‘I can’t see it without sitting up and I don’t feel like moving at the moment.’
‘Shall I come to bed with you? It’s still very early.’
‘There’s nothing I’d enjoy more. In this brave new world we poets are expected to twine and float platonically in the air with our disembodied loved ones.’
‘But how charming! Like Levitated Lottie and her boy friend?’
‘That’s right. Or else we have to defend our virtue against assaults by stark naked maenads.’
‘But how alarming! I hope you’ve managed to defend yours, my sweet?’ She slipped into bed as she spoke.
‘So far, Mari be praised!’
‘What did you say?’
‘Mari be praised!’
‘Do you mean to say that they’ve succeeded where even Ronnie Knox failed, and made a Cartholic of you? Oh, Ned, I never thought I’d see the day!’
‘Here, don’t shrink from me, you black Protestant! Everyone in New Crete says “Mari be praised!” It doesn’t mean a thing.’
‘Promise me you’re telling the truth. I’d never forgive myself if I found myself in bed with a ruddy Papist. It’s my oldest superstition.’
‘I promise faithfully. I’ll even sing “Clitter, clatter, Holy Watter” for you, if you insist. But, really, Tonia, you ought to know me better by now. I’ve still got C of E stamped on my identity disc.’
‘Oh, is that what you’re wearing round your ankle?’
‘I was speaking figuratively. The thing round my ankle is a sort of New Cretan passport. When we get up we’ll go places with it.’
‘I say, those are lovely brushes on the dressing-table! I wish you’d buy me a new ivory brush; I’ve never felt quite a lady since mine was blown to hell by that Good Friday bomb. Whose bedroom is this, by the bye?’
‘A nice girl called Sapphire lives here. She’s away at the moment. You’ll like her. Something almost Lady Margaret Hall about her.’
‘Are you in love with her?’
‘What an untimely question!’
‘Oh, Ned, isn’t this fun? Let’s have a look at that passport for a moment. Is there any mention of me, and does the photograph make you look any less criminal than usual?’
‘It isn’t that sort of a passport. And I’m not untying it from my ankle. No, leave go of it or I’ll tickle you till you scream! It stays where it is. I don’t trust anyone with it, not even you. We live precarious lives in this somewhere-nowhere place and I’m not taking any risks. One slip, and we might topple off into nothingness.’
‘You make me feel like Mrs Discobbolus on the wall with Mr Discobbolus.’
‘I didn’t realize you knew your Lear. You’ve always said you had a rhymeless and storyless childhood. Anyway, stop chattering now and lie still. I’m going to start serious proceedings by kissing you on the tip of your unluminous nose.’
‘Why unluminous?’
‘Hush, darling!’
I slept till nearly dinner time. When I awoke, Antonia had already dressed and left the bedroom. She must have had breakfast by now. This was Wednesday, the day when the recorders took their holiday, so there would be no Interpreter to help her. But she could always make signs to supplement her French – French was, after all, closely related to Catalan, the basis of New Cretan – or draw pictures on a scrap of paper. ‘No, not on paper,’ I reminded myself, ‘but she always made herself understood perfectly, even to our dumb Sudanese cook at Heliopolis.’
As I dressed, I wondered why Sally had evoked Antonia. Was spite the motive? Since I had refused to share her cloak, had she made up her mind that I should at least not share Sapphire’s? No, that wasn’t right; obviously she could not act on her own. I had the Hag to thank for my present happiness. All orders for evocation came from her; Sally could only have been the agent. But what I did not understand was how Sally had managed it so quickly. She had been away all night, and when we came back I could hardly have been asleep for more than half an hour before Antonia knocked. Yet my own evocation, according to the Interpreter, had lasted from dawn to midday, and then I had not woken up until fairly late in the afternoon. Evidently Sally had improved on her technique and cut down the time to a few minutes. Or were women perhaps more easily evoked than men?
I went out to look for Antonia. She was not in the dining-room, nor in the sitting-room, nor on the veranda, nor in the study behind the sitting-room where I had first found myself. Through a window I saw See-a-Bird pacing up and down the garden and called to him: ‘Have you seen my wife?’
