The Magus - John Fowles [278]
gallery we came to a door: _Department of Ceramics_. She pressed the bell beside it. I said, "I think we've got off on the wrong foot." She looked down. "Well yes. Shall we try again in a minute? If you wouldn't mind waiting?" The door opened and she was let inside. It was all too rushed, too broken, she gave me no chance, though her last quick look back before the door closed seemed apologetic; almost as if she was afraid I might run away. Two minutes later she came back. "Any luck?" "Yes, it's what I thought it was. Bow." "You don't trust your intuition in everything then." She gave me a severe look, and then lightly took my arm as she led me on. "If there was a Department of Young Men I should certainly take you to it. I would like to have you identified." "And then keep me labelled on a shelf?" "I might give you as a present to someone." "Am I yours to give?" She looked through the windows at the gallery's end. "I should like the whole world. I could give it to something so much better than what possesses it now." A wistful smile at me, both self-mocking and self-revealing. She was defining possession, and giving. Was that why we had met in a museum? Could anyone possess anything? Tailboys, tables, Chippendale mirrors--we were walking in a world of objects possessed by nothing but themselves. Giving and possessing seemed infinitely superficial and transitory; the decor was chosen. She pressed my arm after a long moment, then let go of it. "They say there's a plate like mine on display. Just through here." We went into a long deserted gallery of china. Once again she seemed to know her way about--had rehearsed?--because she went straight to one of the walicases. She took the plate out of her basket and held it up, walking along, until from the back of a group of cups and jugs an almost identical blue and white plate was staring at her. I went beside her. "That's it." She compared them; wrapped her own loosely in its tissue paper again; and then, taking me completely by surprise, presented it. "It's for you." "But --" "Please." She was smiling at my ginger look. "But really... I mean..." "I bought it with Alison." She corrected herself. "Alison was with me when I bought it." She pushed it into my hands. I unwrapped it. In the middle of the plate there was a na�ly drawn Chinaman and his wife; two children between them. A remote echo; peasants travelling steerage, the swell, the night wind. "Supposing I break it." "I think you should get used to handling fragile objects." She made the double-meaning very plain. I looked down at the plate again, the small inky-blue figures. "That's really why I asked to meet you." Our eyes met; she gently mocked by embarrassment. "Shall we go and have our tea?" "Well," she said, "why you really asked to meet me." We had found a table in the corner. "Alison." The waitress brought the tea things. Those teas at Bourani; I wonder if she had chosen that on purpose as well. "I told you." Her eyes rose to meet mine. "It depends on her." "And on you." "No. Not in the least on me." "Is she in London?" "I have promised her not to tell you where she is." "Look, Mrs. Seitas, I think--" but I swallowed what I was going to say. I watched her pour the tea; not otherwise helping me. "What the hell does she want? What am I supposed to do?" "Is that too strong?" I shook my head impatiently at the cup she passed. Her eyes weighed mine. She seemed to decide to say nothing; then changed her mind. "My dear, I never take anger at its face value." I wanted to shrug off that "my dear" as I had wanted to shake off her hands the week before; but she placed it with a faultless precision of tone. It was condescending, but its condescension was justified, a statement of the difference between our two experiences of life; and there was something discreetly maternal in it, a reminder to me that if I rebelled against her judgment, I rebelled against my own immaturity; if against her urbanity, against my own lack of it. I looked down. "I'm not prepared to wait much longer." "Then she will be well rid of you." I drank some