Saturn Over the Water

by J. B. Priestley

  ‘I think he does not allow,’ said Mrs Baro calmly. ‘Like the old astrologer. The one who goes to the mountain. He too does not allow.’

  ‘We must eat something now,’ said Mrs Delor, getting up. ‘Please come to the other room. Everything is ready.’

  It was a very small dining-room, with nothing modern or boutique-style about it. The walls were dark crimson, the furniture sombre and heavy. It was stuffy, a bit smelly. The old provincial bourgeois element in the Delors had been let loose in here. We seemed a rum little gang round that table – the Baro bird, plump smiling Mrs Delor, Barsac with his sunken eyes and vast cheek-bones, Joe’s rather wooden square face and indignant English eyes, me too whatever I looked like – dipping into the rich soup and helping ourselves to the heavily-garlicked salad, all the while trying to disentangle our ideas about a secret world conspiracy that might change all human history. I was visited again by the queer feeling I’d had while staring out of the window earlier, that a corner had been turned leading away from familiar reality, that another dimension was being quietly added, that the incredible, the inexplicable, the miraculous, were moving in on us.

  All four of them knew more about this queer side of the whole affair than I did. Even Joe wasn’t too far behind the other three, though he still appeared to be apologetic about it, as if he thought his old colleagues in Cambridge might learn how unsound he’d become. It was Joe who answered a question of mine about the Wavy Eight symbol. At last I learnt what it signified. ‘The Eight stands for Saturn, Tim. Eight is Saturn’s number. And the wavy line is water.’

  ‘Saturn over the water,’ I said slowly, tasting it. ‘Good. I’m tired of calling ’em Wavy Eights. Always sounded like some new women’s naval corps. As far as I’m concerned, they’re Saturnians from now on. But what does it mean, Joe?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps it doesn’t mean anything really. Just some sort of secret society badge.’

  This wasn’t good enough for Barsac. He seemed to be replying for Mrs Baro and his sister too. ‘Joe my friend, you made this mistake at the Institute. What you were not told at Cambridge does not exist. You cannot begin again making this mistake. Saturn means something. The water it is above must mean something. Did the Christian cross mean nothing? Was it only a badge? To these men perhaps Saturn over the water takes the place of the cross. Mrs Baro believes they do not act simply for themselves. I think this may be true. They may have masters – ’

  ‘I’m sure they have.’ And I told them how Steglitz, swelling and glowing with a sense of power, had been so strangely silenced. Then I went on: ‘This is what we know now. At least what I know, from what I’ve learnt myself, from what Steglitz said earlier, that night, from what Rosalia was told by her grandfather. These Saturn types believe our whole civilisation has gone wrong. So they want it to destroy itself. They want total war – nuclear, biological, the works. It’s their plan that explains what’s been so puzzling – that while everybody talks about peace, this total war comes nearer and nearer. The Saturnians see to that. They use all kinds of methods. They control some key people. I know they use individual and mass hypnotic techniques, subliminal messages in films, drugs they make themselves, and all the usual propaganda channels. Whenever possible, though, they don’t bring new forces into play but simply direct forces that already exist – ’

  ‘Tim, I never expected to hear you talking like this,’ cried Joe. ‘You’ll be an intellectual soon. But I’d like an example of this directing of existing forces.’

  ‘All right, Joe. Here’s a small example, but I think it’s typical of their methods. They want me out of the way, not poking around here. So what do they do? Hire some toughs to kidnap me or bump me off? No, that’s not their style. They get me in wrong with the Security people and, through them, with the police, then these fatheads do their work for them. So I’m on the run – and it’s all legal – ’

  ‘It is the same with me of course,’ said Barsac. ‘I am now a Communist, it seems, even though there is no proof I ever attended a Communist Party meeting in my life. But continue please, Bedford. They are hoping to bring about total war – to make a thousand million imbeciles destroy one another – ’

  ‘Wiping out practically the whole Northern Hemisphere. They haven’t to do it. It’s done for them. Then they can start again, another civilisation, on different lines altogether, here in the Southern Hemisphere. Well, we know all that now. We also know – at least I do and I hope you do – that what we’ve found so far – at Uramba and Osparas and Charoke – ’

  ‘Which is finished, don’t forget,’ Barsac broke in. ‘Their time is running out – as I told the beautiful sad countess – ’

  ‘I say, what we’ve found so far are only a few links in a great chain. How big it is – how far its other links go – we don’t know, and it’s anybody’s guess. And of course we don’t know – I certainly don’t – who or what, if anything, is behind all this. What about these masters of theirs – if they exist?’

