by Iris Murdoch
Danby, though he would not have admitted to being afraid of Miles, regarded the mystery of Miles as something rather formidable and deserving of a certain respect. After all, Miles was Gwen’s brother, and that was not the place in which to risk having some kind of mess. Danby did not doubt that he could easily overcome Diana’s professed scruples. But, as he thought about it longer he began to feel that perhaps it would be nicer after all to explore the sentimental friendship which she had said she wanted. She was indeed, like himself, a devotee of ‘cool self-love’, and it would go hard but their confederate hedonisms would not find out some way of enjoying each other without risk. What the meeting with Diana did however also lead Danby to resolve was that it was time to go hunting again. He would find another, less problematic, equally marvellous girl and take her to bed. And he would look after Adelaide too. Everything would be all right and everybody would be happy. These reflections however belonged to the period prior to last Sunday. They had nothing whatever to do with what had actually now happened.
Danby, who had stationed himself beside the defunct Chelsea pensioners’ enclosure, moved up closer to the railings, stumbling upon hidden stones in the arching grass. His eyes were tired and dazzled by following in the rather pale bright light the endless stream of people who were emerging from West Brompton tube station. She had said that she would not see Bruno today because he must not be made too dependent on her visits. It was during the afternoon, when Danby had realised just how appalling it was that she was not coming, that he had had to cease deceiving himself about what had happened. She had said she usually came home about half past five. Danby had been in position since five and it was now after six. It was possible that he had missed her, it was possible that she was spending the evening elsewhere, it was possible that she had come home by another route and entered Kempsford Gardens from Warwick Road. Danby was feeling dazed and a little light-headed as if he were not getting enough air. Outside the cars were moving and the people were filing endlessly past in the weak bright heartless sunshine. Inside the cemetery there was emptiness and distance and expanses of shady green. Danby had no clear intentions and had shunned formulating any. It was simply necessary to be here and to see her.
Danby darted to the cemetery gate and shot through it. Lisa, who had just passed close by the railings, was waiting to cross the road. She turned, frowning, a little dazzled by the sun, as Danby blundered up to her.
‘Oh, excuse me–’
‘Oh, hello.’
As she turned back from the roadway and looked full at him Danby felt a crushing constriction about the heart and a sort of black explosion.
‘I er I saw you and I wanted to, just a word, if you can spare a moment–’
‘Certainly. Are things all right? Bruno no worse I hope?’
‘Bruno–no–just the same. Well, he’s missing you awfully–’
‘He knows I’ll come tomorrow?’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘You see, I couldn’t always come, sometimes there are meetings and things–and it’s better not to have too rigid a pattern.’
‘I quite understand–’
‘What was it you wanted?’
‘It’s, well, about Bruno, about seeing him, could you–Look, could you just come into the cemetery for a moment, there’s such a crowd here.’
Danby touched the sleeve of her coat. It was the same brown mackintosh but he could not now have closed his fingers to grip it. He turned into the gate of the cemetery and felt her moving just behind him. Once inside he walked a little way toward one of the side alleys and stopped under a lime tree beside a tall square lichen-freckled tomb with an urn on top of it.
Lisa joined him and reached out a hand to the tomb. Her fingers moved upon its crumbling surface. He saw the long hand with the clear half moons as Bruno had said, so like.
‘I hope I don’t overtire Bruno?’
‘No, you’re doing him so much good.’
‘When people talk from the heart they sometimes regret it later.’
‘You’re just what Bruno needs. He’s been longing to get all that stuff off his chest.’
‘We’ll soon get on to talking about ordinary things. It’s just a matter of transition.’
‘You’re so wonderful at controlling him! You can make him talk about anything.’
‘Well, if he says all these things to me perhaps he won’t feel he’s got to say them to Miles!’ She was pushing back the yellow scarf and hauling her hair out again. She looked tired.
‘You look tired.’
‘I’m all right. Look, about Miles seeing Bruno–’
‘Had a hard day?’
‘Much as usual. Miles says he’ll go again on Sunday if you think Bruno’s really ready for him.’
