by Iris Murdoch
‘I don’t know what to make of it,’ said Clement. ‘Do you think he’s a bit mad? Poor fellow. It could be the result of the blow. Or could he be some sort of impostor? No, that’s impossible. Anyway you recognised him.’
‘Yes. That was the initial blunder. I should not have recognised him. He recognised you. Only that doesn’t matter so much since you weren’t there.’
‘You mean – ? Oh yes – do you think he’ll turn up tomorrow?’ Mir had said departing that he proposed to return at six o’clock on the following evening and trusted it was convenient. Lucas had not replied.
‘Oh he’ll turn up all right. He’s made a good start.’
‘He wanted you to say you didn’t think he was a thief. Perhaps that will do, I mean that may have been what he really came for?’
‘That was just an introduction.’
‘Lucas, I’ve just thought. He looks very like a man I’ve seen hanging around outside my place, and then outside Louise’s house. I’m sure it was him. What on earth can that mean?’
‘He knew our name. He must have been watching this house, he picked you up too, and you led him to Clifton.’
‘He was waiting for you.’
‘Yes! Did Louise notice him, did she say anything to you?’
‘No. But I don’t understand, when he came round, when he revived, why didn’t he contact the police at once to tell them his story? Well, he may have been pretty confused to begin with – but he seems all right now. Why didn’t he tell the police?’
‘The fact that he apparently didn’t is certainly interesting.’
‘Perhaps he didn’t feel certain and thought they wouldn’t believe him.’
‘He is either very stupid or very clever.’
‘But anyway he can’t prove anything, can he?’
‘He may reckon that he can get something out of me, and if he fails he can always tell the police, and if he succeeds he can still tell the police.’
‘Oh – Lucas – he’ll blackmail you, he’ll want money.’
‘He was intelligent enough not to go public at once. His secret is worth more. Perhaps money – perhaps – other things.’
‘But, Luc, if he did say what he thinks happened why should anyone believe him, they’d say he invented it, or dreamed it in his coma.’
‘So he’d be discredited a second time, not only a thief, and not only not dead, the rotter, but a vindictive liar!’
‘Well – anyway if he just thinks a bit he’ll see you can’t be blackmailed after all.’
‘My dear boy, you are not thinking.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘You called him a “poor fellow”.’
‘Yes – so?’
‘Would you stand by and let him be rejected and disgraced when he was telling the truth?’
Clement was silent. He fetched a chair and sat on it at some distance from Lucas. He said, ‘Well, don’t forget your promise.’
‘You are priceless! I don’t forget promises. The point is he could make a great deal of unpleasant trouble for me, and for you too. He might be believed anyway, without your testimony.’
‘But I – ’
‘Don’t say it. God what a mess. I want you out of it.’
‘Thank you – but of course I’ll come tomorrow and stand by – ’
‘No. I don’t want him to see you again. But I must have someone here. It’ll have to be Bellamy.’
‘Surely you don’t want him to know.’
‘All right – hang it, you come. But I’d like you to see Bellamy, just say that the fellow is back, and not to tell anyone. Don’t say you’ve seen the man. I may need Bellamy later.’
‘You know – in all the conversations we’ve had we have not considered the possibility that I might – ’
‘As you said just now about him, who would believe you? For once you have said something quite amusing however. As you have not spoken hitherto I assume you had motives.’
‘Yes, I had motives – but then I thought he was dead.’
‘Well, review the situation now if you want to, only don’t bother me. I doubt if you would be happy if you destroyed me. But you must decide. Be sure to come tomorrow. I don’t want to be alone in the house with that man.’
‘You are afraid of him.’
‘Yes.’
