The Nice and the Good

by Iris Murdoch

  “What did he die of?” said Ducane in the soft coaxing voice.

  Mary was silent. A black wall rose up in front of her. She was coming nearer and nearer and looking into the blackness. She stared into it, she entered it. She said in an almost dreamy voice, “He was run over by a car one evening just outside our house. I saw it happen.”

  “Oh—I’m sorry—was he—killed at once?”

  “No.” She recalled his cries, the long wait for the ambulance, the crowd, the long wait in the hospital.

  “I’m sorry, Mary,” said Ducane. “I’m being—”

  “It was the accidentalness of it,” she said. “Sometimes I’ve nearly gone mad just thinking of it. That it should be so accidental. If I’d just said another sentence to him before he went out of the room, if he’d just stopped to tie his shoe lace, anything, and oh God, we’d just been quarrelling, and I let him go away without a word, if I’d only called him back, but he went straight out all upset and the car went over him. If he’d died of an illness or even been killed in the war somewhere far away where I couldn’t know I could have felt it was inevitable, but to have him killed there accidentally in front of my eyes, I couldn’t bear it, I’ve never told anyone how he died, I told Kate and Paula he died of pneumonia and I told Pierce that too. Pierce slept through it all in an upstairs room. I loved him, of course I loved him, but never quite enough or in the right way, and I haven’t been able to think of him properly since, and it’s somehow because of that awful accident, because things were cut off in that particular way, it made all our life together seem meaningless, and I haven’t been able to feel properly about him, it’s as if he were changed into some awful ghost with which I can’t make any peace. I remember an awful feeling I had when I was going through his clothes afterwards as if he were watching me, all sad and deprived and unappeased, and I’ve had that feeling since, it comes at odd times in the evening, and I feel as if he still wants my love and I can’t give it to him. I see his faults and his weaknesses now and what made me love him has faded utterly. It’s terrible that one doesn’t love people forever. I should have gone on loving him, it’s the only thing I can do for him any more, and I have tried, but one can’t love in a void, one can’t love a sort of nothing for which one can’t do anything else, and there’s nothing left any more except the novel and that’s so terribly silly and yet it’s him in a way. If only it hadn’t happened like that, so suddenly and all by chance, he walked straight out and under the car. You see, so few cars came down our road—”

  “Don’t cry so, Mary,” said Ducane. He moved beside her on to the bed and put an arm round her shoulder. “Chance is really harder to bear than mortality, and it’s all chance my dear, even what seems most inevitable. It’s not easy to do, but one must accept it as one accepts one’s losses and one’s past. Don’t try to see him. Just love him. Perhaps you never altogether knew him. Now his mystery is free of you. Respect it, and don’t try to see any more. Love can’t always do work. Sometimes it just has to look into the darkness. Keep looking and don’t be afraid. There are no demons there.”

  “Words, John,” said Mary. “Words, words, words.” But she let herself be comforted by them, and felt that the tears were really for Alistair which she was weeping now.

  Twenty-six

  “MIND the steps, Sir. This bit’s rather slimy. Better take my hand.”

  The slowly moving circle of light from the torch revealed a short flight of steps sheeted over with a fungoid veneer of damp dust. There was a pattern of footprints in the centre, and tangles of dangling black threads at the side. Beyond them a concrete ramp went on down into the darkness.

  Ducane steadied himself by pressing his knuckles against the cold brick wall. He did not want to touch McGrath who was just in front of him. They descended slowly as far as the concrete.

  “You say Mr Radeechy told you to cut the electric cable at the top of the passage, where we left the air-raid shelters?”

  “That’s right, Sir. Mr Radeechy liked it all to be by candle light. I think he thought it was safer too, you know, in case anyone came.”

  “Was the door we’ve just come through usually locked?”

  “Yes, Sir. Mr R. had a key and he gave me a key.”

  “Did you ever come down here without him?”

  “I hardly ever came down here with him, Sir. I just left the stuff ready for him and cleared off. He didn’t want me around when he was at it.”

  “Go on, man, lead on, don’t just block the way.”

  “Are you all right, Sir?”

  “Of course I’m all right. Go on.”

