A Severed Head

by Iris Murdoch

  Palmer said, ‘Is Antonia here?’ His voice was low and harsh and t here was emotion in him.

  I said, ‘Yes, do you want to see her?’

  ‘I’ve come to take her away,’ said Palmer.

  ‘Really?’ I said. ‘But suppose she doesn’t want to go?’

  Antonia had opened the sitting-room door and the light now showed me Palmer’s face, the straight tense line of his mouth and his eyes practically closed. It was the face of a man in danger and I exulted at the sight of it. Antonia said in a clear voice, ‘Come in here, please.’ The removal men were coming up the stairs again carrying the Chinese Chippendale chairs. I could hear them bumping on the banisters. I went back into the sitting-room and Palmer followed. I closed the door and we all looked at each other.

  Palmer said to Antonia, ‘Please come with me, Antonia.’ He spoke in a cold dead manner and I could see what she meant about his having changed into another person. He must by now be certain that I had told her.

  She hesitated, looked at me, looked at Palmer, and said in an almost inaudible voice, ‘All right.’

  ‘You’re not going,’ I said to her.

  Palmer said, ‘Just keep out of this, will you, Martin? You’ve meddled enough in things you don’t understand.’ He was looking at Antonia.

  ‘You meddled in things you didn’t understand,’ I said, ‘when you destroyed my happy and successful marriage.’

  ‘It wasn’t happy and successful,’ said Palmer, still staring at Antonia. ‘Happy husbands don’t keep little girls as mistresses. Put your coat on, Antonia.’

  ‘She isn’t going with you,’ I said. ‘Can’t you see she’s afraid of you?’

  Antonia stood paralysed, swaying a little, her shoulders twisted, looking from one to the other of us with big alarmed eyes. She did in fact look the picture of terror.

  Palmer said, ‘Martin, you and Antonia will do as I tell you.’

  ‘Not any more,’ I said. ‘Poor Palmer. Now get out.’

  The notion that I was shortly going to hit Palmer came to us all at the same time. It showed in Antonia in a sudden excited moistening of the lips, and in Palmer in a relaxing of his expression, a return of the wide-eyed stripped look which he had worn in Cambridge. He stopped looking at Antonia and turned to face me.

  He said softly, ‘You are a destroyer, aren’t you.’ Then he said to Antonia. ‘Use your reason. I want to talk to you, and not here.’

  I said, ‘For Christ’s sake go.’

  Palmer said, ‘Not without her,’ and stepped forward towards Antonia, who moved back against the window, her hand coming up to her mouth. He put his hand on her arm as if to pull her and she gave a little cry at the contact. I followed him and dug my fingers into his shoulder. He turned and knocked my grip roughly away, and as his hands came up I hit him in the face as hard as I could. He lost his balance and fell heavily. Antonia stepped over him and ran from the room. The fight, such as it was, was over.

  Violence, except on the screen, is always pathetic, ludicrous, and beastly. Palmer got slowly to his knees and then manoeuvred himself to a sitting position with his back to the wall. He kept his face covered with his hand. I squatted beside him attentively. I noticed that the glass of one of the prints was cracked. I felt no anger against Palmer now, just a satisfaction in what had happened. The rain was still hissing down outside the window. After a minute or two I said, ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ said Palmer through his hand. ‘No serious damage. It hurts like hell.’

  ‘That was the general idea,’ I said. ‘Let me see.’ I gently pulled his hand away. Palmer’s face, contracting against the light, showed me the beginnings of a splendid black eye. The eye was closed completely and the area round it was raw and swollen. A little blood marked the place on the cheek where my fist had arrived.

  ‘I haven’t anything to treat you with,’ I said. ‘You’d better go home. I’ll get you a taxi.’

  ‘Give me a handkerchief, would you?’ said Palmer. ‘I can’t see anything at the moment.’

  I gave him one and he held it to his damaged eye while he got laboriously to his knees again. I helped him up and brushed down his clothes. He stood there like a child while I did so. I kept my hands upon him and he did not move away. It was like an embrace. What I experienced in that moment was the complete surrender of his will to mine. Then I felt him trembling. I could not bear it.

  I said, ‘I’ll give you some whisky.’ I poured some into the cracked glass. Palmer sipped it with docility.

  Antonia said from outside, ‘The men are going. Could you pass me some money? I haven’t enough.’

