The Magus by John Fowles Read Free Book Online

Greece – why hadn’t I thought of it before? It sounded so good: ‘I’m going to Greece.’ I knew no one – this was long before the new Medes, the tourists, invaded – who had been there. I got hold of all the books I could find on the country. It astounded me how little I knew about it. I read and read; and I was like a medieval king, I had fallen in love with the picture long before I saw the reality.
    It seemed almost a secondary thing, by the time I left, that I wanted to escape from England. I thought of Alison only in terms of my going to Greece. When I loved her, I thought of being there with her; when I didn’t, then I was there without her. She had no chance.
    I received a cable from the school board confirming my appointment, and then by post a contract to sign and a courteous letter in atrocious English from my new headmaster. Miss Spencer-Haigh produced the name and address in Northumberland of a man who had been at the school the year before. He hadn’t been appointed by the British Council, so she could tell me nothing about him. I wrote a letter, but that was unanswered. Ten days remained before I was due to go.
    Things became very difficult with Alison. I had to give up the flat in Russell Square and we spent three frustrating days looking for somewhere for her to live. Eventually we found a large studio-room off Baker Street. The move, packing things, upset us both. I didn’t have to go until October 2nd, but Alison had already started work, and the need to get up early, to introduce order into our life, was too much for us. We had two dreadful rows. The first one she started, and stoked, and built up to a white-hot outpouring of contempt for men, and me in particular. I was a snob, a prig, a twopenny-halfpenny Don Juan – and so on. The next day – she had been icily mute at breakfast – when I went in the evening to meet her, she was not there. I waited an hour, then I went home. She wasn’t there, either. I telephoned: no air-hostess trainees had been kept late. I waited, getting angrier and angrier, until eleven o’clock, and then she came in. She went to the bathroom, took Her coat off, put on the milk she always had before bed, and said not a word.
    ‘Where the hell have you been?’
    ‘I’m not going to answer any questions.’
    She stood over the stove in the kitchen recess. She had insisted on a cheap room. I loathed the cooking-sleeping-everything in one room; the shared bathroom; the having to hiss and whisper.
    ‘I know where you’ve been.’
    ‘I’m not interested.’
    ‘You’ve been with Pete.’
    ‘All right. I’ve been with Pete.’ She gave me a furious dark look. ‘So?’
    ‘You could have waited till Thursday.’
    ‘Why should I?’
    Then I lost my temper. I dragged up everything I could remember that might hurt her. She didn’t say anything, but undressed and got into bed, and lay with her face turned to the wall. She began to cry. In the silence I kept remembering, with intense relief, that I should soon be free of all this. It was not that I believed my own accusations ; but I still hated her for having made me make them. In the end I sat beside her and watched the tears trickle out of her swollen eyes.
    ‘I waited hours for you.’
    ‘I went to the cinema. I haven’t seen Pete.’
    ‘Why lie about it?’
    ‘Because you can’t trust me. As if I’d do that.’
    ‘This is such a lousy way to end.’
    ‘I could have killed myself tonight. If I’d had the courage, I’d have thrown myself under the train. I stood there and thought of doing it.’
    ‘I’ll get you a whisky.’ I came back with it and gave it to her.
    ‘I wish to God you’d live with someone. Isn’t there another air hostess who’d—’
    ‘I’m never going to live with another woman again.’
    ‘Are you going back to Pete?’
    She gave me an angry look.
    ‘Are you trying to tell me I shouldn’t?’
    ‘No.’
    She sank back and stared at the wall. For the first time she gave