by Iris Murdoch
He decided to leave the house early before anyone was up and in fact set off on foot shortly before seven o’clock. He walked for nearly an hour and began to feel extremely tired and it began to rain. Then there was the sound of a galloping horse behind him and he was overtaken by Millie. A ridiculous conversation followed during which Millie tried to persuade him to mount behind her and return to Rathblane. Christopher turned and walked on, stumbling in the mud out of sheer anger and misery, and Millie followed, leading her horse and expostulating. Finally, as it was now raining very hard indeed, he consented to wait under a tree while she rode to the factor’s cottage and got the factor to come down bringing a bicycle. After an exceedingly long time the factor arrived riding his own bicycle and pushing his daughter’s. Millie once more galloped up and there was another confused conversation in the factor’s hearing, with Millie saying she wanted to talk to Christopher and Christopher saying he must be going. Finally, as he began to wobble down the stony track on the factor’s daughter’s bicycle he could hear, behind him, Millie addressing friendly remarks to her horse.
Christopher arrived back at Finglas wet, exhausted, shivering, to find an extremely upset and anxious Frances waiting for him. He had forgotten to tell her that he would be away for the night, he had not even reflected on whether he would be away for the night. His daughter’s distress and reproaches, and the fact that there was no warm meal waiting for him and that the fires had not been lit, sent Christopher into a paroxysm of self-pity in the course of which he told Frances everything: Millie, Pat, Andrew, the engagement ring, everything. He regretted this immediately after. If he had been calmer and less self-absorbed he would have spared her a revelation which was unnecessary and could not but be intensely painful. But a little later still, when he had had his hot meal, and in the lucid brutality of a renewed concern with self, he decided it had been right to tell her after all: for her sake, because she would now have fewer regrets about Andrew, and for his sake, because the bitterness of Frances would now support him in the loss of Millie. He did not really conceive that Frances might have changed her mind again about Andrew.
Yet her reaction to his news was extreme and she gave herself up to weeping and declared, which he did not take too seriously, that she was forthwith going to England to become a nurse. Christopher thought that it was probably the bit about the ring which hurt most. Frances had not even known about the existence of the ring. How touching to know that Andrew had had it ready for her. How humiliating to know that he had almost directly after her refusal given it, and in such circumstances, to another. It is enough to refuse a man without experiencing also the muddy splash of his too precipitate departure. As Christopher imagined the chagrin of his daughter he had dark thoughts about Andrew and then, returning to his own hurt, even darker ones about Millie. He was still utterly unsure whether or not to believe Millie’s assurance that she had not tampered with Andrew until after his refusal by Frances. He began to wonder again whether Frances had not somehow found out something. He went early to bed to lie sleepless with these speculations, hearing the soft sound of weeping in the next room.
On Monday morning Christopher became aware that his daughter was in some quite new frame of mind. She was no longer tearful, but seemed excited, frightened, yet resolute. When he asked her what was now the matter she explained at last that she had seen the gardener that morning and she felt sure that something was going on. Further questioned, she explained that she had found the gardener in Citizen Army uniform searching frantically in the potting shed for something which, when found, looked like a box of ammunition. He had mumbled something about ‘manœuvres’ and departed at a run, but, Frances said, something about the way he ran, and his excitement, and his confusion at being discovered, suggested that something extreme might be going to happen after all. And having got this idea into her head it was evident that Frances could do nothing now but worry about it.
Christopher argued; and ended by being infected by her anxiety. He was a little irritated by this evidence of a continued concern about young Andrew, who might, if Frances’ guess was correct, find himself in the firing line sooner than he bargained for. But this piece of drama was at least something new to think about; and the idea that, after all the talk and the anti-climax, something violent was perhaps going to occur upset and moved Christopher in a great many ways when, even momentarily, he gave it credence. He let himself become worried too, and readily agreed when Frances herself suggested that they should go over to Blessington Street and see if anything could be found out from Barney. It was at least something to do, and something which was not connected with Millie.
Blessington Street was deserted as usual except for a few scratching dogs and Keogh’s laundry van, whose horse had mounted the pavement to eat as much as he could of an elder tree which was growing out of one of the areas. Once out of the crowd, the particular desolate peace of Dublin established itself round about them: the wide pale sky, low down even when it was cloudless, the open dusty cliff-like streets, the endless dark façades, spongy with dirt, absorbing light and sound. A half-clad child emerged slowly from a gaping doorway. Keogh’s van moved on a few yards. Surely nothing could happen in this quiet city.
Frances had quickened her pace as they got into Blessington Street, her boots briskly kicking back the skirts of her coat, and Christopher was panting and falling behind when they reached the door of the Dumay’s house. Christopher started to say something to her about not alarming Kathleen, but she had already rung the bell. The bell jangled harshly inside the dark hallway and they waited until it had stammered itself into silence. Frances rang again. Then she tried the door which was usually left unfastened. It was locked. Christopher, who did not want to meet Pat and who had been having misgivings about the whole project as they came up the hill, was beginning to suggest that they should go and have some coffee and that Frances might come back again later, when Frances, who had been peering through the letter box, gave a startled exclamation.