  I found a few shillings in the pocket of my jacket, and said to Palmer, ‘Could you lend me five bob, by any chance?’

  He put the whisky down and, handkerchief still to eye, fished inside his coat. He gave me the silver, and I passed it all through the door to Antonia. I could hear the men departing. I wanted Palmer out of the house.

  I said, ‘I’ll go down with you now. We can pick up a taxi at the door.’

  He nodded. I pulled on my trousers and jacket over my pyjamas and we went out. There was no sign of Antonia. In the lift Palmer dabbed his eye and said softly to himself, ‘Well, well, well…’ I escorted him to the street, holding his arm, and a cruising taxi appeared almost at once. The rain was still falling relentlessly. When he was in the taxi we both tried to think of something suitable to say and Palmer said ‘Well’ again. I said, ‘I’m sorry.’ He said, ‘Let me see you soon,’ and I said, ‘I don’t know.’ The taxi drove off.

  I crawled back to the lift. I felt I wanted to go away somewhere and sleep. I didn’t even know whether Antonia was still in the flat. It occurred to me that it was for Honor and not for Antonia that I had hit Palmer. Or was it? I reached the door of the flat which was still wide open. I went through into the sitting-room. Antonia was standing near the window. She seemed calm. Hands behind back, head thrust forward, she surveyed me and her tired face was alive with a sort of provocative quizzical concern. She must have liked my hitting Palmer. Perhaps if I had hit Palmer on day one everything would have been different. Everything was certainly different now. Now I had power, but useless power.

  ‘Well, that appears to be that,’ said Antonia.

  ‘What appears to be what?’ I said. I sat down on the camp bed and poured some whisky into the glass. I was trembling now.

  ‘You’ve got me back,’ said Antonia.

  ‘Have I?’ I said. ‘Good show.’ I drank the whisky.

  ‘Oh, Martin,’ said Antonia is a shaken voice, ‘darling, darling Martin!’ She came and fell on her knees in front of me, clasping my legs, and the great crystalline tears which she used began to pour again. I stroked her hair with one hand in an abstracted way. I wanted to be by myself and to think what I was going to do about Honor. It struck me as a bitter paradox that my flight to Honor had had the result of reconciling her and Palmer, Antonia and me: whatever vision it was that she through the brother and I through the sister had momentarily had it seemed likely now to perish. It was that that would have no sequel. I went on drinking the whisky.

  ‘Martin, you are so familiar,’ said Antonia. ‘It seems silly to say this when I ought to be saying much more splendid things to you, because you’ve been wonderful. But it’s just this that strikes me! You know, I was afraid of Anderson, right from the start. It was never quite right, there was something a little forced. Do you know? I might even never have gone on with it if you had resisted, but no, you’ve been marvellous, you’ve been perfect. And it’s so much better for me, don’t you think, to have tried it and come through, and come back — if I’d dropped the idea at the start I would have been so tormented, wondering if perhaps there might have been something in it.’

  ‘But aren’t you in love with Palmer any more?’ I asked. I stared at the sleeve of my pyjamas which protruded damply from under my jacket. I had got soaked in my dash to the taxi.

  ‘It seems callous, doe
sn’t it,’ said Antonia. ‘But somehow yesterday and last night - I can’t tell you what it was like. I felt he hated me. He is a demon, you know. And love can die quickly, I think, just as it can be born quickly. I fell in love with Anderson in a flash.’

  ‘Heigh-ho,’ I said. ‘All’s well that ends well.’ I noted in a spiritless way Antonia’s perfect assumption that I wanted her back. There was something almost magnificent about it. But I could not play out the grand reconciliation scene which she obviously wanted.

  ‘Martin,’ said Antonia, still on the floor, ‘I can’t tell you what joy and relief it is to be able to talk to you again. Though we never really lost touch, did we? Wasn’t that quite miraculous, the way we kept in touch?’

  ‘Pretty good,’ I said. ‘That was mainly your doing. Anyway, now we needn’t worry about the Audubon prints.’

  ‘Darling!’ She hid her face against my knee, weeping and laughing. The door bell rang.

  I was in no mood for further visitors, but I went to the door. A wild idea occurred to me that it might be Honor. It was Rosemary.

