by Iris Murdoch
‘Don’t know what?’ she turned, glaring at him, fierce almost.
‘Magnus is dead,’ said Monty. ‘He committed suicide – a little while ago. He took sleeping pills. He’s dead.’
Harriet sat down slowly at Blaise’s desk and with an automatic gesture cleared a space of papers in the middle of it. She gazed at the leather of the desk where the thick dust was crisscrossed with random trails. She said nothing, but sat stiffly, gazing down.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Monty. He looked at her with pity, but also with a curious exhilaration. He tried to compose thoughts, words, in his head. He waited for her to speak, he waited for her to weep, but she did neither. She sat like a stunned condemned prisoner before him.
‘Harriet,’ said Monty, ‘please forgive me for what I said to you before, with Edgar. It was stupid and – unnecessary. It was for your sake. I just wanted to warn you, I didn’t want you to rely too much on someone like me. But I do care for you and I do want to help you. That was just a sort of act – it was cowardly of me – please believe that I do really want to be of service —’
Harriet turned to him her strange condemned face. ‘Thank you, but your service will not be needed, your help would be of no help, any more than your – apology is. I was simply grateful that you made yourself so clear. I am going to make other arrangements in my life now. Tomorrow I shall move back into Hood House with the two boys. I am sorry to have inconvenienced you for so long. Good night.’
‘It’s morning,’ said Monty. He pulled back the curtains. Outside the sun was shining and there was a little jumbled sound of birds singing in the orchard trees.
Harriet, who had turned back to the desk, did not reply to him. She murmured something which sounded like ‘end ... end ...’
‘I know you’re angry,’ said Monty, ‘and you have good reason. But please stay at Locketts and be a little kind to me. Perhaps I need you – after all —’
‘Oh I’m not angry? said Harriet, in a voice almost inaudibly without resonance. ‘If you think I’m angry you have understood nothing. It doesn’t matter that much.’
‘All right. We can’t talk to each other now. But just remember later that I do care – in spite of all those stupid things I said. Now I’ll go. Good – day —’
He paused, but as she did not move or reply he left her and went downstairs, switching off the lights, and out again into the garden. His own trail of footsteps in the thick dew led away across the lawn. As he reached the hole in the fence, Ajax, his coat wet with dew from the long orchard grass, came through to meet him, sleek and dark as a seal. Monty’s hand touched his wet fur and felt the vibration of a soft growl as he slipped through into his own garden. He walked slowly along the path towards Locketts treading upon a carpet of small white daisies. He must remember to tell Blaise that Magnus Bowles was dead. How quickly and rightly it had been done. The curious exhilaration he had felt when he told Harriet the news came back to him now as a feeling of freedom. Had talking to Edgar really made a difference? Something had made a difference. Milo was dead, Magnus was dead, and Monty felt himself increased by these deaths. He felt better. He dared not yet return to any close scrutiny of his deepest woe, not yet. He felt like a man who has had plastic surgery for his burnt face, but dare not yet look into the mirror. No, that’s not the image, he thought to himself. It’s more like a leg operation, an eye operation. And he recalled how he had said to Edgar, ‘I am lame, I am blind.’ He must have been confoundedly carried away to enact such humility. Drunk no doubt. No wonder Edgar was pleased.
Monty entered the house and went into his study. He knelt down for a while in his usual meditative pose, but without attempting to meditate. He reflected in a relaxed way about Harriet and about how he would try to make her trust him again. He would write her a careful letter. She will come round, he thought, she needs me and she really has nobody, now even Magnus is dead.
The boys were stirring above. Monty emerged into the hall and began to delve a little into the tea-chest of letters. Perhaps today he would look at some of them. It also occurred to him that he might now unmuzzle the telephone, and he went to it and began to pull out the piece of plastic wire with which he had jammed the bell. As he lifted the instrument he could feel it trembling and vibrating in his hand. It was actually at this moment trying to ring. He pulled the wire out and lifted the receiver, instantly stifling its outcry.
‘We have a call for you from Italy,’ said the operator’s voice.