‘No, I haven’t. She hasn’t returned from Court yet.’
I had used the word dona, which in New Cretan means ‘lady’ or ‘sweetheart’ as well as wife, so See-a-Bird had misunderstood my question.
‘I don’t mean Sapphire, I mean Antonia,’ I said.
‘Oh, Edward, has she died?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I thought you said that Sapphire was no longer called Sapphire, but Antonia.’
‘If she were dead I shouldn’t ask you whether you’d seen her. No, you’ve got the wires hopelessly crossed. I am asking you whether you’ve seen a young woman wandering about – not Sapphire, nor anything to do with her – long-legged and rather purposeful with dark, wavy hair, wearing a striped yellow-and-black skirt, a white blouse with short sleeves, and high-heeled black shoes. She’s called Antonia.’
‘Nobody like that has been downstairs since breakfast time.’
‘Then she must have missed breakfast.’
At that moment Starfish came up and See-a-Bird passed my question on to him.
‘No, I’ve seen nobody,’ he answered. ‘Nor can anyone have gone out by either of the gates before breakfast. They have the “keep-away” symbol marked on both sides.’
‘Then she can only be in Sally’s bedroom. Antonia’s my wife, you know – from my own age. Is Sally up yet?’
‘No.’ Now See-a-Bird was looking scared.
I went to Sally’s door and knocked. Presently she opened the door, tousled and cheerful. She was wearing a red, Chinese-looking dressing-gown and her legs showed no sign of woad. ‘Hello, how are things this morning?’ she asked.
‘Fine, thanks.’
‘Good. Is there anything you want?’
‘Yes, I want Antonia. Is she in there with you?’
‘What’s your hurry?’
‘She doesn’t seem to have had breakfast.’
Sally eyed me inscrutably. ‘No, not a bite. I’ll be along in a moment. It must be nearly time for lunch.’
‘But where is Antonia? I want to see her.’
‘I said I’d be along in a moment.’
‘Don’t tease me, Sally. She’s in there with you, isn’t she?’
‘In a manner of speaking – yes!’ She shut the door, laughing softly to herself. Then she half-opened it again and asked me: ‘Why unluminous?’
Then, of course, I understood. It had not been Antonia: it had been Sally, hypnotizing me into building up a false Antonia from my scattered memories of her – like the false Helen, the idolon, that had precipitated the Trojan War – and then giving it physical reality with her own body. She had started that game on the first night I spent with Sapphire. The conversation had been an invention of my own, of the unilateral sort that people often carry on in their minds with absent friends or lovers – this was proved by the reference to Lear’s Mr and Mrs. Discobbolus: as soon as I put it into the idolon’s mouth I had recognized that it was not the sort of remark the real Antonia would have made, and immediately corrected it.
I glared at Sally. ‘You faggot!’ I said between my teeth.
‘I’m sorry you didn’t manage to defend your virtue any longer, my sweet!’
She shut the door in my face and bolted it after her. If See-a-Bird had not happened to come by at that moment, I think I should have run at it with my shoulder, broken in and scragged her. But there he stood beckoning, his gentle, sheep-like face turned appealingly to me, his wh
ole body sagging.
‘What’s wrong now, old chap?’ I asked, following him into the sitting-room.
‘News has just come from the barber-shop: about two fresh graves by the waterfall at Zapmor. It’s thought…’
His voice failed him and he slumped down on the sofa.
‘I’m too old to face these trials much longer,’ he whispered. ‘We were such a happy family until three or four days ago –’
‘I hope you don’t mean to imply that I’ve disturbed the peace? I didn’t ask to be evoked…’
He smiled sorrowfully. ‘No, Edward, it’s not you, but what you have brought with you.’
‘You mean the brutch of Erica Turner?’
‘I do, indeed. Sally has told me about the obscene metal case found in Sapphire’s cupboard.’
‘Then allow me to correct you. I did not bring Erica with me. She’s been living here for years. She told me so herself.’
