by Iris Murdoch
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’
‘I wasn’t sure who it was.’
‘You mean you went out by yourself to tackle an intruder?’
‘Well, I mean I really knew it was Danby, but–’
‘Everyone around here seems to have gone stark staring mad.’
‘If you’ll excuse me,’ said Danby, ‘I think I really must be going.’ He climbed up again on to the box.
‘Oh no you don’t. You’ll stay here until I’ve told you a thing or two.’
‘I don’t feel in the mood for conversation,’ said Danby. He began to lift his leg.
‘You’re drunk, aren’t you.’
‘Yes. Now I really must be getting along.’
‘I know why you came here tonight.’
‘Miles–’ said Diana.
Danby lowered his leg.
‘Miles,’ she said, ‘I think it would be better if we talked–’
Danby stepped heavily down off the box. He said, ‘Diana, don’t say anything. Everything will be clear later.’
‘Yes, Diana, go away would you?’ said Miles. ‘Go inside, please. And don’t say anything to Lisa. I’ll deal with this drunken lunatic.’
With a faint resigned gesture of farewell the harlequin mackintosh faded into the darkness.
The torchlight made a bright circle on the ground between them.
‘I want to tell you something,’ said Miles, ‘and I hope that you’ll have the decency to act upon it.’
‘What?’
‘You wanted to see her, didn’t you?’
Danby tried to assemble his mind. Who was Miles talking about? ‘Yes. No.’
‘You’re fuddled. I’m not surprised you were ashamed to knock on the door.’
‘I didn’t want to cause any trouble,’ said Danby. ‘Not any–trouble.’
‘Don’t worry, you can’t. Though I admit your nuisance value is high.’
‘What do you mean I can’t?’
‘Because you’re going to get out and stay out.’
‘I wonder if we quite understand each other?’ said Danby. ‘I wanted to see Lisa.’
‘I know. But you’re not going to. And you can stop pestering her with impertinent letters.’
‘Christ! She didn’t show you my letters, did she?’
‘No. But she said you’d written to her more than once.’
‘Well, why the hell not? It’s not a crime to love somebody. And why are you taking a high line about it? It isn’t quite your business is it? You aren’t her father. You aren’t even her brother. She’s a grown-up woman. She’s free.’
‘She isn’t free. That’s the point.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Her affections are engaged. She’s a committed person. She loves somebody else.’
Danby leaned back against the wall. The rain beat on his face and trickled quietly down his spine, cold at first, becoming warmer as it reached the middle of his back.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, I’m sure. I’m sorry to sound bloody minded, but you ought to know this. So perhaps from now on you’ll keep away.’
Danby breathed deeply. He stared down at the lighted circle of soggy mauvish wood ash. ‘Look, Miles, I hear what you say. But I’m in love. I mean I can’t just take this from you–’
‘In love!’
‘Yes. Is Lisa actually engaged –?’
‘Lisa is no concern of yours. Even if she were not already attached–she could have no conceivable interest in you. Your attentions merely cause her embarrassment. I trust they will now cease.’
‘I don’t think you can order me about in this way, you know–’
‘I know her mind on this subject. I am merely informing you of it. I presume this sort of drunken romping after girls is a pretty regular pastime for you. Well, you’ve made a mistake with Lisa. I suggest you move on to the next one.’
‘I’m serious, damn you.’
‘You’re tedious. And now you can go. Get off my land. Go the way you came.’
The circle of light on the ground wavered, then darted upward and Danby covered his eyes against it. It sank again and was switched off, the outline of the umbrella was steady.
‘Listen please –’
‘There’s nothing more to say. I’m going in, once I’ve seen you over the wall.’
‘Damn it, I’m not going to have you telling me what Lisa thinks. I’ll go on behaving as I think fit.’
‘If you communicate with her any more you’ll be behaving like a cad.’
‘She doesn’t need your protection! What’s it got to do with you, for Christ’s sake?’
