The Green Knight

by Iris Murdoch

  Why does all this suddenly come upon me, thought Clement, why is it suddenly so significant? Had Aleph had some sort of intuition, a kind of mystical insight, when she gave Peter that name? Pieces of the story are there, but aren’t they somehow jumbled up and all the wrong way round? Lucas cut off Peter’s head, and Peter might have cut off his, but because he was noble and forgiving he only drew a little of Lucas’s blood. It isn’t really like the poem, yet it is too, and it is something much more terrible. Lucas was brave and Peter was merciful. Or would Peter have killed Lucas if I hadn’t been there? So am I also in the story? And Aleph, wasn’t she the temptress, wasn’t she what they both wanted? But that isn’t quite right, the Lady was the wife of the Green Knight, and the Green Knight was good, though he was also a magician. Now Lucas is a magician too, and Lucas is not good, but Aleph is Lucas’s wife. Yes, it’s all mixed up. Lucas cut off Peter’s head twice, he killed him first instead of me and second because he wanted the Lady. But how could Aleph have mysteriously conjured up this tale and this ending? What had Aleph meant when she called him the Green Knight? She may have intuitively seen farther, seen him as a sort of instrument of justice, a kind of errant ambiguous moral force, like some unofficial wandering angel. He could have claimed a just retribution by killing Lucas, or better still perhaps maiming him. That was his first apparition. But then later he forgave him and punished him only by that small symbolic shedding of blood. Will Lucas cherish that scar, Clement wondered, will he ever tell anyone, will he tell Aleph? Of course the Green Knight in the story was testing his opponent from the start, provoking a violence to which in honour the chivalrous fellow had later to submit himself. Not only that, there was the ordeal of sexual temptation, in which the performance of the chevalier was certainly not perfect. Only now, things are all confused, Clement said to himself inside his wild thoughts, and I’m getting confused. There the first blow was struck as a provocation to a mysterious adventure, here the first blow was struck by an evil magician whose victim reappeared as another, ultimately good, magician. And what about the temptress who in the story was the good magician’s wife? I wonder if Aleph when she spoke up so promptly already saw herself as playing a part, perhaps as a temptation laid before both the evil one and the good one. Now the good one has gone, receding into his mystery, and the beautiful maiden has been awarded to the evil one. Is this the end of the story? Perhaps for us it is the end. But, Clement said to himself, as he had said once to Lucas, what about me? Am I some alter ego of my brother, enacting some minor ordeal of my own? But why minor? Ever since that first moment I have been in hell. Only I am not a hero, not a chevalier, not a demon, not even a small demon, just a wretched sinner and a failure. A dispensable object. I have no courage. I have failed two women, no, three, and must wear the badge of failure for the rest of my life.

