Chapter 11

The telephone rang. It was ten past nine in the evening, and he’d just helped Harry to bed.

It was Elizabeth. She sounded excited.

“Matthew, it’s the well – it’s tonight! “

“What’? Oh Christ; tonight – when?”

“It’s an eclipse of the moon, daddy said. He told me yesterday, and I saw on the calendar just now that there’s an eclipse tonight at sixteen minutes past midnight.”

Matthew said nothing; he was thinking furiously.

“Matthew?”

“Yes, all right. I’m worried about Uncle Harry. He’s very weak; I was going to call the doctor in the morning.”

“Oh, golly…”

“I don’t know if I ought to go. Listen. I’ll call at the rectory for you… if I’m not there in half an hour I’m not going to go.”

“I’ll come and see you, in that case –”

“All right. Half an hour.”

He put the receiver down.

It was nearly three weeks after their walk on the moors. He had spent the whole time looking after the old man, with a possessive, almost fierce tenderness. He cherished him like a baby; but inside him the desire to settle the business, to get at the mystery, burnt and burnt like a furnace in his heart. It purified him; and now at last there was the chance of it, and Harry was ill…

He ran up the stairs and knocked at the old man’s door.

“Come in,” said Harry.

The light was out; Harry struggled to sit up. “What’s the matter? Was the telephone for me?”

“No, for me. Look, Uncle Harry – no, lie down, it’s all right.”

He sat on the bed beside him.

“Uncle Harry, would you be all right if I went out? I might be a few hours. I don’t really know when I’d be back…”

“Of course I will. Don’t you worry about that, you go out.”

A thousand things to say came to Matthew’s lips. He wanted to sit there in the darkness and pour it out, to confess and be blessed, and to ask for forgiveness, above all. He struggled with the words, and gave up; there was a lump in his throat. Finally he leant over and kissed Harry gently on the forehead.

“Sleep well,” he said. “I wish I could tell you… you’re always so kind, and I’m a fool, a blundering fool… but I love you, Uncle Harry, I love you utterly. Sleep well. I’ll look in to see you’re all right.”

“Thank you, Matthew.”

He had the idea that Harry wanted to say more too, but was too tired and weak; so he kissed him again and went out.

He stood irresolutely on the landing, looking back at the bedroom door and then across at his own, and then out of the window at the rain and the dusk. There were so many cross-currents of emotion and desire: everywhere he looked there was conflict. But the square pane of the landing window, and the rain and the grey evening light outside, acted on him like a magnet, and his whole body itched to be outside.

He’d have to change. He went into his bedroom and put on a thick shirt and a dark pullover, a pair of levis, and plimsolls on his feet. There was no sense in taking a coat. It had been raining for weeks, and his coat was wet through already. The ground was soaked, and he had no boots, but he’d discovered that plimsolls were the best thing to wear in rain. They got wet immediately, and didn’t bother him after that.

He shut the window tightly and went downstairs, checked that all the lights were off in the rest of the house, and took the torch from the hall table. It was a heavy rubber-covered one; he hoped it was as waterproof as it looked.

He went out of the front door and looked at the trees across the road. The dusk seemed to be thicker there, and the rain among the leaves looked like another element altogether, darker than water, heavier than air, and more wild and volatile than earth. There was a vibrant, harsh melancholy in it which played immediately on his soul, making him dizzy and tense with longing… it was the poetic spirit in the world; it was holding him up.

A thought came swiftly into his head and made him shudder. It would work though, it would work…He knelt down in the road and looked closely at the grass bank until he found what he wanted. A broken piece of fencing with a sharp, jagged splinter at one end of it. He hoped the rain hadn’t softened it too much. He rolled his sleeve up and, holding the stick like a dagger, slashed at his forearm once, twice, and the skin broke: again, harder, and the blood ran out freely. He looked closely at the wound. It was rough and ugly, and he felt faint and sick for a moment with the pain. He threw the stick away, and rolled his sleeve down. That would teach him.

A wave of utter contempt passed over him. To think that he was weak enough to need that sort of elementary reminder! The back of his hand was already covered in blood. He stuffed it deep into his pocket, and set off.

As he walked along he realised why tonight there was a feeling of wildness in the atmosphere, a feeling that had been missing from the deadly, soaking sadness of the weeks of rain: tonight a wind was blowing, gusty and fierce, lashing the water into the trees and into his face and hair. Before he came to the fork in the road by the Red Lion he was wet through. The pain in his arm was dragging at his attention the whole time. He’d have to wipe the blood off his hand, he supposed, before he went into the Rectory. But there was no need to go in at all. She’d better be ready. Though why was she coming at all? It wasn’t a woman’s journey, was it? No, no, but she knew the way and he didn’t. So perhaps she’d better come.

He rang the .bell and stood back out of the light that came through the door as she opened it.

“Ready?” he said.

She nodded. She was wearing a raincoat and trousers. The coat was damp; it clung to her shoulders and made them look thin and childlike. He had to suppress an urge to put his arms round her and kiss her and tell her that it didn’t matter after all, that they’d stay inside in the warm… this was a struggle against everything. And ranged against him were all his own instincts.

He said nothing; what else had he wounded his arm for? The pain was settling down now to a deep throbbing ache.

“Have you got your watch?” he asked as she shut the .door

“Yes – what’s the matter? What’s the matter with your arm?”

“Nothing. Is it waterproof?”

She looked blank for a moment. “Oh – the watch – yes.”

“Come on then, let’s get on – I don’t want to stop.”

He strode out of the drive and down the road. After a few yards he stopped uncertainly.

“I don’t – I wish – Liz, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to! Just tell me the way.”

“Don’t be silly. I’m as strong as you are, and I want to come. I’m afraid of losing you, Matthew; do you realise that?”

“Don’t say things like that, or I’ll lose my temper. No, no, I won’t. Let’s get back to the very beginning, on the beach – there was an air of truth about that, and nothing’s had it since, you see, that’s what I’m after tonight. And if you don’t play along, I’ll ditch you without hesitating, Liz, I mean it.”

“All right. I don’t quite understand – all right.”

They went quickly through the village, and down the road that led towards Ditton.

The going was heavy, the rain unceasing. Large stretches of the road were under two or three inches of water. Elizabeth trudged along beside him, saying nothing, and trying to keep up. He marched swiftly, forcing the pace, and felt after a couple of miles that he was being callous and unfeeling: she hadn’t complained once, though he wouldn’t have minded if she had. It was nearly completely dark, but above the thick pall of clouds the moon was full, and lightened the sky to some degree, so that they could see the outline of the road ahead.

