The Green Knight

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘Oh, if only – ’

  As they went on bemoaning the situation and wondering what to do next, Louise suddenly said, ‘Where’s Moy?’

  ‘She’s gone upstairs, she’s probably having a good cry.’

  They hurried up and down and called her name. They even ran out again into the road. But Moy was nowhere to be found. She too had vanished.

  On the previous evening when Louise had come down the stairs with Clement they had exchanged few words at the door. Both were horrified and appalled, they could not face each other. Louise said again, sounding almost in tears, ‘Don’t be distressed, I can’t bear it.’ Clement replied, ‘It’s all my fault. Oh Christ, I’m so very sorry. Goodnight.’

  He awoke the next morning to an instant consciousness of disaster. As he got up slowly and dressed clumsily he wondered in amazement how he had managed to be so cool about it all before. Why had he not realised what a terrible thing he had done, what a terrible situation he had put himself into, when he obeyed Lucas and ran away carrying that awful weapon with him concealed under his coat? Yet what else could he have done? At the time, it now occurred to him, he had run off simply because Lucas had told him to; and, when he reflected later, his thoughts were mainly of how Lucas had protected him, sparing him, as had happened sometimes in childhood when Lucas took the consequences of some blameworthy event. That he had placed himself in a position of falsehood, made himself into a liar, into something like an ‘accessory after the crime’, had not occurred to him at all. He had simply thought, well, what else could I do? It was better to keep out and let Lucas handle it all, as indeed he did! I would just have made every sort of blunder, and made things worse. Like I did when Peter Mir first appeared! Now I’ve messed things up completely, perhaps fatally. I’ve utterly discredited myself with them, I’ve virtually admitted to being some sort of liar, and I’ve lied again, and it will be proved against me. They will despise me, it’s the end! He said he would now talk to ‘others’ – that means the police, the press. I would be put in prison. And Lucas – The whole case would be reopened. But how did it all happen? Why didn’t Lucas come? He trusted me to carry it off! He was crazy. He might have known I’d break down. My whole life is ruined. What shall I do? I must do something. I can’t just sit here, until they come for me. Oh I’ve behaved so stupidly, so rottenly, so badly!

  He rang Lucas’s number but there was no answer. He rang at intervals, still no answer. He sat gnawing his fingers. About ten o’clock he could bear it no longer and ran out and drove to Lucas’s house, which had once been his house too, and rang the bell. No one. He introduced himself into the paved space behind the railings and peered into the front windows. One was curtained, the other showed the empty derelict dining-room now never used. He tapped on the windows and called out. He went to the side of the house where a passage with a gate led to the back garden. The gate was locked. He returned to the front and crossed the road and waited a while, watching the house. Then he drove back to his flat. As he had to do something or go mad he started to write a letter to Lucas.

  Why didn’t you come yesterday? I ruined everything, you might have known I would, Mir wiped the floor with me, he was just determined to tell his own story, someone, that is Tessa, asked if he had tried to steal your wallet, and he said no, what he had done was save my life! And Tessa asked me if I’d been there and I said no of course not, it was all a dream – he admitted earlier he could not remember some things, and the others picked that up, of course it was a fantasy he had in hospital and so on, but then he called me a liar and that really upset them, and I was all pathetic and trying to persuade him to understand and to go, and then he just told them the whole thing, that you had intended etc., and he said you had sent me away to get rid of the weapon, and all I could do then was repeat it was all imaginary, and he must be tired and please go away, and of course the women said the same, and at last he went away in a rage and said ‘Now I shall talk to other people and take other steps’. And God knows what they thought or what he’ll do! For heaven’s sake see me soon, I’ll keep on calling and ringing.

  C.

