The Magus - John Fowles [206]
what happened; as long as something happened. "Can I have your key, Barba?" But he wouldn't let me have the one in his hand; had to go back inside his lodge and rummage and find another. He seemed to be delaying me; and when he at last came with another key, I snatched it out of his hand. I went quickly down the road away from the village. To the east lightning shuddered. After seventy or eighty yards, the school wall right-angled inland. I thought she might be just round the corner of it. But she wasn't. The road did not go much more than quarter of a mile further; beyond the wall it looped inland a little to cross a dried-out torrent. There was a small bridge and, a hundred yards to the left of that, a chapel, which was linked to the road by a tall avenue of cypresses. The moon was completely obscured by a dense veil of high cloud, but there was a grey Palmeresque light over the landscape. I came to the bridge and called again in a low voice. "June? Julie?" I hesitated, torn between following the road and going back towards the village. Then there was a sound: my name. I ran up between the cypresses, black spindles against the opaque cloud. After forty yards or so there was a movement to my left. I whirled round. She was standing behind one of the largest trees: a dark dress, headscarf, a cardigan draped over her shoulders; all dark except for the white oval of the face. "Julie?" "It's me. June. Thank God you've come." I went to her. She looked back, round towards the road. "What on earth's wrong?" "I think I'm being followed." "Where's Julie?" "Isn't she here?" "Haven't you seen her?" "Not since Friday. Oh God." She let her head sink; and suddenly I was intensely suspicious again; both voice and movement were overwrought. "Where've you been?" She looked up, as if surprised. "In Athens." "But this extraordinary hour?" "I didn't get here till dusk. And I... well, I was frightened." I searched her face, pale against the black foliage. She was playing a part; and not very well. I glanced down towards the road; the whitewashed corner of the school wall. Then back at her. "Why didn't you wait at the gate?" "I panicked. He was gone such a long time." She had the amateur liar's habit of looking earnestly into one's eyes. "Who's following you?" "Two men. They stopped when I got to the school." "Where's Julie?" My voice was curt; no nonsense. "I thought you'd know. I had a telegram." "That was from me." "I had two." "Two!" She nodded. "One said 'Anne.' She told you what we arranged? I was to stay in Athens. And then yours. They both came on Sunday night. So I knew one must be false. I didn't trust yours, because it didn't sound like Julie. So I stayed in Athens." There were telltale little pauses between the sentences, as if she had to have each one accepted by me before going on. I stared at her. "Where was this other telegram from?" "Nauplia." Silence; she sensed my incredulity. "What happened here at the weekend?" I went, very quickly, through the events of the Sunday. She said, "How horrible. Oh how I wish we'd never got involved in all this." It sounded even more artificial. In the darkness she looked hallucinatorily likejulie and I reached down to touch her wrist. She turned away; then tensed. There were footsteps on the road. Three men were walking slowly along it. People, villagers, masters, often strolled to the end of the road and back in the evening, for the coolness. But she gave me a scared look. I didn't trust June one inch; I knew she was lying. Yet lying as a _soubrette_ lies, much more out of mischief than malice. She whispered. "Maurice said he would see me on Sunday. In Athens. But I haven't seen a soul. And then yesterday I somehow guessed that you had sent the other telegram." "How did you get here? On the boat?" But she avoided that trap. "I found a way by land. By Kranidi?" Occasionally thalassophobic parents used that route--it meant changing at Corinth and taking a taxi from Kranidi and then hiring a boat to bring one across from the mainland; a full day's journey; and difficult if one didn't speak good