by Iris Murdoch
‘Thank you,’ said Edward.
The man still stood close, staring with evident curiosity, and Edward could smell his sweat and hear his breath.‘
‘He’s a cabbage now, in’ he?‘
‘Who — ?’
‘He’s a cabbage, a jelly, the guv’nor up there — in‘ he?’
‘No, he isn’t,’ said Edward. ‘He’s ill, but he’s not like that.’
‘Had all the girls once. But that’s finish now.’
‘Thank you for bringing the letter.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Edward Baltram.’
‘You’re the son.’
‘Yes.’
‘She just said, “the young chap”, that’s you.’
‘Yes.’
‘They’ll eat you.’
‘Who will?’
‘Those bloody women. They’ll carve you up. You better scarper before they start. So you’re the son. God!’
Edward made a vague dismissive gesture with his hand, and turned away.
‘He had all the girls,’ the tree man called after him. ‘Now he’s senile, that’s it, senile, poor old bugger.’
Edward walked quickly back to the house. It had been raining earlier, but now the afternoon was warm, the sun staringly bright, a sky full of harsh light was arched over the flat land. Edward stood in the hall and drew out the crumpled letter again but did not look at it. He had of course said nothing at Seegard about his visit to Railway Cottage. He smoothed the letter out a bit, pocketed it again, and walked slowly along to Transition.
Ilona and Bettina were in the kitchen, standing at the long scoured wooden table.
‘Did you get the lovage?’ said Bettina.
‘No, sorry, I forgot.’
‘You’re in a dream. Never mind. Just chop those herbs, would you.’
‘Everything’s dying,’ said Ilona.
‘And you, Ilona, go and fetch some more onions.’
‘The swallows are dying, they don’t come back any more.’
‘I saw one this morning,’ said Edward, chopping herbs.
‘They don’t come back to us any more. They used to nest in the loft of the stables. Our swallows are all dead.’
‘Ilona — and take a basket, you dolt.’
‘Oh, all right.’ Ilona departed.
‘Be careful with that thing, it’s very sharp.’
There was a strong gentle sleepy smell of baking bread in the kitchen. Bettina, standing close beside Edward, was kneading cooked potatoes, rapidly making them into balls and rolling them in a circle of scattered flour. Edward saw her strong brown fingers dusted with flour crushing the soft potatoes one by one. He saw out of the corner of his eye a long strand of her reddish hair which had come down over her shoulder and curved over her bust hanging free and touching her arm. The sleeve of her brown working dress was soiled where she had turned it back at the elbow. Her arms were covered in golden down, matching the conspicuous long fine hairs upon her upper lip. As she worked she cleared her throat and sniffed in a preoccupied manner. He thought of the tree man, and wondered, why do those men not come and rape these women, how can they not? The automatic movement of the two-handled scimitar-shaped knife hypnotised him as he moved it steadily to and fro with a strong motion increasing the fragrant green mound of chopped marjoram and parsley. He let go of one handle to move the leafy stems nearer to him and suddenly felt an agonising deep pain in one of his fingers. The green leaves were instantly stained with red.
‘Oh you idiot,’ said Bettina, ‘put your hand under the tap, you’ll make a stain on the table.’
Blood was welling up and streaming out of what felt like a deep wound. Edward turned on the cold tap and watched the blood and water pouring down into the old stained porcelain sink. Bettina was already scrubbing the table. Then she put the bloodied herbs into a colander. ‘Just get out of the way.’ She washed the herbs under the tap. ‘Don’t get blood on that cloth, please.’
‘Well, what am I to do!’ said Edward. ‘It won’t stop bleeding.’ He felt like weeping. The wound was painful and felt dark and awful like a stab wound from an attacker. He could still feel the slice of the extremely sharp knife into the flesh.
‘Put it over the sink. I’ll get a bandage.’
Edward ran the water hard, trying to clear the blood fast enough to see the mouth of the wound. He thought, so I am wounded now, it would be now. But he could not make out which now it was, whether it connected with Bettina, with Jesse, or with her. He sat down abruptly on a chair, pulling his shirt down over his hand and watching the red stain spreading on the sleeve.
