by Iris Murdoch
This thought of his death reminded him again of the dream, and now he remembered something else about it. In the dream he had been young, a young man, unmarried, unmade; and they had been old, very old, ancient like Druids, another race. So, he thought, it was their own grave they were digging and I was watching them from above. They belong to the past, I felt as I looked at them that I was seeing the past. It’s the young against the old, Midge and I are young, Thomas is old, old. It was impossible to believe that Thomas was not much older than himself, Thomas was ninety, Harry was eternally twenty-five. No, he thought, I can’t let my darling grow old with that man. Thomas already belongs to death, like my father, my poor drowned father. They are ghosts, as weak as paper. I tower above them. I have only to stretch out my hand and take the woman. Early in mutual love one feels able to exist upon pure joy, feeding upon it as upon the sacrament. Later that is not enough, even if an angel were to assure him that Midge would love him forever it would not be enough. He must have full and absolute possession. The door closed and bolted. Oh happiness, oh my God …
Harry leapt up. The sheer strength and energy of longing in him almost lifted him from the ground. He turned the television on, then loped into the little kitchen, knocking clumsily against the sink. He stood and stared at the saucepan he had bought, the kettle, the knives and forks, and smiled to think how it would amuse Midge to picture him buying these, and how she would chide him for buying the wrong kind. He turned on the tap and turned it on and on until a noisy raging torrent of hot steaming water pummelled the steel bowl and splashed the draining board and the window and Harry’s suit. He reached out one hand into the hot stream whose rigid force resisted his thrust, then withdrew it quickly. The scalding water hurt his hand, re-animating the painful burn he had received when he picked up the hot coal when arguing with Edward. He hastily turned off the hot tap, turned on the cold and drenched his scalded hand and wrapped it in a towel; then jerked round in a shock of terror when he heard, close behind him, the voice of Thomas McCaskerville.
Damn, it’s the television, he thought, I can’t get away from the fellow even here. But what an odd chance. I shall make something of it. Two can play at magic. He went back into the little sitting room, nursing his hand.
Thomas’s face, close up, peered purposefully forward into the camera, illuminated with a clarity of detail never seen in ordinary life. Harry stared at the big fox terrier face, radiant with energy and will and superior thoughts, the cold pale blue eyes enlarged by the thick donnish glasses, the neatly clipped fringe of light grey hair. The faint rabbinical shadow of the well-shaven beard. Harry felt he had never seen Thomas’s face so clearly. The lips frothed a little as the words were framed and puffed out like pellets by the high didactic Scottish voice.
‘So it is that we must live with death and see it as an illumination and a right, a final precious possession, ours as nothing else is upon this scene where all is vanity. The so-called “death wish” is not something negative, but one of our purest instincts. Every religion requires us to die to the world. Death has always been, in the wisdom of the east, the image of the destruction of the ego. What we see there makes the world nothing, and what the world sees there is nothing. Nirvana, the cessation of all selfish desire, the release from the tormenting turning wheel of illusory passions, is pictured as nothingness, the dust and ashes which all material and carnal goods are seen to be in the light of eternity which shines not in a temporal forever but now, now with its justice upon every moment of our staggering rambling lives. Death is the death of the ego, and is in this sense a natural right, claimed too by those who decide to die to the world by the destruction of the body, the prison of the soul; thus the destruction of the body is the image of the liberation of the soul. And the liberation of the soul is the aim of true psychology. Death is the best and only picture we have of the fuller, better life for which, in our darkness, without understanding, we somehow yearn and strive. Death is the centre of life. We have to learn that we are already dead; the soul must learn it now, here in the present which is all we have, the lesson of its perfect freedom. We must hear the voice of the imprisoned soul, of all imprisoned souls, as they cry out in this age of perfected technology; when we can cure bodily sickness and send pictures through the air, but constantly tarnish and batter our thoughts and our desires with images of the sweet life, the full life, dolce vita, living like gods through the beauty of youth, the satisfactions of unfettered sex, the power and charm of wealth and great possessions, through having a brown suntanned healthy body, standing on a sunny beach with feet in the gently breaking waves. Is not this the very picture of happiness? Thus are we daily and hourly beguiled, made discontented and full of vain destructive wishes. It is from this that the experience of death sets us free, the discipline of death in life which we should not set aside as something reserved for helpless old age. When that time comes we may be unable to profit. The time for death is now.’
