by Iris Murdoch
It was almost midnight, and they had talked again about Marian, when Owen returned to ‘Mildred’s favourite topic, woman priests, nuns in fancy dress, admit that you are longing to get your hands upon the Chalice! Only remember that the Chalice is the Grail, a magical object, religion is magic! And after all did not the Virgin herself put women firmly down when she took over Athos as her own secret domain where no woman could ever come?’
‘The Angel of the Annunciation kneels to the Virgin,’ said Mildred.
‘Ah, but what is she thinking, poor girl,’ said Owen. ‘Simone Martini saw into her soul when he depicted her reeling back in fear and horror!’
‘Where’s Jackson?’ said Mildred.
‘Our dark angel has flitted away like Ariel. I still can’t make out whether he is putting on that accent - ’
‘Ariel was not an angel,’ said Benet.
‘Didn’t Uncle Tim say that Jackson was Caliban?’ said Mildred. ‘He was the one who really knew the island, the animals and the plants and was useful and gentle and - ’
‘He said it of Kim,’ said Benet, ‘I mean Jackson was like Kim, who used to run along the rooftops delivering messages.’
‘Prospero was ashamed,’ said Owen. ‘Why was he on that island anyway? Surely for some sin, he was suffering secret agonies of remorse -’
‘Jackson is suffering,’ said Mildred, ‘for something, perhaps for something terrible -’
‘What did Prospero mean by saying “this thing of darkness I acknowledge mine”, what could he mean? Of course Caliban was his son by Sycorax - that stuff about Sycorax having had a child in Algiers was a cover-up -’
‘What nonsense,’ said Mildred.
‘We must expect that Shakespeare felt remorse,’ said Benet, ‘Macbeth, Othello -’
‘Artists know all about it,’ said Owen. ‘How Titian must have felt it, when he was very old, The Flaying of Marsyas—the pain, the pain, the old man must have felt it deeply at the end. I wonder what Jackson is ashamed of -’
‘We shall never know,’ said Mildred, ‘and we cannot judge him. He is more likely to judge us.’
‘I bet he has committed some terrible crime and is being punished for it, put in prison - probably he’s escaped, no wonder he’s so secretive.’
‘There is such a thing as redemptive suffering,’ said Mildred. ‘Weren’t there scars upon his back? You saw the scars, Benet - ’
‘No, I didn’t,’ said Benet.
‘Well, he has been damned like Mildred’s Fisher King, perhaps he is the Fisher King in disguise -’ said Owen.
‘Perhaps he is a more exalted king in disguise,’ said Mildred.
‘A beggar like in Tim’s India - perhaps he just made it up out of books! Tim certainly took to Jackson, he saw him like an Indian native, something primitive out of the jungle -’
‘Jackson does not resemble a beggar,’ said Benet, ‘or a primitive or -’
‘You found him in a cardboard box underneath a bridge, don’t deny it, you found him in a basket, he was curled up like a snake and you brought him home, he’s a captive, like a ringed bird, poor fellow, he is profound, he must feel like Plato when he was a slave -’
‘Must we have Plato in?’ said Benet.
‘Surely Plato was never a slave,’ said Mildred.
‘Yes, he was, it’s in Plutarch,’ said Benet. ‘Jackson is really an educated man -’
‘I’ve got it!’ cried Owen. ‘It’s perfectly clear now! Jackson is Benet’s illegitimate son!’
‘I think you should both go home,’ said Benet, rising.
‘Well,’ said Owen, ‘however it may be, in Jackson I recognise my brother!’
They left at last, after standing in the hall and returning to the subject of Marian, and how in the next day or two something must become clear. Benet went back to the dining room and looked at the familiar chaos on the table. Usually he tidied some things away before going to bed. Now he had not the heart to. Anyway, Jackson, rising at dawn, would have it all removed and dealt with before he was up. He walked slowly upstairs, gripping the banisters. He was drunk, his heart was sick and heavy. In his bedroom the curtains were not drawn. He walked across in the dark, and looked down into the garden below. Jackson lived there, in the little house of his own which Benet called ‘The Lodge’. The light was on in the Lodge. Benet drew the curtains and went quickly to bed in the dark.
