A Severed Head

by Iris Murdoch

  Georgie came in slowly. I could see in her the counterpart of my own emotion. She stared at me, her lips parted, frowning, as if to see whether the power of the room had given me a different face. Then she looked very carefully around, nodding her head as she did so, seeming to count the objects. I was absorbed in watching her, and in the spreading throughout my whole being of the extraordinary experience of seeing her there. I had spoken of ‘breaking down the doubleness’. With what a rush it was being broken down, and what a vista of open spaces, I felt in those instants, were not now being opened to my astounded gaze. My instinct in bringing Georgie here, and at once, had been a sound one: and what I most apprehended, in the mixture of feelings that possessed me, was the very possibility of loving Georgie more, of loving her better.

  I felt this: but felt it in the midst of a considerable and more immediate pain at seeing, in the circumstances of a sort of treachery, the well-loved room again. To lose somebody is to lose not only their person but all those modes and manifestations into which their person has flowed outwards; so that in losing a beloved one may find so many things, pictures, poems, melodies, places lost too: Dante, Avignon, a song of Shakespeare’s, the Cornish sea. The room was Antonia. It breathed the rich emphasis of her personality. The rose smell was there, barely perceptible, waiting in vain to be warmed to a full fragrance by the blaze of a wood fire. All these things were her, the silky rugs, the plump cushions, especially the mantelpiece, her little shrine; the Meissen cockatoos, the Italian silver cup, the Waterford glass, the snuff-box, which I had given her when we were engaged, with the legend: Friendship without Interest and Love without Deceit. It was a new and fierce pain to look on all this and see it as something mortal, indeed as something already perished, disintegrated, meaningless, and waiting to be taken away. Tomorrow Antonia and I would be dividing up these objects as so mush dreary loot, to be stored away in cupboards like guilty secrets or desecrated by the labels of the auctioneer. I touched the Waterford glass with my finger: and in its ring I heard the echo of a voice saying You do not really want your wife back after all. I answered the voice in my heart: a bond of this kind is deeper and stronger than wanting or not wanting. Wherever I am in the world and whenever I am I shall always be Antonia.

  I sat down on the sofa. Georgie turned from looking out of the window and came towards me. The untidy bundle of her hair was contained in the upturned collar of her coat and she kept her hands deep in her pockets as for some time she stared down at me with a look of almost hostile tenderness. She said at last, ‘Do you hate seeing me here?’

  I said, ‘No. I can’t tell you how entirely good for me it is to see you here. But there’s such pain too.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, her voice deep, weighted with understanding. ‘Don’t be angry with me because of the pain.’

  ‘I am far from that. I feel more like kissing your feet. You’ve put up with so much from me.’ As I spoke these words I felt myself, obscurely yet positively, upon the road towards making Georgie my wife. I had told her once that secrecy was essential to our love. Seeing her in this room, and thus joining the two halves of my life, seemed to prove me wrong and her right. The lies should indeed be done away with: and so far from breaking the texture of my love for Georgie this would set it free to be something stronger and purer than anything I had yet known. Gratitude to her, gratitude for her loyalty, her reason, her sheer kindness to me, possessed my heart.

  ‘Ah, you’re hating me!’ said Georgie. She was still staring down at me intently, as if to wrest the thoughts out of my head.

  ‘If you only knew how wrong you are!’ I said. I gave her back a steady unsmiling stare, and felt pleasure at the idea of surprising her, rewarding her, with my better love. God knows she deserved it.

  I got up and began to collect the Christmas cards from the piano. Beneath them it was thick with dust. The business of clearing up had begun.

  ‘It’s so strange and moving to be here!’ said Georgie. She had begun to roam about the room again. ‘I can’t think what it’s like. It’s like possessing you retrospectively. No, not quite. But you’ve no idea how completely I assumed that I would never sec this place. I will now come to believe, and this will be better, so much better, that in the past, all that time that you were away from me, you really went on existing. It was too painful to believe at the time. But I knew that not to believe it was a failure of love. Now, with your help, I can put that right. I shall love you better, much better, Martin, in the future.’

