The Magus - John Fowles [78]
up. "Shall we walk up and down?" I walked beside her. She was only an inch or two shorter than myself, and she walked slowly, slimly, with elegance, looking out to sea, avoiding my eyes, as if she now was shy. I looked around. Conchis was out of hearing. "Have you been here long?" "I have not been anywhere long." "I meant on the island." "So did I." She gave me a quick look, softened by a little smile. We had gone round the other arm of the terrace, into the shadow cast by the corner of the bedroom wall. "An excellent return of service, Miss Montgomery." "If you play tennis, I must play tennis back." "Must?" "Maurice must have asked you not to question me." "Oh come on. In front of him, okay. I mean, good God, we're both English, aren't we?" "That gives us the freedom to be rude to each other?" "To get to know each other." "Perhaps we are not equally interested in... getting to know each other." She looked away out over the night. I was nettled. "You do this thing very charmingly. But what exactly is the game?" "Please." Her voice was faintly sharp. "I really cannot stand this." I guessed why she had brought me around into the shadow. I couldn't see much of her face. "Stand what?" She turned and looked at me and said, in a quiet but fiercely precise voice, "Mr. Urfe." I was put in my place. She went and stood against the parapet at the far end of the terrace, looking towards the central ridge to the north. A breath of listless air from the sea washed behind us. "Would you shawl me please?" "Would I?" "My wrap." I hesitated, then turned and went back for the indigo wrap. Conchis was still indoors. I returned and put it around her shoulders, then stood beside her. Without warning she reached her hand sideways and took mine and pressed it, as if to give me courage; and to make me identify her with the original, gentle Lily. She remained staring out across the clearing to the trees. "Why did you do that?" "I did not mean to be unkind." I mimicked her formal tone. "Can, may I, ask you... where you live here?" She turned and leant against the edge of the parapet, so that we were facing opposite ways, and came to a decision. "Over there." She pointed with her fan. "That's the sea. Or are you pointing at thin air?" "I assure you I live over there." An idea struck me. "On a yacht?" "On land." "Curious I've never seen your house." "I expect you have the wrong kind of sight." I could just make out that she had a little smile at the corner of her lips. We were standing very close. The perfume around us. "I'm being teased." "Perhaps you are teasing yourself." "I hate being teased." She looked at me from the corner of her eyes; a shy malice. "You prefer to tease?" "Usually. But I don't mind being teased by someone as pretty and gifted as you are." She made a little mock inclination. She had a beautiful neck; the throat of a Nefertiti. The photo in Conchis's room made her look heavy-chinned, but she wasn't. "Then I shall continue to tease you." There was silence. Conchis was away far too long for the excuse he had given; I remembered the miserable Janet's mother, who used to invent elephantine excuses to leave the two of us together in the sitting room, during my year of purgatory in S----. Her question took me by surprise. "Do you love Maurice?" She made no attempt to anglicise the French pronunciation, but sounded it with a rather precious exactitude. "This is only the third time I've met him." She appeared to wait for me to go on. "I'm very grateful for his asking me over here. Especially now." She cut short my compliment. "You see, we all love him very much." "Who is we?" "His other visitors and myself." I could hear the inverted commas. She had turned to face me. "'Visitor' seems an odd way of putting it." "Maurice does not like 'ghost.'" I smiled. "Or 'actress'?" Her face betrayed not the least preparedness to concede, to give up her role. "We are all actors and actresses, Mr. Urfe. You included." "Of course. On the stage of the world." She smiled and looked down. "Be patient." "Willingly. I couldn't imagine anyone I'd rather be