The Magus - John Fowles [113]
75
She was ten minutes late; came quickly through the turnstiles, a polite small torment of apology on her face, and straight to where I had been standing next to the postcard counter. "Oh dear. I'm so sorry. The taxi crawled." I shook her outstretched hand. For a woman half a century old she was impressively good-looking; and she was dressed with an easy flair that made most of the dull afternoon visitors to the Victoria and Albert around us look even drabber than they really were; defiantly bareheaded, and in a pale grey-white Chanel suit that set off her tan and her clear eyes. "It's a mad place to meet. Do you mind?" "Not in the least." "I bought an eighteenth-century plate the other day. They're so good at identifying here." I took the basket she was carrying. "It won't take a moment." She evidently knew the museum well and led the way to the lifts. We had to wait. She smiled at me; the family smile; soliciting, I suspected, what I was still not prepared to give. Determined to tread delicately between her approval and my own dignity, I had a dozen things ready to say, but her breathless arrival, the sudden feeling I had that I was being fitted, inconveniently, into a busy day, made them all seem wrong. I said, "I saw John Briggs on Tuesday." "How interesting. I haven't met him." We might have been talking about the new curate. The lift came, and we stepped inside. "I told him everything I knew. All about Bourani and what to expect." "We thought you would. That is why we sent him to you." We were both smiling faintly; a cramped silence. "But I might have." "Yes." The lift stopped. We emerged into a gallery of furniture. "Yes. You might." - "Perhaps he was just a test." "A test wasn't necessary." "You're very sure." She gave me that same wide-eyed look she had had when she handed me the copy of Nevinson's letter. At the end of the gallery we came to a door: _Department of Ceramics_. She pressed the bell beside it. I said, "I think we've got off on the wrong foot." She looked down. "Well yes. Shall we try again in a minute? If you wouldn't mind waiting?" The door opened and she was let inside. It was all too rushed, too broken, she gave me no chance, though her last quick look back before the door closed seemed apologetic; almost as if she was afraid I might run away. Two minutes later she came back. "Any luck?" "Yes, it's what I thought it was. Bow." "You don't trust your intuition in everything then." She gave me a severe look, and then lightly took my arm as she led me on. "If there was a Department of Young Men I should certainly take you to it. I would like to have you identified." "And then keep me labelled on a shelf?" "I might give you as a present to someone." "Am I yours to give?" She looked through the windows at the gallery's end. "I should like the whole world. I could give it to something so much better than what possesses it now." A wistful smile at me, both self-mocking and self-revealing. She was defining possession, and giving. Was that why we had met in a museum? Could anyone possess anything? Tailboys, tables, Chippendale mirrors--we were walking in a world of objects possessed by nothing but themselves. Giving and possessing seemed infinitely superficial and transitory; the decor was chosen. She pressed my arm after a long moment, then let go of it. "They say there's a plate like mine on display. Just through here." We went into a long deserted gallery of china. Once again she seemed to know her way about--had rehearsed?--because she went straight to one of the walicases. She took the plate out of her basket and held it up, walking along, until from the back of a group of cups and jugs an almost identical blue and white plate was staring at her. I went beside her. "That's it." She compared them; wrapped her own loosely in its tissue paper again; and then, taking me completely by surprise, presented it. "It's for you." "But --" "Please." She was smiling at my ginger look. "But really... I mean..." "I bought it with Alison." She corrected herself. "Alison was with me when I bought it." She pushed it into my hands. I unwrapped it. In the middle of the plate there was a na