The Green Knight

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘Anax is in here, we mustn’t let him out, we’ll slip in quietly.’

  They slipped in and closed the door. Peter put the bull’s head down in a corner. Anax who had been sitting in his basket, gave a little bark and ran to Peter wagging his tail and beaming. Peter sat down heavily in Moy’s little armchair, receiving Anax’s paws upon his knees, as the dog licked his face and hands. Moy sat and watched. Peter, speaking to Anax in a soft murmurous tone, perhaps in another language, calmed the dog down, and when Anax was sitting quietly at his feet, transferred his attention to Moy, who was sitting on the bed. ‘That must have been a terrible experience with the swan.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But wonderful too in a way?’

  ‘Yes – ’

  ‘Would you describe it to me?’

  Moy described it. Peter asked questions. ‘Did you hesitate before you rushed in? Were you afraid? Did you fall over in the water? Was it as high as your waist? Did the swan fly up and come down on you? Was it on top of you? Did you touch its wings? Did the duck escape? Did you think you’d drown? Did you get all muddy? Did anybody try to help you? How long did it take you to decide to go by bus? How long was it before you got on the bus?’

  Moy thought, that’s more than they ever wanted to know! Then she thought, of course, in his profession, he’s used to asking people how they felt!

  Moy and Peter looked at each other. Moy, busy earlier preparing the Aviary and making last-minute adjustments to masks, was still in her working clothes, a long straight shift of thick white cotton over black trousers. She had bundled her long pale yellow hair up into a big hasty bun. She was barefoot. She stared at Peter with her wide-apart royal-blue eyes, the eyes of Teddy Anderson. Peter, beneath his disguise, was found to be wearing a very dark green suit of light fine material, with a white shirt and a black bow tie. He seemed to her neater, more somehow ‘in order’, than when she had last seen him. His closely shaven face was smooth, his plump cheeks rosy, his hair, above his slightly lined brow, abundant and curly, a glowing brown, his eyes, she could see now, a very dark grey, or grey-brown, like a deep pool.

  ‘Did you buy that thing?’

  ‘No, I hired it.’

  ‘What’s it made of?’

  ‘Some sort of plastic. So you collect stones. I knew that anyway.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Aleph told me. Many happy returns of your birthday. How old are you now?’

  ‘Sixteen.’

  ‘Ah – it is a lovely age. I wish you, with all my heart, a happy fate. I have brought you a birthday present, I wanted to give it to you by yourself, not with the others, here it is.’ Leaning forward he put a package wrapped in fancy paper into Moy’s hands. It was heavy. Moy, surprised, held it in her lap, then put it on the bed, looking at him speechless.’

  ‘Open it, open it, I want to see you open it.’

  Moy tore off the wrapping, opened the cardboard container within, and pulled aside a lot of tissue paper. Out of this nest she lifted a little blue box with golden trimmings. Moy saw at once that the box was made of lapis lazuli and that the trimmings were real gold. She had seen something like it in the British Museum. ‘It’s Russian.’

  ‘Yes. How did you know? Well, I’m Russian myself. Do you like it?’

  ‘I like it very much, I love it – but it’s so – grand – and – ’

  ‘It belonged to my family, the family motto is inscribed inside the lid in Latin, virtuti paret robur’.

  Moy opened the box.

  ‘Dear me, it’s empty,’ said Peter. ‘How silly of me, I ought to have put something inside it, I’ll send you something to put inside it.’

  Moy reached up to the shelf by her bed and picked up a round pure white pebble and put it inside the box. ‘Oh I love it so – it’s – But it’s too much – I mean – ’

  ‘Well, I certainly won’t take it away again! Perhaps I shall send presents – to all of you – but this is specially for you. Now shall we go downstairs?’

  ‘I must change – ’

  ‘Oh yes, and put on your mask, I think I can see it there? I’ll wait outside.’ He jumped up and went out onto the landing closing the door.

  Moy sat holding the precious box. Her heart was beating hard. She thought, it’s too much. Do I have to go this way into the enchanter’s palace? But of course, it isn’t me that he – She hugged the box, then put it away carefully in a drawer and covered it over with clothes.