The desire and the longing that raced through his blood stream raced equally through the wind and the streaming darkness. And there was something else, too, a more obscure sense like a heart-beat, that surged distantly both inside him and outside; what it was, he did not know, but it may have been destiny, or a sense of death, or sexual passion; it felt like all three.

They stopped occasionally to let Elizabeth ease the pain of a stitch in her side, or get her breath, and then they pressed onwards, doggedly. They walked without speaking for nearly two hours. It had taken longer than he thought to get to Ditton; the water on the road had held them up, slowing their steps. It was a quarter past eleven, by her watch, when they got to the centre of the village.

“How far is it from here?” he said.

“Another twenty minutes, I should think,” she replied. Her voice was weak and strained; they looked, both of them, exhausted and worn out. His contempt flared up again – like magnesium, causing everything in the world to stand out harsh and white and throw dark shadows. Maybe it was the very deepest instinct he had; it felt like it, now.

They were soaked to the skin; their clothes clung to them heavily. The water streamed off their hair, and the wind, which seemed to have freshened during their walk, was chilly and cutting. They looked at each other.

“Well?” he said. “What do you think?”

“I don’t think at all. I’ll go on; I’m not going to stop. Are you going to stop?”

“Of course not. But what do you think about it, eh? What’s it leading to?”

“Don’t speak like that. You sound stupid.”

“There are veins of stupidity under that, girl, that I haven’t even scratched the surface of. There’s always further to go, always…”

“Shut up, Matthew! Shut up! Don’t keep talking, talking, talking! D’you think you’ll change anything? D’you think it’s a clever little exercise, the world, for you to get so many marks for solving? Oh, the waste of it… and it’s cold, and wet, and getting late. Don’t say another word. I don’t love this act of yours; you and your brother – you’re not men, either of you, you’re something else altogether – oh, it sickens me what you do with your strength. Just get on, that’s all…”

She stood still, her voice coming intensely at him out of the darkness. He felt overwhelmed. The world was in flood, flooding at him, and all the emotion in the universe was streaming against him; his knees gave for a moment, and then he caught his balance again. He laughed.

“What’s the time?” he asked.

She held her wrist out…It was twenty to twelve. They were just halfway between the village and the woods. Matthew breathed in deeply, and they set off again.

A quarter of a mile further on they came to a fork in the road. The main road continued to the right; the road to the left was much narrower and darker, overshadowed by trees, and this was the way they took. A little way along it there was a high wall on their right, and set back into it the entrance to a drive, overgrown and decayed. It was in complete darkness, and he had to switch on the torch.

“The drive goes up to the house,” she said. “We take a path through the woods that leads to the lake. Matthew –”

He stopped; something in her tone pulled at his heart, and he hesitated, and then flung his arms around her and kissed her forehead, her eyes, her cheeks, her mouth, like an unhappy child. He could not help it; the longing was too long for him. After a minute it subsided again.

He let her go and swung the torch around to light the way. Directly inside the gate there was a car parked. It was the Canon’s Volkswagen.

“Did you know he was going to be here?” he whispered angrily. His voice had dropped automatically.

“No – yes – I suppose I did; yes, he went out earlier on, had the spade and things, I remember noticing; I should have said.”

“So he’s after it too. He better not get in the way. I’ve got a feeling – but no, never mind.”

He turned away and marched up the drive. His arm was aching from shoulder to wrist, and he had the idea it was swollen; the sleeve felt tight. He pushed it to the back of his mind, and looked around them.

The drive was pitted with holes, and all of them shone black in the torchlight, gleaming with water. It was covered in weeds, and the trees on either side of it seemed to lean forwards over it. Their leaves dropped thickly with rain, and a constant muffled rustling filled the air, as if the wood were alive with ghosts. Elizabeth kept close beside him, nervous at the darkness outside the light of the torch. As they went farther up, he found himself getting tense and claustrophobic, and fought against it. The world was too wild for that sort of silly reaction…

Up the drive for a hundred yards – two hundred yards – it was hard to tell. Then there was a gap in the trees on the right. Elizabeth said “That’s it. It’s along there.”

“Does this go straight there?”

“No, it goes to the lake, and then there’s another path all the way round, but –oh Matthew,” she caught his arm, and made him gasp with pain.

“What’s the matter with your arm?”

“Nothing, nothing. What is it?”

“I’ve got a better idea – if we just go straight to the lake and find the boat we can go across much faster, and the path’s all overgrown anyway; l probably wouldn’t find the way through.”

“Well, all right. I don’t care how the hell we get there, as long as we do. What’s the time?”

Her watch said ten to midnight.

“Sure you can find the boat?”

She nodded, and they turned off into the trees. He couldn’t think clearly; the questions were crowding at him now like Odysseus’ ghosts in Hades, straining wordlessly for the blood in the ditch, the false life that would let them speak… The blood was his own doubt. Let them gibber; he could hold them off for a while yet.

The undergrowth was thick, and the ground underfoot soggy and yielding. They said nothing, but concentrated on forcing a way through the clutching brambles and the mud. After a minute or so he went in front and she held the torch from behind, and he tore at the twigs and smaller branches that got in the way, cracking them savagely and leaving them hanging broken. They were losing time, he thought, and cursed under his breath. He wasn’t thinking at all; all his energy was occupied in battering at the physical world holding him back, and fighting his tiredness, and ignoring the pain in his arm. He stumbled over roots, and scratched his hands on his face, and plunged knee-deep into a sodden depression of mud and dead leaves, and struggled out again.

An owl screetched suddenly in the trees above them, and flew away silently. He paused for a moment and wiped his forehead, and turned to help Elizabeth past a patch of thick trailing brambles.

“I thought you said it was a path,” he said. He kept his voice low. They must have been making more noise than a mad bear, but voices were naked, somehow.

“The rest’s even worse,” she replied, out of breath.

After a few minutes the undergrowth thinned out, and then without warning he fell forward on to his knees, up to his thighs in water. It was bitterly cold; he gasped with the shock of it, and said quickly “Stay there, don’t move for a moment.” He got to his feet. He was ·only a yard or so in front of her, and in water up to his knees.

“Is this where the lake should be?” he said, trying to see ahead of him. “Can I have the torch?”

She handed it to him, and said “I suppose it’s flooded, with all the rain – I should have thought.”

He shone the torch ahead. It was all water; twelve or fifteen feet in front of him the trees and bushes stopped suddenly, and he supposed that was the edge of the lake, or what would be normally. So the boat must be there too somewhere. He shivered with cold.

Yes; there it was. A flat-bottomed thing like a small punt, very low in the water, floating just at the edge beyond the trees. He turned back to her.

