by Iris Murdoch
There were no taxis. He found the nearest underground station. At the other end (not many stations) he had a little way to walk. Why had he felt compelled to deliver the Rolls first, to ‘get it off his hands’? He had wasted time during which that thing might be lying there waiting to be found. He hurried. He saw his own little black Fiat sitting there (with a parking ticket). The sun was shining, appearing intermittently between plump greyish clouds which were being bowled along by an east wind. There was a clear light. Some work was being done upon the building-site. The cement-mixer was hurling its contents to and fro, a small bulldozer had appeared. Some way ahead, beyond the gravelled path and the shrubs and smaller trees, the great Wellingtonias were visible. Everything was visible. The place was still there, present in the sunshine, instead of being hidden far away in darkness in the confines of some tragic opera. Clement felt sick, anguish squeezed his heart. He must find the thing, take it away and burn it, char it out of recognition, torture it. Holding his hand to his painful heart he moved under the dark graceful boughs of the trees. Here was the place, the little clearing, the space above it where the innocent clouds were now obscuring the sun. There was nothing there. He looked, he searched, turning over twigs and leaves and kicking the earth. Had he expected to find it lying there with blood on it? Oh why had he not come earlier! Where was the cursed thing now? He would have to keep waiting for time to show, or not to show. He decided to go and see Lucas, but he dreaded the prospect. He began to walk back to the road, taking a different, he thought quicker, route. As he came to a space of mown grass he saw children playing, laughing and running after a ball. Nearby on a seat two adults were watching them. A boy, aged about twelve, was playing with two slightly younger girls. They were playing with the ball, the girls tossing it to the boy who was skilfully hitting it in various directions with his bat. With his bat. Clement stopped. Yes – that was it. He thought, I must take that evil accursed thing away from those children. But he stood there watching and did not move. Suddenly the ball, a green tennis ball, came speeding in his direction. He picked it up and threw it back. The children waved to him. The adults waved too. Clement waved back. He watched the game. The two adults rose and called the children. Laughing and talking they all trooped away through the trees, the boy carrying his trophy with him. Clement followed him for a while at some distance. They emerged onto the road through a gate in railings, and climbed into a big car with a Belgian number plate. Clement watched the car out of sight. Then he went to find his own car. He got into it and laid his head down on the steering wheel. Tears came into his eyes.
3
MERCY
Bellamy was standing in the drive looking at Peter’s house. After making two vain telephone calls he had at last reached Clement who said he had been out returning the Rolls. Clement had also given him Peter’s address. Bellamy had arrived by taxi. It was now nearly eleven o’clock. Bellamy noticed, as Clement had done, the curtains drawn in the upstairs bedroom. Bellamy felt exhausted and torn by his fears, and by the misery of not having been able to reach Clement. Now, seeing the drawn curtains, he felt horror. He thought, how am I now to go into the future, how will I be able to endure this dreadful thing which is about to happen to me, and the remorse which will torture me for the rest of my life. Oh God, why didn’t I stay with him! What’s the use of knocking at the door? No one will answer.
The sun was shining. He walked, hearing his feet crunch upon the rain-wet gravel. He stood at the door. He found a bell and pressed it. Nothing. He waited. He rang again, a long ring. The door opened. Peter Mir said, ‘Oh Bellamy, good, I was hoping you would come.’
Not many minutes later Bellamy was sitting in Peter’s kitchen, eating ham and eggs, to be followed by toast and marmalade, and drinking delicious hot coffee. Bellamy had given up, together with various other things, breakfast, indeed just lately had eaten little except bread and tinned beans. He was now faint with relief and could not stop smiling and saying ‘Oh good heavens!’ or ‘Who would have thought it!’ The knowledge that Peter was pleased to see him shone about him like a continuous warm clear light.
Peter, dressed in trousers and shirt, his bare feet in slippers, looked younger, his curly bright brown hair which grew so smoothly down the back of his neck, glowing in the sunshine, his dark grey eyes luminous under his copious furry eyebrows. His high forehead was unlined, his smooth plump cheeks glowed like polished apples, his thick well-formed lips were parted, smiling, sometimes trembling with some concealed emotion. Standing at the end of the table and leaning over it he occasionally, probably unconsciously, lifted his end from the ground, as he looked down upon Bellamy breakfasting. He had, he explained, got up late and already been out shopping, he was so glad he had not missed Bellamy, but of course they would have met very soon anyway. The kitchen window was wide open, there was a glimpse of tall trees in a garden, all the windows visible to Bellamy as he came into the house were open. The sun shone on the garden, it shone into the kitchen – and it seemed to Bellamy that he had never before seen Peter except in dark places.
