He looked at me, but said nothing. I felt all his energy then, his fierceness, his heartlessness, his impatience with my stupidity, my melancholy, my selfishness. His hatred not only of me, but of all he had decided I stood for: something passive, abdicating, English, in life. He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm, to convert or detest.
I looked down at last. ‘Then you think I’m another Anton. Is that what I’m meant to understand?’
‘You are someone who does not understand what freedom is. And above all that the better you understand it, the less you possess of it.’
I tried to absorb that paradox. ‘I’ve shown too much to please you?’
‘To be of further significance to me.’ He picked up the file. ‘Now I suggest we go to bed.’
I spoke sharply. You can’t treat people like this. As if we’re all just villagers to be shot so that you can prove some abstract theory of freedom.’
He stood up and stared down at me. ‘For as long as you cherish your present view of freedom, it is you who holds the executioner’s gun.’
I thought again of Alison; suppressed the thought.
‘What makes you so sure you know my real self?’
‘I do not claim that. My decision is based on the certain knowledge that you are incapable of knowing it yourself.’
‘You honestly do think you’re God, don’t you?’
Incredibly, he did not answer; and his eyes said that that was what I might be left to believe. I let out a little snort of air, to show him what I thought, then went on.
‘So what do you want me to do now? Collect my bag and walk back to the school?’
This seemed, unexpectedly, to set him back a little. There was a minute, but telltale, hesitation before he answered.
‘As you wish. There was to be a little final ceremony tomorrow morning. But it is not of importance.’
‘Ah. Well. I’d hate to miss that.’
He contemplated my humourless smile up at him, then gave a little nod.
‘I wish you good night.’ I turned my back, and his footsteps receded. But he stopped at the music-room doors. ‘I repeat. No one will come.’
I didn’t acknowledge that, either, and he went on inside. I believed him, as regards no one coming, but I had begun to smile to myself in the darkness. I knew that the threat to walk out at once had secretly alarmed him; had forced him to toss me another hasty carrot, a reason to stay. It must all have been a test, some sort of ordeal to be passed before I entered the inner circle … at any rate, I felt more than ever certain that the girls were on the yacht. I had, so to speak, been brought before the execution squad, but this time there was to be a last-minute reprieve. The longer he denied me Julie now, the more he followed the philosophy of a Wimmel … and at least I knew Conchis was a very different human being; if he was cruel it was, by his lights, to be kind.
I smoked one cigarette, another. There was a great stewing stillness, an oppressiveness, a silence. The gibbous moon hung over the planet Earth, a dead thing over a dying thing. I got up and strolled across the gravel to the seat on the path down to the beach.
I had not expected such a finale: the statue of stone in the comic door. But then he couldn’t have known of its secret relevance to me. He had simply guessed that for me freedom meant the freedom to satisfy personal desire, private ambition. Against that he set a freedom that must be responsible for its actions; something much older than the existentialist freedom, I suspected – a moral imperative, an almost Christian concept, certainly not a political or democratic one. I thought back over the last few years of my life, the striving for individuality that had obsessed all my generation after the limiting and conforming years of the war, our retreat from society, nation, into self. I knew I couldn’t really answer his charge, the question his story posed; and that I could not get off by claiming that I was a historical victim, powerless to be anything else but selfish – or I should not be able to get off from now on. It was as if he had planted a bandillera in my shoulder, or a succubus on my back: a knowledge I did not want.
Once more my mind wandered, in the grey silences of the night, not to Julie, but to Alison. Staring out to sea, I finally forced myself to stop thinking of her as someone still somewhere, if only in memory, still obscurely alive, breathing, doing, moving, but as a shovelful of ashes already scattered; as a broken link, a biological dead end, an eternal withdrawal from reality, a once complex object that now dwindled, dwindled, left nothing behind except a smudge like a fallen speck of soot on a blank sheet of paper.
As something too small to mourn; the very word was archaic and superstitious, of the age of Browne, or Hervey; yet Donne was right, her death detracted, would for ever detract, from my own life. Each death laid a dreadful charge of complicity on the living; each death was incongenerous, its guilt irreducible, its sadness immortal; a bracelet of bright hair about the bone.
I did not pray for her, because prayer has no efficacy; I did not cry for her, or for myself, because only extraverts cry twice; but I sat in the silence of that night, that infinite hostility to man, to permanence, to love, remembering her, remembering her.