“We’re going to get soaked, but that doesn’t matter. Hang on to my hand.”

He gritted his teeth and held out his left hand. They felt their way forward, up to their calves, then their knees… A thought struck him, and his heart sank.

“The boat – it must be full of water. Supposing it doesn’t hold us?”

He was right. When they reached it, up to their thighs in the water, they saw that the boat was nearly full. A single paddle floated inside it. Fifteen inches of water, and nothing to bail with.

He untethered it, and gave her the torch. He saw with a slight start of surprise that she was crying.

“Hush, Liz,” he said; “hush, hold the torch, there’s a good girl.” He spoke calmly although he felt like weeping with frustration himself.

“I’m – so – sorry,” she said. “I honestly thought it – it would be better.”

“Never mind. Look, hold the torch and hold the paddle, too.”

He gave her the paddle.

“I’m going to try and turn it over. It’s not too big; it can’t weigh all that much.”

He took a deep breath and braced himself before his arm could begin to ache in anticipation, and bent over and felt for the bottom of the boat. It was smooth and slimy, but there was a slight flange where the side met the bottom that gave la fair grip.

He got his fingers underneath it and heaved up with all his strength. His feet slipped, and he lost his balance for a moment; but he’d shifted it a little. It was swaying, and the water inside it was slopping from side to side.

“Rock it,” she said. “Get the water rocking and tip it over.”

He found a foothold and did as she suggested, heaving the boat back and forth until the water was rocking violently; then, when it reached the top of its swing away from him, he gave an extra shove and almost laughed with satisfaction as most of the water shot out of it. But when it fell back, it was still too full.

He rocked it back and forth again. It was easier to move this time, but less water was lost when he tipped it up. At last he came to a point where the water he got rid of was balanced by the water that came over the far side of the boat as it swung under the surface.

“That’s it; that’ll have to do. In you get.”

There was about four inches of water still in the bottom of the boat. His arm was bleeding; he saw the flash of red on his hand in the light of the torch, and dipped it under the water to wash it off. He took the torch from Elizabeth and Hung the paddle in the boat, and held it steady as she climbed in. It didn’t settle too deeply; it might be all right, after all.

She took the torch, and he got over the side and picked up the paddle.

“What’s the time?” he said softly.

“Two – three minutes past,” she said. “We’re doing all right. Now it’s straight across from here –”

“Can you see the other side now? Because if not we might be going in circles for hours – look, switch the torch off.”

She did, and they sat still in the boat waiting for their eyes to adjust to the darkness. After a few moments she whispered:

“I know it seems crazy to do it like this – but the path that goes to the well is even worse. It would have been impossible in the dark. And this is much better.”

He nodded. He was thinking of what would happen when they reached the well, and wondering what the Canon was doing, and whether he’d try and prevent them… the thought brought with it a surge of anger so violent that it made his head swim, and he saw absolutely clearly, for a second, into his soul. It was like a complicated network of caves, inhabited by demons, aboriginal demons who had to be propitiated by the newcomers to the caves: by man, that new kind of monkey, and acquired habits, and things like restfulness and peace – they all had to pay their price, their demongeld, and they were paying heavily tonight. He sat with his elbows on his knees and looked at the sky until his eyes got used to the light.

The other shore was not far away. The lake was totally enclosed by trees, and roughly oval, from what he could see of it. They had to cross the shorter diameter. As she had said, it probably looked in daylight like an ornamental lake in a landscaped garden, wild and overgrown though the garden might be. There was an atmosphere of decay over it, of rotting vegetation and age and corruption. His impression of it was so acute that it was almost as if it was a person: it was as if the lake had been conscious and perhaps was conscious still, and emanated a field of powerful primitive emotions, which he felt as a combination of nostalgia and masochistic lust. He hadn’t had time to notice it before, struggling to empty the boat, but the instant he sat still and relaxed his concentration it swept over him. The most curious thing was the total objectivity of it: it stood out in his perceptions as clearly as a range of mountains, as evidently out there as the trees themselves.

He was a little disconcerted by it; already he could feel it beginning to affect him. A mood of dreamy sensuality was tugging at him.

Elizabeth sat facing him, her head thrown back to the sky and her hands on the sides of the boat. Neither of them moved for a second or two, and then she said, sighing, “I could go to sleep now look, it’s stopped raining. Matthew –” she looked at him, and leant forward, and took his hands; “Matthew, I love you!”

There was something so poignant in the way she sat and in the tone of her voice that he cou1dn’t help being moved by it; a lump came to his throat, and he felt the desire to take her in his arms and let the boat drift out on to the lake, and to caress her gently; because she was naked – under her clothes, she was naked – that soft white body of hers held all the mysteries in the world in the curves of it and the folds of its flesh… she was impregnated with sweetness, a moral and spiritual sweetness: she was angelic, she was more than human; she was the well –

The recognition of it rose from his loins, and stirred his heart and his belly with a profound impulse of sexual joy. The sense of penetrating, of entering the very source of good, sweetness, love, filled his whole being; and he leant forward and kissed her on the lips.

And he knew, simultaneously, that it was a trick. He’d been taken in by the atmosphere of the lake. As soon as he realised it, the sense of stagnation and decay swept over him again, and he sat up abruptly. In the sudden tautening of his will he felt something else, cleaner and clearer… time was getting on. Elizabeth looked hurt and puzzled.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I’ll tell you later.”

He took the paddle and manoeuvred the boat around to face the opposite shore. It was sluggish and heavy, hard to get moving and hard to keep on course. The depth of the emotions he’d just felt left him weak and lightheaded; he felt open and defenceless, at the mercy of every chance wind of feeling.

He must be having delusions as well, he thought, because he felt the boat moving.

He stopped paddling and sat utterly still; he was afraid to move. The boat was drifting steadily forwards, straight to the opposite shore.

There was a current in the water.

A thousand notions of ghosts, fate, elemental spirits, swept at him out of the empty air… empty, was it? It was full, charged, thronged with them. Eddies and whirlpools of meaning circled around him, and he sat limply, trying to get his bearings in the confusion.

But only one thing was clear: their movement forward.

She’d noticed it, too.

“Is it a current?” she whispered, frightened.

He nodded, and looked around at the trees. They were halfway across by now, and still moving.

“It’s never been here before…”

He made an effort to throw off the feeling of hallucination. It was a current. It must have a cause. But whatever the cause, the effect of it was to take them across the lake, so it was a good thing. Think of the well; you’ll be there in a minute, he thought.

The sense of being haunted vanished slowly. His mind stopped racing. Elizabeth had seized his hand in her fear, and her hands, tight and warm around his, made him want to lay his head in her lap and go to sleep. He was impossibly tired. He yawned, and shook his head to clear it. The boat grounded suddenly; in an instant his senses were alert again.