‘Miles, what is it?’ A dark figure was silhouetted in the archway and then faded as it moved closer to Miles against the gloom of the hedge. The rain had begun to sizzle with increased force. Danby spread out his hands and pressed the palms back violently against the hard uneven surface of the wall.
‘Lisa!’
‘Who is there, who are you talking to?’
‘Danby.’
‘Oh. I thought I heard a noise.’
‘I’ve told him to go. Go back inside, would you, Lisa.’
‘Wait a minute.’
A flurry of rain filled the silence with a sort of long sigh.
‘Miles, I’d like to speak to Danby for a moment. Could you leave us?’
‘Lisa, don’t be silly! He’s drunk.’
‘Please, Miles.’
‘The fool might do anything.’
‘No, no–’
‘Well, come inside then. There’s no point in getting soaked and talking in the dark.’
‘No, here. You go, Miles. I won’t be more than a moment. Please.’
‘You’ll get all wet. And I don’t at all like leaving you.’
‘Just one minute, Miles.’
‘Oh, all right. I’ll go back to the terrace. Call if you want me. Here, take the umbrella and the torch.’
‘I don’t want the umbrella and the torch. Just go, just for one minute.’
Miles walked heavily away through the archway, dipping the umbrella, and his feet could be heard stamping across the grass.
Danby let go of the wall and lurched forward. Then he half fell half threw himself on his knees in the wet sticky hillock of earth and ash. ‘Oh Lisa, Lisa–’
‘Get up please. Why did you come here?’
‘I wanted to see you. I looked through the window. Oh Christ–’
‘Are you very drunk?’
‘No.’
‘Get up then.’
‘Lisa, I want to tell you it’s serious, it’s terrible, it’s absolute.’
‘I’m sorry–’
‘Lisa, Miles said you loved somebody. He said you were engaged.’
‘Oh God–’
‘It’s true then?’
‘Yes, it’s true,’ she said, after a moment’s silence.
Danby rose slowly to his feet. It was difficult to get up. His knee was extremely painful. He said in a dull voice, ‘I shall hope all the same.’
‘Don’t. I just wanted to thank you for your letters. I am grateful to you. And God knows I don’t want to hurt you. But please try not to think of me in that way. I have nothing for you and it’s just no good. Please believe this. I don’t want you to waste your time on something quite fruitless. It’s absolutely no good.’
‘Don’t say any more,’ he said, raising his voice, ‘don’t say any more. Forgive me.’
‘Come through the house. There’s no need to–’
Danby was already on top of the wall. How he got through the intervening gardens he could not afterwards remember. Perhaps he flew. Someone shouted after him. It was not Lisa. He fell off the last wall into the lane beside the garages, stumbling and falling. He blundered into a garage door and came down heavily on to the ground. He crawled, got up, emerged on to the wet lamp-lighted pavement.
He stood for a while in the rainy murk between two lamp posts, vague and dazed, swayin
g a little on his feet and looking back down Kempsford Gardens. Then he set off slowly in the direction of the Old Brompton Road. He paused once more and looked back. Then he began to look more intently. A dark figure had emerged after him from the side laneway and was now gliding away quietly in the opposite direction toward Warwick Road. Danby stared hard through the lines of rain. There was something familiar about the slim form and the gliding gait.
Danby started to walk quickly back. The figure quickened its pace. Danby began to run. The figure ran. Danby ran harder. He caught it up just short of Warwick Road underneath a lamp post and grabbed it firmly by the collar.
‘Nigel!’
Nigel twisted and struggled and squirmed but Danby held him fast. ‘Nigel, you swine, you spy! You were there in that garden!’
‘You’re choking me, let go!’
‘Were you there in that garden?’
‘Yes, yes, stop it, stop it–’
‘You heard it all!’
‘You’re killing me.’
‘You bloody spy!’