  I looked round the table. Mrs Baro now spoke very quickly and in a low voice to Barsac and Mrs Delor in French.

  ‘You didn’t understand?’ Barsac said to Joe and me. ‘Mrs Baro feels now she may be able to see something. So we go and sit quietly in the other room – and wait. I think this may be of the greatest importance.’

  We went into the sitting-room and kept quiet and waited. Only one light was left on. It looked like one of those low-tone Victorian pictures of people listening to music. But having nothing else to do, of course I wondered and worried about Rosalia harder than ever. Sometimes I asked her angrily what the hell she thought she was doing. Sometimes I crept up to a hospital bed to hear her whisper my name for the last time. And I must admit that once or twice I wondered if she’d had enough of me already and had just cleared off without a word, back to the Rosalia Arnaldos I’d watched being temperamental, spoilt, bitchy, at Uramba. But only once or twice, just for half a minute perhaps out of fifteen. And fifteen minutes is a long time to sit around in a dim light, not daring to speak, just waiting for something to happen. I began to tell myself that Mrs Baro had better be good when she did start.

  Then she started. She didn’t go off into a trance or tell us some Red Indian was helping on the other side or anything of that sort. She just began rattling off brief descriptions of what she was seeing, and a lot of it meant nothing to me, though it may have done to the others. But when she held my wrist again, she gave me a nasty shock. ‘A woman thinks of you. So now I see her. She is in hospital. She is terribly injured. I think she is dying – ’

  ‘Rosalia? For God’s sake – ’

  ‘No, no. Not the dark younger one I saw before – the one who is in love with you. Another – older. She is not thinking about you now. I don’t see her. Now I see this one I saw before. Rosalia, is it? She is driving a car. Many other cars. She is tired. She is in danger now. Because of some change she is in danger. Not from driving the car – no. There are men. I cannot see them but I know they are there. They wish to take her away from you. She is now very important to these men. She does not know of this danger. But she feels it. She is very tired, poor girl. But she must drive and drive. I am sorry. I cannot see her now.’

  Well, all this stuff, which went on much longer and was more broken up and harder to understand in the original, left me wondering and worrying harder than ever. Where was she? What was she up to? Why was she so tired now? But, as I’ve suggested before somewhere, there’s no point in going through a long list of questions if there isn’t an answer to a single one of them.

  Then Barsac said that before Mrs Baro felt she’d have to stop, we ought to work all together to do something about this ‘old man on the mountain’. So we all sat close, all joining hands. I was on one side of Mrs Baro, Barsac was on the other, with Mrs Delor and Joe of course sitting between us. I don’t know what the others felt, but I felt a fool. I didn’t look at Joe, and thought myself lucky to be holding Mrs Delor’s plump cool hand and not his sw
eaty meaty paw. I didn’t know – and nobody ever told me afterwards – what magic we were supposed to be working. But it worked.

  ‘I see him now,’ said Mrs Baro. ‘He is not on a mountain. He is by the sea. He does not seem the right man. But he is telling me in his thought that he is. The old astrologer on the mountain. He must be. His thought is clear and strong. It is too strong. No, no, no,’ she cried almost as if in pain. She waited a moment or two. I could feel her trembling. ‘It is very strange. He is by the sea. It is the Gold Coast. Yes, the Gold Coast. I see only a dirty drunken old man. A fat drunken woman is there. She sits outside. She takes money for him. It is all vulgar and stupid. Yet this is the man. On the mountain he holds the key. No, no, no,’ she cried again, just as she did before. ‘Too strong for me. Please, that is better. I understand. Yes, I understand. I will explain.’ She let go of my hand, and we all stopped hand-holding. She waited a few moments, breathing hard, then looked at me. ‘The day after tomorrow, it must be. You and Rosalia Arnaldos. First you find him there. The Gold Coast. Then he will see you on the mountain. His name there, by the sea, is Pat. That I am certain of – Pat. I heard it and I saw it. Then – something – ailey – Bailey – Mailey – I don’t know. But this I know. On the mountain he holds the key of knowledge.’

