Lawrence Durrell: The Dark Labyrinth

As he put a line through each name it seemed to him that he was exorcizing the shadow of the accident which seemed to be lying heavy on the minds of the remaining passengers. Death anc holiday-cruises, he thought, were things that no amount of explaining could reconcile; and he remembered how nearly he himself had been tempted to join the party that had set off from the ship’s side on that fine spring morning. The word “labyrinth” suggested something at once terrifying and enticing. What was it? At the old Wembley Fun Fair there had been a water-labyrinth. You sailed through the darkness in a small boat, passing at last through a corridor of mirrors and lighted panoramas.

The circle of enquiry was all but closed. There remains to be recorded only the documentation of the Travel Agency in charge of organizing the cruise. Extracts from the Captain’s log, newspaper-cuttings and the personal effects of the missing people were posted on to London for the benefit of an alarmed insurance agent. There was little enough in all this to interest anyone. The clearing out of the cabins fell to the lot of an Irish stewardess. In the Truman cabin there was an old trunk containing several cheap and badly-cut dresses, several large hats — two of which were trimmed with feathers: a hot-water bottle: several packets of letters tied up in ribbon: and a couple of knitted sweaters. The stewardess tried on the dresses and found they did not suit her. One of the sweaters, however, was of a thick rope-stitch and suited her admirably. She kept it for herself. The letters she placed carefully in the trunk, together with the rest of the articles. She was tempted to read them, but her upbringing had been such as to instil in her a respect for private correspondence — if not for private property. The Trumans had been rather a nice couple, she thought, as she pocketed a comb and a packet of unopened cosmetics from the bunk-head. Elderly and quiet, and perhaps a little eccentric. Not like Miss Dombey with her freckles and red hair and peremptory voice — Miss Dombey whose cabin was an arsenal of religious tracts and Church Society pamphlets. She had a particular dislike for Miss Dombey. No sooner had she come aboard than the bell rang and there stood Miss Dombey at the door of her cabin with her arms on her hips, waiting for her to help her unpack. “Come on,” she had called in her brassy assured manner. “Hurry up.” And then, what? You would never guess. She asked her her name and, thrusting a little book into her hand, said, “Here, read this when you have time.” The book was called The Way of the Cross . It seemed absolute gibberish to her, and day in, day out, Miss Dombey would question her. “Have you read it yet? Is there anything you would like me to explain?” And then there was that beastly little dog of hers messing everywhere: she had brought it aboard in defiance of regulations, and no one was able to part her from it.

As she turned over Miss Dombey’s effects, which, apart from the bundles of tracts, were few, the stewardess remembered another incident which had surprised her. She had recounted it later in the voyage to the purser who seemed to find it very droll. The bell rang and there was Miss Dombey standing outside the cabin door, her red freckled face contorted with anger. Without a word she turned and led the way to the private bathroom which was attached to her saloon. Pointing a quivering finger, she said, in tones of outrage, “And what might this be?” She was pointing at the bidet —for the Europa was one of those French liners which had changed hands after the war. “That ma’am?” she had said, with a dreadful feeling of being personally responsible for the outrage. “That’s a biddy.” It was enough for Miss Dombey. She turned on her heel and bowled out into the corridor. “I am going to see the Captain,” she said. “It must be removed at once.” She actually fought her way on to the bridge to see the Captain. What she said to him was not known, but when they came down off the bridge they were both red in the face. The bidet stayed where it was, but an arctic coldness sprang up in Miss Dombey’s manner whenever she passed the Captain on deck. The Captain was not one to be put upon by such behaviour.

Mr. Campion had taken all his things. He had, however, trodden a certain amount of paint into the floor, and had forgotten a small folding camp-stool. There was a paper bag full of walnuts under his pillow and a small dirty comb. A dozen roped-up canvases stood in the corner tied together with a rubber band and label. The label bore an address in Marseilles. Mr. Campion was rather too familiar with her. “A penny for your thoughts,” he had said on one occasion; and when she did not reply: “No? Well then, a pound for your body.” It was hardly the way to speak to a decent girl — even if she wasn’t a lady. Mr. Campion had also left a beret on the wardrobe. He always wore a beret and an open-necked shirt. Perhaps he had more than one beret. She tried it on and thought she would keep it; it would look quite nice after a dry-clean. The walnuts seemed to be mostly bad.

Who else was there? It always gave her a pleasant feeling of superstitious fear to go to Fearmax’s cabin. It was rather a gloomy one on A deck. It was in a fearful mess. There were a number of books lying about, clothes hanging out of suitcases, and several bundles of envelopes done up with string and sealing-wax. She touched them softly, as if she were afraid that some of the medium’s magnetism might remain in these belongings of his. There was the short cloak he wore for the ball — it suited him over his evening clothes. A box of cigars and a rosary lay beside his bed. She turned over some of the envelopes in her hands. On one was written in a spidery hand “ Press Cuttings , 1941-48”, on another “ Articles to The Medium ,” and a third, “ My last Will and Testament, O. Fearmax ”.

The steward came in to help her sort the belongings which littered the cabin. She commented on the quantity of things Fearmax had left behind. “He was going on to Egypt,” said the boy. “All the others were going to stay for a while in Crete and took their things.” Was that true, she wondered? Miss Dale had left an evening-frock behind. “That poor Miss Dale,” she said. “So quiet and gentle.” She oiled her spitcurl in the mirror and twisted it round her finger. The boy gathered up the books into a bundle and dumped them in a suitcase. “He’s not left any money about?” he asked suspiciously. She folded the suits and placed them one on top of the other. “Didn’t have much to leave, I expect,” she said.

In Baird’s cabin they found a pair of khaki shorts, and, in Graecen’s, a shaving-mirror which was propped at an operational angle by a half-crown. “You could tell he was every inch a Lord,” said the stewardess pocketing the coin. Who else would use money to prop up a shaving-mirror?

Miss Dale’s cabin was not as empty as they had at first glance imagined it to be. “There — you see? Careless,” said the steward reprovingly. He had been particularly fond of Miss Dale with her sad blonde appearance, and her being too timid to ring for servants because, as she said, “she wasn’t used to them.” She had spent all day in a deck-chair, wrapped in rugs, convalescing from a serious illness. Latterly, Lord Graecen had been seen reading to her. “Ah well,” said the steward with a sigh to himself, “Romance, that’s what it was.” The stewardess noticed his sigh and shrugged her shoulders.

The miscellaneous periodicals they gathered up found their way at last into the purser’s hands as he stood on C deck, talking amiably to a friend and spitting into the oily waters of Alexandria harbour. “Thanks,” he said. “I could do with some light reading.” He talked as if he had been wrestling with heavy books of reference all day. The bookshelf above his bunk was crammed with yellow-backs. He took the bundle of papers, put them under his arm, and continued his conversation. He was describing to a friend the tragedy that had overtaken the party in the labyrinth. After having extracted the fullest possible pleasure from this he went and sat in a deck-chair aft, lit a fresh pipe and glanced through the papers. He wondered for a moment which papers had belonged to which passengers — one could hardly imagine these Bystanders belonging to Fearmax. Fearmax had rather awed him. He looked like a minor prophet — a gaunt and vehement character. He had refused to give a séance in the first-class saloon, pleading that he was in poor health. And yet he talked like a volcano in short and crisply-articulated sentences. He wore soft black bow ties with drooping ends — such as were fashionable in Belgravia towards the end of the last century. His face had the charred finely-lined character of the later Rudolf Steiner portraits; under his eyes there were deep smudges of black which seemed violet in the harsh lights of the first-class deck. He walked about the decks for hours with his hands in his pockets, like a monomaniac.