The Magus - John Fowles [126]
43
_Think what it would be like if you got back to your island and_... I had all Tuesday to think nothing but that; to see myself as Alison saw me. I took the envelope out, and looked at the thread, and waited. It was a relief to teach hard, conscientiously, to get through the suspense. On Wednesday evening, when I gut back from post-siesta school to my room, I found a note on my desk. I recognised Conchis's almost copperplate writing; and I recognised something else in the elaborate star the note had been folded into. I couldn't imagine Conchis wasting time on such a business; but I could see Lily doing so. I thought, as I was no doubt meant to, of idle convoluted women in Edwardian country houses. The note said: _We look forward to seeing you on Saturday. I hope you had a most enjoyable reconciliation with your friend. If I do not hear I shall know you are coming. Maurice Conchis_. It was dated above _Wednesday morning_. My heart leapt. Everything during that last weekend seemed, if not justified, necessary. I had a lot of marking to do, but I couldn't stay in. I walked up to the main ridge, to the inland cliff. I had to see the roof of Bourani, the south of the island, the sea, the mountains, all the reality of the unreality. There was none of the burning need to go down and spy that had possessed me the week before, but a balancing mixture of excitement and reassurance, a certainty of the health of the symbiosis. I was theirs still; they were mine. I wrote a note to Alison as soon as I got back. _Allie darling, you can't 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. I know you're angry, of course you're angry, but please write back. It's so likely that one day I shall need you terribly, I shall come crawling to you, and you can have all the revenge you want then._ I thought it a good letter; 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. FIe had on a black shirt, long khaki shorts; dark brown shoes and faded yellow-green stockings. He was walking purposefully, almost in a hurry, as if he had wanted to be out of the way before I came. But he raised his arm as soon as he saw me and appeared not put out. "Nicholas." "Hello." He stood in front of me and gave his little headshake. "A pleasant half-term?" "Yes, thanks." He seemed to have expected more, but I was determined to say nothing; and showed so. He murmured, "Good." "That was an extraordinary experience. Last time. I had no idea I was so suggestible." He tapped his head. "Never think of your mind as a castle. It is an engine room." "Then you must be a very skilled engineer." He bowed. "Am I to believe all those sensations came from other worlds?" "It is not for me to tell you what to believe." I remembered, as I smiled thinly at his own thin smile, that I was back in a polysemantic world. He reached out, as if he felt sorry for me, and gripped my shoulder for a second. It was clear that he wanted to get on. "You're going out?" "I have been writing letters all day. I must walk." "Can't I come with you?" "You could." He smiled. "But I think Lily would be disappointed." I smiled back. "In that case." "Precisely. You will remember what we said?" "Of course." "Thank you. I have great confidence in you. _Sto kalo_." He raised his hand, and we parted. I walked on, but looked back after a moment to see which way he had gone. It was apparently to Moutsa or beyond it to the totally deserted western end of the island. I did not believe for a moment that he was going for a constitutional. He walked far too much like a man with something