  ‘Knowledge of what?’ I asked, not very hopefully. ‘Saturn over the water?’

  ‘Of course.’ She leant back and closed her eyes, utterly whacked. ‘That is what you want. So you have only to find him.’

  ‘Aw – mais – Madame Baro – ’ This was Mrs Delor, who never stopped making fussing noises until she’d carried Mrs Baro off to bed. We men needed a drink. Joe had beer, Barsac went back to wine, I took a whisky.

  ‘You will go to look for him of course,’ Barsac said to me. ‘It is a great chance.’

  ‘It sounds well up the wall to me,’ I said sourly.

  ‘No, Tim,’ Joe began. But Barsac swept him away.

  ‘You are a fool, Bedford,’ said Barsac angrily. ‘I am sorry to say this – but you are. Over and over again what this woman has seen has been proved to be true. She saw you and Miss Arnaldos coming here – and said you were already lovers. Last night she saw those flames – and now we know Charoke has been burnt down. She has said for days that all kinds of disasters were coming to these Saturnians. That is why I warned Countess Slatina at lunch today. And too late, I think. Who was the other woman she saw – not Miss Arnaldos but the one in hospital? You don’t know. You know nothing.’ He glared at me. He was almost shouting now. ‘But though you know nothing you are sure what she has seen and what she has told you are not worth your attention. That is how I used to think until I had my lesson. That is how Joe used to think – until he knew better – ’

  ‘All right, Barsac, all right, don’t shout at me. But look at it from my point of view. First, I’m to go with Rosalia. That’s fine – except that I don’t know where the hell she is. Okay – if Mrs Baro is right – Rosalia’s driving a car – very tired – and in some sort of danger. That’s cheerful news, isn’t it? And how can I go anywhere with her if I don’t know where she is? And if I could go with her – what then? We have to find a boozy old Irish fortune-teller – Pat Something-ailey. And where, for God’s sake? This is the last touch – the one that sends me well up the wall. The Gold Coast.’

  ‘Now take it easy, Tim,’ Joe began again. But once more Barsac swept him away.

  ‘The Gold Coast – so what is wrong with the Gold Coast – my impatient young friend – oh I know you worry about your girl – you don’t know what you are saying.’ Barsac did a tremendous wrapping-up-and-throwing-away gesture, as if he’d just parcelled up everything I’d said and then chucked it out of the window. He was now immensely calm and deliberate, and he pointed a very long bony forefinger at me. ‘This Gold Coast we speak of now – it is what – perhaps four hundred miles from here – no more. It is the part of the Queensland coast nearest to New South Wales – a place for tourists. Wait – I will show you on a map.’ He went off to find one.

  I stared at Joe. ‘High back Brisbane,’ I said to him slowly.

  ‘What’s that, Tim?’

  ‘Why, you clot, it’s one of the things you put on that famous list of yours. High back Brisbane – query. Don’t you remember? All right, it doesn’t matter. But I see what it means now – that the old astrologer, when he’s on the mountain, is high up somewhere not too far from Brisbane. So that fits in. I’ll tell you another thing, Joe. That is, if I’m not boring you – ’

  ‘Don’t be an ass, Tim. What’s the matter with you? That girl, I suppose. Well, go on, go on.’

  ‘I had to memorise that list, Joe. And now with this high back Brisbane, the last item’s accounted for, all ticked off. This is how it went. First name – General Giddings. I saw him at Uramba, then at lunch-time today – he’s a cold war hotter-up, Saturnian in Washington until he moves south permanently. Next – Melnikov – met him in London and at Uramba – Russian hotter-up. Next – von Emmerick – we both knew him at Osparas. Next Steglitz – met him at Uramba, then at Charoke, where all his monkey tricks have been lost in the flames. Then you had Something-Smith – that’s Sir Reginald Merlan-Smith, English Saturnian – met him in London, Osparas, now he’s here. The one you hadn’t on your list was Lord Randlong – a very smooth large brown rat. Then – Old Astrologer on the mountain – we’ve just heard about him. Osparas and Emerald L. – Charoke, Victoria – Blue Mountains – all present and correct. High back Brisbane – that’s settled now, Semple, Rother, Barsac, you wrote – and we know about them. Figure 8 above wavy l. – we’ve talked about that. Your last query of all read Why Sat.? In short, why Saturn? Well, that’s something we don’t know yet – ’ I broke off because I heard a bell ringing. ‘Somebody at the door, Joe?’

