by Iris Murdoch
Joan was explaining, ‘You see, Humphrey wanted us to live in America where his business is, and I wanted us to stay in England, so we couldn’t get anywhere, but do you know what suddenly arranged things for us? The Fax machine! With the Fax machine any businessman can live anywhere, so we’re going to buy a house in London and one in the country.’
Clement murmured, ‘The Fax machine, oh the Fax machine!’ Hook was explaining that his extra H stood for Harold, and that his ancestors were Scandinavian, and that he and Joan were going to have their honeymoon in Norway. They drank the champagne and toasted one another and tears came into the eyes of all the women and also into Harvey’s eyes. They stood in Cora’s big drawing-room, moving among themselves as in a dance, no one sat down. Joan said, ‘All we need now is Bellamy marrying Emil!’ The word ‘happiness’ was often used, although, since they were all in their own ways sober and reflective people, each one wondered for a moment or two what it was and how they were destined to achieve it. (At least one thought for a second, ‘Am I mad?’) Cora alone felt detached, her fate was not in the balance. She thought, I am always helping other people to be happy (for these were not the only matches which she had facilitated). But I can never be happy without my Isaac. Better not to think about happiness at all. Cheerfulness will do. And I do like looking after people. It was Cora also who, with the dead in mind, suggested they should all drink a toast to Peter Mir. As they, more solemnly did this, Clement said suddenly, ‘How strange, do you remember that drink which we had at Peter’s place before dinner, that “special”? Now we see what it was – it was a love potion!’ And Joan said, ‘It’s as if all spells are broken and we are all set free!’ Everyone laughed, then became solemn, thinking of Lucas and Aleph. There was no toast to them, and no one mentioned their names. Before they all parted, Humphrey Hook took Harvey aside and spoke to him gravely, saying he much looked forward to their being good friends, and that he would do everything in his power to make Harvey’s mother very happy. He also captivated Sefton, calling her his stepson’s lovely bride. Harvey, cautiously ready to like Hook, thought: Maman said Sef would keep me in order. I think this man will keep maman in order!
Meanwhile at Clifton, not long after they had left, Moy was busy struggling with a pair of scissors. She was trying to cut her long golden plait off at the nape of her neck. It was not easy. The scissors were rather blunt. She did not unplait the hair, as it would be harder to deal with spread all about. The closely interwoven mass of hair, so thick at the top, resisted her, it did not want to be cut. Moy went downstairs to the kitchen and found the big kitchen scissors. She was ready to try the secateurs next, only at last she could feel the dense stuff giving way, coming away, parting, yielding bit by bit to the steady tugging of her left hand. The scissors made a strange sound, partly a little shrill, partly a deep hissing shearing sound. She kept on steadily sawing, keeping the blades at work, until suddenly the whole long thick thing came away in her hand and she could look at it, hanging heavy and drooping and dead before her. She climbed back up to her bedroom carrying the severed plait. She did not know what to do with it. She threw it into the basket in the corner with the cushion in it, which she had left untouched since Anax left.
‘But how did you get in?’ said Bellamy to Kenneth Rathbone at The Castle. It was early and the pub was empty.
‘I climbed in by a window at the back. I planned it before, did myself up shabby in overalls and carried some tools. A cobber in a white coat saw me, but he thought I was a maintenance man! Then it was dead easy. There was a big board with the names and the numbers of the rooms. I just slipped in. It was more than half an hour before the nurse found me!’
‘He was glad to see you?’
‘He was! He held my hand. He asked after all of you. He wondered why you didn’t visit him.’
‘Oh God!’
‘I told him the docs said we mustn’t come.’
‘But you came. How I wish – ’
‘We had such a talking, I’ve never had such a talk, we could have gone on for hours.’
‘Of course you must have got to know him well when he was living here.’
‘Fairly, but he was still a bit of a mystery man, I couldn’t make him out. You know, at the start I thought he was a criminal hiding from the police!’
‘What did you talk about, I mean when you saw him at the clinic?’
‘Oh he fairly poured it out, all sorts of things, about himself.’
‘About himself? What things?’
‘Well, he said it was between him and me.’
‘Surely he wouldn’t mind your telling me. Did he know he was dying?’
