by Iris Murdoch
At once a long leg with an extremely muddy shoe appeared over the window ledge. But it was a woman’s leg. ‘Help me, would you?’ said Lisa.
Danby closed the window and pulled the curtain again. Lisa was sitting on the bed. She had taken off her mackintosh and was removing her shoes. Her hair, which had been uncovered, was plastered to her head and curled in wet arabesques down her neck.
She said, ‘I’m sorry to come in this way and I wouldn’t have done so if I’d known how much mud I would bring in with me. I didn’t like to ring the bell because of Bruno. Would you mind getting me a towel?’
Danby went to the kitchen and returned with a towel. She began to dry her face and hair. Danby stood by the window, leaning on the chest of drawers, staring with his mouth open. An extreme pain, passing up the centre of his body like a white hot rod, kept him clenched and rigid.
‘I’m sorry to arrive unannounced,’ said Lisa. She had rubbed her hair into a mass of rather frizzy small ringlets which she was now trying to smooth down. ‘Could I borrow your comb?’
Danby, moving gingerly because of the pain, handed her the comb, leaning stiffly. His teeth had begun to chatter and he closed his mouth grinding his teeth together.
Lisa was combing her hair. It was difficult. ‘What a stormy night,’ she said.
‘Oh God!’ said Danby. ‘Oh Christ!’
‘Do sit down, Danby. Sit on that chair by the window, would you? How is Bruno?’
Danby sat down, still stiffly. That pain made him groan. He put his hands to his face and groaned again. He said in a low stumbling voice, ‘Why are you here?’
‘I said how is Bruno?’
‘All right. No, dying. But quiet, OK. Why are you here?’
‘I will explain,’ said Lisa. ‘And I must begin with an apology. It might have been better to write to you. But I have been a long time in a great deal of doubt and when things at last became clear I found that I wanted to see you at once and to, as I say, explain.’ She spoke rather coldly, staring at him and still combing her hair.
‘You don’t know what you’ve done,’ said Danby.
‘Not yet. But a little time will show.’
‘I mean, coming to see me like this. It makes it all a thousand times worse. There’s nothing to explain. I wasn’t complaining. I wasn’t even looking for you. And there’s absolutely nothing you can do. I’ve just got to suffer it. Oh God, I wish you hadn’t come!’
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to undergo the explanation,’ she said. ‘It is necessary–for me.’
‘There isn’t any explanation!’ said Danby. ‘I just love you like a crazy fool. Anybody can love anybody. The worthless can love the good. A cat can look at a king, queen, princess, angel. I’ve just got to grit my teeth and sit it out. I don’t want your sympathy or your bloody explanations!’
Lisa was looking at him with a frowning faintly curious look, her mouth pouting as if with a slight disgust. Her face was a glowing pink after her exertions with the towel. Her hair, which she had finished combing and smoothing back, curled damply down her neck, blackened by the rain. She pulled up one wet stockinged foot and tucked it under her, arranging the pillows behind her back against the wall. When she had made herself comfortable she said, ‘Now I want you to listen.’
‘I’m inclined to tell you to go,’ said Danby. He felt something curiously like anger.
‘No. You would find yourself incapable of that, I think.’
She’s right, he thought. Oh God, Oh God, why do I have to endure this?
‘I am going to talk, and I may ask you some questions,’ said Lisa. ‘I want to start with a question. When you came that night to Kempsford Gardens Miles told you I was in love with somebody. Do you know who that person is?’
‘The person you’re in love with? No.’
‘It’s Miles.’
Danby looked at the floor. He leaned slowly forward with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. He thought, I simply mustn’t start crying. If I started I wouldn’t be able to stop. Miles. Miles. He was silent.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Lisa. ‘I know this hurts you but it’s necessary. I have been and am in love with Miles. I fell in love with him when I first met him, on the day of his marriage with Diana. I loved him all through those years and I imagined that I would never let him know it.’
Danby was silent, pressing his hands into his eyes.
‘Quite recently however he found out, or rather I told him. I ought not to have done so, but it was very difficult not to, psychologically difficult I mean, because by then he had fallen in love with me.’
Danby was silent.
‘I don’t know how long he has loved me,’ Lisa went on in the same cool precise even voice, ‘he imagines that it has been a long time. But my own guess is that he only really fell in love quite lately.’
Danby lifted his head. There were tears and he did not try to conceal them. ‘God blast you, why are you torturing me with this damned love story?’
‘It is necessary to make this quite clear. I love Miles and he loves me.’
‘Oh get out, will you,’ said Danby.
‘However,’ said Lisa, paying no attention to the interruption, ‘the fact remained that Miles was married to Diana.’
‘This is a nightmare,’ said Danby. ‘What’s the point of all this? Oh Lisa, Lisa, you are thoughtless and cruel, or else you don’t realise what kind of state I’m in. If only I hadn’t seen you again, talked to you again. It would have stopped hurting so much sooner. And now you come here and talk about Miles, about Miles of all people. You must be insane to hurt somebody like this.’
‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘But you will see that it has been necessary.’
‘What’s necessary about it? If you want to see how much power you’ve got well you’re seeing it. If you want to see a man reduced to–’
‘Stop it, please, and listen–’
‘I’d managed to find some sort of peace with Bruno here. Well, not peace, but it’s been real. I was starting to realise that you were–just something impossible. And now you’ve spoilt it all. You just can’t know what you’ve done, coming here, coming into my room–’
‘Naturally, you were beginning to recover–’
‘I wasn’t beginning to recover! I’ll never recover! Oh damn you, damn you, damn you!’
‘Don’t shout so. Will you listen to what I’ve got to tell you? I need your help.’
‘I’m to help you get hold of Miles I suppose! Oh Christ, Lisa, you don’t mean that–You can’t mean–’ Danby sat upright, glaring at her, his face puckered up with pain.
‘What are you supposing?’
‘When I first saw you, Lisa, I was, oh God, I was holding Diana in my arms. What hope have I ever had of convincing you that I love you, that it’s serious, different, terrible? You think I’m just a man who chases women. You think I’m really just as interested in Diana. You want me to occupy Diana, to take her away, so that you and Miles–You absolute fiend!’ Danby stood up. He raised his hands, half desperate, half threatening.
‘Sit down and stop shouting at me.’
‘That’s devil’s work. You’re driving me straight into madness. Do you want me to kill you?’
‘You’re being very stupid. Don’t dare to touch me!’
‘Touch you–I’d like to strangle you!’ Danby moaned and turned about and leaned against the chest of drawers, covering his face. ‘Oh Lisa, Lisa, Lisa–’
‘I want you to listen and I want you to think. If you’d been using your mind you wouldn’t have said what you said just now. I don’t want you to take Diana away from Miles. You couldn’t do it anyway.’
Danby moaned again.
‘Miles and I knew at once that there was no future for us together. What sort of people do you think we are?’
‘People in love,’ he said.
‘Romantic love is not an absolute.’
‘People who are in love think so.’
‘It’s an
overprized condition. Besides one recovers. Even you began to recover!’
‘I didn’t. Nor did you. You say you’ve loved Miles for years.’
‘Absence cures.’
‘Anyhow, you and Miles will find a way. You’re both so damn clever.’
‘Listen. There was and is nothing that we could do with our love. Miles could not leave Diana. He is married to Diana, Diana has given her whole life to Miles. And after I had told my love and tasted his I could not remain in the house–’
‘There are other houses in London.’
‘Not for Miles and me. We couldn’t live like that.’
‘You could try. Did you go to bed together?’ Danby was still standing with his back to her, staring down at his hairbrush.
‘No, of course not.’
‘I don’t see why of course. You’re not saints.’
‘No. We are cool self-interested people. We did not want to set a course into ruin and madness.’
‘Well, I’m still waiting to see what aspect of your cool self-interest has brought you to me with this practically unbearable story!’
‘As I told you, we decided that we must part and I decided that it would be easier for both of us if I went right away and I fixed up a job for myself in India, in Calcutta, with the Save the Children Fund.’
‘Then why aren’t you in Calcutta,’ said Danby, ‘why are you in Stadium Street, in my bedroom, sitting on my bed with your shoes off?’
There was silence. He looked up at last. She was looking at him with a peculiar hard intensity. After a pause she went on, ‘I decided not to go to India. It was a difficult decision and a very crucial one.’
‘So you’re going back to Miles after all, and you thought you’d drop in on me on the way and tell me all about it!’
‘No, I’m not going back to Miles.’
‘Then what are you going to do?’
‘That,’ said Lisa, ‘depends partly on you.’
Danby sat down very slowly in the chair by the window. He stared at her fiercely, sternly. ‘Lisa, just what are you talking about?’
She looked at him now almost with hostility. ‘I want to make it all crystal clear,’ she said, ‘and it’s not easy to make clear.’
‘I’ll say it isn’t!’
‘I don’t want you to be in any way cheated.’
‘I look like being killed not cheated.’
‘I had to make it plain about Miles–’
‘You’ve made it plain! What do you want, Lisa, do you want to use me to make Miles jealous?’
‘It’s odd,’ she said, ‘I think it was seeing you talking to me that day in the cemetery that made Miles suddenly realise he loved me–when he saw that someone else might.’
‘You can spare me the touching reminiscences. So that is what you want?’
‘No. I have no plans which concern Miles.’
‘It’s impossible,’ said Danby. ‘You love him. He loves you. As you’ve explained ten times. It’s impossible. You must intend to go back to him.’
‘No.’
‘Well, then what do you want me to do?’
For the first time since her arrival Lisa showed some confusion. She sighed, dropped her gaze, and began to push her hair back, fingering the damp rings on her neck into dry dark brown tendrils. ‘I decided not to go to India–’
‘Go on.’
‘I spent all those years–in that house–loving Miles and knowing where he slept–every night–’
‘Cut that bit.’
