The Magus (25 page)

‘Are these documents available?’

‘One day you shall read them. But at the moment it would only hamper your role here. It is vital that she believes you do not know who she really is. You cannot create that impression if you know all the clinical facts and background. Agreed?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Julie was in danger of becoming, like many such striking cases, something of a monster in a psychiatric freak show. That is what I am now trying to guard against.’

I began to swing the other way – after all, she had warned me, I was to have my credulity put on the rack again. I could not believe that the girl I had just left suffered from some deep mental flaw. A liar, yes; but not a celebrated lunatic.

‘May I ask how you come to take such an interest in her?’

‘For the simplest and most non-medical of reasons. Her parents are very old friends. She is not only my patient, Nicholas. But my godchild.’

‘I thought you’d lost all contact with England.’

‘They do not live in England. Switzerland. Where she spends most of her year now. In a private clinic. I cannot alas give all my life to her.’

I could almost feel him willing me to believe. I looked down, then up at him with a small grin. ‘Before you told me this, I was going to congratulate you on hiring such a skilled young actress.’

His stare at me was unexpectedly fierce, somehow put on the alert.

‘She did not by any chance suggest that to you herself?’

‘Of course not.’

But he didn’t believe me; and of course, I realized at once, he didn’t have to believe me. He bowed his head a moment, then stood and went to the edge of the colonnade and stared out. Then he gave me a smile back. It was almost one of concession.

‘I see events have forestalled me. She has adopted a new role towards you. Yes?’

‘She certainly didn’t tell me about this.’

He remained scrutinizing me, and I stared blandly back. He struck his hands together in front of him, as if in self-reproach at his own stupidity. Then he returned to his chair and sat again.

‘In a way you are right, Nicholas. I have most certainly not hired her, as you put it. But she
is
a skilled young actress. Let me warn you that some of the cleverest confidence tricksters in the history of crime have also been schizophrenics.’ He leant forward on the table, clasping his elbows. ‘You must not force her into corners. If you do, she will tell you lie upon lie – until your head swims with them. You are normal, for you that is bearable. But for her it may mean a grave relapse. Years of work undone.’

‘Then shouldn’t you have warned me before?’

For a second he continued staring at me, then he looked down.

‘Yes. You are right. I should have warned you. I begin to sec I have miscalculated badly.’

‘Why?’

‘Too much insistence on the truth can spoil our little – but I assure you clinically fruitful – amusements here.’ He hesitated, then went on. ‘It has long struck some of us that there is a paradox in the way we treat mental abnormalities of a paranoiac cast. We place our patients where they are constantly questioned, supervised, watched … all the rest. Of course it can be argued that it is for their good. But we really mean that it is for our good. Society’s good. In fact, only too often unimaginative institutional treatment gives plausible substance to the basic delusions of persecution. What I am trying to create here is an ambience in which Julie can believe she has some command over circumstance. If you like, in which for once she is not the one being persecuted … the one who always knows least. We all try to contribute to give her tins impression. I also allow her to think on occasion that I do not know quite what is going on, that she is leading me by the nose.’

His tone of voice managed to suggest that I was rather slow not to have guessed this for myself. I had the familiar feeling that came in conversation at Bourani, of not knowing quite what statements applied to – in this case, whether to the assumption that ‘Lily’ really was a schizophrenic or to the assumption that of course I knew that her ‘schizophrenia’ was simply a new hiding-place in the masque.

‘I’m sorry.’ He raised his hand, kind man; I was not to excuse myself. ‘This is why you won’t let her go outside Bourani?’

‘Of course.’

‘Couldn’t she go out … ‘ I looked at the tip of my cigarette under supervision?’

‘She is, in law, certifiable. That is the personal responsibility I have undertaken. To ensure that she never enters an asylum.’

‘But you let her wander around. She could easily escape.’

He raised his head in sharp contradiction. ‘Never. Her nurse never leaves her.’

‘Her nurse!’

‘He is very discreet. It distresses her to have him always by her, especially here, so he keeps well in the background. One day you will see him.’

