The Magus - John Fowles [14]
we had a row and I told him pretty effing quick what I thought of him." "What was it all about?" "Bastard collaborated during the war. That was really at the root of it." He exhaled smoke. "No--you'll have to put up with the other beaks if you want chat." "They speak English?" "Most of 'em speak Frog. There's the Greek chap who teaches English with you. Cocky little bastard. Gave him a black eye one day." "You've really prepared the ground for me." He laughed. "Got to keep 'em down, you know." He felt his mask had slipped a little. "Your peasant, especially your Cretan peasant, salt of the earth. Wonderful chaps. Believe me. I know." I asked him why he'd left. He became incoherent. "Writing a book, actually. Wartime experiences and all that. See my publisher." There was something forlorn about him; I could imagine him briskly dashing about like a destructive Boy Scout, blowing up bridges and wearing picturesque offbeat uniforms; but he had to live in this dull new welfare world, like a stranded archosaur. He went hurriedly on. "You'll piss blood for England. It'll be worse for you. With no Greek. And you'll drink. Everyone does. You have to. " He talked about _retsina_ and _aretsinato_, _raki_ and _ouzo_--and then about women. "The girls in Athens are strictly O. O. B. Unless you want the pox." "No talent on the island?" "Nix, old boy. Women are about the ugliest in the Aegean. And anyway--village honour. Makes that caper highly dangerous. Shouldn't advise it. Discovered that somewhere else once." He gave me a curt grin, with the appropriate hooded look in his eyes; T. E. Lawrence run totally to seed. I drove him back towards his club. It was a bronchial midafternoon, already darkening, the people, the traffic, everything fish-gray. I asked him why he hadn't stayed in the Army. "Too damn orthodox, old boy. Specially in peacetime." I guessed he had been rejected for a permanent commission; there was something obscurely wild and unstable about him under the officer's-mess mannerisms. We came to where he wanted to be dropped off. "Think I'll do?" His look was doubtful. "Treat 'em tough. It's the only way. Never let 'em get you down. They did the chap before me, you know. Never met him, but apparently he went bonkers. Couldn't control the boys." He got out of the car. "Well, all the best, old man." He grinned. "And listen." He had his band on the doorhandle. "Beware of the waiting room." He closed the door at once, as if he had rehearsed that moment. I opened it quickly and leaned out to call after him. "The _what?_" He turned, but only to give a sharp wave. The Trafalgar Square crowd swallowed him up. I couldn't get the smile on his face out of my mind. It secreted an omission; something he'd saved up, a mysterious last word. Waiting room, waiting room, waiting room; it went round in my head all that evening.
6
I picked up Alison and we went to the garage that was going to sell the car for me. I'd offered it to her some time before, but she had refused. "If I had it I'd always think of you." "Then have it." "I don't want to think of you. And I couldn't stand anyone else sitting where you are," "Will you take whatever I get for it? It won't be much." "My wages?" "Don't be silly." "I don't want anything." But I knew she wanted a scooter. I could leave a check with _Towards a scooter_ on a card, and I thought she would take that, when I had gone. It was curious how quiet that last evening was; as if I had already left, and we were two ghosts talking to each other. We arranged what we should do in the morning. She didn't want to come and see me off at Victoria; we would have breakfast as usual, she would go, it was cleanest and simplest that way. We arranged our future. As soon as she could she would try to get herself to Athens. If that was impossible, I might fly back to England at Christmas. We might meet halfway somewhere--Rome, Germany. "Alice Springs," she said. In the night we lay awake, knowing each other awake, yet afraid to talk. I felt her hand feel out for mine. We lay for a while without talking. Then she spoke.