‘I don’t know. He said, “I’m going home!” but what he meant by that I don’t know, might have meant anything, mightn’t it?’
‘You said you couldn’t figure him out at the start. But what did you make of him later on?’
‘I don’t know. I think he’s some sort of holy being. Or was, I should say, I can’t think of him as not existing.’
‘Nor can I. I think of him as an avatar, I mean an incarnation, a pure sinless creature, a very special visitor to this awful scene, like an angel – I can’t express it.’
‘You’ve expressed it very well, mate. But who’s going to believe us? Perhaps he’ll come back – but not in our time. Same again?’
‘No, thanks, I’ve got to start to pack up – ’
‘So you’re off to the seaside.’
‘Yes, to my cottage. I tried to sell it, but fortunately no one bought it. I’d like you to come down and stay, and we could go on talking about Peter – ’
‘Yes, you wanted to be a monk, didn’t you. My mother wanted me to be a monk.’
‘Really? So you are a Catholic?’
‘Yes, or was. Now I’m a publican and sinner.’
‘I’ll call in again when I’m back, I do want you to tell me – ’
‘Well, you’ll have to make it snappy, I’m leaving here next week.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry – ’
‘Yes, it’s shift, boys, shift. I’m going home too. I’m going back to dear old Oz where I belong, where the sky is where it ought to be, way up far above in heaven, not sitting on top of your head the way it is here.’
5
THEY REACH THE SEA
Bellamy had intended to be alone with Anax in his cottage beside the sea, but after a quick preliminary visit he had found the house intact and unburgled, yet cold and solitary and sad. So, impulsively, he had asked Clement and Louise and of course Moy, and Emil, to come and stay. Emil, detained by picture business, was yet to arrive. He wrote letters to Bellamy every other day. The others had already come. Harvey and Sefton were in Italy, endowed with holiday money by Harvey’s new father. A somewhat confused and perfunctory Christmas was over. Now it was January.
The square squat stone-built house stood near to the estuary of a little foaming stream as dark as Guinness. The thick grass, cropped by black-faced sheep, sloped down to orange and grey and black speckled rocks with little foothold steps and innumerable pools containing tiny fish and anemones, undisturbed it seemed by frequent high tides. Beyond, the beach was heaped with dark grey stones streaked with white geometrical patterns, each one unique, and huge old greenish oyster-shells, ossified, fossilised, adorned by the pale stony droppings of prehistoric worms. Brown ever-wet seaweed banded the lower levels of the tide, continually raked by the grim powerful grey waves with their bitter grinding undertow. Inland, at all seasons, the misty rain descended upon the huge forest trees, pines and firs and great yews and ancient tangled graceful oaks.
Bellamy was tormented by his conversation with Kenneth Rathbone. If only it had never happened, if only it had not occurred to him, consumed by a desire to talk with someone about Peter, to go that morning to The Castle. A little later, and Kenneth would have gone, and he would never have known, never have received that torturing picture of Kenneth by Peter’s bedside, holding his hand. Why had not he had the wit and the s
ensibility and the consuming love to climb through a window and find Peter and hold his hand and kiss his hand, and then be told those wonderful precious things which now he would never know? Just two days later Bellamy had come running back to The Castle, but Kenneth had already gone, back to the land where the sky is where it ought to be, leaving no address and taking all those precious secrets with him. I would have understood, thought Bellamy, as he prepared to go to bed. I would have known what to ask him, he would have been able to say much more to me, and been sure that I would be able to think about it, to treasure it, to use it, to teach it. He may have thought of me as his messenger to the world. After all, he said I was his secretary. Perhaps, oh God, he was waiting for me! Oh if only all that had happened, all that he promised me, how I was to be with him and help him, I can’t stop picturing it as it might have been! He said to me, ‘All these things are shadows.’ He could have shown me the reality. Now I am devoured by the demons of remorse, I think hideous thoughts, I shall be ill again, the old depression will come back. It is all my fault, I could have saved him, I could have rescued him, I just lacked courage, I lacked imagination. He was an angel, I saw him bathed in light, I saw him transfigured. All this I have lost by accident, and it is as if I killed him by accident. He will be belittled and forgotten, I can see this happening already, they are diminishing him, calling him mad, letting his image fade into something pitiful and banal. He was too great and strange for their little world. He said to me, ‘Later, you will be with me.’ Perhaps he simply meant that he would survive. Oh if only I had proof – but what of?
