The Green Knight

by Iris Murdoch

  Peter Mir, slightly loosening his hold, continued to pin him against the wall. Clement could feel his scalp being scraped against the bricks. He tried feebly to remove the hand, the huge giant hand, which spanned his throat. He could feel the bones of his throat giving way. ‘Why did you lie? You didn’t tell the truth. Why did you lie to them?’ The pressure was released and Clement slipped down, almost falling to the ground. Mir now gripped him brutally by the shoulder, pulling him up and peering closely into his face. When Clement tried to turn his head away, Mir gripped his chin with his other hand. ‘Why? Why?’ Mir let go his hold, still leaning his heavy body against Clement. Then he moved suddenly gripping Clement by the arm and hustling him, dangling and dragging, across the frosty pavement. Clement lost his footing and stumbled against the long wet slippery surface of a large car. Mir, opening the car door with one hand, propelled him violently into the dark interior, then plunged in himself, roughly jostling Clement, who felt a sharp pain in his ankle.

  For a moment they sat together in the back of the car, both gasping, Mir uttering an audible ‘Pah! Pah!’ and pressing up against Clement. Clement, trying to find his voice, was interrupted by Mir.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why did you lie to them?’

  ‘What did you expect me to do? Why should they be upset and made miserable? They at least are out of it. There’s no need to involve me – not just because I don’t want to be involved, but it would do no good. Why confuse and upset all those innocent people? Consider them. What was I supposed to tell them? After all what do we know – we don’t know – ’

  ‘What do you mean, what don’t we know?’

  ‘What would have happened if you had not intervened.’

  ‘It is obvious what would have happened.’

  ‘It would not be obvious in a court of law. And it is not obvious to me. I am sure Lucas didn’t want to kill me, he couldn’t have done, it was a charade, he just wanted to frighten me! You don’t know him, I know him! I told them you were innocent and they believed me. There is no point in stirring it all up. Why should we burden them with all this horror? Please now leave them alone. Please. Enough has been said.’

  ‘Enough has been said! That is your solution, is it, that solves everything? What I desire and what I deserve is justice, and I shall have it. You admitted to me that you knew – ’

  ‘When did I admit anything?’

  ‘When you thanked me for saving your life.’

  ‘I was simply recognising you! Can’t you take in that it is not possible to prove that Lucas intended to kill me? He sent me away simply to protect me – I swear that he did not – ’

  ‘Now you have changed your tone, and what you say betrays you. You shall be exposed as a liar. Justice and truth will destroy you both. They already know – ’

  ‘Please do not see them, leave them alone, leave the girls alone – ’

  ‘And you have mean despicable motives. I shall talk to them in my own fashion, they must know the whole truth.’

  ‘Don’t threaten us like this. I shall tell them you are dangerous, I shall tell them you are mad.’

  ‘Dangerous, yes. With the innocent I shall be innocent, and with the devilish, a devil. As for you, I shall see that you are punished. Now keep out of my way.’

  Mir leaning across Clement opened the door of the car and pushed him violently. As Clement was stumbling out he was pushed again, then punched in the back. Wailing, he began to run away at random.

  My dear son,

  Thank you for your letter and please excuse a delayed reply, I have been in retreat. Our communication with others can have no value unless it is truthful. We must be, for each other, in the truth. Your recent letters are becoming, it seems to me, increasingly more expressive of Byronic romanticism than of the spiritual ecstasy which I believe you imagine yourself to be experiencing. The fault is partly mine for having encouraged a correspondence which I now think to be at the moment not helpful, but a positive obstacle. I beg you to reflect humbly upon your situation, making a serious endeavour to distance yourself from the self-gratification which you mistake for adoration of God. The greedy cunning self has many ways of deceiving; as I know well in my own imperfect struggles! He said, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’. We are all of us far distant from that way, that truth and that life. Always tell yourself that the truth lies beyond, and ponder this quietly and darkly. A true ecstasy is the reward of very few. A positive desire to suffer, to be, as you put it, in hell and spurned by Christ, a desire to be destroyed: these are familiar daydreams, fictions contrived by the evil one who dwells at home in the soul of man. I begin to feel that our correspondence may be engendering in you simply illusions, and that anything I say to you becomes in you illusion. This is of course my fault. One of the greatest temptations is the self-consoling wish to be the saviour of another’s soul. There is only one Saviour. Think about your happiness, and how you can be happy in helping others. You need society and ordinary friendships. I begin to think that you ought not to live alone. Your ‘depression’, if I may continue to use the word in a general sense, may be partly caused by a lack of regular employment. Do not spend your time ‘waiting for the call’ or imagining that you will shortly be entering a religious house. I suggest that you do not write to me now for a considerable time. I think an interval may refresh us both! (Regard it, if you like, as a penance!) I will write to you later on. Do not answer this letter. You are in my loving thoughts and my prayers.

  Yours in Christo,

  Fr Damien

  P.S. As for the famous mouse who ate the Holy Sacrament, I have been told on good authority that he has become a favoured pet of Our Lady!