On the next day Benet returned to Penn. Before leaving London, still feeling a bit drunk and ashamed, he made the usual telephone calls. No news of Marian, no replies from Edward. Why indeed from Edward, with his misery and his grief and his loss of face? Why had he not stayed in London with Marian on that awful night, what had that meant? Why had he not treated her properly? Why had she - ? There could have existed so many wounds and misunderstandings and doubts and uncertainties and secret spites and huge fears between these two. They should have waited. Why did they not wait? Because Benet was hustling them along, he was so sure that they were made for each other! Benet now wanted passionately to speak to Edward. Benet loved Marian, and had come to love Edward, he had felt like a father to both of them, he had looked forward so much to visiting them at Hatting Hall, and to seeing their children.
Benet had planned to reach Penn before lunch, but was delayed at the garage and then upon the motorway. As he neared his destination he decided instinctively to go by the loop road, behind the Rectory and over the bridge, rather than the direct way through the village. He had no business in the village. But suddenly it occurred to him that he precisely had business in the village, he must show his face. He must let them look at him, and pity him, and get their sympathising over with. He drove on, entering smaller and smaller roads and lanes until, at the sign Lipcot, turning down a very narrow lane where tall dry prickly leafy hedges clawed the car on either side and feathery ladies lace bowed down over the wheels and there were very few passing places. He met no one. At last he emerged into a larger space above the river and at once, after a few cottages, into the short village street where he parked his car outside the Sea Kings.
The tall Welsh landlord was the first to see him and say ‘Was there news of Miss Marian?’ and ‘What a sad business!’ Benet had intended to ask for news of Edward but decided in time that this was a mistake! He set off down the little street where his arrival had obviously been noted. He bought some stamps at the Post Office, picked up the local paper at the newsagent, bought some cheese at the grocer’s, and looked so thoughtfully at the window of the little antique shop that the owner, Steve Southerland, came out and led him in, holding his sleeve. At each shop and upon the pavement Benet was met with the bright-eyed curiosity of children, but also from all the genuine sympathy and kindliness and desire to help. Steve Southerland had been so effusively sorry that Benet felt he must buy something and purchased a small cigarette case. He did not smoke. He returned with a suitable dignity to his car which had attracted a small group who waved him off. He drove away up the woody lane toward Penndean. Turning down the gravelled drive he saw Clun emerging from among the trees and waving his arms, but only to ask Benet for news and whether he had had no lunch and whether Sylvia should come. Benet said that he had had his lunch and didn’t need Sylvia. He drove on and entered the house. He had had no lunch. He rang Hatting but no answer. He ate some bread and butter and the cheese he had bought in the village, and an apple. He felt terribly lonely. He was startled by a sound which was Sylvia bringing some flowers and asking him if he wanted anything. He stood up for Sylvia, pushing back his chair, and said no. He went to the larder and brought out a bottle of Valpolicella, opened it and poured out a glass. He carried it back to the drawing room and drank two more glasses. He picked up the telephone and rang the Hatting number, but of course had no reply.
Benet’s intentions when returning to Penn had been far from clear. He wanted very much to get away from the London scene and be alone. He wanted silence, he even wanted work, the continuation of his book on Heidegger. He thought of dri
ving over to Hatting at once but some terrible exhaustion prevented him. He would go tomorrow. He also wanted of course that all should be well, he did not know quite how, with or between Edward and Marian. He wanted passionately to run to them, to draw them together. At the same time he was keeping in mind, though he did not utter this, the possibility that Marian was dead. A murder, a suicide, an accident. No, not an accident. Benet still held in his pocket that terrible note which Edward had left with him, which he had perused so many times. Probably he did not want ever to see it again. ‘Forgive me, I am very sorry, I cannot marry you.’ What could be more final? Yet might it not be merely a sudden impulse, regretted at once, and she ashamed to say: I didn’t mean it? Benet had now recalled many times his conversation with Edward at Hatting on the day after, when Edward had said,
‘You must blame me.’ He wondered, what does Edward feel now? Perhaps he rues that little scene when we were so open to each other. By now he resents his emotion, his openness to me, yes, he is cutting himself off from all of us, cursing us even, for having led him into this morass, this pit, from which he must feel he can never now escape. His life is destroyed, he will be despised, regarded as done for, a fool, something worse, no wonder the girl left him. But have not I done it? He will curse me for all this and he will be right-that talk we had at Hatting when we embraced each other, that was our last meeting, the last moment when we spoke truth and clarity to each other, when we expressed love for each other. I have lost him, and I have lost Marian, and it is all my fault.
