A Severed Head

by Iris Murdoch

  I had thought, once, that I might have run forward to her. But they were already as remote from me as persons seen in a film. I saw them take their places in the queue. All I could see now was Honor’s dark head, and her shoulder pressed against Palmer’s. I knew that I could not wait to see them go through the door. It was like witnessing an execution. I turned away from them and walked towards the escalator.

  Thirty

  I turned all the lights on. I was back at Lowndes Square and it was even now only a quarter to ten. The scene was as I had left it in the morning, my camp bed unmade, a few rugs askew on the floor, cigarettes and water and aspirins beside the bed, an overflowing ash-tray, and yesterday’s evening paper. I stared at these relics. I went over to the window. Down below I could see the lights of the cars as they passed in endless procession and wheeled round into Knightsbridge. The street lamps lit up the striped trunks of the trees. The pavements were damp and reflected the yellow light. It must have rained today. I could not remember.

  I pulled the curtains, using the cord at the side in the way Rosemary had insisted I must. The problem of the pelmets was still unsolved. I turned on the electric fire. The central heating was not quite sufficient. I examined the Carlton House writing-table and noticed another scratch which had appeared during the latest move. I licked my finger and dabbed it. I went out into the kitchen and looked vaguely around for something to eat. There was a tin of Bath Oliver biscuits somewhere which Rosemary had brought. I took off my overcoat and felt in the pocket of my jacket for some matches. I found my letter to Georgie which I read again and then tore up. I found the matches and lit a cigarette. It appeared that I had run out of whisky again. But perhaps in any case I had had enough alcohol for one day. I took a milk bottle from the fridge and poured some milk into a glass. The Bath Olivers were on the shelf where one would expect them to be. Rosemary had evidently laid in a store of expensive-looking tins. That was kind of her. I put the biscuits and the milk on to a tray. I took off my jacket and returned to the sitting-room in my shirt sleeves. Perhaps it was rather hot after all. I sat down on one of the Chinese Chippendale chairs with the tray at my feet.

  After a discussion with Antonia in which she had been tearful but vigorous and I had been flippant but listless, we had agreed to divide the set of Audubon prints between us. A terrible energy pervaded Antonia at this time and it tired me extremely to be with her. In a frank unassisted attempt to select the prints which I liked least she had taken what seemed to her the dullest ones, which were the ones in fact I liked best; the nightjars, the puffins, and the great crested owls. The gold-winged woodpeckers, the Carolina parrots, and the scarlet tanagers now stood in a dusty row against the wall and I tried to wonder where I would put them. They seemed meaningless without the others. I looked about the room and saw that Rosemary had put the Meissen cockatoos one at each end of the writing-table and I got up to put them together. They were better so. Then I decided I would drink some wine and I went back to the kitchen. An emergency rack had been fitted into one of the cupboards. The rest of my wine was still at Hereford Square. That was another problem. I pulled out a bottle at random. It weighed pleasantly in my hand like a familiar tool or a weapon. I saw that it was Château Lauriol de Barny. That seemed suitable for a libation of farewell. I opened the bottle and returned to the sitting-room where the light were painfully bright. Rosemary had not yet had time to get me any lamps.

  Of course I was still in a shocked state. I noticed my trembling hand, a tendency to shiver, a chattering of teeth. I poured out some of the wine. Having been in the warm kitchen it was not in too bad heart. I recalled in my mind the red stain spreading on Palmer’s carpet. But the wine itself was innocent, empty of memories. This was as it should be. It was after all the first moments of some entirely new era. I supposed I would survive. I would find some new interests and revive old ones. I would get back to Wallenstein and Gustavus Adolphus. I tried to think these thoughts but they remained intolerably abstract, while a pain in my body told me what was real. I pictured myself indeed as a survivor. There had been a drama, there had been some characters, but now everyone else was dead and only in me a memory remained of what had been; and perhaps mercifully that memory too would fade, as in some crazed old prisoner who cannot recall his sufferings and does not even know that he has been released. I attempted, as the pain increased, to cover it with a haze of consciousness, making myself, through some general chatter about my condition, anonymous and so not really suffering. But the sharp truth would not be denied and I became silent in the end and became myself in the knowledge of my unique loss. I covered my face and if I could have found tears I would have wept.

  I sat thus for a long time surrendered to grief and to the physical pain which is the mark of a true emotion. Then suddenly I heard, as if inside my head, a strange sound. I looked up sharply. The second time the sound came I recognized the front-door bell. It resounded oddly in the empty rooms. I half decided not to answer it. I could not see other human beings at present. Rosemary was at Rembers, and there was no one else in London whom I could endure. I sat stiffly waiting for the next ring. It came, repeated three times, clamorous and urgent. The sound was so alarming that it forced me to my feet and I went softly out into the hall. I could not stand the intervening silence and rather than let it ring again I opened the door. Honor Klein was standing in the semi-darkness outside.

  We looked at each other in silence, I rigid with my hand on the door, she with her head drooping, looking at me from under her eyebrows. On the curving reddish lips the faint stiff smile was still there.