‘What is it, Frances?’
‘I don’t know. Something very odd. It looks as if someone’s lying on the floor in the kitchen. I can see their foot. You look.’
Christopher stooped and looked through the aperture. He saw and smelt the dark hall and saw beyond it the half open door of the kitchen and a sunny segment of the kitchen floor. Something was lying just inside the doorway which looked like a foot, or at least a boot. The rest of the person, if person it was, was hidden. Christopher felt a thrill of fright. A foot, a leg, extended there upon the kitchen floor while the bell pealed in vain seemed to him at first uncanny. What could it mean? An equally vague but more rational fear followed.
‘Let me look again.’ Frances straightened up with a frightened face. ‘Do you think there can have been—an accident?’
‘It might be just someone’s boot lying there.’
‘No, I’m sure it’s someone’s foot. I can see part of the leg.’
Something about his daughter’s agitation made Christopher push her aside. As he looked more carefully it seemed to him that the immobile object in the kitchen doorway resembled the booted foot of a British cavalry officer.
Christopher shouted through the letter box. ‘Hello there! Barney, Kathleen, Pat! Hello, hello!’ He pulled the bell again so violently that it gave one yelp and jolted to silence. The stillness of the house absorbed the din.
Frances was now stooping at the slot. She exclaimed, ‘It’s gone.’
‘What?’
‘The foot. It’s gone.’
Christopher looked again. The boot-like object had disappeared. Had they imagined it? They stared at each other.
‘I must get inside,’ said Christopher. ‘There’s a lane at the back. You’d better wait here.’
He ran to the corner of Mountjoy Street and round into the lane, a narrow track of cinders and black earth, smelling of cats and dust-bins, which ran along behind the yards of the houses. The houses looked entirely different at the back, made
ugly and formless by every kind of jutting annexe and out-building. The yards, behind earthy, weedy walls, were full of sheds and wash-houses and high lines of tossing linen. As Christopher hesitated, wondering which house belonged to the Dumays, Frances appearing from behind his shoulder said, ‘This is the one,’ and began to push the door of the yard. It was locked.
‘Look, you stay here,’ said Christopher. ‘I’ll see what’s happened, if anything’s happened.’
The wall was not high. He dragged an empty dust-bin up against it and mounted. The top of the wall crumbled under his knee and he jumped down on the other side. But before he could advance to the house he saw the shadow of Frances who was trying to pull herself up on to the wall. She got one leg over the top and then almost fell into his arms bringing down a shower of broken brick and earth.
‘Please stay here, Frances, and don’t come till I tell you.’
But her eyes, large and vague with fear, looked past him, and he had to push forward to intercept her. Together they approached the kitchen window.
The sun was shining directly into the kitchen. At the moment of looking in Christopher felt extremely afraid. He had no notion what he expected, except that now, somehow through Frances, he expected something dreadful. The combination of the disappearing foot and the silence of the house had produced an effect both of catastrophe and of eerieness. What he now saw, though it was less catastrophic than his fears, was perhaps ever more eerie. Two people were sitting on the kitchen floor opposite to the window with their backs against the wall. They looked unreal, too big, like outsize dolls. Their faces looked so strange that it took Christopher several seconds to recognize them as Andrew and Cathal, and to be certain that they were both alive. What was unusual was their expression, or rather something which had communicated itself to their entire posture. Andrew, in uniform as usual, had taken off half his jacket and loosened his tie. He sat slack and limp, his feet spread out rather wide apart in front of him. He was caressing his moustache in a curiously absent manner. Cathal, who had a great deal of white stuff which looked like bandage hanging loose around his neck, sat with hunched shoulders half turned away from Andrew, his legs drawn right up and his cheek against the wall. Both heads moved slightly as the two figures appeared in the window and with a shock of horror Christopher saw on both faces a look of utter lassitude and indifference. It was impossible not to think of drugs, insanity. Sitting there vacantly on the floor, the one crouched, the other with outspread feet, they looked like two derelict beings in a madhouse.
Frances was pulling at the kitchen door, and now at the window. ‘Help me push this up, I think it’s unlatched.’ Christopher pawed at the window frame and it moved a little. Frances got her fingers underneath it, and in a moment had thrust her arm through and unbolted the door. They went into the kitchen.
Cathal had leaned his head back against the wall and was wiping his face with a piece of the bandage. He appeared to have been crying. His eyes moved a little, observing the newcomers, but he did not change his posture. Andrew peered up with a frightened hostile look but seemed unable to focus his gaze upon them. The blank expression returned. It was as if some appalling meditation had been momentarily interrupted.
‘What’s the matter with you, what’s happened?’ cried Christopher. ‘Are you ill?’ He stooped over Andrew.
‘Look,’ said Frances behind him.
He followed her pointing finger and saw that Andrew and Cathal were handcuffed together.