‘That cannot be true: we should have known of her presence long before this. She must have come with you, clinging to your hair. And now, it seems, a second brutch from your epoch is wandering about, the woman in the yellow-and-black skirt, who you say is your wife.’
‘Sally can explain that apparition, if you ask her. She created it herself, for reasons best known to herself.’
‘But Sally’s job is to lay brutches, not to create them.’
‘I entirely agree, and because I see that you still trust Sally, I refrain from comment.’
‘Why, of course I trust Sally. This is our age, not yours. We all trust one another and expect to be trusted in return.’
‘I hope the day keeps fine for you.’
‘Eh?’
‘My dear See-a-Bird, may I give you a piece of friendly advice?’
‘Please do.’
‘It’s this: I advise you to go to your room, collect your bits and pieces, and then report at once to whoever officiates on occasions of this sort, and announce your intention of becoming an elder. You’re old enough to qualify, surely? Good. Things in this house are bound to grow more and more confusing from now on, I suppose until I’m returned to my epoch, and then for a long time afterwards. Wriggle out from under the trouble while you still can. You’ll be perfectly happy in a nonsense house, where you need take nothing seriously, and where nobody outside will take you seriously.’
‘Oh, but, Edward, my dear friend…’
‘You mean that you don’t want to enter the local institution for fear of running up against Erica? No, See-a-Bird, you needn’t be afraid. Erica is both everywhere and nowhere. You’ll be as safe from her there as at the other end of the world; or as unsafe.’
‘Who is she then?’
‘Someone whom you know very well.’ For as I spoke I realized that Erica had not been an idolon of the same sort as the false Antonia, not, in fact, Sally at her tricks again. The cigarette case, which Sapphire had found in her cupboard while I was away in Sanjon, was concrete proof of that. No: behind Erica loomed a more powerful magic than any Sally could command – the magic of the incarnate Goddess herself, in whom, absurd though it may sound, I was bound to believe by the logic of my recent experiences.
See-a-Bird hesitated. Then he returned to the subject of the graves. He asked me timorously: ‘Is it true about the grave… that Fig-bread won’t be returning to this house?’
‘Such queer things have been happening here lately that I wouldn’t like to make a prophecy about his return. If I could be evoked from the remote past, I don’t see why Fig-bread can’t be evoked from the recent past.’
‘He is dead, then? And you buried him?’ He looked ghastly.
‘Yes, Sally asked me to dig both graves. The larger one contains his horse. The horse had turned on him and savaged him. Afterwards it felt conscience-stricken and brought Sally to the scene of the murder. She destroyed it. Then various other things happened. In the end two lovers spread their cloaks over Fig-bread’s grave.’
He cheered up a little. ‘Ah, then the horse was the murderer, after all. Mari be praised! A rumour was going around that Fig-bread had been struck a blow by a Zapmor man whom he was trying to separate from an opponent and that he died of his injuries. Now I understand everything. When you tried to take the short cut home across the water-meadows he must have ridden to head you off from the sacred grove, and accidentally disturbed the crane in her meditations. Involuntary trespass is always punished by a violent death and the Goddess has before now made a horse the instrument of her vengeance. Yet his death was an honourable one; love between man and man has not been broken, and Fig-bread’s name may still shine in the records. He sinned with good intention.’
I did not care to undeceive him. ‘You should have warned me about the crane,’ I said.
He was going into the garden to break the news to Starfish when he stopped with his hand on the door knob. ‘But, Edward, I implore you to trust Sally. Your lack of love towards her has caused us all great pain.’
‘Lack of love!’ I exclaimed. ‘That’s rich! It may interest you to know that last night Sally honoured me by offering me the rights of fatherhood, and that our love has now been consummated.’
‘So it was you?’
‘What do you mean by “So it was you”?’
‘But I thought that you and Sapphire had a lovers’ understanding?’
‘That’s right. If Sapphire had been about, things would have taken a different turn.’
He came back miserably to the sofa. ‘I think that, after all, I shall take your advice and apply for elderhood,’ he muttered.
