The Magus

by John Fowles

  ‘Don’t you like Lily?’

  ‘Splendid. For a Victorian barmaid.’

  She smiled, but in a very token way. ‘I don’t like my real name much better.’ Then she said, ‘I was christened Julia, but it’s been Julie ever since.’

  ‘Julie what?’

  ‘Holmes.’ She murmured, ‘But I’ve never lived in Baker Street.’

  ‘And your sister?’

  She hesitated. ‘You seem very convinced about her.’

  ‘Shouldn’t I be?’

  Again she hesitated, then came to a decision. ‘We were summer born. My parents didn’t show great imagination.’ She shrugged, as if it was silly. ‘Her name’s June.’

  ‘June and Julie.’

  ‘You mustn’t tell Maurice.’

  ‘Have you known him long?’

  She shook her head. ‘But it seems long.’

  ‘How long?’

  She looked down. ‘I feel a kind of traitor.’

  ‘The last thing I’ll do is sneak on you.’

  And again she gave me that look, searching and uncertain, almost reproaching me for being so insistent; but she must have seen I was not going to be put off again. She leant forward a little, looking down at the ground.

  ‘We were brought here under completely false pretences. A few weeks ago. In a way it’s absurd that we haven’t walked out.’

  I hesitated, because my mind had leapt at once to Leverrier and Mitford. But I decided to save that card.

  ‘You’ve never been here before?’

  Her quick look of surprise seemed very genuine. ‘Why … ?’

  ‘I just wondered.’

  ‘But why do you ask?’

  ‘I thought this might have gone on last year.’

  Her eyes searched mine, full of some suspicion.

  ‘Have you heard … ?’

  ‘No, no.’ I smiled. ‘Just guessing. Speculating. What were the false pretences?’

  It was a little like goading a recalcitrant mule – a very charming mule, but one that seemed scared of every step it took forward. She stared at the ground, searching for words. ‘I’m trying to say that in spite of everything we are here of our own free will. Even though we’re not at all sure what’s behind … everything that’s happening, we do feel a sort of gratitude – a kind of trust, really.’ She paused, and I opened my mouth, but she flashed me a glance of appeal. ‘Please let me finish.’ She put her hands to her cheeks for a moment. ‘It’s so difficult to explain. But we both feel we owe him a lot. And the point is, if I answer all the questions I fully understand you must be burning to ask, it … it would be like telling you the story of a mystery film just before you went to see it.’

  ‘But surely you can tell me how you got into the film.’

  ‘Not really. Because that’s part of the plot.’

  Once again I was losing her. A huge bronze maybug boomed round the upper branches of the almond. The statue below stood in the sun and eternally commanded the wind and the sea. I watched her face in the shadow, hanging a little, almost timid now.

  ‘You’re, I don’t know, being paid to do this?’

  She hesitated. ‘Yes, but

  ‘But what?’

  ‘It’s not that. The money.’

  ‘Just now, down there, you didn’t seem at all sure you liked what he’s making you do.’

  ‘It’s because we never know how much of what he tells us can be believed. You mustn’t think we know everything where you know nothing. “We’ve been told a lot more about what he’s trying to do. But it may only be more lies.’ She shrugged. ‘If you like we’re a few steps further into the maze. That doesn’t mean we’re any nearer the centre than you.’

  I left a silence. ‘You have acted at home?’

  ‘Yes. Not really professionally.’

  ‘At university?’

  She had a wry smile. ‘There’s something else. There is a sense in which he perhaps can hear everything we say. I can’t tell you how, but I think you’ll understand by the end of today.’ She quickly forestalled my scepticism. ‘Nothing to do with telepathy. That’s just a blind. A metaphor.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘If I tell you … it would spoil it. I will tell you one thing. It’s a unique experience. Quite out of this world. Literally out of this world.’

  ‘You’ve had it?’

  ‘Yes. It’s one reason June and I have decided to trust him. It’s not something that could be created by an evil mind.’

  ‘I still don’t understand how he can hear what we say.’

  She contemplated the empty miles of sea. ‘If I’m not explaining, it’s also because I’m not sure that he won’t hear because you tell him.’