In the evening of that same day Louise alone in her bedroom was restless. Nothing had happened during the day, she had done a lot of necessary shopping. Joan had telephoned her. The children had gone out. How did she know now where they went? The rain had stopped. There was a foggy darkness outside. She had had her early supper earlier than usual and retired as to bed. She had even put on her nightdress, lifting her arms as if in prayer or in the performance of a rite. She had brushed her stiff hair with a stiff brush. She was dressed to go to bed only it was ridiculously early to go to bed. She desired to be unconscious. She could not go on reading A Glastonbury Romance, she would not sleep, she could not sew. Upon a chair lay an old evening-dress which she had started to shorten so as to wear it on Moy’s birthday. She paced up and down making little scarcely audible noises in her throat. At intervals she smoothed out her face with her hands and put on a smile and then let it vanish. Tonight, the presence of the girls tormented her, it made her itch and twitch as if she were covered with ants. Moy’s noisy pounding as she ran upstairs, Sefton’s firm martial tread, the cat-like footsteps of Aleph, their voices calling to one another like birds, the tinkle of the piano, the endless sentimental singing, the laughter: the silences, the whispers, the confederacy, not of course against her, but excluding her. Their budding womanhood, the milky smell of their innocence, their secret discovery of sex. She feared for them, she trembled for them, now sometimes she wept for them. Of course she loved them, of course they loved her. But love cannot always find out a way.
A lamp revealed her bed, neatly opened to receive her. She sat down upon the bed, upon the inviting sheet, folding her hands in a gesture not unlike Aleph’s. She thought about Teddy and his perfect command of the world. The last days of Teddy’s life had been terrible. She had lately read in a newspaper that scientists had now proved that there could not be in the whole cosmos any other beings in any sense like us. How could they prove such a thing? Not that Louise craved for aliens. It was just that the thought generated, out of her little local solitude, a vast cosmic solitude. The tiny solitary planet, the poor doomed little planet, for it too must die and its death will be terrible. To whom could she talk now? Clement came less often, and when he came she talked less. If she burst out, as she used to do, with any wild and impetuous speech, about the children for instance, she felt that she would embarrass him, even annoy him. She had asked him about Lucas and he had answered curtly. Louise wanted to talk to Lucas, she even felt she ought to go and see him, but she was afraid to. He was so difficult. Here a blunder, any blunder, might involve, for her, pain, regret, remorse.
Looking across the room she saw her pink and blue and white striped silk evening-dress, its high bodice lying on the floor, its sweeping skirt upon the chair. It could still fit her perfectly. It had been a bold moment when she had cut the skirt to make it shorter. Her needle and thread, at rest in the new tucked-up hem, were clearly visible in the light of the lamp. The thin needle was shining, glittering coldly like a diamond. Louise stared at it. It was so clean, so strong, so perfect, a needle at its work. But how little it was, in an instant it could be lost forever. So now all she could do was shorten her dress? She moved and the needle vanished. Among so many troubles she selected one: Bellamy’s cottage used to solve all summer holiday problems. What would happen now?
Aleph had said that Harvey was coming to see her, Aleph, that evening. Louise had announced she was going to bed early. Not that Harvey was likely to want to see Louise. He often now came to the house without seeing her. Louise thought about the birthday party when everyone wore masks. Moy would be sixteen. She wished it was all over. She wished her visit to Lucas was all over an
d all right. She thought about Harvey whom she so much wanted to see and so much wished that he was really her own dearly beloved son.
Moy, upstairs in her room, had been thinking about the black-footed ferret. The black-footed ferret, an animal about whose preservation Moy had once been profoundly concerned, had become something of a family joke. Moy herself had become less ardent, having been unable to find out anything about the fate of the creature, or to discover anywhere a photograph of it. She was even at times ready to be persuaded that it did not actually exist, but had been, always and from the start, the invention of some jesting naturalist. Generally however she felt sure that it existed, or had existed being now extinct. What remained was its name, which had for her a certain magic, and a mental picture of it as somehow coming close, glad that she was thinking about it, reaching out its little black paws in gratitude. The lively presence of the ferret had perhaps been given substance by memories of a hamster, a real hamster called Colin, who had been Moy’s pet when she was about seven. She had held Colin in her hands and let him move quietly from hand to hand, feeling his warm smooth belly and his little gripping feet, not, she felt sure, trying to escape, but communing with her in a friendly way. And when she held up the tame docile little beast before her face and looked at his gentle eyes she felt sure that he was happy with her and loved her. One terrible day however, when Moy was with Colin in the garden, letting him walk upon the grass, and was distracted from him for a moment, he vanished. Her mother and sisters assured her that Colin was perfectly well, probably now in some other garden, enjoying eating the plants and living free. They never told her that they had found his poor little body a day later, killed by a cat. Sefton and Aleph concealed their tears. Louise shed tears too, concealed from all.