55
Ten o’clock. I woke and swung out of bed, aware that I had overslept; shaved in a hurry. Somewhere below I could hear hammering, a man’s voice, and what sounded like Maria’s. But the colonnade was deserted when I came down. By the wall I saw four wooden crates. It was obvious that three of them had paintings inside. I looked back inside the music-room. The Modigliani had gone; so had the little Rodin and the Giacometti; and I guessed that the other two crates held the Bonnards from upstairs. My optimism of the night before swiftly vanished before this evidence that the ‘theatre’ was being dismantled. I had a dreadful intuition that Conchis meant exactly what he had said.
Maria appeared with coffee for me. I gestured at the crates.
‘What’s happening?’
‘Phygoume.’
We’re going.
‘O
kyrios Conchis?’
‘Tha
elthei.’
He’s coming. I gave up with her, swallowed a cup of coffee, another. There was a bright wind, it was a Dufy day, all bustle, movement, animated colour. I walked over to the edge of the gravel. The yacht was alive now, I could see several people on deck, but none seemed female. Then I glanced back to the house. Conchis stood under the colonnade, as if waiting for me to return.
He wore clothes that were somehow as incongruous as if he had been wearing fancy-dress. He looked exactly like some slightly intellectual businessman: a black leather briefcase; a dark blue summer suit, a cream shirt, a discreetly polka-dotted bow tie. It was perfect for Athens, but ridiculous on Phraxos … and unnecessary, since he would have had at least six hours on his yacht to change, except as a proof to me that his other world had already claimed him. He did not smile as I came up to him.
‘I am leaving very shortly.’ He glanced at his wrist-watch, an object I had never seen him wear before. ‘This time tomorrow I shall be in Paris.’
The wind rattled the shimmering vegetal glass of the palm-fronds. The last act was to be played
presto.
‘A quick curtain?’
‘No real play has a curtain. It is acted, and then it continues to act.’
We stared at each other.
‘The girls?’
‘Are accompanying me to Paris.’ I took a breath, and gave him a little grimace of scepticism. He said, ‘You are being very naive.’
‘In what way?’
‘In supposing that rich men give up their toys.’
‘Julie and June are not your toys.’ He smiled without humour, and I said angrily, ‘I don’t swallow that one, either.’
‘You think intelligence and good taste, to say nothing of good looks, camiot be bought? You are profoundly mistaken.’
‘Then you have a very unfaithful pair of mistresses.’
I continued to amuse him. ‘When you are older you will realize that infidelity of that sort is of no importance. I pay for their appearance, their presence, their conversation. Not their bodies. At my age, the demand there is easily met.’
‘Are you really expecting me to –’
He cut me short. ‘I know what you are thinking. I have them locked away in a cabin. Under duress somewhere – some such conclusion to the nonsense we have been feeding you.’ He shook his head. ‘We did not meet last weekend for a very simple reason. So that Lily might decide which she preferred – life with a penniless and, I suspect, ungifted schoolmaster … or an existence in a much richer and more interesting world.’
‘If she’s what you say she is, she wouldn’t have to think twice.’
He folded his arms. ‘If it is any consolation to your self-esteem, she did. But she finally had the good sense to see that a long, dull and predictable future was an expensive price to pay for the satisfaction of a passing sexual attraction.’
I left a brief silence, then put down my coffee. ‘Lily? And what did you say, Rose?’
‘I told you last night.’
I stared at him, then took out my wallet, found the letter from Barclay’s Bank and pushed it at him. He took it, but only gave it a cursory glance.
‘A forgery. I am sorry.’
I snatched the letter back from his hands. ‘Mr Conchis, I want to see those two girls. I also know the story of how you got them here in the first place. The police might be interested in that.’
‘Then they must be interested in Athens. Since the girls are there -and will laugh your charge to ridicule in the first minute.’
‘I don’t believe you. They’re on the yacht.’
‘You may come aboard with me in a minute. If you insist. Look where you like. Question my crew. We will return you to shore before we sail.’
I knew he could be bluffing, but I had a strong idea that he wasn’t – and anyway, if he was holding them under duress, he would not risk using such an obvious place.
‘All right. I’ll give you credit for being cleverer than that. But I’ll have the whole matter in British Embassy hands as soon as I get to the village.’
