The note said: We look forward to seeing you on Saturday. I hope you had a most enjoyable reconciliation with your friend. If I do not hear I shall know you are coming. Maurice Conchis. It was dated above Wednesday morning. My heart leapt. Everything during that last weekend seemed, if not justified, necessary.
I had a lot of marking to do, but I couldn’t stay in. I walked up to the main ridge, to the inland cliff. I had to see the roof of Bourani, the south of the island, the sea, the mountains, all the reality of the unreality. There was none of the burning need to go down and spy that had possessed me the week before, but a balancing mixture of excitement and reassurance, a certainty of the health of the symbiosis. I was theirs still; they were mine.
I wrote a note to Alison as soon as I got back.
Allie darling, you can’t say to someone “I’ve decided I ought to love you.” I can see a million reasons why I ought to love you, because (as I tried to explain) in my fashion, my perfect-bastard fashion, I do love you. Parnassus was beautiful, please don’t think it was nothing to me, only the body, or could ever be anything but unforgettable, always, for me. I know you’re angry, of course you’re angry, but please write back. It’s so likely that one day I shall need you terribly, I shall come crawling to you, and you can have all the revenge you want then.
I thought it a good letter; the only conscious exaggeration was in the last sentence.
At ten to four on Saturday I was at the gate of Bourani; and there, walking along the track towards me, was Conchis. He had on a black shirt, long khaki shorts; dark-brown shoes and faded yellow-green stockings. He was walking purposefully, almost in a hurry, as if he had wanted to be out of the way before I came. But he raised his arm as soon as he saw me and appeared not put out.
“Nicholas.”
“Hello.”
He stood in front of me and gave his little headshake.
“A pleasant half-term?”
“Yes, thanks.”
He seemed to have expected more, but I was determined to say nothing; and showed so. He murmured, “Good.”
“That was an extraordinary experience. Last time. I had no idea I was so suggestible.”
He tapped his head. “Never think of your mind as a castle. It is an engine room.”
“Then you must be a very skilled engineer.” He bowed. “Am I to believe all those sensations came from other worlds?”
“It is not for me to tell you what to believe.”
I remembered, as I smiled thinly at his own thin smile, that I was back in a polysemantic world. He reached out, as if he felt sorry for me, and gripped my shoulder for a second. It was clear that he wanted to get on.
“You’re going out?”
“I have been writing letters all day. I must walk.”
“Can’t I come with you?”
“You could.” He smiled. “But I think Lily would be disappointed.”
I smiled back. “In that case.”
“Precisely. You will remember what we said?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you. I have great confidence in you. Sto kalo.”
He raised his hand, and we parted.
I walked on, but looked back after a moment to see which way he had gone. It was apparently to Moutsa or beyond it to the totally deserted western end of the island. I did not believe for a moment that he was going for a constitutional. He walked far too much like a man with something to arrange, someone to see.
No one was visible as I approached the house, as I crossed the gravel. I leapt up the steps and walked quietly round the corner onto the wide tiling under the front colonnade.
Lily was standing there, her feet and the bottom of her dress in sunlight, the rest of her in shadow. I saw at once that the pretense was still on. She had her back to me, as if she had been looking out to sea, but her face was turned expectantly over her shoulder. As soon as I appeared she swayed lightly round. She was wearing another beautiful dress, in a charcoal-amber-indigo art nouveau fabric, with an almost ground-length pale yellow stole. As arresting as a brilliant stage costume, and yet she contrived to wear it both naturally and dramatically.
She held out her left hand with a smile, back up, for me to check her identity. We didn’t say anything. She sat down in her willowy manner and gestured to the chair opposite. And it became a sort of game inside a game inside a game: silence, to see which one of us could go longest without speaking. As she poured water from the silver kettle into the teapot I saw her slide a look at me, and then bite her lips to stop from smiling. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. All through the week there had been recurrent memories, images of Alison, doubts that involved comparing her with Lily… and now I knew I was right. It wasn’t only the stunning physical elegance of this girl, it was the intelligence, the quickness, the ability to be several things at the same time; to make every look and every remark ambiguous; to look cool and yet never cold.
She turned down the pale blue flame of the spirit-stove; with a moue surrendered.
“Maurice had to go out.”
“Oh, why?”
She poured two cups and handed one towards me, then looked me in the eyes.
“So that we could have tea alone.” She smiled.
“You look like a dream.”
“Won’t you have a sandwich?”
I grinned, gave up, took one. “Where’ve you been this last fortnight?”
“Here.”
“No you haven’t. I’ve been over several times. The house has been locked up.” She nibbled a sandwich, risked a demure look at me. “Come on, be a sport. Athens?” She shook her head. Her hair was up and drawn back from her face. She sat sideways, in profile, long neck, beautifully poised Grecian head. “I saw Maurice just now. He said you were going to tell me the truth. Over tea. Who you really are, where you’ve been—everything.”
She looked at me under severe eyebrows; reverting. “That is a fib.”
“He might have done. You don’t know.”
“But I do.”
I stared down at the ground. “Lily.”
“Why do you say my name like that?”
“You know why.” She shook her head. I let the silence come. She sipped her tea, watched it, sipped it again. Always that secret inner smile; I looked round into the trees, to see if I could see the “nurse”; and hoping that she might ask me what I was looking for.
“Was your friend glad to see you in Athens?”
“She didn’t see me in Athens. We called it off. By letter.”
“Oh.”
“For good.” She nursed the cup, refusing to look at me, to be interested. “Are you glad?”
“Why should I be glad?”
“I was asking whether. Not why.” She gave a tiny shrug, as if I had no right to ask; raised one of her black shoes and contemplated it; waited for my next move. “You know I’ve been hypnotized since I saw you last?” She nodded. “Were you there?” She shook her head, quite vehemently. “He’s hypnotized you?” She nodded again. “Often?”
She turned and put her elbows on the table and stared at me.
“Yes. Many times.”
And I was caught; still not quite able to be sure that the schizophrenia was another invention; still not all clear to what extent she was playing to his cues.
“This is why you can’t lie to him?”
She seemed to be more interested in looking at my face than in answering, but in the end she said, “It’s good for me.”