  ‘Barsac’s along there, I expect,’ said Joe. ‘Still looking for the map. Funny thing about maps – you can never find ’em when you want ’em. Road maps, I mean, not atlases.’

  ‘Just a minute, Joe.’ I got up and made a move towards the door. Before I could reach it, Rosalia came in, white-faced and smudgy round the eyes. She saw me, gave a little cry, then she was in my arms, sobbing. Joe must have faded away; I never saw him go.

  After some kissing and comforting, Rosalia told me what had happened. Everything had been set going by that newspaper the freckle-faced lad had given her before he went off to pick up Barsac and me. She’d begun glancing through it casually, not caring about what Sydney thought was news, and then a tiny item at the bottom of a page leapt out at her screaming. Her grandfather had died. There it was – death of well-known South American oil multi-millionaire – no mistake about it. After the first shock she’d felt she had to do something at once – I’ve come to know this instinctive reaction of Rosalia’s very well now – so she drove into Sydney as fast as she could go, to the South American financial and shipping agency she’d already had some dealings with, through her grandfather, who’d arranged for these people to supply her with money. They’d been trying to find her but of course couldn’t discover where she was. Her uncle in Caracas, as well as lawyers there and in Lima, were trying to find her too, firing message after message to Sydney. She didn’t care about them, not even about her uncle, whom she hadn’t seen for years, but she wanted desperately to talk to Mrs Candamo, to ask her what exactly had happened, what her grandfather had felt, all the sensible human stuff that women care about and lawyers and big business men often don’t. After two or three hours of what sounded to me like a nightmare (though Rosalia took it better than I could) of long-distance communication, with not only different times but a different day at each end, she’d actually got through to Mrs Candamo who’d had to go up to Lima. Her grandfather had died in his sleep, Mrs Candamo told her. And he had left her not only about a third of his fortune but also the Institute itself, without any conditions whatever. Mrs Candamo had asked if I had found her, and when Rosalia said I had, they then said certain things to each other – at ab
out a pound a word, I imagine – that Rosalia didn’t propose to repeat to me.

  ‘Although he knew you hadn’t gone to Uramba as a friend to them,’ she said, ‘my grandfather liked you a lot, Tim darling. He told me so. You made him so happy when you gave him that sketch. He thought it was wonderful somebody giving him something without wanting anything in return. And if he knows, he’ll be happy about us.’

  ‘Listen, ducky – have you had anything to eat?’

  ‘No, darling, nothing. And now I’m with you again I suddenly feel very hungry. But you listen too.’ She took hold of the lapels of my coat and stared hard at me, her astonishing dark blue eyes brilliant behind tears that were gathering again. ‘If I’m going to be very rich now, you won’t be stupid about not marrying me, will you? I won’t have to hang around, will I, just waiting for us to stay somewhere again – as Mr and Mrs Silly Name?’

  ‘Let’s leave that, ducky. You must eat – ’

  ‘Are we staying here, Tim?’

  ‘God knows. What with worrying about you – and other things that have happened – I haven’t even given it a thought. Half a minute – I’ll call Mrs Delor – she’s Barsac’s sister and it’s her bungalow.’

  ‘I know – and I thought I’d never find it. Oh – one thing I did. I sent that lovely Mercedes back to the garage and told them I wanted one of those cars that are made here and look like everybody else’s. It’s dull – but safer – ’

  Ten minutes later she’d met Mrs Delor and Joe, had had a quick wash and brush up, and was ready to deal with the tray that Mrs Delor brought in. While she ate, Barsac and I did a kind of double turn telling her all about Mrs Baro and her second sight or whatever it was and what we had to do to find the old astrologer-fortuneteller-magician on the mountain. Tired though she was, and, as I knew, still deeply troubled and grieving, she took it all better than I’d done. (In a way Rosalia believes anything, the crazier the better, but her feet, as feminine as the rest of her, are always on the ground.) When she was told we’d have to start looking for a drunken old Irish character in this Gold Coast place, she gave me a wide and wonderful grin that turned my heart over. And she was very good with Joe.