An Accidental Man

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘Shall we meet afterwards?’

  ‘I don’t see that we can, Dorina.’

  There was silence between them. Matthew took her hand again. They sat like two children.

  He saw a tear coming quietly down Dorina’s cheek.

  ‘Don’t grieve, my child.’

  ‘No, I know — how things have got to be — this has been a special enclosed time and can’t have any consequences — I mean except in my being better. It’s just that when one thinks of — never — never meeting or writing — when there is so much love — it seems like death.’

  ‘I know, but — sometimes in life one has to die.’

  ‘Yes. And I am brave enough to die. Only never forget that I love you.’

  ‘I won’t forget, Dorina. The pain is mine too. Don’t you forget that.’

  Dearest Char,

  I rang but no answer so this is just a little note to send love. Why do we never see you? You must come round to dins. I expect you would like some news of us and the children. Let me see. Patrick has won the History Prize. Gracie is blissfully happy with Ludwig in Ireland. George has been promoted (he is now very grand). I have been terribly busy with the wedding arrangements. Did I tell you I am designing all the clothes myself? And I am getting the dressmaker to run up quite a trousseau for ME as well! Life is thrilling but terribly full. How are you? We really must meet. I will telephone again, but not at once, since the next two or three days are packed with jobs, seeing dressmakers, seeing florists, seeing photographers, one is never done. We so look forward to the lazy peace of our Greek cruise with Richard immediately after the wedding. George and I will feel it is a second honeymoon for us! I am looking forward to it with such childish glee. Well, that’s our news, what’s yours? Why do we never see you? You must come round to dins. I will ring again when there’s a spot of time. Au revoir, dear, and much love from

  Clara

  PS George, who has just come in from some jolly drinks with Charles and the boys, bids me send you his special love!!

  Dear Charlotte,

  just a letter to you not apropos of anything in particular. I would like to have seen you but I have been kept very busy in the East End. The scenes here are depressing beyond words. One sees how little impression the Welfare State has made and how many people are still very poor indeed and desperate, particularly women with strings of children and unable to cope. The men at least can go to the pub. I am moving very shortly to Notting Hill where I gather things are just as bad but different. Being able to do so little fills one with sadness. And makes one count one’s own blessings. When I’m back on the west side at Notting Hill I’ll hope to see you. Maybe I could even enlist your help? Have you seen Ludwig, I wonder? He always speaks of you so warmly. I do hope that you are well and happy. I send sincerest wishes and thoughts.

  Yours

  Garth

  My dear Charlotte,

  we have been trying to get in touch with you. Matthew and I feel that you could be of great use to us about Dorina. We are rather worried about her. We will tell you when we see you. Probably you are away on holiday. Would you be so kind as to ring us at once when you return? We should be most grateful. With very best wishes from us both,

  Mavis

  PS I feel I should say that Austin and Dorina will soon be needing the flat.

  Charlotte listened for a while to the telephone ringing. George and Clara had paid the telephone bill. Then she wandered into the kitchen and threw the fragments of the three letters into the bin. Her loose tooth was aching. The sun was shining into the kitchen and on to a number of opened and half emptied tins. There was a smell of decay and a quantity of buzzy blue flies. Charlotte wandered out of the kitchen again and into the bedroom which faced north. The bed was unmade. The nylon gauze curtains on the window were dark with dirt. She lay down on the bed.

  Today’s post about summed it up. Clara was too happy to bother except for a hasty note to salve her conscience. Garth was full of pity and felt it might be salutary to think of even less fortunate people. He thought it might do Charlotte good to do social work. Mavis had absorbed Matthew into a final we. Matthew didn’t care. He had not bothered to write. He had not telephoned. If he was telephoning now it was too late. He only wanted to make use of her to solve Mavis’s problems. To make the way plain for him and Mavis. Patrick had got the history prize. Gracie was blissfully happy in Ireland. George was very grand. We were grateful and sent our good wishes. Austin and Dorina were coming home. Mavis thought Charlotte might be of use. George sent his special love. Matthew didn’t care. The last time she had answered the telephone it was a man who uttered obscenities, having gathered that a maiden lady lived there alone. Perhaps that was him again now. Or perhaps it was Matthew-Mavis who thought Charlotte might be of use. But it was too late. Charlotte was no use to anybody any more. Even Alison, to whom she had once been of use, had rejected her finally. Therefore she must be worthy of rejection.