Of course Bellamy did not reveal his anxiety, now blown so entirely away and almost forgotten, about Peter’s ‘sleep well’ and the curtained window. He explained that he would have come earlier only he did not know the address, and how he had gone about trying to find a telephone box, and anyway Clement was away returning the Rolls. He felt, as he spoke so readily and easily to his smiling host, the words tumbling over each other with merry eagerness, I am chattering, I am like a child telling its day to a loving parent! As he watched Bellamy, Peter kept laughing, and then Bellamy laughed too.
Bellamy said, ‘You know, this is not very far away from where I used to live, only you live in the rich part! Why, that’s how you found Anax – he was making his way back to my old flat!’
‘Yes, that was a great thing, it opened the door. I shall say more about this later. So you all got back safely last night?’
‘Oh yes – ’
‘And Lucas, how did he get back, did he drive Clement’s car?’
‘Oh no, he doesn’t drive. He got a taxi.’
‘It was rather a – confused scene. I must have startled you, falling over like that. You and Clement were very kind to bring me back here.’
‘Not at all, we were glad to help, of course we were terribly worried, but – ’
‘Bellamy, do you mind telling me what exactly happened last night?’
Bellamy had not expected this. He was silent, dropping his eyes and bowing his big head. He took off his glasses and put them on the table, and took firm hold of a lock of his straw-coloured hair. He had been so continuously anxious about Peter’s welfare, about whether Peter was alive or dead, last night, he had not reflected upon ‘what had happened’ or attempted to determine what had happened. He realised however in this moment as he laid down his glasses that he had intuitively known what had taken place. They had spoken beforehand about a ‘metamorphosis’, a visitation, something like a miracle. He had for a moment seen Peter as an angel. It was as if his holy, other-worldly, body had been for a second revealed. He had burned and glowed. That was the change which had been, for a moment, too much for his worldly body, so that thereby he might indeed have died. This was what had happened: this and what this meant and would bring to pass. But if Peter himself did not know it, how could Bellamy tell him? He raised his eyes, dreading to see Peter now anxious, uncertain, relying suddenly upon Bellamy. But Peter looked calm and untroubled, gazing a little quizzically at Bellamy, someone who has asked a question to which he knows the answer. Bellamy thought, he is testing me.
He said, ‘Peter, I think you know what happened. Something extraordinary, something miraculous happened.’
Peter, still looking quizzical, raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh? Like what?’
‘Like the road to Damascus.’ This comparison had only just occurred to Bellamy.
Peter laughed. He said, ‘Oh, that – ’
‘You died and rose again. You became
an angel.’
‘Well, we may return to these matters later. There is something important, not unrelated.’
‘What is that?’
‘You have not asked me what I have remembered.’
Bellamy had indeed forgotten Peter’s words which he had whispered to him when they parted last night. He had forgotten simply because minutes later he was overwhelmed by the idea that Peter was going to kill himself. He now thought, what he remembered may be some terrible thing, something which may destroy him – he felt himself blushing and he put his hand to his throat. He said humbly, ‘I am very sorry.’
‘You see, whatever we may think about last night, it did bring about one of the things which it was supposed to bring about. And it may prove to have brought about the other thing as well.’
‘Please tell me what it is that you have remembered?’
‘God.’
‘What?’
‘God – I have remembered God.’
This vast statement should have shaken Bellamy and, as he realised later, made him bow his head in reverence. But alas at that moment his instant thought was, after all, he is mad. He stared at Peter owlishly, his mouth open, as if something very banal had been said to which one might answer, ‘Oh, really.’ Bellamy struggled for words.
Peter watched him with amusement. He gave the table a final shake and then sat down. ‘Don’t worry, dear Bellamy, all will be explained. No, not all, much will be explained if we have time, and why should we not have time? I will tell you soon what is of immediate importance – for there are, after this – miraculous, if you like, return of my memory, things which must be done soon – and you must help me do them.’
‘I will do anything for you. But what do you mean by God, how does one forget God and then remember him?’
‘You told me that you wanted to enter a religious house.’
‘Yes. But now I have decided not to.’
‘I also have sought enlightenment, not in Christianity, but in Buddhism. When I was young I was wild and wanton, I was very selfish, full of greed, full of envy and jealousy, hurtful to others. Then I felt suddenly that I must change, I must change myself or die, change by dying to my awful self. I was fortunate at that time to meet a holy man, a Buddhist, now alas dead, and I spent a time living far away from the world – I will tell you more of this later – then, still following the Buddhist discipline, I returned to the world – ’
‘But Buddhists don’t believe in God.’
‘In a personal God, no. I used the word as a brief way of indicating a spiritual path.’
‘Do not seek for God outside your own soul.’
‘Yes. So speaks Eckhart. As Buddhists speak of the Buddha in the soul. As Christians might speak of the Christ in the soul.’
‘But you are Jewish.’
‘What is that “but” doing? I am a Jewish Buddhist. Judaism too seeks God in the soul. Not in a man-made man-like idol. Remember the Second Commandment. It is too often ignored.’
