A vein of colder water made me twist on my front again, and as I turned I saw. A girl in a pale pink dress was standing under the seawardest pines on top of the cliff, some hundred yards to the east of where I was; in shadow, but brilliantly, exuberantly conspicuous. She waved down and I waved back. She walked a few yards along the edge of the trees, the sunlight between the pines dappling the pink dress, and then, with an inner leap of exultation, I saw another flash of pink, a second girl. They stood, each replica of each, some twenty yards apart, and the closer waved again. Then both disappeared back together into the trees.
Five minutes later I arrived, very out of breath, at the deserted Poseidon statue. I suffered a moment’s angry suspicion that I was being teased again—shown them only to lose them. But I went down the far side of the ravine, past the carob; and soon I could see their two pink figures. They were sitting on a shaded hummock of rock and earth, wearing identical summer dresses, loose-topped and long-skirted, of some cottony material with thin pink and white, rose and lily, stripes. A glimpse of pale blue stockings. Rose stood as soon as she saw me coming and came idly and Edwardianly down the hummock and a little way towards me. She had her hair up, two curved wings that framed her face and ended in a chignon. I glanced at her wrist, though I was sure. It had no scar. And I glanced beyond her at the girl whose hair was down her back, as loose as on the Sunday morning a fortnight before; who looked so much younger, yet sat and unsmilingly watched us meet. Rose made a face; a modern face that denied her costume.
“Elle est filchée.” She looked round. Lily had presented her back to us, as if in a pique. “I told her you said you didn’t care which of us you met this morning.”
“That was kind of you.”
She grinned. “Bored of me.”
“And what have you decided?”
She hesitated, then took my hand and led me to the foot of the hummock. Lily must have heard us, but she would not turn. So Rose led me round the foot of the little knoll until we came into her line of vision.
“Here’s your knight in shining armor.”
Lily looked coolly down at me and said, even more coolly, “Hello.” Rose, who still held my hand, forced it down. I found myself bowing beside her curtsey.
Lily smiled faintly, and said, “Oh June. Stop it.”
I looked quickly at the girl beside me.
“June?”
She gave a dip of acknowledgment. I glanced back at Lily. Rose-June said, “That’s my twin sister Julie.”
A jolt of shock: Conchis had already told me this name. I quickly suppressed any sign of surprise. But I was on guard; all prickles erect.
Lily-Julie got to her feet. She stood on a ledge of rock a foot or so above us, and looked down at me with a wary unforgivingness.
“Who you did not meet last night.”
Her skin was milky, but her cheeks were red.
“I believed it was you.”
“June, go away.”
But Rose-June hopped up beside her and put her arm round her and whispered something in her ear. Once again, as always when I looked at Lily, I had to dismiss the idea of schizophrenia. Giving me her real name was another Conchis “cod”; a mine for me to one day tread on. The two of them stood a moment, Rose-June’s arm round her sister’s shoulders. Whatever she had said had brought a modified forgiveness. They smiled down at me in their different ways, one mischievous, the other shy, presenting their charming twinness to me, perhaps laughing a little at my naïvely fascinated look. The sun-wind touched their clothes, stroked the ends of Julie’s hair; and then the tableau disintegrated, Rose-June’s arm fell.
Lily-Julie said, “We have to keep to a kind of script. And we’re being watched.” Like them I did not look round; but colluded.
“Script?”
Rose-June said, “She’ll explain.”
She jumped down and held out her hand.
“Goodbye, Nicholas.”
“And where on earth are you going?”
She looked again at Lily-Julie, who shook her head; Rose-June raised her eyebrows near-mutinously. “I’m not allowed to say.” She stared at her sister. “You are going to tell him everything?” Her voice was suddenly adult, without humor.
“Everything except…”
“But everything else.”
“You must go. They’ll suspect.” She turned her back and Rose-June leant forward and squeezed my arm.
“Make her tell you everything.” Her eyes looked levelly, no longer playing, into mine. “We count on you. More than you can imagine.”
Then with one last glance at her sister she was walking back towards the Poseidon statue. I smiled to myself; my plan of action was clear—to follow where Lily-Julie led… until I could pin her down. She had moved away towards the sea cliff. I went up behind her.
“I was furious. I was so disappointed.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes it does.”
She gave me a quick, shy smile then, but said nothing; as if, after all, we really didn’t know each other, and a new intimacy had to be established; and something more serious to be discussed.
We came to a place where there was a naturally scalloped-out bank under a pine tree, facing the sea. I saw a white raffia bag there, and a large green rug with a book on it. She kicked off her pale gray shoes, stood on the rug and sat down with her legs curled under her; then patted the rug beside her. A cautious, muted look up at me.
I stooped before I sat, to pick up the book. But she reached first.
“Later.”
I sat.
She put the book into the bag behind her and as she turned the fabric tightened over her breasts; her small waist. She faced back and our eyes met; those fine gray-hyacinth eyes, tilted corners, lingering a moment in mine.
“Why did you do that last night?”
“Not come?” She sat with her knees drawn up, staring out to sea. “The script said I was to promise to meet you, the matchsticks, but June was really to meet you. You were to discover who she is. She was to tell you that I like you. Then we were all three to meet this morning. Just as we have. And then… you and I were to discover that we were falling in love. The only thing is that June was to have convinced you last night that I, I mean Lily, really is a schizophrenic. Or under hypnosis. And it’s mad. We knew we couldn’t do it. Just one final madness too much.” She had spoken quickly, with a completely new matter-of-factness, a complete abandonment of role. She threw me a look as if to say, I am sorry I tricked you earlier, and that my real self is going to be a disappointment; a tentative, uncertain look, turned off towards the sea. Suddenly she seemed more distant, as actresses one has been moved by onstage so often are offstage; a disconcerting alienation effect.
I offered her a Papastratos.
“No thanks. I don’t.”
“Like Lily.”
“Like Lily.”
There was silence; her old self had drained away, like water between stones.
“Well?”
“Either you ask me questions, or I ask you. I don’t mind. You did produce credentials to my sister. So I suppose I should go first.”
I lit my cigarette. “Let me guess your real surname… Holmes?”
Her head shot round. There was no mistaking her shock.
“How did you know that!”
“Intuition.”
“But June swore…” I was smiling. “Please. Really. This isn’t funny.”
“Maurice told me.”