by Iris Murdoch
“Stop crying, Barbara.”
Out of sheer surprise she stopped, and sat there snuffling and mopping her eyes, her bare feet, just visible underneath her green and white spotted dress, nestling together like two little brown birds.
Willy took hold of the window sill, pushed aside the latest stones which the twins had brought and the glass which held the now limp and drooping nettles, and began to look intently through his Swiss binoculars at nothing in particular. I shall have to leave this place, thought Willy. The agony was each time greater of not being able to seize Barbara violently in his arms.
“What are you looking at, Willy?”
“Nothing, child.”
“You can’t be looking at nothing. You’re so dull today. I shall jolly well go away.”
“Don’t go, Barbie. Yes, you’d better go. I’ve got to work.”
“All right, I shall go and ride my pony. And I’ll never play you that Mozart.”
“Do something for me, will you, Barb?”
“Possibly. What is it?”
“Go and find Pierce and be specially nice to him.”
“Well, maybe. I’ll see how I feel. Have a nice time in London.”
After she had gone Willy Kost locked the door and went into his bedroom and lay face downwards on his bed. The sheer physical strain of the last half hour had left him limp and shuddering. He could not decide if it was worse when she touched him or when she did not. There was a raw agony of yearning which was soothed by her touch. And yet at such moments the checking of the inclination of his whole body towards hers racked every nerve and muscle. To sit there inertly while she caressed his hair or stroked his knee required an exertion of physical strength which made him ache. And all the while vivid imagery of embracing her, kissing her passionately, taking her on to his lap, surrounded Barbara with a golden aura of pain.
I thought it might have got better, Willy said to himself, but it seems to have got worse. I shall have to do something, I shall have to go away, if things go on like this I shall go mad. He began deliberately to think about Mary and at last a sweet soothing faintness began to creep over him like a light mist. He was not in love with Mary, but he loved her very dearly, and he had been more profoundly moved and delighted by her proposal than he had yet been able to express to her in the two affectionate, confused, inconclusive meetings he had had with her since the scene in the graveyard. Perhaps he would marry Mary and take her right away. Perhaps that was the solution. Why should he not even now make a dash for happiness? Was it too late? Had the past really broken him?
Willy lay motionless face downward on his bed as the sun went down toward the sea and the evening made the landward colours seethe with vividness and then faded them into a luminous blue midsummer dark. He lay there wide-eyed and listened quietly to Theo who tapped for a while upon the door and then went slowly away.
Twenty-two
“Ye highlands and ye lowlands,
Oh where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl of Murray
And hae laid him on the green.”
“Oh shut up, Fivey!” Ducane shouted through the drawing-room door.
The kitchen door banged. The drawing-room door banged.
“Sorry, Willy,” said Ducane. “My nerves are on edge.”
“What ees eet?”
“Oh nothing. All this sunny weather is getting me down. It’s so unnatural.”
“I wonder if those curious spots will go away in the winter.”
“What are you talking about, Willy?”
“Those freckles on your butler or whatever he is.”
“Good heavens! I’d never thought of that. I hope not. I rather like them!” Ducane laughed. “You make me feel better, Willy. Have a drink.”
“A leetle whisky, maybe, just for a nightcap. Thanks.”
“You’re very brown. Been basking in the sun?”
“Just lazy.”
“You seem cheerful, Willy.”
“Just crazy.”
“Octavian and Kate got off all right?”
“Yes, with the usual hullaballoo.”
“I hope they’ll like Tangier. I thought it was just like the Tottenham Court Road myself.”
“They will like anywhere.”
“Yes. They’re happy people.”
Both Willy and Ducane sighed.
“Happiness,” said Willy, “is a matter of one’s most ordinary everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self. To be damned is for one’s ordinary everyday mode of consciousness to be unremitting agonising preoccupation with self.”
“Yes,” said Ducane “Kate and Octavian are hedonists, yet they aren’t deeply preoccupied with themselves and so they can make other people happy.”