  Matthew didn’t care. Matthew and Mavis were we, to have and to hold to love and to cherish till death did them part. They would be rich and joyful. They would live in a grand house and the maid would dust the Chinese vases. Gracie was blissfully happy in Ireland. Clara was so longing for the Greek cruise. Garth was full of pity. So was George, who sent his special love. Patrick had won the History Prize. Patrick had written regularly to Alison. He had never once written to Charlotte. Charlotte would be of use. Charlotte would mind the children while Gracie and Ludwig went out to dinner. Austin and Dorina are coming home. Clara’s life is thrilling.

  Of course Charlotte knew perfectly well, she did not need to be told it in a patronizing communication from Garth, that other people were worse off than she was and she ought to feel lucky. She hadn’t got strings of children and a husband who went to the pub. How much she wished that she had, someone like Garth would never know. Of course she had had an easy life, and with a little ingenuity could still have one. She had long ago surrendered the great illusions and the little ones were so much her friends that they had become entirely translucent. She was not the sort of person who would fall out of the bottom of society. She had a good digestion. She could hunger and satisfy her hunger, feel weary and go to a comfortable bed. If she awoke in black misery, as she alway did, she had the inductive powers to know that when she had got up she would probably enjoy a cup of tea. A detective story could hold her attention, even The Times could. Human beings can keep going and even in some sense enjoy their existence with fewer devices than that. But it somehow remained that she, she Charlotte Ledgard, had been cheated out of her life and survived now as a mere shadow. No wonder Alison had punished her and Matthew thought of her only as an instrument. That she could still be an instrument might have comforted her once, but not now.

  So Austin and Dorina were reconciled and would soon be home. Another happy ending. Charlotte would clean the flat for them before she left, buy flowers for them. They would be grateful, but they would not want to see her again. It would be necessary for Charlotte to take a job, only it was not clear what she could do except look after elderly ladies. Of course she could remind Clara of her kind suggestion and go and live with her and George. Clara and George had a high sense of duty and would never by an eyelid’s flicker indicate to Charlotte that she was a burden. Only late at night when Charlotte was in bed and they had returned from a dinner party would they speak of poor old Char and ruefully and kindly wish her at the devil. And then Clara would tease George about Charlotte being in love with him. And Charlotte would lie alone in bed and hear the married couple murmuring below. And everyone would say how generous of the Tisbournes to look after old Charlotte who was getting on in years and had never been easy to live with even when she was young. She could stick it out with George and Clara until the little Leferriers arrived. Then she would earn her keep, as she had earned it with Alison year after year at the Villa.

  Charlotte knew perfectly well too that these vistas were not only fruitless but quite possibly fal
se. In a very abstract way she knew that something unexpected could happen even to her, scarcely something pleasant, but at least something different. She could become ill. Even this might alter things. But she could not change her knowledge of the blankness of the future into any sort of hope, or really conceive of the future at all except as a series of nightmarish rat-run extensions of her present vileness. That she condemned herself in moral terms brought no consoling spring of vitality and even guilt gave her no energy. When this is so one is in extremity indeed.