‘Oh shut up, you silly old bastard,’ said Harry, switching the set off. Thomas was annihilated, his big brightly coloured face blotted out, his precise high-pitched voice silenced. ‘Why don’t you kill yourself then, you crazy old fool? Not bloody likely. You live and thrive and fatten upon other people’s death wish.’
Harry stood for a while, in the middle of the room, beside the pretty armchair. He thought, yes, how funny, that’s exactly it. That’s how it will be. That’s where Midge and I will be standing with our young fine sun-bronzed bodies, on a sunny beach with our feet in the gently breaking waves of the warm sea. We’ll be there. And we will be holding glasses of wine in our hands. And behind us there will be a bar, and a small simple excellent restaurant where we are about to have lunch, sitting in the speckled shade under a trellis of vines. And behind the restaurant there is a little town, full of squares and fountains. And in the little town there will be a picture gallery, and a small hotel with a view of the cathedral. And we shall be there, thought Harry, yes, we shall be there and Thomas will be dead. He will have been obliterated from our thought and our being as if he had died long long ago.
Then Harry thought, perhaps by then Thomas will be literally dead. What nonsense he was talking — he really looked as if he were mad. He’s a fanatic. Perhaps he is actually intending to commit suicide. He is preparing us for his exit.
When he thought this Harry felt a momentary pang of admiration. Then he thought of his father. Could it have been suicide? No, no. We would never kill ourselves, thought Harry, we of the other race. Let them get out of our way. And he thought of Midge and how it would be, how they would be together in the little southern town.
Edward was ill, really ill. He had been ill for two days. He lay in bed feverish, sweating, tossing, his lank dark hair plastered over his brow. His limbs ached horribly and no position gave comfort. He felt weak and frightened, ridden by illusions and dreams, tormented by sharp piercing anxieties. Supposing Brownie were to summon him and he could not come, supposing they intercepted Brownie’s note and never told him? Suppose Jesse were asking for him? Suppose Jesse were dying?
Edward had seen Jesse again after the episode in the fen when Jesse had so strangely appeared when he was talking to Brownie. Could that have been a coincidence? Yet how could it not be? He was seeing meanings everywhere, portents, traps. He had seen Jesse on the next morning, peaceful, a bit drowsy, bathed in a kind of philosophic calm, though manifestly lacking words. Edward had sat for some time beside his bed, saying little himself, while Jesse murmured on disconnectedly, aware of Edward’s presence but not looking at him. ‘You looked nice together in the sun, you and that Brownie, bit of skirt, nice to be young, I too was young, I remember, I think — and Ilona, dancing — I hear it as music, as music. Don’t worry, they have forgiven you, they have all forgiven you. It’s getting dark — I’ll go to sleep and dream it all over again — oh it won’t stop, it never stops — round and round — where’s Ilona, have they chained her up like a little dog? I think I hear her crying. I curs
e nobody, remember that. But oh the power — the power — the dance — it’s so painful.’ Later on Edward began to feel ill. In the afternoon he was delirious. In the evening Mother May gave him a sleeping draught. He had terrible dreams, and the next day he was no better.
Now it was another afternoon, and a medical consultation was going on beside Edward’s bed.
‘I think it’s malaria,’ said Bettina. ‘That day he was out in the fen he must have been bitten by mosquitoes.’
‘It might be glandular fever,’ said Mother May.
‘Can’t you find the thermometer? We did have one. Shall Ilona look again?’
‘I’ve looked and looked,’ said Ilona, ‘I’ve turned the bathrooms upside down and the Interfec — ’
‘It’s all that stuff you gave me to drink, and to eat,’ said Edward, lying flat. ‘It’s not good for me. You’re making me ill, so that I can’t be with him — ’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Bettina.
