The Green Knight

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘Wouldn’t you like something to eat?’ said Louise. ‘I’m afraid we are all vegetarians here, well Clement isn’t are you, Clement?’

  ‘I am a vegetarian myself,’ said Peter, ’I am very much for ecology. I am a member of the Green Party.’

  ‘That‘s why you dress in green,’ said Aleph, ‘you’ve got a green tie and a green umbrella, and your suit is a sort of green too.’

  ‘Yes. I care very much about animals.’

  ‘Anax must have known that instinctively.’

  ‘But wouldn’t you like a sandwich, a vegetarian one?’

  ‘No, no thank you, I must be getting away now, my car is parked on a double yellow line! I’m just so very glad about what has happened this evening, it’s so perfect, like a gift from the gods – I must not outstay my welcome. But I do hope I may see you all again?’

  ‘Oh – indeed – ’

  ‘Well, let us say au revoir then, au revoir Moy, I wish I’d seen you struggling with that swan. Of course you know the story of Zeus and Leda.’

  ‘But Moy fought him off!’ said Sefton.

  ‘So it seems, but who knows what will happen later on! Of course, I’m jesting, don’t mind me!’

  ‘Please come to Moy’s birthday party!’ said Aleph. ‘That’s all right, isn’t it, can’t he come?’

  ‘Yes, do!’ said Sefton. ‘It’s Tuesday next week!’

  Peter looked at Louise. ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘do come if you’d like to. It starts at seven but – come any time – it’s quite informal – just family really – ’

  ‘So, I trust I can count as family! It is evening-dress?’

  ‘No, it’s fancy dress!’ cried Sefton. ‘Everyone has to wear a mask!’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ said Louise, ‘not everyone wears a mask or fancy dress, it’s just the children!’

  ‘But you can if you like,’ said Aleph.

  ‘I’ll see you down,’ said Louise,

  Beside the front door they paused, ‘Please, I don’t know your first name.’

  ‘Louise.’

  ‘I like that name. May I call you Louise?’

  ‘Of course. But listen – ’

  ‘Yes, yes. You have things to say to me.’

  ‘Yes, but I can’t say them. You know what I want to say – ’

  ‘Of course, you were distressed by that scene.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s true, but – can’t it all be explained – can’t it all end peacefully?’

  ‘Peace. Women always want peace. I thank you from my heart. I shall think of you and of those lovely girls, and perhaps – well I shall see you at the party. Goodnight.’

  When Louise returned to the Aviary the others were playing the game of what character in fiction Peter Mir reminded them of.

  ‘I think he’s Mr Pickwick,’ said Louise.

  ‘Oh no! Never!’ said Sefton. ‘I think he’s more like Prospero.’

  ‘I think he’s the Green Knight,’ said Aleph. ‘Come on, Moy, what do you think?’

  ‘I think he’s the Minotaur.’

  ‘The Minotaur isn’t a literary character, he’s a mythical character,’ Sefton objected.

  ‘Oh really – !’

  ‘What does Clement think?’ said Aleph.

  ‘I think he’s Mephistopheles.’ said Clement.

  ‘Surely not, he’s so nice!’ said Louise. ‘Do you think we should tell Bellamy about Anax?’

  ‘No, not now, later maybe. Better not tell him at all. He’s got enough troubles.’

  ‘Anyway, all’s well.’

  ‘Oh I forgot, I must ring the police and Mrs Drake.’

  They all went downstairs together declaring how hungry they were. Clement was invited to supper but declined. He had hoped to have a private audience with Louise. She had granted one to Peter Mir. But she waved him off without a tête-à-tête. Clement let himself out of the front door. The fog had lifted, but the air was very cold and an east wind was blowing. His car was already coated with frost. He got in and lowered his head onto the steering wheel.

  ‘How interesting about the dog.’

  ‘Oh bother the dog!’

  ‘The dog has done what we have failed to do.’

  ‘Introduce him to the family! Yes!’

  ‘The man has uncanny properties.’

  ‘He has spent some time being dead.’

  ‘Why didn’t he stay dead!’

