by Iris Murdoch
‘Something must be broken,’ said Bellamy, ‘oh dear, oh God, it’s my fault.’
‘I can’t walk,’ said Harvey to Clement, ‘I can’t.’
Clement said, ‘Don’t worry. Just rest a little. I’m afraid we can’t get the car any nearer, the way’s blocked. Bellamy and I can hold onto you and you can hop.’
‘We can still get to Ravenna in time – ’
‘We aren’t going to Ravenna,’ said Clement.
‘Of course not,’ said Bellamy, ‘we must get a doctor in the town to look at your ankle.’
‘If it could be just strapped up a bit,’ Harvey was going on, ‘it’ll be better in a day or two.’
‘We’ll see,’ said Clement, ‘but if it’s as bad as it looks I think we must head for the nearest airport and take you back to London.’
‘Poor Harvey!’
Everyone was saying this.
The first news came to Louise, when Harvey telephoned her from the airport at Pisa, asking her to tell his mother. The news was that he had hurt his foot and was coming home, just briefly he said, to have it seen to. The gravity of the situation dawned upon his anxious friends, and indeed upon him, after his return. Harvey had first, after the mishap, visited the nearest pronto soccorso in the little town. The first-aid man had, after a glance, told them to go to the hospital. They decided to drive to Pisa to the hospital there, where they could also if necessary get a direct flight to London. At Pisa X-rays revealed a thoroughly smashed ankle. Harvey’s foot and leg were immediately put into plaster for the journey home. At Heathrow he left the plane in a wheelchair. At the Middlesex Hospital the plaster was removed, more X-rays were taken, and the grim diagnosis was confirmed, with hints of further complications. The leg went back into plaster, and Harvey was issued with crutches and forbidden to let his foot touch the ground. It was agreed at a conference consisting of Harvey, Joan, Clement, Bellamy and Louise, that it would be prudent, for the present, to keep Harvey in London near to the specialist who was dealing with his case. To the surprise of the others, Harvey had accepted this plan. He had, everyone said afterwards, more sense than they had realised! The walk over the bridge remained a secret however. Clement and Bellamy, present when Harvey telephoned his mother, noticed that he had simply told her that he had ‘jumped off something’. This now appeared to be the story as generally reported, and Clement and Bellamy did nothing to disturb it. They were easily able to imagine that Harvey did not want, with this outcome, to talk about the exploit which had given him so brief a moment of triumph.
‘You start, Moy, you’re the artist,’ said Aleph.
Laughing, sitting in the large armchair in the Aviary, Harvey rolled up his trouser leg and extended his heavy white plaster cast. Its weight, with every movement, still startled him. It was late evening, he and Clement had had supper with Louise and the girls.
The others stood watching while Moy, solemn, kneeling before him, armed with thick coloured crayons drew, round the top of the cast, a green wiggling design which turned out to be a caterpillar. Sefton, who was next, declined the privilege, declaring that the thing was already a work of art and should now be left alone. This was voted to be a negative spoilsport approach, the point being to cover the thing with random scribblings which would in the end, as Moy said, add up to a complex work of art. Aleph then quickly drew some sort of animal (‘It’s a dragon,’ said Sefton) then criss-crossed it out. ‘I can’t draw!’ ‘Anyway, it’s a something,’ said Moy. Louise, saying she couldn’t even manage a something, wrote in fine well-spaced capital letters – HARVEY GET WELL. Clement, sitting on the floor, drew a comical dog with a fancy hat and a sweeping line to make the dog say what Louise had written. Everyone laughed, Moy’s caterpillar was voted best, and all agreed it was a good start. Harvey, laughing longest, thanked them all.
The atmosphere, thick with love and goodwill, was slightly forced. The company was still suffering from shock. Harvey’s return had been so unexpected, after they had been resignedly bemoaning his absence and envying his luck. Of course his mishap was trivial, a ridiculous accidental fall, his recoyery would be rapid, Rosemary Adwarden, when she had broken her leg skiing, had been quite mobile after a few weeks. It was just that it was surprising, even embarrassing, to find Harvey back so soon and suffering from any ailment, it seemed quite out of character! It was also surprising that he had not insisted on setting off at once for Florence.
