So every way the wind blows this sweetie goes in the South.
While Clarence saw an assurance like maturity drawing itself in the set of the head and the subtle mouth.
Picus looked for a moment out to sea, and began:
“What have you been doing the last three days, since I went off to Tambourne?”
“Stayed on with Ross a bit. Walked over. Got the place shined up.”
“It must have been pretty hot?”
“The sun bored like worms into your head.”
“What happened then?”
“There was lots to do, but I found the nights, short as they are, damned long. When it isn’t dark and it’s going to get dark and you listen out. You know. But in places like this you can never tell what day which happened.”
“What was yesterday like?”
Clarence screwed round, ever so little equivocally.
“I sort of remember that something rather miserable happened in the morning. Might have been a letter.” And quickly—“But I can’t account at all for the statue being in bits. I know you’ll say it doesn’t matter what happens to my work, but Ross liked it. You said you liked it yourself—”
“Looksey,” said Picus, tenderly—“you’ve got to know, you know. You went off the deep-end again.”
“You mean I smashed it myself?”
“No. I did a bit. I mean I broke it. I felt I had to.”
Clarence listened gravely, his eyes still altering their angle.
“Well, if you thought it bad, that’s that. But you’ve taken so much of my life, do you think you should do in my work, also?”
“It wasn’t for that. You’ve forgotten about yesterday. You said something miserable happened, and it did.” (Now are his eyes shifting memory or madness?) “Remember when you thought you were a nun? This time you must have thought you were Apollo, or a Roman official with an early Christian. There was some story in town, and Lydia sent you a letter. And Scylla came down here on purpose to clear it up and fetch you along. She found you shooting at me, and you tied her up and shot her. Carston came over and probably saved her life. I followed, and by then you’d got through your fit and were asleep. She isn’t badly hurt. That’s what happened. Why I brought you down here. And you can kick me for my fantasies and tempers. Half the blame’s on me.” Is this going to release me? Have I been looking for that? This sweetie goes?
“It’s another of your stories,” Clarence said.
“Go up and see.”
“Excuse to put me in an asylum. I get you.”
“Balls, man. The old man at Tambourne, the vicar, I mean c’d explain. Tell us what we could do.”
“His orders aren’t even valid.”
“Don’t know what you mean. Go and see. You tied her with the lariat. You shot a gull to wing your arrows. There’s one struck her shoulder and her side. After Carston had cut her down, I smashed myself up with the axe. Sort of apology.”
“Did I really shoot a gull?”
“You shot her till she fainted.”
“Did I drag your statue out and shoot you?”
“Picked me out carefully.”
“It was the best thing I’ve done, but I haven’t hurt you, boy?”
“You threw Scylla. She cut her head on a stone. Carston took an arrow out below her left breast. She was pinned to me by her shoulder—”
“Getting kick out of it, aren’t you?”
“Go and see.”
“And face that dumb fool Carston.”
“Look at Scylla.”
“Where’s the cup?”
“You put it in the well.”
Silence, while Picus watched the bright, brown close-set eyes turn this way and that. Never into his eyes. Never out to sea. Over his shoulder, at the fish-bones, into his cup.
“It’s a clever way of breaking things up. You say that you came later?”
“An hour. You were lying in the studio. You were saying something about worms and time and cups. I think you know, that you actually did a dream.”
His simplicity amazed Clarence: made him thoughtful.
“I am sure that you’re letting Carston take you in. You’re simple sometimes, bless you. You weren’t there. He found me a bit off my head and I went in and fell asleep. As a matter of fact, I don’t remember yesterday.
“I’m going up. You might stay and see if that net we broke is mended and follow. I even think you believe this, but it is more likely to be some revenge of Carston’s—”
It was suggested to him, fretfully and quite unjustly, that Carston could neither improvise a bow and arrows, throw a leaded cord, or hit a sitting haystack. And it was painful on their present undertaking to see Clarence stride off to clear up the affair. Picus fidgeted about the beach and threw unsuccessful ducks and drakes. One suddenly skimmed out. So much for that.
And every way the wind blows this sweetie goes in the South.
Clarence followed him full of anger, full of breakfast up the hill. Then, as he climbed and felt the strengthening sun, of a kind of catchy fear. The nut was shrinking. How was he to persuade Carston that they had not been entertained by a sadist? The business faintly excited him. With each step he felt the sun’s menace. He wanted to be alone under the cool thatch and whittle at a mazer he was making to hold punch at parties. A present for Scylla.
The night before Carston had thrown out the half-plucked gull over the cliff. It had caught on a bush, and almost at the door Clarence saw the torn white rags. He stood a long time while the dew dried.
“I suppose I thought she was the bird.” The whole memory came back. The nut in his head dissolved like a drop of wax. His skull filled with pure memory.
The figure he had cut with his excuses. How save his reputation for sanity? With Picus. With all of them?
What does one do when one has done a thing like that?
How act a repentance unfelt as yet, only betrayal by time, chance, magic,
