The Magus - John Fowles [67]
�." 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, hut 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 armour." 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. RoseJune 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 na�ly fascinated look. The sunwind 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 humour. "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 grey 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 grey-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." It amazed her. "He told you our real names!" "Just yours." "And what else?" She was propped on her right hand, staring suspiciously down at me as I lay on my side. "I thought I was going to ask the questions." "What else? About who we really are?" I had never seen her so concerned; almost cross. "This schizo thing." "Yes--and what else?" I shrugged. "That you were dangerous. Good at deceiving. And that if ever one day you told me your real name I was to he especially suspicious." She went back to hugging her knees, staring out through the branches of the two or three pine trees that stood between us and the clifftop. The sea came through them, deep azure merging into the sky's deep azure. The sun-wind shook the branches, flowed round us like a current of warm water. She looked lost in doubts; in anxiety; gave me yet another quick probing look. "Do you trust us at all?" "'And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.'" It was the wrong answer. She did not smile and killed the equivocal smile in my own eyes. "I want a friend. Not a tame lamb." "I'm ready to be bought. By the right evidence." She searched my eyes, hunting down the other, physical, price I implied. Then looked away. "You realise that Maurice's aim is to destroy reality? To make trust between us impossible?" "I'm more interested in your aim." "Questions?" "Questions." She turned away again, then changed her mind and lay on her side, on her elbow, facing me; a small smile. "Go on. Anything." "You're an actress?" She shrugged, self-deprecating. "At Cambridge." "What did you read?" "Classics. June did languages." "When did you come down?" "Two years ago." "You've known Maurice how long?" She opened her mouth, then changed her mind, and reached behind her for the bag, which she put between us. "I've brought all I could. Come a little closer. I'm so scared they'll see what I'm doing." I looked round, but we were in a position where they--whoever "they" were--would have had to be very close to see more than our heads. But I went nearer, shielding what she brought out of the bag. The first thing was the book. It was small, half bound in black leather, with green marbled paper sides; rubbed and worn. I looked at the title page; _Quintus Horatius Flaccus, Parisiis_. "It's a Didot Ain