  My dear Father,

  Please forgive this instant reply to your last letter. Yes, yes, I understand about what you are telling me about being in the truth and how far away from it I am. But I must see you. I feel it is a time of crisis in my life. In fact I have found another person, I mean a spiritual person, one whom I revere, who is quite literally struggling with the devil. Only I can help him. But you must help me. I would like very much to bring him to you, though I fear he might not agree to come. Please say that I may come to see you in the near future, with or without my noble but unhappy friend. I am so sorry to write like this, disobeying your request, but the matter is urgent. I am very sorry. Penitentially and with love,

  Yours,

  Bellamy

  My dear son,

  Please do not come here. I shall be absolutely unable to see you. As for your spiritual friend, I think you should proceed with caution. This is not a moment for you to form strong emotional attachments, such attempted ‘rescues’ often drag down both the ‘saver’ and the ‘saved’. This can be the region of the demonic. I hope you will understand me, though I write without knowledge of the case. As I said, do not write. I will communicate with you at a suitable time. Pray – pray every moment. I pray for you. Pray for me.

  in Christo,

  Fr Damien

  ‘So he wouldn’t see you? And you even suggested bringing me!’

  ‘Yes. I still hope to bring you to him.’

  ‘You forget that I am Jewish.’

  ‘Peter, what on earth does that matter! All salvation is in some way the same.’

  ‘I think you mean that all religions are in some way the same, which is far from being the case.’

  ‘All right, never mind. I just thought you, we, might be helped by a man who has lived for so many years alone with God.’

  Bellamy and Peter were once again sitting in The Castle. Bellamy was once again drinking lager. It was the morning after the party. On the previous day, after Lucas had laughingly refused to let Bellamy be his bodyguard, and had sent him away, Bellamy had sat in his room wondering if after all he would go to the party, even though it would upset Anax, and even though he didn’t like that party with its noise and merriment and masks and dancing (Bellamy couldn’t dance) and screams of l
aughter and the youthful gaiety of children. He had not enjoyed it last year. Of course he did not go, he sat thinking miserably about things which Peter had said. Something must be done. He did not even know where Peter lived, no one seemed to know where he lived. He was not in the telephone book. He ate no lunch but went out in the afternoon and bought some sandwiches. He went round to the house where the young Catholic priest lived but he was not there. When he returned to his room he discovered Father Damien’s latest letter. He stood reading it, then stood thinking about it, looking at the dirty window pane and the half-closed curtains. Then he sat on his bed and ate two sandwiches. Then he read it again, together with two previous letters. As it had become dark he pulled the curtains. Roars of laughter came from the Pakistani family in the flat upstairs. The taciturn elderly man on the second floor had moved out. Bellamy felt guilty for not having made serious attempts to befriend him. Where was he now? He ate another sandwich, but it was already stale. A sense of futility and nullity came quietly to him like a mist. He boiled some water and filled his hot-water bottle. He had intended to give up sleeping-pills, but took two pills and went to bed. When he woke in daylight his watch had stopped. He noticed that since he had gone to bed in his clothes he did not have to dress. He fed the electric fire and made some toast but there was no butter. He read the terrible letters again. He decided to go out to get some food and ring up Clement. But instead he sat hunched up on his bed. He found himself saying aloud ‘Spingle-spangle’. Then he decided to go to The Castle just in case.

  By daylight, there was even a little mild sunlight, The Castle looked less stark and metallic, less positively weightless and spherical, less like a spaceship. It was certainly small, but Bellamy now noticed, which he had not noticed on the first occasion, that there were little shallow alcoves, saucer-like depressions, in one of which he and Peter were sitting, set in a neat semi-circle. Perhaps it was like a little theatre, or a tiny chapel, where the bar took the place of the stage, or the chancel, and the landlord (for he clearly was the landlord) that of the actor or the priest, as he stood there with his arms stretched out and his large hands gripping the counter, gazing with benign inquisitive satisfaction upon his clientele (or spectators or sinners). There were a few small tables in the central space, but those were empty. The alcoves were different colours, the one occupied (as on the previous occasion) by Peter and Bellamy was green. A few customers were occupying the other alcoves and talking in low tones, thus adding to the ecclesiastical atmosphere. Bellamy and Peter also spoke quietly. Bellamy wondered what time it was.

  ‘What time is it? How wonderful that you arrived just after I came!’

  ‘Nearly twelve. No, no. Ascetics are not saints, they are just as likely to be madmen seeking for magic power or miserable remorseful wretches with a spite against the world. It is more likely that you could help him. That is what he wants to conceal! Why don’t you stop playing at destitution?’

  ‘Please – ’

  ‘I am sorry. You have intruded upon my troubles and must take the consequences. You know that I have lost something. There is something, perhaps the most important thing of all, which I have forgotten.’

  ‘Is it a good thing or a bad thing?’

  ‘I don’t know! If I knew – anyway it has got to be finished.’

  ‘You mean about Lucas?’

  ‘And then there are the women.’

  ‘Is what you have forgotten something about a woman?’

  ‘I tell you, I don’t know! I mean there are those women.’

  ‘Yes, and surely for their sakes – ’

  ‘You know nothing about hatred. There is an old maxim, let your enemy think he can escape, cornered he will fight to the death, fleeing he may be cut down – let him think he has an alternative to death.’