‘But, Peter – ’
‘I am now simply trying to explain what it was that I had forgotten. I simply did not remember the years I had spent as a Buddhist, it was as if all had been compressed together and I was the same as the “angry young man” of my youth. I could feel the continual pressure of what had been lost, I felt it as a strange dreadful presence.’
‘But could you not get help, you are a psychoanalyst, you must have known such cases of amnesia, you could have asked some colleagues, some friend – ’
‘Yes, yes, seek help, that sounds easy. But I did not know what I was seeking, and sometimes I feared it might be some horror, as if I too had committed a crime and deliberately forgotten it. And during this time I was also obsessed by grief at what I knew I had lost, my ability to do my work, and by my passionate desire for revenge. I was consumed by hatred.’
‘Yes – I see – how strange – Buddhists say that enlightenment is found by a blow – ’
‘My dear, I have never been near enlightenment, I am just a beginner! And certainly that blow took away the little light which I had. That is what I meant by forgetting God.’
‘But, you see, the first blow took it away – the second blow brought it back. Last night you were struck down, an angel struck you, and you became that angel – I saw you become very tall, I saw your spiritual being – ’
Peter laughed, ‘You speak wildly. If an angel was present it was Lucas.’
‘Lucas?’
‘An angel is a messenger of the divine, a messenger is an instrument, sometimes an unconscious one.’
‘So it was right to act it all again – Peter, Peter, do you remember how in that pub, The Castle, when I first talked with you, I said I wanted you to enter my life, enter my heart, with a great beating of wings like an angel. Oh now let me be with you! I asked you for a sign, and a sign has been given. Let me be your patient, let me be your servant, heal me – ’
‘Stop, please, stop! I need to heal myself. Yes, we shall talk later and be together. I said there were things to be done, and here I need your help.’
‘I will do anything for you.’
‘Listen. First I must make peace with Lucas. I said earlier that that strange encounter, our second event, had brought about one good thing, the recovery of my memory. Now, soon, I hope it may bring about another good thing, our reconciliation.’
‘You mean you don’t hate Lucas any more or want revenge – ?’
‘Those things have gone away. The light has shone upon them and they are shadows, they are gone. I do not want anything except peace. Listen. Today I shall send a letter to Lucas informing him of the change – the metamorphosis – and suggesting that we meet.’
‘What can I do today – may I stay here?’
‘You can do nothing today. Just go away and keep your mouth shut. Tomorrow – ’
‘Tomorrow – ’
‘Tell Clement what has happened. And – also – ’
‘Also?’
‘Those ladies – ’
‘The Clifton ladies.’
‘I want you to tell them too. Tell Louise, tell Alethea. I mean – tell them I have recovered my memory. But – I think – not about last night. That might upset them.’
Bellamy had, at Clifton, on the evening of the following day, a spellbound audience. The meeting took place in Sefton’s room so that Anax, shut up in Moy’s room, should not hear Bellamy’s voice. The kitchen might have been more convenient, only the kitchen door did not shut properly, was indeed scarcely a door at all. The little room was crammed. The folding table, together with a lot of books, had been put out in the hall. Bellamy sat on a chair placed against the bookshelves which were beside the window. Louise sat upon another chair, Clement and Aleph and Sefton sat on the bed, Moy and Harvey on the floor. Many books were under the bed. In the morning Bellamy had gone straight to Clement’s flat where they had talked for a long time, and it was agreed that Clement should be present when ‘the ladies’ were told.
Bellamy had taken off his round glasses and was holding them in his hand like some tool of instruction. He was in black and white as usual. His old black jacket had with age acquired a greenish patina. He had searched in vain for a clean shirt. He had been moving his big round head to and fro as he talked, turning his amiable pale brown eyes upon each of his hearers in turn. What he said had (as Sefton put it later) sounded more like teaching than like revelation – it was as if he had known it all since long ago. Now it was question time.
‘You mean he had been practising this religion, or whatever it is, for years and forgot it all?’ said Louise.
‘Yes.’
‘How many years?’
‘Well – I don’t know. Some time. You see, lapses of memory like his often work like that. You can remember all kinds of ordinary things but not important things. Like shell-shocked people in wars who forget who they are or who they’re married to and so on.’
‘Yes,’ said Harvey, ‘that does happen. I saw a film about
it.’
‘So he forgot he’d been good?’ said Moy.
‘Did he also forget how to be good?’ said Sefton.
Harvey and Aleph laughed.
‘I don’t know,’ said Bellamy. ‘I think he’s always been good. But don’t let us argue about that.’
‘I think it’s an important point,’ said Sefton. ‘I suppose now he’ll go back to psychoanalysis.’
‘And he told you and Clement all this at his house?’
‘What’s his house like?’ said Harvey.
‘Posh,’ said Bellamy. ‘A big house with a garden all round and lots of big rooms. I didn’t see much of it.’