An English voice said tentatively, ‘Hello.’
‘My dear Dick,’ said Monty, ‘however many times must I tell you that I detest long distance calls, especially at breakfast time.’
‘If you won’t fetch Luca, I will,’ said Emily.
‘It’s not so simple,’ said Blaise. ‘You know what that boy is like. We can’t keep him here against his will, he’ll just decamp.’
‘I want Luca fetched.’
‘Anyway with us like this he’s better out of the house.’
‘With us like what?’
‘Like this!’
‘I sometimes think you hate your own child.’
‘Emily, do talk sense, things are bad enough —’
‘All right, I know you regret what you’ve done, I know you don’t want to be here —’
‘Oh stop it!’
‘The school rang up again.’
‘Of course they did. If we aren’t careful he’ll be taken into care. Thank God it’s nearly the end of term.’
‘Dr Ainsley rang too. He sounded pretty crazed up.’
‘Fuck him.’
‘And Mrs Batwood rang.’
‘Honestly, I’d rather Luca stayed with Harriet for the present. I’ve got enough trouble without that pixie. In the autumn we’ll send him to that boarding school.’
‘We?’
‘You and I. In the autumn —’
‘I don’t know whether I shall still be alive in the autumn.’
‘Is that a suicide threat?’
‘No. I’m far beyond suicide threats. I just don’t know whether I can stand the strain and what happens when I can’t. And the autumn is far away. Anything may have happened to us all by then.’
‘What are you complaining about? I’m here, aren’t I?’
‘Are you?’
‘I’ve smashed up my life for you. I don’t know what more you want!’
‘You want to go back to her.’
‘I do not!’
‘Oh, well, never mind,’ said Emily, staring at the table cloth, not having raised her voice at all, ‘never mind, never mind, never mind.’
‘Oh Christ!’ said Blaise. He did not want to quarrel with Emily, but he was near to screaming with exasperation and anxiety and indecision and sheer fear.
‘I think it would be better if Luca and I just cleared off to Australia and let you return to your ordinary life with Harriet,’ said Emily, ‘if you’d pay our fare.’
‘Stop saying that. You don’t mean it.’
‘I do. I think I may not have made clear to you just how much Luca matters here. He is my son. He is the only thing I’ve got in the world that’s really mine. I’m not going to let bloody Harriet have him. All right, you needn’t fetch him today, but I want him back here by the end of the week, otherwise I’m going over there to kick the place to bits. Got that?’
‘All right, all right,’ said Blaise. Emily’s new quiet tone terrified him, and just when he had so much to think about. Oh if he could only think! And how very much he did not want Luca in the house just now. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll fetch him.’
‘And when are you going to see the lawyer about the divorce?’
‘Soon.’
‘Which day?’
‘Oh soon, soon!’ said Blaise. ‘I can’t do everything at once!’
‘No divorce, no go, you know that?’
‘Yes, yes, yes!’
Blaise’s hand in his pocket convulsively clutched the letters which he had received b
y the latest post and which he had concealed from Emily. One was from Monty, the other from Harriet. Monty’s letter ran as follows:
Dear Blaise,
I thought I had better tell you that our old friend Magnus Bowles is no more. I assassinated him yesterday for Harriet’s benefit. (She was proposing to go and see him.) He took an overdose of sleeping pills and is dead. As he had outlived his usefulness, I thought it would be less confusing for all concerned if he were liquidated. I am sorry I was not able to consult you first.
It remains for me to say to you most sincerely that there is absolutely nothing between Harriet and me. That at least is not one of your problems, as I hope by now you have realized. Moreover, if there is anything at all that I can do to help you, I beg you to let me know. (For instance, I could lend you money.) Please keep in mind this availability and forgive me for any clumsiness in the past. You cannot surely, on reflection, see me as, in relation to you, a sinister agency.
Finally an expression of opinion, which I hope you will not think is impertinent. If you want to keep Harriet in your life you can probably do so, but you should act quickly and decisively. I mean, come here, stay here, for a while at any rate, and take over. She has gone back to Hood House and whether she now expects you or not I don’t know. But if you don’t come she might do anything. I don’t mean anything desperate, but she might clear off and vanish so as to make a real break. She is perhaps waiting, but will not do so indefinitely.