  I hate everybody, she thought, and I hate them not because they are bad or spiteful or because they ignore me or even because they pity me. I hate them in a pure way because they are fortunate and have what I have not, and there is no human being so wretched that my hatred, like the divine mercy, cannot find its way to him. She lay on the wretched lumpy bed in the twilight, behind the filthy gauze curtains, lying awkwardly, without even the will to make herself comfortable, and she thought about death and whether it made any sense to desire it. No, it made no sense. She was far beyond the truth and its sharp dividings of the world. Whether or not she should kill herself, whether it would seriously matter to anyone or anything if she did, was a question which had no answer, which could not even be properly framed. Why should she kill herself in a fit of envy, and then again why should she not? It was all one. Whether this despair made it easier or harder to act, whether it would finally carry her off, mere chance would decide. She had always been the slave of chance, let it kill her if it would by a random stroke. She would not die gladly, but then she had not loved gladly either. Her swansong would be made of words smashed into nonsense against a cracked world, exploding with it into the chaos upon which everything rested and out of which it was made. And the people who said, as they smiled and sipped their evening drink, ‘Poor Charlotte killed herself out of spleen’, would themselves very soon be dead too.

  The morning was wearing away. Soon it would be time to feed herself again, to continue the motions of living. She had certainly been trying to keep herself alive, she had even been to see Doctor Seldon. He had told her there was nothing wrong with her and had given her tranquillizers and sleeping pills. He had troubles of his own. She hated him too all the same. Should she rise up and open another tin of corned beef and another tin of beans? Stoking the machine, keeping the wheels turning for a little bit longer. Should she sit in the kitchen and eat a plateful of stuff with The Times propped up in front of her, scanning the Personal Column for an advertisement for a lady companion, cook and housemaid kept? Or should she not? Should she get up and stop the milk and feed herself fifty sleeping pills? She had been so happy once with her father before Clara was born. But that was in a previous existence, that child scarcely a memory, that man not even a ghost.

  Charlotte pulled herself off the bed and wandered back into the sitting-room. She could not endure the happiness of Mavis and Matthew, that torture at least she could spare her consciousness. She went to the place where she had put away the items which had once seemed to her so interesting, the swimming certificate, the torn letter. Should she send them to Matthew to trouble his peace? She sat down at the table and began to write. My dear Matthew, when you receive this I shall be dead . . . Odd that to face death was really to face nothing. When men said that the spectacle of death could instruct and save they lied. Healthy men said this, men radiant with suffering and guilt, men steely with will and art. Death’s real disciples know that there is no face we can turn towards death. Only life stretches away on every hand, hideous and dry and becoming tinier and tinier.

  Slowly Charlotte crumpled up the page. She put it together with the swimming certificate and the old torn letter in the empty grate. Betty’s words looked up at her we’ll meet then . . . Austin doesn’t suspect. She struck a match and set fire to the papers, poking them until they fell to dust. Then she went to the kitchen and took a glass and filled a jug with water. She went back into the bedroom. She found the sleeping tablets.

  Odd that one should so naturally wish to lie upon one’s bed to go to sleep forever.

  Matthew and Dorina were sitting in the drawing-room looking at each other. It was mid-morning. Dorina’s bag was packed. Matthew got up. He said, ‘I’ll ring for a taxi.’

  ‘No. Wait a little longer. Please.’

  ‘Better get it over.’

  ‘Please —’

  Matthew dialled the number of the taxi rank. It was engaged.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Dorina. ‘But after these days with you I don’t think I can stand “never again”. I can’t stand it.’

  ‘You’ve got to,’ said Matthew. He dialled the number again. ‘Hello. Could you send a taxi at once?’ He gave the address.

  ‘I am not going to cry,’ said Dorina. ‘I promised I wouldn’t.’ She spoke in a slow precise voice, not looking at him. ‘That you of all people, to whom I have come closest in all the world, who understands me as if you had made me, that you of all people should be the only one that I can never see again —’

  ‘That’s how it is,’ said Matthew. ‘Sorry.’

  He got up and went to the window.

  ‘I am not reproaching you.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘There must be some compromise, some second way.’

  ‘None. You know that as well as I do.’