‘I do not think the Embassy will be amused. When they discover that their aid is being invoked by a mere disappointed lover.’ He went on quickly, as if this display of futile threat was boring him. ‘Now. Two of my cast wish to say goodbye to you.’ He walked back to the corner of the house.
‘Catherine!’
It was pronounced in the French way. He turned back to me.
‘Maria – of course – is not a simple Greek peasant.’
But I was not to be diverted so easily. I accused him again.
‘Quite apart from anything else, Julie … even if she was what you claim … would at least have the courage to tell me all this to my face.’
‘Such scenes belong to the old drama. Not the new.’
‘That’s got nothing to do with what she is.’
‘Perhaps one day you will meet her again. You may indulge your masochistic instincts then.’
We were saved all further argument by the appearance of Maria. She was still an elderly woman, still had a lined face; but she wore a well-cut black suit, a gilt-and-garnet brooch at one lapel. Stockings, shoes with the beginning of high heels, a touch of powder and rouge, lipstick … the sort of middle-class matron of sixty one might see in any fashionable Athens street. She stood with a faint smile -the surprise, the quick-change entrance. Conchis watched me drily.
‘This is Madame Catherine Athanasoulis, who has made a speciality of peasant roles. She has helped me many times before.’
He held out a hand politely for her to come nearer. She advanced with an open-palmed gesture, almost one of regret at having deceived me so completely. I gave her a cold and wide-eyed look; she wasn’t going to have any compliments from me. She reached out a hand. I ignored it. After a moment, she gave a little mock bow of the head.
Conchis said,
‘Les valises?
‘
Tout est prêt.’
She eyed me.
‘Eh bien, monsieur. Adieu.’
She withdrew as composedly as she had come. I had begun to feel something like despair – or shock. I knew Conchis was lying, but he was lying at such length, so circumstantially; and I was to have no relief, because he looked across the gravel.
‘Good. Here is Joe. This is what we call the
désintoxication.’
It was the Negro, strolling up from the beach path in an elegant dark-tan suit, a pink shirt, a club tie, dark glasses. He raised an easy hand as he saw us waiting for him and came across the gravel; a smile at Conchis, a dry quirk of the mouth in my direction.
‘This is Joe Harrison.’
‘Hi.’
I said nothing. He gave a little side-glance at Conchis, then reached out a hand. ‘Sorry, friend. Just did what master said.’
He was American, not West Indian. Once more I ignored the hand.
‘With some conviction.’
‘Yeah, well – of course we niggers are all first cousin to apes. You call us eunuchs, we just don’t understand.’ He said it lightly, as if it didn’t matter any more.
‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘Okay.’
We exchanged a wary look, then he turned to Conchis. ‘They’re coming to pick up the stuff.’
Conchis said, ‘I have some last things upstairs.’
I was left standing there with Joe. More figures appeared on the path, four or five sailors in their navy-blue singlets and white shorts. Four looked like Greeks, but one, with pale blond hair, looked Scandinavian or German. The girls had hardly talked about the crew – they were just ‘Greek sailors’. I felt a new prick of jealousy, and a deeper one of uncertainty – I truly began to feel now that I was discarded, a mere encumbrance … and a fool. They all knew I was a fool. I eyed Joe, who was leaning idly against one of the arches. He seemed a poor bet, but my only one.
‘Where are the girls?’
His dark glasses lazily surveyed me. ‘In Athens.’ But then his look swivelled briefly back towards the doors through which the old man had disappeared. He glanced at me again with the trace of a rueful smile. Then he shook his head, once, with a kind of shared sympathy.
‘What does that mean?’ He gave a small shrug: that was the way it was. I said, ‘You’re speaking from experience?’
He murmured softly, ‘Could be.’
The sailors came up past us and went to the crates. Then Hermes appeared beside the house, carrying more suitcases over the gravel down towards the beach. Maria followed him in her finery, a few steps behind. Joe lounged away from the column and came a step or two towards me, holding out a packet of American cigarettes. I hesitated, then took one, bent to the light he offered. He spoke in a low voice.
‘She said to say sorry.’ I sought his eyes as they lifted from lighting his own cigarette. ‘No bullshit. She meant it. Right?’ Still I stared at him. Once again Iris eyes slipped past me towards the doors, as if he didn’t want to be caught talking confidentially to me. ‘Man, you’re holding a lousy pair against a full house. No chance.
Compris?’
