by Iris Murdoch
It is with the greatest distress and sorrow that I report to you the death of our patient Mr Peter Mir, who died quietly and peacefully yesterday evening. I hasten to bring you the sad news, since I know how much you and your children and friends cared about Mr Mir; and he for you, as he spoke of you all as his ‘family’. You will be consoled to know how very much your support and affection gladdened and enlivened the later days of his life. Hoping to recover, he spoke of you often and looked forward to a meeting which can now alas not take place. I am, I may say, well aware of the anxiety with which you parted from him on that evening. Let me assure you that his interests were, by our intervention, best served. He would not, in any case, have survived. It is indeed a miracle that, after the violent blow which he received, he has lived as long as he did. He was kept alive by his courageous will to accomplish certain ends (you will I think know what I refer to) and, these accomplished, he relaxed into a calm submission to an inevitable death. I write this letter to you, taking you as being the ‘mother’ of the ‘family’, and trust that you will, at your discretion, inform his other friends. He was, in his way, a great man, certainly a remarkable man, and within his last year found the affection and warm friendship for which he had so long craved. He was, in the end, after the amazing burst of energy of which you were all at times witnesses, exceedingly tired and ready to sleep. My colleague, Dr Richardson, joins me in sending our sincere sympathy.
With kind regards,
Yours sincerely,
Edward Fonsett
Clement said to the girls, ‘Peter Mir is dead.’ He put the letter down on the table. Sefton picked it up and read it, and passed it to Moy. Louise was sitting still, one arm stretched out on the table where she had reached to give Clement the letter. She was very pale, her eyelids drooping, her lips trembling and parted in a woeful grimace, as she gazed down at her other hand which lay upon her lap. She murmured, ‘Their fates are bound together.’
Clement said sharply, ‘Louise, don’t talk nonsense! As the doctor says, Peter was certain to collapse after all that manic activity. I expected this. We all did.’
‘I didn’t,’ said Louise.
Moy was crying. Louise began to cry. Sefton went out into the hall. Clement sat down beside Louise and drew her towards him, putting his arms around her.
Out in the hall, Sefton picked up the letters which were still lying there. There were two bills. Underneath, there was another letter, with a London postmark, addressed to Louise. Sefton recognised Aleph’s writing. She held it and stared at it. She moved on into her bedroom and closed the door. She sat upon her bed. She opened the letter.
Dearest dearest Louie,
I write this with grief, though also, as I shall explain, also with joy. I have never never wanted to hurt you, even the tiniest bit, and I know that what I have to say will hurt you – but I hope and believe that later on you will understand and be able to be glad in my gladness. I am sorry I am not writing a good letter – I delayed writing for reasons which will be plain, and now write in haste, as I know how worried you must be. I am going to America with Lucas. When you receive this letter I shall be there. He will take up a university post. (He has had lots of invitations.) I shall continue my studies. We shall be married. I have, all my life, been deeply in love with Lucas. He is the only person I could dream of marrying. I love him absolutely, he loves me absolutely. I know that we shall make each other happy. He has not known too much happiness in his life. I am daily and hourly glad to see how much happiness I can bring him now. Please please believe that our union is inevitable and will be happy. I am very sorry that I concealed all these things from you, and from Sefton and Moy. At first it was almost ‘too good to be true’ for both of us, and then, during the period in which Lucas was away, after the episode with Peter Mir, he just had to be alone. During this time we corresponded – he disguised his writing, I was so afraid one of them might be opened by accident! We have both of us gone through an ordeal in perfecting our relationship, which makes us now all the more certain of our felicity. This letter comes simply to bring the news, which, when the shock is over, you may not find after all so dreadful! We will meet again before long, dear dear Louie, you will come to America, you and Sefton and Moy will come, and we shall visit you in England. I know that you will forgive us, you will have to forgive us, and when you see us together you will know everything is right and good. Oh my dear mother, you desired my happiness, and Sefton’s and Moy’s. I hope and pray that they will, when the time comes, be as happy as I am, and I hope that you will always be happy because you are so good and so true, and that you will also and always be happy in my happiness.