Excuse these observations. I wish you both very well.
Yours
Monty.
(Typical! thought Blaise of this letter.) Harriet’s letter ran as follows:
Dear Blaise,
the simple fact that you have not come back here, not written, not telephoned, not anything, tells me, 1 think, and it is meant to tell me, I suppose, all that I need to know. You have gone away. You have left me. You mean me to understand it and I do. Would I now forgive you if you totally rejected Emily McHugh and came back to me? I don’t know. Anyway you won’t do that. I shall not dwell on my unhappiness. I suppose you want a divorce. I write to say this, that I will cooperate with you to get a divorce and will make everything easy for you on condition that I keep Luca. The child I must have and you can hardly grudge him to me. I have the impression that neither you nor his mother cares very much about him. He was thoroughly neglected at Putney. This could be proved if necessary in a law court. He passionately wants to stay with me and not return to you and Emily. I am prepared to fight a legal battle for Luca, but I hope and believe that your own sense of his best interests will coincide with mine. He needs security, communication and love, and these I can give him. He will in every way be far better off here. I am prepared to devote my life to the upbringing of that child. You should be grateful to me. I am letting you have what you want without reproaches or difficulties. Oh Blaise, how can you have done this, how can it have happened, I can scarcely believe this nightmare! I love you as I have always done. That is what is so terrible. And if your world should end – but what is the use of saying that. As things are now, I could never be an accepting slave. You have chosen her and must do without me. But oh it is so terrible -1 did not intend to write like this. I mean what I say about Luca.
H.
As soon as he received this letter Blaise realized with anguish that the peace and joy which he experienced with Emily depended on his assumption that Harriet’s situation was static. Harriet was to be ‘frozen’ in an attitude of waiting, of attention, while Blaise sorted out his emotions and settled down into at least as much of a new world as would satisfy Emily and make her reasonably happy. Was he still, still, so mad as to imagine that he could perfectly keep both women? Evidently. Harriet’s letter put him into a frenzy, the sight of her handwriting made him feel sick, it was like being in love again. How could he have lost her after all these years? Now he longed for her, longed to hold her in his arms and explain it all. He had always had Harriet to tell his troubles to, and could he not turn to her now and tell her this trouble? If only he could explain to Harriet, explain his whole mind, explain the difficulty he was in, lay the dilemma at her feet. He imagined Harriet saying gently, as she had so often said before when he told her his problems, ‘Yes, yes, it is difficult, isn’t it – now let’s see what can be done —’
‘And you’ve fallen in love with Kiki St Loy.’
‘Oh shut up,’ said Blaise.
‘You have. You said her name in your sleep last night.’
‘You lie. We’ve got enough troubles without your inventing this rubbish about Kiki.’
‘You drove her back to London in your car.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I could smell her off you.’
‘Pinn told you, I suppose. Pinn marooned her on purpose so that I had to drive her. I only took her to the station.’
‘Did you kiss her?’
‘Of course not.’
‘You lie. What fun our married life is turning out to be. No wonder you want to go home to dear old Hood House and Mrs Placid.’
‘Stop it. Emily. Darling. I don’t want to go raving mad. If possible.’
‘I don’t want to go mad either,‘ said Emily. ‘I just wish I knew one way or the other what you were going to do.’
‘I’m going to stay here with you and make you happy at last.’
‘Are you? Honest? If you fail now it’s the end, you know that.’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘You mustn’t fail. I’ve bought three fuchsias for the balcony. And collars for the cats.’
‘I told you not to buy collars for the cats, they’ll hang themselves.’
‘Maybe we ought to hang ourselves.’
‘Oh Emily —’
‘You look so unhappy. Oh my darling, why couldn’t we have just found each other properly, without all this hell, why didn’t you wait for me? Blaise, come here, kneel here please, look at me.’