‘You’ll come too, won’t you?’
‘Maybe–’
‘If you bring Miles into the room it might help.’
‘It might. I’ll think about that. Would the same time on Sunday morning do for Miles?’
‘Yes, that’s fine.’
‘Good. Well, if that’s all I’ll be getting along.’
‘Oh er wait just a minute, Lisa, would you–’
She had moved away and now turned again attentive. Behind her were graves of children, tiny pathetic stones half lost in the meadowy vegetation. The silent sleepers made a dome of quietness. The traffic and the people were elsewhere.
Danby stumbled into the long wet grass, getting in between her and the gateway. He almost held out his hands to prevent her from going away.
‘What is it?’
‘You will come tomorrow, won’t you?’
‘Yes, of course. I said so.’
‘You don’t mind my calling you “Lisa”?’
‘No, of course not.’
She was staring at him in that terribly attentive way, her mouth pouting a little, her eyes narrowed against the sun.
‘Lisa, when you come to see Bruno tomorrow could you stay on with me afterwards, I mean have a drink or something?’
‘Was there something special you wanted to discuss?’
‘No, yes, that is–’
‘About Miles and Bruno?’
‘No, not really. I’m sorry, it’s hard to explain–’
‘Is Bruno suddenly much worse?’
‘No, no, Bruno’s fine.’
‘Then what did you want to talk about?’
‘Oh nothing special you see, I just wondered–I mean perhaps we could have a drink, perhaps we could have lunch–Would you have lunch with me tomorrow?’
She smiled. ‘You don’t have to be so grateful. I like coming to see Bruno. You don’t have to invite me to lunch.’
Danby groaned. His feet seemed to be getting tangled together in the grass. ‘You don’t understand–it’s nothing to do with Bruno–it’s about me–’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I’m in a difficulty–’
‘Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘You’ll think me a bit mad–’
Lisa was frowning and looking down, fumbling at the buttons of her mackintosh. She took a step away and a step to the side, glancing toward the gateway. ‘I really would rather not discuss with you anything about my sister.’
‘Oh God–’
‘I really don’t regard–anything like that–as my business. So if you’ll excuse me–’
‘It’s not about your sister. Oh Christ!’
‘Well, then I don’t understand you. And anyway I must be going.’
‘Lisa, will you lunch with me tomorrow?’
‘I’m always busy at lunch time.’
‘Lisa, don’t you understand, I just want to see you.’
‘I doubt if I can help you with any of your problems.’
‘It’s not that. You’ll stay, after Bruno, tomorrow, talk to me –?’
‘I don’t quite see the point.’ She was staring at him now in a hostile way, pulling up the collar of her mackintosh like a brown crest.
&
nbsp; ‘There may not be any point for you. But for me–’
‘I must be going.’
‘Please see me, please–’ He spread out his hands in appeal and to bar her in from the gate.
‘I don’t know what’s going on between you and my sister and I assure you I don’t want to know. Now get out of the way, please.’
‘You mustn’t think I’m–It’s not like that–With Diana it was just–nothing much–nothing–’
‘Well, I don’t want to discuss your nothings. I must be going home.’
‘Please, Lisa, just consider seeing me, I’ll write to you, don’t be so cruel–’
‘I’m not being cruel. I see no point in this sort of discussion. You seem to me to take a very peculiar view–’
‘I haven’t explained properly. Let me explain. Let’s meet more and talk, please–’
‘I’m a very busy person and I have a life of my own as I’m sure you have too. Now will you get out of the way?’
‘I can’t let you go like this, I’ll write, you will come tomorrow, won’t you –?’ Danby contorted himself in front of her and then stretched out a hand which brushed the sleeve of her coat as she stepped quickly into the long grass to get past him. ‘Lisa!’
She was hurrying toward the gate. In another moment she was outside and had disappeared into the steadily moving crowd. Danby looked after her for a moment. Then he turned back and began to walk slowly away down the long avenue of tombstones.