  ‘These are evil thoughts. Can you not kill these thoughts?’

  ‘They say a murderer returns to the place of his crime.’

  ‘There was no murder.’

  ‘And where a murder has been committed – something remains.’

  ‘You mean something evil?’

  ‘I feel if I returned to the place where I lost my memory I might regain it.’

  ‘Well, I would go with you.’

  ‘Let it all happen again.’

  ‘Perhaps as a sort of rite of purification, like a sort of redemption – perhaps something like this cured some of your patients?’

  ‘We could re-enact the scene!’

  ‘You mean by doing it again, miming it, to disperse, to melt away all your anger and your hate? Surely you mean it like that? Oh please let it be like that! Peter, can’t you just forgive him. Forgive him and then everything will be well. And then you will find out – ’

  ‘For me, nothing can ever be well again. If he were kneeling in front of me, I’d kick his eyes out.’

  ‘But it wasn’t his fault, it was a mistake, it was an accident.’

  ‘There was no accident. That man was about to kill his brother. He killed me instead. I have given my life for that brother. Justice must be done.’

  ‘But no one else was there! You had a dream and you wanted to tell it.’

  ‘Go to your friend the younger brother, go and ask him, ask him to tell you the truth. There must be a final solution. I must damage him as he has damaged me. I want to maim and cripple him as he has maimed and crippled me. All the evil of that blow has entered into me. Now he must pay. I invoke blind justice with her sword and scales. It has got to be finished even if it comes to pistol shots. Wickedness must be punished. Nothing will bring me peace except revenge.’

  ‘Peter, please be quiet and don’t talk in this mad awful way. You are trapped by hideous thoughts and dreams, if you could only put them away and show forgiveness and mercy, you could heal yourself, you could set yourself free, you could set us all free. Perhaps that could happen if we returned to that place. Think about it. You have this great power. You could enact a miracle.’

  ‘So you still imagine I am an angel?’

  ‘I am certain of it. You are a good angel. This is what you have to be. And something in your soul knows it.’

  ‘By the way, did they tell you about Anax?’

  ‘No, what?’

  ‘He got lost and I found him. I happened to meet him.’

  ‘That’s a miracle. I knew you could do them! You sent out a signal and he came to you! He perceived your goodness! There you are! You must believe in your good powers!’

  ‘I charm only the innocent. That’s not much good.’

  ‘Peter, I’m sorry, but I am terribly hungry.’

  ‘Well, let us eat. And, if we can, talk about other things. I went to that party.’

  ‘To the birthday party? So they invited you – that’s wonderful!’

  ‘Yes, after I found the dog they had to!’

  ‘And did you talk to Clement?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m so glad!’

  Breakfast at Clifton was no formal feast, no sitting down together with a blessing implied or otherwise. Moy, waking at six from deep sleep, would dress, descend, let Anax out into the garden, drink some milk and eat some oats, return to her bedroom, make her bed and lie upon it supine open-eyed for half an hour. This was known as Moy’s ‘White Time’ when she planned her working day or allowed her soul to leave her body; after which, usually, she would set ferociously to work. Sefton rose almost as early, made some tea, ate some toast, and listened to the seven o’clock news; then, except in darkest winter, went into the garden for some brief gardening. Moy fed the birds and stroked the trees, but Sefton tended the plants and mowed the lawn. (There were two small trees, planted after arrival at Clifton, a laburnum and a Japanese maple.) As Sefton was returning to her books Aleph, in dressing-gown, was making her way to her bath. Neither Moy nor Sefton cared much about baths. By this time Louise, who preferred an evening bath, was occupying the kitchen and boiling an egg. Aleph’s breakfast came later and lasted until after the eight o’clock news. Lou
ise, when the kitchen was empty again, did the washing up, which Sefton allowed her to do at this time of day only. Sefton did not like the washing-up machine, which was now rarely used. Louise listened anxiously to the movements of the girls, plotting their soft-footed whereabouts. She had come to feel almost in awe of meeting them early in the morning. They had become, year by year, month by month, mysterious to her, her love for them an extended pain, a web or field of force, of which she felt at times the almost breaking tension.

  The post, if any, arrived about nine o’clock. On the day in question, which happened to be a Saturday, four days after the birthday party, Louise and Aleph were in the Aviary discussing Aleph’s forthcoming holiday with Rosemary Adwarden. Moy, her ‘White Time’ over, had washed her very long hair and was drying it beside the electric fire in her bedroom, teasing out the damp strands between her fingers. Her blonde hair had red streaks here and there. Sefton’s brown hair also admitted many lines of red. Louise spoke of Teddy’s ‘Viking look’. Anax, let in from the garden by Sefton, raced up the stairs, his claws clicking on the linoleum, and scratched at Moy’s door. She rose to let him in and received his leaping and pawing ecstasy as if they had not met for days. Has he forgotten, she wondered. No, it was not possible. Sefton, sitting on the floor in her little room beside the kitchen, was wondering what would have happened if, when Isabella and Mortimer had murdered Edward II, they had also had the nerve to murder his young son Edward III. Perhaps the Hundred Years War would not have occurred?