The Magus - John Fowles [117]
just the other side of it. Alison no longer seemed to care; I kept hold of her hand and dragged her along by main force. Bullying her, begging her, anything to keep her moving. Twenty minutes later the squat dark cube of the refuge appeared in its little combe. I looked at my watch. It had taken us an hour and a half to reach the peak; and over three hours to get back. I groped my way in and sat Alison on a bunk. Then I struck a match, found the lamp and tried to light it; but it had no wick and no oil. I turned to the stove. That, thank God, had dry wood. I ripped up all the paper I could find: a Penguin novel of Alison's, the wrappings off the food we had bought; then lit it and prayed. There were backpuffs of papery, then resinous smoke, and the kindling caught. In a few minutes the hut grew full of flickering red light and sepia shadows, and even more welcome heat. I picked up a pail. Alison raised her head from her knees. "I'm going to get some water now." "Okay." She smiled wanly. "I should get under some blankets." She nodded. But when I came back from the stream five minutes later she was gingerly feeding logs through the upper door of the stove; barefooted, on a red blanket she had spread over the floor between the bunks and the fire. On a lower bunk she had laid out what was to be our meal: bread, chocolate, sardines, _paximadia_, oranges; and she had even found an old saucepan. "Kelly, I ordered you to bed." "I suddenly remembered I'm meant to be an air hostess. The life and soul of the crash." She took the pail of water and began to wash the saucepan out. As she crouched, I could see the sore red spots on her heels. "Do you wish we hadn't done it?" "No." She looked back up at me. "Just no?" "I'm delighted we did it." Satisfied, she went back to the saucepan, filled it with water, began to crumble the chocolate. I sat on the edge of the bunk and took my own shoes and socks off. I wanted to be natural, and I couldn't; and she couldn't. The heat, the tiny room, the two of us, in all that cold desolation. "Sorry I went all womany. It'll never happen again." There was a ghost of sarcasm in her voice, but I couldn't see her face. She had begun to stir the chocolate over the stove. "Don't be silly." A squall of wind battered against the iron roof, and the door groaned half open. She said, "Saved from the storm." I looked at her from the door, after I had propped it to with one of the skis. She was stirring the melting chocolate with a twig, standing sideways to avoid the heat, watching me. She pulled a flushed face, and swivelled her eyes round the dirty walls. "Romantic, isn't it?" "As long as they keep the wind out." She smiled secretly at me and looked down at her saucepan. "Why do you smile?" "Because it is romantic." I sat down on the bunk again. She pulled off her jumper and shook her hair free. I invoked the image of Lily; but somehow it was a situation that Lily could never have got into; so could not be very absent-present in. I tried to sound at ease. "You look fine. In your element." "So I should. I spend most of my life slaving in a four-by-two galley." She stood with one hand on her hips; a minute of silence; old domestic memories from Russell Square; watching her cook. "What was that Sartre play we saw?" "_Huis Clos_." "This is _Huis_ even closer." "Why?" She kept her back turned. "Being tired always makes me feel sexy." I breathed in. She said softly, "One more risk." "Just because the first tests are negative, it doesn't mean She flashed a look round, a shy smile. "All right. Only... if you... you know." I stared at her. "You're sweet." "Not very good at saying it." "I'm so absolutely fucked up. In all ways." She lifted a blackbrown dob from the saucepan. "I think this delicious _consomm� la reine_ is ready." She came and bent beside me with that peculiar downwards look and automatic smile of air hostesses. "Something to drink before dinner, sir?" She thrust the saucepan under my nose, mocking herself and my seriousness, and I grinned; but she didn't grin back, she gave me one of her gentlest smiles.