Harvey was a tall slim youth with glossy blond slightly curling hair which at school he had worn ridiculously long; more lately he had trimmed it to fall flowing back to a length just above the shoulder, and had allowed himself the adornment of a sort of fringe which, though derided, was at once said to suit him, producing that ‘raffish Renaissance look’ which was his intention. He had a pretty nose, and a pouting mouth not too full-lipped, criticised as feminine, dubbed by its owner ‘pensive’, contributing to a certain forward pressing eagerness and air of lively curiosity. His eyes were brown and large, able (amicably) to blaze, and when narrowed and laughing, to glow. He was said, by Emil, to resemble the kouros in the Copenhagen museum. When Harvey managed to find a photo of this handsome and powerful youth he was suitably gratified. He played tennis and cricket and squash, ran faster than most people, and was a good wrestler, though not as good as Clement, and a good dancer, though again not as good as Clement. He had often wrestled with Clement and on some occasions danced with him too. He was sweet-tempered and popular, though in some quarters thought to be conceited, and by his schoolteachers lazy and facile, able to excel but unwilling to exert himself in pursuit of perfection. His air of cheerful self-satisfaction was reassuring to some, irritating to others. Those who knew him little could scarcely have guessed that he had had any troubles in his life.
The affecting little scene round Harvey was breaking up a bit. Sefton, leaning against the books, looking up something she had suddenly remembered to look up, was tapping her square teeth with her fountain pen. Moy, who had been dusting Harvey’s cast with the fluffy end of her plait (known as ‘Moy’s magic whisk’) had left the room followed by Anax. Aleph, sitting at Harvey’s feet with her shoes off, was holding forth reassuringly about Rosemary’s experiences. Clement and Louise were standing at the window looking out at the evening rain.
‘So you arranged it all by telephone? That was clever of you.’
‘Yes,’ said Clement, ‘they left their telephone number with me.’
‘Everyone leaves their telephone number with you!’
‘And they left the keys, so it was easy.’
‘And they’re staying on in Greece and going to buy a house on an island?’
‘They’ were Clive and Emil, the gay pair alluded to by Joan Blacket. Clement had ‘cleverly’ arranged for Harvey to move into their flat while Joan was to continue occupying Harvey’s. This made sense as Emil’s flat was reached by a lift, and Harvey’s by several flights of stairs. Clive and Emil were a steady couple. Emil, the elder, was German but had lived a long time in London. He had been a picture dealer, and was said to be rich. He wrote books about art history which were published in Germany. Clive, Welsh, who said (presumably a joke) that Emil picked him up on a building site, had been a schoolteacher in Swansea.
‘Yes,’ said Clement, ‘but they’ll keep the London flat. I must say, I miss them, they are so entertaining and so sweet.’
‘Didn’t they make some advances to Harvey?’
‘No! They just pull his hair!’
‘You pull his hair too! Clement – any news of Lucas? Well, of course not, you would have told me.’
‘No news.’
‘My dear, I’m so sorry. I feel sure he’s all right. He’s such an eccentric creature. He’ll turn up.’
‘He’ll turn up,’ said Clement. ‘I just so – very much wish that he would.’
‘I know how close you are. I was thinking just the other day – remember that game you used to play with him in the basement when you were children. What was it called? It h
ad some funny name.’
‘ “Dogs”.’
‘Yes, of course, “Dogs”. Why did you call it that?’
‘I forget.’
