by Iris Murdoch
Your slave
Danby
Adelaide put the letter back into the envelope and put the envelope back under the electric razor. She switched out the light and returned to her own room and locked the door. She lay rigid and tearless until the window began to lighten with the dawn.
19
VERY QUIETLY MILES opened the door of Lisa’s room in the darkness.
It was about two o’clock on Saturday morning. During the two previous days Miles had taken his meals, gone to the office, done his work, talked in an ordinary way to the two women. He had made his usual pithy comments on the morning newspapers and departed punctually to catch his train returning equally punctually in the evening. But amid the old machinery of his life his inner heart was in a boiling seething ferment. He had watched Lisa closely. The physical space between them had taken on a new and terrifying significance. The near approach of hands at the breakfast table, the exchange of a book, the movement of a cup, an encounter on the stairs, these things were passages of anguish. The familiar house which he had called his home had disappeared. In its stead there was a structure of movements and views and distances which racked his body like an instrument of torture.
It was also impossible not to look and look. He stared at her compulsively and it seemed to him that she stared back. A magnetism which it would have been blinding agony to resist drew his eyes towards hers, compelled her eyes by his. He could not forgo these looks which were now so appallingly weighted with meaning. With a slightly giddy deliberation he refrained from varying the ordinary routine of his day. He made no attempt to be alone with her, and since they usually left home and returned at different times, and as Diana was always about in the house where doors were left open to be called through and looked through, he had not been alone with her.
However there are communications which can be made and certainly made without speech. By the time Friday evening had been reached Miles knew that Lisa knew and he knew that she knew that he knew. He had still absolutely no idea of what she thought about it, and indeed, absorbed in observing the painful evolution of his own feelings, he had not yet very much considered this. He was moreover not yet prepared to admit that he had entered a disastrous situation. The experience of falling in love, or as it seemed here to Miles, of realising that one is in love, is itself however painful also a preoccupying joy. It increases vitality and sense of self. And this rather black joy was still preventing Miles from looking ahead or indeed from making any plan whatsoever. He did reflect: she did not want to tell Diana about Danby. But that might be and doubtless was, just an effect of her general discretion and tactful reserve, since she could hardly have foreseen what the witnessing of that little drama was going to do to the sanity of her brother-in-law.
Late on Friday evening, just as the women, who went to bed earlier than Miles, were in course of retiring something did happen. Diana was talking to Lisa at the foot of the stairs. Miles was still in the drawing room, standing near the window which he had just been fastening. Lisa came back into the drawing room to fetch a book, and for a moment they were both out of sight from the hall. Miles stared at her. Lisa picked up the book and arrested her movement for just a second to look back at him. Miles made a gesture with his hands, a gesture of entreaty and surrender, whose meaning was quite unmistakable. Lisa looked at him blankly and turned back into the hall, answering a question of Diana’s.
Miles went up to his study, as he always did. Time passed. The agony became greater. At last, treading very softly, he went to Lisa’s door.
The room where Miles and Diana slept was on the same landing as Miles’s study. The room where Lisa slept was on a separate landing down some stairs. Miles was not afraid of waking Diana who was a prompt and sound sleeper.
He did not knock on the door but turned the handle very quietly and stepped noiselessly through into the darkness of the room.
The intensely enclosed darkness and silence seemed for a moment to stifle him and he put his hand to his throat. The violent pounding of his heart was making him feel sick and faint. He stood still, releasing the door handle, trying to breathe normally. He could see nothing, but after a while he began to hear the soft sound of Lisa’s sleeping breath. He moved very quietly forward with hands outstretched, his feet questing carefully for obstacles. He could see the whiteness of the bed now and very dimly discern the shape of her head and the dark hair fanned out upon the pillow. She was lying on her back, one arm outstretched upon the counterpane. Miles put a hand out toward the bed. He was trembling so violently that his fingernails scratched the sheet with a tearing sound. Uttering a sighing groan he fell on his knees beside the bed. He could see her profile outlined against the window. He touched her hair.
‘Oh! Miles!’ She moved quickly, half sitting up.
Miles put his arms out gropingly. In a second she had put her arms round his neck and drawn his head violently against her breast.
Miles did not afterwards know how long they remained thus, quite motionless. Perhaps a long time. It was a moment of black blissful death. It was also a moment of absolute certainty.
‘Oh God,’ said Lisa.
‘I love you, Lisa.’
‘I know. I love you too.’
‘Oh my darling–’
‘I’m sorry, Miles.’
‘Don’t be sorry. It’s wonderful.’
‘I never thought you–Why suddenly now, Miles, what happened?’
‘I don’t know. I feel I’ve loved you for years only I was blind to it. You were so necessary.’
‘Yes, perhaps. But it wasn’t like this.’
‘I know. This is sudden. And oh my God it’s violent, Lisa. I feel I shall die of it.’
‘Was it something to do with Danby?’
