by Iris Murdoch
Duncan, playing his ‘friendly’ part, had of course invited Crimond to a small summer evening gathering at the tower. Crimond was delighted with the place, enthusiastic, full of a spontaneous boyish pleasure which Duncan could see being appreciated by the other guests. Jean was explaining about the furniture, about altering the kitchen, about planting things, not a ‘garden’ of course, that would be out of place, but a few shrubs perhaps, and laying down a bit of pavement. Crimond was full of ideas. Duncan overheard one of the guests inviting Crimond and Jean to visit a garden centre near his country cottage where you could get old paving stones, and statues – surely they needed statues, a statue anyway, to catch the eye and look mysterious among the poplar trees? Crimond held forth about statues. People became very drunk and laughed a lot. It seemed to Duncan that Crimond, who scarcely drank and was not very convivial by nature, was acting a part. The next day Duncan had to go to London. When he came back Jean told him that she and Crimond had visited the garden centre and ordered some paving-stones and bought some shrub roses and a lawn-mower. After that, during his absences, and sometimes not during his absences, Jean joined Crimond, in Crimond’s hired car, for occasional jaunts to famous places. Once they went to Clonmacnoise, which Duncan had not yet seen, and came back rather late. Sometimes other people were (Jean said) with them, sometimes not. Jean and Crimond took over the idea of the guide book to Ireland. During this period Jean was in a state of great excitement and high spirits. Duncan observed her face continually, studying it with an almost morbid intentness, seeing in it the joy brought to her by another man, and also her attempt to conceal this joy.
Of course for the newcomer or tourist, Ireland is simply charming. But it is also an island, divided, angry, full of old demons and old hate. Duncan felt this burden every day in his work and increasingly as his sympathy and his knowledge grew. It soon emerged, and this too upset Duncan who was ready to be maddened by anything which Crimond did or was, that Crimond, although he had hardly ever been to Ireland, knew a great deal more about the island than Duncan did. Anyone who engages deeply with Ireland must engage deeply with its history. Crimond turned out to be crammed full of Irish history. Duncan found himself forced to listen to Crimond airing his views, to a gratified audience, about Parnell, Wolfe Tone, even Cuchulain. Nor did Duncan care to hear Crimond’s republican political opinions ever more boldly on display, and his sneers at the British government, uttered in Duncan’s company with what seemed a deliberately provocative lack of tact. Duncan declined to be provoked, he watched, he studied his wife’s face; and listened quietly to her propounding Crimond’s theories about Ireland.
Duncan, crippled by suspicion and hatred, made miserable by fear and by his detestation of his own abject and contemptible state of mind, was impelled to action by an accident, the sort of accident which often occurs in such situations. He had of course wondered what else Jean and Crimond did together besides jaunting around in the car and visiting ruined castles and garden centres. One Sunday morning when Duncan and Jean were spending the weekend at the tower, Jean had gone out early to pursue a plan she had evolved to dam the stream and make a pool or pond. Duncan was to come and help her after the breakfast which she would soon return to make. The sun was shining. Duncan stood at the window of their bedroom, the upper room of the tower, and looked out between the silky green flanks of the mountains at the glittering triangle of blue sea. The sky was cloudless, a lark was singing, a swallow was singing, the stream was murmuring. They still constantly said to each other when they were in bed: listen to the stream. He could see his wife below, her trousers rolled up, standing barefoot in the stream, bending down, then straightening up, then waving to him. There was all the paraphernalia of complete happiness, that happiness of which he so well knew himself to be capable: only he was in hell. He waved back. He turned into the room, blinking from the sunshine and the dazzle of the sea, and looked at the disordered bed where they had slept together. They had long ago stopped hoping for a child. They had been to doctors who had offered different useless explanations. Then he saw something at the side of the curving room, on the floor, a little thing or shadowy quasi-thing lying there upon the boards against the wall of dark slightly uneven stones. He went over to it and picked it up. It was light and pale and insubstantial. He closed it in his hand and his heart beat very fast and he sat down heavily on the low divan bed. He could feel the hot blood rush to his face and up to his brow. He opened his hand and held the little thing in his palm and examined it. It was a ball of what might have been dusty fluff, but was, he saw, human hair, reddish hair such as a person, a man, might draw off the teeth of a comb, after he had combed his hair, and idly let fall upon the floor. No one came to the tower to clean or dust or deliver goods or mend, no one had a key to the tower except him and Jean. This was not his or Jean’s dark hair which he held in his hand, it was Crimond’s red hair.
