A Word Child

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘Yes.’ The word, almost inaudible, came with a weak shudder and she lay against me as if she might have fallen. ‘But, oh Hilary,’ she went on after a moment, ‘could we not somehow later on be friends? He may want to see you again — ’

  ‘I won’t see him. Kitty, he doesn’t know, does he, he doesn’t dream that we’ve ever met, except those two times with him?’

  ‘No, of course, he doesn’t know.’

  ‘So we can get clean out of it. And we must.’

  ‘Couldn’t we find each other somehow later on — I can’t bear it that you should go away into a desolation of loneliness and not be loved and looked after when there is so much love for you in my heart — ’

  My eyes were closed with anguish and I held her violently. ‘We can’t find each other later, that’s a lie and an illusion. There is no place and no time where we can ever meet. You pitied a worthless man, and that is all there is. We mustn’t meddle with each other any more. Kitty, we aren’t strong enough not to make some awful mistake. It’s all wrong, it’s all impossibly wrong. Better to part now. Let me go quickly, make it easy, make it like you said simple, oh for Christ’s sake, my dear, let me go now.’

  ‘Hilary, my darling — ’

  ‘Make it easy, make it easy — ’

  The jetty trembled faintly beneath my feet and I opened my eyes. Over Kitty’s shoulder I saw Gunnar. The faint fuzzed light of the lamp showed him to me unmistakably, though all I could see was the big silhouette and a hint of the faded Viking hair.

  I said ‘Gunnar’, not to him but to Kitty, and thrust her quickly away. I had some words for him in my throat but they were never uttered.

  Gunnar did not exactly hit me but he launched himself upon me. It was like the charge of a bison. I was unprepared and off my balance, one hand still touching Kitty’s shoulder and her coat, where I had put her aside. Gunnar blundered against me chest to chest with a crash which took my breath away and sent me back on my heels. I stumbled and trying to recover myself slipped and fell sideways resoundingly onto the wood. I got up quickly. Gunnar must have been winded by our collision, as he did not immediately pursue his advantage. As I became upright I received a violent painful jolt on the side of the head. Gunnar must have hit me very hard with his open hand, only nothing could now be seen, we were too close together and his bulk was between me and the lamp. I could not fight him, but I was not going to stand there and be punched. I grasped his overcoat and drew him up against me. It was like a violent embrace, almost as I had just now held Kitty. ‘Gunnar, please, stop, stop.’

  He was uttering a continuous panting growling sound and trying now to thrust me away from him by forcing his knee violently into my stomach, the fingers of one hand gripping my collar and the skin of my neck. Hampered by my own bulky coat I held onto the stuff of his and we reeled about, swaying against each other like two rounded dolls. At the same time I had twisted my foot behind his and was trying to overbalance him by forcing him back against my rigid leg. If he would only fall I could get past him and run before he could get in another blow.

  Kitty, during the minute occupied by the grapple, had not exclaimed or cried out. She said now in a low intense penetrating voice, ‘Stop this, stop it at once. You are not to fight. I am coming between you.’

  I felt, though I could not see, the mink sleeve in front of my face. I stepped back, releasing my hold on Gunnar’s coat, leaving him still between me and the embankment.

  Gunnar then spoke. ‘Get out of the way. I am going to lull him.’

  ‘Darling, stop — ’ said Kitty.

  I realized I had gone as far as I could. Behind me now was the drop into the water.

  Gunnar had thrust Kitty aside. He now had the advantage which he had wanted. I had to move forward, and I moved quickly, trying to keep my head safe. Gunnar’s fist crashed into my shoulder. I nearly fell, grasped at his sleeve and tried to swing him round in order to get past him Then there was a wild cry.

  Gunnar and I drew apart, looking around us like two drunken men. We were alone. Kitty had gone. She had fallen over the edge, over the side of the jetty into the darkness below.

  Gunnar gave an animal wail. He threw himself down, looking over the edge. I knelt. The darkness was almost impenetrable.

  Then in a moment of exquisite relief, we heard Kitty’s voice from below. ‘I’m all right, you two, don’t panic, I’m perfectly all right.’

  Her voice, shaken but clear, was the very voice of courage, and that ‘you two’ was suddenly piercingly reassuring.

  I said to Gunnar, ‘You stay here, find a rope. I’m going down.’

  ‘It’s awfully muddy,’ said Kitty below.

  I leaned over the edge, peering down into the darkness. There was a crisscross structure of wooden supports. I threw off my overcoat and let myself down, my feet questing for the slanting wooden beams. I got a firm foothold, moved my hands, began to descend further. I said to Kitty in as ordinary a voice as I could, ‘I’m coming, I’m coming.’

  There was no reply. I grasped the slimy cold slippery beams and lowered one foot, dabbing for a foothold. It was not difficult. In another moment or two I felt the yielding surface of the mud, and, still holding onto the jetty, turned myself about, spread-eagled against its base.

  The space below had seemed to be entirely black, but now that I was in it the distant shut-in lamp above was giving a little, a very little light. I could see the vague colour of Kitty’s coat, and beyond the scarcely perceptible movement of the swift running water.