  She pulled off her cotton shift and quickly donned a white blouse and over it a golden brown velvet jerkin, with trousers to match, then brown socks and sandals. Then she donned her mask which was, as always, much less elaborate than those of the others, but (as she was always told) more simply beautiful and impressive. It consisted of a three-sided cardboard box, making a hat, and over her face, held simply by elastic bands and paper clips, a piece of thick white paper, with two egg-shaped eye-holes, upon which Moy had drawn, simply, with a few lines, the face of an owl: the outline of his face, his pricked-up ears, his fierce commanding eyebrows, his long pointed gracefully curving beak, his thin mouth and the two dots of his nostrils. The eye-holes were disposed so as to show only a little of the outside corners of Moy’s eyes, as if the eyes were tiny. The effect was disturbing. She emerged, talking to Anax and closing the door upon him.

  ‘Oh you are so delightful – so full of power, you have your wise look – what a fine pair we are – but look – I want you to lead me down – ’ Peter had donned his huge bull head, his voice echoing inside the structure.

  ‘How – ?’

  ‘I am your pet, tell them I am your pet, the owl shall lead the bull, beauty and the beast, quick, have you got a piece of rope or – ’

  Moy opened the door again and pulled a long green girdle out of her smart dressing-gown, which she had inherited from Aleph, and handed one end of it to Peter, who knotted it round his bull neck. They moved cautiously down the stairs, hesitating at the now closed door of the Aviary, beyond which the sound of the piano, the dancing, the intermittent singing, was now deafening. Moy threw open the door and stepped in leading Peter behind her. The noise died down, then ceased. Moy announced in her high nervous voice. ‘Look, I have brought my pet with me!’ There was another instant’s silence, then laughter, clapping, voices. Then Peter, who had been solemnly nodding, was seen to be again in trouble with his head-dress. ‘Help him!’ cried Moy, tearing off her mask. Clement ran forward and pulled the heavy simulacrum off, depositing it upon the floor. Those who were still masked took off their masks respectfully.

  ‘Everything deep loves a mask? Who said that?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Harvey testily.

  ‘Never mind. What were you talking about so earnestly with Tessa?’

  The party was over. Peter and Tessa and Joan had departed. Peter left early, saying that he had better go, since at midnight he would turn into a bull. It was now after midnight. Moy had gone to bed. Louise had retired. Clement had left. Sefton, now, without her mitre and her cross and her purple scarf, all in black, was moving about soft-footed, tidying things up, as usual, although everyone had said, as usual, that it should all be left until tomorrow. She could be heard carefully, quietly, placing glasses on trays and padding up and down the stairs. Harvey and Aleph were in Aleph’s room, Harvey sitting on the chair by the dressing-table, Aleph, her feet tucked under her, upon the bed. Harvey was dressed in shirt and trousers which he had discreetly resumed before the end of the proceedings. Aleph who had soon discarded her savage blue mask, still wore her, as they called it, ‘dictator’s’ uniform, now rather unbuttoned, and had just replaced the plumed helmet upon her curling dark hair. Harvey, who had drunk steadily throughout the evening, was flushed and had tormented his straight blond hair into a positive tangle. He had looked forward to the evening with horror, wanted to refuse to come, but knew he had to come: not to come would have been impolite, cowardly, an admission of defeat, a gesture of despair. In fact, though awful, it was
not quite as awful as he expected partly, he realised, because no one paid any attention to him! Apart from a very few perfunctory ‘sympathetic’ commonplaces, his presence as a spectator was taken for granted: much as if, as he had said later to Aleph, he had been born crippled! Every day he wondered whether his wounded foot had become a little better. Sometimes he thought it had, more often he thought it had not. He had, for the time being, abandoned doctors, and consorted now only with a physiotherapist, who seemed to be accepting him as a chronic case and speaking of alleviation not of cure. His experience at the party of being somehow patently classified as a cripple had been very distressing, yet he also grimly accepted the distress as a kind of refuge, a cover. How had he endured without crying out aloud the sight of Aleph dancing with Clement, dancing with Peter Mir? He so longed to dance himself, his foot, his poor foot, yearned to dance. Yet he stayed quietly in his refuge, only Sefton and Tessa had sat down beside him.

  ‘With Tessa?’ he said. ‘Nothing much, I forget. Actually we were talking about Lucas.’

  ‘What about Lucas?’