  ‘Martin dear,’ said Rosemary in her precise manner, businesslike as soon as the door was six inches open, ‘I’ve come about the curtains. There’s a problem about the shape of the pelmets, whether you want wavy ones or straight ones, and I thought I’d better ask you and have a look again myself on the spot. Good, I see your stuff has come. We can do a little arranging straightaway.’

  ‘Come in, flower,’ I said. I led her to the sitting-room.

  Antonia had dried her tears and was powdering her nose again. She greeted Rosemary. I said to Rosemary, ‘I don’t think we need bother about pelmets. Antonia and I are going to stay married after all, so everything can now go back to Hereford Square.’

  If Rosemary was disappointed, she concealed it gallantly. She said, ‘I’m so glad, oh I’m so glad!’ Antonia flew to her with a little cry and they began kissing each other. I finished the whisky.

  Twenty-two

  My darling Georgie, you will have been impatient, anxious, perhaps angry, because of my silence. I am sorry. I have been in hell lately. I didn’t know that there were so many varieties of torment. I’ve been sampling a few new ones. Anyway. You will have heard about me and Antonia. I can’t ‘explain’ this. It happened not exactly against my will, but without my will. And I have to accept it. I cannot now reject Antonia; you have no conception how broken she is, I would not have believed it. I have to look after her. I am certain of that. I wonder if you understand. All this is strange and unexpected to me beyond words and in many ways bitter too, but it has to be endured. You must forgive me, and forgive this inconclusive, you may even feel evasive, letter. I cannot see you at present. I have to give my energies to putting together again something which I thought to have been completely smashed. It can never be whole. But for the moment at any rate I must give myself completely to it. What I have to offer you, Georgie, I honestly do not know. This is not a way of saying ‘nothing’, but is the truth. I love you, my child, and I believe that you love me, and in a loveless world this is at least something. I can only selfishly ask you to go on loving me in whatever way you can - and I for my part, when my mind is more at peace, will give you what I can, whatever that may turn out to be. I cannot conceive of our friendship coming to an end – and precisely because I believe in our friendship I dare to write such an unsatisfactory letter. But an unsatisfactory letter is, here, the only honest letter. Let me have a little note in return to say you have received this. I hope you are well. I kiss you.

  M.

  I completed this not only unsatisfactory, but in some ways dishonest, missive under the frank and friendly eye of Miss Seelhaft, who at her desk across the room was making copies of the latest price list. Mytten was away visiting a bibulous titled client; he had been persuaded, not with difficulty I dare say, to stay over the week-end. Some very serious tasting of Lynch-Gibbon wines was apparently taking place. Mytten excelled at those methods of business, especially favoured in the wine trade, where the matter in hand is introduced with leisurely indirectness and a sale takes place almost at an unconscious level, so little reference has there been to the crude details of commerce. Such methods, however, demand time, and Mytten always took his. I was not displeased at his absence.

  Miss Seelhaft looked up every now and then to see if I was all right. She and Miss Hernshaw, once again informed of my fortunes before I came to tell them, had with a perfect tact combined discreet congratulations with respectful solicitude. They gave their nod to the convention, but did not pretend not to notice the extent to which I was worn out and wretched. They were full of little kindnesses and generally treated me as an invalid, while at the same time welcoming me back to work in a manner which in less intelligent girls would have showed as patronizing. We all, they strenuously and I with a languid acquiescence, kept up the fiction that the business had scarcely been able to carry on without me.

  I sealed up the letter to Georgie. I wondered what she would make of it. There is a time limit to how long a spirited young person can be kept in cold storage. Georgie’s time must be approaching the end. But there was nothing I could do, I could not face seeing Georgie just now. If I saw her I could not tell her the truth - and neither could I bear to lie to her face-to-face. It was true that I didn’t want to lose her. I wanted her love. I was not so flush with love that I could afford to dispense with it. But I did not yet want to make the effort required to decide that I could not merit, and therefore could not ask for, that love. I wanted, frankly, not to have to think about Georgie at all for the present. There were other matters which rapaciously claimed my soul. Miss Hernshaw, who played mother to us, came in at that point with the tea. As she passed Miss Seelhaft she brushed her arm against her friend’s shoulder as if by accident. I envied them.

