The Magus - John Fowles [152]
give a reason?" "He said that one day soon I should have to make you hate me. Because you are to fall in love with June. It's this ridiculous story again." "So?" She turned and sat up and pulled the ends of her hair together under her chin. It made her look Scandinavian, a swan maiden. "He's also taken to denigrating you in front of us. Says, oh--you're too English. Unimaginative. Selfish. Perhaps he's really accusing us. Anyway, the first time I argued. But now I know he's deliberately doing it to drive me the other way. Driving us together." She released her hair, but remained staring thoughtfully out to sea. "He hasn't got us here to mystify us. But for some other reason. And we think he's a _voyeur_. Not an ordinary _voyeur_, but still a _voyeur_." She looked at me. "That's it." Our looks became tangled in supposition: in double and treble deception. "We seem to have all the same ideas." "Because he means us to." I stood up, hands on hips. "But it's fantastic. I mean... what?" "He's got a cin�amera. With a telephoto lens. He says it's for birds." I gave her another squinny, and she shrugged. "It would explain why he never... touches us, or anything." "If I ever caught the old bastard..." She folded her arms on her knees. "The thing is this. Do you really want us to come running to you? Which would mean everything here was finished?" "I'd love _you_ to come running to me." But she continued staring up, forcing me to answer. "I suppose not." "Do you remember that speech he gave me--he did give it to me, as a sort of emergency speech--I said it down on the shingle that Sunday--about your having no poetry? No humour, and all the rest? I'm sure it was just as much for me as for you." I sat down by her again. "This hypnosis?" "We wouldn't have let him. But he's never even asked us. That was the script again." She wanted to know what it had been like for me. But as soon as I could lied us back to the present. "Have you seen that cabinet of pottery in the music room?" "He begged us not to look at it. Which of course made sure that we did." "Sometimes I feel it's all a kind of teasing." She turned quickly. "So do I! It's exactly the word. I think you have to take certain things on trust about people. And I _can't_ believe Maurice is an evil man. Even perverted. But I don't know." She ran her hands through her hair. "There's that beastly Negro." "Yes, what about him?" "His real name's Joe--we think. Only we're supposed to call him Anubis in front of you. He's a mute." "A mute!" I began to understand why he had spat in my face. "You know what he did last night?" I told her. Her eyes dilated a little; at first not believing, then believing me. "But that's horrible." "Hardly teasing." She looked back over her shoulder. "He's always close to us. Maurice insists that it's for our protection. But June and I discovered last week that he smokes marijuana. That's yet another thing." "You've told Maurice?" "He says it isn't an addictive drug. Joe is a blind spot with him. "You haven't told me where you live here." She turned on the rug and knelt. "Nicholas, now you know our side--do you want to go on? Do you think we ought to go on?" Her eyes searched mine, looking for a decision. "What do you feel?" "I feel braver now." "We could go on just for a bit. Wait and see." She leant schoolgirlishly forward on her hands for a moment. "If we do I don't want to tell you where we disappear to." "Why?" "In case you gave it away." "I wouldn't." "Please. Nothing else. Just that." She sat back on her heels. "But supposing you were --" "It's not as if we were prisoners. If we had to run, we could. One of us could." I watched her eyes. "As you're not in fact emotionally involved, I suppose it doesn't really matter." I lay back on my elbow and still kneeling, she looked down at me; then gave a little smile. "_Fronti nulla fides_." "Gloss, please." "It hasn't been the hardest role to play." I began to think that the real girl she was excited me far more than her Lily self; was more tangible, and yet also retained more than a little of the part she had played.