  I turned back and let her follow me in towards the light. I went into the sitting-room and crossed over to the window so that the camp bed was between us. As I turned she closed the door behind her. We still looked at each other silently.

  She said at last, and her smile deepened a little, narrowing her eyes, ‘You left the airport so quickly, I was not able to catch you up.’

  I was not sure whether I could speak, but when I tried the words seemed to come out all right. I said, ‘I thought you were going.’

  ‘As you see –’

  ‘Did the other two go?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When are you going?’ I said.

  ‘I’m not going.’

  I sat down on the chair by the window and said, ‘I see,’ although I saw nothing. She sat down opposite to me on the other chair. I shook my head several times. I did not dare to feel anything but dismay and fear. This was perhaps some ultimate torture. I held bitterly on to my dignity.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘what are you doing here?’ I spoke very evenly.

  I let myself really see her now, and as she gave back the intelligence of my look I could not but experience her consciousness of me as a kind of ecstasy.

  ‘I came to see you,’ she said, her level narrow smile holding me like a beam of light.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you wanted me to.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you to,’ I said. ‘I thought I’d got rid of you.’ I kept my face stony and intent.

  She pursed her lips, altering her smile into a look of amused acuteness. She still looked tired and some characters of recent suffering were written on her face. But the demon was awake again. She looked round the room a little, pushed her overcoat off on to the back of her chair, dug her hands deep into the pockets of her green suit, crossed her legs, and returned to watching me.

  I said, ‘Have some wine. Take my glass.’ I pointed to the tray. She held my look a moment and then poured out a little of the wine. As she did this I felt deep in my consciousness the little germ of some great joy, tiny still as the image of the whale far beneath the ship. But I kept my bitter front and rose, putting one foot on my chair. I leaned on my knee and looked down at her. It was easier so.

  I said, ‘You’re not going at all?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘How long is Palmer going for?’

  ‘For good, as far as he knows.
’

  ‘So you’ve left Palmer?’ I said. ‘You’ve parted? It’s finished?’ I wanted things to be clear. I wanted to be told very simply that what I so unutterably desired was true.

  She braced herself against the back of her chair. Her face was very still now. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I see,’ I said. ‘And Georgie?’

  ‘Palmer and Georgie became very fond of each other,’ said Honor. ‘I don’t know what they’ll make of it. But Palmer wanted to get away, he was frantic to get away.’

  ‘Away from you?’

  She gave me her still look. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you yourself –?’

  I had had her for just a moment, during those unavoidable questions, at my disposition. But now, her body relaxing, she simply smiled back at me, turning the wine a little in her glass before drinking it. I adored her insolence.

  ‘Well, may I ask again why you’re here?’ I said. I came to lean against the writing-table, still looking down at her. ‘If you’ve come merely to torment me or to amuse yourself you’d better go at once.’ An intoxicating sense possessed me that at last we were treating on equal terms. I kept my face stern, but there was so much light within, it must have showed a little.

  ‘I haven’t come to torment you,’ said Honor. She was serious, but there was an ironical lightness in her gaze.

  ‘Of course, I understand it may happen inadvertently,’ I said. ‘I know you have the temperament of an assassin.’ I was taken with a trembling and to control it I had to move. I walked to the window and back and as I faced her once more I could not help smiling. She smiled too. Then, as if startled, we both became serious again.

  ‘But why, Honor,’ I said, ‘why here, why me?’

  She kept me in suspense. Then, ‘Have you ever read Herodotus?’

  I was surprised. ‘Yes, a long time ago.’

  ‘Do you recall the story of Gyges and Candaules?’

  I thought a moment and said, ‘Yes, I think so. Candaules was proud of the beauty of his wife and he wanted his friend Gyges to see her naked. He concealed Gyges in the bedroom – but Candaules’ wife realized that he was there. Then later, because he had seen her, she approached him and forced him to kill Candaules and become king himself.’

  ‘Well,’ said Honor. She was watching me closely.

  After a moment or two I said, ‘I see.’ I added, ‘You once accused me of talking nonsense. If I’m only privileged because I saw you embracing your brother –’

  She was quiet, smiling again. I tried not to smile back. I said, ‘You told me you were a severed head. Can one have human relations with a severed head?’

  She was silent still, compelling me with her smile. I said, ‘As you yourself pointed out, I hardly know you!’ I could not now stop myself from smiling.

  She continued silent, leaning back, her smile now glowing with all its insolence.

  I said, ‘We have lived together in a dream up to now. When we awake will we find each other still?’

  I came round the bed and stood near to her. I worshipped her closeness. I said, ‘Well, we must hold hands tightly and hope that we can keep hold of each other through the dream and out into the waking world.’

  As she still would not speak I said, ‘Could we be happy?’

  She said, ‘This has nothing to do with happiness, nothing whatever.’

  That was true. I took in the promise of her words. I said, ‘I wonder if I shall survive it.’

  She said, smiling splendidly, ‘You must take your chance!’

  I gave her back the bright light of the smile, now softening at last out of irony. ‘So must you, my dear!’