Same place.
Tuesday evening.
No art, no antiquities — our host will hardly admit, indeed, that there are any worth visiting: “If you see something in Corfu which looks like a Greek temple,” he says, “you’ll find it’s a church built by the British.”
I thought it reflected rather well on us, when we came across a Greek island with no Greek temples on it, to have tried to make good the deficiency; but the great poet’s smile of Olympian melancholy indicated that he did not share this view.
When I asked if there was nothing at all of historical or artistic interest, he answered vaguely that we must go to the Archaeological Museum to see the famous Gorgon, and some inscriptions which would interest Sebastian — yes, certainly; and we must not miss visiting Corfu Castle — no, of course not; but we could do these things at any time, someone would drive us to the town whenever we liked.
It seemed to be understood, however, that “whenever you like” was not exactly to be taken to mean “now”; and to have been settled, I don’t quite know how, that we would be spending a further night at the Villa Miranda.
I am beginning to have an odd feeling of — it would be absurd to call it uneasiness: a sense of disorientation, and of not knowing what is going on around me — or rather, of thinking that I know but not being sure that I do. There is no good reason for it: one or two things have happened which have disconcerted me, but of a very trivial kind. Perhaps I am developing some interesting neurosis.
I suppose it’s due to the heat, and too much retsina, and everyone talking a language I don’t understand. It may also have something to do with our misgivings about Deirdre: it’s difficult to be altogether at ease with people of whom one has entertained such disagreeable suspicions. I don’t quite like to say anything about this to Sebastian: I never happened to mention to him our doubts about Deirdre’s death, and now they have been resolved it seems unfair to cast any sort of shadow over his friendship with the Demetriou family.
Sebastian, you see, is in a state of rapture — starry-eyed and walking several feet above solid ground. He has been invited to become the English translator of the work of Constantine Demetriou: this (he says) is the most extraordinary and wonderful honor that could possibly be imagined. I do not think myself that the honor is all on one side; but it is no use saying so to Sebastian. You see how unkind it would be of me to spoil things.
Apart from the impression he has made on our host, Sebastian has also become an object of interest to Lucinda and Camilla: he is, after all, the only young man within range who is not related to them. After breakfast, therefore, they did not go away to paint pictures (as Lucinda was supposed to be doing) or to read Salmond on Torts (as Camilla was supposed to be doing) but remained in the garden to assist in our entertainment. They naturally proposed those forms of amusement which would show them to best advantage: Camilla, who looks splendid in a tennis dress, suggested tennis; Lucinda, who looks magnificent in a bikini, suggested a swim.
I rather enjoyed the tennis and swimming: a long time ago, you may remember — when I was first at Oxford, and before I was corrupted by left-wing intellectuals like you and Sebastian into drinking coffee all night and not bothering to keep fit — I used to be rather keen on that sort of thing. Sebastian, however, took no part in either, and from the point of view of Camilla and Lucinda making an impression on him it was rather a waste of effort.
They would have done better to see if they couldn’t dash off a swift elegy or two for translation from Greek to English, for so far as I could judge there was nothing else which might have distracted Sebastian from his conversation with Constantine Demetriou. They had begun talking about Homer, and a passionate discussion had developed of the historical accuracy of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Sebastian, as a respectable classical scholar, felt obliged to maintain that hardly a word of them was true, and that Homer had invented the whole thing. Our host is of the opposite school of thought:
“Yes, yes, yes, Sebastian, my dear friend, I know what the archaeologists say. Because they can’t find a tin hat with the name of King Agamemnon on it, they say that King Agamemnon did not exist and the Greeks never came to Troy and that Homer made it all up — the whole city of Troy and all the ships and armies of the Greeks — just like that, out of his imagination. But you, Sebastian, who are not an archaeologist but a poet, and know how difficult it is to imagine anything — even a small thing, like a bird or a flower or a fold in a girl’s dress — how can you think such a thing is possible? Our poor Homer of all people, who one would swear was worse than any of us, worse than your Shakespeare even, and could only describe things just as he saw and heard them, because he had no imagination at all. So that even when he is talking about the immortal gods he doesn’t know how to give them a proper dignity and mysteriousness, but makes them sound like some farmer and his wife that one met last week in the taverna. Do you think such a person could invent whole cities and armies and systems of government? Po-po-po-poh.” This is what the Greeks say when they wish to express great astonishment and disbelief.
Sebastian, listening to this, looked like an atheist hoping for conversion.