Bellamy took a sleeping-pill and crawled into bed. Anax, already in the bed, snuggled up against him. Stroking the dog’s warm body Bellamy thought: Anax too will die.
It was the morning of the next day. Bellamy had gone for a walk with Anax. Moy was out climbing among the rocks and inspecting the stones. Clement and Louise, now man and wife, were still at the breakfast table. They were, as they kept on saying to each other, very tired. They had been through too much. Clement had hurried the matter through as fast as possible. They were married in a registry office, also present being Sefton, Moy, Harvey, and Bellamy. After the ceremony they all drank champagne with Connie and Jeremy, also present being Rosemary, Nick, Rufus, Emil, Cora and Tessa. Joan and Humphrey had also got married in Florida, chez Humphrey’s mom. Tessa, invited as an old friend in spite of her dubious role in the abduction of Peter, was now a medical student. She advised Bellamy to consider this profession, it was not too late. Clement and Louise sent a cable to Aleph and Lucas announcing their marriage and received a cable by return bearing suitable congratulations. Louise had attempted, but failed, to write a letter. No answer had yet come from Aleph, though perhaps there was one waiting at Clifton. Louise dreaded that letter. She felt she knew what serene palliatives it would contain.
‘Moy is being sensible, isn’t she.’
‘You mean not moping about your having stolen me away?’
‘She is quite natural with you, more than before. And cutting off her hair makes her look older.’
‘You thought it signified the end of the cult of me.’
‘Have you noticed how much she looks like Teddy with her hair cut? I wonder what she did with that long thick snake of golden hair.’
‘One cannot ask.’
‘Sefton has become more beautiful too. Perhaps she always was, only she had that remote austere look. Now she is gentle and loving and everything shines.’
‘Yes, they are transfigured. And you, my darling, have also secured Harvey.’
‘It was clever of you to guess how much I always wanted Harvey.’
‘And he has acquired a lovely mother-in-law and a rich step-father.’
‘Suppose Mom vetoes Joan.’
‘She won’t. Joan will charm her. Joan will love America, she will become an American, she is naturally American.’
‘Oh Clement – there is so much to make us happy, but so much that is terrible and awful and black. I sometimes think I shouldn’t have burdened you with so much – absolute grief. It’s the feeling of death, there have been three deaths – ’
‘You mean Peter and Lucas and Aleph.’
‘When we were at Cora’s you said that Peter had given us a love potion which set us all free to love and be happy – but how can we be happy, how can we ever be happy now? Peter didn’t die for anything, he died accidentally, senselessly – he appeared out of a mystery which I have never understood, and now he has vanished leaving all this behind – if he had not appeared Lucas would not have coveted Aleph – ’
‘If he had not appeared I should probably be dead – but never mind that!’
