer the implicit question. She threw me one quick look, a sudden flash of fierceness. But then went back to her silence. She was mysterious, almost a new woman; one had to go back several steps, and start again; and know the place for the first time. As if what had once been free in her, as accessible as a pot of salt on a table, was now held in a phial, sacrosanct. But I knew Alison, I knew how she took on the color and character of the people she loved or liked, however independent she remained underneath. And I knew where that smooth impermeability came from. I was sitting with a priestess from the temple of Demeter. I tried to be matter-of-fact. "Where have you been since Athens? At home?"

  "Perhaps."

  I took a breath. "Have you thought about me at all?"

  "Sometimes."

  They had told her: Be like white marble, be oblique. But why?

  "Is there someone else?"

  She hesitated, then said, "No."

  "You don't sound very certain."

  "There's always someone else — if you're looking for it."

  "Have you been . . . looking for it?"

  She said, "There's no one."

  "And I'm included in that 'no one'?"

  "You've been included in it ever since that . . . day."

  What Lily de Seitas had said: she is not a present being given to you; you must convince her you have the money to pay for her. I looked at Alison's sullen profile, that perverse stare into the distance. She was aware of my look, and her eyes followed someone who was passing, as if she found him more interesting than me.

  I said, "What is it?"

  "What's what?"

  "What am I meant to do? Take you in my arms? Fall on my knees? What do they want?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Oh yes you damn well do."

  Her eyes flicked sideways at me, and she looked down. She said, "I saw through you that day. That's all. For ever."

  There was a long pause.

  I said quietly, "I made love to you that day. Also . . . in a sense . . . for ever."

  She shrugged, but a moment later she half turned her back and averted her face, her arm on the back of the seat. I spoke to the ground.

  "There was a moment on that mountain when I loved you. I don't think you know, I know you know, I know you saw it, I know you too well not to be sure you saw it. And remember it." She said nothing. "You're meant to answer."

  "Why should I remember it? Why shouldn't I do everything I can to forget it?"

  "You know the answer to that, too."

  "Do I?" So cold, so small, so quiet.

  I said, "Alison . . ."

  "Don't come closer. Please don't come closer."

  She would not look at me. But it was in her voice. I had a feeling of trembling too deep to show; as if the brain cells trembled. She spoke with her head turned away. "All right, I know what it means." Her face still averted, she took out another cigarette and lit it. "Or it meant. When I loved you. It meant everything you said or did to me had meaning. Emotional meaning. It moved me, excited me. It depressed me, it made me . . ." she took a deep breath. "Like the way after all that's happened you can sit there in that tea place and look at me as if I'm a prostitute or something and —"

  I touched her then, my hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off. I had to move closer, to hear what she said.

  "Whenever I'm with you it's like going
to someone and saying, torture me, abuse me. Give me hell. Because—"

  "Alison."

  "Oh you're nice now. You're nice now. So bloody nice. For a week, for a month. And then we'd start again."

  She was not crying, I leant forward and looked. In some way I knew she was acting, and yet not acting. Perhaps she had rehearsed the saying this; but still meant it. And I thought, supposing they wanted to precipitate what I began to suspect both they and Alison wanted to precipitate: to bringing about in an hour what might take weeks . . . and I remembered that love of paradox, and how well they knew me. To fuse, to weld. And a last lesson, a last warning? A small wave of anger burnt up in me; but one I knew I could use.

  I said, "As you're going back to Australia, I don't see the point of all this."

  I spoke lightly, without sarcasm, but she twisted a look back at me then; almost a look of hate, as it my crassness was monstrous. I made the mistake of beginning to smile; to call her hand. Suddenly she was on her feet and crossing the path. She walked out under the trees onto the grassy open space, and stood with her back to me.

  Something about the way she stood, the direction she faced; it nagged me.

  And then in a flash I knew for certain.

  Beyond her stretched the grass, a quarter of a mile of turf to the edge of the park. Beyond that rose the Regency facade, bestatued, many and elegantly windowed, of Cumberland Terrace. A wall of windows.

  A row of statues. Gods. Classical gods.

  Not the Outer Circle. The dress circle.

  Polymus.

  But once too often.

  I looked at the Indian. He too was staring at Alison; then at me. Even if he had overheard he wouldn't have understood what we were saying; and yet he knew what had happened. I could see it in his mild brown eyes. Dark men, pale men; but only one sort of woman. A ghost of sympathy passed between us.

  I went up behind her; roughly took her arm. She made no move. The air was as mellow as at a harvest festival, the innocent park bred innocent people.

  "Now listen." I stood there at her shoulder, with my meanest expression. It was not a difficult part to play. That bruised face, very near tears, but not in tears. I thought, I will get her on a bed and I will ram her. I will ram her and ram her, the cat will fall and fall, till she is full of me, possessed by me. And I thought, Christ help her if she tries to shield herself with the accursed wall of rubber. If she tries to put anything between my vengeance and her punishment. Christ help her. "Now listen. I know who is watching us, I know where he is watching, I know why we are here. So first. I'm nearly broke. I haven't got a job, and I'm never going to have a job that means anything. So remember that you're standing with the worst prospect in London. Now second. If Lily walked down that path behind us and beckoned to me, I would follow. I think I would follow. The fact that I don't know is what I want you to remember. And while you're about it, remember that she isn't one girl, but a type of encounter. And the world's full of that sort of encounter." I let go of her ann. "Third. As you kindly told me in Athens, I'm not much good in bed."

