by Robert Irwin
‘Oliver’s real talent is in making things vanish. He’s a genius at that. Even other magicians say so. He says that it is just a matter of misdirecting the attention.’
Once the war was properly under way, they moved to Canada and Oliver went to the British High Commission to ask about enlisting and going back to Britain, but somehow he ended up being assigned to the Canadian equivalent of E.N.S.A. and he travelled about from one barracks town to another entertaining the troops who were preparing to cross the Atlantic.
Since the War, Oliver has continued to work as a conjuror and still with Caroline as his assistant. He is a well-respected man. Not only is he President of the Canadian version of the Magic Circle, but he is also leader of a sort of Surrealist literary group in Toronto. When Oliver saw my book reviewed in The Times Literary Supplement, he ordered it from England and they read it and talked about it and they decided they ought to have a holiday in England. It was silly never to go back just because they were afraid of me. It was time I learned the truth.
At last Caroline was finished with her life story and she looked at me.
I just said,
‘Caroline, why?’
‘Oh Caspar dear, it’s difficult, but in a way the answer is in that awful book of yours. It’s all about how you are – how you look at the world and then you sort of rework it so it looks weird and then you go and sell the weird thing you have created to a gallery and you earn a living from this. The point about it is that you compromise with reality all the time. You were even talking at one time about becoming a commercial artist. Anyway, you never quite leave the world of the ordinary. You are too logical. Whereas with Oliver …’
(That smile again!)
‘With Oliver there are no compromises. There never can be. Since his books don’t sell, he lives on magic. Rather that than make the books more commercial. So he’s like you, but he’s more like you than you are yourself. From the earliest weeks of our affair I loved his ruthlessness and his readiness to lie to and cheat on his best friend, just for love of me. I literally worship Oliver’s intensity and his sheer energy and I always will. He makes things happen just by concentrating on them. I really believe that by concentrating he can will himself to think that water runs uphill and then, when he looks, he sees that water does indeed run uphill.
She paused,
‘Do you remember that evening in Paris when we were over at André Breton’s flat with Jacqueline and the Eluards and we were looking at André’s photo album?’
‘I don’t remember ever being in André’s flat.’
‘No? I wondered about that. There are all sorts of gaps and distortions in your book – like the way you make it seem as though we two were alone almost the whole time in Paris. It just wasn’t so. Anyway, in the flat I was looking at photos of Jacqueline Lamba, Nusch Eluard, Valentine Hugo, Leonora Carrington, Lee Miller and the rest of them and thinking ‘Gosh! The Surrealists get all the beautiful women, don’t they?’ Then it occurred to me that that was possibly what you wanted me for. No male Surrealist was complete without a beautiful woman hanging on his arm. If I stayed with you, I should become a piece of Surrealist equipment – like your paintbrush, only not as important as your paintbrush.’
‘Caroline, it wasn’t like that and it never would have been. I swear.’
‘No, I suppose not.’ She reached across the table to take my hand. ‘I was very fond of you, you know and I now know how much you loved me. But it’s not enough. You might paint me as a goddess, but your grip on reality is strong enough for you to know that I am not one. But Oliver … Oliver knows for certain that I am a goddess, one of those special people who has taken human form and walks about on Earth in the guise of a woman –’
She let go of my hand and looked at her watch.
‘You have to forget me, you know. I’m giving you permission to forget me. Come on now. We’ve talked long enough. It’s time to go over and meet Oliver.’
I put my hand over hers.
‘Stay a while. You are so beautiful.’
But she took her hand away again.
‘Oh come on now! Don’t be such a cowardy custard! Oliver is impatient to see you and I want you to see Ozymandias. Oliver will be waiting for us outside The Hall of Mirrors.’
I paid the waitress. Caroline pulled me to my feet and linked her arm proprietorially in mine. The park was staying open late that evening. There was to be a firework display – something to do with the imminent coronation of a new monarch. Together we walked through the gathering dark towards the faint music of the fairground and we talked of less important things.
Caroline told me that she had liked Monica and was glad that she and I had got together eventually. But Oliver thought that Monica’s theories about coincidence were rubbish, for she paid too much attention to statistics and not enough to the power of love to discover coincidence in the operations of chance. Then Caroline was talking about the hotel they were staying in somewhere outside London. They would be moving on soon, as Oliver had a phobia about being trapped in the ordinary.
And I was thinking about Oliver. I had thought he was dead. This would be like a resurrection. Should I kill him now? What good would that do? I felt too sad and empty to hate him.
As we got closer to the fairground, Caroline stopped talking, unwilling to compete with the full-throated mechanical music of the steam driven calliopes and carousel organs.
Oliver was standing, waiting outside The Hall of Mirrors. He had grown a neat little Anthony Eden-ish moustache and he was wearing an American-style suit with broad lapels. Unlike Caroline, he did look tireder and gaunter – even a little ghostly. As he saw me coming, he extended a hand and then, thinking the better of it, he pressed the hand against his heart in an oriental form of salutation.
‘Hello again, Caspar. Am I forgiven?’
He did not actually say these words, but, remembering my skill as a lip-reader, he mockingly mouthed them.
‘I forgive you, curse you!’ I mouthed back.
‘Where’s Ozymandias?’ shouted Caroline anxiously.
Oliver smiled at me exultantly and pointed over the roof of The Hall of Mirrors to the Big Dipper. A ride was coming to an end and the carriages were slowing to a stop. In the third of the carriages a boy – a young man almost – with jet black hair and large eyes rode alone. He was smiling too. This was unmistakably Ozymandias. I watched the carriages rattle to a final stop and the boy step down, before turning back to Oliver and Caroline. But they were no longer with me. The boy had also vanished. Once again I was left alone with the images on my eyelids.