‘I’m a fool, a fool, Lisa. You’ve been so close to me for years. I took you for granted. I didn’t see my own needs–’
‘But was it?’
‘Yes, I suppose so. Not that I imagined that that imbecile–But it suddenly made me see how free you were.’
‘But I’m not free, Miles. I’ve never been free. Not since I met you.’
‘Lisa, you don’t mean–’
‘Yes. I fell in love with you on your wedding day, the day when we first met.’
‘Oh my heart–’
‘I’m sorry. It’s a relief to tell you. But it’s also–a sort of death warrant. It’s all my fault, Miles. I should never have come to live here. I didn’t imagine you could ever have any interest in me except wanting to talk philosophy. I only came because I thought it inconceivable that I should ever reveal–what I have now revealed.’
‘Oh Lisa do forgive me.’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘All these wasted years. Oh my darling–’
‘You musn’t think of it in that way–’
‘May I turn the light on?’
‘No, no light for heaven’s sake. Diana isn’t awake, is she?’
‘No.’
‘Miles, it’s wonderful even though it’s death. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I would ever be able to touch you like this.’
‘Oh Lisa, I can’t express to you–To think that you suffered–And I might never have known–’
‘Well, you know now and I shall have to go away.’
‘Don’t say that. You are not going away. I won’t let you. Do you want to kill me?’
‘Miles, it’s hopeless, don’t you see? Oh God, to have found you like this, to hold you like this, and to know it’s death at the same time–’
‘Lisa, don’t, don’t cry, my heart. We must hold this situation because we’ve got to. There is a way. This is only the first moment–’
‘It’s practically the last moment, Miles. Do try to face this, my dear. We simply must not delude ourselves. And really for you–This has been something very sudden and odd like a quick storm. The real thing is Diana, all those years of sharing her bed–’
‘Lisa, Lisa–’
‘You must h
ang on to reality, Miles. Don’t worry about me. I’m infinitely grateful to you for this, it will be a sort of jewel for my whole life and I shall be a far far richer person. I’m so grateful and glad that you came to me now like this in the night. If you hadn’t come just like this I might never have told you. And I’m so happy that you know, even though it’s absolute pure pain too. But there is nothing more, nothing to do or plan, just this.’
‘I don’t understand you, Lisa, I’m not going to listen to you. We’ve both been taken by surprise. We’ve got to think about it.’
‘Thinking would be fatal. There must be no thinking. You know where thinking about it would get us.’
‘Oh Christ.’
‘You do see, Miles.’
‘Lisa, I know so little about you.’
‘Better so.’
‘You say it’s a sudden storm. It’s not really so sudden. Sudden things are prepared for. Do you know what I noticed long ago, that we resemble each other, physically I mean?’
‘Yes. I noticed too that we resemble each other. It’s because I’ve thought about you so much.’
‘No, it’s because you were made for me. You are the one.’
‘No, no, Miles. You are emotional and it is the black night time. You don’t know what you’re saying. What you are saying is blasphemy.’
‘Parvati.’
‘And Diana.’
‘Diana was different. You know Diana was never like this. Nothing has been like this.’
‘So you believe now, but–’
‘I’d like to talk to you about Parvati. I think I could. I was never able to talk to–anyone else.’
‘I’ve thought so much about Parvati. I wanted to see a picture of her only I never liked to ask you.’
‘She was pregnant when she was killed.’
‘Oh Miles–’
‘I never told anyone, even Diana.’
‘It still seems very close?’
‘Yes. Sometimes as if I’d never really woken up to it yet. I’d have to go back and make it seem like yesterday but I can’t. It’s a permanent nightmare, not something real. I wrote a long poem about her afterwards.’
‘That helped?’
‘Yes. It was necessary to–celebrate her death. I don’t know if you understand.’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘I sometimes feel, Lisa, as if I never really experienced her death at all. I poeticised it, I made it into something unreal, something beautiful. I had to.’
‘We’d all do that to death if we could.’
‘Perhaps. But it remains like a kind of barrier, a falseness. I think it prevents me from writing. It’s like a curse. And yet I think it might be too terrible to experience–even now.’
‘Perhaps you will experience it–when the time comes.’
‘You could help me. I could relive it all with you.’
‘No, no, I’m the last person–I mustn’t touch this–That’s another reason–’
‘Lisa, you’re the only one I could connect with Parvati–It would give meaning to everything.’
‘No. You must do that alone.’
‘Lisa, you can’t leave me now that you’ve found me, it isn’t conceivable. We’re intelligent people. We can manage this. Will you promise you won’t go away?’
‘No, I can’t promise that Miles.’
‘Well, promise you won’t go away tomorrow?’
‘I promise I won’t go away tomorrow.’
‘Thank God. We’ll talk it over properly tomorrow. We’ll hold the whole situation, Lisa. We’ve got to.’
‘Go now, Miles, please. Diana will wake.’