  They had lived an age in three days. He had seen her rise as if from a tomb. Taking her by the hand, he had pulled her up out of the paralysis of fear. She had found her courage like someone remembering her own name. Her love for Austin had been set free into the world. He had seen the joy of resurrection. Only now in the last hours had a sense of horror returned. Like radium, this treatment cures and then begins to destroy. It was time to end it.

  ‘Yes,’ said Dorina. ‘Yes. But it’s too horrible. I love Austin. Yet I can’t help feeling that I belong to you automatically whether you will or no forever. And that this will be so even if we don’t meet any more.’

  ‘It’s meaningless, Dorina,’ said Matthew. ‘You are comforting yourself with empty words. I seem brutal now, but I must be. I suffer too. How can one be with someone as I have been with you in these days and not love them? One could do nothing for them unless one did love them. That we must now part absolutely is our bad luck. But only this absolute parting ratifies what went before and makes it other than a sort of crime. If I am to have helped you at all I must abandon you completely.’

  ‘After all this —’

  ‘We must make all this as if it had never been.’

  ‘Couldn’t we at least write occasionally, once a year?’

  ‘No. If you write to me I will not only not answer, I shall tear up the letter unread. Forgive me.’

  The front door bell rang.

  ‘There’s your taxi.’

  Matthew left the room and went to the front door. In a moment or two he would be by himself. He knew he could assuage his own pain, there were means. He could not stand much more of this. Bundle her in and away and weep then.

  Garth was standing on the doorstep.

  As soon as Matthew had opened the door Garth darted into the hall and shut the door again.

  ‘Whatever is it?’ said Matthew.

  ‘Sssh. I know Dorina’s here. I was coming to see you. Then I saw the Tisbournes parking their car just down the road. They’re bound to be coming here too. I ran on first, I thought I’d better warn you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Matthew. ‘Dorina, here’s Garth. The Tisbournes are just arriving. Dorina, could you just sit in the dining-room. I’ll get rid of them as quickly as possible. Here, take your suitcase and your handbag.’

  ‘I’ll hide too if you don’t mind,’ said Garth. ‘I’m no good at acting.’

  Dorina gave a little moan and crossed the hall, followed by Garth. The door bell rang again. Matthew waited a moment or two, then opened the door.

  ‘Why, George and Clara, what a nice surprise!’

  ‘I do hope you don’t abhor the dropper-in,’
said George.

  The taxi drew up behind them.

  Matthew said to the taxi driver, ‘I don’t need you after all. Here, let me pay you for coming.’

  ‘Oh no!’ cried Clara. ‘Stop him, George. We’re spoiling his morning. Matthew, you were just going somewhere.’

  ‘No, I wasn’t — I mean, it can wait. Do come in.’

  ‘Taxi, don’t go, wait!’

  ‘Clara, I really don’t want it. No, go, please. Now do come in, just for a minute. I have got to go somewhere actually, but —’

  ‘Can we just come in for a sec?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Come into the drawing-room. Would you like a drink?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Clara, medium sherry, George, Scotch and water, that’s right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Clever old Matthew, you remember everybody’s little foibles!’

  ‘He remembers everything, doesn’t he. Thank you, dear Matthew.’

  ‘Do sit down.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It’s got quite hot again, hasn’t it,’ said Matthew.

  ‘Yes, it’s really a summer for once, like people have in other places. Aren’t you drinking, Matthew?’

  ‘Well, yes, but I must go soon.’

  ‘We’ll take you in our car. Where do you want to go?’

  ‘I must make some telephone calls first, now I come to think of it.’

  ‘George, we are being a nuisance.’

  ‘No, no, not at all.’

  ‘We wanted to ask you something in fact, we are not just on pleasure bent.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s about Char. Shall I explain, George? We won’t keep you a minute. We’ll just tell you our little idea and then run off. You know we’ve been worrying so much about poor Char.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Char has got plenty of troubles that we can do nothing about, single and getting old and all those years wasted with mama, you know. But we felt we could at least help her financially, help her to be miserable in comfort, as they say.’