The Magus - John Fowles [68]
� "Who's he?" I saw the date i8oo. "A famous French printer." She turned me back to the flyleaf. On it was, in very neat writing, an inscription: _From the 'idiots' of IVB to their lovely teacher, Miss Julie Holmes. Summer 1952_. Underneath were fifteen or so signatures: _Penny O'Brien, Susan Smith, Susan Mowbray, Jane Willings, Lea Gluckstein, Jean Ann Moffat_... I looked up at her. "First of all explain how you were teaching last summer in England and--remember?--coping with Mitford here." "I wasn't here last summer. That's the script." She ignored my unspoken question. "Please look at these first." Six or seven envelopes. Three were addressed to: _Miss Julie and Miss June Holmes, do Maurice Conchis, Esquire, Bourani, Phraxos, Greece_. They had English stamps and recent postmarks, all from Dorset. "Read one." I took out a letter from the top envelope. It was on headed paper. ANSTY COTTAGE, CERNE ABBAS, DORSET. It began in a rapid scrawl: _Darlings, I've been frantically busy with all the doodah for the Show, on top of that Mr. Arnold's been in and he wants to do the painting as soon as possible. Also guess who--Roger rang up, he's at Bovington now, and asked himself over for the weekend. He was so disappointed you were both abroad--hadn't heard. I think he's much nicer--not nearly so pompous. And a captain!! I didn't know what on earth to do with him so I asked the Drayton girl and her brother round for supper and I think it went off rather well. Billy is getting so fat, old Tom says it's all the grass, so I asked the D. girl if she'd like to give him a ride or two, I knew you wouldn't mind_... I turned to the end. The letter was signed Mummy. I looked up and she pulled a face. "Sorry." She handed me three other letters. One was evidently from a former fellow teacher--news about people, school activities. Another from a friend who signed herself _Claire_. One from a bank in London, to June, advising her that "a remittance of �ioo had been received" on May 31st. "Our salary." It was my turn to be surprised. "He pays you this every month?" "Each of us." "Good God." I looked at the letter from the bank again and memorised the address: Barclay's Bank, Englands Lane, N. W. 3. The manager's name was P. J. Fearn. "And this." It was her passport. _Miss J. N. Holmes_. "N.?" "Neilson. My mother's family name." I read the signalement opposite her photo. _Profession: student. Date of birth: 16. 12. 1930. Place of birth: Cape Town, South Africa_. "South Africa?" "My father was a commander in the Navy. He died when we were only six. We've always lived in England. I mean he was English." _Country of residence: England. Height: 5 ft. 8 in. Colour of eyes: grey. Hair: fair. Special peculiarities: scar on left wrist (twin sister)_. At the bottom she had signed her name, a neat italic hand. I flicked through the visa pages. Two journeys to Italy, one to France, one to Germany. An entry visa into Greece made out in February; an entry stamp, March 31st, Athens. None for the year before. I thought back to March 31st; that all this had been preparing, even then. "They must have been blind. At Cambridge. No one marrying you." She looked down; we were to keep to the business in hand. "Which college were you at?" "Girton." "You must know old Miss Wainwright. Dr. Wainwright." "At Girton?" "Chaucer expert. Langland." She saw my trick; looked down, unamused. "I'm sorry. Of course. You were at Girton." She left a pause. "You don't know how sick I am of being a figure of mystery. Never using contracted forms." "Mystery becomes you. But come on. A teacher." She was an unlikely teacher; but then so was I. "Where?" She mentioned the name of a famous girls' grammar school in North London. "That's not very plausible." "Why not?" "Not enough _cachet_." "I didn't want _cachet_. I wanted to be in London." A germander light in her eyes, blue and unflinching. "I see. And Maurice was one of your pupils." Though she laughed then, it was against her mood. She apparently made up her mind that questions were not helping; that what she had to say was too serious for any more banter. "We, June and I, were in a London amateur company called the Tavistock Rep. They have a little theatre in Canonbury." "Yes. I went there once. Seriously." "Well, last summer they put on _Lysistrata_." She looked at me as if I might have heard about it. "There's a rather clever producer there called Tony Hill, and he put us both into the main part. I stood in front of the stage and spoke the lines and June did all the acting. In mime. You didn't read about this? It was in some of the papers... quite a lot of real theatre people came to see it. The production. Not us." "When was this?" "Almost exactly this time last year." We remained leaning close together. She began putting the books and letters back. "One day a man came backstage, told us, June and me, he was a theatrical agent and he had someone who wanted to meet us. A film producer." She smiled impatiently at me. "Of course. And he was so secretive about who it was that it seemed too clumsy and obvious for words. But two days later we both got a formal invitation to have lunch at Claridge's from someone who signed himself..." "Maurice Conchis." "We hesitated, then--just for fun, really--went along." She paused. "And Maurice... dazzled us. Lunch alone with him in his private suite. We were expecting one of those dreadful pseudo-Hollywood types who starts feeling you after the first ten minutes. Instead there was this charming, impeccably correct man. Then after lunch, when we were duly enchanted, he got down to business." "Didn't he tell you anything about himself?" She tossed her hair back. Serious and practical. I began to believe she might be a schoolmistress. "Oh yes. But all rather vague. A kind of lonely rich man, with houses in France and Greece. A bit of a scholar. We got that impression. And a lot about Bourani. He described everything here. Exactly as it is... as a place. And he told us about this film company he owned in Beirut." She silenced me. "And then--it was _so_ amazing--he suddenly sprang this offer on us. To star in a film he was going to make this summer." "What film?" "I'll tell you in a minute. At first we were terribly suspicious again. The Lebanon. But then he said the salary." She sat up, turned her still amazed face to me. "Five thousand between us--plus a hundred pounds a month each for expenses." "But you must still have smelt a rat?" "Of course we did." She smiled. "You were funny that day... 'a rat five feet eight inches long'..." she looked shyly at me, picked at the nap of the rug, went on. "Well, we were driven home--in a Rolls-Royce--to think it over. You know, to a top flat in Belsize Park. Like Cinderellas. That's where he was so clever, he put so little direct pressure on us. Never the shadow of the shadow of a false move on his part. We saw him several times more. He took us out. Theatre. Opera. Never an attempt to get either of us on our own. And... well, I don't know what you really feel about him, but he is rather a marvellous old man. And even though he frightens us now, I still..... anyway." "What did everybody think? I mean, your friends--this producer man?" "They thought we ought to make enquiries. So we went to an agent and he found this film company does exist. It makes films mainly for the Arab market. Egypt." "What's it called?" "Polymus Films." She spelt it. "It's in whatever they list film companies in--the trade directory. Perfectly respectable." "And you said yes." "And in the end we said yes." She looked tentatively at me, as if she did not expect me to believe her; such gullibility. "We had got to know him better by then. So we thought." "Your mother?" "Oh Maurice saw to that. He insisted on having her up to London and bowled her over with his gentlemanliness." She added ruefully, "And his money." "This film?" "The story was taken from a demotic Greek novel that's never been translated. By a writer called Theodorakis--have you ever heard of him? _Three Hearts?_" I shook my head. "It was written in the nineteen twenties. It's about two English girls, they're supposed to be the ambassador's daughters, who go for a holiday on a Greek island during the First World War and meet a Greek poet there--a dying genius--and they both fall in love with him and he falls in love with them and at the end everyone's terribly miserable and they all renounce each other... exactly." She answered my grimace. "But actually when Maurice told it it had a sort of _Dame aux Cam