“And when it comes to the kings and the great heroes he is even worse,” went on our host. “He has to pretend that they behave like his own friends and acquaintances — fellow poets, probably, and other riff-raff of that sort — and would drink and tell lies and sulk and quarrel over women and prize money. But everyone knows, of course, that kings and heroes and the leaders of great nations could not possibly behave like that. That is how Homer has given us poets a bad name, Sebastian. People think we are all slanderers and blasphemers, who have no respect for anything and do not understand the difference between great men and everyone else. No one sees how unfair this is on respectable, well-behaved poets like you and me.”
The discussion of Homer led to the first thing which disconcerted me. The sun had risen high enough, by this time, to discourage any strenuous activity, and Lucian and Leonidas had joined the rest of us in the garden to drink retsina and eat olives. With the flattering implication that Camilla and I would be especially qualified to comment on the question, our host asked us how one would translate in English the Homeric expression themis—which seems to mean something like law, justice and general good behavior.
Camilla adopted a robustly positivist approach, saying breezily that law had nothing to do with justice, but was simply whatever Parliament told one to do, whether it was right or wrong. Feeling that I was expected to present the other side of the case, I trotted out the argument about “just” not simply meaning “good” but referring specifically to the virtue of treating like cases alike; this (I said rather pompously) is also an essential feature of the concept of law, and any law or legal system which lacks this quality is not only capricious and oppressive but cannot properly be termed law at all. I have had a good deal of practice with this argument — it comes in useful when you have a judge who doesn’t want to follow a precedent in your favor — and it went down extremely well with our host: he clapped his hands and said “Bravo!”
“And if you agree,” I went on, “that there is that sort of necessary connection between law and justice, and if you think that that’s what Homer would have meant by themis, I suppose it’s expressed in English by the phrase ‘the rule of law.’”
“Ah no,” said Constantine Demetriou, disappointed in me. “No, surely that can’t be right. That is the phrase used by people like Millie’s father — if you will forgive me saying so, Millie — to mean that people dressed up as policemen can do what they like and everyone else must do as they’re told.”
At this point Lucian, who had not so far seemed much interested in the discussion, looked up from his wineglass and said, “Oh, I think you’re wrong about that, Costas. I don’t think Uncle Rupert would approve of people who dressed up as policemen. Do you think he would, Cindy?”
“Oh no,” said his sister, making her eyes very wide and gooseberry-like, “I don’t think he would at all.”
They were both then overcome by merriment, chortling and gurgling as if at some brilliant piece of wit. The rest of the family, though mildly perplexed, seemed accustomed to the twins having private jokes which were meaningless to anyone else. To me, however, when I came to think about it, it was far from meaningless: I saw that if Lucian and Lucinda had somehow heard of the raid on Rupert’s flat by the spurious policemen, their mirth was not at all unaccountable.
Then Lucian looked at me, and winked.
This, as I have said, I found disconcerting. It must mean, mustn’t it, that the twins had heard not only about the spurious police raid but also of our presence when it took place? Well, it’s not a secret exactly — the story is known to several people in Lincoln’s Inn; but it’s a little disturbing, don’t you think, to find it so widespread as to be known to the twins?
“How in the world,” said Julia, “could Lucian and Lucinda have known about our being at Rupert’s party?”
“My dear Julia,” I said kindly, “when any mildly scandalous story is known to several people in Lincoln’s Inn, it is known to the rest of London within a week. I am not much surprised to find that it is known to the rest of Western Europe within a month or two.”
I have sometimes suggested, I think, that when your fancy is taken by a young man of slender figure and pleasing profile you should not disclose at too early a stage the true nature of your interest. Young men, I seem to remember saying, like to be thought of as people, not as mere physical objects: you should therefore begin by seeming to admire their fine souls and splendid intellects and showing a warm interest in their hopes, dreams and aspirations.
It looks as if someone has given the same advice to Camilla and Lucinda. Seeing that Sebastian was not to be drawn away from the company of Constantine Demetriou, they settled down on the grass close by and arranged themselves in attitudes of attentive admiration, designed to suggest that there was nothing they found quite so fascinating as the theory and technique of translating Greek verse. When our host made some reference to a recent article of Sebastian’s published in one of the learned journals, they went so far as to ask what it was about.
I am now obliged to mention a slight pitfall in the approach I have recommended: the young man may actually tell you about his hopes, dreams and aspirations. Fascinating though he believes the subject to be, Sebastian is not the sort of man to lecture anyone against their will on the errors in the P. Codex of Euripides’ Helena, but Camilla and Lucinda — to quote any common law judge in almost any rape case — were asking for what they got. They had led Sebastian on to believe that they were the sort of women who would be willing, even eager, to listen to a learned exposition of the finer points of textual criticism: if they didn’t like it, as appeared from their glazed looks and blank expressions to be the case, they had no one to blame but themselves, and it should have been a lesson to them not to go about admiring the souls and intellects of other people’s young men.