Now she knelt down beside Anax, who was curled up in his basket, and began to stroke him. He looked at her with his strange light-blue eyes which could look so sad. She thought, will he never forget, never forgive? As if he knew her thought he thrust his long muzzle towards her, pressing it up gently against her hand as she drew her fingers back over his long sleek head into the dry bushy fur. His nose was moist, but his copious flag of a tail lay inert, not stirring for her comfort. She sighed and sat back on the floor, holding the side of the basket with one hand. What could she do? Every day she rescued the snail or slug or worm from the pavement where it might be stepped on, the spider from the bath where it was imprisoned, the tiniest almost invisible creatures who were in some wrong place where they might starve or be crushed. She was expert at catching them, coaxing them onto a leaf or into a vessel or into her hand. She was the one too who always found things which were lost in the house. But was this not something fruitless or even bad? How did she know what little living creatures, and even things, wanted her to do? The whole world was a jumble of mysterious destinies. Did the stones who were picked up by humans and taken into their houses mind, did they dislike being inside a house, dry, gathering dust, missing the open air, the rain, perhaps the company of other stones? Why should she think that they must feel privileged because she had, out of a myriad others, discovered them and picked them up? She felt this weird anxiety sometimes as she caressed a rounded sea-worn pebble or peered into the glittering interior of a flint.
Now she had taken Anax, of course not wantonly or wilfully, away from his beloved, and was keeping him prisoner. She was utterly responsible to him, suppose, because of her, he were run over? Or suppose he ran away and, trying to find Bellamy, got lost and was never seen again? Sitting beside him now, pressing her face against his side and hearing his fast heart beating, she murmured, ‘I’m sorry.’ She sat back, continuing to stroke him, feeling him trembling a little. Then she noticed that he was staring past her at something else. She turned in time to see something moving upon the shelf, a piece of grey speckled granite had shifted from its place. Moy was used to being called ‘fey’, not attaching much meaning to the word. Lately however she had developed a curious power, that of making small objects move simply by looking at them with a certain concentration. She had discovered this talent by accident, she even knew a scientific name for it, telekinesis. The fact that it had this impressive name might have served as a reassurance since it implied that other people had it too. However it frightened Moy and she kept it secret. What had just happened alarmed her even more. So now things could move on their own, perhaps whenever they wished? Or perhaps it was all due to her, her proximity, her aura? Did Anax know about it, did he fear it? He was gazing up and growling softly.
She went to the shelf and picked up the piece of granite and set it down again very firmly, saying ‘There!’ She said to Anax, ‘Be quiet, don’t fret.’ She opened the window. Damp foggy air came in. She opened the door. She looked about her room which was strewn with cardboard, textiles, newspaper, ready to make the masks for the party. She heard, down below, Aleph talking to Harvey whom she had just let in from the street. She closed the door again. She thought, perhaps I am simply mad. It will grow worse. That will be my life. Anax was still growling softly.
Below in Aleph’s room Harvey was sitting on the bed with his wounded leg extended. Aleph sat near upon the upright chair at her desk, her arms around his crutches.
‘So, no cast. That must be good.’
‘Not necessarily. They’re experimenting. They’ve just tied it up very beastly tight. I think honestly they don’t know what to do.’