  The wavering light of the torch undulated forward suggesting a vista of a narrow extended sloping rectangular slot of red brick with a dark ending. Several black pipes, bunched into the corner of the roof and joined together by a heavy sacking of cobwebs, led down into the darkness. The effect was of the entrance to an ancient sepulchre and it was hard to believe that the corridors of a government department were only at a few minutes’ distance.

  “Did you lock the door at the top behind us?” Ducane asked. He found that he was speaking in a low voice. The concrete ramp was slightly sticky as well, and footsteps made a faint soft kissing sound. A very low almost inaudible hum seemed to be coming out of the black pipes.

  “Yes, Sir. I hope that was right, Sir? I thought we wouldn’t want to be interrupted down here, Sir, any more than Mr R!”

  “Well, don’t lose the key.”

  “We’d be in a rare fix then, wouldn’t we, Sir! No one comes near that door. We could be down here for ever and no one the wiser.”

  “Get on, get on. Are we nearly there?”

  “Nearly. Not that way, Sir. Straight on.”

  A narrow black doorway had appeared on the right of the passage.

  “Where does that lead to?”

  “Lord, Sir, I don’t know. I didn’t go exploring down here. It’s not a very nice place, especially when you’re by yourself. I went down to the room and up again as quickly as I could. You aren’t nervous, are you, Sir?”

  “Of course not. Don’t wave the torch about so, keep it down.”

  The shape of the passage and the sharp angle of descent was reminding Ducane of kings’ tombs he had visited in Greece and Egypt. He thought, I ought to have brought a torch of my own. Then he thought, I ought to have told someone I was coming down here. There was no need for secrecy. I didn’t realise what it would be like. Suppose we do lose the key? Suppose we get separated, suppose we get lost? These passages can’t lead to more air raid shelters, we’ve left the air-raid shelters behind, we’re at much too low a level now. It’s more likely that this is some disused part of the Underground or something to do with the sewers.

  “It’s steep again here, Sir, and more steps, watch out. Not straight on, this way now, follow me. Now this passage on the left. Keep close.”

  “Ever see any rats down here?” Ducane had a horror of rats. He was as close as he could be now on McGrath’s heels without touching him.

  “I saw one once, Sir, a big fat fellow. Mr R. saw several. He asked me to get some biscuit tins and that to keep the stuff in. He was afraid the rats might eat it, you see. Left again, Sir.”

  “Are you sure you know the way?”

  “Quite sure, Sir. A bit eerie, isn’t it? Just like the catacombs I should think. Here we are arrived. Could you hold the torch now while I use the other key?”

  They had reached a closed door. Ducane took a firm hold on the torch. Was the battery not perceptibly fainter? He moved the torch, revealing a black close-fitting well-painted door and McGrath’s red-golden head stooped over the keyhole. McGrath’s hairs glistened like burnished wire in the close light. The door gave silently.

  “That’s right. Give me the torch, Sir.”

  “I’ll keep the torch,” said Ducane.

  McGrath moved through the opening and Ducane followed, stepping carefully. There was a very unpleasant smell.

  “Well, here we are,
Sir, in the holy of holies.” The door clicked to behind them.

  Ducane began to shine the torch about the room but the first thing revealed by it was McGrath. Again Ducane was struck by the intense colour of the man’s hair. The light blue eyes stared back. There was a moment of stillness. Then Ducane moved to examine the room. The curious idea had occurred to him: this man could murder me down here and no one would ever know. He did not turn his back on McGrath.

  The room was a plain fifteen-foot cube with a concrete floor. One wall appeared to be covered with a whitish paper, the other walls and the ceiling were red brick. A trio of black pipes curled round the corner of the ceiling and disappeared into the wall. Ducane had an impression of trestle tables and chairs and some old physical memory came to him from the war time, some recalling of dug-outs and guard rooms. He felt at once certain that the strange room had been something to do with the war, something secret and unrecorded and lost.

  “Shall I light some candles, Sir? You could see a bit more then. And it would save the torch. I’m afraid it’s going to give out before long.”

  McGrath moved to a corner and clanked open a metal box. A match was struck. The candle flame illumined McGrath’s hair and paper-white cheek and also the elaborate silver candlestick which held the candle. Ducane exclaimed.

  “Very pretty, isn’t it, Sir? Mr Radeechy had some nice stuff down here, I’ll show you. You can put the torch out now, Sir.”

