The Flight From the Enchanter

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘Stop!’ said Hunter, shielding his face. He buried it in his hands and sobbed for a moment. Then he was silent.

  ‘That’s better!’ said Calvin. ‘I really do apologize. Here, get up and sit in this chair. It’s so wet on the floor, you must be soaked to the skin.’

  Hunter got into the chair. Then he stared at Calvin, his mouth open and his face and hair soaked with water and tears. His eyes were still burning violently. Automatically he rubbed the back of his neck.

  ‘Look here,’ said Hunter at last, ‘have you shown that picture to anyone?’

  Calvin looked at him with a look which was almost tender in its intensity. ‘Listen, my dear boy,’ he said, ‘let’s be simple about this. There is one person who, I imagine, you are particularly anxious should not see this picture. Now, I have not shown it to this person, nor docs he know of its existence. I say this, and it is true. You may say, how do I know that you’re telling the truth? To which I answer, you don’t know — but, from your point of view, I may be, and you can’t afford to gamble on it. Therefore, for all practical purposes, you had better assume that this picture is still, and so far, a secret between you and me and the camera.’

  ‘From what I know of you — ’ began Hunter.

  ‘You know nothing of me,’ said Calvin, ‘so let’s leave personalities out.’

  ‘You beastly contemptible shit of a crook,’ said Hunter. ‘What’s your price for the negative?’

  ‘Dear me!’ said Calvin, ‘see how high the seas of language run here, as Wittgenstein would say!’

  ‘What’s your price?’ said Hunter.

  ‘A small one,’ said Calvin. ‘Just the Artemis. And if I may once more abbreviate our conversation, if you say “How can I trust you?” the answer is that you’ve got no choice.’

  Calvin was standing beside the table with his hand upon the head of the enlarger. Hunter, who had composed his face and dashed the wisps of dripping hair out of his eyes, glared up at him.

  ‘Why did you imagine I would do business with you at all?’ he asked.

  Calvin spread out a golden hand, whose shadow flitted along the wall. ‘It was a brilliant conjecture,’ he said. ‘I imagined that you would be concerned; and I’ve seen nothing to make me believe otherwise. Indeed, I must confess that the violence of your reaction has surprised me.’

  Hunter held his head in his hands. ‘I must have time to think this out!’ he said.

  ‘There is very little time, I’m afraid,’ said Calvin. ‘The annual meeting of shareholders is tomorrow.’

  ‘Give me the negative,’ said Hunter, ‘and I’ll do whatever you want at the meeting.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Calvin, ‘it is the privilege of the stronger to be the one who is trusted.’

  ‘What’s in this for you, Blick?’ said Hunter. ‘Why should you care so much about getting hold of the Artemis?’

  ‘As I said,’ said Calvin, ‘you know nothing about me, and this is not the moment for teaching you. May I suggest that you give me an answer straight away? We’ve been making quite a lot of noise, and though Mischa hardly ever comes down here, he might just take it into his head to do so today.’

  ‘What?’ said Hunter.

  ‘Oh, didn’t you realize?’ said Calvin. ‘We are in the cellars of Mischa’s house. I thought you might recognize the back way in — but I suppose there’s no reason why you should.’

  ‘Let me out!’ said Hunter. He jumped up and made for the door.

  Calvin barred the way. ‘Carefull’ he said. ‘You’re like a dog that’s been in the Serpentine, throwing water over everything. Let me tidy you up a bit.’

  Hunter stood like a child while Calvin set his tie straight, rubbed his face and head with a towel, and then combed his hair into place.

  ‘I’m afraid you’re very wet, but nothing can be done about that,’ said Calvin, ‘and I’ve made you late for your appointment. You’ll have to take a taxi. Have you got enough money?’

  ‘Let me out!’ said Hunter.

  ‘My dear boy,’ said Calvin, holding him by the shoulders, ‘may I count on you tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hunter. ‘Now let me go.’

  When Calvin led him out into the mews, he took to his heels without looking back. Blinded by the daylight, he blundered into a lamp-post and several passers-by before he finally slowed down to a walking pace.

