A Severed Head

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘Christ, one can love two people,’ I said. ‘You ought to know that.’

  ‘All right,’ she said, ‘all right. And that you should deceive me - well, I don’t exactly understand it, but I can imagine it. But when Palmer and I told you about us, that you should not have been honest then … I can’t conceive how you could sit there pretending to be virtuous and let us carry all the guilt. It’s not like you, Martin.’

  ‘No, indeed, it isn’t like you,’ said Palmer, ‘yet it must belong to you. Even psycho-analysts get surprises. We were very straight and honest with you. It simply didn’t occur to us to deceive you. As Antonia says, you might at least have been truthful then. However, it humbles one. We must just try again to understand you. For understand you we will.’

  ‘I can’t explain,’ I said, ‘though there is an explanation. It doesn’t matter.’ I felt sick in confusion and guilt. I could not possibly make it clear to them the compulsion under which I had treasured the secret of Georgie. Understanding was out of the question; and indeed how passionately, just then, I did not want to be understood.

  ‘But it does matter, Martin,’ said Palmer. ‘It matters very much. And we are in no hurry. We can talk about this all day if necessary.’

  ‘Well, I can’t,’ I said. ‘What do you want to know? Georgie’s twenty-six. She’s a lecturer at L.S.E. She’s been my mistress for nearly two years. We had a child and got rid of it. That’s the lot.’

  ‘Oh, Martin,’ said Antonia, and she was quite in control by now, ‘don’t pretend to be a cynic and not to care. It doesn’t ring true at all. We know you love this girl and we want to help you. We know you haven’t it in you to take a mistress without loving her deeply. I confess it was a shock to me to learn this. But I can get over it and I know how to be generous. Of course I’m jealous. It would be impossible not to be. I’ve already talked all this out with Anderson. But I think I really and truly do want what’s best for you. Only you must be more frank and simple with us now. Please.’

  ‘Antonia has been very honest with herself and with me,’ said Palmer. ‘You know how very much she loves you. She cannot but be shocked, not only by your deceit, but by the very existence of this girl. And it is natural, and indeed proper, that this revelation should arouse her love for you in an active and jealous form. Which is, for all of us, a painful situation. But she has behaved rationally, finely, and you need fear no resentment from either of us. In fact we want, as it were, to give you our blessing. So you see how wrong you were, and how unjust to us 1’

  ‘We’ll see you through, Martin,’ said Antonia, who had been nodding her head throughout the previous speech. ‘Who knows but that this strange tangle may not be for the best in the end for all of us? We’ll stand by you and Georgie. This was really what I wanted to say. I’m sorry I seemed so upset and cross. It did distress me terribly that you deceived me. But indeed I do believe that you loved me all the time. So do not be guilty or worried, darling Martin.’

  ‘I won’t be guilty or worried, I’ll be raving mad,’ I said. ‘I don’t want you to see me through. I want to be left alone by both of you at long last.’

  ‘You are mistaken about your wishes,’ said Palmer. ‘You don’t so easily escape the toils of love. The fact is that this discovery has cast a shadow on us all, and we must all work to remove that shadow.’

  ‘You mean I must be tidied up so that you and Antonia can go ahead?’

  ‘You must be, as you put it, tidied up for your own sake also,’ said Palmer. ‘A lot of lying must be compensated for by a lot of truth-telling. I’m sure Georgie will agree with us. And then we shall be much happier, all four of us.’

  ‘You were on about all three of us some time ago,’ I said. ‘Now it’s all four. Why do you leave your sister out? Let’s have a quintet.’

  ‘Come,’ said Palmer a little stiffly, ‘be serious, Martin. You must take some responsibility for what you’ve done. As I said, we’ve got to understand you. And we shall understand you a good deal better after we’ve met Georgie.’

  ‘Over my dead body.’

  ‘You will have to be reasonable in the end,” said Palmer. ‘After all, you are hardly in a position of .strength. So you may as well be reasonable now. Antonia has only just heard of this young woman. It is very natural that she should wish to meet her. And you should both be thankful that she will do so in no spirit of anger.’