The sat still for a moment, peering at the bank. He didn’t want to use the torch if he could help it; it made everything else too dark. He tried to rock the boat, to find out if it was really stuck or only wedged against a sunken branch, but it didn’t move.

“Any idea where we are?” he whispered.

“I think so,” she said. “We’ll have to use the torch.”

“I suppose we will.”

He stepped over the side of the boat, balancing clumsily. He’d forgotten how cold the water was, even though he was wet through. The current was hardly noticeable now. He found a steady foothold and helped her out; the water was up to their calves. They held hands and made their way forward.

He switched the torch on, half expecting to see Canon Cole watching them. The knowledge that the priest was somewhere nearby made him nervous, and he didn’t know whether to make a lot of noise and flash the torch about so that he’d know they were there, or go quietly in the dark so he wouldn’t. He wished he knew what the man was up to.

The trees were even thicker on this side of the lake, and they had to force their way through a stiff mass of twisted, tangled undergrowth. Most of it was brambles. After a few feet they were scratched, sore, and nearly stuck fast; the bank rose more steeply here, so they were soon out of the water, but the innumerable thorns and prickles held them back like a million tiny claws, and tore unmercifully at their clothes and skin.

After picking his way carefully for a minute he said “Jesus, this is impossible. We can’t stop to pull all the thorns out now, we haven’t got time – look, I’ll have to barge my way through, love, and you follow where I go; which way’s the well? It’s not far, is it?”

“It’s a little – to the left –” she panted; “shine the torch over there.”

He did so, and saw nothing but the wet tangled confusion of bramble and tree-trunk wherever he looked. He moved the torch around; nothing but the dark dripping wilderness on either side. A wave of depressed exhaustion came over him.

“Over there,” she said, “there it is – no, to the left a bit more. Where the ivy’s come away from that tree – that’s it –”

He held the torch where she was pointing, but saw nothing. Then his eyes seemed to focus, and he saw it: a regular shape in the mass of knotted, twisted twigs and leaves, surprisingly small and insignificant.

“I’m going to go straight towards it – just follow – what’s the time now?”

“Ten past, just gone. Oh, Matthew, do you think it really will?”

“It had better, hadn’t it? Never mind that now. Let’s just get there first. Take the torch again.”

He tore at the brambles with his bare hands. He was covered in scratches from head to foot, and his levis were torn. She was probably no better off; and she had the raincoat, too, to impede her. He forced his way into it, leaning against the tangled bushes and pushing with his legs, his chest, his arms. He heard her gasp; he’d let a branch go too soon and it had swung back at her – go carefully, he thought. Don’t be stupid about it. Just get through this bit and you’re there. He wished they’d thought to bring a hatchet with them. His foot caught on a thick root and he fell forward, but the mass of bushes held him up. It was like the ram caught in the thicket: he couldn’t move, his clothes and his flesh were snagged at so many points that the more he tried to push forward the more securely he was caught. Elizabeth was in the same state. They struggled furiously, gaining hardly an inch at a time. His whole body was itching madly as the cuts and scratches inflamed his skin. As he’d fallen forward a hanging strand of bramble had torn at his cheek; he hadn’t noticed it as he struggled, but when he was standing up again he felt the blood run warmly down his face, and the cut began to sting.

He thought seriously that they weren’t going to get to the well in time. It couldn’t have been more than seven or eight yards away, but it might have been seven or eight miles for all the progress they were making. He felt sick and bitter with frustration, and a rush of senseless anger overcame him. He tore savagely at the tough brambles and shook the bushes from side to side like a madman, grunting and moaning under his breath.

He had a sense of complete unreality for a moment then; it was just as if he’d left his body, forced out of it by the pressure of anger, and was watching himself coldly from a distance.

He saw a low-hanging branch in front, and his attention focussed on it. It was like two separate planes swimming together and coalescing: and then he had an idea, and seized the branch and drew himself up. He swung forward as far as he could, pushing his feet out in front, and then let go and pitched forward on to his face. A stiff bush received the weight of his body; the branches were brittle and the leaves smooth and cool; it felt like elder. He fought his way upright again and struggled out of it, and his feet found a patch of clear ground, covered in leaves and mud but free of roots and brambles. He turned around and looked for Elizabeth.

The gleam of the torch was stationary.

“Liz! Are you all right?”

“I can’t go any further, Matthew; I’m sorry, I can’t – I can’t move. I’m exhausted.”

“I’m nearly there, Liz. It’s clearer here – can you just get over that patch in front?”

“I don’t think I can. I’m sorry. Don’t wait; I’ll stand here and hold the torch.”

He hesitated. He didn’t like it, but there was no choice in the matter.

“All right… I’ll go on then… stay there.”

He turned back. The light of the torch was obstructed and broken by the thick vegetation. He could only see one corner of the well from where he stood; the rest was tangled shadows. The silence, apart from the drip of water off the leaves, was profound.

No sense in waiting… He pushed forward again. It was so much easier here that he thought the Canon must have cleared the ground. He smelt ash, too, charred wood and dead fires, under the persistent moist bitterness of leaves, and supposed that he had burnt some of it away.

He felt his way through the branches, stumbling in his haste. The torch was too far behind him, and more of a distraction than a use, but it gave Elizabeth something to do.

He heard something move on the other side of the well, and froze. The torch wavered; shadows swung this way and that, and he saw nothing… The noise stopped abruptly.

It was only nine or ten feet away. Whoever or whatever it was was hidden. He moved straight towards it, his heart in his mouth. In a few strides he was at the well.

Standing on the other side of it was Canon Cole, a spade in his hand.

Matthew stood still. Whether Elizabeth could see her father, he didn’t know. The torch was steady.

The two of them watched each other for a moment. The Canon’s expression was hard to read; he was in the grip of a powerful emotion, but what it was, Matthew couldn’t tell.

“Who’s that?” the Canon asked him suddenly, jerking his hand towards the torch. His voice, beautiful still, was taut; an edge of panic showed under it.

“Elizabeth,” said Matthew.

“Her as well, eh… You two get everywhere, don’t you. Where is he now?”

“Who?”

“The other one, your brother, if he is your brother… you turn up like lice, you two, under every stone in the world. Where is he, I said?”

“How the hell should I know? I didn’t know he was here.”

Elizabeth called out: “Matthew, what is it?”

“Stay there, Liz. Your father’s here; I think he’s gone mad.”

He said it to provoke the priest, and succeeded. Such a spasm of irritation was shaking him that he would gladly have grappled with the man hand to hand and forced him to the ground.

