The Magus, A Revised Version (41 page)

I said,
‘
I
’
d never forgive myself if…
’

‘
Don
’
t talk. Just lie still.
’

She undressed me completely, then led my hands all over her body, to know it all again, soft skin, small curves, slimness, her always natural nakedness. Her hands. As she caressed me, I thought, it
’
s like being with a prostitute, hands as adept as a prostitute
’
s, nothing but a matter of pleasure … and I gave way to the pleasure she gave me. After a while she lay on top of me, her head on my chest. A long silence. The fire crackled, burnt our legs a little. I stroked her back, her hair, her small neck, surrendered to the nerve-ends in my flesh. I imagined lying i
n the same position with Julie,
and I thought I knew it would be infinitely disturbing and infinitely more passionate; not familiar, not aching with fatigue, hot, a bit sweaty … some cheapened word like randy; but white-hot, mysterious, overwhelming passion.

Alison murmured, shifted, bit me, swayed over me in a caress she called the pasha caress, that she knew I liked, all men liked; my mistress and my slave.

I remember our dropping into the bunk, a coarse straw mattress, the harsh blankets, her holding me a moment, kissing me once on the mouth before I could pull away, then turning her back; my hand on the wet breasts, and her hand holding it there, the small smooth belly, the faint washed and rainwashed smell of her hair; and then, in seconds, too soon to analyse anything, sleep.

I woke up some time in the night, and went and drank some water from the pail. Small pencils of late-risen moon came through the old bullet-holes. I went back and leant over Alison. She had thrown back the blanket a little and her skin was a deep shadowed red in the ember-light; one breast bare and slightly slumped, her mouth half open, a slight snore. Young and ancient; innocent and corrupt; in every woman, all woman.

The wave of affection and tenderness I felt made me determine, with that sort of revelationary shock ideas about courses of action sometimes have when one wakes up drugged with sleep, that tomorrow I must tell her the truth; and not as a confession, but as a means of letting her see the truth, that my real disease was not something curable like syphilis, but far more banal and far more terrible, a congenital promiscuity. I stood over her, almost touching her, almost tearing the blanket back and sinking on her, entering her, making love to her as she wanted me to; but not. I gently covered the bare breast, then picked up some blankets and went to the next bunk.

We were woken by someone knocking on the door, then half opening it. Sunlight slashed through. He withdrew when he saw we were still in the bunks. I looked at my watch. It was ten o
’
clock. I pulled on my clothes and went out. A shepherd. Somewhere in the distance I could hear the bells of his flock. He struck back with his crook the two enormous dogs that bared their teeth at me and produced from the pockets of his greatcoat a cheese wrapped in sorrel-leaves, which he had brought for our breakfast. After a few minutes Alison came out, tucking her shirt into her jeans and screwing up her eyes against the sun. We shared what was left of the rusks and the oranges with the shepherd; used up the last of the film. I was glad he was there. I could see, as clear as printed words in Alison
’
s eyes, that she thought we had crossed back into the old relationship. She had broken the ice; but it was for me to jump into the water.

The shepherd stood up, shook hands and strode
off
with his two savage dogs and left us alone. Alison stretched back in the sun across the great slab of rock we had used as a table. It was a much less windy day, April-warm, a dazzling blue sky. The sheep-bells sounded in the distance and some bird like a lark sang high up the slope above us.

‘
I wish we could stay here for ever.
’

‘
I
’
ve got to get the car back.
’

‘
Just wishing.
’
She looked at me.
‘
Come and sit here.
’
She patted the rock by her side. Her grey eyes stared up at me, at their most candid.
‘
Do you forgive me?
’

I bent and kissed her cheek and she put her arms round me so that I lay half across her, and we had a whispered conversation, mouths to each other
’
s left ears.

‘
Say you wanted to.
’

‘
I wanted to.
’

‘
Say you love me a little still.
’

‘
I love you a little still.
’
She pinched my back.
‘
A lot still.
’

‘
And you
’
ll get better.
’

‘
Mm.
’

‘
And never go with those nasty women again.
’

‘
Never.
’

‘
It
’
s silly when you can have it for free. With love.
’

‘
I know.
’

I was staring at the ends of her hair against the rock, an inch or two from my eyes, and trying to bring myself to the point of confession. But it seemed like treading on a flower because one can
’
t be bothered to step aside. I pushed up, but she held me by the shoulders, so that I had to stare down at her. I sustained her look, its honesty, for a moment, then I turned and sat with my back to her.