‘All right. Let me kiss you. God, I’ve never kissed you before!’
For a moment they struggled awkwardly, finding each other’s lips in the black dark.
‘Go, go.’
‘Sweetheart, don’t betray this, don’t abandon it.’
‘Go, please.’
‘Promise you’ll try. We’ll both try. We’ll succeed.’
‘Go, Miles.’
‘Tomorrow, Lisa. Say “tomorrow”.’
‘Tomorrow.’
Miles stumbled out of the room. Joy overwhelmed all other feelings. He knelt down on the stairs between the two landings and closed his eyes, giddy and choking with joy.
After a few minutes he tiptoed up and opened the door of his own bedroom.
The curtain had been pulled back and the light from the street lamp faintly illuminated the room. Diana was lying on her back, her arms outside the counterpane extended by her sides. As Miles entered he caught a reflected glint from her open eyes. He approached the bed and looked down at her. Then he put a hand to her cheek. It was wet with tears.
‘Hello.’
‘Hello.’
‘Miles, things will never be the same again. Never, never, never.’
Miles undressed and got into bed. He lay beside his wife, rigid like her, on his back with his arms extended. Never, never, never. The black joy returned to him and stretched out his extended body upon a rack of ecstasy.
20
BRUNO WAS HOLDING Lisa’s hand. The curtains were pulled against the dazzle of the afternoon sun and it was shadowy in the room.
‘You see, I’d like to know what I’m like.’
‘Perhaps there isn’t any such thing, Bruno.’
‘I want to get it into focus, what I really feel about it all.’
‘One doesn’t necessarily feel anything clear at all about the past. One is such a jumbled thing oneself.’
‘I’m a jumbled thing, my dear, an old jumbled bedraggled dislocated thing.’
‘We all are. When one tries to get a really clear memory one’s usually doing it for some definite purpose, for revenge or consolation or something.’
‘It does all go away–’
‘Let it go.’
‘But what really happened? What did Janie do to Maureen?’
‘You can’t know. You may have been a very small interlude in Maureen’s life.’
‘Oh. I suppose so.’
‘You seem disappointed! But for so many people one is just a blind force.’
‘But I wasn’t a small interlude in Janie’s life. I wrecked Janie’s life.’
‘In the world things happen as they do happen. Think how much of it was accidental.’
‘You mean–to let myself off?’
‘The question doesn’t arise. There were the things that happened. But thinking about wickedness usually just comforts.’
‘I was a demon to her.’
‘Human beings are not demons. They are much too muddy.’
‘I ought to have gone to her when she was dying.’
‘There are things one can do nothing with. Try to draw a sort of quiet line round it.’
‘I can’t draw a line round it. It’s myself. It’s here. It’s me.’
‘You live too much in yourself.’
‘Where else can I live, child?’
‘Outside. Leave yourself. It’s just an agitating puppet. Think about other things, think about anything that’s good.’
‘An agitating puppet. Yes, I feel so tired out with waving my arms about.’
‘Brooding about the past is so often fantasy of how one might have won and resentment that one didn’t. It is that resentment which one so often mistakes for repentance.’
‘Do you know, there’s something that hurts me even more than not having gone to Janie.’
‘What?’
‘Being mocked on that landing by the lodgers.’
‘You mean –?’
‘When Janie went into Maureen’s flat and locked the door, you remember I told you–Well, no, I didn’t tell you, I left that bit out, it was too awful. When Janie made me take her to see Maureen, Janie went into the flat and locked the door against me and I could hear Maureen crying inside and I was knocking on the door, and the other lodgers in the house came down and mocked me.’
‘Poor Bruno.’
‘Someth
ing which ought to be quite unimportant turns out to be the most important thing of all.’
‘A demon wouldn’t feel this. Don’t you see that you can’t get it all clear?’
‘If there were God one could leave it to God.’
‘If there were God one could leave it to God.’
‘Do you believe in God?’
‘No. Listen. Miles will be coming to see you. Be very quiet with him and don’t expect him to do anything for you.’
‘I think I wanted him to go through some kind of ceremony, like a rite of exorcism. Funny thing, I’d forgotten, I’d just forgotten, how awfully much he irritated me!’ They both laughed.
‘Well, be kind to him, anyway.’
‘You do love Miles, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s lucky. That girl who came before, your sister is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does she live with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Miles doesn’t mind?’
‘No.’
Lisa drew a cool ringless hand back over the soft damp fleshy folds of Bruno’s furrowed brow and down over the shiny bony dome of the skull to the ring of thin silky hair.
‘I don’t horrify you, my dear?’
‘Of course not.’
‘I daren’t look in the mirror. You know that? And it must smell horrible.’
‘No.’
‘Very old people still feel sex, you know.’
‘I know.’
‘It gives me such joy to hold your hand.’
‘I’m glad. I’ll tell you something you may not believe.’
‘What?’
‘You’re still attractive.’