Jean called from below that breakfast was ready. Duncan put the hair ball into his pocket and went downstairs and listened smilingly to Jean’s ideas about her pond. He ate a boiled egg and went out and helped her to move some stones and dig a hole and watched her delight as it filled with water. Later that morning he announced that he had to be in London for two days later that week. When the time came Jean drove him to the airport as usual. When she had left him he bought some sandwiches and hired a car and drove it by a roundabout route toward a place upon a hillside which he had already, studying the landscape, determined upon where there was a thicket of gorse and a fallen tree covered with ivy just upon the crest, and a clear view of the tower in the valley below. He parked the car and climbed the hill to his viewpoint and crept in behind the tree where the tall growth of ivy had woven a screen, and peered through the ivy leaves and through a hazy flowery gorse, shifting about until he could sit, leaning against the tree trunk, and see the tower and the bumpy track which led to it. He took his field glasses from their case and hung them round his neck and waited. He felt a hideous tormenting excitement. Nothing happened, no one came. The ivy was in flower and very many bees were walking and flying over the yellowish flowers with their spotty stamens. The dark powdery smell of the ivy mingled with the coconut smell of the gorse. By now it was afternoon. The sun shone, he took off his jacket, he sweated. His body was heavy and gross, he was short of breath and panting. Soon what he was doing became so loathsome to him that he had to get up and go away.
He drove the hired car south along the coast road as far as Wicklow and booked into a small hotel. The hotel had no bar or restaurant so he went into the pub next door and began drinking whiskey. He found the sandwiches which he had bought so long ago at the airport and ate one and drank some more whiskey. He took Crimond’s hair out of his pocket and looked at it. Of course he had thought it possible that something serious was going on; vague speculation is life, positive proof is death. Well, he thought, postponing his certainty, I haven’t got proof. Jean and Crimond could have gone up to that room just to look at the view of the sea. But jean had never said she went to the tower with Crimond. He could not make up his mind whether or not to repeat his horrible vigil the next day. It might be better to go back to Dublin to their flat in Parnell Square. He did not imagine anything would be happening there. If those two were together it would surely be at Crimond’s flat; except that his flat, at the top of a terrace house on the sea front, was far too public. No, if it was anywhere it must be at the tower. But why bother, he thought, as the evening grew darker and the bar fuller, why go trying to find trouble? We’ll soon be somewhere else, it’s just an episode, it happens to everyone. But he felt, I simply want to be sure, if they’re doing that I must know – and then I can give up, let it slide, shut my eyes. Why should I let those two cripple me with grief? I won’t say anything to Jean now. I’ll just ignore it.
He began to feel self-consciously miserable and ill-used in a way which for a time brought consolation. He saw himself there, hunched up, a big dark man with a mat of dark crinkly hair and a big re
d glowering face, getting stupefyingly drunk among a lot of Irishmen (of course there were no women in the bar) who were all getting stupefyingly drunk too. He thought, their wives deceive them, there can be no doubt, and they are deceiving their wives, so what am I moaning about, we are all a lot of vile rotten stinking sinners, black as hell, liars and traitors and probably murderers too, who deserve to be exterminated like rats or burnt alive. And yet here we are, drinking together – what does it all matter – I’ve never deceived Jean, but haven’t I sometimes wanted to? And perhaps now I will too, we’ll each go our own way as they say. And as he heard the lilting coaxing Irish voices all round him he felt the soft flowing sounds getting inside his head and he began to think in Irish idioms and talk to himself in an Irish brogue. So why should I mind now if my darling wife is a bloody whore, why should I worry what that fellow does to her, or want to kill him for it, sure he’s doing what we all do, vile beasts as we are, isn’t it better to be sitting quiet and drinking, and isn’t whiskey itself better than God? Men were sitting near him, beside him, jogging his arm and talking to him, and he talked to them too, and became distant and thoughtful at last and lurched back to the hotel and went to bed.