As Louise turned away from the window Clement, looking out into the dark rainy street, saw something odd. A stout man in a trilby hat was walking slowly down the other side of the street, now folding his umbrella. The rain must be abating. He looked familiar. Clement thought, haven’t I seen that man before? He looks like that chap I saw a few days ago outside my place. He looked as if he were waiting for someone. He was about to say something about the man to Louise when something struck his foot. It was a red ball. As he stooped to pick it up a yellow ball followed, then a blue one, then more, reds, yellows, greens. Moy had fetched the ball box down from her room and was bowling them fast across the carpet, while with her other arm she restrained Anax. Swiftly Clement gathered the balls up, distributing them with magical ease about his person, Then moving into the middle of the room he began to juggle, with four balls, five balls, six balls, balls without number. The balls moved faster and faster, seeming to find their way, balanced upon air, making patterns which owed nothing to the juggler’s swift hands. And to Clement itself it was as if the creatures themselves, innocent of gravity, were playing like birds a weightless game around his head. How do I do it, he thought, how is it done? I don’t know what I’m doing. If I did know what I’m doing I would not be able to do it.
Louise, watching the spellbound children watching Clement, felt such a strange painful joy, tears came into her eyes.
A little later, Louise had descended to the kitchen where Sefton had already done the washing up. Moy, with Anax, had taken her beloved Clement up to her attic to show him a picture. Sefton was lying flat on the floor in the Aviary and thinking. Harvey was sitting on Aleph’s bed in her bedroom on the floor above. The room was small, accommodating a little desk, a chest of drawers, some shelves for books, a chair and a bed. Aleph’s dresses hung with Sefton’s in the large cupboard on the floor below. There was just enough space for Harvey’s knees not to touch Aleph’s as they sat facing each other.
‘Does it hurt?’
‘It itches.’
‘Rosemary’s itched too.’
‘When are you going on tour with Rosemary?’
‘November. She used to scratch inside it with a knitting needle.’
‘Can you lend me one?’
‘No one here knits. Perhaps I’ll buy you one.’
Harvey had got through the evening creditably. He had eaten and drunk plenty at supper, he had praised the artistic efforts on his cast, he had listened patiently to the account of Rosemary’s recovery, he had laughed at everyone’s jokes, watched Clement juggling and said ‘aaah!’ at the right moment. But his heart was heavy and black and painful within him and he felt humiliated and defeated and miserable and afraid. He hated the hot heavy cast and was appalled when Moy suggested painting on it, he found the idea sickening. The cast he was now wearing was his third, the one put on after the first examination in England having been removed so that the damaged foot and ankle could be viewed by some grander specialist. This specialist had now gone on holiday and Harvey gained the impression that the present cast had been put on hurriedly just to keep his foot ‘in a stable condition’ until someone could decide what on earth to do with it. What he deduced from the murmurs and glances of the doctors was that he was ‘an interesting case’. Broken bones were nothing. Trouble with tendons could go on forever. He had, moreover, gained the maddening information that if he had not walked on the damaged foot the situation would have been considerably better. He recalled how, out of sheer vanity and hurt pride, he had insisted on limping, instead of hopping, during the walk back to the car. The cast, even more uncomfortable than its predecessors, pinched his calf, there could be scarcely room for a knitting needle, his whole leg below the knee was burning hot, perhaps he was developing gangrene. His foot was persistently painful, he could not sleep, he felt exhausted and utterly alienated from himself. And all the time he lived with the taunting mirage of what might have happened, what should have happened if only at one little absolutely accidental moment he had not been such a damn fool. A ghostly caravanserai of images accompanied him of the happy free life in Florence which he had so long cherished in his imagination. His first real freedom. And all this bitterness had to be kept absolutely secret and the strain of doing so added to his misery, to have all that and to laugh too and pretend that there were things, that there was anything, which he could now enjoy! He had to keep up the externals of his well-known merry confident triumphant self while really he was not that self any more, but something tattered. His early realisation that he was seriously damaged had made him decide to give up Florence at once and not prolong a hope which repeated disappointments must in the end extinguish. It was this, and not ‘common sense’ which had made him assent so surprisingly to the urgings of Clement and Louise, and of his mother who had promptly told him not for heaven’s sake to go to Italy and run up endless medical bills when he could get better treatment for nothing in London. His upper lip trembled but there was no shoulder to lean on, no one could really understand how his life had changed and how he grieved over the wreckage of it which was so entirely his own fault. At his age, to be maimed, to be lame, never to play cricket and tennis again, never to dance again, with his perfect health some magical authority was gone forever. The two people who, in their imaginings, were nearest to him, Louise and Aleph, collaborated nobly with his miserable pride, stiffening him up, instead of, as he sometimes wished, encouraging him to break down! But of course they saw, and he resented this too, and felt ashamed before Aleph, unmanned, undone. Of course there were infinitely worse plights, he had good doctors and good friends, he might even get better, or if not, learn to ‘live with his disability’. But something even more profound appalled him, his terrible devouring self-pity, his fear, and that he, Harvey Blacket, so successful, so loved, could have such a fear. No, no one must guess how craven he was, how unprepared to face this first challenge to his adult being. He had often imagined how well he would behave in the army, how brave and unselfish he would be in a shipwreck, how he would endure poverty, deprivation, solitude, without whimpering. It was as if this affliction had come at him unfairly, under his guard, unaccompanied by the contextual dignities of the situations in which he had imagined himself so strong. But of course what was so dreadful about this was that he had so wantonly brought it upon himself.