Blaise left his chair and knelt and looked up into the fierce blue truthful eyes of Emily McHugh. He felt with a desperation which was almost relief, yes, I am hers. But oh what will become of us, what will become of us?
‘We must make our love work,’ said Emily. ‘It’s everything I’ve got. I think it’s everything you’ve got now, unless you intend to wreck yourself. Will you try, Blaise, will you be a hero for my sake?’
‘Yes, yes.’
He means it now, she thought. He is utterly with me now, he is utterly mine. But can I hold him to it? I am becoming so cruel and frightened with him. I can’t help tormenting him and making him wretched. There’s such a flood of happiness waiting to be released, if only this thing were true at last. But he’s so broken and rattling about, he’s half demented with not knowing what to do, and I can’t help him here, I can’t even afford to pity him. He won’t be loyal, he’ll mess it about somehow, and will I be able to stand it if he does? Oh if only only only we could be happy and ordinary like other people. I’d work so hard for him, I’d give him my whole life and being with such joy. Oh if only he’d waited for me! How can perfect happiness be so near to two people and not draw them to it like a magnet?
Blaise was thinking, yes, I am hers. But what on earth am I to do about Harriet? If my whole life is stripped away and smashed how can I be of use to any woman? I’ve just got to fight for myself too, I’ve got to look after myself. And I’m in such a financial mess now and I can’t borrow from Monty. (Or can I?) I must see Harriet. I can’t possibly know where I stand until I’ve see her again.
He said, ‘I’ll go over and fetch Luca. I’ll go today.’
‘You don’t want to fetch Luca,’ said Emily. ‘You want to see her. I can read it in your eyes. No, don’t go. Luca can stay there for the present. I think I agree with you after all, he’s better away when we’re both in this awful state. You won’t go over there will you?’
‘No. All right.’ I will go though, he thought. I must invent some cover story. He got up slowly. ‘Did I really say Kiki’s name in my
sleep?’
‘So you think you might have done!’
‘Where’s Kiki?’ said David to Pinn. ‘Have you brought her like you said?’ ‘What’s the matter with you?’ said Pinn. ‘You look ready to faint. Are you that much in love?’
‘My mother has just gone away,’ said David.
‘What, gone away without you? You poor pet. Look you’d better get inside and sit down.’
David had returned to find Pinn in the front garden of Hood House, peering in through one of the windows.
David let himself into the house and Pinn followed. Already the place seemed to echo. Automatically David went through into the kitchen. On the kitchen table there was a note from Harriet to Edgar about arrangements for feeding the dogs. David looked round the kitchen and the sad betrayed room was unbearable to him. He went out again and into the drawing-room and lay down on the sofa. Misery prostrated him with a kind of exhaustion which weakened every inch of his body, as in a bad case of influenza.
His mother was gone, flown. He was to have accompanied her. He had agreed to all the arrangements, the timetable of departure, the telephone calls to school. He had even packed his suitcase and placed it near the door. He had got up early and watched his mother and Luca at breakfast in the kitchen. His mother had run out after him with a cup of coffee. She had embraced him in the hall, hastily, passionately, in a corner like a lady kissing her young footman. He felt her hot face pressed upon his. She had whispered. ‘Bear it – I need you so much.’ She had never spoken to him like that before. The train left at eleven and the taxi had been ordered for ten-thirty.
At nine-thirty David quietly left the house. He set off on his usual route towards the motorway. He walked through the lanes which he knew so well and over the shoulder of the little hill where the black and white cows used to be. The hedges had been bulldozed and the ditches were full of blue plastic cement sacks. Soon there would be a housing estate. As David mounted the slope, trying not to count the minutes, he could already hear the hum of the motorway, which was now open. The concreted courtyard where he had once lain supine in the sun in a final act of solitude was now a racing track of glittering motor-cars. And upon the nearer carriageway as he approached he could see, and shuddered at it, the squashed and flattened form of a hare, a monogram of fur and blood. The volcanic tumble of bulky red earth which had come to rest so strangely in the quiet field was alien no longer, it had been raked over and sown with grass. The young blades were already showing.