  She came to a standstill in front of me. I was deeply affected by the way in which her words echoed my thought. I sought for, but could not yet find, some eloquence by which to draw her closer in a preliminary exchange of vows.

  I threw the pile of Christmas cards on the floor and led Georgie with me towards the mantelpiece. I said, ‘I want you to touch everything. I want you to touch all these things.’

  She hesitated. ‘It would be sacrilege. I should suffer for it!’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It will be good sacrilege. You bring me closer to reality. You have always done that for me.’

  I took her hand and laid it on the Meissen cockatoo. We held each other’s eyes. Georgie drew her hand back. Then after a moment she rapidly touched all the other objects on the mantelpiece. I took her hand again. It was marked with dust. I kissed it in the palm and raised my eyes to her again. I could see she was on the point of tears. I began to take her in my arms.

  At that moment I heard a sound which made my heart violent with fear even before my mind had understood it. It was the familiar sound of a key turning in the front door. Georgie heard it too and her eyes became wide and hard. We stood thus for a second, paralysed. Then I pulled myself roughly out of the embrace.

  It could only be Antonia. She had changed her mind about going to the country, and had decided to come and look the furniture over before our interview tomorrow. In another moment she would come straight into the drawing-room and find me with Georgie. I could not bear it.

  I acted quickly. I took Georgie’s wrist and pulled her over to the french windows. I opened them and then drew her into the garden and round a little to the side of the house so that we should be invisible from the room. I whispered to her, ‘Go out of that little gate and you can get back into the square. Then go straight home and I’ll join you.’ .

  ‘No!’ said Georgie, speaking softly but not whispering, ‘No!

  Panic possessed me. I had to get her away. I felt horror and nausea at the idea of an encounter between Antonia and Georgie at Hereford Square: there was something here horrible, almost obscene. I put all my will into my voice. ‘Go at once, damn you.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ said Georgie, in the same tone. She glared at me. Our heads were close together. ‘Let me meet your wife now. I won’t be made to run away!’

  ‘Do as 1 tell you,’ I said. I took her arm and applied a pressure until she winced.

  She pulled her arm away and turned. ‘I haven’t any money.’

  I gave her a pound quickly from my wallet, made a violent gesture of dismissal, and went back into the drawing-room. To my relief the room was still empty. I closed the doors quickly. I did not look back to the garden.

  I waited a moment. There was a profound silence. What could Antonia be doing? I wondered if I perhaps had been mistaken after all. I walked across the room and out into the hall. Honor Klein was standing just inside the door.

  The appearance, so unexpectedly, of this absolutely immobile figure had something of the uncanny, and she had for a moment the snapshot presence of a ghost. We stared at each other. She was hunched up inside her overcoat and her troll-like face was still moist with the raw air outside. She did not smile or speak, but regarded me with a steady tense meditative gaze. I felt, at seeing her, relief mingled with a profound dismay and a certain deep unreasoning fear. I felt her dangerous. I said, ‘May I help you?’

  She threw her head back, pulling her coat open at the neck. ‘You mean, Mr Lynch-Gibbon, why
the hell am I here.’

  ‘Precisely,’ I said. I never seemed destined to achieve politeness with Palmer’s sister.

  She said, ‘The explanation is this. Your wife told me that you would be away today. I needed to have a certain key to a bureau. This key is in my brother’s wallet. This wallet he lent to your wife for the paying of some bill. She put it into a basket which she accidentally left here when she called in yesterday. As my need was urgent, and as you and she were both to be away, she lent me your front-door key. So here I am. And there is the basket.’

  She indicated a basket standing under the hall table. On the hall table I saw Georgie’s handbag and two books on economics. I picked up the basket and handed it to her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I am sorry I disturbed you.’ Her gaze seemed to pass slowly over Georgie’s bag.’

  ‘Not at all,’ I said. I experienced a sudden fierce desire to detain her. I wanted to know what she was thinking. But I could not find the words. I felt lame and foolish before her. She too seemed for a moment to want to stay. But as neither of us could find the means to prolong the situation she turned about and I opened the door. As she passed me I bowed.