  ‘Perhaps he did. Moy said he seemed like a dead person. But that was before – ’

  ‘Indeed, before – What a mess you’ve made.’

  ‘Why didn’t you turn up? He suddenly asked me whether I’d been there on that night. I couldn’t say yes, it would have been the end, I couldn’t pledge them all to secrecy, besides – ’

  ‘But that was after he’d said that he’d saved your life.’

  ‘Yes, yes, and that was after Tessa Millen had asked him whether he’d tried to steal your wallet. Oh God, who will keep Tessa’s mouth shut!’

  ‘Come, come, you admitted nothing. Still I ought to have briefed you. I thought if I said I wasn’t coming you’d call it off. I relied upon your wit and your common sense. You should not have given him that opening, you should never have let the situation arise. You should have arranged it all with Louise beforehand.’

  ‘But we were waiting for you!’

  ‘Yes, but when you decided I wasn’t coming – ’

  ‘You mean tell her – ?’

  ‘No, you fool – you should have said what a poor old fellow he was, likely to be confused and upset, how he wouldn’t stay long and they mustn’t expect him to say much – making a party of it, that was another mistake. After all, he gave them a lead by saying that he was unable to remember important things. They would have lapped it all up.’

  ‘They did lap it up, but – ’

  ‘All that was required was a few introductions and some general talk. You should have just kept on saying that he must meet the ladies who had so kindly invited him, and that would be that. Why were you all sitting down? That made it look like a law court at the start. He should have been hustled straight into a crowd, he should have been chatting with the girls, after all that’s what he came for! Instead you sat there mum and let him take the stage.’

  ‘Oh all right, all right!’

  ‘I’m afraid we were in too much of a hurry. If only the dog had happened sooner.’

  ‘But why didn’t you come?’

  ‘I didn’t want to see him,’ said Lucas, ‘I abominate him, the very thought of him makes me feel sick.’

  ‘You are afraid of him.’

  ‘I thought my presence might enrage him. I thought it was better to let you muddle through. Oh what a shambles – you don’t know how much I loathe this scene, this vulgarity, this kitsch, these lies, these people. It interferes so with my work – ’

  ‘But my dear Luc, if you had killed me, would not that have interfered with your work?’

  It was the next day. Clement outside Lucas’s door in the morning, had been let in. He had already told his story, indeed both his stories, about Peter’s ‘introduction’ which had turned out so unfortunately, and the episode of the lost dog, with its miraculous ending, resulting in Peter’s establishment in the bosom of the family, even in his invitation to the birthday party.

  Lucas was sitting at his big desk, tilting his chair, leaning back, his hands behind his head, Clement at the side, was leaning forward, clutching the edge of the desk and scratching the old green ink-stained leather with his fingernail.

  There was a low grey sky outside. A quiet dull rain was falling, tossed gently by the feckless wind against the glass doors, sounding like waves of the sea. The long heavy brown velvet curtains were quivering slightly. The room was chilly, all the lamps were on, above the lamps a darkness hung like a baldaquin. Clement felt cold, he had run out bareheaded to the car, his hair was wet. Lucas was wearing an expensive brightly patterned high-necked jersey which Clement had given him many
years ago. The jersey gave Lucas a more youthful, rather weird look, as if he were an actor whose natural appearance had been skilfully altered.

  Lucas looked at his brother and smiled faintly. ‘My dear Clement, we do not know what would have happened, who can say what I intended? I find it difficult to picture at all clearly the state of mind I was in at that time. But the general condition goes back very far. I have always wanted to kill you, all my life led to that blow. Jealousy and hatred compose my earliest memories. I have killed you every day in my thoughts. Please don’t scratch the desk.’

  ‘I’m awfully sorry,’ said Clement, ‘but it wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘It was your fault. Not just because you were preferred. But because you were cruel.’

  ‘Luc, don’t torment me with this, I was a child.’

  ‘You were a cruel child. There are things which are never forgotten or forgiven.’

  ‘I’m surprised you didn’t kill me earlier, or then! But now you say you don’t know what you intended.’

