John Fowles - The Magus

Late that afternoon I dialed the Much Hadham number. It rang a long time but then someone answered. I heard Lily de Seitas’s voice. She was out of breath.

“Sorry. I was in the garden. Dinsford House.”

“It’s me. Nicholas Urfe.”

“Oh hello.” She said it with a bright indifference.

“I’d like to see you again.”

There was a small pause. “I have no news.”

“I’d still like to see you.”

I knew she was smiling, in the silence that followed.

She said, “When?”

I was out the next morning. When I got back, about two, I found Kemp had slipped a note under my door: A Yank called. Says its urgent. Will come again four . I went down to see her. She was splaying great worms of viridian green with her thumb across murky black and umber explosions of Ripolin. She did not like to be interrupted when she was “making a painting.”

“This man.”

“Said he must see you.”

“What about?”

“Going to Greece.” She stood stockily back, fag in mouth. “Your old job or something.”

“But how did he find where I live?”

“Don’t ask me.”

I stood staring at the note. “What sort of man was he?”

“Christ, can’t you wait a couple of hours?” She turned. “Buzz.”

He came at five to four, a tallish young man with a lean body and the unmistakable cropped head of an American. He wore glasses, was a year or two younger than I; pleasant face, pleasant smile, pleasant everything; as wholesome, and as green, as a lettuce. He thrust out a hand.

“John Briggs.”

“Hello.”

“You’re Nicholas Urfe? Is that how I pronounce it? The lady…”

I made him come in. “Not much of a place, I’m afraid.”

“It’s nice.” He looked around for a better word. “Atmosphere.” We clambered up the stairs.

“I wasn’t expecting an American.”

“No. Well, I guess it’s the Cyprus situation.”

“Ah.”

“I’ve been over here this last year at London University. All along I’ve been trying to figure how I could get myself a year in Greece before I return home. You don’t know how excited I am.” We came to a landing. He saw some of the sewing girls at work through an open door. Two or three of them whistled. He waved to them. “Isn’t that nice? Reminds me of Thomas Hood.”

“Where did you hear about the job?”

“In the Times Educational Supplement .” He gave even the most familiar English institutions an interrogative intonation, as if I might not have heard of them.

We came to my flat. I closed the door.

“I thought the British Council had stopped doing the recruiting.”

“Is that so? I suppose the school committee decided that as Mr. Conchis was over here he might as well do the interviewing.”

He had gone into the sitting room and was looking at the view down grimy old Charlotte Street. “This is charming. You know, I love this city.” I indicated the least greasy of the armchairs.

“And… Mr. Conchis gave you my address?”

“Sure. Was that wrong?”

“No. Not at all.” I sat on the window seat. “Did he tell you anything about me?”

He raised his hand, as if I might need quietening down. “Well yes, he—I do know, I mean… he warned me how dangerous these school intrigues can get. As I understand you had the misfortune…” he gave up. “You still feel sore about it?”

I shrugged. “Greece is Greece.”

“I bet they’re rubbing their hands already at the thought of a real live American.”

“They probably are.” He shook his head, as if the thought that anyone could involve a real live American in a Levantine academic intrigue was almost past belief. I said, “When did you see Mr. Conchis?”

“When he was here three weeks ago. I’d have gotten in contact earlier, but he lost your address. He just sent it to me from Greece. Only this morning.”

I thought quickly. “Only this morning?”

“Yep. A cable.”

“A cable!”

“Surprised me too. I think he’d forgotten about it. You… you know him pretty well?”

“Oh I… met him a few times. I was actually never terribly clear about his position on the school committee.”

“What he told me, no official position. Just helping out. Jesus, his English is marvelous though.”

“Isn’t it?”

We sized each other up. He had a relaxed way about him that seemed inculcated by education, by reading some book on How To Be At Ease With Strangers, rather than by any intuitive gift. Nothing, one felt, had ever gone wrong in his life; but he had a sort of freshness, an enthusiasm, an energy that couldn’t be totally canceled by envy. Let him have his fall; but he made you hope to see him rise again.

I analyzed the situation. The natural coincidence of his appearing and my call to Much Hadham was so improbable that it was almost an argument in favor of his innocence. It might be simply Conchis’s sense of humor at work; to make me doubt unnecessarily; or to make it so obvious I should doubt that I wouldn’t. On the other hand Mrs. de Seitas must have deduced from my telephone call that I was undergoing a change of heart; and this was nicely timed to test my reliability, my preparedness to keep my mouth shut.

Yet telling me about the cable made him sound genuinely innocent; and though I had understood that the “subject” had to be a matter of hazard, perhaps there was some reason, some unknown result of that summer, that had made Conchis decide to choose his next guinea pig. Faced with the guileless, earnest Briggs I felt a little of what Mitford must have felt with me: a malicious amusement, bedeviled in my case by a European delight in seeing brash America being taken for a ride; and beyond that a kinder wish, which I would never have admitted to Conchis or Lily de Seitas, not to spoil his experience.

Of course they must have known (if Briggs was genuine) that I might tell him everything; and they would have some way of meeting the problem that would have caused—would make me out to be the “plant,” the liar. Perhaps they even wanted me to tell him; but I did not think so. And once again I was standing with the cat in my hand, unable to bring it down.

Briggs had pulled out a pad from the briefcase he had with him.

“May I ask questions? I’ve got quite a list.”

And again: the coincidence. He was doing exactly what I had done only a few days before, at Dinsford House. His eager, deceitless face smiled up at me. I smiled back.

“Shoot.”

He was terrifyingly methodical. Teaching methods, textbooks, clothes, climate, sports facilities, medicines to take, food, the size of the library, what to see in Greece, character sketches of the other masters—he wanted information about every conceivable aspect of life on Phraxos. Finally he looked up from his pad and the notes he had copiously penciled and took up the beer I had poured him.

“Thanks a million. This is wonderful. Covers everything.”

“Except the actual business of living there.”

He nodded. “Mr. Conchis warned me.”

“You speak Greek?”

“Little Latin, less Greek.”

“You’ll pick it up.”

“I’m taking lessons already.”

“And no women.”

He nodded. “Tough. But I’m engaged, so anyway.” He produced a wallet and handed me a photo. A prettyish black-haired girl smiled rather intensely out at me. She had too small a mouth; I thought I detected the ghostly beginnings of the mask of the bitchgoddess Ambition.

“Nice girl.” I handed it back. “Looks English.”

“She is English. Well, Welsh, actually. She’s studying drama right here in London.”

“Really.""I thought maybe she could come out to Phraxos next summer. If I haven’t got the sack by then.”