  Thirteen

  AT breakfast-time on the following day, Hunter Keepe found himself without appetite. He looked across the table towards his sister, who never spoke in any case at breakfast, and was grateful for the copy of The Times which, elevated between them by Rosa, concealed from him the surly expression which he guessed her to be wearing, and from her the shocked and despairing look which he felt sure he was not proving able to banish. He had not slept. The posed trio, which struck him hideously as a sort of pietà in reverse, which he had seen in the photograph haunted him throughout the night in various forms, sometimes still and sometimes diabolically animated. The pain which this vision caused him made a deep wound into which all lesser miseries flowed indifferently: the humiliation suffered at the hands of Calvin, the enforced loss of the Artemis, the possibility of Rosa’s displeasure. As he looked at the front page of The Times which Rosa was holding within a few inches of his nose, Hunter wondered whether or not she would decide to come to the meeting. Late on the previous night he had forced himself to scribble down a brief and ill-written statement in which the sale of the Artemis was proposed. What he had not succeeded in doing was to imagine himself daring to present this shameful manifesto to his sister. He hoped ardently that she would not come. But beyond this he had no plan, and was indeed incapable of any sort of mental activity except that of brooding upon the pain of his situation. Hatred, shame and anger, not yet differentiated, shifted and struggled in his heart.

  He rose from the table. Upstairs Annette, who since her liberation from Ringenhall had not made appearances at breakfast-time, could be heard turning on her bath. Hunter coughed and fixed his eyes on the luxuriant dark crown of his sister’s head, now visible over the top of the newspaper. ‘Well, I must be off.’

  The meeting was due to begin at ten-thirty: but Hunter was impatient to be out of the house. He could not have endured a conversation with Rosa, and the very sight of her moved him to a deep distress.

  ‘Good-bye, then,’ said Rosa, without looking up. She reached out for some more coffee. Hunter fled.

  At ten-fifteen Hunter was already entering the West End hotel where meetings of the shareholders of Artemis traditionally took place. Hunter would not have troubled to hold the meetings, since they were now become such a farce, in these solemn surroundings: but the annual hire of a large conference room had once been presented to the Artemis by a venerable lady for a period of years that had not yet expired. So it was that Hunter would present himself annually, with a written report and a financial statement, before a long mahogany table and a set of empty chairs, where, alone or in the company of Rosa, he would wait for about three quarters of an hour before departing. In this way Hunter had exercised his constitutional tyranny of which the last act, he sadly reflected, would be the deliberate destruction of his mother’s noble journal.

  Hunter entered the conference room. It was deserted and unkempt, with most of the curtains still pulled across the tall windows. The management had ceased long ago to take the Artemis meetings seriously. Hunter pulled back the curtains, put the chairs straight, and sat down at the end of the table. He spread out before him on the green baize cloth the last twelve issues of the periodical. The room was very silent. He closed his eyes, which were still smarting from the infusion of chemicals and from the tears which he had shed during the night. A sense of total physical and mental wretchedness swept over him, and he laid his head on the table. Where he was and what he would do next he was not able to think out; he was only aware that what he had seen upon the photograph imposed itself relentlessly between himself and a being that he loved which had alte
rnately the face of Rosa and of Mischa. Until he had done all that he could to erase that vision, he would not be able to rest; but he knew, too, that what he was to do today was only the first move towards its erasure, and that perhaps it would never be erased. The problem of whether he could trust Calvin hardly occurred to Hunter at all. It was as if the destruction of the Artemis was a symbolic act which higher and more terrible powers would take note of and count, somehow, to his credit.

  The door opened, and Calvin came in. Hunter lifted his head abruptly. ‘Excuse me,’ said Calvin, speaking in the low voice of one giving utterance in a church or a museum, ‘may I take the liberty of attending this meeting? I imagine that you expected me to come.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Hunter. ‘Naturally you want to satisfy yourself that everything is in order. Please be seated.’

  Calvin settled in a chair half-way down the table. They sat in silence. Ten-thirty struck. The silence continued. Hunter smoothed out in front of him the piece of paper on which his final statement was written. He felt like a victim of the Inquisition. The sound of the door opening again made him start like a guilty thing.