Ducane thought, this is a moment at which I might be able to make Willy talk about himself if I tried very hard. I think he wants to talk about himself. But I can’t do it. I’m too burdened with my own troubles. He said, “Things all right generally down there?”
“Yes and no. I don’t see them much. Paula’s worried about something, she’s got some sort of secret nightmare.”
She’s not the only one, thought Ducane gloomily. He said, “Sorry to hear that. I must try to see a bit more of Paula.” How instinctively I assume that what everyone needs is help from me, Ducane thought bitterly.
“Yes, do that, John. And poor Barbara’s still very upset about the cat.”
“The cat hasn’t turned up?”
“No.”
“I expect it will. Barbie’s a very sweet kid, but hopelessly spoilt of course.”
“Mmm.”
Ducane was feeling almost demoralised and as this was very unusual he was correspondingly alarmed. He was a man who needed to think well of himself. Much of the energy of his life issued from a clear conscience and a lively self-aware altruism. As he had had occasion to note just now, he was accustomed to picture himself as a strong self-sufficient clean-living rather austere person to whom helping others was a natural activity. If Paula was in trouble then obviously what Paula needed was the support, the advice, the compassion of John Ducane. To think this was a reflex action. Ducane knew abstractly that one’s ideal picture of oneself is likely to be misleading, but the discrediting of the picture in his own case had not brought any clear revelation of the shabby truth, but just muddle and loss of power. I cannot help anyone, he thought, it’s not just that I’m not worthy to, I haven’t the strength any more, I haven’t the strength now to stretch out a hand to Willy, I’m enervated by all this mess and guilt.
He had spent part of the previous evening with Jessica and had agreed blankly to ‘go on seeing her’. They had argued in a bitter hostile way about how often Ducane should see her. Ducane had insisted that it should be only once a fortnight. Jessica had not screamed, she had not wept. She had argued shrewdly, coldly. She had interrogated Ducane, asking him once more if he had a mistress, which he had again denied. They had stared at each other with suspicion and anger and had parted brusquely. Ducane went away thinking though he was now too wary to say it: when two people have become so hard and unforgiving to each other they ought to have the wit and the strength to part. But then he felt, on reflecting on the evening, so extremely ashamed of his unkind behaviour that he took refuge in feelings of uncertainty and weakness.
He had also seen McGrath again and had given him some more money. He regretted having become so angry with the man on the first occasion, as it was at least worth discovering whether McGrath could be persuaded to sell any more information about Radeechy. Ducane noted wryly that his earlier scruples about corrupting McGrath and demeaning himself seemed to have vanished since he was now in any case on commercial terms with the fellow. McGrath, however, who was still uncertain, as Ducane intended him to be, whether or not Ducane was really settling down to pay him a regular wage for not posting the letters to ‘the two young ladies’, was evasive, hinted at things he might reveal if suitably rewarded, and made another ap
pointment. In fact Ducane doubted whether McGrath had more to tell. As for the matter of the letters, Ducane told himself that he was just playing for time, and that was indeed all he could do. He must, at some suitable opportunity, inform Kate and Jessica of each other’s existence and prepare them for an unpleasantness. They were rational women and it would probably pass off all right. The only serious damage would be to his own dignity and that could be salutary damage.
At least this was what Ducane thought some of the time. At other moments the whole thing was a nightmare. He writhed at the idea of their seeing him as a liar and a traitor. His behaviour to Jessica, already so inconsistent and unkind, would seem, on this revelation, that of a shabby trickster. Jessica was certain to believe that Kate was his mistress. Ducane could face being thought a brute, but could not face being thought a cold-blooded deceiver. Yet, he reflected, I am a cold-blooded deceiver. What I can’t bear is not being one but seeming one! As for Kate, he did not really know how she would take it, and at certain terrible times he pictured himself banished from Trescombe for ever. At these times the thought flashed on him for a second: perhaps after all it would be better just to go on paying McGrath. But Ducane knew that this was the way to hell, and that he should even envisage it showed that he was corrupted indeed.
