The Magus

by John Fowles

  For some extraordinary reason, on the way back to the school, my own happiness made me think of Alison again; almost to pity her her ignorance of her real rival. On impulse, before I started on the marking, I scribbled her a note.

  Allie darling, you cant say to someone ‘I’ve decided I ought to love you’. I can see a million reasons why I ought to love you, because (as I tried to explain) in my fashion, my perfect-bastard fashion, I do love you. Parnassus was beautiful, please don’t think it was nothing to me, only the body, or could ever be anything but unforgettable, always, for me. Let’s for God’s sake keep that. I know it’s over. But a moment or two, beside that pool, however many other lovers we both have, will never be over.

  It relieved my conscience a little, and I posted it the next morning. The only conscious exaggeration was in the last sentence.

  At ten to four on Saturday I was at the gate of Bourani; and there, walking along the track towards me, was Conchis. He had on a black shirt, long khaki shorts; dark brown shoes and faded green stockings. He was walking purposefully, almost in a hurry, as if he had wanted to be out of the way before I arrived. But he raised his arm as soon as he saw me. We stopped in mid-track, six feet apart.

  ‘Nicholas.’

  ‘Hallo.’

  He gave his little headshake.

  ‘A pleasant half-term?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘You went to Athens?’

  I had already decided on my story there. He might know, through Hermes or Patarescu, that I had been away.

  ‘My friend couldn’t make it. Her airline have put her on another route.’

  ‘Ah. I am sorry. A shame.’

  I shrugged, then eyed him. ‘I spent most of it wondering whether I should come here again. I haven’t been hypnotized before.’

  He smiled, he knew what I was really asking.

  ‘It is for you to reject or accept what was suggested.’

  I remembered, as I smiled thinly in return, that I was back in a polysemantic world. ‘I’m grateful for that part of it.’

  ‘There was no other part.’ He did not take kindly to my sceptical look, and went on with some asperity. ‘I am a doctor, therefore under the Hippocratic oath. If I ever wished to ask you questions under hypnosis, I should most certainly ask your permission first. Apart from anything else, it is a very unsatisfactory method. It has been demonstrated again and again that patients are quite capable of lying under hypnosis.’

  ‘All those stories about sinister mesmerists forcing – ’

  ‘A hypnotist can force you to do foolish and incongruous things. But he is powerless against the super-ego. I can assure you of that.’

  I let a few moments pass.

  ‘You’re going out?’

  ‘I have been writing all day. I must walk. But I hoped to meet you first. Someone is waiting to serve you tea.’

  ‘How do you want me to behave?’

  He glanced back towards the invisible house, then took my arm and made me stroll back beside him towards the gate.

  ‘Our patient is in mixed spirits. She cannot quite hide her excitement at your return. Nor her disappointment that I am in the little secret between you.’

  ‘What little secret is that?’

  He gave me a look under his eyebrows. ‘Investigative hypnosis is a regular part of my treatment other, Nicholas.’

  ‘With her permission?’

  ‘In this case, her parents’.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I know she is pretending to be an actress now. And I know why. She wishes to please you.’

  ‘Please me?’

  ‘You accused her of acting, or so I understand. And she has gratefully embraced the accusation.’ He squeezed my elbow. ‘But I have set her a problem. I have told her I know her new disguise. Not through hypnosis. But because you have told me.’

  ‘Then now she won’t trust me.’

  ‘She never trusted you. She also revealed under hypnosis that from the first she suspected you to be a doctor – someone working with me.’

  I recalled what she had said about being spun round in blind-man’s-buff.

  ‘But rightly suspicious – now that you’ve told me the … truth?’

  He raised a delighted finger. ‘Precisely.’ It was as if he were congratulating an especially bright pupil; and was blind, as nonsensically blind as one of Lewis Carroll’s queens before Alice, to my obvious bewilderment. ‘Therefore your task is now to gain her confidence. By all means share any suspicion she shows of my motives. Give them credence. But be careful. She may set traps. You must make objections if she becomes too farfetched. Always remember that one side of her split mentality is quite capable of rational assessment – and has a great deal of experience in making fools of doctors whose technique is to humour ad absurdum. I am sure some story of persecution will come. She will try to gain you to her side. Against me.’

  Metaphorically, if not literally, I bit my lips.

  ‘But surely if we all know now that she can’t be Lily … ?’

  ‘That is dropped. I am become an eccentric millionaire. She and her sister are a pair of young actresses I have brought here – she will no doubt invent some outlandish reason – for what she will perhaps lead you to believe are very wicked purposes. They may well be of some suspect sexual nature. You will demand evidence, proof… ‘he waved his hand, as if my part in all this was too manifest now to need specifying in detail.

  ‘What happens if she tries a repeat of last year – tries to make me help her escape?’