We shall be moving about a bit, but when we have a settled address I will send it. Then please, my dear dear mother, write to me and say that you forgive me and that you wish us well! I am very sorry that my sudden departure may have caused you anxiety. I shall write later to Sefton and Moy. Give them my eternal love. And to you, with my eternal love,
Yours,
Aleph
Sefton closed her eyes. A violent flush burnt in her neck and blazed in her face. Holding the letter in her hand she bowed her head down to her knees. She groaned, she wailed. She gasped for breath. She stood up and looked out of the window. Outside it was frosty and still. The leaves had fallen from the trees. A few snowflakes were wandering in the quiet air. A great sword pierced Sefton’s heart. She too had loved Lucas with her own kind of deep secret love, and it seemed to her in this moment that, if he had asked her, she would have gone with him anywhere. She had treasured that secret love, never revealing to anyone her profound feelings about her great teacher, enlivened by the belief that, though he was utterly inaccessible, she, in her own humble way, was nearest to him.
Sefton, the soldier, threw back her head and checked tears. She thought, I have lost Aleph too, whom I love, yes, with an eternal love. We shall meet, but as strangers. It is the end of an era. A whole part of my life is torn away. And oh poor Louie, poor poor Louie. She went back into the kitchen.
Moy, still crying, was washing up. Clement was sitting beside Louise with his arm round her shoulder. Louise saw Sefton’s face and thrust Clement away. She took the letter which Sefton handed to her. Clement moved away and stood up. Moy moved from the sink, putting her hands up to her face. Louise read the first part of the letter and then put it down. ‘She has gone away with Lucas, they have gone to America, she is going to marry him.’
Clement said, ‘Oh no!’ and turned away and leaned his head against the wall. Moy sat down close beside her mother, caressing her arm and nestling against it.
Sefton, trembling and shuddering, sat down at the table and buried her face in her hands. Louise finished the letter and gave it to Moy, who read it. Moy passed the letter to Clement. Clement read it and then, afraid of the terrible silence, said to Louise, ‘Anyway, she’s safe and well and even happy!’ He went on wildly, ‘So I suppose now ordinary life can continue. We don’t have to worry about her any more. We’ve been mad for two days. Now we can be sane and get on with our own lives!’
Louise said, ‘Don’t blame her.’
‘I’m not blaming her,’ said Clement, ‘I’m sure no one here is blaming her – I’m just suffering from shock! I think she could have spared us these two days. Perhaps it didn’t occur to her that we’d worry!’ He added, ‘Isn’t it strange! Peter brought them together after all. Lucas couldn’t have endured Peter getting Aleph! As for all those letters, can they have been love letters? When did he decide to grab her, I wonder?’
Moy got up and went back to the sink and continued to wash the cups and plates and put them in the rack.
‘There now, look at Moy, she’s gone back to ordinary life already! And in a few minutes Sefton will return to her history books, and I shall go to my agent and get myself a job, any job. And Louise will go out shopping.’
The doorbell rang. Everyone jumped. Sefton ran to the front door. She called back, ‘It’s Harvey. I’ll tell him.�
�� She closed the kitchen door.
Louise gave a little moan and then began to sob. Clement moved in beside her. ‘Louise, stop crying, I command you. I love you. Here’s my handkerchief. Don’t cry so, I can’t bear it. I’m suffering from shock too!’
Louise, checking her sobs, said, ‘He will destroy her.’
‘Oh nonsense, how can we judge, they may just as well be very happy. Or else she may come back, she could come back tomorrow!’
Louise said, ‘She will never come back.’ Then, ‘I’m going up to my room. We must send the news around. Would you mind ringing the others and telling them about Aleph and about Peter? Tell them not to ring up and not to come round. I’m terrified somebody will come.’ She got up and ran up the stairs. From the upper landing she called down to the hall, ‘And then leave the telephone off the hook.’