Christopher jumped back as promptly as if he had touched a metal limb. The comatose propped-up figures, and now the handcuffs, produced an effect of the mechanical, the less than human. Frances, who was looking down with a grimace of fascination, had backed away to the window.
‘Andrew, Andrew,’ said Christopher, ‘how did this happen? Who did it? Are you hurt? Have you been here long?’
After a moment’s silence Andrew answered, speaking rather slowly and laboriously. ‘I’ve been here several hours. Well, two or three perhaps. No, I’m not hurt.’ Lifting the wrist that was bound to Cathal’s he looked at his watch, frowning a little. It was nearly five minutes to twelve. His eyes widened again into the vacant stare and he looked away into the corner of the kitchen. He seemed oblivious of Frances.
‘Why are you sitting here on the floor?’
‘Well, you see until about five minutes ago Cathal was tied on to the gas stove.’
‘What? But who tied him? And who put these handcuffs on you?’
‘Pat did.’
‘Pat?’ Frances swept round the table to Cathal’s side and shook the boy by the shoulder. ‘Cathal, are you all right? Tell us what happened? What’s all that bandaging for?’
Cathal shrunk slightly away from her touch, but did not otherwise move or speak.
‘Are you both bewitched?’
‘It was a gag,’ said Andrew, with the same slow stolid enunciation.
‘A gag? Cathal gagged? But why? Who did it?’
‘Pat. Or rather Millie.’
‘Millie,’ said Christopher. ‘Was she here?’
‘Yes. She went with them.’
‘With who?’ cried Frances. ‘Oh, do talk properly!’
‘With Pat. With the Sinn Feiners.’
‘But where to?’
‘To fight.’
‘Oh God, I was right.’ Frances clapped her two hands over her mouth.
‘Millie gone with the Sinn Feiners, to fight?’ said Christopher stupidly. ‘But there isn’t any fighting.’
‘There will be soon,’ said Andrew. ‘They’re going to start at twelve.’ He drew his legs up in front of him, twitching his shoulder. He said, ‘I’m deucedly stiff.’
‘But it’s almost twelve now!’ Frances started convulsively towards the door, then returned to stare down at Andrew. ‘But you—why are you here like this? What happened, what happened?’
‘I shall never be able to explain that to anybody,’ said Andrew, speaking in the same slow way and staring past Christopher at a point on the wall.
‘At twelve. It can’t be. It’s impossible.’ Christopher stood there stupefied, his arms hanging down as if he too had become a doll. Millie gone to join the rebels, gone away with Pat with a gun in her hand. ‘But why did you just stay here? Why didn’t you go and do something, tell somebody, if you knew about it?’
‘It was your duty, what were you thinking of?’ Frances was looking down at Andrew now almost with fury.
‘I can’t explain,’ said Andrew. ‘I found out about it quite accidentally. Then I gave Pat my word of honour that I’d tell no one and that I’d stay here in this house until twelve. And he handcuffed Cathal to me because he wanted Cathal kept out of the fight. And he gagged him, or rather Millie did, so that he shouldn’t shout for help. And I took the gag off and undid his hand just before you arrived because he was crying so much I thought he might stifle and the time was almost up anyway.’ He offered the account in a dull voice as if after all it were something obvious. He shifted awkwardly, tugging Cathal’s arm with a petulant movement.
‘But why, why, why?’ cried Frances. ‘Why did you give in? Why did you promise? How could he have frightened you so? Why didn’t you run out and try to stop it all? Why did you just sit here for hours doing nothing? Have you forgotten you’re an Army officer?’
Andrew simply shook his head. He looked up at Frances for a moment, and then screwed up his eyes as if he had been dazzled.
Frances stamped her foot. Her hands clawed at the muddied skirts of her coat. She advanced on Andrew as if she would have kicked him. ‘Your word of honour! Gave Pat your word of honour! You ought to have shot him as a traitor! You’ve betrayed your King and country. You’ve dishonoured your uniform. How could you do it? I can’t understand!’
‘I don’t think Pat understood either,’ said Andrew slowly.
‘You did it because you were afraid of Pat. You’ve always been afraid of Pat. Oh, I shall never forgive you—’
As her voice dissol
ved into an incoherence of tears the clear sound of a bell was heard. It was the angelus ringing at Saint Joseph’s church in Berkeley Road.
They all paused for a moment. Then with a jerk Cathal threw himself forward and began to rise. Andrew tried to crouch, but was pulled sharply on to his knees. The handcuffed pair swayed awkwardly together and at last managed to get up on to their feet. Frances began to sob again. The angelus went on slowly ringing. There was a distant noise which sounded like rifle fire.
Chapter Twenty-five
ANDREW and Cathal raced down Blessington Street in the bright sunshine. The sky, cloudless and pale golden with light, dazzled their eyes. Swinging between them and concealing the handcuffs was a mackintosh which Andrew had had the presence of mind to pick up as Cathal dragged him through the hall and out of the house. Their feet clapped and slithered upon the still rainy pavements, and the wet sunny houses gave back an echo, as they rushed along, now jerking apart, now drawn violently together by their bound wrists.