With his jackal-head on. It would not wash; but the extraordinary thing was that I more than half suspected that Conchis knew it would not wash. I hadn’t played chess for years; but I remembered that the better you got, the more it became a game of false sacrifices. He was assaying not my powers of belief, but my powers of unbelief.

‘This is why you keep her on the yacht?’

‘Yacht?’

‘I thought you kept her on a yacht.’

‘That is her little secret. Allow her to keep it.’

‘You bring her here every year?’

‘Yes.’

I swallowed my knowledge that one of them must be lying; and my growing feeling that it was not the girl I must now think of as Julie.

I smiled. ‘So this is why my two predecessors came here. And were so quiet about it.’

‘John was an excellent… seeker. But Mitford was quite the reverse. You see, Nicholas, he was totally tricked by Julie. In one of her persecution phases. As usual I, who devote my summers to her, became the persecutor. And Mitford attempted one night – in the crudest and most harmful way – to, as he put it, rescue her. Of course her nurse stepped in. There was a most disagreeable
fracas.
It upset her deeply. If I sometimes seem irritable to you, it is because I am so anxious not to see any repetition of last year.’ He raised his hand. ‘I mean nothing personal. You are very intelligent, and you are a gentleman; they are both qualities that Mitford was without.’

I rubbed my nose. I thought of other awkward questions I could ask, and decided not to ask them. The constant harping on my intelligence made me as suspicious as a crow. There are three types of intelligent person: the first so intelligent that being called very intelligent must seem natural and obvious; the second sufficiently intelligent to see that he is being flattered, not described; the third so little intelligent that he will believe anything. I knew I belonged to the second kind. I could not
absolutely
disbelieve Conchis; all he said could -just – be true. I supposed there were still poor little rich psychotics kept out of institutions by their doting relations; but Conchis was the least doting person I had ever met. It didn’t wash, it didn’t wash. There were various things about Julie, looks, emotional
non sequiturs,
those sudden tears, that in retrospect seemed to confirm his story. They proved nothing; and perhaps this development had always been planned, and she had not wanted to spoil it completely…

‘Well,’ he said, ‘do you believe me?’

‘Do I look as if I don’t?’

‘We are none of us what we look.’

‘You shouldn’t have offered me that suicide pill.’

‘You think all my prussic acid is ratafia?’

‘I didn’t say that. I’m your guest, Mr Conchis. Naturally I take your word.’

For a moment, masks seemed to drop on both sides; I was looking at a face totally without humour and he, I suppose, was looking at one without generosity. A hostility was at last proclaimed; a clash of wills. We both smiled, and we both knew we smiled to hide a fundamental truth: that we could not trust each other one inch.

‘I wish to say two final things, Nicholas. Whether you believe what I have said is comparatively unimportant. But you must believe one thing. Julie is susceptible and very dangerous – both things without realizing it herself. Like a fine blade, she can easily be hurt -but she can also hurt. We have all learnt, had to learn to remain completely detached emotionally from her. Because it is on our emotions that she will prey – if we give her the chance.’

I remained staring at the edge of the table-cloth, recalling that impression I had had of a timidity, a virginity; and realizing that the temperamental cause of that could equally well be clinical … her seeming physical innocence, a lifelong and enforced ignorance of men in sexual situations. It was absurd. I could not absolutely disbelieve him.

‘And the second thing?’

‘Is embarrassing to me, but it must be said. One of the tragedies of Julie’s situation is that she is a normally sexed young woman, yet with no normal outlet for her feelings. As a personable young male, you represent such an outlet – which is in itself of considerable benefit to her. Not to put too fine a point upon it, she needs someone to flirt with … to exercize her physical charms on. I gather she has already achieved some success in that way.’