  Rosa entered, saw Calvin, and stopped in her tracks. Calvin looked at her under his eyebrows and then dropped his eyes and began to examine his hands which lay before him on the table. He had the coy expression of one concealing amusement. Rosa advanced, picking her way like an animal inspecting some unforeseen phenomenon. She sat down directly opposite Calvin, without looking at Hunter, and then also lowered her gaze to the table. They sat in silence, all three. Rosa looked at her watch.

  Hunter, who had been blushing ever since Rosa entered, cleared his throat and said in a husky voice, ‘Shall I read the statement?’

  ‘Please,’ said Calvin, after a moment. Rosa said nothing.

  Hunter looked at the first sentences and felt that he would be unable to read out this statement in the presence of Rosa. He took hold of the paper as if it were the steering-wheel of some vehicle which he had to drive along the edge of a precipice. He opened his mouth to gasp for breath and found that he had begun to read the first paragraph in a low monotonous voice.

  He had not read very far when strange noises began to disturb the peace of the meeting. There was a screeching of brakes as several vehicles drew up simultaneously outside the hotel. This was followed by a sort of distant uproar in the entrance hall. Hunter paused to wait until this din should have died down; but instead of decreasing the sound now seemed to be coming nearer. There was a commotion on the stairs, and then a brisk knock upon the door. A spectacled face underneath an extremely large hat looked in. ‘Is this the Artemis meeting?’ asked an elderly lady to whom the face and hat belonged.

  ‘Yes,’ said Hunter, shrinking back in his chair.

  ‘Yes!’ the elderly lady shouted out of the door, ‘This way, ladies!’ she entered the room, followed shortly by three companions of similar age and appearance. One of them, who thought she recognized Rosa, bowed to her and smiled. Then all four sat down and began to inspect Hunter and Calvin with an air of suspicion and curiosity.

  Calvin turned sharply to Hunter, whose face expressed astonishment; catching Calvin’s glance, he spread out his hands and opened his mouth. Calvin turned to look at Rosa, who was frowning fiercely at the edge of the table. The din in the entrance hall continued, and more vehicles could be heard arriving at the door. Voices were raised upon the landing, and a further bevy of elderly women came bursting into the room, talking loudly as they entered. The newcomers were greeted by cries from the four who had arrived first. Amid swirling of skirts and removal of gloves there was a good deal of handshaking and inquiries about health. An elegant woman whose white hair was tinted with blue bore down upon Rosa, who sprang to her feet and saluted her with respect. ‘Mrs Carrington-Morris,’ said Rosa, ‘I’m so glad that you managed to come!’

  Hunter, who had fixed his eyes upon Rosa in the vain hope of receiving some sort of sign, also rose to his feet, stood irresolutely, and then sat down again wretchedly. Under cover of the din, he said to Calvin, who was leaning across the table towards him, ‘I didn’t arrange this!’

  ‘I believe you!’ said Calvin.

  At this point Mrs Wingfield arrived, forcing her way into the already crowded room, followed by several supporters. Her appearance aroused shouts of ‘Camilla!’ and at once a number of ladies were crowding about her. Mrs Carrington-Morris, who was standing with her hand on Rosa’s shoulder, waved a glove across the room. Mrs Wingfield was hatless, but her grey hair was sleek, and she wore a fine tweed dress whose age was betrayed only by its unusual length. She carried her head well thrown back and surveyed the scene with the air of a general whose eagle eye can at once pick out the essential features from a confused ensemble.

  It was clear by now that there were not enough chairs for this unexpectedly large gathering. Hunter, who had stood up again, was standing miserably beside his. Calvin was still seated, watching the scene closely with an inscrutable expression. Only one or two of the ladies were now seated. There was a general move to sit down.

  Rosa turned to Calvin. Her frown had cleared and her face was unusually resolute and bland. ‘Mr Blick,’ she said, ‘would you be so kind as to go and organize some more chairs? We seem to be short of them.’