  Four candles in identical silver holders were now burning upon the trestle in the corner. Ducane moved to examine the candlesticks. Each one stood upon four silver balls held by four dragon claws, and the thick shaft was engraved all over with swirling dragons.

  “Nice, aren’t they,” said McGrath. “Chinese, Mr Radeechy said they were. And take a look at this.”

  He had brought out and was holding aloft a silver-gilt chalice studded with what appeared to be very large jewels. Ducane took the cup from him and examined it. The light was too dim and he knew too little about precious stones to be sure if these ones were real. But the effect was rich and somehow barbaric.

  “Have a drink, Sir,” said McGrath.

  As Ducane held the cup McGrath suddenly tilted some wine into it from a bottle which he had just produced. Ducane hastily put the chalice down on the table.

  “It’s quite all right, Sir. It won’t have gone off. Quite a little feast we could have down here. We needn’t starve. See, there’s this funny bread, and walnuts, Mr R. was very partial to walnuts.”

  McGrath was taking the contents out of the tins and spreading them upon the table. Ducane saw slices of moist black bread and the nuts, their veined shells slightly green with mould. Black bread for the black mass; and Ducane recalled that walnuts were held to be magical since their double interior resembled the lobes of the human brain.

  McGrath was cracking walnuts with a pair of silver nut crackers. “Here, Sir, have half. They’re quite good inside.”

  Ducane felt the dry wrinkled morsel pressed into his hand. He moved back. Whatever he did he must not share a walnut with McGrath. That meant something too, only he could not remember what.

  “Show me what there is to see and then let’s get back.”

  “Not much to see really, Sir,” said McGrath munching walnut. “This was where the candles went. I’ll lay the rest of the stuff out.”

  McGrath placed the candles in a row along the back of another trestle table which stood up against the white wall. A narrow black mattress lay upon the table. “That was where the girl went, Sir,” said McGrath in a low reverential voice.

  McGrath returned to the other darkened table and then began to lay out a number of articles upon the mattress. First there were a number of well-corked clearly labelled glass jars such as one might find in a kitchen. Ducane looked at the labels: poppy, hyssop, hellebore, hemp, sunflower, nightshade, henbane, belladonna. The black bread and a pile of walnuts were laid next to them. There followed a large packet of table salt, a small silver-gilt bell, a Bible, a battered Roman missal, some sticks of incense, an elongated piece of silver on a stand with a cross bar close to the foot of it, and a slim black whip. The bell tinkled slightly. McGrath’s pale red-haired hand closed over it.

  McGrath placed the tall piece of silver in the centre of the table behind the mattress. Ducane thought: of course, a tau cross, a cross reversed.

  “For the five senses, you see. Mr Radeechy explained it to me once. Salt for taste, flame for sight, bell for sound, incense for smell, and this for touch.”

  McGrath laid the whip in front of the cross.

  Ducane shuddered.

  “And then there’s this,” McGrath was going on.

  The candles curtsied in a movement of air and Ducane withdrew his attention from the whip.

  McGrath, swollen to twice his size, seemed to be struggling with something or dancing, his hands raised above his head, casting a huge capering shadow upon the brick wall. Then with a heavy plop the garment fell into place and McGrath displayed it, grinning. He was wearing a vast cope of yellow silk embroidered with black fir-cones. With a coquettish movement he turned in a circle. The sleeves and trouser legs of his dark suit protruded from the exquisite cope with an effect of grossness. The garment was much too large for him. Radeechy had been a big man.

  “This completes the get-up, you see.” McGrath had now produced a tall stiff embroidered head-dress rather like a mitre, and was about to put it on.

  Ducane took it quickly out of his hand. “Take that thing off.”

  “It’s posh, isn’t it?”

  “Take it off.”

  Rather reluctantly McGrath struggled out of the cope. As it came over his head he said, “Do you think I could have some of these things, Sir?”

  “Have some—?”

  “Well, as mementos like. Do you think I could have that cup thing?”

  “No, of course not!” said Ducane. “These things are the property of Mr Radeechy’s heir. The police will take charge of them. Stand out of the way, would you. I want to look around.” He picked up one of the candles. “What a terrible smell.”

  “I expect it’s the birds.”

  “The birds?”