‘I bought you a knitting needle so you could scratch inside the cast.’
‘How kind! Hang onto it. I may need it for some extreme act later on.’
‘How does it feel?’
‘It’s burning, it’s swelling. I may have to rush it to the hospital again tomorrow. It’s like an evil alien thing which has been attached to my body. I can’t attend to anything else. I’ve stopped reading, I’ve stopped thinking. You are working away I see! Everyone calls Sefton the swot, but you do it discreetly just as much. I even suspect you are cleverer than me.’
‘Oh no! How can you say that!’
‘You think you would stop caring for me if you believed it?’
Aleph laughed and clinked the crutches together. ‘Well, one must work, what else is there, what other meaning is there in life?’
‘You’ve got that ewige Wiederkehr feeling again.’
‘Nothing so interesting.’
‘So you’re not a romantic any more, youth at the prow and pleasure at the helm, not even the Magus Zoroaster?’
‘Oh do not speak of him. So you contemplate an extreme act?’
‘No, I wish I could. We have been so much loved, I can’t give life any other meaning, am I supposed now to create new meanings?’
‘We have been so much loved, yes. You agree that you have been too – ’
‘Aleph, don’t separate me from the enchanted circle.’
‘You know nothing about enchantment.’
‘Don’t talk death to me, sometimes you do. All right, my father and my mother both ran away. I was left abandoned in the forest. But I was found – ’
‘By Louie and Aleph and Sef and Moy. Well, that can’t go on, the dream must end.’
‘All right. And I know I shall never be happy as I once was. But there is a standard to be carried on, I meant a flag but in the other meaning too. Don’t be a nihilist to me just when I need courage to go on.’
‘You are thinking of your leg, but that will mend.’
‘No, that’s just a symbol, a reminder – I may or may not be lame forever – but it makes me see the rest – the horror – ’
‘We are pampered children,’ said Aleph, ‘we don’t know anything about the horror. For us it’s just an exciting bogy.’
‘You are cut off from me today. It hurts.’
‘Oh silly – it’s just my old sick soul! Yet night approaches, better not to stay.’
‘I feel so senseless and contingent and unmade.’
‘That’s simply the youth disease. Brace up, Harvey boy!’
‘If only I
had gone to Florence. Now I shall never go. I did it on purpose and I deserve it all. I love you, dear Aleph.’
‘I love you.’
‘Yes, but that’s like ordinary responses in church. I love you but I don’t deserve you, I can’t really conceive of you, apprehend you, I have to go through some ordeal before I am worthy – ’
‘You have an ordeal, you have damaged your leg.’
‘That’s just a stupid accident.’
‘You mean the gods didn’t send it? Sefton says you are like Philoctetes.’
‘What a perfectly beastly comparison! No, don’t tease me. This contingent nonsense isn’t the ordeal – ’
‘Whatever will count as one then?’
‘I don’t know, but I feel it’s there, if only I were brave enough to reach it – ’
‘Perhaps it is I who am to have the ordeal.’
‘Yes, like the girl chained to the rock.’
‘No, not like the girl chained to the rock.’
‘Sorry, you’re the one on the horse with the sword – ’
‘You were always to be young Lochinvar.’
‘Only he arrived in time – ’
‘Dear Harvey, perhaps we have to love each other, and to find each other run the risk of not finding each other!’
‘You’re not serious, you just make it all run away into the sand! Never mind, we’ll try again another day! How’s Clement, have you seen him since Lucas came back? I suppose he’s seen Lucas.’
‘I don’t know, I suppose he has. He was here when Bellamy brought the news.’
‘I know, Bellamy told me. Clement comes here a lot, doesn’t he, so Bellamy thought he’d find him – ’
‘Unfortunately Anax heard Bellamy’s voice and he started to howl terribly. Moy was very upset.’
‘I’d have been upset too. I must go and see Lucas.’
‘Oh – why?’
‘I just have to, it’s a compulsion.’