I did at last try to create a diversion by talking about our previous three days’ sailing, which I thought would be a topic of more general interest. I cannot claim, however, that this was a great success. Sebastian was reminded of his theory about the Necromantion and Book XI of the Odyssey, Camilla and Lucinda continued to look bemused; Constantine Demetriou was moved to warm enthusiasm; and the conversation, as was to be expected in these circumstances, again lapsed into Greek.
“At least Sebastian is enjoying himself,” said Julia with a touch of disapproval.
So it seemed. By what curious quirk of the subconscious, then, did the thought of my gentle young colleague in the garden of the Villa Miranda, surrounded by charming and beautiful people, for a moment put me in mind of a victim garlanded for sacrifice?
I have done what I can, by the way, to further your interest with young Leonidas. He seems to be quite a sensible boy really, though rather precocious, having been encouraged by people like you and Hilary to think himself interesting on account of his looks; and at least he doesn’t tower over me, like everyone else here apart from Dolly, as if I were Gulliver in Brobdingnag. He is thinking of coming to the Bar when he has done his degree and would like to specialize in tax matters. I warned him of the difficulty of obtaining a tax pupillage; but suggested that when the time came, if he could persuade you of the seriousness of his interest in Revenue law, you might be willing to take him on as a pupil. I don’t know, of course, to what lengths he may be prepared to go to convince you of his seriousness, nor am I to be thought to approve of his going to them, whatever they may be, nor of your encouraging him to do so; but I hope you will feel that I have done my best for you.
“Oh,” said Julia, “what a delicious idea — how very kind of Selena to think of it.”
She had forgotten, presumably, that a few minutes earlier she had suspected Leonidas of seeking to contrive the death of three of his close relatives.
The second thing which disconcerted me happened in the afternoon.
Dolly had been telling me at lunch about pottery-making — she is part-owner, you may remember, of a small ceramics business near here, for which she designs plates and things. When I said I would like very much to see how it was done, she invited me to her studio, where she keeps some examples of her work and a potter’s wheel for trying out her designs. She showed me how to use it, and I managed eventually to make quite a respectable sort of bowl, hardly lopsided at all.
The pottery I liked best was a kind apparently traditional in Corfu — a black or deep blue glaze decorated in gold with scenes from Greek mythology and so forth. When I admired it, she insisted on making me a present of a pair of little jugs in this style — shaped like ancient amphorae, with a picture on one of Penelope weaving her web and on the other of Odysseus sailing his ship. Since she said that it was a joint present to Sebastian and myself, I asked which one she thought he should have.
“Oh,” she said, with a matchmaking look in her eye, “it would be a shame to separate them.”
She has made her mind up, it seems, to marry me off to Sebastian, and was at pains to persuade me of the attractions of the married state: “It’s lovely,” she said, “it’s so comfortable.” She did concede, however — rather wistfully, I thought — that it was not quite as exhilarating as other possible arrangements.
“You can’t expect your husband to spend the whole day thinking how wonderful it is that he’s going to have dinner with you — he usually does have dinner with you, so there’s nothing special about it. One does rather miss that sort of thing — it makes one feel so cheerful, doesn’t it, and so good-tempered and energetic? But men don’t understand that, they like being married — it makes them feel safe and secure. You wouldn’t want poor Sebastian to feel insecure, would you?”
I suggested that the ideal arrangement might be to have both a husband and an admirer — that being the correct term, I believe, for a man who looks forward to having dinner with one.
“Oh, it is,” she said, with more enthusiasm than you might expect from a respectable married woman. “But you can’t make it last, you see. The admirer always wants to marry you and be safe and secure, so you end up with complications and unpleasantness.” I suppose she was thinking of her divorce from George Fairfax.
It was silly of me, in such a light-hearted conversation, to make any mention of Deirdre’s death. It seemed heartless to have said nothing at all about it, and I thought this a suitable opportunity to offer some sort of condolence; but I ought to have guessed that Dolly would find it upsetting.
“Poor Deirdre,” she said. “And the awful thing is, I hardly notice she isn’t here — it’s as if she never existed. I tried to love her as much as the others, but I couldn’t quite — I did try, but it wasn’t enough. She must have been so unhappy — oh, poor Deirdre.” She buried her nose in a paint-stained handkerchief. I found myself reminding her that Deirdre’s death had been an accident and had nothing to do with her being unhappy. “You were with her, weren’t you,” I said, “just before it happened, and she seemed quite cheerful?”