‘It’s fairy food, not fit for humans — ’
‘It’sjust the healthiest diet in the world, that’s all!’ said Mother May.
‘You know we wouldn’t hurt you,’ said Ilona, ‘we love you.’
‘Oh Ilona,’ said Edward, ‘I want to ask you something — ’ Only he could not remember what it was he wanted to ask.
Later on, alone, he remembered. Had Ilona’s feet really left the ground during that dance up at the dromos? Perhaps even then he had been suffering from some sort of sensorial disturbance. Was he being systematically drugged, was it possible? And how could he ask Ilona about that, about her bare feet sweeping the tips of the grasses and then rising above them? Wouldn’t the question sound mad — or rather impertinent, impolite? If Ilona could dance on air was that not her business, perhaps her secret?
When it was coming towards twilight and Edward was alone he got up and walked slowly into his bathroom. He relieved himself and looked out of the window across the courtyard at the other side of Selden, East Selden, where the women lived. The women’s quarters. He saw a lamp go on in Ilona’s room and the idea of going over to see Ilona came to him. Why not? Because it was impossible. He stared, but could see nothing in the room, the sky was still too light, full of a darkish blue brilliant air which made everything look vivid yet also fuzzy and occluded, or perhaps it was his eyes. He walked slowly back and sat on the bed. He began to think about Brownie. He had been dreaming most dreadfully about her but could not recall the dreams. Now everything depended on Brownie. Of course it depended on Jesse too, but that was more obscure. Brownie was more urgent. Perhaps his sickness was simply Brownie’s absence. What is that state called when you simply cannot go on living without somebody? Being in love. Was he in love with Brownie? Oh the yearning, the yearning was so great, he felt his entrails surge as if they were being drawn out. He leaned forward over the pain of it, holding his breast, holding his stomach. He thought, I can’t wait until she calls me, perhaps she will never call me, I’ll go over and see her tomorrow, I’ll look for her till I find her. Or perhaps tonight.
He stood up and very slowly put his clothes on. It was possible to stand, even to think. He walked slowly over to the window and looked out over the pavement in front of the house and at the trees of the drive and the white flinty stones along it. He thought, I’ve been here for a long time now. The vivid evening light made monumental the turreted yews, the ash trees were already in feather and young oak leaves a pale greenish yellow, all very still in the quiet windless evening. Edward noticed all this detail as if it were important for him to know, as if he would be questioned about it later. He held onto the window ledge and cooled his brow against the glass. Then he saw something amazing.
A tall man had come quietly into the picture, into the empty picture which had been waiting for him, and had stopped as if asserting his sovereignty of it. He had come out from among the trees and paused at the edge of the terrace facing the house. For a moment, feverishly inhabiting his past fantasies, Edward thought: it’s Jesse. It must be Jesse, coming quietly at evening as Edward had imagined him at first, when Jesse was so mysteriously and interminably absent: a tall figure, a king returning unannounced, confidently, to his kingdom. Then he thought, but Jesse’s here, and anyway that’s not him — it’s someone quite else, and my God it’s someone I know, it can’t be, it’s Stuart.
Edward rushed out of the room, flew down the stone steps scarcely touching them, and reached and fumbled with the West Selden door, now since his occupation usually left unlocked. He stumbled out, blinking, into the warm wide evening where there was an unexpectedly bright light, and stumbled on the uneven stones of the pavement.
The man came forward. The bright dark light illumined Stuart’s commanding stature, his big pale face and amber eyes, his head with its cropped blond hair. He was carrying his cap in one hand as if diffidently, and in the other a small suitcase which he now set down.
‘Edward, old man, are you all right?’
‘Yes, of course, curse it,’ said Edward, ‘why shouldn’t I be? What on earth are you doing here?’
‘I think you’re ill, hadn’t you better sit down? Let’s go inside and — What a weird place. We were all wondering where you were.’
‘Come on,’ said Edward. His immediate instinct, in his horror at the unspeakable advent of his brother, was to hide him, then to get rid of him.
