The Green Knight

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘But this is – ’

  ‘With a club, a baseball bat, we used to – ’

  ‘But this is all madness! He can’t have meant to kill you!’

  ‘He took me in his car, to some sort of derelict place where there were trees – I don’t know where it is and I don’t want to – he said he wanted to show me some glow-worms.’

  ‘Glow-worms?’

  ‘Anything would have done, I mean to distract my attention, of course there weren’t any, I was looking down, I was drunk, then I realised he had raised the club and was going to hit me, then suddenly Mir intervened, he lifted his arm to stop Lucas, and Lucas struck him on the side of the head.’

  ‘Oh God – ’

  ‘You know, damn it, I can’t help feeling that this story must have been told everywhere again and again, that I must have told it, that Mir must have told it in court, only of course he wasn’t in court, he was dying or dead. He fell to the ground and Lucas knelt beside him and then he told me to clear off and keep my mouth shut, and he handed me the club, it would have been evidence, the baseball bat, we used to play with it when we were children – oh hell, this is hell – ’

  ‘Clement, please stop, this can’t be true, he can’t have meant it, it must have been a sort of play, he can’t have intended to kill you, nothing proves it, nothing can prove it – ’

  ‘Oh yes. He said, “An angel might have stayed my hand”, but that was a joke.’

  ‘A joke – ? But this is impossible – ’

  ‘And something I thought of later, Lucas took my wallet when I was asleep in the car, he intended the police to think it was a robbery – ’

  How – ? Oh, I see. Oh God, how dreadful. But still nothing proves – Really, I can’t believe it – ’

  ‘I’ve been dazing myself with all this, that we can’t know, nothing can prove, and reading back from it that he didn’t really mean it, it was just to frighten me, and so on, but that’s all dream stuff – and we’ve got to deal with Mir.’

  ‘When he left the hospital why didn’t he go to the police – ?’

  ‘That wouldn’t be real revenge. He wants to do it his way.’

  ‘Still – Clement – if Lucas was in earnest, Peter did save your life, and if he wasn’t in earnest – ’

  ‘And so what. I wish Mir at the devil. I can’t tell you how much I loathe it all, it’s ruining my work, it’s destroying me, everything I do is false, I’ve lost my self.’

  ‘You haven’t talked to Louise?’

  ‘About all this? Of course not!’

  ‘Has he?’

  ‘He said quite enough on the first occasion!’

  ‘But they don’t know what to believe.’

  ‘He said he’d talk to them in his own fashion.’

  ‘He said this to you at the party? Was he kind to you then?’

  ‘Not very. Louise doesn’t want to get involved. What she thinks would be something like “Well, maybe there’s something in it, but it’s all got exaggerated and the poor man admits he can’t remember things”. That’s the sort of feeble senseless compromise which would satisfy her. Bellamy, don’t you see, that man has pushed his way in, using the women, he says he’s a member of the family, he danced with Aleph – ’

  ‘You don’t imagine – ’

  ‘I imagine anything. He is using you too.’

  ‘He told you to tell me, and you have told me. But you didn’t have to.’

  ‘I had to, Bellamy, I would have told you anyway. I can’t lie to you, he probably guessed that. He wants another witness. And he wants to make us justify him before them, to portray him as innocent, kindly, not dangerous, not crazy.’

  ‘How could we, without accusing you and Lucas?’

  ‘I don’t matter, I’m just a liar, Lucas could be left vague for the present. Justifying equals mystifying.’

  ‘I don’t understand, did Peter say all that – ?’

  ‘No, I’m just inventing, I’m trying to see into his mind! He has two apparently incompatible objectives.’

  ‘To placate them and to destroy Lucas.’

  ‘He wants to become established as a member of the family. That may take time. Or he may just chuck the family anyway. Then he’ll proceed against Lucas.’

  ‘Perhaps if he does join the family he may forgive Lucas?’

  ‘Never. He is crammed full of rage and hate and desire for revenge. Remember that he sees Lucas as a murderer not only of him but of me. This could belong to the second part of his justification, it’s a matter of tactics. It occurs to me that this apparently ridiculous re-enactment may be part of some plan.’

  ‘But how – ’

  ‘For instance, Lucas might have an unfortunate accident.’