‘What’s wrong now?’ I asked.
‘Starfish is deeply in love with Sally, and I know, as truly as I know anything, that this further blow will wound him to the heart.’
‘You mean that he’ll be jealous of me?’
‘No, it isn’t that. He wasn’t jealous of Fig-bread when Sally invited him to her bed last Friday. Poets are never jealous. But he’ll be deeply mortified, feeling that he, not you, should have been invited to share her cloak on his brother’s grave.’
I could not correct this slight misapprehension without saying more than I intended. ‘That’s exactly what I tried to make Sally see,’ I growled as I put on my hat.
‘Where are you going now?’ he asked.
‘I’m going to ride to Dunrena and find Sapphire. The situation here is becoming impossibly complicated.’
‘And when you’ve found her?’
‘Then I’ll warn her never to come back, not even to collect her belongings. The servants can see to all that. I’m not coming back either. I’m sticking to Sapphire.’
‘But that sounds as though you didn’t love Sally after all – as though you… I fail to understand.’
‘Don’t try to understand. You’re completely out of your depth. Don’t even try to explain things to Starfish – Sally will do that. Get your things together and clear out as soon as possible. Leave these two alone here to work things out as best they can.’
I went to the stables and called a groom. ‘Saddle me a horse and get someone to fill my saddle-bags with food and drink for two days.’
When the groom came back from the kitchen, he asked: ‘Do you think, Sir, the Witch will be exercising the Nymph’s mare this morning?’
‘What? Has Sapphire gone off on foot?’
‘I suppose so, Sir; I was not about when she left. She didn’t take the mare out yesterday either; the beast is getting fretful.’
‘But the Witch told me distinctly that she had ridden off to Court.’
‘You must have misheard her, Sir.’
This was bad. It looked as if Sapphire meant, after all, to turn commoner, or kill herself: as if Sally had persuaded her to break that promise to me. I told the groom: ‘I’ll take the mare with me. I can manage the two of them.’
‘Will a headstall be enough?’
‘No, put a saddle on her.’
A window opened above us. I could feel Sally’s eyes piercing my back, but I did n
ot look up.
Chapter XVI
Quant
A mile down the road I saw the Interpreter sitting on a stile, and stopped to pass the time of day. Near him stood a little old man with a face like a wizened apple, who eyed me shrewdly.
‘This is your learned colleague Quant, I presume?’ I asked in English. (His name, by the way, meant ‘How Much?’ but I shall always think of him as Quant.)
He spoke for himself. ‘Yes, that’s who I am, Mr Venn-Thomas, and I’m delighted to meet you. Mallet-head here has been sending in detailed reports on your English vocabulary and syntax, which have cleared up many of our outstanding cruces. We’re most grateful to you for your help.
Have you a moment to spare, by the way?’
‘Not for a discussion of anomalous past participles, I fear. I’m going off to Dunrena to find my friend Sapphire.’
‘Yes, I recognize her mare. Do you know anyone at Court?’
‘Not a soul.’
‘Is it even certain that she has gone there?’
‘No, not altogether. Can you give me any news of her since she left home?’
‘I can. She came straight to me for advice.’
A New Cretan woman magician going to a man-recorder for advice! But the Interpreter interposed, beaming with admiration: ‘Sacred parentage exists between him and her, i.e. he is her mother’s brother. But, ceteris paribus, everyone comes to my colleague Quant for advice, because he is the most practical of men, and also he is the most sympathetic.’
Quant winked at me, almost imperceptibly; but as the first wink I had been given in New Crete it startled me. It implied a secret from which his colleague was excluded, and I recognized this as something thoroughly un-Cretan: since my arrival everyone had been impressing on me that the cornerstone of society was perfect frankness between man and man.
‘Hullo!’ I said to myself, ‘here’s a fellow-human at last!’
‘Well,’ I told Quant, ‘if I can’t be sure of finding Sapphire at Dunrena, it would be stupid to take her horse there. I’ll tell you what: shall we sit down somewhere and settle the Late Christian inflexions of irregular and defective Old English verbs?’