Edward stumbled again upon the stones, for a moment resisted, then gave way to, Stuart’s strong arm which was supporting him. They came in through the open door into Selden, and somehow in the half-dark got up the stone stairs into Edward’s room. Edward lighted the lamp and clumsily dragged the shutters across with a clatter. He sat on his bed, checking an intense desire to lie down. Stuart stood.
‘But why,’ said Edward, holding his head, now conscious of an intense headache, ‘how did you know, why did you come?’
‘She wrote to me — ’
‘Who wrote to you?’
‘Mrs Baltram. She said you were here and that you were disturbed and ill and that you — that you needed me. Of course I came at once.’
‘Did you tell anyone?’
‘No. Dad’s away, and — ’
‘Mrs Baltram — ’ For a moment Edward couldn’t think who this was. ‘Oh yes — Mother May. But she can’t have written to you, she can’t have done — and I don’t need you, you’re just the absolute last thing that I need — ’
‘Here’s the letter.’ Stuart held it out, tilting it toward the lamplight.
Dear Mr Cuno,
My stepson Edward, your brother, is with us here. He is upset and unwell and would profit from your presence, if you had time to visit us here, where you would be a welcome guest.
Yours sincerely,
May Baltram.
‘I would have telephoned,’ said Stuart, ‘only there was no number in the book. Hadn’t you better be in bed, have you got the ’flu?’
‘Yes. But — ’ Edward looked at the date of the letter. ‘I wasn’t ill when she wrote this — this proves that — or was I? Christ, why can’t I remember — ’
‘I thought, I assumed, you’d asked for me — ’
‘No! I wish you at the devil! Everything here is all to hell, and now you turn up!’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Stuart. He sat down on the rush-bottomed chair and inspected the room, the vaulted ceiling, the canopied bed, Jesse’s picture of the girl standing in the stream. ‘It’s a nice room. I like the ceiling. Since I’m here hadn’t I better buckle to and help? I can, you know, I expect I can.’
‘You can’t,’ said Edward. ‘You’re the last straw. Will you please go away, go home, now.’
‘There isn’t any bus, I looked at the timetable, they don’t run after — ’
‘You can get a lift on the road.’
‘Edward, do lie down. You are ill. How can I go away and leave you? Hadn’t I better go and see Mrs Baltram? It seems a bit impolite to be sitting here chatting with you without making myself known t
o my hostess.’
‘“Impolite”, “chatting”, God!’
At that moment the door opened and a light shone in from outside. Bettina entered holding a lamp in her hand. She had also lighted the lamp in the niche by the stairs which shone behind her, shining through her skirt. She was in her mauve and white evening dress with multiple necklaces glittering, faintly clinking. Her dark reddish hair hung down in a single thick plait, now drawn forward over her shoulder. The hair being drawn away revealed her sharp aquiline handsomeness. She moved into the room, making with one hand a gesture of homage to Stuart, who had risen; then she curtsied.
‘Mrs Baltram?’
‘No, I’m Bettina.’
‘I’m Stuart — ’
‘Yes, we know. Welcome to Seegard.’
‘She’s one of the sisters, my sisters — ’ said Edward gauchely.
‘May I show you your room? Then supper is ready downstairs.’
‘His room? Where?’ said Edward. It was all like a hideous mocking charade.
Stuart had picked up his suitcase and followed Bettina out. Edward followed after and saw Bettina throw open the door of the big corner bedroom. The side window showed the hillside and the wood, dark against a darkened reddish sky. Bettina put down her lamp and closed the shutters on both windows and pulled the curtains. Then she lit a lamp which was standing on the table. ‘We use these lamps you see — you can turn it off by just turning this little wheel to the right. We conserve the electricity for essential things like the deep freeze and pumping the water. There’s your bathroom, there’s hot running water. There’s an electric torch in that drawer. I’ll turn off the paraffin heater later on. Dinner in half an hour if that’s all right?’
‘Oh — thank you — ’ said Stuart, ‘thank you so much.’