‘Please, please, please–’
Danby shook the limp and now unresisting figure violently to and fro and then hurled it away from him. Nigel staggered, slithered on the wet slippery pavement, and fell, the side of his head meeting the lamp post with an audible crack. He lay still. Danby who had started to walk away, paused a moment until he had seen Nigel stir and begin to get up. Danby turned again and faced the force of the rain and the wind, walking unsteadily in the middle of the road.
23
NIGEL WAS KNEELING beside his twin brother’s bed. Will was sleeping heavily. Soft rain was running quietly, ceaselessly down the glass of the skylight. A very faint illumination from the lamp-lighted street showed the old brass-railed bedstead and Will’s large round face, flushed and swollen with sleep, a weight upon the pillow, the moustached upper lip twitching slightly.
The tossed bedclothes also revealed an outflung right arm clad in purple and white spotted pyjama, a hand drooping over the edge of the bed, and a large plump left foot peeping out of another expanse of purple and white pyjama. Nigel, armed with a length of rope, two thick bands of perforated rubber, and a smooth stick about twenty inches long, carefully contemplated the position of the hand and the foot.
He decided to start with the foot. He laid the stick and one end of the rope silently down upon the floor and approached the other extremity of the rope to the well-padded and rather fragrant sole of his brother’s foot which seemed to be regarding him with an insolent expression. The rope ended in a slip-knot with the perforated band of rubber threaded on to the rope within the area of the knot. Nigel began very gingerly to draw the slip-knot over the insolent protruding foot without bringing it into contact with the sole. As the band of rubber descended on to the sheet it very lightly touched the roughened edge of the heel and Nigel quickly looked round. A faint smile appeared on Will’s face, but he continued to sleep, now uttering very light snores like little sipping noises. He shifted slightly, moving his legs, and as he did so Nigel, holding the upper side of the noose clear with his left hand, thrust his right hand deep into the mattress and drew the slip knot loosely up over Will’s ankle. He laid the upper part of the noose very lightly down across the pyjamaed leg, observing Will’s face again, which continued to smile a little and twitch in between the snores.
Rising very quietly from his kneeling position Nigel now lifted the other end of the rope from the floor, and after contemplating the brass rails at the foot of the bed for a moment or two, led the free end of the rope between the rails close to the slumbering foot, out again two rails further back, and round the brass bed post on the far side of the bed. Holding the end of the rope bunched and high, he sidestepped noiselessly to the head of the bed and slid the second slip knot with its perforated rubber bracelet through the head rails of the bed, past two rails, and out again round the brass bed post on the near side of the bed. The wrist, which was dangling free, presented fewer difficulties. Holding the centre portion of the rope well up with his left hand, Nigel caught the wrist in the swinging slip knot and ventured to pull the knot tighter until it was touching the pyjama cuff very lightly all round.
The machine was now almost complete. Nigel slung the loose centre of the rope over his shoulder and attended once more to the foot, tightening the knot very carefully just above the bone of the ankle. He adjusted the rope at the head and foot of the bed, pulling it down the rails toward the mattress, and then stood back, drawing the middle of the rope steadily towards him. He picked up the stick and laid it against the rope and began quietly and deliberately to shorten the rope by twisting it about the stick.
Will woke up with a flurry and an exclamation. Nigel retreated, pulling hard on the rope and twisting faster. The slip knots tightened, the rubber bracelets clung, and Will’s wrist and ankle were drawn up taut against the rails at the head and foot of the bed. Will yelled.
‘Sssh, Will, you’ll wake Auntie.’
‘Damn you, you’ve done it again!’
‘It’s more ingenious this time,’ said Nigel. ‘I doubt if you will be able to get out.’
‘You bastard!’
‘The rubber is the essential thing. I ought to have thought of it earlier.’
‘Loosen the rope, for Christ’s sake, you’re breaking my wrist.’
‘I doubt that. Excuse me while I just manoeuvre this chair.’ Keeping the rope taut with one hand, Nigel reached the other for a wooden upright chair which stood against the wall. Leaning over he threaded the stick through, twisting it so that it was held braced against the two wooden rails under the seat of the chair. He sat down on the chair.
