Free The Revolt of Aphrodite by Lawrence Durrell Page A

breath came faster and faster, he gasped and gulped with a perverted pleasure. At last he gave a final squeak and lay spread-eagled on the stone flags. They went on beating him until they saw no further sign of life and then, panting, desisted and burst into peals of hysterical laughter. The corpse of Sipple was unchained, disentangled and hoisted lovingly on to the truckle bed. “Well done” said Mrs. Henniker. “Now he will sleep.” Indeed Sipple had already fallen into a deep infantile slumber. He had his thumb in his mouth and sucked softly and rhythmically on it.
    They surrounded his bed filled with a kind of commiserating admiration and wonder. On slept Sipple, oblivious. I noticed the markings on his arms and legs—no larger than blackheads in a greasy skin: but unmistakably the punctures of a syringe. The shadows swayed about us. One of the lamps had begun to smoke. And now, in the middle of everything, there came a sharp hammering on a door somewhere and Mrs. Henniker jumped as if stung by a wasp and dashed away down the corridor. Everyone waited intableau grouped about the truckle bed until she should reappear—which she did a moment later at full gallop crying: “Quick, the police.”
    An indescribable confusion now reigned. In pure panic the girls scattered like rabbits to a gunshot. Windows were thrown open, doors unbolted, sleepers were warned to hurry up. The house disgorged its inhabitants in ragged fashion. I found myself running along the dunes with Pulley and Caradoc in the frail starshine. Our car had disappeared, though there seemed to be another on the road with only its dim sidelights on. Having put a good distance between ourselves and the house we lay in a ditch panting to await developments. Later the whole thing turned out to have been a misunderstanding ; it was simply two sailors who had come to claim their recumbent friend. But now we felt like frightened schoolboys. Concern for the sleeping clown played some part in Caradoc’s meditations as we lay among the squills, listening to the sighing sea. Then the tension ebbed, and turning on his back the Cham’s thoughts changed direction. Presumably Hippolyta’s chauffeur had beaten a retreat in order not to compromise her reputation by any brush with the law. He would be back, of that my companions were sure. I chewed grass, yawning. Caradoc’s meditations turned upon other subjects, though only he and Pulley were au courant. Out of this only vague sketches swam before me. Something about Hippolyta having ruined her life by a long-standing attachment, a lifelong infatuation with Graphos. “And what the devil can she think we will achieve by my giving a Sermon on the Mount on the blasted Acropolis?” Nobody cared what savants thought. Graphos might save the day, but his career was at its lowest ebb. He had had several nervous breakdowns and was virtually unable to lead his party even if the government fell, as they thought it would this winter. And all because he was going deaf.
    I perked up. “Can you imagine a worse fate for a politician raised in a tradition of public rhetoric? No wonder he’s finished.”
    “Did you say deaf ?”I said.
    “Deaf!” I had become very fond of the word and repeated it softly to myself. It had become a very beautiful word to me.
    “And I have to sermonise on the Mount” repeated Caradoc withdisgust. “Something to give ears to the deaf, something full of arse-felt greetings and blubberly love. I ask you. As if it could avert the worst.”
    “What worst?” I asked; it seemed to me that for days now I had done nothing but ask questions to which nobody could or would provide an answer. Caradoc shook himself and said: “How should I know? I am only an architect.”
    Lights were coming down the road. It was Hippolyta’s car. We signalled and galloped towards it.
    * * * * *
    S omewhere here the continuity becomes impacted again, or dispersed . “I was the fruit of a mixed mirage” said Caradoc,