Aleph was sitting opposite to Harvey upon a pale blue upholstered chair with padded arms. Behind her, leaning against her little desk, were his crutches. She was wearing a long dark brown tweed skirt and a close-fitting light brown jersey with little brown beads around its high collar. During the knitting needle conversation she had folded her hands, placing them, nestling within each other, between her breasts in the attitude which so irritated Harvey’s mother. She was staring at Harvey, her brow pitted, her dark eyes narrowed, with a look of calculating compassion. There was no doubt that she saw a great deal. But in the cramped vulnerability of the house, always it seemed full of people, there were few opportunities for long intimate conversations; and in any case she was still treating his wounded condition with a respectful caution.
‘How’s life at Emil’s flat?’
‘Luxe, calme et volupté.’
‘You keep warm?’
‘Oh yes! And what a kitchen! I think I’ll give a party.’
‘Are you all right? I know you’re not all right, but are you all right?’
Harvey understood this shorthand. ‘Yes. No, yes.’
‘How’s Joan.’
‘Fed up, brimming with energy.’
‘Does she mind staying on in your flat?’
‘No, she loves being inconvenienced and persecuted. I’m going to see her tomorrow. And maybe I’ll visit Tessa, see if she’s all right.’
An uneasy sensation always prompted Harvey to tell ‘the women’ when he went to see Tessa Mill
en. Not that there was anything ‘between them’. It was just that Louise and Aleph and Moy somehow ‘disapproved’ of Tessa. They had never ‘seen the point’ of her. Whereas Sefton liked her. Harvey was afraid of being detected making secret visits to Tessa which might be misconstrued. The result was these awkward declarations.
Aleph waved her hand, signifying absolution or perhaps indifference.
‘You look tired, Aleph – are you all right?’
‘Yes, no.’
‘Been writing more poetry?’
‘Nyet’.
‘Che cosa allora?’
‘Non so.’
‘Perchè?
‘I am just waiting. Now you must go.’
Much of their converse lay in such laconic exchanges, signifying perhaps an impasse in which, most of the time, they found themselves amazingly comfortable, even the lack of privacy suited them somehow. ‘It’s like being always on the stage,’ Aleph said once. But moments came when they had trampled the ground too much, nothing fresh was left, and they had to recover. They felt they knew each other too well. But also, and especially lately, they could announce that they had not yet discovered each other at all. ‘Yes, we are players, actors,’ Aleph said. Yet too they could agree that there was nothing in the world more natural than their mutual mode of speech. Now, it was as if her lassitude and his craven gloom came together, mingling like two opposing waves. A blue and green silk scarf was trailing over the back of Aleph’s chair and touching her shoulder like an honour. She moved, drawing it across her breast. Harvey leaned forward and took her unresisting hand.
Sounds from above suggested that Moy’s colloquy with Clement was over and they were now chatting on the landing.
Harvey and Aleph rose. Harvey reached out for his crutches. He said, ‘She loves Clement.’
Aleph opened her bedroom door. ‘Yes, she loves him. You know Moy will grow up to be an extraordinary woman.’