  "I didn't mean that!" Her face flashed round; I was too unfair.

  I said, "Keep looking at them and keep your mouth shut." We both stared at the blank upper windows of Cumberland Terrace; those white stone divinities. "Fourth. He said something to me one day. About males and females. How we judge things as objects, and you judge them by their relationships. All right. You've always been able to see this . . . whatever it is . . . between us. Joining us. I haven't. That's all I can offer you. The possibility that I'm beginning to see it. That's all." I could see her face obliquely in profile; impossible to tell what she was thinking. "Can I speak?"

  "No. You now have a choice. You do as I say. Or you don't. This. In a few seconds I am going to walk away from you. You will look after me, then call my name. I shall stop, turn round. You will come up to me. I shall turn and start walking away again. You will come after me again, and catch my arm. I shall shake myself free. Then. Then I shall slap you as hard as I can over the side of the face. And believe me, it won't hurt me half as much as it hurts you. I shall walk towards the gate over there on our right. You will stand for a few moments, covering your face with your hands. Then you will begin walking in the opposite direction to me, over to the north gate. To our left. It's about half a mile away." I paused. She swallowed, I knew she was frightened. "When you get there you will take a taxi. You will communicate with no one. You will take a taxi." I hesitated, losing impetus, then found the right echo; and the right exit. "You will take a taxi and go straight to Paddington Station. The waiting room." I jerked the back of her coat down. "And there you will wait. If I find out, if I ever find out that you got in touch with anyone after leaving me I shall . . ."

  "You will . . .?"

  "You know. You know damn well what this is. But you don't say yes or no. You do yes or no. I am now going to wait five seconds. Then I shall start walking." I jerked her coat again. "So get it clear. You have five seconds. In those five seconds you are going to choose, and choose for ever, whose side you are on."

  She stared at the houses. The afternoon sun made them gleam with light, that light one sees in summer clouds; a serene, Olympian elixir of solid light.

  She said, "I'm going back to Australia."

  A moment. The abysses and milestones. Her psychologically contused face, her obstinacy, her unmaneuverability. There was a smell of a bonfire. A hundred yards away a blind man was walking, freely, not like a blind man; only the white stick showed he had no eyes. I said, "The waiting room."

  I walked towards the southeast gate. Two steps, four, six. Then ten.

  "Nicko."

  I stopped; turned with a granite-hard face. She came towards me, stopped two or three yards away. She wasn't acting; she was going back to Australia; or to some Australia of the mind, the emotions, to live, without me. Yet she could not let me go.

  Eleutheria. Her turn to know.

  Then I went on. Fifteen, twenty yards. I closed my eyes. Prayed.

  Her hand on my arm. I turned again. Her eyes were wounded, outraged; I was more than ever impossible. But also some delay she was trying to make. Some compromise. I snatched myself free, of both hand and eyes.

  I hit her before she could speak. I flicked my arm out, held it the smallest fraction of a second, then brought it down sideways as hard as I could; so sure that she would twist her head aside. But in that smallest fraction of a warning second she finally decided; and decision was the savage but unavoided slap knocking her sideways. Even so her hand flashed up instinctively, and her eyes blinked with shock.

  Pain.

  We stared wildly at each other for a moment. Not in love. No name, no name, but unable to wear masks. She recovered first. Behind her I could see people stopped on the path. A man stood up from his seat. The Indian sat and watched. Her hand was over the side of her face, shielding it as well as soothing it. Her eyes were wet, perhaps with the pain. But she was slowly smiling. That archaic smile, her variant of theirs, steadier, braver, far less implacable, without malice or arrogance, yet still that smile.

  Mocking love, yet making it.

  And suddenly the truth came to me, as we stood there, trembling, searching, at our point of fulcrum. There were no watching eyes. The windows were as blank as they looked. The theatre was empty. It was not a theatre. They had told her it was a theatre, and she had believed them, and I had believed her. To bring us to this — not for themselves, but for us. I turned and looked at the windows, the facade, the pompous white pedimental figures.

  Then she buried her face in her hands, as if some inexorable mechanism had started. I was so sure. It was logical, the characteristic and perfect final touch to the godgame. They had absconded. I was so sure, and yet . . . after so much, how could I be perfectly sure? How could they be so cold? So inhuman? So incurious? So load the dice and yet leave the game? And if I wasn't sure?

  I gave her bowed head one last stare, then I was walking. Firmer than Orphe
us, as firm as Alison herself, that other day of parting, not once looking back. The autumn grass, the autumn sky. People. A blackbird, poor fool, singing out of season from the willows by the lake. A flight of gray pigeons over the houses. Fragments of freedom, an anagram made flesh. And somewhere the stinging smell of burning leaves.

  cras amet qui numquam amavit

  quique amavit eras amet

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Born in Essex, England, in 1926, John Fowles was educated at Bedford School and at Oxford University. Following his studies in French at Oxford, Mr. Fowles taught in France and other places abroad before becoming a full-time writer. His first novel, The Collector, was an immediate bestseller — a popular as well as critical success — and he became widely recognized as a new writer of major importance. Reviewing The Collector in The New Republic, Honor Tracy noted: ". . . it does look as if the new England has brought forth a novelist at last." Next came The Aristos, a book at the opposite end of the literary spectrum from The Collector — a self- portrait in ideas which further established Mr. Fowles as a writer of uncommon range and versatility. Now, with the arrival of The Magus, expectations for John Fowles's second novel will be abundantly fulfilled.