17
MILES GREENSLEAVE, RETURNING from the office, stopped abruptly in the Old Brompton Road as he saw in a shaft of sunlight Lisa and Danby Odell deep in conversation inside the railings of the cemetery.
Behind the railings in the green shaded meadowy expanse with its distant vista of pillars in the rainy sunlight the two figures looked large, clear, significant. There was something too about their attitudes, their intentness, which suggested a great seriousness, something at issue. Miles felt a sense of disagreeable shock, as if of fear. He stopped and watched. As he watched, Danby suddenly threw out his hands in a theatrical gesture as if he were trying to prevent Lisa from passing him. Miles looked on with amazement. Still keeping them in view, he began to walk quickly along in the direction of the gate. But before he reached it he saw Lisa dart past Danby, who appeared to be making a sort of lunge at her, and emerge on to the pavement. She dodged between the passersby and had crossed the road before Miles could catch up with her.
He ran across the road after her and came up beside her as she reached the corner of Eardley Crescent.
‘Lisa!’
‘Oh, Miles, good, hello.’
‘Lisa, what on earth was going on? I saw that fool Danby–what was he doing?’
‘Oh he just–We were talking about Bruno.’
‘Was he trying to make a pass at you or something?’
‘No, no. He had some problem or other. He–he wanted me to have lunch with him.’
‘To have lunch with him?’
‘He said he wanted to see me–’
‘To see you? I hope you told him to go to hell. He seemed to be behaving in a damned impertinent manner, standing in front of you like that and making a grab at you–’
‘It’s all right, Miles, don’t take on.’
‘I will take on! You didn’t say you’d have lunch with him, did you?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘I should think not, that pathetic ass, making a scene like that in public.’
‘I don’t think he was very serious.’
‘Probably blind drunk. Fancy his wanting to have lunch with you!’
‘Is it so very odd that a man should want to have lunch with me?’
‘No, no, Lisa, of course not. I mean you’re–Danby’s such poor stuff. You wouldn’t think he’d have the nerve to approach someone like you. He drinks like a fish. He’s probably making passes at girls all the time.’
‘Maybe. I expect that explains it.’
‘Let me know if he annoys you again.’
‘Really, Miles, I’m not a Victorian maiden. I can look after myself.’
‘I hope you won’t go round to that house again, to Stadium Street.’
‘I did say I’d go and see Bruno.’
‘Well, go sometime when Danby’s out at work. I suppose he does work. Or let Diana go. The old man probably can’t distinguish you anyway.’
‘Diana, well–’
They turned to mount the steps of the house in Kempsford Gardens. Diana, who had been watching out for them from the front window, as she so often did, threw open the front door. ‘Come in, come in, you poor tired things, let me take your coats. Lisa, your mac is quite wet, you can’t have hung it up properly this morning, you are bad. Oh Miles, you’ve got me the Evening Standard, good, I meant to remind you, come on in, I’ve lit a fire in the drawing room and now the sun’s doing its best to put it out. I bought a new sherry decanter, eighteenth century one, in that shop in the Fulham Road, you must both have a sip of sherry before you do another thing. Look, cut glass, isn’t it lovely? It was quite cheap too. Do sit down, you both look exhausted, did you meet on the train?’
‘No, just outside the station,’ said Miles. He sat down. The sun was shining into the little neat coloured drawing room which Diana kept so fanatically tidy. A small fire was burning gaily in the grate. On a bright Scandinavian tile-topped table the new sherry decanter stood with three glasses. This was his home.
Diana poured out the sherry and gave a glass to Lisa who was still standing in the doorway unknotting her scarf.
‘Any dramas?’ Diana often asked them this question when they came home in the evening.
‘No, no dramas,’ said Lisa. She took the glass.
Miles lifted his head towards her, but she had already drifted away through the door taking the sherry with her.
In fact he had already known, even without the hint from Lisa, that it would be better not to tell Diana about the scene with Danby. Why?