“Yes,” said Dolly. “Yes, that’s true — I was with her on the roof terrace just a minute or two before, and she seemed in very good spirits — quite excited about something. I told them that at the inquest.”
But the thing is, you see—
You know how it is, Julia, when one is cross-examining a witness, that sometimes there is something about the way they answer a particular question which means they are not telling the truth? Well, the thing is — it would be absurd, of course, to think oneself infallible — but if we had been in court when Dolly told me about being with Deirdre on the roof terrace, and if she had said it in the same tone and manner — well, the thing is, Julia, I’d have staked my reputation that she was lying.
Even if I’m right, it’s nothing to make a great fuss about: if Deirdre was not in such good spirits as Dolly led the Coroner to believe, one can hardly blame her for doing what she could to avoid a verdict of suicide. Still, I felt slightly uncomfortable: I left the studio as soon as I could, and came into the garden to continue writing to you.
After telling you about the things which disconcerted me, I see they are even more trivial, and my sense of uneasiness even less reasonable, than I thought when I began. There is no more to it, I suppose, than this: Sebastian would evidently be quite happy to stay at the Villa Miranda for as long as our welcome lasts, whereas I would prefer to go on sailing round the Ionian Islands. You will say that if I insisted—
Oh yes, I dare say, if I insisted on leaving Sebastian would not insist on staying. Things, however, are not as simple as that. When Henry disrupted my plans for Easter and then again for Whitsun he also disrupted Sebastian’s; and Sebastian, it is fair to say, behaved rather well about it — there are men who would claim that their holiday arrangements are more important than my brief in the Court of Appeal, even in a leading case on equitable estoppel. If translating the work of Constantine Demetriou is Sebastian’s equivalent of a brief in the Court of Appeal, I should not like to do anything to interrupt the progress of their friendship: it would make me feel selfish and ill-natured and see myself in a bad light. I do not at all want to spend ten days sailing round the Ionian seeing myself in a bad light.
There is also the matter of the cricket match — no, Julia, your eyes do not deceive you, we are involved in a cricket match: the annual fixture between the Writers of Corfu on one side and the Artists on the other, the former under the captaincy of Constantine Demetriou. Lucian, though unpublished, is considered eligible to play for the Writers and was to have done so; but his broken arm has put him out of action. Sebastian has been invited to take his place; he regards this, I need hardly say, as a most extraordinary honor, and there could be no question of his refusing. Fortunately, it isn’t feasible to remain in Corfu until this event takes place: the terms of my charter require me to re-deliver the Kymothoe at Preveza on Friday week, and the match is to be played on the following day, so that whatever happens we shall have to sail back to the mainland at some stage before the match and return to Corfu by ferry. But if Sebastian gets the idea that he ought to have some batting practice—
It seems unreasonable and ungrateful of me to object to remaining at the Villa Miranda: I expect you would think it a perfect Paradise. Somehow, though, it is not quite my sort of place. Besides, having meant to go to Ithaca, it seems a pity not to.
With very much love,
Selena.
Having an Opinion to write on the construction of the Taxes Act, Julia felt unable to join me for dinner. It was perhaps fortunate that I could not share with her the disquieting reflection which found its way into my mind in the course of the meal — namely, that with the exception of Tancred all those who had been present on the occasion of Deirdre’s death would also have had the opportunity to tamper with Camilla’s safety-harness.
Even Rupert and Jocasta had been in Corfu in the fortnight preceding the storm and would presumably have had access to the Sycorax, though it seemed to me that Rupert, quite apart from any considerations of paternal affection, must have every reason to hope that his daughter would survive to enjoy her inheritance; and there was no reason for the girl’s grandmother to wish any harm to her. Her cousins, however, would have had the plainest motives; so also, by the same token, would Dolly and her distinguished husband, since it is natural for parents to seek the advantage of their children.
If Camilla’s harness had been indistinguishable from those worn by the others aboard the Sycorax, I might have dismissed these tiresome notions; but hers, it appeared, had been the only one which incorporated a life-jacket. I reminded myself that tampering with it would nonetheless have been a haphazard and uncertain means of achieving any sinister objective. The storm could not have been contrived: even Demetriou, however magical the power of his Muse, could not to that extent clothe himself in the mantle of a Prospero or an Aeolus. If an adventurous and athletic young woman spends three months sailing the Mediterranean there is a possibility, but no more than that, that she will at some point depend for her life on her safety-harness. An attractive possibility, no doubt, to a person wishing malice to seem like accident: I thought, however, that such a person would not rely on a single hazard, but would arrange to place in Camilla’s path a sufficient number of similar traps and pitfalls to multiply risk into certainty. There was nothing to suggest that this had occurred.
Not until the next letter arrived.