‘
What
’
s wrong?
’

‘
Nothing. I just wondered what malicious god made a nice kid like you see anything in a shit like me.
’

‘
That reminds me. A crossword clue. I saw it months ago. Ready?
’
I nodded,
‘
“
She
’
s all mixed up, but the better part of Nicholas
”
… six letters.
’

I worked it out, smiled at her.
‘
Did the clue end in a full-stop or a question-mark?
’

‘
It ended in my crying. As usual.
’

And the bird above us sang in the silence.

We set
off
down. As we came lower, it grew warmer and warmer. Summer rose to meet us.

Alison led the way, and so she could rarely see my face. I tried to sort out my feelings about her. It irritated me still that she put so much reliance on the body thing, the shared orgasm. Her mistaking that for love, her not seeing that love was something other … the mystery of withdrawal, reserve, walking away through the trees, turning the mouth away at the last moment. On Parnassus of all mountains, it occurred to me, her unsubtlety, her inability to hide behind metaphor, ought to
off
end me; to bore me as uncomplex poetry normally bored me. And yet in some way I couldn
’
t define she had, had always had, this secret trick of slipping through all the obstacles I put between us; as if she were really my sister, had access to unfair pressures and could always evoke deep similarities to annul, or to make seem irrelevant, the differences in taste or feeling.

She began to talk about being an air hostess; about herself.

‘
Oh Jesus, excitement. That lasts about a couple of duties. New faces, new cities, new romances with handsome pilots. Most of the pilots think we
’
re part of the aircrew amenities. Just queueing up to be blessed by their miserable old Battle-of-Britain cocks.
’

I laughed.

‘
Nicko, it
’
s not funny. It destroys you. That bloody tin pipe. And all that freedom, that space outside. Sometimes I just want to pull the safety handle and be sucked out. Just falling, a minute of wonderful lovely passeng
e
rless falling

‘
You
’
re not serious.
’

‘
More serious than you think. We call it charm depression. When you get so penny-in-the-slot charming that you stop being human any more. It
’
s like … sometimes we
’
re so busy after take—
off
we don
’
t realize how far the plane
’
s climbed and you look out and it
’
s a shock … it
’
s like that, you suddenly realize how far you are from what you really are. Or you were, or something. I don
’
t explain it well.
’

‘
Yes, you do. Very well.
’

‘
You begin to feel you don
’
t belong anywhere any more. You know, as if I didn
’
t have enough problems that way already. I mean England
’
s impossible, it becomes more
honi soit qui
smelly pants every day, it
’
s a graveyard. And Australia … Australia. God, how I hate my country. The meanest stupidest blindest…
‘
She gave up.

We walked on a way, then she said,
‘
It
’
s just I haven
’
t roots anywhere any more, I don
’
t belong anywhere. They
’
re all places I fly to or from. Or over. I just have people I like. Or love. They
’
re the only homeland I have left.
’

She threw a look back, a shy one, as if she had been saving up this truth about herself, this rootlessness, homelandlessness, which she knew was also a truth about me.

‘
At least we
’
ve got rid of a lot of useless illusions as well.
’

‘
Clever us.
’

She fell silent and I swallowed her reproach. In spite of her superficial independence, her fundamental need was to cling. All her life was an attempt to disprove it; and so proved it. She was like a sea-anemone
–
had only to be touched to adhere to what touched her.

She stopped. We both noticed it at the same time. Below us to our right, the sound of water, a rush of water.

‘
I
’
d love to bathe my feet. Could we get down?
’

We struck
off
the path through the trees and after a while came on a faint trail. It led us down, down and finally out into a clearing. At one end was a waterfall some ten feet or so high. A pool of limpid water had formed beneath it. The clearing was dense with flowers and butterflies, a tiny trough of green-gold luxuriance after the dark forest we had been walking through. At the upper edge of the clearing there was a little cliff with a shallow cave, outside which some shepherd had pleached an arbour of fir-branches. There were sheep droppings on the floor, but they were old. No one could have been there since summer began.

‘
Let
’
s have a swim.
’

‘
It
’
ll be like ice.
’

‘
Yah.
’

She pulled her shirt over her head, and unhooked her bra, grinning at me in the flecked shadow of the arbour.

‘
The place is probably alive with snakes.
’

‘
Like Eden.
’

She stepped out of her jeans and her white pants. Then she reached up and snapped a dead cone
off
one of the arbour branches and held it out to me. I watched her run nakedly through the long grass to the pool, try the water, groan. Then she waded forwards and swanned in with a scream. The water was jade-green, melted snow, and it made my heart jolt with shock when I plunged beside her. And yet it was beautiful, the shadow of the trees, the sunlight on the glade, the white roar of the little fall, the iciness, the solitude, the laughing, the nakedness; moments one knows only death will obliterate.