And he thought about Biranne. He thought more and more intensely about Biranne, producing not clarity but darkness. Ducane’s particular sort of religious temperament, which needed the energy of virtue for everyday living, pictured the good as a single distant point of light. A similar and perhaps less accurate instinct led him to feel the evil in his life as also single, a continuous systematically related matrix, almost a conspiracy. This was perhaps the remnant in his mind of his ancestors’ vigorous and literal belief in the devil. So now he felt that the muddle with the two women, McGrath’s blackmail, Radeechy’s death for which in a curious way he was beginning to feel himself responsible, and the mysterious and in some way obviously wicked activities of Biranne were all intimately connected together. Moreover the key to it all was Biranne himself.
Ducane had begun to have dreams about Biranne and the dreams were odd. In the dreams Ducane was invariably the pursuer. He sought for Biranne with anxiety and yearning through huge empty gardens and bombed London streets. Familiar scenes were transfigured into ghastliness by a need, an absence, the need for Biranne, the absence of Biranne. Ducane, who was not accustomed to taking dreams seriously, attempted no interpretation of these. In his waking consciousness he was sufficiently obsessed with the man, and he could note how the sheer strength of the obsession had moved him beyond his former irritations and resentments. The enquiry was important and Ducane hated failure. But what Ducane now felt as Biranne’s involvement in Ducane’s own life was more important still. There is the love of the hunter for the quarry. Yet was Biranne entirely a quarry? Was he not also a centre of power, a demon?
These bizarre ideas haunted Ducane’s disturbed mind not as clear thoughts but rather as pressures and atmospheres. His discovery that Biranne had lied about Radeechy had started a process of development which seemed to have its own private chemistry. While Biranne was just an acquaintance who had been mockingly rude about Ducane many years ago, Ducane had simply felt a small wincing dislike of the man which he had condemned but been unable to lessen. As soon as Ducane found himself with the possibility of power over Biranne and in possession of discreditable facts about him, his interest gained not only in strength but in warmth. The mocking laughter of so many years ago had lost its power to hurt. Biranne as a sinner and as a man in a trap was no longer a menace to consciousness, and Ducane gave himself no credit for an interest which he recognized as having more to do with power than with compassion. However, the fact remained that he was becoming increasingly worried about Biranne and by Biranne. Had Biranne murdered Radeechy? This remained a possibility, and in returning to it Ducane felt a mounting anxiety. He had been putting off a direct confrontation in the hope of acquiring more information, but the sources of information now seemed to be dry. Ducane had no intention of being hustled by his own psychology. But after careful thought he had by now come to the point of deciding: I must see him. I shall have to bluff him, it’s risky, but I must see him. And this conclusion filled him with alarm and with a curious deep wicked pleasure. I shall see him tomorrow, Ducane was thinking as he listened to Willy going on talking about the people at Trescombe.
“Has Theo stopped sulking, Willy?”
“Yes. He comes up to see me again.”
“I wonder what happened to Theo in India. Well, I suppose one can imagine!”
“I don’t know. I thought you might know, John. You are father confessor to all of us.”
“Don’t, Willy!”
“You are our picture of the just man.”
“That’s right, mock me.”
“Seriously—”
“Chuck it, Willy. How are the twins?”
“Herrlich. They have great souls, those little ones. And they have been vouchsafed no end of flying saucers. They are the only people who are not in a turmoil.”
“Dear me, are the rest of you in a turmoil? Are you in a turmoil? I’m sure Mary isn’t in a turmoil. She never is.”
Willy hesitated, pulled his lame leg back towards him with both hands, sat up and leaned forward. He looked at the carpet and said, “You said I seemed cheerful. So I ought to be. I have had a proposal of marriage.”
“Good heavens, who from?”
“Mary.”
Ducane was about to say, Splendid, I told her to do that, but stopped himself in time. If he was to have the impertinence to play at being God he must also have the discretion to conceal the fact. How pleased I am, he thought.