  ‘For God’s sr.ke, I’ve just said – I wouldn’t dream of giving you away.’

  She looked briefly at me, then out to sea again. Her voice dropped. ‘We’re not sure if you’re what you say you are – what Maurice has told us you are.’

  ‘But that’s mad!’

  ‘I’m only trying to explain that you aren’t the only person who doesn’t know what to believe. You could be hiding from us. In spite of appearances.’

  ‘You only have to cross the island. The school’s there. Ask anyone.’ I said, ‘And what about all the others here?’

  ‘They’re not English. And absolutely under Maurice’s thumb. We hardly see them, anyway. They’ve only been here very briefly.’

  ‘You mean I’ve been hired to fool you?’

  ‘It is possible.’

  ‘Jesus.’ I looked at her, trying to force her to admit it was ridiculous; but she remained obstinately serious. ‘Come on. Nobody could act that well.’

  That did extract a faint smile. ‘I have rather felt that.’

  ‘Surely you can get away – I can take you round the school.’

  ‘He’s made it very clear that I mustn’t do that.’

  ‘It would only be paying him back in kind.’

  ‘The irony is, I…’ but she shook her head.

  ‘Julie, you can trust me.’

  She took a breath. ‘The irony is that I’m not even sure that I’m not meant to break the rules. He is the most fantastic person. Hide-and-seek … it’s really much more like blind man’s buff. Being spun so much that you lose all sense of direction. You begin to see double, triple meanings in everything he says and does.’

  ‘Then break the rules. And see what happens.’

  Again she hesitated, then gave me a rather more sincere smile. It seemed to suggest both that she wanted to trust me and that I must be patient with her.

  ‘Would you like it if this whole thing was called off? Ended tomorrow?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I think we’re here very much on his sufferance. I tried once or twice to suggest that to you.’

  ‘I got the message.’

  ‘It’s all so fragile. Like a spider’s web. Intellectually. Theatrically, if you like. There are ways we could behave that might destroy it all at once.’ She gave me another look. ‘Seriously. I’m not playing games now.’

  ‘Has he threatened to call it off?’

  ‘He doesn’t have to. If we didn’t feel we were going through the most extraordinary experience of our lives … I know he can seem absurd. Maddening. An old ham. But I think he’s discovered a clue to something … ‘ again she did not finish the sentence.

  ‘Which I’m not allowed to know.’

  ‘Something we might all kick ourselves for having spoilt.’ She said, ‘I’m only just beginning to glimpse what it may be about. It’s not that I could tell you coherently, even if…’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Well, he obviously has powers of persuasion. I presume that was your sister last night.’

  ‘Were you shocked?’

  ‘Only now I know who she was.’

  She said softly, ‘Even twin sisters don’t always have the same views on things.’ After a moment she said, ‘I can guess what you must be thinking. But there h
asn’t been the slightest sign of … we shouldn’t still be here if there had been.’ Then she added, ‘June’s always been less of a prude about that sort of thing than me. Actually she was nearly sent –’

  She broke off at once, but it was too late. I saw her make a little gesture of prayer, as if to crave forgiveness for the slip. I grinned at the grim little expression that appeared on her face.

  ‘I’d have known about you at Oxford. So why was she nearly sent down from the other place?’

  ‘Oh God, I am a fool.’ She gave me a look of dry entreaty. ‘You mustn’t tell him.’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘It was nothing. She modelled in the nude once. For a joke. And it got out.’

  ‘What did you read?’

  She smiled gently. ‘One day. Not yet.’

  ‘But you were at Cambridge.’ She gave a reluctant nod. ‘Lucky Cambridge.’

  There was a little silence. She spoke in a lower voice. ‘He’s so shrewd, Nicholas. If I tell you more than you’re meant to know, he’ll cotton on at once.’

  ‘He surely can’t expect me to go on swallowing the Lily thing.’

  ‘No. He doesn’t. You needn’t pretend to.’ ‘So all this could be a part of the plot?’

  ‘Yes. In a way it is.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Very soon your credulity is going to be stretched even further.’

  ‘How soon?’