These were thoughts which had been continuously at work in Benet’s mind, and which were now achieving, as he drank the wine, a hideous degree of clarity. He had come to Penndean for some sort of quietness or solitude, but he was simply miserable and frightened, alone with his demons.
He left the drawing room and went to his study. There on the desk was his book about Heidegger, open at the page where he had left it such a little while ago. Benet perused the page which he had written.
Heidegger’s central concept of truth or unconcealment should be understood by tracing it back to the Pre-Socratics, and to Homer, as he explains in an essay, originally a 1943 lecture, ‘Wonder first begins with the question, “What does all this mean and how could it happen?” How can we arrive at such a beginning?’ Heidegger quotes Heraclitus Fr. 16, ‘How can one hide from that which never sets?’ What is this hiding and from what? He then quotes Clement of Alexandria who adapts Heraclitus as meaning that one (the sinner) may hide from the light perceived by the senses, but cannot hide from the spiritual light of God. Well, though we may readily understand him in that sense, the Greek was not thinking about anything like a Christian deity. Heraclitus, according to Heidegger, is not thinking of anything ‘spiritual’ or ‘moral’, but of something far more fundamental in the dawn of human consciousness. Heidegger here, as elsewhere in his writings, suggests a significant connection between aletheia (truth) and lanthano (I am concealed, or escape notice, doing or ,being something) and lethe forgetfulness or oblivion. He then engagingly quotes Homer, The Odyssey VIII 83 ff. (It is always a relief to get away into Homer.) Odysseus, after his meeting with Nausicaa, now incognito in her father’s palace, hears the minstrel singing about the Trojan War, from which Odysseus is now making his laborious way home. Verse 93. ‘Then unnoticed by all the others he shed tears.’ Literally, he escaped notice shedding tears. Heidegger points out that elanthane does not mean the transitive ‘he concealed’, but means ‘he remained concealed’ shedding tears. ‘Odysseus has pulled his cloak over his head because he is ashamed to let the Phaeacians see his tears.’ Heidegger comments ‘Odysseus shied away - as one shedding tears before the Phaeacians.’ But doesn’t this quite clearly mean the same as: he hid himself before the Phaeacians out of a sense of shame? Or must we also think ‘shying away’, aidos, from remaining concealed, granted that we are striving to get closer to its essence as the Greeks experienced it? Then ‘to shy away’ would mean to withdraw and remain concealed in reluctance or restraint ‘keeping to oneself’. Of course this is an example of the persuasive movement of Heidegger’s laborious argument when he wishes to read one of his concepts (in this case aletheia, ‘thought as’ unconcealment) into the minds of the early Greeks!