  He gave me a briskly warning look. ‘You must tell me at once. But I do not think it is likely. She learnt her lesson with Mitford. And remember, however much she may appear to trust you, she does not. You will of course maintain that you never told me a word of what happened on your last visit.’

  I smiled. ‘Of course.’

  ‘I am sure you see where I am driving. I wish to bring the poor child to a realization of her own true problem by forcing her to recognize the nature of the artificial situation we are creating together here. She will make her first valid step back towards normality when one day she stops and says, This is not the real world. These are not real relationships.’

  ‘What are her chances?’

  ‘Small. But they exist. Especially if you play your part well. She may not trust you. But she is attracted to you.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Thank you. I have great confidence in you, Nicholas.’ He held out his hand. ‘I am delighted to have you back.’

  We parted, but I looked back after a few steps to see which way he had taken. It was apparently down towards Moutsa. I did not believe he was going for a constitutional. He walked far too much like a man with someone else to meet, something to arrange. Once again I was shaken. I had come to Bourani determined, after so many useless hours of speculation, to be equally doubting of both him and Julie. But I knew I would have to watch her like a hawk now. The old man had been involved in psychiatry, he could hypnotize-those were proven facts; and nothing she had said about herself had been backed by any hard evidence. There was also the increasingly strong possibility that they were acting in league to gull me; in which case Julie Holmes was no more her real self than Lily Montgomery had been.

  No one was visible as I approached the house, as I crossed the gravel. I leapt up the steps and walked quietly round the corner on to the wide tiling under the front of the colonnade.

  She was standing in one of the arches facing the sea, half in sun, half in shadow; and – it was a shock, though I might have guessed -in contemporary clothes. A navy blue shortsleeved shirt, a pair of white beach trousers with a red belt – she was barefooted, her long hair down, a girl who might have adorned the terrace of any smart Mediterranean hotel. One thing was decided at once: she was as desirable in modern dress as in costume, an arrestingly beautiful young woman; in no way less attractive for being less artificial now.

  She turned as I appeared, and there
was a strange silence, a doubt in both our looks across the space between us. She seemed faintly surprised, as if she had half decided I would not come; was relieved, yet almost at once distancing. There was a tiny air about her of having been caught out of costume, and not being sure of my reaction to this new appearance – like a woman showing a new dress for the first time to the man who has to pay for it. She looked down from my eyes. On my side I knew the ghost of Alison, of what had happened on Parnassus; a flicker of adultery, a moment’s guilt. We remained like that for several seconds. Then she looked up again to where I stood twenty feet away, with the duffel-bag in my hand. I noticed something else new about her; the beginning of a tan, a honeyed skin now. I tried to read her psychologically, psychiatrically; and gave up.

  I said, ‘They suit you. Modern clothes.’

  Still she seemed at a loss, as if the days apart had given her countless second thoughts.

  ‘Did you meet him?’

  ‘Meet who?’ But that was a mistake, there was something impatient in her stare. ‘The old man? Yes. He was just going for a walk.’

  Her suspicion was not assuaged, and she stared at me a moment more. Then she said, with a perceptible indifference, ‘Do you want some tea?’

  ‘That’d be nice.’

  She moved in barefooted silence across the tiles to the table. I saw a pair of red espadrilles by the music-room doors. I watched her strike a inatch and light the spirit-lamp, then set the kettle on its stand. She avoided my eyes, fiddling with the muslin covers over the food; the scar on her wrist. There was almost a sullenness about her. I dropped my bag by the wall and went closer.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I haven’t betrayed you in any way. Whatever he may have said.’ She gave me the briefest glance, but then stared down at the table again. I tried small talk. ‘Where’ve you been?’

  ‘On the yacht.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Cruising. In the Cyclades.’

  ‘I’ve missed you.’

  She said nothing. She would not look at me. I had anticipated various kinds of reception, but not this apparent wishing that I hadn’t come at all. There stole through me a little chill of fear – something fraught about her, lost; and with a girl as pretty as this, only the reason I did not want to believe could account for the apparent lack of other men in her life.

  ‘I gather Lily’s dead.’

  She spoke to the table. ‘You don’t seem very surprised.’

  ‘Nothing surprises me here. Any more.’ She drew a breath; I had made another wrong answer. ‘So what are you officially playing now?’

  She sat down. The kettle must have been boiled once already, because it began to hiss. Suddenly she looked up at me. The question was transparently accusing.

  ‘Did you enjoy Athens?’

  ‘No. And I didn’t meet my friend.’

  ‘Maurice told us you had.’

  I silently cursed him, and had a touch of liar’s nightmare. ‘That’s odd. He didn’t know five minutes ago. Since he asked me himself if I’d met her.’

  She looked down. ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘For the reasons I told you. It’s all over.’

  She tipped a little hot water into the tea-pot, then crossed the colonnade to empty it over the edge. As she came back, I said, ‘And because I knew I was going to see you again.’