‘And your marrying me makes any reconciliation with them impossible forever. I can’t bear having lost Aleph, I can’t bear it, I dream she is with me, I wake up and think she is here, but she isn’t and never will be – and I am burdening you with all this and it will poison you. Oh why can’t we be happy – ’
Clement moved his chair up close to his wife and put his arms around her and hugged her fiercely. Her head was against his shoulder and the torrent of her tears was soaking his jacket. This was not the first time since his marriage that he had received this speech and these tears. He had been suddenly so purely blindly happy when Louise had come to him in the theatre. Why had not this happened earlier, he wondered, long ago. Well, it was wonderful that it was happening now. All that had seemed impossible, too late, a dream, had suddenly become possible, even natural and inevitable. But now all this had to be lived through, seeing her weeping, overcome by misery and terror, biting her hands to choke back her sobs, giving way to frenzies of grief which, however, she indulged only when alone with Clement. After several of these fits Clement was seriously frightened, though also relieved by the control which enabled her to smile at Bellamy and Moy, and take an interest in Bellamy’s chaotic kitchen, of which she was now mistress, and train the others to separate the knives, forks and spoons and the big plates from the little plates and to put the pretty crockery away for special occasions. Also going shopping in the distant village, where Clement always accompanied her, seemed a consolation and a return to reality. He thought, I had not realised how much Aleph was her favourite, like her flagship, her front to the world. She was so proud of Aleph, of Aleph’s magnificence, though she must have felt perpetual deep anxiety about what the future held. And he thought, she has something about Luc, which probably she will never tell me, and anyway I don’t want to know, there’s some terrible twist of the screw there. She’s going through it, facing all the worst things, the things that can’t be explained, all the shattered hopes and the remorse and the demons, and she’s working it all out on me, and I hope and pray and believe she’ll recover, she’ll tire, she’ll fall down exhausted, and then I shall pick her up and carry her home. In bed with her was good. He had feared, when he realised how strong the demon of grief was in her, that it might be otherwise, that she might have built up some defensive dislike, even horror, of the idea of sex. This possibility had disturbed him deeply even earlier on when his love for her, which had always been alive though quiescent, had suddenly and prophetically wakened and increased. But on the first night she had said, ‘We are in heaven, and it is all silent.’ They discussed calmly and sensibly Aleph’s second letter and Louise’s reply. It was when they had come to the sea, even, Clement felt, at the sight of the sea, Louise had begun more violently to enact, in her soul and body, the deep horror of all that had happened. Clement, but briefly, had thought that this sickness might bring upon her that very revulsion of which he was so afraid. But it was not so, she gave herself to him now not quietly but wildly, desperately, as one rushing out into a tempest. Sometimes, however, in the night, when she rested with him and he held her and protected her, he could feel as if they were floating upon vast calm waters.
Louise, moving away from him, mopped her face with Clement’s large white handkerchief which she had taken from his pocket, then blew her nose.
She went on, ‘I think Moy is going mad.’
‘You said she is sensible!’
‘It’s probably my madness. She cried so terribly when she broke that plate. She cries a lot. Well, so do I. I keep thinking about Teddy. How terribly quickly things go away into the past and people become ghosts, first vivid ghosts, then pale ghosts, then just names, then – nothing.’
‘We shall always think about Teddy.’
‘Yes, that is an eternal wound. I was thinking about Peter. He is vanishing already. Of course we never really knew him. It’s as if he were made of some sort of soluble material, he crumbles away.’
‘I think we never felt that he was real at all, he was an intruder, he ought to have been somewhere else, it was all a mistake, he didn’t belong to our scheme of things at all, like some bizarre instrument of justice, coming from some other court upon some other planet.’
And so, thought Clement, we betray him, we explain him away, we do not want to think about him or puzzle about him or try to make out what he was in himself. Bellamy thinks he is an angel, and I am glad he thinks so, that may preserve him for a while in some form of being. But for the rest of us he is an embarrassment, as if something huge and strange has shot up in our midst and we simply cannot conceptualise it and so we imagine that it isn’t there, like the New Zealand natives who could not conceptualise Captain Cook’s ship and simply ignored it. Perhaps we are surrounded with such beings, heavenly or demonic, for whom we have no concepts and who are therefore invisible. We may indeed diminish Peter and make him into a mere nightmare or a retired butcher – but really he is something alien and terrifying. After all, the Green Knight came out from some other form of being, weird and un-Christian, not like Arthur’s knights. But he was noble and he knew what justice was – and perhaps justice is greater than the Grail. Lucas came to understand him, and indeed they understood each other, it was as if they were bound together. Peter saved my life, he gave his own life for mine. And Clement recalled vividly, as he was destined to continue to do, their first tragic meeting – and with it the image of Lucas and Peter, after Lucas’s ordeal and after Clement had fainted, the two sorcerers, delighted with each other, dancing together like goats in a love-scene. Now he remembered suddenly, as something indissolubly connected, Peter saying, his last words spoken to him: ‘Look after your brother.’ These words had impressed Clement deeply, inscribed upon his heart. Well, he thought, I tried to look after him, but it wasn’t possible. Did I ever really try? Then for the first, but not for the last time, it occurred to him: perhaps these words can refer to the future. And he thought, I shall go on blindly and secretly jumbling all these things together and making no sense of them as long as I live. Maybe every human creature carries some such inescapable burden. That is being human. A very weird affair.