‘You saw me kiss her just now. But as you didn’t warn me – ‘

He cut me short with a raised hand. ‘You are not to blame. If a pretty girl asks you to kiss her … naturally. But now you know the facts, I must point out the very difficult, and delicate, role I am asking you to play. I should not want you to repel every advance she makes, every hint of physical intimacy, but you must accept that there are certain bounds that cannot be transgressed. I cannot allow that, for obvious medical reasons. If – I speak purely hypothetically – some situation should arise where you found temptation too strong, I should be obliged to intervene. She even managed to convince Mitford last year that she would be a normal young woman if he would only take her away and marry her … not that she is scheming. When she says such things, she believes them. That is why her lies can be so convincing.’

I wanted to smile. Even if he was telling me the truth about the rest, I could not believe she would have had any sympathy for the idiotic Mitford. But there was something so obsessively severe and convinced of his own role in the old man’s eyes that I lacked the nerve to mock him.

‘I wish you’d told me all this before.’

‘That I did not you must blame partly on yourself. I did not anticipate quite such a quick response from the patient.’ He smiled, then leant back a little. ‘There is one other consideration, Nicholas. I should most emphatically not have embarked on all this if I had not felt sure that you had no emotional attachment elsewhere. From what you said –’

‘That’s over. If you’re talking about that radiogram … I’m not going to meet her in Athens.’

He looked down, shook his head. ‘Of course it is not my business. But what you said of the young lady – of your deeper feelings towards her – impressed me. I must say I think you would be foolish to turn down this offer of renewed friendship.’

‘With respect … it really isn’t your business.’

‘I should regret it very much if your decision were in any way coloured by what is happening here.’

‘It isn’t.’

‘Nevertheless, I think it is better, now that you understand what is really involved, that you should reflect on whether you wish to continue your visits here. I should fully understand if you decided to have no more to do with us.’ He stopped me speaking. ‘In any case I wish to give my unfortunate godchild some respite. I have decided to take her away for ten days or so.’ He consulted me as if I were some psychiatric colleague. ‘Over-stimulation has a negative therapeutic value.’

I felt bitterly disappointed, and mentally damned Alison and her accursed radiogram. At the same time I was determined not to show it.

‘I don’t have to think about going on. I want to.’

He contemplated me, and finally nodded – the old devil, as if it were for him to accept
my
genuineness. ‘All the same, I recommend further thought – and an enjoyable weekend with what sounds a charming young woman in Athens.’ I drew a breath, and he went on quickly. ‘I am a doctor, Nicholas. Permit me to be frank. Young men were not designed for the celibate life you lead here.’

‘I’ve already paid to discover that.’

‘As I recall. Then for all the more reason.’

‘And the weekend after next?’

‘We will see. Let us leave it like that.’ He suddenly stood up and extended his hand, which I took. ‘Good. Excellent. I am so glad the air is cleared between us.’ He put his hands on his hips. ‘Now. Do you feel like some hard work?’

‘No. But take me to it.’

He led me round to one of the corners of the vegetable garden. Part of a wall supporting a terrace had collapsed and he wanted it built up again. He gave instructions. The dry earth had to be broken up with a pickaxe, the stones lifted back, arranged, packed with the earth, which had to be watered to bind the wall together again. As soon as I started work, he disappeared. The breeze was still blowing, though it was the time of day it normally dropped, and it was cooler than usual; but I was soon sweating like a pig. I guessed the real reason I had been turned labourer: I had to be kept busy, out of the way, while he found Julie and tried to discover exactly what had gone on between us … or perhaps congratulated her on playing her new part so well.

After some forty minutes I gave myself a break to have a cigarette. Suddenly Conchis appeared on the terrace above where I sat with my already aching back against a pine-trunk. He looked sardonically down.

‘Labour is man’s crowning glory.’

‘Not this man’s.’

‘I quote Marx.’

I raised my hands. The pickaxe handle had been rough.

‘I quote blisters.’

‘Never mind.’

He remained staring down at me, as if I pleased him, or as if something he had learnt of me since tea pleased him; as clowns sometimes please philosophers. I asked a question I had been saving up.

‘I’m to believe nothing of her stories – am I to believe anything of yours about your past?’

I had thought it might offend him, but his smile deepened.