Bettina’s brown hands appeared again, winding a white snaky bandage round and round his finger. The red kept on coming through and coming and coming.
He had known at once that Bettina’s bandage was a mistake. It had come out of an old dusty battered tin marked First Aid which looked as if it must have belonged to the first world war. There weren’t even any proper medical supplies at Seegard. The piece of probably dirty, old-fashioned linen soaked with dried blood had simply stuck to the wound, and the finger (fortunately on his left hand) was stiff and hot and throbbing with pain. That morning (it was the next day) Edward had made an embryonic effort to pull the bandage off, but this was clearly going to be very painful and soon seemed impossible. He wondered whether the deep wound were not going septic or whether it needed stitches. Gangrene would follow, and an amputation. Should he go, but where, to a doctor? In any case today he could not go anywhere. Last night late, opening his door, he had heard the women arguing somewhere in East Selden, arguing emotionally with raised voices. He wanted to creep and listen but did not dare to. At breakfast he was informed that Jesse was still ‘absent’, unapproachably entranced. Earlier, Edward had planned, on this day, to insist on seeing him, perhaps trying to wake him. Only now, instead, he was standing beside the river, beside the line of willows, looking at the wild cherry tree.
There had been something weird, a little chilling, in Mark’s sister’s description of the place, as if it should not be possible to speak of that death, and then to follow it with a sort of poetic description. The place was easily identifiable because the line of willows was, in the area, unique, and ended at the river which, when Edward had first looked that way, had been invisible underneath the flood. This part of the fen was fairly dry now and, between intermittent pools, easy to walk on. A little beyond the willow however, scattered sheets of ready water began again and continued to the low horizon where, although it was a clear and fairly sunny day, no sea was visible. There were few trees so that the small leaning cherry tree, now coming into flower, was a landmark too. The river, broader here, contained between steep sandy banks, was running swiftly, the colour of Guinness, making, where it curved, circular eddies and little sheltered pools of more quiet water. Edward had of course been looking all about him, as, sick with emotion, he had come along, but had seen nobody. Of course he was early. But perhaps she had decided not to come, that it would be too terrible, that she felt too much hatred. Sarah had said that she hated him. Edward thought of the mother’s letters. What a dreadful thing such hatred must be, surely it must aim to kill its object. He looked at his stiff finger and the blackened bandage. He sat down on the bank where there was a patch of grass and his heart too throbbed with pain.
Immediately there was, like a small explosion just above the water, a blue flash. Edward jerked his head arid stared. There was nothing there. He saw the dark moving water and the luminous white flowers of the little cherry tree leaning downward, its branches extended over the river where at the curve they were reflected in a quiet surface. He blinked his eyes. Then appearing out of invisibility he saw, sitting upon a pendant branch, a bird, a kingfisher. At that moment the kingfisher flew again, very fast, skirting the sandy bank and dipping like a little dart into the stiller water where the river turned; then coining back to his perch on the tree. Edward could see the bird’s strong beak and the fish which was in
stantly gulped down. He sat still watching the motionless kingfisher upon which the sun was shining, the small bird with its vivid blue wings and soft cinnamon-brown breast, sitting above the cherry flowers.
A shadow fell beside him and he jumped up. The girl was there, with her blue mackintosh and her wellington boots, wearing, not the trousers of his first sighting, but the shapeless dress which she had had on at the cottage, a rather shabby dress with a design of blue flowers. She stared at him with her stony brownish eyes, darker than Mark’s eyes, as her brown hair was darker than his hair. Yet in her pale clear complexion and her large brow and thoughtful mouth and in some live intent expression of her face, she greatly resembled him, as if his face had been stretched into a larger mask through which, still, he looked out. The recollection of Mark’s inspired godlike drugged face came before Edward, blotting out the girl. Then she spoke, looking past him. Her first words were, ‘There’s a kingfisher.’