  ‘If I know him, within an hour from now you won’t know whether to believe a word of anything I’ve just been saying.’

  ‘That was him in the boat?’

  She nodded. ‘He’s probably watching us at the moment. Waiting for his cue.’

  I looked cautiously past her through the trees towards the direction of the house; felt like turning and looking behind me. I could see nothing.

  ‘How much longer have we got?’

  ‘It’s all right. It’s partly up to me.’

  She bent and picked a sprig of origan from a bush beside the bench and smelt it. I stared into the trees below us, still searching for a glint of colour, a movement… trees, and a very elusive wood. She had of course neatly pre-empted the thousand questions I wanted to ask; but about her I was getting, if not many factual, at least some psychological and emotional answers … I imagined a girl who had perhaps been a little bit of a blue-stocking, despite her looks; certainly more an intellectual than an animal creature, but with a repeated and teasing hint of something dormant there, waiting to be awakened; for whom acting at university must have provided some sort of release. I knew she was still acting in a way, but I felt it was defensive now, a way of hiding what she felt about me.

  ‘It seems to me there’s one part of the plot that does call for a little collaboration.’ I added, ‘Rehearsal discussion.’

  ‘Which is that?’

  ‘You and me.’

  She smoothed her skirt over a crossed knee. ‘You aren’t the only one who’s had a shock today. Two hours ago was the first time I heard about your Australian friend.’

  ‘I told you the perfect truth down there. That’s exactly how it is.’

  ‘I’m sorry I sounded so inquisitive. It was just

  ‘Just what?’

  ‘Suspicious. If you had meant to confuse me.’

  ‘If I’m asked here, nothing will take me to Athens.’ She said nothing. ‘Is that the general plan?’

  ‘As far as I know.’ She shrugged. ‘But it depends on Maurice.’ My eyes were sought. ‘We really are also flies in his web.’ She smiled. ‘I’ll be honest. He was going to ask you. But we were warned at lunch that it may be called off.’

  ‘I thought he was in Nauplia.’

  ‘No. He’s been on the island all day.’

  She fingered her sprig of origan and I kept looking at her. ‘But my original point. This first act has apparently required you to attract me. Anyway, that’s been the effect. You may be another fly in the web, but you’ve also been doubling as the kind they tie on hooks.’

  ‘It was a very artificial fly.’

  ‘Sometimes they work the best.’ Her eyes were down, she said nothing. ‘You look as if I shouldn’t have brought this up.’

  ‘No, I… you’re quite right.’

  ‘If it was a reluctant performance, I think you ought to tell me.’

  ‘If I said yes, or no, to that, it wouldn’t be the complete truth. Either way.’

  ‘Then where do we go from here?’

  ‘I think as if we’d met quite naturally. Somewhere else.’

  ‘In which case?’

  She hesitated, she was shredding the leaves from the little stem, preternaturally intent on that. ‘I think I’d have looked forward to knowing you better.’

  I thought of her performance on the beach that morning, but I knew what she meant: her real self was not one that could be rushed. I also knew that I must show her I had understood that. I leant forward, elbows on knees.

  ‘That’s all I wanted to know.’

  She said slowly, ‘Obviously. I am meant to be one reason you want to come back here.’

  ‘It’s working.’

  She said diffidently, ‘This has been something else that’s worried me. Now it’s come to this, I don’t want to mislead you.’

  She said no more, and I jumped to a wrong conclusion. ‘There’s someone else?’

  ‘Just that I’ve made it very clear to Maurice that I’ll play parts for him, I’ll do what I did this morning, but beyond that

  ‘You’re your own mistress.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Has he suggested … ?’

  ‘Absolutely not. He’s said all along that if there’s something we don’t want to do, we needn’t.’

  ‘I wish you’d just give me some clue about what’s behind it all.’

  ‘You must have made some guesses.’

  ‘I feel I’m some sort of guinea-pig, God knows why. It’s mad, I turned up here by pure chance, three weeks ago. Just for a glass of water.’

  ‘I don’t think it was pure chance. I mean, you may have come like that. But if you hadn’t, he’d have found some way.’ She said, ‘We were told you were coming, before you did. When our own first supposed reason for coming here was blown sky-high.’