The next morning he woke up very early feeling like a sick dying animal. He had a pain in the stomach and a pain in the head and a dry shrivelled mouth and his whole body was heavy and aching and smelly and fat. Through the flimsy torn curtains cold daylight filled the window. He lay for a while almost whimpering with self-pity with his head under the bedclothes. Then he suddenly sat up and stood up, dressed without washing, paid his bill, found his car, and set off back northward. There was a cold white light at the sea horizon pressed down by a low ceiling of thick grey cloud. Curtains of rain could be seen descending ahead, yet from somewhere the sun managed occasionally to shine illuminating the grey wall of cloud and the vivid green hillsides and brightly coloured trees. Upon the farther mountains on his left segments of rainbow came and went. He drove very fast. He had a violent headache and a dark iron pain in his diaphragm, boiling particles and flashing lights skidded above the focus of his eyes as he frowned intently upon the flying road. His reflections of last night, his not sure, his why bother, his ignore it, his merciful cameraderie with other sinners, all that was gone. He felt himself, sitting upright in the car and dominating his body’s wretchedness, as a black machine of will, a vindictive machine black with misery and rage, powered by one intention, to find and destroy. He no longer entertained any temperate delaying sense of uncertainty, no haze of doubt now gentled his mind. Uncertainty had been a restless torment, but certainty, clarity, was a hell fire from which, in which, one ran screaming. All this he thought and felt as he drove so urgently fast along the wet shining road with the frenzied windscreen wipers hurling aside the now persistent and increasing rain.
When he turned off the main road into the lanes which led toward the tower he began to feel faint and had to stop the car and lean his head upon the wheel. He thought he might be sick. He wondered if he would be able to go on. The rain was lighter now, more like a driving mist, the clouds were higher, the still invisible sun was making an intense greyish light in which the grass at the little field beside him shone violently green. He got out of the car and stood in the rainy air with his head bowed forward, breathing open-mouthed. He thought, I am mad, I have become temporarily insane and must somehow stop myself. He felt as if his hate, without ceasing to be hate, had been changed into pure fear. Too much could happen, terrible things could happen which could change his whole life, he could destroy the world, he had that power now, to destroy the world. He thought this, knowing that he could not now check the engine which was driving him on. He stood upright and saw nearby a stone wall, and a horse and a cow looking at him. The rain had stopped. The horse had come over to the wall. He thought he might eat a sandwich, he still had some left, he might go over and stroke the horse, that would be a sensible sort of delay, would it not, to stay quietly there with the horse and the cow. He got into the car and drove on. He said to himself, there will be no one there and I can drive on into Dublin and go to the flat and rest, and things will be ordinary and I shall be able to think quietly and without the pain. He tried to wonder whether to drive straight to the tower, but found himself driving along the lane which ran behind his hillcrest viewpoint. He stopped the car and got out and looked at his watch. It was just before nine o’clock. He began, panting and gasping with the effort, to climb up the steep wet grass slope toward the summit, leaning forward and grasping grass tufts and little bushes to haul himself upward. When he reached the top he did not attempt to hide, but stood there upright looking down into the valley. Crimond’s car was on the track.
Duncan walked, slowly now and seeming to glide dreamlike over the ground, down the hill toward the tower. It took him about ten minutes to reach it. He heard the birds singing and noticed some very small flowers growing in the grass. Everything was very wet and now shining in the sunlight. At the bottom of the slope some black-faced sheep stared at him with amazement and hurried away. He crossed the stream just above Jean’s pool. As he moved he had a sudden clear vision or hallucination of Crimond naked, tall, pale, thin as a lance, slim as an Athenian boy, long-nosed and brilliant-eyed. The doors of the cottage and the tower were both open. There was no one in the kitchen. Duncan entered the tower and began to climb the spiral staircase. He climbed firmly, not in haste, not trying to mute his steps. The staircase led to a small landing, not directly into the bedroom. Duncan opened the bedroom door.