  ‘I’m told she is beautiful and clever,’ said Antonia, ‘and young: which is a lovely thing for you, Martin. Can you not see that I mean what I say? Can you not be generous enough to receive the gift of my good will, my blessing?’

  ‘I tell you I shall go mad,’ I said. ‘You talk as if you were arranging my marriage. After all, for Christ’s sake, you’re not my parents!’

  Palmer smiled his broad white American smile and drew Antonia closer to him.

  Twelve

  I closed the door behind me. I said to Georgie, ‘Antonia knows. How did she find out?’

  When I escaped from Palmer and Antonia I went straight round to Covent Garden. But I did not call on Georgie at once. I spent twenty minutes sitting in a pub and trying to collect myself. I was shivering all over and found it very difficult to think. What I chiefly felt, and this seemed strange, was guilt, overwhelming annihilating guilt. Yet there was no rational reason why Antonia and Palmer’s discovery of the fact should make me feel guilt which the fact itself had not made me feel. I experienced too an obscure dismay at the extent to which, in a moment, those two seemed to have established over me a moral dictatorship even more complete than that which they had enjoyed before. It appeared to me that just this was what they wanted; and looking back on the scene, although it was true that Antonia had been upset and felt genuine pain, yet there had been a sort of excitement in her manner too. To have me presented as so easy, so defenceless, a quarry to a mingled power of censure and of love excited her, gave her a sort of sexual thrill.

  When I turned my thoughts to Georgie I was no better off. A veil of guilt seemed to divide me from her, and with it a sense that the blow of discovery had at least crippled, if not killed, my love for her. An opening of that love to the world would strengthen and purify it, I had thought: and this might indeed have been so had I been able to make the revelation in my own time and in my own way, with dignity and a serene face. But to be had up like that by Palmer and Antonia, to have the thing thrust at me as a crime, and at the same time stroked and cosseted in their benevolent imagination, was to make it appear to me merely obscene: and it occurred to me to wonder inconclusively whether this too were not precisely in their intention. What had happened was just what I had wanted not to happen. I had been right, not Georgie. The effect of being so accused was to call up a positive fountain of guilt which covered now with its nauseating tar my whole love for Georgie which had seemed so simple and so clean. Yet I knew that this was deeply unfair to her; and I told myself that my mood would change.

  I wondered too how it had all come out; and the fantastic idea came to me that Georgie herself had betrayed us. Yet after a while I could not believe this. I could not see her being so disloyal, nor could I see her carrying out an action which required, which must require, so much of the histrionic. The thing might have come out in hundreds of ways. Since Antonia’s own revelation I had become careless. Something, a letter perhaps, must have been found. I finished my drink and mounted Georgie’s stairs. At least it was a sort of going home.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘how did she find out? Do you happen to know?’ I found myself, on confronting Georgie, cold and almost angry with her. How angry I was with myself did not bear contemplating.

  Georgie was wearing an old skirt and a shapeless jersey. She looked as if she had been up all night. She stared at me gloomily, scratching her nose, and then cleared a space in the mess on the table, pushing the books and papers into a dusty heap. The room was both cold and stuffy. She sat on the table. She said, ‘I expect Honor Klein told her.’

  This was so u
nexpected I gaped at her and then sat down in the armchair as if I’d been pushed over. ‘However did she know?’ I asked.

  ‘I told her,’ said Georgie. She sat there gravely, very pale and dignified, one black-stockinged leg under her. She adjusted her skirt and returned my gaze with a face of iron.

  ‘I see,’ I said. I was blushing and breathless with anger and shock. After a moment, when I felt able to speak again, I said, ‘As you may imagine, I am utterly astonished. Would you mind explaining, please?’

  ‘After you pushed me out into the garden,’ said Georgie, ‘I didn’t go home. I felt so angry. I’ll tell you more about that in a minute. I went to the University Library and tried to read something, but it was no good. Well, then I had a coffee and went home. I felt bloody miserable, and I rang you up, but you weren’t there.’

  ‘I was out looking for you,’ I said.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Georgie, ‘I’d just put the phone down when the door-bell rang. I thought it was you. Well, it was Honor Klein. She looked pale and grim as hell. I asked her in and gave her a drink and we made some conversation. Then she suddenly asked me about you.’