‘Louise, wait, wait. What shall I tell them – I mean about Aleph – shall I just say that she’s written and she’s all right, or that she’s gone to America, or that she’s run off with Lucas, or what?’
Without hesitation Louise replied, ‘Say it all.’ Her bedroom door closed. It opened again. ‘And, Clement, please after that go home, will you. Don’t stay here. Go and see your agent, like you said. I’m very grateful to you. But please go home.’ The door closed again.
Sefton and Harvey emerged from Sefton’s room. Clement had forgotten about Harvey. He mechanically said, ‘Hello, Harvey.’ Sefton said, ‘Harvey and I are going for a walk. Please don’t go away, dear Clement, stay here with Louie.’ She stretched out her arms to him, clasping his shoulders, then hurried out of the front door, followed by Harvey.
Clement thought, I won’t go away, I’ll stay here. He turned to the telephone and rang Emil’s number. Clement said, ‘Emil, it’s Clement, I’m at Clifton, listen to two bits of news. Peter Mir has just died, we have a letter from the clinic. And we have a letter from Aleph, she is alive and well, she is in America with Lucas. Please could you tell Bellamy? He’ll be very upset about Peter I’m afraid. Also, I would be awfully grateful if you would telephone all this news round to the others, you know, the Adwardens, Cora, I think Joan is with her, Kenneth Rathbone, the people who were at the party, the people who called in yesterday. And please tell them all not to come round. Louise asked me to say this. I’m sorry to bother you, but I have a lot to deal with here.’
Emil replied, ‘How very terrible and surprising. I will do the telephoning. Bellamy is with me here. He will be very distressed, I am very distressed. And Tessa, we shall tell her too, yes? I have a telephone number for her. But what exactly is it with Aleph, is she with Lucas on some tour or scholarship, or in some other way?’
‘Time will show I expect. She says they’re going to be married. If you can just tell the others what I said.’
‘Oh, I will do so. How strange and frightful. Clement, I would like to see you soon, Bellamy will also want to see you soon. How is Louise?’
‘As you can imagine. I must ring off now. I am very grateful to you.’ Clement put down the receiver, then picked it up again and laid it down on the hall table. He stood still, holding his head in his hands. He felt hot tears rising in his eyes.
He went into the kitchen and finished the washing up and dried the china and the cutlery and put it all away once again. He came out into the hall and looked at the telephone which was lying like an amputated arm upon the table and fizzing slightly. He went up the stairs and looked in on the chaos in Aleph’s room, resulting from Pam and Tessa’s well-intentioned search for clues. He began to straighten out the bed and pick up the clothes from the floor. He was touching Aleph’s clothes which she had run away forever without. He went into the Aviary and lay down on the sofa. The house was silent.
Harvey and Sefton had reached the Green and sat down on a seat.
‘Why were you away the whole of yesterday?’
‘I’m sorry. I was so terribly upset.’
‘So was I. I nearly went mad.’
‘There was just too much, and I had to think. I felt I had to concentrate on Aleph. I thought I might find out something. Of course I didn’t.’
In fact Sefton had spent the day more or less randomly walking about London, as if she might actually meet Aleph. One strange thing was that in her wandering she had passed and looked at Lucas’s house. About this, of course, she said nothing.
‘You were avoiding me. I could have come with you.’
‘I wanted you to concentrate on Aleph too.’
‘You wanted me to be as it were alone with Aleph.’
‘Yes.’
‘I thought about you all day.’
‘But you must have thought about her too, about all the long years when you talked to her, you had a continuous conversation with her, you must have felt it would go on forever, you must have relied upon her more than on anyone, you must have loved her more than anyone, how can you not have loved her – ’
‘Those were children’s conversations. What they were really about was that it was impossible between us since we were brother and sister.’
‘You say that now. But she is so beautiful and so witty, I used to hear you both laughing so much, she must have pleased you so, she must have delighted and amused you so – ’
‘There was nothing deep.’
‘There must have been deep conversation, consoling and full of spirit, like you could have with no one else – ’
‘Don’t go on with this, Sefton. It just wasn’t there. We were children teasing each other.’