‘The fragile pearly shaft sinks into the table and located where there is a dim red blotch, a shadowed unred red, reflection of a flower. Above yet how above is stretched the surface skin of grainy wood, a rich striped brown. Red reddest of words. Brown luscious caramel word. Yet also loneliest of colours, an exile from the spectrum, word colour, wood colour, colour of earth, tree, bread, hair.’
Miles closed up his Notebook of Particulars and stared at the red and purple anemones which his wife had placed upon his work table. A page which he had torn out and crumpled up was uncrumpling quietly with a little mouse-like sound in the waste paper basket. It was late in the evening and the curtains were drawn. The women knew better than to come porlocking at this hour. The expanse of dark time was his.
However he could not work. He had intended to describe the anemones, to continue what he had begun to write about them yesterday evening in daylight. He had wanted to catch in words the peculiar watery pallor of reflections in polished wood. But now it suddenly seemed pointless. The anemones, the strength of whose rather thick thrusting stems had struck him yesterday, now seemed to him just a bunch of rather vulgar flowers, pert faces with frilly collars. Diana had put them in a little cheap Chinese vase which increased if anything the vulgarity of their appearance. He could not see them properly any more. They were not worth looking at anyway. He felt distressed, hurt.
That idiotic scene in the cemetery between Lisa and Danby had unsettled him, given him a sense of pointlessness, that old pointlessness which he remembered so well from the war time. He knew the vulnerability of his strength. Seeing Bruno, that had made everything go wrong, it had made him feel guilt, and with the guilt had come that fatal weakness. Miles hated muddle and thinking ill of himself. If only he had kept his head with Bruno and not got excited and upset. How easy it was afterwards to see this and to see how simple it would have been to have acted otherwise. But he had been so shocked and moved by simply seeing Bruno again and had not had time to collect himself. He knew now that he had qu
ite deliberately tried not to foresee what it would be like, tried not to use his imagination. The father to whom he wrote respectful letters twice a year, and whose fault it patently was that they never met, had been long settled in the background of his life, a venerable image housed in a niche, looking rather like a sage represented by Blake. The terrible sick old man in the shabby little room in Stadium Street was something quite else, something requiring thought, something demanding, something frightening.
I shall have to see him again, Miles had thought, even before Lisa brought him the reconciling message. Things could not be left like that, all mangled and awful. It would wreck his work, it would haunt his dreams. The pitifulness of it all had sickened Miles. He did not want to hear Bruno’s confessions. As far as he was concerned now, Bruno had no past. He had long ago forgiven Bruno, that is he had amputated from his mind and his heart all further consideration of Bruno’s offences. He did not want to think about the past in the company of his father. The past was terrible, sacred, his. He would have been prepared to enact the dutiful son if this could have been done in a dignified rather impersonal sort of way. Or he would even have been prepared to chat with Bruno, if that would have helped, only what can one chat about with a stranger who is dying? What he could not do was enter into a live relationship with his father which involved the reopening of the past. He could not bear the presence now to both of them of those things, that they should see them together. The idea was hideous, sickening. Of course no one could be expected to understand this. It was inexplicable but absolute. He could share no intensity with Bruno. And he would certainly accept no briefing from Danby. Yet he had to go there again and get through it somehow and act some sort of part. And when he did now try to think about how to do it he said to himself; my gods do not know about things of this kind.
His mind reverted to the scene in the cemetery. This was somehow part of the same business, he felt it was somehow caused by some emanation from that awful room in Stadium Street. Of course Danby was just a clown, but the scene had been in some way horrible. The whole thing was partly Danby’s fault anyhow. Not that Miles imagined Danby had put Bruno up to summoning him. Danby was probably rather unnerved by Miles’s late appearance on the scene. Miles recalled the wording of the message which Bruno had sent him through Lisa: ‘Tell him I didn’t mean what I said at the end.’ What did that signify? Was it just a general revocation of an old man’s curse, or did it mean that Miles would get the stamps after all? Miles had not thought about the stamp collection in years. He had settled down to assuming that Danby would have it. However, supposing Miles did get it it would certainly not be unwelcome. It would mean that he could give up the office and spend all his time writing poetry.