  ‘Perhaps all I mean is that I find that I don’t want to now. Something has gone out of me.’

  ‘It went out when you struck him, so he has really given his life for me.’

  ‘Don’t be sentimental. It’s more that I can’t be bothered. What did I intend? You might have stayed in the picture. It might just have been a joke, play-acting, trying to frighten you – or part of a childhood game or – ha ha – a sado-masochistic love scene! Perhaps we should have played it that way from the start!’

  ‘For the police – ?’

  ‘You in the witness-box saying it was all part of a family game!’

  ‘Yes. Behind it all we have seen an intent to kill, but there is no reason why anyone else should see it.’

  ‘We were not ingenious enough, we didn’t think quickly enough, we lacked imagination. Never mind. And now he wants to punish me not only for killing him, but for killing you!’

  ‘But you haven’t killed either of us!’

  ‘He says I have ruined his life. I may yet ruin yours.’

  ‘Luc, I have thought of that too.’

  Lucas had taken off his narrow rimless glasses. He looked at Clement with his dark slits of eyes, pulling his thin lips into his mouth and combing back his black oily hair with his pale elegant little hand.

  He went on, ‘You are wasting my time. You came here to ask me something. What is it? Perhaps you could be brief.’

  ‘I came to tell you what had happened and to ask you what we are to do about it!’

  ‘I don’t know. Why should we do anything? Let him make the moves.’

  ‘But Luc, don’t you see, he said he’d talk now, that he’d talk to other people— of course that was before he was received into the bosom of the family. But do you really think this might distract him, flatter him, so that he’d give up – ?’

  ‘It remains to be seen. It will be interesting to see. And now could you kindly clear off.’

  ‘Do you think for their sake now he’ll just forgive you – ?’

  ‘You will use this disgusting terminology. No, I don’t. The mutual attachment may well be short-lived anyway. I took him for a kind of buffoon. Now I see he is a devil.’

  ‘So he’ll go to the newspapers, to the police – ?’

  ‘You know,’ said Lucas, ‘I don’t think he will. I see him as something of an artist – and a gentleman. He will feel that this is now strictly between him and me. He’ll want to deal with it man-to-man – like a duel – or rather, he’ll want to torture me personally. The police would just spoil the fun.’

  ‘Tessa asked why he hadn’t told it all to the police. He said he wanted to find his murderer himself.’

  ‘A good exchange. He is a witty fellow.’

  ‘But, Luc, you’ll be in terrible danger – hadn’t you better move, go away, go to America – ?’

  ‘And hide somewhere, waiting every night for his hired assassin? No, he went into all that, remember. He’s in earnest. I shall stay here and wait for him.’

  ‘Suppose it’s blackmail?’

  ‘He doesn’t want my money, he wants my head.’

  ‘You should be protected, we must make plans, we must take it in turns, there are problems which – ’

  ‘Problems have solutions. Extreme problems have extreme solutions. Don’t worry, I don’t value my life all that much one way or the other. Now, I have already told you to go.’

  Lucas had risen and Clement reluctantly rose too. He wanted to prolong the conversation. ‘You need a bodyguard – ’

  ‘This is not your scene, dear Clement. Get back to your theatre world. Has anybody asked you to play Hamlet yet?’

  ‘No. Luc, please, I want to be with you in this – ’

  The front doorbell rang.

  Clement said at once, ‘It’s him. Keep quiet. We won’t answer.’

  The bell rang again.

  Lucas said, ‘Go to the door. If it’s him, let him in.’

  ‘But – ’

  ‘Do as I say, Clement.’

  Clement left the room. He hesitated at the front door – he opened it as the bell rang again. It was Bellamy.

  Passing Clement, Bellamy strode on into the drawing-room, putting down a suitcase which he was carrying on the floor. Lucas, now sitting, closed a drawer of his desk. Clement followed Bellamy.

  Bellamy began speaking at once in a loud voice. ‘Lucas, I must tell you, I’ve been talking to Peter, I kept ringing you all yesterday and – ’

  ‘Please sit down, Bellamy, is it still raining outside? You can take your coat off. Now who have you been talking to? And please don’t shout.’