Somehow that convinced me, though totally against my will, more than anything that the old man himself had said. I was almost tempted to give Joe some bitter message back, but before I could frame it, it was too late. Conchis stood in the doorway with a small suitcase. He spoke to one of the sailors in Greek. Joe touched my arm, again almost as if in secret sympathy, and then moved forward to take the case from Conchis’s hand. As he came back past me, he pulled a face.
‘Know the one about the white man’s burden? They make it, we carry it.’
He raised a hand in casual farewell, then set off after Hermes and Maria. The sailors moved off with the crates, and I was left once more alone with Conchis. He opened his hands, unsmiling, almost taunting : I had better believe him now.
I said, ‘You haven’t heard the last of me.’
‘I should not be foolish. Money goes a long way in this country.’
‘And sadism, apparently.’
He examined me one last time. ‘Hermes will return to lock up in a minute.’ I said nothing. ‘You had your chance. I suggest you reflect on what it is in you that caused you to miss it.’
‘Go to hell.’
He said absolutely nothing, simply fixed my eyes, as if he could hypnotize me into a retraction.
I said, ‘I mean that.’
A moment, then he slowly shook his head. ‘You do not know your meaning yet. Or mine.’
Then – he must have known I should not have taken his hand – he moved past me. But at the steps he stopped and turned.
‘I forgot. My sadism does not extend to your stomach. Hermes will give you a packed lunch. It is prepared.’
He was some way across the gravel before I could think of a parting shot. I shouted it after him.
‘Hydrocyanic acid sandwiches?’
But he took no notice. I felt like running after him, catching his arm, detaining him by force, anything; and equally knew myself powerless. Hermes appeared on his way back from the beach, beyond Conchis. I heard the sound of the power dinghy going out on a first ferry to the yacht. The two men stopped, exchanged a word, shook hands, then the donkey-driver came on towards me. Conchis went down out of sight. Hermes stood at the foot of the steps and presented me with his morose wall eye; then lifted a bunch of keys. I spoke in Greek.
‘The two girls – are they on the yacht?’
He frogged his mouth: he did not know.
‘Have you seen them today?’
His chin went up: no.
I turned disgustedly away. Hermes followed me indoors, even up the stairs, but he abandoned me at the door of my bedroom and went off to lock windows and shutters elsewhere … not that I noticed that, because I had no sooner entered my room when I saw that I had been left a parting present. It lay on the pillow: an envelope stuffed full of Greek currency notes. I counted them out: twenty million
drachmai.
Even allowing for the acute inflation of the time, that was well over two hundred pounds, more than a third of my annual salary. I knew then why the old man had slipped upstairs before he left. The money, with its implicit suggestion that I too could be bought, enraged me; it was the final humiliation. At the same time it was a lot of money. I thought of rushing down to the jetty and throwing it all in his face – there was still time, the powerboat had to unload and return; but I thought only. When I heard Hermes returning, I hastily stuffed the money inside my duffel-bag.
He watched in the doorway while I packed the rest of my few things; and once more followed me downstairs, as if my every movement had to be watched.
A last look round the music-room, at the nail, the mark on the empty wall, where the Modigliani had hung; a moment or two later I was standing alone under the colonnade listening to Hermes while he locked the music-room door from inside. I heard the boat returning below, I was still tempted to go and … but I had to do something positive, rather than symbolic. With any luck I could talk the village police sergeant into letting me use the coastguard station radio. I was beyond caring whether I made a fool of myself. I nursed one last hope – that Conchis had told the twins some new story that made their absence from the island seem plausible to them. It occurred to me that they might have received some equivalent of what he had told me of them, had been persuaded that I was in his pay, lying to Julie throughout … I had to get in touch with them, even if it was finally only to discover that they were as he claimed. But until I heard it straight from them, I would not believe it. I clung to my memory of Julie in the water, Julie at countless moments that must have been sincere; and to her Englishness, all that middle-class and university background we shared. To sell oneself, even to a Conchis, required a kind of humourlessness, a lack of objectivity, a shallowness that lost nothing if it traded decency for luxury, mind for body … but it was no good. However much green English scepticism I tried to set against decadent European venality, I was still left with the mystery of how two such ravishing girls accepted the absence of admirers, kept themselves so in purdah for Conchis; then there was his seeming intellectual hold over Julie, his wealth, a certain air both girls betrayed of being more used to this life of luxury than they pretended. I gave up.