  ‘Oh, about the Mir business, why Lucas seems to hate everybody, then about Lucas’s sex life, we agreed he obviously hadn’t any – Mir is another matter. He’s not married, is he?’

  ‘He doesn’t seem to be.’

  ‘I must say he dances well. What was that number you all danced to at the start and kept on coming back to it?’

  ‘I forget. “Numeros memini si verba tenerem.”’

  ‘Oh stow it. Did you talk to him? Is he sane? I heard you saying just now that he was something out of Beowulf.’

  ‘I didn’t talk to him. He has come out of the darkness. I think he is sane.’

  ‘But sinister? That bull’s head was going too far.’

  ‘He doesn’t yet know our simple ways.’

  ‘You mean he proposes to stay around?’

  ‘Don’t you think we owe him something?’

  ‘No. You women are so naive. Oh Aleph if you only knew how grievous all is within.’

  ‘Your wound will heal.’

  ‘I have been struck down before my life begins. I have already died in the war.’

  ‘Youth at the prow, and pleasure at the helm?’

  ‘Ah, we were young then – ’

  ‘Shall I call you a taxi? Have you got enough money?’

  ‘Emil sent me a cheque to pay for taxis. Why won’t you come and see me at my grand flat? Come tonight. Oh never mind. A fine romance with no kisses.’

  ‘Harvey, I have given you many many kisses, you have forgotten them.’

  ‘In your dreams – or in mine. Children’s kisses. Goodnight, dear sister. Kiss me now. Oh Aleph – ’

  ‘I know-I know – ’

  ‘It’s still terribly foggy.’

  ‘And he called her “Princess Alethea”.’

  ‘He said, “I feel you are my family”. He says he’s going to buy a flat near here.’

  ‘How sickening.’

  ‘I thought it was rather touching.’

  ‘It was impertinent, even sinister.’

  ‘Well, he’s probably joking a bit.’

  ‘We don’t even know where he lives.’

  Clement had not left after all. He was in Louise’s bedroom. They were standing beside the window, where Louise had drawn back the curtain to study the fog. Clement had thrown his overcoat onto the bed. He had given his Venetian mask to Moy, and now regretted it. She had said she would keep it for him till next year. Next year! he thought. God knows where we shall all be next year! Louise was wearing her long white dress, with Clement’s silk scarf clutched closely round her neck with one hand, while with her other hand she was nervously disordering her stiff brown hair. She let go of the scarf, letting it hang, and pulled the curtain back into place. The gesture reminded her of her first glimpse of Peter Mir when she had seen him down below, standing in the street and seeming to watch the house. She had been about to undress when Clement had knocked on her door. She had felt very tired and had looked forward to reading a little more of A Glastonbury Romance and then going to sleep. She had felt relief at the evening being over without any catastrophes. And now Clement had arrived, determined to tell her awful things which she did not want to hear.

  ‘I think he means it.’

  ‘Who? Oh, Peter – ’

  ‘So he’s Peter now!’

  ‘He kept insisting on it. Why are you so against him?’

  ‘Oh I’m not against him!’ said Clement turning impatiently away. He sat down heavily on the neat bed. ‘Except that – I’ve got to be – !’

  Louise sat down at her dressing-table, now laying the long silk scarf across her knee. The smell of her cosmetics seemed suffocating, disagreeable, as if they were all old. Lately Louise had decided to give up wearing make-up altogether, but had not yet acted upon the decision.

  As Clement did not elucidate this saying, Louise said, ‘He was kind to Moy, he – ’

  ‘Yes, what was that charade, I was meaning to ask you?’

  ‘She let him in and he went up to her room and they had a long talk and he asked her about the swan – ’

  ‘He had no right to go up to her room! He pushes his way into this house and marches up to the girls’ rooms!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Clement, I asked a silly question just now. About that other time – and what happened – surely it was clear that he was simply mistaken, he was having delusions, he admitted he was all confused – he must have recognised this by now, he must have done, or he wouldn’t have come here and been so nice to us all.’

  Clement gave a long sigh and looked at his watch. ‘I’m afraid you are mistaken. What he wants is something in return.’

  ‘In return?’

  ‘In return for his life, for the ruin of his life. He wants revenge. He may seek it even here. He is a dangerous animal, he is ruthless.’