‘Yes, all right, but then you grew up. What was suddenly possible with me came as a complete surprise to both of us. That surprise could just as well have happened with her. I feel as if you have come to me by mistake, thinking I’m Aleph, as if I were wearing the head of Aleph over my head, like in myths or fairy stories when a god or a magician makes one person look like another person. And now people will think you turned to me just because you had lost her – ’
‘Stop, stop, wake up, don’t be so foolish and unkind! Give me your hand.’
She gave him her hand. She began to cry.
‘Sefton, darling, don’t be angry with me, don’t be cruel to me, I love you so much – ’
‘Yesterday, we didn’t know that Aleph had run away and that Peter was dead. And Peter dying just now – oh why did he die, why did we let him die, why didn’t we keep him with us – It’s so strange, and so weird and sad, Louie thought he would help us to find Aleph, she said their destinies were bound together.’
‘I wonder if she thought that Aleph might marry Peter. Perhaps Lucas thought that too – and now, well, who would have guessed – ’
‘Now it’s happened it may soon seem possible, likely, even necessary. Aleph was such a prize and he was such a pirate.’
‘My mother said that Aleph would be carried off by an older man, by a tycoon – well, I suppose Lucas qualifies – but how can they be happy? That seems impossible.’
‘I can see them as happy.’
‘Beauty and the Beast. Women love Beasts.’
‘Lucas can be – not like he seems.’
‘I was afraid of him. He was rather horrid to me when I was a child. I wanted to make peace with him, but I couldn’t. He haunted me like a sort of demon. Aleph used to quote a piece of Beowulf, I forget, about a shadow-goer who came in the night – that was Lucas – perhaps she already knew.’
‘Yes. So suppose she comes back with broken wings and a broken heart? Then you would feel guilty, then you would run to her.’
‘Sefton, please – oh my darling, don’t cry so – ’
‘Anyway, she wouldn’t come, she’s too proud, if she lost him she’d find someone else who was worthy of her. Oh Aleph, Aleph, my dear dear sister – everything has changed. I feel – just now – we’ re in a sort of no man’s land, a desert, a place of dust and ashes and awful mourning – it’s like being in retreat, or being punished or in prison or something.’
‘You mean we feel guilty. That must pass. We
must carry our love on through the darkness. Will you come back to my flat?’
‘No, I must go home. I’ve got to be with them. We’ll cry together.’
‘Will you tell them about us?’
‘Not yet, let’s wait – they’ve had enough shocks.’
‘You’re not having second thoughts, my love, my angel?’
‘I love you, I love you. We’ll say goodbye here, then I’ll run back to Clifton.’
‘Moy, I’ve brought you some coffee and biscuits.’
Clement, plucking up his courage, had knocked on Moy’s door. As there was no answer he had cautiously opened the door.
Moy was sitting on the bed, just as she had been on the previous day. Her long thick yellow plait was hanging forward over her shoulder and down onto her lap. The room smelt of paint. Clement put the cup and plate down on an empty shelf. Why empty? He saw, turning, that the floor round Moy’s feet was covered with stones. He thought, she has been crying, she has put her stones about her to comfort her.
Moy said, ‘Thank you, I don’t want coffee but never mind, thank you for the biscuits. Where is my mother?’
‘She is lying down.’
‘Is Sefton here?’
‘No, but she’s coming back soon. I’ll get you a cup of tea.’
‘No, thank you.’ She took hold of the end of her plait and began tugging it fiercely, looking at Clement with her royal-blue eyes which so reminded him of Teddy Anderson.
After a moment’s silence he thought he had better go, but then decided that he ought to stay. He had tended to avoid Moy because of her ‘crush’ and out of kindness to her, but now, seeing her so lonely and so desolate, he felt that he must think of something more to say.
He pulled a chair away from the wall and sat down, being careful not to put his feet on the stones. Moy, still playing with her plait, observed him with a grave sad look.
‘There’s a nice smell of paint. What have you been painting?’