  When he had finished this missive Clement put it in an envelope and was about to take it round to Lucas’s house. However, he was filled with sudden misgivings. Suppose it were to fall into someone else’s hands? Suppose Mir were to get hold of it somehow? There couldn’t be a more incriminating document. After some reflection he tore it up and threw the fragments into the wastepaper basket. After more reflection he carefully picked up all the fragments and burnt them in the kitchen sink. After that he rang Lucas’s number and then drove round to his house again. No good. He thought of going to see Bellamy but decided against it. He drove back to Lucas’s house and shouted and waited, but now senselessly and without hope. This waiting reminded him of his long agonised waiting when Luc had disappeared and when he had wondered every day whether his brother had committed suicide. He imagined it now, as he became so sure that Lucas was inside the house. Perhaps he was indeed inside, lying dead, on the carpet in the drawing-room beside the gun (had Lucas once said that he had a gun?) or upon his bed beside the bottle of sleeping-pills. Realising the game was up he had taken his life. This idea, increasing in strength, was beginning to make him feel faint. He was also, by other faculties, being reminded that he had eaten nothing all day. Suddenly he decided (which he had considered earlier and rejected) to go to Clifton. He had thought it impossible to face Louise. Now he realised that he must go there, he must see her, he must.

  He parked his car and rang the bell. The door flew open. Sefton. He heard her call out in a tone of evident disappointment, ‘Oh – it’s Clement.’

  Louise ran down the stairs. ‘Clement, come in, come in. Such awful things. Anax has run away, and Moy has run away after him.’

  Standing in the hall Clement gathered something of the situation from Louise and the girls who were all talking at once and interrupting each other. Of course they had searched the neighbourhood, of course they had telephoned Mrs Drake and all sorts of people all over the place, and yes, of course they had considered that Moy would assume that Anax was walking back to Bellamy’s flat in Camden Town, and yes, they were at this very moment, see there’s the map laid out on the kitchen table, trying to decide which were the best routes to follow, and the girls were going out on their bicycles and Louise was going to stay at home in case, and please would Clement help.

  Of course Clement would help. It was decided that it would at this stage be a waste of time to try to fetch Bellamy who might not be there, but that the mobile three should set off at once along the most obvious routes between Hammersmith and Camden Town. Clement was able to remind them that Bellamy, who loved walking, had used to walk with Anax from his flat to Clifton, crossing Regent’s Park and Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. But how did he get from Regent’s Park to Hyde Park, and then from Kensington Gardens to Brook Green? There was no one obvious way, given that Bellamy, as they all now between them recalled, had liked to make various detours and visits on the way, to the canal at Little Venice, to the Victoria and Albert Museum, and there were more recent visits, while Anax was still with him, to Brompton Oratory, and so on, in fact there were hundreds of possible ways and they must decide something at once. What would Moy be likely to think that Anax would be likely to do? It was hurriedly agreed that Clement by car should take the route via Kensington High Street, over the Serpentine, Bayswater Road, Marble Arch, Baker Street, and the Albany Street side of Regent’s Park. Aleph on bicycle, should go via the Cromwell Road, walk her bike across Hyde Park, then via Gloucester Place and Marylebone Road and through the middle of Regent’s Park. While Sefton, on bicycle, was to go by Hammersmith Road, Kensington Church Street, Pembridge Villas, Westbourne Grove, Bishop’s Bridge Road, across the canal, Blomfield Road, St John’s Wood Road and so to Prince Albert Road and Regent’s Park, converging with Aleph.

  While the girls were checking their tyres and lamps in the garden shed, Clement and Louis
e were left alone for a moment. Clement, who had for that brief time forgotten his terrible troubles, wanted to say something quickly, something which, in an instant, would be the uttermost confession which would evoke the most absolute pardon; and as he thought that that was what he wanted he also thought what a coward he was, what a liar he was, how irrevocably rotten it all was. He was also feeling terribly hungry and wanting to ask Louise to give him something to eat. He said, ‘Forgive me for being a liar and a fool and an utterly worthless man.’ Louise replied, ‘I love you.’ He took her in his arms for a moment and they held each other with closed eyes.