Edward turned and the blue flash was off, disappearing round the bend in the river. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘he’s — he’s nice.’
The girl then sat down beside the river, her booted legs descending over the edge of the steep bank and her heels digging into the soft sandy earth. Edward, as it seemed absurd now to continue to stand, sat down near her, tucking his long legs sideways. The grass was damp and a coldish east wind had begun to blow. She began to tug off her mackintosh. Edward watched, checking the instinct to reach out a hand to help. Feeling the wind, or finding the operation too awkward, she decided to keep it on, pulled it back and buttoned it, frowning. In profile too she resembled Mark as she lifted her thick hair back and thrust out her lips in just his way. Yet she was less beautiful, and surely older; and would now grow, than him, older … and older …
She was silent, looking away from him down the stream, and he could see her swift breathing. He feared she might cry. The black sick faint feeling, which the kingfisher had interrupted, came back to him and he spoke hastily. ‘Miss Wilsden, it is very kind of you — ’
‘Look,’ said the girl, turning to him with a stern tearless face, ‘my name is Brownie, everyone calls me that. And please let’s not get too emotional.’ She spoke in a firm clipped no-nonsense tone which reminded Edward of some of Sarah’s women’s lib friends. At the same moment he saw her and thought of her as ‘Brownie’.
‘You wanted to talk to me about Mark — ’ he said.
‘No. Actually I want you to talk to me about Mark. That’s different. I don’t need to talk to you.’
‘I’m sorry — ’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound unpleasant. I just want you to tell me exactly what happened that evening. I can’t make it out. I’ve got to be able to think about it. I wasn’t in time for the funeral — or the inquest — I was on holiday and they couldn’t find me — and people here told me a lot of different things — and — and speculated — Anyway, could you, if you would, just tell me what happened.’
‘Are you older or younger than Mark?’
‘Older.’
‘That evening — you see — ’
‘No need to spin it out, just tell me briefly. I won’t keep you.’
‘Mark was in my room, and I gave him — ’
‘What time was it? I know it was evening, but what time?’
‘About six. I gave him a sandwich with the drug in it — ’
‘He didn’t know — ’
‘I was going to tell you. He didn’t know, he didn’t approve of drugs.’
‘But you do.’
‘I did. He went off on a — on a trip.’
‘I detest and abominate drugs, I’ve never touched them, Mark and I agreed about that. Go on. Wait. Had you taken anything?’
‘No. I was going to — to look after him — ’
‘And why didn’t you?’
‘Sarah rang up. Sarah Plowmain — ’
‘Yes.’
‘And I went over to her place for about half an hour. And when I came back — the window was open and — he was — dead.’
There was a short silence. Edward, who had been intensely seeing Mark, so beautiful, so relaxed, smiling blond Mark in his disordered shirt lying on that sofa, now, as Brownie slightly moved, saw instead the awful sunshine, the desolate bank, the dangerous river.
Brownie, who had been looking away, turned back and shifted her legs, breathing deeply, and said, still in her business-like tone, ‘Could you describe what he was like on this — this trip — did he say anything to you?’
‘Oh, he had a good trip.’ Brownie made a sound. ‘I mean — I’m sorry — he saw good things and — was happy — he was laughing — then he said — ’
‘What?’
‘That things were all themselves — and everything was — one big fish — and that God was coming — like a lift. I know it sounds like nonsense, but the way he said it — ’
‘Yes, yes, I know about drugs. What else did he say?’
‘That’s all I can remember. There was something about spears of light — and flying — ’
‘Flying?’
‘He said he was flying.’
‘And you left him.’
‘Yes. You see, he fell fast asleep — ’
‘Why did you go to see Sarah, she asked you over?’
‘Yes. I expect she told you.’
‘I want you to describe — to tell me why you went. It seems so odd. Are you in love with her?’
‘No.’
‘But you’d been having a love affair?’
‘No. But that evening — we did make love.’
‘In half an hour?’
