The Magus - John Fowles [123]
Alison went up while I took the car round to the garage. On the way back I saw a flower seller and bought a dozen carnations from him. I went straight to her room, and knocked on the door. I had to knock three times before she answered. She had been crying. "I brought you some flowers." "I don't want your bloody flowers." "Look, Alison, it's not the end of the world." "Just the end of the affaire." I broke the silence. "Aren't you going to let me in?" "Why the hell should I?" She stood holding the door half shut, the room in darkness behind her. Her face was terrible; puffed and unforgiving; nakedly hurt. "Just let me come in and talk to you." "No." "Please." "Go away." I pushed in past her and closed the door. She stood against the wall, staring at me. Light came up from the street, and I could see her eyes. I offered the flowers. She snatched them from my hand, went to the window and hurled them, pink heads, green stems, out into the night; remained there with her back to me. "This experience. It's like being halfway through a book. I can't just throw it in the dustbin." "So you throw me instead." I went behind her to try to put my hands on her shoulders, but she jerked angrily away. "Fuck off. Just fuck off." I sat on the bed and lit a cigarette. Down in the street monotonous Macedonian folk music skirled from some caf�oudspeaker; but we sat and stood in a strange cocoon of remoteness from even the nearest outside things. "I came to Athens knowing I ought not to meet you. I did my damnedest that first evening and yesterday to prove to myself that I don't have any special feeling for you any more. But it didn't work. That's why I talked. So ineptly. So at the wrong time." She gave no sign of listening; I produced my trump. "Talked when I could have kept quiet. Could still be deceiving you." "I'm not the one who's deceived." "Look --" "And what the hell does 'special feeling' mean?" I was silent. "Christ, you're not just afraid of the _thing_ love. You're even afraid of using the bloody word now." "I don't know what love is." She spun round. "Well let me tell you. Love isn't just what I said it was in that letter. Not turning back to look. Love is pretending to go to work but going to Victoria. To give you one last surprise, one last kiss, one last... it doesn't matter, I saw you buying magazines. That morning I couldn't have laughed with anyone in the world. And yet you laughed. You fucking well stood with a porter and laughed about something. That's when I found out what love was. Seeing the one person you want to live with happy to have escaped from you." "But why didn't you --" "You know what I did? I crept away. And spent the whole godawful day curled up on our bed. Not because I loved you. Because I was so mad with rage and shame that I loved you." "I wasn't to know." She turned away. "I wasn't to know. Christ!" Silence hung in the air like static electricity. "Another thing. You think love is sex. Let me tell you something. If I'd wanted you just for that, I'd have left you straight after that first night." "My apologies." She looked at me, took a breath, gave a bitter little smile. "Oh God, now he's hurt. I'm trying to tell you that I loved you for you. Not for your blasted prick." She stared back out into the night. "Of course you're all right in bed. But you're not the..." she couldn't find the words. "Best you've had." "If that was what mattered." "One lives and learns." I bent forward and stared at the ground. To avoid her eyes. She came to the end of the bed and leant against it, looking down at me. "I think you're so blind you probably don't even know you don't love me. You don't even know you're a filthy selfish bastard who can't, can't like being impotent, can't ever think of anything except number one. Because nothing can hurt you, Nicko. Deep down, where it counts. You've built your life so that nothing can ever reach you. So whatever you do you can say, I couldn't help it. You can't lose. You can always have your next adventure. Your next bloody affaire." "You always twist --" "Twist! Holy Jesus, don't