As soon as he’d spoken, the Canon smashed the spade down on the coping of the well. It clanged loudly, and a chip of stone was dislodged and fell into the water below.

“l don’t know what you’ve come here for, but you’d better clear off – now. I’m warning you, don’t interfere. I won’t stand for it.”

“You’re not in your right mind, are you, Canon.” Matthew’s voice was shaking. “I don’t blame you; I’m not either, and I’m in no mood to be told to clear off. If you want to fight me, come and do so, but if you don’t, let me get at the well. Stand back out of the way, and put that spade down.”

The priest looked fixedly at him; Matthew thought he saw the man’s eyes expand and glow in the darkness. Whatever was possessing him had gone beyond emotion; something more elemental than that was at work.

It entered Matthew too, and shook him violently. The two of them, their wills locked like bulls’ horns, faced each other silently.

Then the Canon swung the spade at him. The movement was swift and powerful, but he had to brace himself to take the weight of it, and Matthew saw what was coming and ducked. The well was only four feet wide: the spade whistled over his head. Elizabeth cried out in fear.

Matthew straightened up swiftly and put his foot on the slippery stonework to leap over. His flesh would burn up and die with its own intensity if he didn’t get his hands on the Canon straight away.

The priest was off balance, and Matthew cannoned into him and knocked him over. They struggled like tigers. The Canon was lean and wiry and mad with fury, but Matthew was younger and madder, and had fallen on top of him. He got his hands around the other’s throat and shook him like a rat for a moment; but then the priest somehow got his nails into the wound in Matthew’s arm and tore violently at it.

Matthew felt his head swim with the pain, and his grip slackened and he fell dizzily sideways. Immediately the Canon twisted over on top of him and battered at his face. Dimly Matthew heard Elizabeth shouting and struggling through the bushes…

He brought his knee up sharply up behind the priest and knocked him off balance; but he recovered immediately. Matthew seized his wrists, and they swayed to and fro until Matthew twisted sideways and pulled the other down with him.

They wrestled savagely in the darkness. They were completely silent, apart from the thud of blows and their breath as they gasped for air. Elizabeth, fighting her way through the undergrowth, made more noise than either of them. The light of the torch flashed this way and that as she tried simultaneously to follow what was happening and see her way forward.

The priest got his hand under Matthew’s chin and pushed sharply backwards. Matthew’s neck tensed and he felt a sickening tug at the muscles of his throat, and went limp for a second, trying to breathe. Canon Cole sensed his advantage and shoved with all his might, suddenly, on Matthew’s chest, and Matthew fell backwards.

His head crashed against the well – where the well should be, but it was softer, somehow, and yielded a little. He was more surprised than stunned by it, and managed to turn aside as the Canon came for him.

He seized a wrist, and dragged the priest violently sideways, pulling him round and off balance, and drove his fists into the man’s face. He heard Elizabeth cry out, and stopped for a moment; the Canon was shaking his head dizzily, but then he came at him again, pinning his arms to his sides. The two of them stood swaying. Matthew strove to get his arms free, and after a moment or so managed to turn sideways and thrust one arm upwards, getting it round the priest’s neck and hauling him down.

Elizabeth got free of the bushes and rushed towards them, crying at them to stop. He didn’t hear her.

“Oh, you may as well,” came a voice from behind him.

Alan’s!

He let go, and swung round, dazed. His brother was sitting on the edge of the well, rubbing his leg. That’s what I hit, he thought stupidly… Alan looked at the pair of them contemptuously.

Elizabeth stood there, on the verge of tears, the torch trembling in her hand. The priest was holding his waist, panting hoarsely. Matthew looked from one to the other of them; he could hardly tell which was which. All his rage was gone, and all that filled the vacuum it left was a huge, dull sense of enigma and mystery.

“I thought I’d have to do that, earlier on,” Alan said to him. “I’d have made a better job of it.”

“What are you doing here’?” said Elizabeth.

“What’s anyone doing here but wasting time? D’you think you’ll get to the truth of it by squalling like a school boy?” he said to the priest.

Canon Cole would have sprung at him if first Matthew and then Elizabeth hadn’t got in the way. He looked at her sadly.

“Elizabeth,” he muttered; “my darling, my darling, you shouldn’t have been here… it isn’t a woman’s place…”

“To hell with you and your sexuality!” She spat the words out, shaking Matthew with the force of it. “Why aren’t you beyond sex? They are! But you – you’re stuck in it like a fly! Get out of it before it kills you, before it kills all of us.”

Tears started to her eyes, and she turned her back abruptly. The Canon said nothing, but put his hand to his head as if it hurt him.

Matthew turned to Alan.

“What are you doing here, anyway? No, that doesn’t matter, I suppose; Liz, what’s the time?”

“That doesn’t matter either,” said Alan. “Truth is truth. Ask it, go on, if you know how to. If you want to. A few minutes won’t make any difference. It won’t make any difference what you ask, either. Truth is only truth, isn’t it, Canon?”

“Then it won’t make any difference if I ask or not,” said Matthew. “Or maybe it will… but if it’s only a game, at least I can see that it is. He –” he jerked his thumb at the priest, who looked up suspiciously – “he can’t; he’s stuck in it. Just like a fly. Liz – is out of it. She’s not playing. And you – what about you, eh?”

“Too many metaphors. Speak plainly, Matthew. If you don’t want to ask, does that mean you don’t want to know?”

“What do you think?”

“All right, then. Would you risk your life to find it?”

“I think I’d give it, freely… Yes, of course I would. Do you think I’d back out? I couldn’t, could I? All right then, what’s the risk?”

“Down there… can you swim?”

Matthew nodded.

“Not that it matters very much. What do you think Canon? Shall we send him down?”

The priest came forward a step.

“Why ask me? It seems to me you’ve got the whole thing sewn up between you. It doesn’t matter who goes down, does it. But since you ask – all right. I don’t mind. But hadn’t it better wait? Till morning, at least?”

“No!” cried Matthew. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s waited for long enough, and so have I. I’m sick to my soul of it. Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

“No, no, no!” Elizabeth cried. “You’re no better than children, all three of you. You’re all playing games, like it or not but that’s the truth – all this talk about the well, about going down there and risking your stupid lives and can you swim – do you think you’ll find anything down there but cold water? And do you think that’ll make any difference? You’re playing like children, and it makes me weep… oh, the waste of it! The sheer stupid bloody waste of time and strength and will and everything you have, everything you glory in, everything you could be and would be if you didn’t shut your eyes and then clamp your hands across them and agree that the first rule in the game was ‘pretend to be blind’. What in God’s name have you got eyes for, or brains or sense? Can’t you look at the facts instead of calling them contemptible and agreeing to ignore them?”