  Calvin got to his feet and Hunter tried in vain to catch his eye before he left the room. He reappeared shortly followed by hotel servants carrying chairs. A few more ladies were still arriving. The company by now amounted to more than thirty. The uproar was considerable.

  Rosa’s voice could now be heard rising above the din. ‘Could everybody please be seated?’

  There was a shuffling and scraping of chairs, and everyone sat down. As there was not enough space at the table, the company filled the whole room, scattered in irregular rows in a rough semicircle. With the clattering and the swish of long skirts subsiding and being patted into position, the voices gradually fell silent. At last the room was still.

  As the silence continued, a number of people turned to look at Mrs Wingfield. Others fixed their gaze upon Rosa, or else looked to see whom their neighbour was looking at. Calvin looked at everybody in turn. Rosa looked at Hunter. Hunter looked at the table and saw with blurred vision the scrap of paper on which his report was written. Then he looked up and saw before him an astonishingly large number of venerable heads, some bearing the grey straight hair and purposeful expression of the reformer, others more conventionally decked with snowy curls and fashionable hats. Veils were being swept back, glasses donned or removed with a click, and one extremely old lady in the front row who was wearing a hearing-aid placed the receiver ostentatiously upon the table. Hunter swallowed hard and looked down again at his script. His mind became completely blank.

  At last Rosa, her voice trembling slightly, said, ‘My brother usually takes the chair at these meetings. Is it your wish that he should read out the annual statement about the Artemis?’

  There was a silence. Then a lady with a ringing voice, who was wearing what appeared to be a mantilla, said, ‘Is it in order for him to be chairman and to read the statement?’

  Mrs Carrington-Morris, turned with a gracious gesture to Rosa, said, ‘In my view, Miss Keepe herself ought to be in the chair.’

  Rosa said at once, ‘I’d rather not!’

  Mrs Wingfield, who it immediately appeared was a little drunk, called out, ‘Never mind the details, we aren’t in the House of Commons! Let the boy say his say.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said the lady with the hearing-aid, ‘I should be very glad, and I believe I speak for a number of others present, to be told what this is all about.’

  ‘What do you mean, what it’s all about?’ asked a small tense woman with a grey fringe who seemed to find this remark very offensive. ‘Surely we know why we are gathered here?’

  ‘I certainly don’t know why I’m gathered here,’ said the lady with the hearing-aid. ‘All I know is that yesterday I got a message — ’

  ‘Perhap
s it would be simplest,’ the lady in the mantilla cut in, ‘if whoever has got a statement to make could make it. I believe Miss Keepe’s brother has got a statement to make.’ She looked hopefully at Calvin.

  ‘This is my brother,’ said Rosa, pointing to Hunter, who was sitting like a man about to be electrocuted.

  ‘Come on!’ cried Mrs Wingfield from the back, ‘we’ve been here half an hour already, can’t you get on with it?’

  Hunter cast a look of agony and reproach at Rosa, who was now looking in the other direction. Then he began once more to read out this statement.

  ‘I can’t hear,’ said someone near the door. ‘Would you mind beginning again?’

  Hunter began again. His voice boomed in his ears, now loudly, now softly, like noises heard by a man about to fall asleep. He managed to get through two paragraphs.

  ‘I don’t understand any of this,’ the lady with the hearing-aid said in what she probably imagined to be a whisper to her neighbour. ‘It sounds rather a muddle, doesn’t it?’

  Hunter began to read the third paragraph. The proposal for the sale, coupled with the name of Mischa Fox, occurred in the second paragraph. The third one elaborated financial details and technicalities concerning the shares. He suddenly stopped reading. There was no point in going on. He looked up and found forty pairs of eyes fixed on him intently. ‘I think I’ll stop here’, said Hunter in a thick voice, ‘and perhaps we can discuss the matter. If there are any questions I can answer — ’

  A confused hum covered his voice. ‘Could you just explain who this young man is?’ asked the lady in the large hat who had been the first to arrive, turning back to someone sitting behind her.

  ‘Apparently he’s Miss Keepe’s brother.’