  “Yes,” said McGrath. “The poor pigeons. See.”

  He pointed into the darkness underneath a trestle table on the other side of the room.

  Ducane moved the candle and saw beneath the table what looked like a large cage. It was in fact a cage roughly made out of a packing case and some strands of wire. Within the cage, as he leaned towards it, Ducane saw a spread-out grey wing. Then he saw a heap of sleek rounded grey and blue shapes piled together in a corner. The feathers were still glossy.

  “All dead now of course,” said McGrath with a certain satisfaction. “Mr Radeechy wanted them alive.” McGrath’s hand reached out to touch the cage with an almost affectionate gesture. His wrist, woven over with golden wires, protruded a long way from his jacket.

  “You mean—?”

  “He used to kill them in the ceremony, whatever he did. Blood all around the place something shocking. It always took me quite a time to clean it up after he’d been having a go. He was very particular you see about the cleaning up.”

  “Where did you get them?”

  “Caught them in Trafalgar Square. Nothing’s easier if you get there early in the morning. Bit difficult in winter. But I could usually catch one or two on a foggy day and carry them off under my coat.”

  “And you kept them here?”

  “Some at home, some here, till they were needed. I fed them of course, but they seemed to be asleep most of the time. Not having any light I suppose. I’d just put that lot in when it happened, about Mr Radeechy I mean.”

  Ducane turned away from the little soft heap in the cage. “It didn’t occur to you to come down and let them out?”

  McGrath seemed surprised. “Lord, no. I didn’t think of it. I didn’t want to come down here more than I need. And with poor Mr Radeechy dead I wasn’t going to trouble my hea
d about a few pigeons.”

  Ducane shook himself. The candlestick was beginning to feel very heavy in his hand. It tilted over and hot candle grease fell on to his wrist and on to the sleeve of his coat. He felt suddenly slightly faint and it came to him that ever since he had entered the room he had been becoming passive and drowsy. He had a distinct urge to remove the objects from the mattress and lie down on it himself. He wondered for the first time how the room was ventilated. There seemed to be very little air to breathe. He took a deep gasping breath and the smell sickened him and he gave a retching cough.

  “Foul smell, isn’t it?” said McGrath, who was still on one knee beside the cage, watching him. “But it’s not just the birds, you know. It’s him.”

  “Him?”

  “Mr R. He smelt something awful. Did you never notice it?”

  Ducane had in fact noticed that Radeechy smelt unpleasant. He had once overheard clerks in the office jesting about it.

  “Well, if we’ve seen what there is to see we’d better go,” said Ducane.

  He turned back to the altar. The golden cope with the black pine-cones had been tossed over one end of the mattress. Ducane saw in the close light of the candle that the cope was tattered and soiled, one wing of it darkened near the hem by an irregular brown stain.

  “Is there anything else?”

  “You’ve seen the lot, Sir. Look, there’s nothing else in the room. Just these tins, nothing more inside except some matches and some of Mr R’s cigarettes, bless him. Nothing under the tables except the old pigeons. But just you look for yourself, Sir, just you look for yourself.”

  Ducane walked along the edges of the room with his candle and then turned to face McGrath who was now standing with his back to the tau cross, watching Ducane intently. Ducane saw that McGrath had picked up the whip and was teasing the slender tapering point of it with a finger of his left hand. McGrath’s eyes were empty featureless expanses of pale blue.

  It’s the dreariness of it, thought Ducane, that stupefies. This evil is dreary, it’s something shut in and small, dust falling upon cobwebs, a bloodstain upon a garment, a heap of dead birds in a packing case. Whatever it was that Radeechy had so assiduously courted and attracted to himself, and which had breathed upon him, squirted over him, that odour of decay, had no intensity or grandeur. These were but small powers, graceless and bedraggled. Yet could not evil damn a man, was there not blackness enough to kill a human soul? It is in me, thought Ducane, as he continued to look through the empty blue staring eyes of McGrath. The evil is in me. There are demons and powers outside us, Radeechy played with them, but they are pygmy things. The great evil, the real evil, is inside myself. It is I who am Lucifer. With this there came a rush of darkness within him which was like fresh air. Had Radeechy felt this onrush of black beatitude as he stood before the cross reversed and rested the chalice upon the belly of the naked girl?