‘Nigel, loosen it a bit, fuck you, the bloody rail is cutting into my wrist, it’ll open a vein.’
‘I remember hearing a story like this once before. I shouldn’t struggle if I were you, it’ll only make things worse.’
Will, stretched out between the head and the foot of the bed, had contorted his body, his left hand struggling to curl round the brass rails to reach his captive right wrist. The fingers clawed without force at the tightened surface of the rubber bracelet.
‘This damn thing will stop my circulation. Do you want to kill me?’
‘Not quite. Stop struggling, Will, you’ll feel better.’
‘Loosen the rope, you’re pulling me apart.’
‘Say please.’
‘Please, bugger you.’
Nigel moved the chair a fraction forward.
‘That’s not enough.’
‘Lie still and relax your muscles and listen to me.’
‘How can I listen when I’m in the most frightful pain?’
‘You’re not in the most frightful pain. The pain is negligible. Listen to me.’
‘Go to hell.’
‘If you get treated like this it’s your own fault for being so violent. That’s something which you would have understood long ago if you had been capable of thinking. Of course violent men get put into cages and stretched on racks by men who are less violent but more clever. It’s the only way to make them listen.’
‘I’ll never listen to you, not if I have to scream for an hour. Loosen the rope, my ankle’s breaking.’
‘No, it isn’t. You have listened, Will. The violent men do listen in the end, because it’s to their advantage. You remember that time when we were ten and I hung you up by your wrists from the scaffolding on the building site because you wouldn’t do what I wanted?’
‘Yes, and I remember what I did to you after you let me down!’
‘All right, but you also did what I wanted.’
‘And damn stupid it was too. You always were a crazy pervert.’
‘You see, you’ve quite forgotten that you’re supposed to be in pain.’
‘I haven’t. You’ll kill me one day with one of your damn contraptions. I can feel my wrist bleeding. Could you look?’
‘You can’t catch me that way, Will. If you don’t mind I think I’ll turn the l
ight on. You’re an interesting sight.’
Nigel tilted his chair slightly and turned the electric light switch. An unshaded electric bulb above the bed revealed Will outstretched and twisted between his pinioned wrist and his pinioned ankle. The unbuttoned pyjamas showed his braced polished chest with a runnel of jet black curls running down the centre of it. Will jerked again, clawing at his caught wrist with his free hand. Then he lay still panting, eyes bulging, his flushed face turned full to Nigel, his gritted teeth flashing under his moustache. ‘You’ve tightened the rope again, damn you.’
‘A little, possibly. There.’
‘If you play this trick once more I’ll kill you.’
‘No, no. Last time I admit was a little inefficient, but the damage you did to yourself getting out was entirely your own fault. If you’d just stayed still and heard what I wanted to say you’d have been quite unhurt.’
‘You ought to be in a bin.’
‘Don’t be silly. Ever since I was a child you’ve been using your fists upon me. My cleverness and ingenuity just make us quits. I wanted to tell you something important, entirely for your own advantage I may say, and as I knew you’d rush at me like a mad bull if I turned up without taking precautions I decided I must tie you up just once again.’
‘You enjoy this sort of thing.’
‘Perhaps I do, Will. You must just try to see it as a form of brotherly affection.’
‘Christ!’
‘Blood’s thicker than water, Will, especially twin blood. You are the other half of myself, a weird brutish alien half, doubtless a lesser half, but connected to me by an ectoplasmic necessity for which love would be too weak a name.’
‘You’ve always detested me, Nigel.’
‘I am afraid you are very stupid and understand very little.’
‘You peached on me about that bloody stamp.’
‘A routine castigation, my dear Will. I have to set some limits to your misdoings.’
‘You’ve always persecuted me.’
‘In self defence. And also a little because you need me. You need me as the brute needs the angel, as the tender back needs the whip and the suppliant neck the axe. Any juxtaposition of brutish material and spirit involves suffering.’
Nigel shunted the chair an inch backward and Will screamed.