  ‘Good God,’ I said, ‘just like that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Georgie. ‘So I told her.’

  ‘You told her everything?’

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it was impossible to lie to her,’ said Georgie. She straightened her leg and massaged her ankle. Then she slithered slowly off the table and hobbled to a cupboard where she found a bottle of gin. There seemed to be no clean glasses. She looked exhausted.

  ‘You’re insane,’ I said, ‘and what’s more you’re a treacherous little bitch. You let that woman bully you.’

  ‘I was tired of the bloody lies,’ said Georgie. ‘And I was so angry with you about what happened in the afternoon. It would have been so much better if you’d let me stay and see Antonia. I simply loathed that whispering and being shoved out the back, as if you’d been caught kissing the housemaid. I hated it, Martin.’ Her voice was harsh and cracked with emotion. She took two glasses from the mantelpiece.

  ‘It wasn’t Antonia,’ I said. ‘It was Honor Klein.’

  ‘I see, I see,’ said Georgie slowly. She spilt some gin and began soaking it up with a paper handkerchief. ‘Then that was how she found out. I wondered. I left two books with my name in on the hall table.’

  ‘But why should she guess just this,’ I said, ‘and why should she trouble to follow it up and make you confess?’

  ‘As for guessing just this,’ said Georgie, ‘anyone might. She probably heard us whispering. Why she should have followed it up beats me.’

  ‘You didn’t ask her?’

  Georgie laughed a dry grunting laugh.

  ‘Of course not! As I told you, she carries too many guns. And anyway after spilling the beans and sitting in silent communion with Honor every time you telephoned I was practically a stretcher case.’ She added slowly. ‘It was a relief, all the same.’

  ‘And it didn’t occur to you to ask her to keep quiet? Well, I suppose you couldn’t.’

  ‘You suppose rightly,’ said Georgie. ‘If you can see me going down on my knees afterwards, asking her not to tell on me, you know me better than I know myself!’

  ‘I simply can’t understand you,’ I said. ‘You know how important it was to me not to let this be known, especially now. I simply can’t cope with Antonia’s knowing it. I can’t cope with the way she knows it. You just don’t know what this is like. I’m in torment. And you go and blurt it all out to some bloody stranger just because she was your superior at college!’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Georgie, stammering, her voice beginning to shake, ‘you don’t understand me and you’ve never tried very hard. I put up with things being secret when they had to be, but I loathed it. I suffered all the time, every day, every bloody day. And I never spoke to you about it. Then when it didn’t have to be secret, and you still kept on - it made me feel as if you were ashamed of me. It began to poison things. Oh, I don’t mean that you should instantly have married me - why should you? But there was no need to keep me so deeply buried. And you ought to have told Antonia then. I began to feel I didn’t exist. Oh, I love you, I love you entirely! I wish I didn’t. But I feel utterly poisoned all the same. I would never have blown the gaff of my own accord. But when Honor Klein came like that it was like a message from the gods. I couldn’t have told lies then, I would have died of it!’

  She was practically in tears. She poured out some gin, jarring the bottle on the edge of the glass, and then slopped some water in after it. As I rose she handed it to me. My own anger had soured into despair.

  ‘Christ, darling,’ I said, ‘you don’t know what you’ve done. But it doesn’t matter. It’s all my bloody fault anyway. I should never have put you in this position at all.’

  ‘You’re saying you don’t love me and you never loved me,’ said Georgie, and the tears brimmed over her eyes in a great flood.

  ‘Oh God!’ I said. I put the drink down and went to her. She stood stiffly with her hands on the table while I put my arms round her. The tears dripped on to her blue jersey.

  ‘You know perfectly well I love you, little imbecile,’ I said. ‘Please be rational now and help me. I know I don’t make myself clear. It’s just that there’s something terrible for me about those two knowing. They were eating me up before. Now, if they choose to, they can assimilate me entirely. But I can’t expect you to understand all this. You’d have to be me. You’ve go to help me, Georgie.’ I shook her to and fro until she put a hand on my arm. She took a paper handkerchief for her eyes and poured out some more gin. She drank a little and handed the glass to me.