  I went home by tube. It was odd, this feeling of being integrated once again into the ordinary life of London. For over a week now I had been going to the office every day and returning at five-thirty to Hereford Square, just like in the old days; and as I hung from my strap in the swaying train, reading the short story in the Evening Standard, I was sometimes tempted to think that I had been the victim of a rich and prolonged but now completed hallucination. Yet I had not dreamed it. The constant pain was enough of a reminder.

  Antonia’s mood of exaltation was over. It had not lasted long; and now she appeared to be, as I had said to Georgie in the letter, simply broken. I found the spectacle of this broken-ness extremely pathetic and moving, and I had not been insincere in telling Georgie how much Antonia now needed and claimed my attention. The house at Hereford Square still seemed grey and derelict; after having been half slaughtered it had not yet come back to life. We had brought back the pictures and the smaller objects by car, but the rest of the stuff that had gone to Lowndes Square was still there, and Antonia to whom I had left the task of organizing its removal had not yet had the energy to attend to it, so that notable gaps, especially that caused by the absence of the Carlton House writing-table, figured to us as visible scars. How deep were the invisible scars we were only just beginning to learn.

  We nursed each other. Antonia, who looked much older and whose face had developed an expression of sulky irritability which was new to it, showed a tendency to crossness which she tried visibly to control. We had sharpish exchanges followed by periods of strenuous solicitude. We were perpetually inquiring about each other’s health, fetching hot-water bottles, boiling milk, making tea, and dosing each other with aspirins and phenobarbitone. The house even smelt like a hospital. The fact is we were both exhausted, and yet with nerves sufficiently on edge, both required each other and found rest impossible together. For myself, what mainly sustained me was feeling sorry for Antonia. It was not a pure compassion, but a feeling, I very well knew, compounded with the vindictive. She was aware that she had made me suffer; but she would never know the extent and the nature of the suffering for which, no doubt irrationally, I could not help somehow blaming
her. We were both defeated.

  It was in some ways fortunate that during this time Antonia was so extremely self-absorbed. She assumed wearily and completely that I was content to accept a return to our former situation. Georgie’s name was not mentioned; and I could not make out whether Antonia was now indifferent to my infidelity, or believed that it had ceased. It seemed, strangely, most likely of all that she had simply forgotten about Georgie. I could not quite suppose, mad as we both then were, that she had literally forgotten; but it seemed as if her tired and confused spirit could only deal with a few matters at a time, and evidently Georgie was not one of them.

  Palmer’s name was not mentioned either. We both knew that it would have to come up. But we were resting. There was no sign of life from Pelham Crescent. Those two had vanished as if they had never been. Antonia suggested of her own accord that she might go down and stay with Alexander at Rembers. I would have been glad enough to have her looked after yet off my hands. But it turned out that Alexander was not at Rembers, but was in London on some mysterious ploy of his own, and in fact we saw very little of him. Rosemary turned up regularly, bringing flowers, fruit, magazines, and other toys for invalids, but neither of us was glad to see her. So, with pity and with exasperation, we lived side by side, each of us sunk in our own thoughts.

  In so far as it was possible to do so I thought about Honor the whole time. She filled my consciousness to the brim. She became the atmosphere which I lived and breathed. I endlessly went over our various encounters in my mind and marvelled at how necessarily and how vastly she now, after so little acquaintance, existed for me. But what I chiefly clung to was one thing: she had not told Palmer about the scene in the cellar. At least she had not then told him; and with that, as my thoughts ran frantically again through the same circuit, I measured with despair the gap between then and now. Then I had been free and thought that she was. Now I was caught, and somehow more profoundly and irrevocably caught than before, while she - I did not know what to think. At times I attached importance to the idea that Palmer had, through his relation to Antonia, been trying to free himself from a burdensome obsession. At other times I felt equally certain that the strange pair, after Palmer’s abortive experience, had become even more united. In any case there was nothing I could do. I did not seriously envisage leaving Antonia. I had her, and definitively so, on my hands. Nor did I even know, though this was somehow the least of my concerns, exactly what picture of me was present in Honor’s mind. In spite of evidence to t he contrary, and coming back again to the fact of her silence to Palmer, I was confident that I existed for Honor. Yet, and I concluded it for the hundredth time, I was powerless. And yet, starting out again for the hundred and first time, I could not stop thinking about Honor and with every reason for despair, somewhere, through some minute cranny, there filtered a ray of hope to make in the dark labyrinth of my bewildered thoughts a little dim twilight.