  Anax had, since the terrible moment when he realised that Bellamy was not coming back to Clifton to fetch him home, been obsessed by one great thought, that of escape. He did not whine or claw at doors or do anything foolish which would reveal his intent. He was quiet and exceedingly watchful. He was fond of Moy, he understood her, but could not help sometimes looking at her reproachfully, knowing that she understood him. More remotely he liked Louise, still more remotely Sefton and Aleph. But these people were aliens; and the smell of the cat Tibellina still hung about the house, perceived by him alone. He grieved and waited, aware that his kind captors were careful not to let him stray. Sometimes he pretended to be happy, sometimes, quite accidentally, he was happy because for an instant he forgot, and then remembering was a greater grief. He did not reflect upon any reason why he had been deprived of the one he loved and to whom he had given his life. He knew simply that there was no other. He did not believe that his master rejected him or found him unworthy, indeed he could not imagine this. Nor did he imagine that his master might be dead, since Anax could not conceive of death. He felt only the painful unnatural severance from the loved one and the utterly poisoned wrongness of the world while the severance lasted. Of course he had expected, then later hoped for, then trusted in, his master’s return. Only lately had he realised that there would be no return and that it was for him, Anax, to seek his Lord, who might be somewhere in need, perhaps captive too, waiting, deprived and unconsoled. Nor did Anax doubt the authentic authority of the magnetism which would, when the time came, draw him back to his master. Surely the moment of liberation must come, a moment conceived of by Anax as one of almost instant reunion. If he could only run towards the beloved he would be with him, nothing more was needed than that flinging of himself into the great void of that dreadful absence. Only very vaguely did he think of what would happen, what he would do. He did not picture any plan, but simply knew that as soon as he was free he would be guided.

  When the instant of liberation came it came as a surprise, like a lightning flash, a sudden rending of the whole so sadly familiar scene. His collar had been taken off, his breakfast was late but it was being prepared, he was sitting quietly in the kitchen, his paws stretched out, his head upon his paws. Then all at once there was a lot of noise, Moy was standing there dripping and crying, and the others were shouting. Anax was distressed and wanted to bark. But then he saw, as they all crowded up the stairs, the front door standing wide open. Just for a second he hesitated, some craven atom in his being held him back. Then he bounded out, sprang down the steps, turned to the right, and ran away through the maze of little streets.

  He ran so fast that people turned and stared after him, turning again to see what dreadful pursuer had inspired such speed. Once he had started Anax found that he knew his way perfectly well, he was guided. He was sure that when the moment came to use the knowledge he would possess it. Following a way which he must have traversed some time, but certainly not many times, he passed through the little streets, behind Olympia and down to Hammersmith Road, where it joined Kensington High Street, which was familiar territory. Here he had to stop running, partly because he was tired, and because of the dense moving forest of people’s legs. Cannily he turned away into a quiet road which was parallel to the High Street and loped along it. He crossed Kensington Church Street, waiting for the lights to change.

  By this time Clement Graffe, in a very distressed state of mind, had set out in his car on what he deemed to be a hopeless quest. He drove down Hammersmith Road in an easterly direction toward the parks. The women had so burdened him with their fears and their imaginings, he was unable to gain any satisfaction from his attempt to be useful. The misty haze was thicker, cars were turning their lights on. He pictured Anax run over, Moy raped. He drove slowly along, examining the people and the dogs on the left-hand pavement. At first he drove very slowly and attracted the attention of a suspicious policeman, after that he increased his pace a little. Sometimes one trouble can drive out another, but this miserable catastrophe seemed simply to intensify his confused grief about Lucas and his fear of what Peter Mir might now decide to do. His intense piercing desire to find Lucas and confess to him now merged with old old feelings which he had had about his brother, feelings of terror, feelings of love, feelings of – not exactly hate – it was somehow clear to him that he could never hate Lucas – perhaps because of – some deep eternal guilt, the guilt of having been his mother’s favourite, the guilt of having been born at all. And now he was wasting his time looking stupidly for a girl and a dog, when he should have been waiting at Lucas’s door, and even now the two miscreants might have reappeared at Clifton, while he was methodically performing a pointless task well in tune with the grinding hell he had made for himself lately. Why had he wantonly made himself so unhappy? It had all started with Harvey’s idiotic fall. He could have stopped Harvey, why didn’t he stop him, he seemed to want things to go wrong. Louise had embraced him because she was sorry for him, she was sorry because he had pathetically exposed himself as an incompetent prevaricating bungler. She had made some cheese sandwiches for him and he had eaten one and in his haste left the others behind. He said to himself, they won’t really think about it, what Mir said, they’ll just regard it all as some sort of bizarre mystery. That was the best he could hope for. Would Aleph think about it? She too would be sorry for him. His attention was failing, his stare, directed at the moving people, was glazed over. He could see nothing except Aleph’s bright eyes, sparkling with delighted interest, and the way she had looked when she said of Peter Mir, ‘He’s an absolute pet!’