She stopped, and pushed her hair out of her eyes, and looked at them all in turn.

“Well, if you can’t, I’m going to tell you now what the truth of this little game of fighting and exploring is. And then you won’t be able to say you didn’t know, you cowards… My father’s afraid of the world. He likes to think it’s stronger than he is, and that gives him the feeling that he needn’t try all that hard to deal with it, because it’s bound to win in the end, and no-one will blame him for failing, in that case. But that degrades him just a bit too much and he has to have another system to balance it, like an insurance broker, just in case by some freak he does win. So he invents one, and says that he’s really and truly a piece of the true God lost in the world and trying to get back home, and that nothing in the world is worth having because it’s all alien to him. And the truth of that, as I said, is that he’s afraid of it. That’s the fundamental thing about him, not his knowledge or his system…

“You, Alan: you hate it as much as he does, and you used to impress me more than he did because I thought there was something more intelligent behind it than just fear – oh, God knows, I had the same feelings myself: that’s why I know what you’re all talking about – but you’re wrong, you’re hopelessly wrong! Because Alan, you try and lock the world out, and you can’t because you’re as much the world as a tree is. You try and make yourself greater than the world: well, good, as long as you do it in the right way. I don’t mean the moral way or the convenient way, I mean the way that gets results. And the only result of all your efforts is that you become a freak like the world’s most highly developed man… all will and nothing, nothing, to turn it to! Your only aim is to get this shoddy little party of yours into Parliament, and that’s only a cheating cowardly aim, a deliberately shocking aim, a graffiti-on-the-wall clever-clever Dada aim; and so the fundamental thing about you is that all your will’s just a cover-up, it’s a blind, and underneath it, Alan, you’re passive: you’ve got no will at all, because you’ve got no vision!”

“That’s not true!” Matthew shouted – she whirled around to face him.

“And now the truth about you,” she said; her anger was so intense that involuntarily he took a step backwards. “And that is that you’ve got everyone’s vision except your own. My father’s, your uncle’s, what passes for Alan’s – they all possess you, they all come on you like soldiers sacking a town, they find you and rape you like a girl and you’re dazed by it, you’re stunned, but underneath, it fascinates you and hypnotises you, doesn’t it, the speed and the brutality and the change of it… they’re so powerful and so swift, these visions that rape you, aren’t they? And don’t they go to adventurous places when they leave, and wouldn’t you like to go with them! But this one’s handsome, and that one’s gentle and kind, and a third one’s strong and gay, and you can’t make up your mind which one to leave with… One day it’s will, the next day it’s knowledge, the next day it’s morality or love or sublimity that you talk about; whenever you say something I can tell who it was you saw last… And that’s the deadliest truth about you, Matthew Cortez, which is that you live a life of words and heady thoughts and dreams about what might be and what could be and what would be if, and what do you do? Nothing, nothing, nothing, and you’re life’s slipping out of your fingers already because you’re not a boy any more and by the time tonight’s up you’d better have found something, Matthew, you’d better have started doing something, or else it’ll be too late ever to begin.”

Her shoulders were drooping, and the torch in her hand pointed to the ground. No-one said a word, and then she straightened up and went on:

“And now you’ve found something that you all think is worth doing something about, do you come together and discuss it rationally and examine it? No, no, you fight over it like dogs; and you don’t even know what it is, apart from being a well, but a well’s not enough, is it, it’s got to be something else, a symbol or a Holy Grail or something else that’s not real – anything, anything, to save you from seeing the miserable truth of it, anything as long as it’s not real – not real – anything as long as your eyes are still safely shut and your hands are still safely over them and your feet are still safely rooted in the mud and you’re pitiable, contemptible; and what is it that’s causing all the fuss? What’s this futile thing? It’s a well, that’s all. lt’s a hole in the ground.”

She was nearly in tears, and too exhausted to stand up any longer. She moved to the well and sat on the edge with her back to Alan. Matthew was shaken with the truth of what she’d said; it stung him like a viper, and he remembered that intuition of his on the lake, that she was the well, that truth came out of her. Was that it, then?

No; there were more sides to it than that, and he knew there were, and knew hers wasn’t the only truth. He looked at Canon Cole, who stood a little way off, shivering, and at Alan, who looked back at him steadily.

“That was a good speech,” said Alan, and then turned to her. “I’m sorry to spoil it. But nothing that you said matters, Elizabeth. You’ve got it wrong. Metaphors again… you people revel in them. Games, was it? Very well, we’re playing a game; and if you wake up in the world with half a dozen cards in your hand, and you learn that the only way out of it is to win with them, do you not sit down and play as well as you can? We’re playing seriously because our aim is to leave the game altogether, and you can’t leave if you lose. And we shut our eyes because with your eyes shut you can concentrate, Elizabeth, and think more clearly about what cards to play… It’s your own metaphor. And then the well, as you call it. It’s not a well, in fact; your father knows what it is. He’s crazier than I am. Let him tell you.”

She looked up wearily at her father. Matthew saw him stir uncomfortably, and come forward a step. When he spoke, his voice was abstracted and subdued.

“It’s not a well, darling. It’s – I think it’s the entrance to a temple; umm – in Roman times they used to build temples to Mithra underground, you know; I admit I was misled… it looks very like a well… but whether it’s – caved in, or what, I don’t know, and it was partly to find out that I came tonight. I – I was upset. Matthew – I do apologise. I hope you’ll… forgive me…I – I lost control of myself.”

Matthew impulsively wanted to embrace the man and beg his forgiveness, too. He held back, because the truth of her description of him still rankled: this was just the latest feeling to sweep him up… but he smiled at the Canon, as warmly as he could, and then turned back to Alan.

“Since it’s all coming out, we’d better clear something else up. These murders, that’s what I mean. That’s what I came here for… Tell me the truth, Alan: are you – did you do them?”

Alan said nothing.

“Did you?”

His brother turned away; the silence lengthened.

Elizabeth said “Alan –”; her voice shook.

“Hush,” said Matthew.

He took Alan’s arm and they walked a little distance away. Alan came almost meekly.

Matthew said in an undertone “Was that what you meant when you said that your path was twisted?”

Alan looked at him. In the darkness his expression was hard to fathom. Still he said nothing.

“Alan, is the closest we’ve come –” Matthew felt like weeping suddenly; he checked the violence of it and said awkwardly “was that the closest we’ve come, then, when I had my headaches? Was it you causing them?”

“I was calling you,” said Alan.

“As you were –”

“As I felt it, yes.”

“But why? Why me?”

“Because I loved you,” said Alan.

