Lawrence Durrell - The Dark Labyrinth

“That’s the third salvage he’s done this month,” says the boy, shaking the water from the flapping canvas of the Europa .

Afterwards, walking home to tea, their noses and fingers burned blue with cold, the father and son wrangle interminably about the boat, the one protesting that the mast is too high and the sail area too large, the other shrilly maintaining that the Europa would be better for a little extra lead on her keel.

Hogarth lives in one of those common-place semi-detached villas. In the cosy little front parlour a big coal fire is blazing and Mrs. Gregory has laid out an excellent tea: muffins fume in butter on the fender. They get out of their wet things and draw up chairs: and the boy, fetching a sigh, says thankfully, “It’s so wonderful. I’m glad I haven’t got a mother, Dad.” Hogarth looks at him indulgently. He is so secure and happy in a habit of male friendship, a male world with its triumphant relations to purpose and adventure. “Women always spoil things,” he says. Presently Mrs. Gregory will come in with her silly talk about unwashed hands and wet socks. Hogarth smiles.

“What do you think, Baird?” he asks.

Hogarth’s own wife, whose picture stands on the mantelpiece, was much younger than he when they married. Her face is smooth and round and innocent in a Germanic way: she was a student of Hogarth’s.

Now he has taken up his spectacles and placed them upon his nose. A radiant contentment shines upon his face. His feet are clad in old battered carpet-slippers, one of which has a convenient hole in the sole; convenient because he enjoys holding to the fire his slippered foot, into which a toasting fork has been cunningly lodged.

At such moments Baird is filled with envy for the elder man as he watches him taking his ease, while on the carpet at their feet the boy strips the Europa and sets the canvas to dry.

On April Fool’s Day Hogarth gave it up. “Baird,” he said, “we’ve reached a point where we are over-elaborating the problem. We are indulging you and pandering to the bloody dream. I’ve got all the factual data I need; you’ve had the whole works. But somewhere I must have made a mess of it, or else you need to keep on dreaming the dream until something happens to you — I mean until you change inside. You know, the dream may be simply a sort of prompting to change inside; it’s possible that it might be necessary to you — until you change. It’s no good following it down the time-track any farther. Anyway, our method is not inclusive enough. Come back in a thousand years when psychology has become an adult science. Meanwhile I’m going to suggest something.”

Baird put out his cigarette and listened attentively.

“Can you get away abroad now?”

“I should think so. On sick leave. Why?”

“To Crete?”

Baird looked surprised and a trifle pained. “It is part of your system to propose long and expensive journeys to your poorer patients?” he said ironically. But Hogarth continued seriously.

“I’m suggesting something that would occur to any intelligent Hottentot. That you should return like a good murderer to the scene of your crime. Dig up Böcklin with your own hands once more. It’s just an idea. I know it sounds shocking. But get him buried in a cemetery or something. Take a responsible line. It’s worth it: you might come to terms with him — who knows? Besides I’m tired of indulging your maimed literary genius. Think it over.”

Baird sat for a moment in silence. They looked at each other. “It’s a curious thing,” he said, “but I was offered a mission about a month ago to do precisely that. To go to Crete and try and find something out for the Intelligence people.”

Hogarth spread his hands out. “Well, there you are. What more do you want? Accept, my dear fellow.”

It was more easily said than done; the idea was rather a startling one, and Baird felt that he needed time to think it over. “And by the way,” said Hogarth, as he was putting on his mackintosh, “let me know when you are off: and don’t forget you are a tenner behind with your payments — the child is going to school soon, you know.”

In the vestibule, Baird met Fearmax. He had called to leave a cheque for Hogarth. From time to time during the last few months when their paths had crossed they had been in the habit of exchanging civilities. Now Fearmax walked down to the corner of the street with Baird. He looked pale and tired. He walked with an eccentric springiness beside the young man, remarking that spring would soon be here, though it was plain to see that his mind was not on the weather. He said that he was going abroad for a short holiday — to Egypt he thought. He hoped the weather would not be too hot. Baird, who knew what Cairo could be like in June and July, said nothing. It was not the best time of the year to visit Egypt, and he wondered whether Hogarth knew of the journey. “Hogarth is a remarkable man,” said Fearmax with vehemence, “a very remarkable man. He has been of considerable use to me — both as a friend and a doctor,” Baird found it curious that Hogarth had never introduced them. “He has attended all my séances this year: I’ve been trying to put him in communication with his dead wife, you know.” This was rather an interesting sidelight on Hogarth. Fearmax shook his head and sighed, watching the shining toecaps of his shoes as they performed their eccentric progress under him.

Baird suggested that the Lebanon or Greece would provide a cooler climate for a rest during the late spring and summer than Egypt, and Fearmax nodded very precisely. “I wish, however,” he said, “to make one or two observations on the pyramids. And I imagined the sea-journey will be refreshing. I am going on … Let me see.” He fumbled in his wallet and produced a green ticket for Baird’s inspection. “A large comfortable summer-cruise boat, the Europa . It is only half-full I’m told.”

It was this piece of information that decided Baird, for want of any other, to ask for a reservation on the Europa before he next visited Hogarth. The civil servant in the dingy office above the roar of Whitehall had been more than accommodating. There were certain independent inquiries that the Foreign Office would like made in Crete. It appeared that a certain quantity of small arms had been shipped across from an organization in Palestine. It had been gathered and hidden in caves — possibly the labyrinth which had been mentioned recently in the Press as having been discovered by Axelos. The Foreign Office would like to know what it meant. It might mean a danger to the monarchy in Greece, which England had determined to maintain. Could Baird undertake such an inquiry and report back as soon as possible?

It sounded to Baird as if the old Abbot John had once more tired of his search for higher truth and was entering politics — for want of a war to interest him and exploit his talents as a man of action. It would not be so unpromising an adventure as he had at first thought. He would go and see; the investigation into the Böcklin business would fit into place neatly enough. He wondered, as he pressed Hogarth’s bell, whether Axelos would remember him after all these years?

He found a note waiting for him. Hogarth was out, but the note suggested a rendezvous in a familiar pub later that evening. Baird spent the rest of his time packing and touring the bookshops for suitable reading material with which to while away the journey. He did not fancy that Fearmax’s conversation would provide sufficient entertainment to justify setting forth bookless.

He was surprised to meet Graecen. He knew his work slightly, and did not like it; but the man was pleasant and friendly, and apparently an old friend of Hogarth. The analyst himself was delighted with the news that Baird was going; he had been kept in touch with developments by phone, and had heard all the details.