  ‘I’ve been talking to Peter, Peter Mir – ’

  ‘Has he sent you as some sort of emissary?’

  ‘No, no. I believe he wants to kill you.’

  ‘All right, but what do you want? Do be brief.’

  ‘I want you to make peace with him.’

  ‘Well, I would like him to make peace with me – ’

  ‘Communicate, do something, make a connection, have a conference, don’t just wait, make a move, tell him you’re sorry – ’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For what happened – ’

  ‘Well, who knows what happened. For heaven’s sake don’t be so portentous.’

  Clement, standing by the door, said, ‘I’m going.’

  ‘What is that suitcase doing, Bellamy?’

  ‘I want to stay here and protect you. Can I, please, please – ?’

  Clement repeated, ‘I’m going, I’m going! Oh God!’ As he ran from the room he could hear Lucas talking quietly to Bellamy.

  Moy was sitting on the floor in her bedroom watching a fly which was walking upon the back of her hand. She watched and felt its little tongue as it sipped nourishment from her pores. Then it began briskly to clean its wings with its back legs, then to wash its face with its front legs. As she moved slightly it flew away and walked high upon the window pane. Moy kept the window closed so that the fly should not go out into the cold. It was morning. Anax was out in the garden. She had had to persuade him to sleep in his basket at night, and not come onto her bed as his restlessness woke her up and his paws tangled with her hair. He seemed to understand this banishment, as Moy talked to him continually, but he sometimes uttered little whining sounds when it was still dark. Perhaps he was dreaming. Moy thought it must be like God hearing the endless wail of suffering humanity and realising He can’t do anything about it. It seemed to her terrible that she had so much power over Anax, but was unable to console him.

  It was her birthday. She thought, I am always unhappy on this day. She was sixteen. She could scarcely believe it, or perhaps it was simply that she realised that other people could scarcely believe that little Moy could move out of childhood. The exams which she was supposed to stumble through were near. She would do badly, dismally, and disappoint the others, even shock them, especially Sefton and Aleph for whom working hard and getting top marks in exams was an
ordinary way of life. Well, Moy worked hard too in her own way. Only lately she had felt, coming like cold gusts of wind, new sensations, demoralisation, doubt. Her visit to Miss Fox had been the very first time that she had entered an art school. Of course she could have walked into one anywhere, any time, but she had refrained. She had postponed the experience as if it were something holy, preserving it as a long-awaited admission to a sacred place. She had, in some similar spirit, awaited her confirmation; but this magic had faded and she no longer crept out to church early on Sunday mornings. She had her own dark celebrations, her heart had beaten even faster when she entered the art school. But after Miss Fox everything was different, and it now occurred to Moy that she had been living for years upon a kind of happy confidence which had no foundation except her own childish energy and the loving praises of her mother and sisters. She felt she was an artist, they said so; and Miss Fitzherbert said so, but perhaps Miss Fitzherbert had been simply rewarding a pupil who so evidently enjoyed her classes. And as to her family, Moy now felt they had been, of course, it was clear now, simply encouraging, indeed tending, a funny eccentric dotty little child.

  And after Miss Fox there had been the swan, and that too was a portent. She had told them about that, but they had not really taken it in, they had not understood, they exclaimed, they laughed, but the next day they scarcely mentioned it, they were distracted by other things. More terribly perhaps they simply did not believe the story as Moy had told it, thought she exaggerated, invented a little, after all she was a very odd little girl. About the swan, Moy was suffering from shock. She had woken at night breathless, suffocated by some great round thing bearing down upon her, she had sat up and turned on her torch and seen Anax’s eyes glowing in the dark, and heard him utter a little humming sound as if he knew. There were scratches upon her arms which she had not shown to anyone. She had washed the grey muddy stones which she had brought home, the dull dirty Thames stones. Only one of them had any distinction, having a strange hole in it which the mud had concealed. This one was special, but she felt she must keep them all together, and she put them at the bottom of a drawer with other stones since there was no room upon the shelves.