  ‘You mean – but all this is too awful! Clement, he isn’t a devil! It’s madness – ’

  ‘Madness is where we live now. Of course he could at any moment get his lawyers busy and set up a court case against Lucas and call me as an accessory and you as a witness, and whatever happened it would be the end of Lucas’s career and the end of mine. He is holding all that in reserve.’

  ‘Why me – oh – I suppose – ’

  ‘You would truthfully tell what you have just heard.’

  ‘Oh – Clement – ’

  ‘But he prefers to do it all himself. Can’t you see how cunning he is, and how ruthless? He wants an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’

  ‘He said that even if it came to pistol shots – but of course he didn’t mean – ’

  ‘Oh he meant it all right. Perhaps they’ll just kill each other. Yes, they are both mad, it’s a battle between two mad magicians!’

  Harvey’s taxi had disappeared into the darkness of the ill-lit street. Harvey was standing outside Tessa’s front door. It was the dark damp foggy evening of the day of Emil’s phone call and his mother’s tears: also the day (though unknown to Harvey) of the Clifton necklaces and Clement’s confession to Bellamy. Now a sudden unbearable anguish had driven Harvey to see Tessa.

  Harvey’s answer to Aleph’s question concerning what Harvey and Tessa had talked about at the birthday party had not been entirely truthful. Tessa had in fact not agreed with Harvey’s conjectures about Lucas’s sex life. When Harvey had stated, what seemed to him obvious, that Lucas had no sex life, Tessa with (as Harvey now recalled it) a mysterious knowing look had said, ‘Really? You had better ask your mother!’ When Harvey had asked why, Tessa had hurriedly (as of one desiring to cover a slip, as Harvey saw it now) said, oh she meant simply that Joan was a better judge of character and likely to make a better guess. Harvey, preoccupied with his hatred of the party and his desire to leave it with dignity, had not at the time reflected upon this little exchange: now however a sinister conjecture was growing in his soul. When his mother had ‘run away to Paris’ Harvey had not thought about her possible ‘love affairs’. Shy of the whole matter in any case, he felt no impulse to wonder, even less to inquire, about aventures whether in Paris or London. Now he had suddenly found himself rehearsing their recent conversation, for instance her (surely slightly accented) reference to ‘old friends’. Was this in some way significant, concealing Lucas’s name in the list of innocuous others? And how did she know that Lucas disliked Harvey – they must have been discussing him. She certainly didn’t want Harvey to visit Lucas. All this suggested concealment. It was Tessa who had unsettled everything, with her imprudent remark and her significant look: Tessa with whom (he could scarcely now believe it) he had lately been in bed! The memory of this dismal episode remained very painful to Harvey, though in a sense it also ‘hung in the air’ as something unconnected, scarcely real, a non-event. After all, ‘nothing had happened’. Harvey did not regard Tessa as being quite, or really, a woman. Perhaps just this had made the experiment possible.

  He had put on his soft walking-shoes and was holding his new stick. His crutches were still with him and when he was in the flat he still used them to give his lame foot a rest. For public scenes howeve
r he had used the clinical stick which his second physiotherapist had given him. Now he had impulsively bought an expensive-looking, and indeed expensive, stick of some blond glowing wood (walnut?) with an ivory handle representing the head of a long-beaked bird. This was less useful than the clinical one, but gave him confidence. After all, some men still carried sticks just for style, and not because they were lame. Thus armed he had set off and a prompt taxi had carried him to Tessa’s door. He was relieved to see two lights on, one in the office and one on the top floor. A little rain had begun to fall, he could feel it on his hair and see it in the light of a distant lamp. He had no umbrella, well that didn’t matter. He knocked. There was no reply. He knocked again. Then he tried the handle of the door; the door was not locked, he opened it and entered the shadowy musty little hall and then the little office where the light was on. He called out ‘Tessa!’ No reply. Dropping his coat and his stick in the hall he went up the stairs to the landing and called again. He turned on the light in Tessa’s bedroom where the little narrow white bed was neat and one of Tessa’s corduroy jackets hung on the back of a chair. He paused. Did the unlocked door suggest a prompt return? Out of curiosity he climbed the last flight of stairs to where Mr Baxter had once lived out his miserable life, perhaps died, Harvey could not remember. The light was on, the window was partly open, the bed was stripped to the mattress, and a large trunk full of Tessa’s clothes stood open. He thought, is she leaving? Perhaps she has gone away in a hurry to stay with her awfully grand friends whom she doesn’t introduce to us – or to her other secret sumptuous flat or house, where she lives her other life. Leaning over the trunk he fingered, then lifted up, a long blue and mauve silk dress. He thought he heard a sound below then guiltily dropped it. He called ‘Tessa!’ No answer. He closed the window which the wind was rattling, and after a few moments’ reflection closed the lid of the trunk. As he began to descend the stairs he felt suddenly very frightened. His exploration of the house had momentarily driven from his mind his reason for being there. Something flashed brilliantly in his eyes, like a vividly coloured picture shown for an instant upon a screen, a jagged muddled jigsaw of images of Lucas, Tessa, his mother, their faces hideously smiling, or contorted with grief or rage. The phenomenon vanished. He ran down the stairs past Tessa’s bedroom and paused panting in the hall. The hall was dark, he felt suffocated, there was an evil smell, he could not find his stick or locate the door to the street. He tried to become calm, standing still and breathing deeply.