  Now Sefton was often absent, Moy, always at work, was silent, there was no news from Aleph. Louise longed for darkness and sleep. By day she wandered about the house, tidying things and cleaning things and moving things about. People had begun to ring up, Cora, Connie, Bellamy. Louise said yes she was perfectly well, no, there was no news, no she did not want visits. Bellamy asked her if she had seen Clement. No, she had not seen Clement. Bellamy said Clement did not answer the phone and when Bellamy had twice gone round to his house there was no answer to the bell – perhaps he had left London. Louise said perhaps. Perhaps he had gone to Paris. Yes, perhaps. She was beginning to be short of breath, she was frightened. She rang Clement but there was no one there. She wondered where Clement was, perhaps he had actually gone to America. Why? Perhaps he knew where Aleph was, and where Lucas was. Louise had, over the years, seen, what many others had not seen, Clement’s love for his brother. Perhaps they would live menage à trois! I am going mad, she thought, I am in some sort of silent raging grief of which I shall die, everything has gone. Another thought, a rather sad and bitter thought, came to her. Perhaps he was with Joan. Well, why not? Joan was lonely, she was beautiful, she loved him. Louise thought of ringing Cora but decided not to. She had been rather short with Cora when Cora had rung to sympathise. She rang Clement again but no answer. These mounting anxieties about Clement had begun to torment her. He had always been beside her, always at hand. Why had she sent him away? If only Moy were not in love with him. But would not Moy get over it, she was only a child after all. Or was she now a woman? Louise kept saying to herself, I am only worried about Clement like Bellamy is, that’s all. Only such strange and awful pictures kept coming into her mind and haunting her sleep. The idea began to take hold of her that he had really gone, Clement, gone. His world too had been shaken to pieces. Perhaps he had gone to America to stay there forever, where Lucas and Aleph were living now, forever. Or else – he had committed suicide and was lying on his bed in his flat holding the bottle of pills in his drooping hand. After all, he had loved Aleph. She tried to keep calm, it was only an interim, Aleph would write, Clement would appear. Though coaxed by the children she did not leave the house. She sat in the evening in the Aviary, so quiet, unable to read or to sew. Moy, who did not read books, was sometimes silently with her. And Sefton, who was reading the poems of Propertius and trying to render them into English. They listened to music on the radio as they used to do. Yes, Moy was a young woman, sitting there motionless holding the end of her thick golden plait upon her lap with one hand, her blue eyes vacant with thought, or turned with sadness upon her mother or her sister. Now that she ate so little she was almost slim. Of course no one played the piano.

  On the next morning Louise rang Clement again, no good. She rang Emil and talked to Bellamy, who told her he would soon be moving out, no he had no knowledge of Clement. She then rang Cora, no news, except that Joan had left and Cora did not know where she was. Louise announced to the girls that she was going out ‘to get some fresh air’, and ‘might be away for some time’. She put on her thick overcoat and a woollen cap and gloves and boots. The coldness surprised her, she had forgotten the outside world. There was no wind but an absolute coldness, so cold as to seem to silence the sound of the cars. The sky was white. Her breath made quick puffs of cloud around her. She walked a bit at random and saw with surprise in a newsagent’s shop, Christmas decorations, Christmas cards. Of course, before long it would be Christmas. The coldness had already brought tears to her eyes. How could so much time have passed, had they all been in a trance? She thought, and am I going to commit suicide too? The idea formed itself like a pendent notice hanging in front of her eyes. But this was nonsense, she was not going to commit suicide, how could she if it was nearly Christmas and she must buy presents for the children – for both of them. Or should she not send a present to Aleph – if she knew where she was? The idea was horrible. She paused and looked at a dog. It was a black and white collie with brown eyes, but it reminded her of Anax. She patted it and it smiled up at her and wagged its tail. Its owner also smiled at Louise. A taxi appeared and Louise got into it and gave the address of Clement’s flat. Here she paid the taxi man and rang the bell, but there was no answer, she had not expected an answer. As she walked away an idea, a most obvious idea, came into her mind. Where was he? Perhaps with Joan? Perhaps with the ladies of the theatre? After all, what did she know of his life, who he went to bed with, who he really loved? His time with her and with the children had been only a little interlude, only a little whiff of domestic life, not the real world. Louise stopped and stood for some time motionless, with her gloved hands deep in her pockets. Someone, staring at her, even spoke to her, asking if he could direct her or help her in any way. No thank you, I am beyond help. She walked on slowly. So now I must go home, where else can I go, I cannot find out anything, even about where he is. Anyway, what business is it of mine? What am I doing, walking about like this and grieving for him? Was there anyone now whom she could decently ask? No. She had never been curious about his other life, she could remember nobody in it! Nobody, that is, except his agent, a man called Antony Sloe, about whom Clement used
to make jokes. Having remembered this Louise also remembered the road where this man lived. She thought now as she walked more purposefully along, I’ll go home and ring him up. Then she thought, no I’ll go to see him now. I must find out –

  Antony Sloe, after Louise had arrived by taxi to see him, was not very helpful. He was cautious and uncommunicative. Yes, Clement was, he believed, still in London, but really he might be anywhere. Why was she looking for him? Was she herself in the theatre? Louise said, which was reasonably truthful, that somebody was ill. After a bit of frowning and staring Sloe wrote down the name of what he said was a small ‘bijou’ theatre, now derelict, in which Clement was interested, adding however that as likely as not Clement wouldn’t be there. Louise ran out and hailed another taxi.