  ‘He must have sold you something better than just playing games.’

  ‘Yes.’ She turned towards me, an arm along the back of the seat, with an apologetic grimace. ‘Nicholas, I can’t tell you more now. Apart from anything else, I must leave you. But yes, he did sell us something better. And guinea-pig … that’s not quite right. Something better than that, too. That’s one reason we’re still here. However it may seem at the moment.’ She looked down at the sea between us. ‘And one other thing. This last hour’s been a tremendous relief to me. I’m so glad you forced it on us.’ She murmured, ‘We may have got Maurice very wrong. In which case we shall need a knight errant.’

  ‘I’ll get my lance sharpened.’

  She gave me a long look, still with a hint of doubt in it, but which ended in a faint smile. Then she stood.

  ‘We walk to the statue. Say goodbye. You return to the house.’

  I kept sitting. ‘Shall I see you later?’

  ‘He’s asked me to stand by. I’m not sure.’

  ‘I feel like an over-carbonated soda-bottle. Bubbling with questions.’

  ‘Be patient.’ She reached out a hand to make me stand.

  As we made our way down the slope, I said, ‘Anyway, you did the forcing – pretending Lily Montgomery was your mother.’ She grinned. ‘Did she ever exist?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’ She slipped a look at me. ‘If not better.’

  ‘I’m glad of that.’

  ‘You must have seen you’re in the hands of someone who’s very skilled at rearranging reality.’

  We came beneath the statue.

  I said, ‘This thing tonight.’

  ‘Don’t be afraid. It’s… in a way it’s outside the game. Or perhaps at the heart of it.’ She left a sec
ond, then she turned to face me. ‘You must go now.’

  I took her hands. ‘I’d like to kiss you.’

  She looked down, there was a faint return of the Lily persona about her.

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’

  ‘Because you don’t want me to?’

  ‘We are being watched.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked.’

  She said nothing, but neither were the hands taken away. I put my arms round her and drew her close. For a moment she held her face turned, then I was allowed to find her lips. They remained tightly closed, ungiving against mine except for one small tremor of response just before she pushed me away. By the standards of my past it was hardly a sexual embrace at all, but there was something oddly shocked and disturbed in her eyes for a moment or two, as if it had meant more to her than to me; as if something she had determined should not happen very nearly had. I smiled, to reassure her, a kiss like that was no crime, she could trust me; she stared, then her eyes dropped. It was disconcerting, all the rationality of the last half-hour seemed to lapse for no reason. I thought perhaps she was acting a part again, for the benefit of Conchis or whoever else was watching. But her eyes came up again, and I knew they were meant for me alone.

  ‘If I ever find you were lying to me, I won’t go on.’

  She turned before I could answer, and began walking away, quickly, almost hurriedly. I watched her for a few moments, then turned to look back across the gulley. I was in two minds whether to follow her, she was going down between the pines towards the sea. In the end I lit a cigarette, gave the magnificent but enigmatic Poseidon one last glance, and started towards the house. Just before the gulley I looked back. There was one flash of white among the foliage, then she was gone. But I was not to be left alone. No sooner had I climbed the steps on the far side of the gulley than I saw Conchis.

  He was standing some forty yards away, his back to me, and he appeared to be watching, through binoculars, some bird high in the trees beyond him. As I walked towards him, he lowered the glasses and turned, and made as if he had just seen me. It was not an impressive piece of acting; but then I hadn’t realized that he was saving his talents for the scene to follow.

  35

  As I walked over the carpet of pine-needles to meet him – he was more formally dressed than usual by day, in dark blue trousers and an even darker blue polo-necked jumper – I decided to be very much on guard, which something about his quizzical look did nothing but confirm as wise. I felt pretty sure that his leading actress had not been lying to me, at least as regards her admiration for him and her belief that he was not an evil man. I had also detected a stronger residue of doubt, even of fear, than she had actually revealed to me. She had needed to convince herself as well as me. I had only to set eyes on the old man again to know that I retained more of the doubt than the rest.