  Then he became aware of something which had troubled him half-consciously and continuously ever since he had entered the house. It was a rhythmic sound like a distant engine. Something out in the road? He listened. It seemed more like something in the house. It was a distressing uncanny sound. He thought, it must be a machine, to do with heating or water or gas, which has gone wrong. It can’t be meant to go on and on like that. He now located the sound as coming from the back of the house, perhaps even the garden. What should he do, go away and leave it? It was a horrible and dangerous noise, louder from where he now stood in the office. If Tessa had gone away for a long time it might do harm. Should he not tell someone, a neighbour, the gas company, the police, that a machine had gone seriously wrong and must be mended? He was reluctant to go towards it. But supposing the house were to go on fire or be deluged by a broken water-pipe? There was a door at the back of the office which he opened cautiously. The room beyond was dark – he turned on the light, which revealed a table and a typewriter. Everything seemed as usual, no overflowing tap, no gas left on, he quickly checked. The noise was nearer. A door on the far side led presumably into the kitchen. Harvey had never penetrated that far. He opened the door. The sound, more high-pitched, was now almost deafening. The dim light revealed nothing except the darkness of the room beyond. Harvey moved hastily back, then thrusting his hand round the corner of the doorway he fumbled for a light switch which he found at last – a dim, even dimmer light shone upon a little room containing a sink, a gas oven and some cardboard boxes. There was another door, from behind which the terrifying rhythmic noise seemed to be emanating. This door was very slightly ajar. Harvey moved forward. He pulled at the door, it came open revealing another small cramped darkness and a dark figure, someone standing there. For a moment Harvey, horrified, thought: it’s a person, it’s Tessa, and she’s gone mad!

  He moved back hurriedly, stumbling over the boxes, then returning and peering saw indeed in the dark slit, which now seemed like an upturned coffin, the form of a woman, certainly not Tessa, standing there in hysterics, the voice jerking forth like the regular movement of a machine, the high piercing scream, the desolate agonising wail, the raucous drawing of breath, growling then dying to a moan, then the scream again. Harvey retreated into the kitchen. He felt he was going to be sick. He stood beside the sink shuddering and uttering little moaning cries, mimicking the appalling sound. He wanted to run away, to run out of the house, to escape from the hideous nauseating phenomenon. He trembled, putting his hands to his mouth. Then he returned cautiously. He must make that awful noise stop. He stood in the middle of the room and called out, ‘Do please stop!’ The scream and the wail continued. He shouted ‘stop it! Stop!’ The sound began to diminish, changing its pattern, the dreadful mechanical regularity beginning to break down. Harvey advanced cautiously toward the dark doorway. His eyes were now accustomed to the dim light in the room and he could see into the dark opening. He could see the woman, standing in profile to him, staring at the wall, clasping her hands to her throat. He saw that the little coffin-like slit was a lavatory. He said ‘Please come out. Come to me.’ He spoke now as if speaking to an animal. The woman did not move. Harvey reached in and touched her arm at the elbow, feeling woollen material which he pulled slightly. She began to turn towards him, then almost to fall as if she were going to faint as she took a step into the room. He seized her firmly by the arm, supporting her and making her continue to move. She now, still moaning and sobbing, allowed him to lead her out through the kitchen and on to the office, he guided her to a chair at the table where she sat down covering her face with her hands. He pulled up another chair and sat beside her, stroking her shoulder. He became aware of her sweaty feral smell. The hysterical sound was gone, but she continued to sob, in a rising and falling regular note, almost as if she were singing.