  The theatre, south of the river, and indeed small, had a pretty Georgian facade of grey stone. Louise cautiously pushed one of the doors. It yielded. The foyer was empty. There was a smell of old upholstery and dust. She stood there for some minutes, holding a hand over her heart and listening to a dark silence which seemed to emanate from within. She also wondered why she had come here, come this far. She stuffed her gloves into her pockets and moved forward and mounted some stairs, breathing the silence and the dusty smell. Treading softly and cautiously she pressed a door ahead of her which swung suddenly open and, as she stepped through it, closed behind her, leaving her in thick pitch darkness. She tried to retreat but she had lost the door and stretched out her hands, beating the dense dark, seeking for a surface. She found a wall and leaned against it. She dropped her handbag but, scrabbling on the floor, found it. At last she felt a yielding surface, a door, which she pushed, seeking for daylight. The door gave way, she edged through, but not into the light of day. She was standing in a huge silent dimly lit space, with some sort of gaping hole before her. The door behind closed quietly. She was on the balcony of the little theatre, looking down the very steep rows of seats toward the empty stage. From where she stood the stalls were invisible. She felt giddy, as if she were being impelled to fall or fly downward. She reached out for something to hold onto, gripped the back of one of the seats, and sat down. A soft dim light came from invisible sources. In the intense opaque apprehensive silence she could hear her heartbeat and her fast breathing. The air was cold and damp and smelt of rot. She feared the emptiness of the theatre, its coldness, the brooding dead exhausted air, the little puny empty stage, with its mean space and its wordless futility. Supposing all the lights were to go out. All she desired now was to get away safely. She rose hastily and went back to the door, holding it open to shed a dim light onto the corridor. She paused and turned back to look again. The stage was no longer empty. A man was standing on it, the man was Clement. He was standing with his hands in his pockets and his head bowed. He had not seen her.

  Louise slipped quickly through the door letting it close behind her, hurried through the darkness, fumbled for the other door and found it, hurried down the stairs into the foyer, and ran out into the street. She walked along slowly, panting, ready to cry. She came to some iron railings where big dark sacks of rubbish had been put out onto the pavement. She paused, she looked at the sacks and at the railing, the spear-shaped tops of which had in places been broken off. She reached across to the railing, touching it with her ungloved hands. Then she turned back and walked slowly back toward the theatre. She crossed the foyer, not this time mounting the stairs, but following an arrow which pointed behind them. She passed quickly now through a door, across a dark corridor, and back into the big dimly lit space. The stage, now on a level with her, seemed surprisingly near. Only it was, once again, empty. Louise stood for a few minutes looking at it. She felt intense disappointment, even a kind of guilt, as if she had missed something, perhaps forever. He had been there, she could have spoken to him. Could she call out now, cry his name? It was impossible. She felt again the terror, the sense of being a criminal in fear of discovery. However, she walked a little forward, looking to right and left. There was no one there. She went on, walking slowly and silently upon the shabby threadbare carpet. She felt now a curious obsessive impulse to reach the stage and touch it. She reached it and laid her hand upon the torn velvet which covered the wood. The wood was warm. She saw some steps and mounted them, turning round now to look at the whole silent auditorium. She moved a little. The boards creaked.

  ‘Louise! What on earth are you doing here!’

  As soon as she saw Clement standing at the back of the theatre and heard his voice her terror vanished. She slipped off her coat and dropped it on the dusty floor and shook out the skirt of her dress. It was almost as if she were acting. It was a moment before she could command her voice, but when it came it was calm and clear. She was even able to experience a kind of reassuring irritation.

