The Magus - John Fowles [201]
same secret look back at the Conchis who now was not there, the same leaning forward to push me away. But this time I caught her wrist and pulled her out of the music room into the little corridor; drew the door to, so that we stood in the cool darkness, watching, not playing, very close; and she came into my arms. I kissed her until she twisted her head away with a little gasp; then made her turn. I held her back against me, slipped my right hand inside her trousers, spread my fingers over her naked stomach. She held my wrist. I tenderly bit her neck, murmured her name over and over again, slipped my other hand under her shirt and up her bare back and unhooked the bra; then, unresisted, caressed my way under her warm arm to her breasts, small breasts that I could just span with one hand; and so held her against me; our hot nakednesses through the thin clothes. She made little movements; then surrendered. Minutes passed. I whispered. "Promise I can hold you tonight like this." She nodded. "Undress you and hold you like this." She raised my right hand and kissed it. We heard Hermes's footsteps coming over the gravel outside. I refastened her bra, and she shook her hair straight. A moment in the shadows, shadowy eyes. "You make me feel I've never touched a girl before." "You make me feel I've never been touched." Under the colonnade, Hermes stood waiting. He went and locked the music-room doors from the inside; let himself out by the front door. I said we would be at the house in the village about six, and then we watched him go down the path with Julie's suitcase. We were alone. Silence, the cicadas. Her mouth looked bruised, her eyes almost violet; a heavy, emotion-laden look at me, as if she blamed me and forgave me, forgave me and blamed me... I reached out my hand. "I've been good." She recovered herself then, laughed and remembered, and led me to the steps over the gulley; I heard the sound of the boat drawing out of the private cove. To my surprise Julie turned down past the carob. We came to the edge of the trees, between the small hummock where I had met the sisters and the place where we had lain on Julie's rug and the whole story had been told. Twenty yards away the cliff dropped straight into the sea. The ground was rough. There were small boulders, some matted whinlike scrub, thyme and other aromatic plants; the huge dry brown bulbs of asphodels. "Here. See if you can find it." She stood under a pine and watched me quarter the innocent ground. I searched for a raised neck, a cap of some sort; threw a sharp look back at her. She had her hand to her mouth, in suspense. I was near. Just in front of me there was the stump of a pine that had been cut down many years before. Around it an area of about five feet by three was bare, apparently because of the stones, or because the dead stem had poisoned the ground in some way. It seemed perfectly natural, but Julie was smiling. The stones were, on a second examination, suspiciously thick around the stump. And as soon as I actually stood on the bare patch I realised something else. The stones did not budge under my feet; they were cemented in. Julie came down through the low undergrowth to beside me. Pointed. Beyond the stump was a stone a foot or so long, seemingly embedded in the ground--or concreted, like the rest. But it was loose, though difficult to lift till I moved it sideways. Underneath was a hinged iron ring, lying flat in a recess. Gradually I could make out the outline of a trapdoor. It was very irregular; and the tree stump had been cemented into the middle of it. "I'll show you." She stooped to grip the ring. "Wait a minute. It must be as heavy as hell." "It's counterbalanced." She strained for a moment and then swiftly a whole jagged section of the ground rose in the air. I looked down. An oval hole about a yard in widest diameter, descending vertically, like a huge pipe; an iron ladder against the wall. From the inside of the door hung two wire cables ending in what looked like lead weights four or five feet down the pipe--the counterbalance. I looked at