  ‘Kitty — ’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m stuck in the mud.’

  ‘Are you all right, nothing broken?’

  ‘I’m perfectly all right, it’s too silly — ’

  ‘Are you in the water?’

  ‘No, no — I just fell straight into the mud, it’s like jelly. My coat’s all messed up.’

  I thought if she can worry about her coat she is probably all right.

  ‘I’m coming.’

  ‘Be careful,’ said Kitty, ‘you’ll just get stuck yourself. Better get a rope or something. I can’t move.’

  Now I could hear the panic in her voice. Holding onto the base of the jetty I began to move towards her. Where I had climbed down the mud was fairly firm, but after a step or two it began to be soft and gluey. My next step plunged me over ankle-deep. I stopped again. My eyes had now become more accustomed to the darkness and I could now see Kitty and immediately beyond her the water. She was almost upright in the mud, knee-deep, leaning over a little to one side in an unnatural attitude, perfectly still.

  I took another step. The mud was suddenly softer, more unstable, bottomless. I put my weight on my hands, holding onto the wooden structure behind me.

  ‘Don’t come out here or we’ll both be stuck. Just reach out to me.’

  I was trying to do that. I was now as near to her as I could get without letting go of my support and plunging out into the jelly. I braced one foot against the wood and reached out with one hand. I touched something. Her fingers. This sort of pulling would be no good. I should simply fall myself.

  ‘Can you not move at all?’

  ‘No. That’s what’s so silly. When I started to slip I jumped and both legs just went straight in. Just as well, otherwise I would have been hurt.’ The brave voice, but the panic.

  Something loomed up above. For the moment I had forgotten Gunnar. I called up, ‘Don’t come down, get a rope or a plank or anything. I can’t reach her.’ There were sounds, hollow echoes from the boards. The whole scene was strangely shut in, almost silent. The traffic passing on the embankment made a background murmur, but here even the sound of the river seemed louder. We were alone in a small cold cavern of dim light and thick air.

  ‘I think I’ll take off my coat,’ said Kitty. ‘I’ll throw it to you.’

  ‘Better keep the coat. Just don’t plunge around. We’ll have a rope in a minute.’

  The mink coat arrived in a bundle, soft and warm and smelling of K
itty’s perfume. Only the hem was muddy. It was a strange thing now to handle. I thrust it up above me, hanging it over one of the wooden supports. And as I reached up I felt how much my shoulder was hurting and how much the side of my face was hurting from the blows I had received from Gunnar.

  ‘Your coat’s all right. I’m going to have another try at reaching you.’

  ‘I’m falling over,’ said Kitty. ‘Oh it’s so stupid — ’

  I could see her more clearly now. The effort of pulling off the coat had thrown her off her balance and she had descended a little further into the mud, as if she were kneeling on one knee. She seemed also to have fallen away from the jetty and the distance between us was greater. I tried to keep very steady and to calculate. I prayed that she would not start struggling and crying out.

  I held onto the slimy wood with one hand, taking one step out into the mud and extending my arm to its utmost. I touched nothing, not even her finger tips.

  ‘I can’t — ,’ said Kitty, ‘my arm’s caught on that side — I can’t — I’m sort of sitting down now — ’ Her courage was giving, her voice, high, not quite breaking.

  I shouted up to Gunnar. ‘Get help, get help, find somebody, ring the police — ’

  There was silence above, probably he had already gone for help.

  The step which I had taken away from the jetty had plunged one leg into the mud up to the thigh. I struggled to extricate it, clamping myself onto the sloping wooden support now with both hands. It was becoming very hard to hold on because of the cold, the soft sliminess of the wood, the pain in my shoulder. My leg came out of the heavy grip of the mud with a sucking sound and I drew myself up to the jetty in a kneeling position, suspended by my arms which were now trembling with weakness. I called out ‘Help! Help!’ The cries slipped like small birds into the thick dark. Behind me Kitty was groaning.

  ‘Kitty, don’t panic. Someone will come in a minute. Just don’t move. Look, I’m going to take off my jacket and throw it. Grab one sleeve if you can.’ I took off my jacket, hanging on batlike. Holding one sleeve and with my other hand clawing the wood, I threw the coat across the gap between me and Kitty. I could see her hand take the sleeve, felt the material tighten between us. But it was at once clear that it was hopeless, she was too tightly wedged. All that happened was that the moment of tension dislodged my now practically frozen hand from the slimy wood and I plunged back over my knees in the mud, letting the jacket drop.

  ‘It’s no good,’ said Kitty. ‘I’m falling over more and more.’ She was trying hard to speak steadily.

  ‘I can’t reach you. If I get in the mud too I can’t lift you. They’ll bring a rope — ’

  ‘I couldn’t hold a rope, my hands are too cold, I wish I’d kept my coat — ’

  ‘Someone will come in a minute — ’

  ‘I think I’m dying of cold.’

  ‘Shall I throw your coat back?’

  ‘I couldn’t get it on.’

  ‘Courage, Kitty, darling, courage.’

  ‘It’s all my own fault — ’

  ‘What the hell can have happened to Gunnar — Oh God, if I could only think of something else to do — ’

  ‘The water’s just here,’ she said.