  I went back into the drawing-room. The garden was empty. I slipped the copy of Napier into my pocket. I found I was breathless. I leaned on the mantelpiece and began to stroke one of the cockatoos. The gritty dust came off on my hand.

  Eleven

  The next thing was that Georgie was not at her place. I had gone straight there by car after I had recovered my wits, and banged on the door, but there seemed to be no one in. I went to her room at the school, but she was not there and had not been there. I rushed back to her lodgings. There was still no reply. I went back to the school again and wasted time asking people. I felt both upset and offended, and after a while I returned to Hereford Square and spent the rest of the evening making a list of furniture, and telephoning Georgie, without result, at intervals. I did not seriously think she had been kidnapped or run over. I imagined that she must have been affronted by the way in which I pushed her off. I hated this idea: but felt confident of bringing her round fairly easily. It was not a pleasant evening, however. I drank a great deal of whisky, and went to bed.

  I woke late the next day to hear the phone ringing. How well one sleeps when one is in grief. It was not Georgie. It was Antonia. She said she was glad to find me back, and asked if I would come to Pelham Crescent before lunch instead of her coming to Hereford Square in the afternoon. I agreed to this. Since I had made a fairly complete list of our belongings the matter could be as well discussed there as here. I telephoned Georgie’s number again and got no reply. I decided I would call on Antonia, leave the furniture list with her, go to Georgie’s, and come back to Antonia later on. I felt, still, hurt and cross rather than seriously anxious at Georgie’s behaviour.

  After I had washed and shaved I telephoned Georgie again, and tried the school, still with no results. When I was about to leave the phone rang again, but it was only Alexander to say that he and Rosemary were in London. He had come up to speak at a debate at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and had stayed last night at Rosemary’s flat. He wanted to know when he could see me. I told him I would ring him back.

  It was a sunny morning, the first for a long time, frosty and very cold, but bright and clear with a light which, as it made the white crystals shine upon the leaves in the Hereford Square garden, reminded me of Austria, snow, skis, and old happiness. The painful elation which I had experienced yesterday at seeing Georgie in my house had vanished without trace; I was depressed, cross, weak, and terribly on edge. As I entered Palmer’s front door I felt a sort of confused craven relief. At least here were people who would be gentle with me.

  There was no one in the drawing-room. Then as I heard from Palmer’s study the sound of Antonia’s voice I knocked on the door. I opened it and went in. Antonia and Palmer were both there. Antonia was dressed in a quilted check housecoat which was new to me. Her hair hung down over her breasts in two plaits in a fashion which I had not seen her use and which disturbed me very much. She was tall, Greek. She was standing at the end of the divan, leaning with one hand on Palmer’s desk. Palmer was sitting on the divan facing the door. He was wearing his loosely woven French jacket, a blue shirt, and a purple cravat. He looked sleek, clean, agile, young, a little raffish. In the bright sunny light I saw both their eyes fixed on me with concern, with a certain excitement, Antonia’s big soft and fawny, Palmer’s blue clear and cold. Behind them on the wall was the row of empty marks where the Japanese prints had been.

  I realized instantly that something odd had happened. Neither of them greeted me, they simply stared, not smiling, and yet with a certain gentle retaining solicitude. I closed the door. For a wild moment I imagined that they were going to tell me that they had changed their minds about getting married. I took an upright chair from the wall by the door and placed it in the centre of the carpet and sat down on it facing them. ‘Well, my friends?’

  Antonia shook her head and half turned away. I began to feel rather alarmed.

  Palmer said, ‘Shall we tell him?’

  Antonia, without looking at me, said, ‘Yes, of course.’

  Palmer gave me his level cold stare. He said, ‘Martin, we have found out about Georgie Hands.’

  This took me so terribly off guard that I instantly covered my face with one hand. I drew it away quickly, to change the gesture of weakness into one of surprise. I felt sick. I said, ‘I see. How did you learn this?”