Benet paused, well what does it all mean, he thought, and why on earth do I go on with it? Am I not losing my German? Could one forgive Heidegger or be interested in him just because he loved the Greeks? Benet loved the Greeks. But did he understand them, was he a Greek scholar? No, he was just a curious romantic pseudo-historian. He would rather spend his time reading Hölderlin than Heidegger. Really he loved pictures not thoughts. He pictured Odysseus weeping behind his cloak in the hall of the Phaeacians. Benet did not often weep. Perhaps he would weep now, now that everything had changed. He thrust the sheets of paper away. He thought, when I am dead what does it matter. He got up and began walking about restlessly. Some tears came, he quickly mopped them away with his handkerchief. He rarely wept - and now it was for Odysseus! These were mad thoughts. The house was quiet, or was it? Those strange sounds were there again: a crackling sound as of something on fire, an almost inaudible little wailing sound as by a small creature in pain, then a sharper brief sound not unlike a knock. Of course it was all nonsense, these were familiar noises, he heard them all the time, the natural murmurs of an ageing house, its little secret wounds, wood rotting, tiles slipping - he went round and locked the doors and bolted and chained them. He went back through the drawing room and out onto the terrace. His ferocious concentration upon Heidegger had for a brief time distracted him. Now he saw the light misted by small clouds, like an evening light, glowing. It must be later than he thought. He came back across the terrace being careful not to step upon the many creeping plants which spread among the paving stones. He went back into the drawing room which now seemed a little dim. He meandered to the mantelpiece and played with the netsuke. He thought, I can do no good. I am blundering about among the miseries of a chaotic scene which I myself have brought about. He went into the kitchen and ate cheese and biscuits and then ginger cake. He ate an apple which he found lying around. He was tearless now, just utterly miserable and helpless. He decided to go to bed and to sleep. However, suddenly he found himself prowling around the house and reflecting upon a quite different matter which now increasingly distressed him. It was Jackson.
THREE
The Past
The legend was that Benet had discovered Jackson curled up in a cardboard box late one night and had adopted him as a weird animal which he imagined he could tame! There were various versions of this nonsense. Benet himself was not at all sure, when later he reeled back his memory, how exactly it had begun. Had he really seen strange eyes looking at him in the dark? That area near to the river had been, ever since Benet could remember, some sort of gathering place of various people. Benet randomly, sometimes against the advice of the police, gave money here to people whom he pitied but felt he ‘could do nothing for’. The idea ‘it is fate’, was taken up later by Mildred. Had Benet, much earlier, unconsciously, seen those eyes? Can it be that one particular person, sent by the gods, is singled out for another particular person?
Benet had quite recently given up his job and was feeling free and happy. He was more often at Penn, where the house, and now (though not urgently) Uncle Tim, was needing his attentions. He was also being urged by London friends to move from his narrow noisy little abode to some larger and quieter house elsewhere. It was winter, January. After spending the evening with some friends, including Owen, he had become unusually drunk and arriving back by taxi had found some difficulty first in finding his key, and then inserting it in the lock. After some futile struggles with the slippery key he became aware that he was not alone, a man was standing behind him on the pavement. He turned round, annoyed, then alarmed, by the silent unknown figure; then turning his back he returned quickly to his unsuccessful attempt to insert the key. Then a voice behind him said, ‘May I help you?’ Benet had not h
eard or dreamt of hearing this voice. The voice was hard to place. All Benet instantly took in was a cool calm voice. A moment later, standing motionless holding the key, he somehow in the dim light of the nearby lamp-post seemed to recognise the man. Without a word he handed over the key. The man neatly inserted it in the lock, opened the door, and, preceding Benet, entered the house and turned on a light. Benet followed him into the hall. At that moment, surprisingly as he thought afterwards, Benet felt no fear. He reached out his hand and the man returned the key. Benet instinctively produced his wallet. Then, and this was a strange moment, the stranger reached out his hand and for an instant rested it upon Benet’s hand. Benet, now sobered, took in a great deal. He understood that the fellow was not attempting to steal his wallet, but simply indicating that he did not want any money. Benet said,
‘Thank you for helping me.’ He moved to the door, which was partly closed, and opened it wide. He wondered if the fellow would say something. But he simply looked at Benet and went out. Benet closed the door and leaned against it.
A great tidal wave of emotion overwhelmed him. He turned and attempted, but failed, to open the door again. In the next instant he decided against this. He was suddenly terribly upset. He should have acted differently, but how? Should he have asked him to stay? Or offered him a drink? Was he waiting for Benet to come back, did he know someone who knew Benet? Anyway he would resent Benet’s prompt farewell. It was now impossible for Benet to run after him - how did he even imagine such a thing! He would have to wait until tomorrow. But what for? It was just as well Benet was soon leaving this house and this neighbourhood. He eventually went to bed and slept well.