  The familiar ritual steadied us both. I drew her limp being against mine. She laid her head on my shoulder. Our bodies, at least, were old friends.

  ‘What is so dreadful about the way she knows?’ said Georgie. ‘You see, I do want to understand.’

  ‘Oh, something to do with the way it’s all hideously caught up in intimacy and love. You’d have to see it. It’s like the nursery. For instance, she’s dying to meet you.’

  ‘Is she?’ said Georgie, jerking back from me and brushing the moisture from her jersey. ‘Well, that’s fine. I’m dying to meet her.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, darling,’ I said. ‘Don’t you start.’

  ‘When you took me to Hereford Square,’ said Georgie, ‘you took me through the looking glass. There’s no going back now. I’ve had enough of having things around that I am afraid to think of.’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to introduce you to Antonia, and that’s that.’

  ‘Antonia, this is Georgie Hands. Georgie, my wife,’ I found these incredible words passing my lips. I was able to speak without stammering or choking. No one fainted.

  The interview took place in Palmer’s drawing-room. The purple velvet curtains were drawn now upon the evening and the dark wallpaper covered with furry black roses, lit by a dancing firelight, surrounded us like a wicked forest. Dark-shaded lamps upon distant tables cast a narrow light upon Palmer’s collection of crystals, which emitted here and there a mysterious but significant ray. Antonia stood on the thick black rug by the fire. In front of her on a low mosaic table was the tray of drinks and three glasses. Warned by telephone, she was ready.

  Antonia, who had taken more than usual pains with her appearance, was wearing a dark green dress of light Italian wool which I had bought her in Rome once. She wore no jewellery and had her great golden hair done in a plain bun. She stood there, plump, tall, one hip thrown out and one hand upon it turned back at the wrist, an elegant, anxious, tired, older woman, and at that moment, and in the particular quality of her nervousness, to me infinitely familiar and infinitely dear.

  Georgie in her shabby brown skirt, blue pullover, and black stockings looked like a child. She had, with a defiant deliberation, made no change in her appearance. She wore no make-up. Her hair was plaited and twisted care
lessly, a little absurdly even, to the top of her head. She was very pale, and the pallor emphasized the limpid clarity of her complexion. She bowed a stiff little bow to Antonia, who fluttered, not deciding whether to extend her hand. Both women were breathing quickly.

  Antonia said, ‘Will you have a drink?’ Her voice was deep with nervousness. ‘Do sit down, please.’ She began to pour out some sherry.

  ‘No, no thank you,’ said Georgie. ‘Don’t be silly,’ I said.

  No one sat down. Antonia stopped pouring and looked at Georgie with a sad appealing conscious look. Her big tawny eyes were pained. She was very very anxious to please. She said in a tense little voice, ‘Don’t be angry with me.’

  Georgie shook her head and made a gesture with her hands which seemed to set Antonia’s remark aside as being unmentionably inappropriate.

  I said, ‘Well, I’ll have a drink, Antonia.’ My terror of a ‘scene’ was overwhelmed by the dreadful tender pain of seeing them together.

  She gave me the glass and poured out two more, placing one for Georgie at the far end of the little table which extended between them. I took my place in the middle facing the fire.

  ‘May I call you Georgie?’ said Antonia. ‘I feel as if I know you already.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Georgie. ‘if you want to.’

  ‘And will you call me Antonia?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Georgie. ‘Sorry. I don’t think I can. But it’s of no importance.’

  ‘It’s of importance to me,’ said Antonia.

  ‘Oh, break it up!’ I said. I could not bear Antonia’s tone of tender insistence.

  ‘Martin, please,’ said Antonia. Still looking at Georgie, she put her hand on my sleeve and left it there. I could feel her trembling. I was penetrated with pity for her.

  ‘Look,’ said Georgie. The muscles of her nose contracted. ‘I wanted to see you, since you wanted to see me. I felt it was right, and a matter of taking seriously what one has done. But I doubt if we can really talk to each other.’