Matthew was dumbfounded. “I don’t understand – it’s – oh, Alan, it’s beyond me altogether. But what happens now? Is it finished? Will it happen again?”

“No. That’s the end of it.”

Matthew took a deep breath.

“Ah well. God forgive us all…”

He went back to the well; after a few seconds Alan followed. Matthew was conscious of the question burning on the lips of the other two; he felt unbearably oppressed. He looked at them both, and laughed harshly.

“Well, it wasn’t Alan,” he said. “So that’s clear, anyway.”

“But who, then? Who was it?” said Canon Cole.

“Someone he knows. But it’s all finished.”

He heard Alan catch his breath; it sounded like a sigh. He went on hastily to the Canon:

“And what’s down there? Is it true, what Alan told me? It’s not what you said.”

The Canon looked unhappily at them both, and said “It works, whatever it is. Look at us now.”

Matthew nodded. It was heavy, this new knowledge of his; it hung round his neck like a stone. He turned to Elizabeth.

“What’s the time, Liz?”

“Half past twelve. There you are; you’ve had your eclipse.”

He sighed.

“That’s it, then… Okay, I’m going to try. If there’s anything at all worth seeing or finding out anywhere, there’s no point in waiting till morning for it…”

“Oh, don’t, Matthew, please!” Elizabeth turned to him quickly; “please don’t. You’re just doing what they want – I don’t know why they do, but let them go if they want to – it’s not your problem!”

“Of course it is. This is me, now, I’m beginning at last. Don`t get it confused. Now then, Canon, tell me what to look for. What’s down there?”

“I don’t know at all. Not at all; but look, look inside: can you see these steps, here, cut in the rock?”

Alan moved sideways to let them look. Matthew saw in the light of the torch, which Elizabeth handed resignedly to her father, a series of shallow indentations in the shaft, little more than holds for his hands and feet. The rock streamed with water; the steps were slippery and overgrown with algae, but he thought he could climb down. As he leant over, he heard the sound of water rushing swiftly somewhere down below. The bottom of the well was out of sight.

“Why isn`t the water level as high as it is in the lake?” he asked.

“Go and find out,” said Alan.

“Why the hell don’t you go?” Elizabeth burst out.

“That’s just what I mean. You’re passive, you’re weak all the way through. Go yourself, you coward!”

“I’ve been,” he replied.

They all stared at him, astonished.

“What – when? What’s down there? What is it?” said the Canon.

“You can go later on, if you want to. Matthew’s going now,” he said. “Have you got another torch? No? Take this one, then.” He produced a flat pocket torch and handed it to Matthew. “I’ll hold the big one here to light you down, and when you get to the ledge at the bottom you can use that. It’s waterproof. Test your balance as you go; the steps are very slippery.”

Matthew put the torch in his shirt pocket. Nothing to do but go, now… He sat on the edge and turned half round, putting his weight on his hands on the crumbling stone coping, while his feet felt for the first step. It was wider than it had looked, and felt safe enough.

He paused. He could think of nothing at all to say; Elizabeth was crying, her shoulders slumped in utter exhaustion, and she looked so pitiable that he almost gave up.

No, he thought. Get on, get on… His mind cleared, and a powerful tense peace possessed him as he began to descend.

He lowered himself carefully from one step to the next, holding on with his wounded arm and feeling downwards with the other for the one below. He held himself away from the side; his feet found the steps easily enough, and after he had gone a little way the ease of the descent began to exhilarate him. He was alone, at last, and doing something.

After he’d counted twenty-four steps he lost count. His arm was aching severely; he could not hold himself steady with it for more than a couple of seconds. The light of the torch was dim, now, and most of the shaft in shadow. There was no odour of stagnation, but a curiously fresh, clean smell. The sound of the water was much louder; it was like an underground river, and he could not be very far above it now. So where was this ledge?

And then he fell.

His feet and hands lost their grip all at once, as suddenly as if he’d been pushed. It happened so swiftly that he had hardly realised it before he hit the water.

The shock of it nearly drove the air out of his lungs. He plunged under the surface and was immediately conscious of swift violent movement, to the right, he thought, away from the lake.

The next seconds were a chaos of whirling tumbling pressures and blows and a freezing maddening cold and above all the shouting raging screaming intolerable need to breathe.

His head broke surface; he gulped and gasped and bit at the air, swallowing it, ramming it into himself. Then the struggle for buoyancy and the urge to halt, stop, be still if he possibly could: several times he was swept into projecting rocks and then away before he could grab them. And the darkness was absolute and he had no way of telling whether a sudden dip in the roof might stun him and force him under again and drown him… He felt panic sweep up his chest, into his throat, and he forced himself to go with the current, trusting it, giving himself to it.

After what felt like hours but was only a minute his feet struck a rock in the river-bed, and then another and another and he was stumbling like a drunkard over them, still moving with the current and holding his hands out like a sleep walker to fend off low-hanging rocks.

The river had broadened suddenly; he could hear the noise of it sounding in a much larger space, echoing and resounding where before it had only rushed and splashed. It was shallower, and the current less strong in any one spot, so he could brace himself against it on the rocks of the bed.

He did so, and managed to halt at last, and stood for a moment balancing against the stream; it came up to his waist, that was all, but not all the rocks were as high as the one he was on. He listened carefully to get his bearings.

He guessed he was nearer the right-hand side than the left, and swung away, pushing towards the right. His legs crashed against the rocks, but he struggled upright again, and it was only a few feet away and he found it and hauled himself out, and on to a dry rock, triumphant.

Now what?

The torch; little hope that it would still work. He fumbled in his dripping clothes to get it out, and switched it on; miraculously, it lit up immediately.

The light was uneven, varying uncertainly from dimness to brightness, but it was as good as sunlight. He felt a part of his mind glow and expand in gratitude. He looked around, and caught his breath with astonishment.

He was in Canon Cole’s temple.

It was a wide, regular chamber. The floor was quite even. The river ran through the middle of it, and out at the far side over a wide shelf of rock. It looked like a waterfall; spray drifted upwards in the darkness beyond it, and a distant muffled booming seemed to indicate that it fell a long way.

But the chamber was decorated… It was rectangular, and bore the ancient marks of picks and chisels on its walls. Running all around it there was a frieze in ochre and red depicting men or angels worshipping and lighting. It was faded, and parts of it had peeled off while other parts were streaked and covered in dripping moisture, but there was clearly visible in it a gay, throbbing rhythm. It looked like a frozen dance, a ring-dance all around him. The flickering dim light of the torch gave it the illusion of movement; it would be even more apparent to the men who built it and to the worshippers, who had only naked flames to see by.

