The Magus - John Fowles [114]
by solitude. All the way in the car up to Arachova, prompted by Alison, I talked about my own father, and perhaps for the first time in my life without bitterness or blame; rather in the way that Conchis talked about _his_ life. And then as I glanced sideways at Alison, who was against the door, half-turned towards me, it came to me that she was the only person in the world that I could have been talking like that to; that without noticing it I had slipped back into something of our old relationship... _too close to need each other's names_. I looked back to the road, but her eyes were still on me, and I had to speak. "A penny for them." "How well you look." "You haven't been listening." "Yes I have." "Staring at me. It makes me nervous." "Can't sisters look at their brothers?" "Not incestuously." She sat back obediently against the seat, and craned up at the colossal grey cliffs we were winding under. "Just a walk." "I know. I'm having second thoughts." "For me or for you?" "Mainly for you." "We'll see who drops first." Arachova was a picturesque shoulder of pink and terracotta houses, a mountain village perched high over the Delphi valley. I made an enquiry and was sent to a cottage near the church. An old woman came to the door; beyond her in the shadows stood a carpet-loom, a dark red carpet half-finished on it. A few minutes' talk with her confirmed what the mountain had made obvious. Alison looked at me. "What's she say?" "She says it's about six hours' walk. Hard walk." "But that's fine. It's what Baedeker says. One must be there at sundown." I looked up at the huge grey mountainside. The old woman unhooked a key from behind the door. "What's she saying?" "There's some kind of hut up there." "Then what are we worrying about?" "She says it will be damn cold." But it was difficult to believe, in the blazing midday heat. Alison put her hands on her hips. "You promised me an adventure, I want an adventure." I looked at the old woman and then back at Alison. She whisked her dark glasses off and gave me a hard, sideways, tough-woman's stare; and although it was half-joking I could see the hint of suspicion in her eyes. If she once began to guess that I was anxious not to spend the night in the same room with her, she would also begin to guess that my halo was made of plaster. At that moment a man led a mule past and the old woman called to him. He was going to fetch wood down from near the refuge. Alison could ride on the packsaddle. It was destined.
40
The long path zigzagged up a cliff face, and leaving the lower world behind, we came over the top into the upper Parnassus. A vernally cool wind blew across two or three miles of meadowland. Beyond, sombre black firwoods and grey buttresses of rock climbed, arched and finally disappeared into fleecy white clouds. Alison got off and we walked over the turf beside the muleteer. He was about forty, with a fierce moustache under a broken nose and a fine air of independence about him. He told us about the shepherd life: a life of sun-hours, counting, milking, brittle stars and chilling winds, endless silences broken only by bells, alarms against wolves and eagles; a life virtually unchanged in the last six thousand years. I translated for Alison. She warmed to him at once, establishing a half-sexual, half-philanthropic rapport across the language barrier. He said he had worked in Athens for a time, but _then hyparchi esychia_, there was no silent peace there. Alison liked the word: _esychia_, _esychia_, she kept on repeating. He laughed and corrected her pronunciation; stopping and conducting her, as if she were an orchestra. Her eyes flicked defiantly at me, to see if she was behaving properly in my eyes. I kept a neutral face; but I liked the man, one of those fine rural Greeks who constitute the least servile and most likeable peasantry in Europe, and I couldn't help lildng Alison for liking him back. On the far side of the grassland we came to two _kalyvia_, rough stone huts, by a spring. Our muleteer was taking another path from then on. Alison fished impulsively in her