  Harvey said, ‘Now, please, do stop, I want to talk to you, tell me what’s the matter, let me help you.’ As she sometimes moved her hands, dragging at her hair and pulling at her throat, he caught glimpses of her face immensely red and swollen. Her face was so disfigured by weeping that he could not guess her age. She was dressed, poorly it seemed, with a shabby cardigan with a hole in one sleeve. Her hair, dyed blonde with a little grey appearing, was a tangled matted mess which she drew down now and then over her face. Harvey, distraught, repeated, ‘Please stop crying, do let me help, talk to me, perhaps, I could help, oh I am so sorry – ’ The woman ignored him as if intent upon her weeping as upon some sort of work or task. Once he tried to take hold of one of her hands but she wrenched it away. After a while he simply sat back and watched her. If only Tessa would come back! He had only just remembered where he was and that Tessa existed. He thought, how can someone go on and on crying like that, how can such crying not kill them or do them permanent damage, why doesn’t she become exhausted and faint or go to sleep, how can such grief exist, what can I do, nothing, must I wait with her now, ought I to wait and wait? He felt he ought to wait but suddenly and passionately wanted to get away. He saw on the table a very shabby old handbag which could not possibly be Tessa’s, and into it he stuffed a considerable amount of Emil’s generous taxi money. After a last plea, ‘Please stop, please talk to me!’, he got up and went to the door. He looked back at her still heaving and keening, then moved away, picking up his coat and his stick. He closed the front door quietly as he went out. He felt a traitor and a coward.

  Once he was outside however, where it was dark and cold and windy, and
the rain was soaking his hair and running down his face, a new will and a new energy seemed suddenly at his disposal. It was as if something had, ever so lightly, touched him. It was so surprising that he paused. Must it not be connected with that awful grief? A mean sense of escape? No, this was something else. Perhaps the weeping woman had been a sort of test or trial run. But had he not failed? What hideous violence or what terrible loss had brought about such grief, which he was now leaving behind? He walked on slowly. He felt that he was being moved on as by a revolving door. Suddenly, in another part of the human scene, of the great chessboard of being, his presence was urgently called upon. Where action had hitherto seemed impossible, he was now empowered to act. The ruthlessness of his departure could seem a source of strength. He had just seen part of a tragedy in which he had no role, now he was being sent out to play a role in his own tragedy. What this role was he did not know. But he felt loosened, as if all his sinews had been unbound, uplifted, inspired to run his own risks. He even noticed that, with his new stick, he was walking fast and without pain. It was nevertheless a long way to the tube station. However, fate, in on this act, was mindful of him and within minutes a taxi appeared. He climbed in and gave the driver Lucas’s address in Notting Hill.

  He parted from the taxi at the end of the road and began to walk cautiously along under the trees on the side opposite to Lucas’s house. Squeezing the water out of his hair, he noticed that the rain had stopped. He had no cap. His head was cold. He had, he now realised, kept so long, like a dangerous treasure, his notion of ‘having it out’ with Lucas: this was to take the form of some kind of dignified apology, accepted with equal dignity, ushering in an era of some sort of decorous friendliness. Harvey had not dared to write to Lucas, partly for fear of using an inappropriate expression, more because receiving no reply would reduce him to hopeless misery. It had also seemed impossible to arrive unannounced; but given the whole situation, ‘unannounced’ now appeared as the only possible way. He had for so long wanted so much to heal that wound, which he had never revealed to anyone, the painful memory of that, after all so childish, and so trivial, episode. Did Lucas eternally hold against him that piece of silly clownish rudeness – or was it possible that he had completely forgotten it and would laugh to hear of Harvey’s long anxiety? He did not believe that Lucas had forgotten. Now, in any case, it was the time to find out. He had kept in his heart, pure and undamaged, his gratitude to Lucas for, together with Clement, financing his education. How happy he would be if he could at last with an open heart, lay all these things at Lucas’s feet.