  ‘What do you think I’m doing? I heard you were here and I thought I’d drop in and look at the place.’

  ‘How clever of you to find me. But who told you?’ Clement was coming down the centre aisle.

  ‘Oh, someone told me. I think it was your agent, yes of course it was. But what are you doing? This place seems to be a wreck.’

  Clement mounted the steps. He approached her and picked up her coat. ‘Yes, but I hope it can be rescued. There was talk of pulling it down. It’s terrible when a theatre dies.’

  ‘The boards creak.’

  ‘Yes, and that will never do! And there’s dry rot in the boxes.’

  ‘Are there boxes? Oh yes, I see them now, they’re tiny.’

  ‘Got to have boxes, it’s a matter of prestige! But Louise, why – ?’

  ‘Where will you get the money from?’

  ‘We’ll stir up the usual sources and mount an appeal – maybe we’ll find a millionaire – you see, it’s so pretty – ’

  ‘Will it be your theatre?’

  ‘Well, if it survives, sort of, I hope – ’

  ‘Look, do you mind if we go out into the daylight? It’s so awfully damp and cold in here.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, come this way, follow me.’ He led her off the stage, not through the auditorium, through various mysterious spaces, collecting his overcoat and turning out lights behind him, down some stairs, and then, suddenly pressing a bar, out by a side exit into the brilliant daylight of a street where there was even a hint of sun. They walked along the side street to the front of the theatre where Clement locked the front doors.

  ‘Could I have my coat?’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’

  Louise put her coat on. She said, ‘Well, I must be getting back home. Would that bus take me?’

  ‘No, it goes to Clapham Junction. Any Aleph news?’

  ‘No – ’

  ‘I assumed you’d let me know.’

  ‘Yes.’ Louise noticed they were standing beside the railings where the iron spears had been decapitated, and she reached out again and touched the bitterly cold iron. ‘Well, thank you for showing me your theatre. Now I really must go.’

  ‘Why go, why not stay with me and have lunch? There’s a little Italian restaurant which I’ve discovered, quite close. I’ll have to go back to the theatre this afternoon, but – ’

  ‘No, thanks. I’d better get back, I don’t eat lunch now anyway, and Moy is holding the fort. I’ll just get a taxi – ’

  ‘There aren’t any round here.’

  ‘Well, where’s the nearest tube station?’

  ‘Look here, I’ll drive you home, if you don’t mind walking to my car?’

  ‘Oh no, certainly not, I mustn’t waste your time, I’m sure you – ’

  ‘Louise, do as I say, it’s not far to the car, and I can get you back quite quickly, come on.’

  They walked to the car in silence.

  ‘I wonder when you’ll hear from Aleph?’

  ‘How do I know? I expect a letter soon, telling us about their arrangements, where they’ll be. I don’t know whether Lucas had any particular university post in mind. Did he tell you?’

  ‘Tell me? No! How’s poor M
oy?’

  ‘She’s very quiet. I sometimes wonder if she’s going mad.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  They were silent. The car crossed the river and began to run along beside the Thames. Clement suddenly turned to the right, drove a little way, then stopped under huge leafless plane trees in a little square.

  ‘What is this, where are we?’

  ‘Where indeed, Louise? I don’t know.’

  ‘Oh – really – !’

  ‘Please don’t.’

  ‘Don’t what?’

  ‘Be so cold and – bloody tiresome.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but – ’

  ‘Can’t we talk to each other any more, have we lost each other?’

  ‘I hope we haven’t lost each other, Clement.’

  ‘Such awful things have happened – Lucas and Aleph, and Peter – maybe we have to be in mourning for a while – but – ’

  ‘But?’

  ‘You came to the theatre.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps I shouldn’t have. It means nothing.’

  ‘I think it means everything. It means you need me, it means you love me. Isn’t that true? All right, cry, do cry – perhaps I shall cry myself – ’

  ‘So you’ve got used to it at last.’

  ‘What an odd way of putting it.’

  ‘Well, it is startling, I am startled.’