‘Yes — or a little more — ’
‘You said twenty minutes at the cottage. Are you still lovers?’
‘No, I haven’t seen her since, except that time here — I wouldn’t want to be her lover, not at all, it was, all a sort of accident, our making love, I didn’t intend it, it was her idea — ’
‘I still don’t understand why you left Mark. You didn’t have to go to Sarah, it sounds as if you didn’t even want to.’
‘I suppose I sort of did — she interested me — a bit — she asked me for a drink — ’
‘And you felt you might as well go.’
‘I only meant — for ten minutes — and Mark was asleep — and I locked the door — ’
‘Were you drunk before you went?’
‘No.’
‘But you knew how dangerous — what that stuff is like — how one must never leave people.’
‘Yes, I knew.’
‘Then why did you go?’
Edward moved his legs, driving them down the bank and sending a shower of sand into the water. He almost shouted, ‘I don’t know! How can I say why I went? I didn’t know what was going to happen, I didn’t know I was going to ruin my whole life — ’
‘Your whole life?’
‘I didn’t know he’d wake up and walk out of the window, I was happy, I was glad he had seen such good things, such wonderful things, and was asleep, he looked so beautiful and calm, like seeing a god asleep, and it was such a perfect evening, I thought it would be fun to go and see Sarah, for ten minutes, I didn’t think, I didn’t imagine — ’
‘Yes, all right — ’
‘Your mother’s been writing me the most terrible letters saying that I’m a murderer. You see I didn’t tell them at the inquest that I’d given him the drug without his knowing, so I suppose people thought he’d taken it himself and that he took drugs and — your mother must have known that wasn’t true — and she’s been writing me these awful letters, lots and lots of them, telling me I’m a criminal and she wishes I was dead, and that she hates me and will hate me forever — and you must hate me too, Sarah said so, and if you only knew how unhappy I am and how everything in my life is spoilt and black — ’
‘Why are you here — I mean here at Seegard. That seems odd too.’
‘They invited me. I didn’t know what to do with myself, I was going mad with grief — and gui
lt and — destroying myself — It was supposed to be a change. A psychiatrist told me to come.’
‘A psychiatrist? Who?’
‘Thomas McCaskerville. And I wanted to meet my father, I hadn’t seen him since I was a child, I felt he might help somehow — It all happened at once, I can’t make sense of it — but if you only knew how much I suffer and will always suffer — ’
‘Is it true that your father is dying of lack of medical attention?’
‘No, of course not. But it’s hard to explain — it’s all so strange up there — Do you really want to know?’
‘No.’
There was another silence. Then Brownie gave a long sigh and said, ‘Well — ’ She shuffled her feet then turned awkwardly onto her knees and slowly got up. Edward hastily jumped up too. She said, ‘Thank you.’ Then she seemed about to go away, moving toward the willow trees, but paused, not looking at Edward. ‘I’ll ask my mother to stop writing to you. Perhaps she has already.’
‘I don’t know. The letters would all be in London at my father’s house — I mean my stepfather’s house — Look, I know you blame me terribly, you hate me, but — ’
‘I don’t hate you, that’s ridiculous. I suppose I blame you. If that means anything. I’ll have to think. But that’s my affair. I don’t think you should destroy yourself or ruin your life — I don’t think you can or will anyway — that wouldn’t help Mark — or me — You’re at the university, aren’t you?’
‘I was.’
‘Well, go back, get on with your work, you could help other people in the future, stop just brooding about yourself, and feeling guilty. That’s my advice anyhow. Thanks for coming.’ She began to move away from him.
Edward said, ‘Please stay with me, just a little while.’
‘I must go.’
‘Please stay with me, I must talk to you, I need you, don’t leave me, please, please don’t leave me.’ He reached out and very gently touched the sleeve of the blue mackintosh near the cuff.
She started away from him as if to run off, then turned towards him, and tears streamed suddenly from her eyes. She said, gasping, through terrible sobs, ‘It’s that — I’ll have to live all of my life without him — all of my life — and it’s only just starting — ’