  Anax, following without hesitation his computer guide, had reached his first main objective, Kensington Gardens, and was now beside the Round Pond, where he stopped to drink the muddy water, chilling his throat and his paws. He (too) had had no breakfast and was feeling hungry. He was also uneasily aware that he was not wearing his collar, and that troubled him. He felt undressed, unsafe. A mob of water-birds, ducks, swans, Canada geese, even a moorhen, were gathered jostling and fighting in the shallow water for pieces of bread which some children were throwing. Pigeons and sparrows were waiting hopefully upon the path for crumbs. A crust carelessly thrown fell near Anax and he snapped it up, just forestalling a pigeon. When he tried to seize another piece of bread he was threatened by a goose advancing from the water and he retreated. The children laughed at him. He looked at them with his baleful blue eyes and they stopped laughing. One of them shouted at him. He turned and ran away with a purposive air. A little way away some dogs were playing and he paused with them for a moment and pretended to play too, but his heart was not in it, and anyway they were rather rough. Anax did not really like other dogs, and regarded them one and all as an inferior species. A little further on some boys were playing football with a big black labrador who had learnt to dribble the ball with his nose. People passing by were laughing. Anax scorned the animal’s undignified behaviour. Nearby some gardeners were burning a pile of dead leaves, and the fierce burning smell mingled with the chill fog smell. Anax sneezed. He paused in the longer grass and stood quite still. Suddenly the spirit that directed him had seemed to fail. A woman came up to him and spoke kindly to him and stroked him, and he wagged his tail absently. He walked on, moving his long grey muzzle slowly to and fro.

  Clement had by this time left the High Street by the road which led to the Serp
entine bridge. Pulling himself together and trying to imagine what Moy would be likely to do, he decided that if she had come to the Gardens, she would stay there, at least for some time, conjecturing that if Anax got that far he too would stay, and converse with other dogs. (Neither Clement nor Moy reckoned with Anax’s contempt for these animals.) He parked his car near the bridge and set off on foot along the edge of the Long Water, calling out occasionally, ‘Moy!’, ‘Anax!’ When he neared the Fountains he gave up these cries which sounded so bizarre and unnatural, and turned back, making a detour across the grass. In doing this he passed in fact quite close to Anax who, the magnetic ray having resumed its force, was now running diagonally in the direction of the Marlborough Gate. As they passed Speke’s Obelisk, Anax on the west and Clement on the east, they were scarcely more than two hundred yards apart. If at that moment Clement had caught sight of the dog and had managed to capture him, the fates of a number of people in this story would have been entirely different. Such is the vast play of chance in human lives. However, this did not happen and as Anax disappeared in the direction of the Gate, Clement had decided to return to his car. He sat quietly in the car for a few minutes, suddenly entertaining a vivid mental picture of Aleph long-legged upon her bicycle, and for a few seconds it was as if it were Aleph whom he was so anxiously seeking and running to earth. Perhaps they would meet at Marble Arch. In fact at that moment Aleph, following Clement’s intuition that girl and dog might both be somewhere in the park, had left her bicycle, carefully though perilously chained up at Speaker’s Corner, and was exhibiting her long legs by hurrying in the direction of the Reservoir. At that moment also Sefton, having mistakenly turned left at the Blomfield Road bridge, was lost, quite unable to find her way back to the canal. As Clement set off again, driving slowly in the direction of the Victoria Gate, Anax was already running up Sussex Gardens.