“How marvellous!”
“You disapprove—”
“Of course not! So you said yes?”
“I mean you disapprove of her having been so foolish as to want to marry me.”
“Of course not, Willy. On the contrary, I—But you said yes, I may wish you joy?”
“I didn’t say yes, I didn’t say no. I was speechless with gratitude. I still am.”
“Willy—light out for happiness. Yes?”
“Happiness. I don’t know if that can be a goal for me, John.”
“Then make it a matter of faith. Mary is—well, Mary is an ace, you know that. What’s more, she needs you.”
“Mary is an ace, as you beautifully put it. I know that. And I presume to love her. But I have a soul like an old cracked chamberpot. I could give no joy to a woman.”
“Rubbish. Let her remake you. Have the humility to let her.”
“Perhaps. I will pray about it. The gods have promised me an answer.”
“Oh Willy, you lucky fool—”
I envy him, thought Ducane. He loves innocently and he is loved innocently. It is simple for him, for him and for his gods. Whereas I have tied myself up in this cat’s cradle of treachery and falsehood. But I am so glad I prompted Mary here, I am sure she would not have dared to speak if I had not encouraged her. May I have made the happiness of two good people. But Ducane’s heart was strangely heavy. He thought to himself with a sort of desperation, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow I shall see Biranne.
Twenty-three
JESSICA BIRD rang the bell of John Ducane’s house.
A small man with a delicate brown face and a crop of white hair opened the door. Jessica, who knew that Ducane was at the office, took this to be the manservant.
In a firm official voice she said, “I am from Payne and Stevens, the interior decorators. I have come to take the measurements for the curtains in Mr Ducane’s bedroom.”
The small man murmured something and opened the door a little farther. Jessica marched in. She had decided that she could no longer live with her uncertainty about whether or not Ducane had taken a new mistress. Or rather, she had no uncertainty, she was sure that there was another woman. She wanted, to make her anguish complete, the absolute proof of it.
“Will you show me Mr Ducane’s bedroom, please? I am afraid I don’t know the house.” She drew a steel tape measure from her pocket and exhibited it.
“Yes, certainly, yes—”
The small man led her up the stairs and into the room in the front of the house above the drawing-room. Jessica, who had never penetrated into her lover’s bedroom in the old days, had conjectured that this must be the room, but it was better to be sure.
“Will you want anything, steps or anything?”
“No, no, I’ll be all right, you can leave me to it now, thank you. I’ll just be about ten minutes or so. I’ve got to make some measurements in the bathroom too. Don’t let me keep you.”
The small man murmured again and went away, closing the bedroom door.
Jessica, who had composed her plan of action carefully beforehand, now felt so giddy with emotion that she had to sit down on a chair. She had not realised how powerfully Ducane’s bedroom would affect her. The silence, his trousers neatly folded upon the counterpane, his brushes and collar studs upon the dressing table, the bare masculine plainness of a single man’s room, the bitter-sweet sense of familiarity and absence made her suddenly sick with longing. The bedroom, unlike the drawing-room below, might have been any man’s room, yet it was full of the ghost of Ducane which, distilled now into a purer male essence than any she had ever encountered, assaulted her fainting senses.
Jessica’s rolling eye lighted upon the bed and jealousy pulled her together like a mouthful of brandy. It was not a narrow bed. It was not exactly a double bed, but it was one of those rather broad single beds with plenty of room for two. She leapt up and began her search.
Jessica was of the opinion that it is virtually impossible for a woman to inhabit a room, even for a short while, without leaving traces. If a woman had been in Ducane’s bed some sign would certainly have been left behind, some token from the transcendent region of Ducane’s love life, some glittering fragment of that Jessica-excluding super-world upon which her imagination had by now so finely worked. What she would do with this talisman, whether torment herself or torment him, she had not yet thought. What she wanted was simply to have the tiny thing in her possession.