  I was shifting my position, edging along a little. I could see her now sitting, almost reclining in the mud, so close to me, a matter of feet, and yet inaccessibly lost and, I could see, sinking. The tenacious bottomless mud held one leg to the knee, one to the hip, and one arm which she had stretched out when she lost her balance. Another bout of struggling and she would keel over onto her back. I could see her dress, it was the mousy brown dress, an ornament glinting at the neck. I could see, for a second, her face. She was crying. I grimaced and gasped at the idiotic terrible helplessness of it all. I had decided that if Kitty lost her head and started to struggle or sink, I would launch myself out towards her. But for the moment I was more use watching, talking even.

  ‘If I could only get into the river I could swim.’

  ‘Kitty, the river would kill you.’

  ‘I’m a good swimmer.’

  ‘It’s too cold. Just wait. You’re OK. Wait. And for God’s sake keep still.’

  ‘I can’t wait,’ said Kitty, her voice breaking. ‘I’m gradually falling back. It’s coming onto my shoulder. I think I’ll just try and flounder into the river.’

  ‘Don’t, don’t, you’ll only make things worse!’ I lunged towards her again, in a desperate attempt to cover somehow that fatal gap between her hand and mine. Again the mud simply took my footstep, burying my leg to the knee, to the thigh, and I had to draw back, my arms cracking, one knee braced against the wood, the captive leg rising slowly.

  At that moment to my immense relief I heard the rumble of footsteps up above. There was a trembling in the wood and I saw that somebody was beginning to climb down just beyond me almost at the end of the jetty. I could see the bulky form and feel its weight. It was Gunnar. ‘Kitty,’ said Gunnar’s voice, ‘Hang on, they’re just coming.’

  I was about to call out to Gunnar when there was a slithering scrabbling sound and then a loud sticky watery report. Gunnar had fallen.

  He had fallen between me and the water and I could see that like Kitty, he had immersed himself almost thigh-deep and had at once keeled over sideways away from the jetty. I could hear the plopping thrashing sound of his struggle to right himself.

  ‘Gunnar, don’t do that, wait, wait.’ I moved monkey-like along the edge. I could not see him clearly, but I could almost at once reach him, touch him, fumble at the stuff of his coat. I felt his shoulder, his arm, then his hand gripping mine. ‘Don’t struggle. Pull on me.’ For a moment my arm and shoulder took his weight. I gasped with pain. I heard footsteps and shouts up above. Then I was clamping his hand onto the lowest of the wooden beams and he lay below me, holding on now with both hands, like a stranded whale: while over him I suddenly saw, dim yet somehow clear, Kitty floundering madly upon the very edge of the dark racing river. For a second it seemed that she was up to her neck in the mud, only her head emerging from the muddy agitation. I cried out, and leaving Gunnar I let go of the jetty and plunged towards her. I saw her turn over, her whole body now encrusted with mud, as if she were about to sink at last into the hole which her own struggles had created. Then, and I heard her scream as she did it, with a last wild panic-stricken flurry she was beating the water; and then in a second she was gone. She had got herself into the river and the river had taken her away.

  I was now myself unsupported in the mud, already falling forward onto my front. One leg lagged, held below as if some fiend had actually got hold of it and were tugging it down. I kicked the fiend in the face. I hurled my body towards the water, attempting to slide upon the muddy surface. One arm was caught by another fiend. Mud slapped one side of my face, touched my mouth. Then I felt upon my outstretched arm a new grip of coldness such as I had never felt or conceived of, a coldness beyond coldness. I screamed. I was in the river.

  After that there were no more purposes, or rather only one purpose, the intent to survive as, in an awful jumbled darkness, the Thames rushed me onward, squeezing me with its icy coldness, squeezing the remaining warmth out of my body, whirling me about and hurrying me onward and trying to kill me, to crush me to death in its cold embrace.

  IT WAS later, later, later. There were no more days. I was pressing my key into the door of Clifford Larr’s flat in Lexham Gardens.

  Kitty did not drown. There was no water in her lungs. She was even alive when she was taken from the river. She died of exposure. The poor body had become too cold, the blood froze and never recovered its pathways. She died in hospital.

  I was not in the water for very long. During that time I forgot Kitty, I forgot everything except the absorbing task of not dying, of getting out of that cold hell before it killed me. The current was swift and powerful, the banks steepish and slippery. A huge dark chain appeared and I hung onto it. A moored barge, a trailing cable, led me from
mud to stones. I crawled on hands and knees up some steps and sat on the pavement with my back against the embankment wall. The hue and cry after Kitty actually passed me by. Shouts, a police launch with a floodlight, people running to and fro. ‘They’ve taken a woman from the river.’ ‘Is she alive?’ ‘Yes.’ On that I went home. I walked. No one, on that dark night, marked me. I heard the news the next day from Mr Pellow, who saw the name of my department mentioned in the newspaper report. There was a picture of Kitty, also of Gunnar. Whitehall Chief in Wife Rescue Bid. There was nothing about me. Once again I had dropped out of the story as if I had never existed.