  She sat, and spooned some tea from a caddy into the pot. ‘Start eating. If you’re hungry.’

  ‘I’m much more hungry to know why we’re behaving like total strangers.’

  ‘Because that’s precisely what we are.’

  ‘Why won’t you answer my question about your new role?’

  ‘Because you already know the answer.’

  Her grey-hyacinth eyes were on me, and they were very direct. The kettle boiled, and she lifted it and filled the pot. As she put it back on its stand and turned out the flame beneath, she said, ‘I wouldn’t really blame you for thinking I was mad. I begin to wonder increasingly myself if I’m not.’ Her voice grew drier still. ‘Sorry if I’ve spoilt a prepared scene.’ Then she smiled up without humour. ‘Do you want this foul goat’s milk or lemon?’

  ‘Lemon.’

  I felt a great relief then. She had just done the one thing she would never do, if the old man had been telling me the truth – unless she was so insanely cunning, or cunningly insane, that she was beating him at his own game. I remembered Occam’s razor: always believe the simplest of several explanations. But I played safe.

  ‘Why should I think you’re mad?’

  ‘Why should I think you’re not what you say you are?’

  ‘Why indeed?’

  ‘Because the question you’ve just asked proves you aren’t.’ She pushed a cup towards me. ‘Your tea.’

  I stared at it, then up at her. ‘Okay. I don’t believe you’re a famous case of schizophrenia.’

  She eyed me, still unwon. ‘Will you not partake of a sandwich … Mr Urfe?’

  I did not smile, and I left a silence.

  ‘Julie, this is absurd. We’re falling into every trap he sets. I thought we agreed last time. We don’t have to lie to each other out of his hearing.’

  Without warning she stood and walked slowly to the far end of the colonnade, where steps led down to the vegetable terrace to the west. She leant against the wall of the house, her back to me, staring out towards the distant mountains of the Peloponnesus. After a moment I stood and went behind her. She did not turn to look at me.

  ‘I’m not blaming you. If he’s told you as many lies about me as he has me about you … ‘ I reached and touched her shoulder. ‘Come on. We did establish some sort of trust last time.’ There was no response to my hand, and I let it drop.

  ‘I suppose you want to kiss me again.’

  The naive abruptness of that took me by surprise.

  ‘Is that a crime?’

  Suddenly she folded her arms, turned her back to the wall, faced me with an intense look.

  ‘And get me into bed?’

  ‘Only if you wanted.’

  She explored my eyes, then looked down.

  ‘And if I don’t?’

  ‘Then obviously.’

  ‘So perhaps it’s not worth your going on.’

  ‘That’s bloody insulting.’

  I said it with enough force to check her. She bowed her head, her arms still folded.

  I spoke in a gentler voice. ‘Look, what the hell’s he been telling you?’

  There was a long silence, then she murmured, ‘If only I knew what to believe.’

  ‘Try your instincts.’

  ‘I seem to have mislaid them since I came here.’ There was another silence, then she made a little sideways movement of her bent head.

  Her voice was a shade less accusing. ‘He said something foul, after last time. That you … that you went to brothels and that Greek brothels weren’t safe and that I mustn’t let you kiss me again.’

  ‘Is that where you think I’ve been?’

  ‘I don’t know where you’ve just been.’

  ‘So you believe him?’ She said nothing. I felt furious with Conchis; the damned gall he had, talking about the Hippocratic oath. I stared at the bent head, then spoke. ‘I’ve had enough of this. I’m clearing out.’

  I didn’t really mean it, but I turned back towards the table as if I did. She said quickly, ‘Please.’ A tiny pause. ‘I didn’t say I believed it.’

  I stopped and looked back at her. At last there was something less hostile in her eyes.

  ‘But you’re behaving as if you did.’

  ‘I’m behaving as I am because I don’t understand why he keeps telling me things he knows I can’t believe.’

  ‘If it was true, he ought to have warned you at the beginning.’

  ‘That did occur to us.’

  ‘Didn’t you ask him why not?’

  ‘He said he’d only just found out.’ Then she said, in her gentlest voice yet
, ‘Please don’t go away.’

  Though she looked down in the end, she held my eyes long enough for me to believe the request was sincere. I went back in front of her.

  ‘Are we still so convinced of his essential goodness?’

  ‘In a kind of way, yes.’ She added, ‘In spite of everything.’

  ‘I had the universal telepathy experience.’

  ‘Yes, he told us.’

  ‘He has hypnotized you?’

  ‘Yes, several times.’

  ‘He claims that’s how he knows everything that’s going on in your mind.’

  That shocked her momentarily, she looked up, but then she gave a little puff of protest. ‘It’s ridiculous. I’d never let him do it. June’s always been there, he insists on that himself. It’s just a technique, actually rather a marvellous one, for helping you get into a part. She says he just talks and talks … and somehow I absorb it all.’