  Palmer glanced up at Antonia, who had by now turned her back to me. He said after a moment, ‘We’d rather not tell you just now. Anyway that doesn’t matter.’

  I stared back at Palmer. His limpid expression contrived to be tender and stony at the same time. He sat very straight and square, looking at me across the length of the room.

  I said, ‘What have you found out?’

  Palmer again looked back towards Antonia. She spoke over her shoulder. ‘Everything, Martin. The child, everything.’ Her voice was rich with emotion.

  I wished I could feel anger. I felt simply devastating guilt. I said, ‘Well, there’s no need to make such a fuss about it.’

  Antonia made an inarticulate sound. Palmer kept me in his cool stare and shook his head very slightly. There was silence.

  I said, ‘I think I’d better go. I brought a list of furniture for Antonia to look at.’ I threw the list on the floor beside me and made to rise.

  ‘Wait, Martin,’ said Palmer, in a voice that made me wait. After a moment, during which he seemed to wait for Antonia to speak, he said, ‘I’m afraid we can’t just leave this thing. Well, use your common sense, Martin, of course we can’t. We have to talk about it. We have to react in an honest way. We can’t pretend not to mind! Antonia has a right to hear from you on this.’

  ‘To hell with Antonia’s right,’ I said. ‘Antonia has forfeited her rights.’

  ‘Martin,’ said Antonia, who had not yet turned to face me, ‘do not be rude and unkind as well.’

  ‘I’m sorry I said that,’ I said. ‘I’m suffering from shock.’

  ‘Antonia is suffering from shock too,’ said Palmer. ‘You must be considerate, Martin. We don’t want to be unpleasant or censorious. But we must have this thing right out. See?’

  ‘I see,’ I said. ‘Well, suppose you go away and let me talk to Antonia.’

  ‘I think she would prefer me to be present,’ said Palmer. ‘Is that correct, dear?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Antonia. She was holding her handkerchief to her mouth. She turned about now and sat down on the divan beside Palmer, dabbing her eyes but still not looking at me. Palmer put an arm round her shoulder.

  ‘Look here,’ I said. ‘What is there to talk about? You apparently have the facts and I don’t deny them. Do we have to have the bloody court-martial as well?’

  ‘You misunderstand us, Martin,’ said Palmer. ‘There is no question of a court-martial. Who are we to be your judges?
On the contrary, we should like to help you. But you must realize two things: first that we both love you very much, and second, that you have deceived us on a matter of very great importance.’

  ‘Martin, I can’t tell you how it hurts,’ said Antonia, still in a voice of tears, looking at the floor and twisting the damp handkerchief.

  ‘I’m sorry, my dear,’ I said.

  ‘Ah, but are you?’ said Palmer. ‘We thought we knew you, Martin. We have just had a surprise. I will not say that we are disillusioned, but I will say that we are distressed. We have, in a sense, to start again. We have lost our grip. We have to see where you are, we have to see what you are. We are not trying to blame you, we are trying to help you.’

  ‘I don’t want your help,’ I said, ‘and as for blame, I can do that job myself. I’ll talk to Antonia, but not to both of you.’

  ‘I’m afraid you must talk to both of us, Martin,’ said Palmer. ‘We are both wounded and we are both concerned. For our sake as well as your own you must talk to us, and talk to us frankly.’

  ‘How can you have told such lies, Martin?’ said Antonia. At last she managed to look at me. She had shed her tears and was more controlled now. ‘I was so surprised,’ she said. ‘I know I sometimes tell lies myself, but I thought you were so truthful. And I thought you loved me so much.’ She choked on the last words and put the handkerchief to her face again.

  ‘I did love you so much,’ I said. ‘I do love you so much.’ I could not stand much more of this. ‘I just loved Georgie too.’

  ‘And love her,’ said Palmer.

  ‘And love her,’ I said.

  ‘Honestly,’ said Antonia, ‘I just can’t think how you were capable of it.’ A rational indignation was saving her from tears.