There was a flurry going on inside. Crimond was standing, not completely naked as Duncan had pictured him, but pulling a shirt over his head. Jean was on the bed, sitting on the far side of it, and had pulled the quilt up round her, looking back over her shoulder towards the door. Duncan remembered later that he had actually reflected for a second or two whether he should now stand and look at them and say something. During that second or two Crimond succeeded in getting his shirt on. The next moment Duncan launched himself forward, attacking like a large wild animal which propels its whole weight onto its victim to crush it. He hit Crimond with his whole body, knocking him backward and seizing him, clasping him in savage bear-like arms, feeling the thin crushable bones inside his clasp, dragging at the shirt, feeling the smoothness of Crimond’s skin and the terrible warmth of his flesh. As he held on he kicked violently with his booted foot against the slim bare leg. Jean screamed. They reeled a moment, then Duncan felt a jabbing pain in his side where Crimond had freed one arm. For a moment he relaxed his grip, received Crimond’s knee in his stomach, and staggered back into the open doorway, and they separated. Jean screamed again, ‘Stop! Stop!’ There was a second’s interval. Then Duncan, now uttering whimpering cries of rage, launched himself again with clawing hands outstretched. Crimond stepped to meet him and with a long straight arm punched Duncan as hard as he could between the eyes. Duncan fell back and tumbled all the way down the spiral staircase into the room below.
This was the fight which had such long and dreadful consequences; and Duncan knew at once that the terrible thing that was to happen had happened to him. How he managed to fall, to roll his big thick body, all the way down those iron stairs he could not afterwards imagine. His head, his shoulders, his back, his legs, crashed against the rails, against the hard sharp edges of the treads, he struck the floor below with a violent echoing impact and lay for a moment stunned. But even as he lay there, even it seemed later as he was falling, he knew that whatever else might have been damaged, something frightful had happened to his eyes. The pain was extreme, but worse than the pain was the sense that both were injured, and one of the precious orbs actually crushed. He got up slowly, wondering if he had also broken a limb. The centre of his field of vision seemed to have disappeared and the periphery was full of grey bubbling atoms. He hobbled slowly, carefully, out of the door and across the level grass toward the hillside. He did not pause to wonder why no one followed him down to see if he was badly hurt. Jean
told him later that Crimond had to keep her in the room by force. The door had slammed after him, perhaps no one heard him fall. Now he was anxious only to get away and reach a hospital as soon as possible. He crossed the stream walking through the water, he crawled up the hill clutching the wet grass. Then with intense concentration he drove himself back to Dublin.
He went first to the Rotunda Hospital, who sent him on to an eye clinic. Once there, and sitting down on a chair, he became for a short period almost completely blind. He was led about by porters, by nurses, answered questions, lay flat while drops were put into the eyes, bright lights shone upon them, machines lowered over them. He was told that normal vision would probably return to one eye, the other would need an operation. Meanwhile, since he was certainly suffering from concussion, he had better go home and rest. Pushed out of the door clutching a card telling him when to return, Duncan found he could see enough to walk back to his flat in Parnell Square. Before he reached it he had come to an important conclusion. Nobody must know what had happened. He had of course told the doctors simply about a fall. Now it was essential to conceal, if possible, both his mutilated condition, and the shame of his defeat. That meant, and at once, leaving Dublin where everybody found out everything. He passionately did not want to see Jean and was relieved that there was no sign of her. He was wondering whether he would ever be able to read again, to work again. His world had changed indeed; he had changed it himself, by force. He telephoned the embassy to arrange his absence, he summoned a taxi and went to the airport. He wore dark glasses to conceal his bruises. He remembered that the hired car was still parked in a road near the Rotunda. He posted the keys to his secretary, Miss Paget, asking her to return the car. He caught a plane to London and a taxi to Moorfields Eye Hospital. It had been a long day.
