The telephone started ringing, and, startled out of my chair, I went across to the library to answer it. Damn his telepathic powers. He would tell me he knew where I had been, that the house above the estuary was familiar ground, there was no need to worry, it was all perfectly safe providing I touched no one; if I felt ill or confused it was a side-effect of no consequence. I would put him right.
I seized the telephone and someone said, "Hold on a moment, please, I have a call for you," and I heard the click as Magnus took over.
"Damn and blast you, I said. This is the last time I behave like a performing seal."
There was a little gasp at the other end, and then a laugh. "Thanks for the welcome home, darling."
It was Vita. I stood stupefied, holding on to the receiver. Was her voice part of the confusion?
"Darling?" she repeated. "Are you there? Is something wrong?"
"No," I sald, "nothing's wrong, but what's happened? Where are you speaking from?"
"London airport," she answered. "I caught an earlier plane, that's all. Bill and Diana are collecting me and taking me out to dinner. I thought you might call the flat later tonight and wonder why I didn't answer. Sorry if I took you by surprise."
"Well, you did," I said, "but forget it. How are you?"
"Fine," she said, "just fine. What about you? Who did you think I was when you answered me just now? You didn't sound too pleased."
"In point of fact", I told her, "I thought it was Magnus. I had to do a chore for him… I've written you all about it in my letter, which you won't get until tomorrow morning."
She laughed. I knew the sound, with the slight 'I thought as much' inflexion. "So your Professor has been putting you to work, she said. That doesn't surprise me. What's he been making you do that has turned you into a performing seal?"
"Oh, endless things, sorting out junk, I'll explain when I see you. When do the boys get back?"
"Tomorrow," she said. "Their train arrives at a hideous hour in the morning. Then I thought I'd pack them in the car and come on down. How long will it take?"
"Wait," I said, "that's just it. I'm not ready for you. I've told you so in my letter. Leave it until after the weekend." There was silence the other end. I had dropped the usual clanger.
"Not ready?" she repeated. "But you must have been there all of five days? I thought you'd fixed up with some woman to come in and cook and clean, make beds and so on. Has she let us down?"
"No, it's not that," I told her. "She's first-rate, couldn't be better. Look, darling, I can't explain over the telephone, it's all in my letter, but, frankly, we weren't expecting you until Monday at the earliest."
"We?" she said. "You don't mean the Professor is there too?"
"No, no…" I could feel irritation rising in both of us. "I meant Mrs. Collins and myself. She only comes in the morning, she has to bicycle up from Polkerris, the little village at the bottom of the hill, and the beds aren't aired or anything. She'll be terribly put out if everything isn't absolutely straight, and you know what you are, you'll take a dislike to the place if it isn't shining."
"What absolute nonsense," she said. "I'm fully prepared to picnic, and so are the boys. We can bring food with us, if that's worrying you. And blankets too. Are there enough blankets?"
"Masses of blankets," I said, "masses of food. Oh, darling, don't be obstructive. If you come down right away it won't be convenient, and that's the plain truth of it. I'm sorry."
"O.K." The lilt in the K had the typical upward ring of Vita temporarily defeated in argument but determined to win the final battle. "You'd better find yourself an apron and a broom," she added as a parting shot. "I'll tell Bill and Diana you've turned domestic and are going to spend the evening on your hands and knees. They'll love it."
"It's not that I don't want to see you, darling," I began, but her 'Bye', still with the upward inflexion, told me I had done my worst, and she had hung up on me and was now making her way to the airport restaurant to order a Scotch on the rocks and smoke three cigarettes in quick succession before the arrival of her friends.
Well, that was that… What now? My anger against Magnus had been deflected to Vita, but how could I know she was going to catch an earlier plane and ring me unexpectedly? Anyone in the same situation would have been caught on the wrong foot. But that was the rub. My situation was not the same as anyone else's: it was unique. Less than an hour ago I had been living in another world, another time, or had imagined myself to be doing so, through the effect of the drug.
I began to walk from the library through the small dining-room across the hail to the music-room and back again, like someone pacing the deck of a ship, and it seemed to me that I was not sure of anything any more. Neither of mysellf nor of Magnus, nor of Vita, nor of my own immediate world, for who was to say where I belonged — here in this borrowed house, in the London flat, in the office I had left when quitting my job, or in that singularly vivid house of mourning which lay buried beneath centuries of rubble? Why, if I was determined not to see that house again, had I dissuaded Vita from coming down tomorrow? The excuses had been immediate, a reflex action. Nausea and vertigo had gone.
Accepted. They might strike again. Accepted also. The drug was dangerous, its implications and its side-effects unknown. This, too, accepted. I loved Vita, but I did not want her with me. Why? I seized the telephone once more and dialled Magnus. No answer. No answer, either, to my self-imposed question. That doctor with his intelligent eyes might have given me one. What would he have told me? That a hallucinatory drug could play curious tricks with the unconscious, bringing the suppressions of a lifetime to the surface, so let it alone? A practical answer, but it did not suffice. I had not been moving amongst childhood ghosts. The people I had seen were not shadows from my own past. Roger the steward was not my alter-ego, nor Isolda a dream-fantasy, a might-have-been. Or were they?
I tried Magnus two or three times later, but there was never a reply, and I spent a restless evening, unable to settle to newspapers, books, records or TV. Finally, fed up with myself and the whole problem, to which there seemed no solution, I went early to bed, and slept, to my astonishment when I awoke next morning, amazingly well.
The first thing I did was to ring the flat, and I caught Vita just as she was tearing off to meet the boys.
"Darling, I'm sorry about yesterday…" I began, but there was no time to go into it, she told me, she was late already.
"Well, when shall I ring you?" I asked.
"I can't give you a time," she answered. "It depends upon the boys, what they want to do, whether there'll be a mass of shopping. They'll probably need jeans, swimming-trunks, I don't know. Thanks for your letter, by the way. Your Professor certainiy keeps you employed."
"Never mind Magnus… How was your dinner with Bill and Diana?"
"Fun. Lots of scandal. Now I must go, or I'll keep the boys hanging about at Waterloo Station."
"Give them my love," I shouted, but she had gone. Oh well, she sounded happy enough. The evening with her friends and a good night's rest must have changed her ideas, and my letter too, which she seemed to have accepted. What a relief… Now I could relax once more. Mrs. Collins knocked on the door and came in with my breakfast tray.