  Louise listened. She felt very tired, she felt confused, she found that she could not remember exactly what had been said by Clement and by Peter in that confrontation. ‘But he was perfectly nice to you at the party.’

  ‘No. He evaded me, he ignored me, we avoided each other, it was easy, it was like a dance, like a terrible dance. Louise, I must go home. I’ve talked too much.’

  ‘I don’t understand, is Peter angry because Lucas said he was a thief – he’s not a thief is he – surely you can’t believe that!’

  ‘Oh Louise, do leave it alone, you will never understand, at least I hope you will never understand! Leave it alone. Only – please – don’t let that man into our lives.’

  ‘I can’t leave it alone. What does Lucas think?’

  ‘I don’t know, to hell with what Lucas thinks. I’ve drunk too much. I must go home now.’ He rose and began to pull on his coat.

  ‘Clement, I can’t believe it’s as awful as you say.’

  ‘No, no, it isn’t, I’m exaggerating.’

  Louise rose and went to the door, putting her back to it. ‘But, Clement, there must be some solution, some clarification, I can’t bear it – ’

  ‘You don’t want to lose your picture of Peter Mir as a sort of teddy bear.’ He came and stood before her and said softly, ‘Just don’t meddle.’

  They stared at each other. For a second Clement closed his eyes and his face was contorted with pain. Louise held her hands together as if each hand were capturing the other. She stepped aside. The long white scarf which had been upon her knee had fallen to the ground. Automatically she picked it up and folded it and held it out to him.

  ‘Louise, I gave it to you!’

  ‘Oh yes, of course, I’m so sorry! Well – goodnight – drive carefully.’

  They stood still for another moment not moving, then he slipped quickly out of the door, quietly closing it behind him.

  Louise stood quite still for a time, until well after the sound of his footsteps had died away. Then, moving slowly, she turned to the bed and drew back the wrinkled coverlet. Then she sat down on the bed and buried
her face in the scarf.

  Later, when she had at last undressed and gone to bed and turned out the lights, she lay on her back open-eyed. I run, I run, I am gathered to your heart. But no, she thought, it’s not like that. I am alone. I cannot reach anybody.

  Clement, realising he was indeed rather drunk, carefully held onto the banister as he descended the stairs. The lower flight of stairs was dark, the hallway was dark, the house was silent. He fumbled for some time at the door, dreading to discover that it was locked in some special way and he would have to crawl back up the stairs to Louise. At last the door, with a little noise, opened itself, and he paused in the doorway, letting in the cold muzzy air and the cold darkness outside where the street lamps could not penetrate. Then he heard in the silence a little sound, someone, breathing, softly, regularly, deeply – it was Sefton, fast asleep, within a few feet of where he stood. He edged out carefully, closed the door, unable now to prevent its sharp locking sound. He stumbled down the two steps to the pavement and stood there, fumbling for his car keys and trying to remember where he had left the car. His bare head felt very cold. He began to walk along the darkened empty street.

  Oh God, what an absolute bloody fool I am, Clement said to himself. Why did I stay and talk to Louise? Now I’ve upset her and I’ve set her off wanting to know. God, I don’t want her probing into this. Suppose she goes to Lucas? But no – she wouldn’t dare to. All the women are frightened of him. But oh – what a dismal wretched part I am playing now. Surely I could have got out of it all – yet how? I am condemned to lead an utterly false life – now and – how can it end? It can’t end. I’ve got to go on and on living with lies and mystifications. How on earth have I got into this trap? I, see now, now, how I am condemned to be cut off from all the people who were so near and dear to me, who esteemed and loved me – I’ve got to be a liar forever – and somehow – oh I don’t deserve it, it wasn’t my fault!

  Clement, walking a little erratically and now murmuring his thoughts aloud, was suddenly, horribly, aware of another person, a huge form looming up beside him and bumping violently against him. A lightning flash of terror pierced him. He thought, it’s the end, now I shall be robbed and killed. He tried to cry out but could produce only a little high sound and flutter his helpless hands in pathetic supplication as his assailant, gripping his shoulders with terrible force, drove him back against a wall. Then as the force became an agonisingly painful pressure there was a kind of silence as he helplessly ceased to struggle, became aware of what had so abominably happened to him, and gasped out, ‘Don’t hurt me.’