The dance was interrupted at one point. Directly in front of him as he stood with his back to the river was a panel on the wall, in mosaic, showing a huge round sun, ornamented at its edge with decorative rays in blue and red. The body of the sun was a light yellow, but parts of the mosaic had fallen away, leaving irregular black patches on it.

He stepped closer to look at it. He saw as he came near it that the black marks were not accidental, after all; black stones were set into the background, as carefully as the yellow, to form them.

What could they mean? Sunspots, he supposed. He shrugged involuntarily.

He looked around. The chamber was utterly still and cold. And there was no way out. The only gaps in the walls were the entrance and exit of the river… no, surely not! There must be another way out!

He examined the walls on his side of the river, looking for a gap, a concealed corner, a hidden stairway, anything. There was nothing at all; the walls were solid and bare. He tapped the mosaic panel, hammered his fists against it, to see if it contained any hidden machinery or secret panels that would swing open to show him the way out; and, naturally, there was nothing there either. Behind the mosaic was solid rock.

Across the river, in the other part of the chamber, there might be something… there must be something. He knelt on the rock that projected into the stream, and leant forward and shone the torch carefully on to every inch of it, into the corners where the walls met the roof, over the roof itself… Nothing.

The river, then, the river, quickly – what about that?

He scrambled off the rock, and went up close to the gap in the wall where it entered. It was a wide, regular archway, about eighteen feet across, and about four feet above the water at its highest point. He leant outwards, and shone the torch up inside it. He could see nothing but the broken, whirling surface of the water, and not much of it, at that; but it filled the tunnel from side to side, and there was no ledge or pathway. The roof of the tunnel came down in places to within a foot of the water.

He ran to the other end, where it left the chamber. The river fell into complete emptiness. The shaft or cavern, whatever it was, was so huge that the torch made no impression on the darkness of it. The spray rose thinly upwards, catching the feeble light. Matthew felt dizzy, and turned away. There was no way out.

It took a moment or two to sink in. And as soon as it had done, he had to fight against the urge to lie down and give in; but then slowly, as if »a mist was clearing in his head, he saw the edge of something tantalising, and knew he was nearly there… what was it? He was on the edge of realizing something: come on, come on, he said to himself excitedly, let me see what it is, let me see… It was something huge and paradoxical. He couldn’t get it in focus. It was something about the nature of the world.

At the very heart of it was the consciousness of his position now, trapped in a cave far below the surface of the earth, with the only entrance blocked – how could the first worshippers get in and out, then? How had Alan managed? His heart leapt for joy, and then he thought: obviously it was drier then. It’s been raining for weeks – this must be an overflow channel from the lake – and the source of that current! – until it stops, I’m stuck here –

Again came the flutter of panic in his breast, but it sub sided: something else was clearer as a result, another part of the realisation… It was like waking up and remembering a dream. A fierce cold joy possessed him, and he sat down on the stone floor and turned off the torch, in order to see it more clearly.

It was a compound of knowledge, joy, consciousness, and will, and it was burning on its own, now, burning steadily inside him. A feeling of claustrophobia, of the pressure of the earth above him, swept through his mind for a moment, but he dismissed it: it was irrelevant. There was something more important here. He urged himself forward at it – the feeling was almost sexual, the leading-up to orgasm. It was burning and simultaneously pulling him for ward, to a greater blaze, but not fast enough for him; he strained with it, sweating, his hands to his head.

He realised that now, trapped in a cave and probably doomed to die, he was more exultant than he had ever been in his life. He could have danced and sung for joy: but there was still a little further to go. And was that absurd? No, not at all; it was part of the meaning.

In a way, he saw, it was evil. Evil, ignorance, stupidity. Darkness. Death; with exultation at its heart. The nature of it all was paradoxical; the nature of everything was double edged.

Darkness had this blaze of exultation at the centre of it. The blazing sun had sunspots –

That was clearer, that was closer to it. Sunspots: he remembered that though they looked dark against the sun, in fact they were brighter, far brighter than anything on earth. It was only a difference in temperature that made them appear dark.

Morality was a description of the difference, a law for defining and not for commanding; like a scientific law, the law of gravity, the laws of thermodynamics.

He got up and paced the floor in his excitement.

That was absolute. Everything was converging. And there was nothing of human life in this chamber: this was as free as the space beyond the stars. He was at home here, with the cold silent dance in the darkness and the invisible sun, and the image of it and the joy of it were imprinted on his mind and on the cells of his body just as the image of its nesting-place was imprinted on the soul of a bird.

Yes! Of course birds had souls. Everything was conscious: consciousness was more fundamental than matter, and consciousness was will, and will was joy, and joy was knowledge…

Everything he had said or done in the past had tended towards this. He had been right, instinctively right, all along. He’d said it and done it without wholly knowing why: but now he knew, he saw it all at once, and he felt his heart melting with gratitude that he’d been so lucky. Luck was branded on him, like Alan’s objective values. Was it luck, though, that led him here to this cell in the rock? Of course it was, and he was lucky still.

He wasn’t the murderer. Alan was; and that was over. But his false guilt had shown him in the only way possible that he was a part of the world.

He wasn’t a gnostic. Canon Cole’s philosophy had made such a profound impression on him because the priest himself believed it so passionately: but Harry’s view of the world had always been there as a counter-balance, and, poised between them, he could not see the truth in anything. Both views could not be true simultaneously, he had thought; there was no way they could possibly coalesce. And yet there was, in this sunlike paradox, this clear inscrutable fact at the heart of things, and in the starry joy he felt. The joy was the paradox, and the paradox, no less, was the joy. Things existed; that was it, that was all that could be said: things existed.

He lay back calmly, and thought of his dream of Alan and the little girl. He was laughing with happiness, like a baby. Then he thought:

I am at the source of things now, and whatever I do will be imprinted on me for ever – the first thing I do now will be my deepest instinct and my firmest habit from now until I die. And I and the world are one and the same thing, so I can set up the same patterns in the world as I do in myself. I can create my own fate, I can generate my own luck, because the world is with me and not against me and because if I help myself, the world cannot help but do the same. I am the future; I am beginning now…

He was suddenly conscious of Alan. Telepathy: it was as clear as a bell, the impression of his brother’s presence. Alan had known what would happen. He had the sudden, unarguable knowledge that it was only yesterday that Alan had been down here. So: there was a way of leaving, something he’d overlooked and he’d only been looking at the cave, after all: not at himself! It was some faculty of his, then, that held the key!

It was solid: he knew it for certain. He’d find it. He saw Alan’s face for a second, clearly. His brother was smiling at him.

He stood up slowly, and began to think.