‘I could have gone on, you see, indefinitely, and I thought I would go on indefinitely. Only then that suddenly happened, his loving me like that and my telling him–’
‘Lisa, don’t take me round again, I can’t stand it.’
‘When I thought I’d go away I imagined I was the same person, the person of before. It was the person of before who decided to go to India–’
‘Go on, go on.’
‘Well, I found I wasn’t that person any more.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘I’d also like you to know,’ she said, looking directly at him again, ‘that I do absolutely believe that you love me, and that it is, as you put it, serious, different, terrible.’
Danby stared at her. He felt as if he was going to faint and slide forward off the chair. He said hoarsely, ‘Christ. You want me to console you.’
Lisa was looking at him with great intentness. ‘There is something, yes, which might be put like that. As I said, it is extremely difficult to be precise. That–experience–with Miles altered me. Maybe for the worse, time will show. I found I couldn’t just go away–and be alone. I didn’t want to go away–any more.’
‘Oh Lisa,’ said Danby. He put his hand to his eyes. ‘It’s no good,’ he said. ‘I should die of it.’
‘Possibly. Possibly not.’
Danby leaned forward, glaring at her. ‘You listen to me now. You are simply deluding yourself. You said you couldn’t go away and be alone. All right, but what’s the point of coming to me when you don’t love me and you do love somebody else? Don’t you realise there’s only one cure for your loneliness and this isn’t it? You don’t love me. You certainly don’t know me. Perhaps just at this moment you are grateful to me for being in love with you. I might cheer you up, amuse you, for a short while, days, weeks maybe. Then you’d go back to Miles. And I should kill myself. Or Miles. Or you.’
‘No,’ said Lisa carefully, leaning forward with an equal intentness, ‘I’ve thought all this out. You have to believe me that I won’t go back to Miles. You must see. Miles is the one man who is entirely impossible.’
‘I don’t see. Nothing is impossible when people are in love. You’re mad, you’re absolutely mad. And you obviously haven’t understood what you’re trifling with here. It’s a great fire, Lisa, it’s a killer.’
‘I want to get over Miles and I will get over Miles,’ said Lisa. ‘I know how to do it. I shall suffer pain and I shall inflict pain, I know that. Miles feels I’m in a nunnery or dead. His peace depends on seeing me as unattainable, as an angel. It will hurt terribly when it turns out that I am only a woman after all.’
‘Then he’ll come round and get you.’
‘No. Then he will stop loving me.’
‘So it’s all in aid of a cure for Miles!’
‘Don’t be a fool. Danby, listen, can’t you conceive that I might care for you and find you attractive, that something did happen that day in the cemetery and that night in the garden? I’m grateful that you love me, but it isn’t just that. It means a lot to be wanted, but it isn’t just that. I loved Miles but I could see you too. I wouldn’t come to just anybody like this and ask to be consoled and helped. I’ve been thinking about you for days and weeks. Thinking about you made me decide not to go to India. Does it seem so strange after all that I should want to make somebody happy and be happy myself? I’ve thought about the way you fell on your knees in the ashes in the garden and how very much at that moment I wanted to touch you. In all those years at Kempsford Gardens I lost my instinct of self-preservation. I’ve been living in a dark cage. Now I’m out of it. It has been painful, this coming out, and it will go on being painful for some time, but that’s a simple clean pain such as one might live with. I am not mad, Danby. I have never been more sane, coldly sane, self-interestedly sane. I am a woman. I want warmth and love, affection, laughter, happiness, all the things I’d done without. I don’t want to live upon the rack.’
‘You don’t know me at all–’
‘I have seen your heart. You don’t know me. You imagine I’m good. But those self-denying years prove nothing. And you think I am–like someone else.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘no. I can see you. I can see you.’
‘Then let us trust each other.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Danby, ‘before I start screaming. Just what are you suggesting?’
‘Something very simple. That we try to get to know each other better. For in
stance, you might invite me out to dinner.’
‘Invite you–out–to dinner! I am going mad, I must be,’ said Danby. He began to sob with laughter. ‘It’s no use, Lisa. It’s all fantasy. You’d leave me and it would kill me.’
‘Well, if you prefer not to take the risk–’ Lisa stretched out a long leg and massaged her ankle. Then she thrust her feet into her shoes and reached for her coat.
Danby fell on his knees and put his head on to her lap. With a tired sad triumphant smile she caressed the dry white hair.
32
BRUNO WAS WAKING up. Thank God it was not the night time. Waking up was different now. It was a kind of entry into pain which was like a very slow quiet entry into warm water. The pain was not physical pain though there was physical pain. Sometimes there were sudden wrenches with a sense of something inward griping and collapsing. But these were brief and rare. There was the general restless itching aching unease of the body which could find no rest now and to which even sleep came like an anxious cloud trailing its twilight over tensed knotted limbs. This other pain was of the mind, or somehow of the whole being as if in the doomed animal mind and body were fusing into almost diaphanous ectoplasm, only vaguely located in space, which vibrated blindly with the agony of consciousness. The return from sleep into this ectoplasmic consciousness was always misery. I am still here, he thought.
