The Magus - John Fowles [271]
clothes, old newspapers. But in that short gesture of hers, and the look that accompanied it, I knew there was more real humanity than I had ever known in my own home. Yet still that home, those years, governed me; I had to repress the natural response. Our eyes met across a gap I could not bridge; her offer of a rough temporary motherhood, my ffight to what I had to be, the lonely son. She withdrew her hand. I said, "It's too complicated." "I've got all day." Her face peered at me through the blue smoke, and suddenly it seemed as blank, as menacing, as an interrogator's. I liked her, I liked her, yet I felt her curiosity like a net drawn round me. I was like some freakish parasitic species that could establish itself only in one rare kind of situation, by one precarious symbiosis. They had been wrong, at the trial. It was not that I preyed on girls; but the fact that my only access to normal humanity, to social decency, to any openness of heart, lay through girls, preyed on me. It was in that that I was the real victim. There was only one person I wanted to talk with. Till then I could not move, advance, plan, progress, become a better human being, anything; and till then, I carried my mystery, my secret, around with me like a defence; as my only companion. "One day, Kemp. Not now." She shrugged; gave me a stonily sibylline look, auguring the worst. The old char who cleaned the stairs once a fortnight bawled through the door. My phone was ringing. I raced up the stairs, lifting the receiver on what seemed the dying ring. "Hello. Nicholas Urfe." "Oh, good morning, Urfe. It's me. Sandy Mitford." "You're back!" "What's left of me, old man. What's left of me." He cleared his throat. "Got your note. Wondered if you were free for a spot of lunchington." A minute later, a time and place fixed, I was reading once more my letter to Alison. The injured Malvolio stalked through every line. In another minute there was no letter; but, as with every other relationship in my life, pounded ashes. Mitford hadn't changed at all, in fact I could have sworn that he was wearing the same clothes, the same dark blue blazer, dark grey flannels, club tie. They looked a little more worn out, like their wearer; he was far less jaunty than I remembered, though after a few gins he got back some of his old guerrilla cockiness. He had spent the summer "carting bands of Americans" round Spain; no, he'd received no letter from Phraxos from me. They must have destroyed it. There was something they hadn't wanted him to tell. Over sandwiches we had a talk about the school. Bourani wasn't mentioned. He kept on saying that he'd warned me, and I said, yes, he'd warned me. I waited for a chance to broach the only subject that interested me. Eventually, as I'd been hoping, he made the opening himself. "Ever get over to the waiting room?" I knew at once that the question was not as casual as he tried to make it sound; that he was both afraid and curious; that in fact we both had the same secret reason for meeting. "Oh God, now I meant to ask you about that. Do you remember, just as we said goodbye..." "Yes." He gave me a tightly cautious look. "Never went to a bay called Moutsa? Rather jolly, over on the south side?" "Of course. I know it." "Ever notice the villa on the cape to the east?" "Yes. It was always shut up. I was told." "Ah. Interesting. Very interesting." He looked reminiscently across the lounge; left me in suspense. I watched him lift, an infuriating upward arc, his cigarette to his lips; the gentleman connoisseur of fine Virginia; then fume smoke through his nostrils. "Well that was it, old boy. Nothing really." "But why beware?" "Oh it's nothing. No-thing at all." "Then you can tell me." "I did, actually." "You did!" "Row with collaborationist. Remember?" "Yes." "Same man who has the villa." "Oh, but..." I flicked my fingers... "wait a moment. What was his name?" "Conchis." He had an amused smile on his face, as if he knew what I was going to say. He touched his moustache; always preening his moustache. "That's right. But I thought he did something