An Accidental Man

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘It’ll sound so final. We might as well read the burial service.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Char. We must sit with her, and —’

  ‘Well, you read a psalm if you want to,’ said Charlotte. ‘Anything’s better than squabbling in here.’

  ‘I couldn’t read,’ said Clara, ‘it would sound awful. You read, George.’

  ‘We don’t know any psalms,’ said George.

  ‘Read “The Lord is my shepherd”. What number is it? It’s somewhere near the beginning. Is there a Bible, Char?’

  ‘Yes. Here.’ There was a Bible. Alison had even asked for it once. But not lately.

  Gracie was talking on the telephone to someone who was presumably Ludwig Leferrier. ‘Darling, I can’t — I’ll ring you again about eleven — We don’t know, but probably — Yes, I hope so —’

  ‘What number is that psalm, Pinkie, can you remember?’

  ‘I think I really must go,’ said the doctor.

  ‘Please stay,’ said Charlotte. ‘Have another drink.’

  Someone was ringing the front door bell.

  ‘That’ll be Mr Enstone,’ said George.

  Charlotte went. It was the man next door asking if anyone visiting the house had left their car blocking his garage. Charlotte said no. He asked after Mrs Ledgard and Charlotte said she was as usual. She looked over his head at the beautiful, perky, ordinary, selfish, material world of motor-cars and evening appointments as she closed the door. She had been surprised to see the darkness outside.

  ‘Gracie, do go in and see grandma,’ said Clara, ‘while papa is finding the psalm.’

  ‘I’ll go in with all of you,’ said Gracie. ‘She doesn’t want to see me alone. We never know what to talk about.’

  ‘She can’t talk now anyway.’

  ‘Then it’s even more pointless.’

  ‘Here it is,’ said George.

  ‘Come, Char, please.’

  ‘I really must go,’ said the doctor.

  ‘Please stay, something may happen.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Ledgard. There should be no more complications. Everything will be quite plainsailing from now on.’

  ‘Can the nurse — ?’

  ‘Everything that’s necessary. There is no need to telephone me until tomorrow morning.’

  ‘You mean whatever happens? Well, thank you, doctor.’

  ‘Not at all. Goodnight, goodnight.’

  ‘Come, Char. Come, Gracie.’

  The doors of the shrine were opened and they all went in. The nurse drew back. Clara turned on another lamp.

  Alison was regarding them with that terrible urgent one-eyed stare, so meaningful yet so ambiguous, divorced in its extremity from the ordinary conventions of the human face. Did this travailing look express entreaty, question, fear, anger, surprise, grief? The liquid eye bulged with will. The limp hands crawled slightly, the lips moved. Yesterday there had been a little communication. Today there was none, only that look and that murmur. But the huge caged power of the personality, still dreadfully alive, stirred in its prison.

  ‘Dearest mama,’ said Clara. ‘George is going to read to you. Just you rest now.’

  She sat down beside the bed and George drew up a chair on the other side. Clara, better for her whisky, captured one of the creeping hands and held it firmly. Charlotte and the nurse stood by the fireplace. Gracie, looking both scared and embarrassed, stood just inside the door.

  George said ‘My dear!’ and then began to read. ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul . . .’

  Charlotte turned her back to the room and closed her eyes. In some appalling way George and Clara had been right, as so often in some appalling way they were. The old words, whatever they meant, were filled with an irresistible authority. The words were at home in this scene. They had been here before. Gently they took charge, silencing all voices but their own, soothing the place into something ancient and formal and calm, making of it the temple of a mystery, the perennial mystery which was about to be enacted. Charlotte looked back at them all now and saw how each face had become stilled and blank. Tears were welling out of Clara’s eyes. Only Alison, still trying to utter her sound, seemed separate from them all, raised like a god above the offered litany.

  Someone was ringing the front door bell.

  George stopped reading. Clara mopped her eyes.

  ‘Perhaps that’s Mr Enstone now,’ said Clara.

  Charlotte went to the door.

  It was Mr Enstone.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ said Mr Enstone. ‘I was at the Youth Club, it’s ping-pong night, and somebody came over with a rather garbled message. Did Mrs Ledgard want to see me?’

  ‘She is at the end,’ said Charlotte. It was an odd phrase, but Mr Enstone understood and changed his expression.

  ‘I am very sorry. Can I help, talk to her?’

  ‘She can’t talk,’ said Charlotte.

  ‘We think that she asked for a minister,’ said George, who had come out followed by Clara. ‘We were just reading to her from the Bible.’

  ‘Well, do please go on,’ said Mr Enstone.

  ‘No, I think you should do that,’ said George, holding out the Bible.

  ‘No, please,’ said Mr Enstone.

  ‘Perhaps you could talk to her a little,’ said Clara. ‘You do know my husband, don’t you, Mr Enstone?’

  ‘Yes, indeed, how do you do.’

  That dolt cannot speak about ultimate things, thought Charlotte. Better to go on reading. To go on and on and on.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know her very well,’ said Mr Enstone. ‘But I will if you think that’s what she wants.’

  They all trooped back into the bedroom. The nurse jumped up again. Gracie was standing at the bottom of the bed.

  ‘She keeps trying to say something,’ said Gracie.

  ‘You know our daughter Gracie.’

  ‘How do you do.’

  ‘Do sit here, Mr Enstone.’

  ‘Mrs Ledgard, forgive me, I know that I am half a stranger to you, but your children have asked me to come here in case there are any words of comfort which I can utter. Can you understand me, Mrs Ledgard, may I take your hand? At this time we know, what we ought always to know, that we are mortal beings with but a short span of days and that our end as our beginning belongs to God. We see the vanity of earthly things, the hollowness of selfish wishes, we see now that nothing matters or is truly real except God, that sun of Goodness which has shone, however clouded by sin, upon our lives, which at our best we have loved, and which at our end we know to be the only thing which is worthy of our desire. Let humble desire for God and knowledge of His reality and His love fill your heart, Mrs Ledgard, and do not resist the Power which draws you now to Himself. In moving towards God we move from shadow to light, from false to true, from sham to real, and into that great peace which passeth all understanding. Now will you all please join me in prayer —’

  ‘She’s saying that word again,’ said Gracie. ‘I think it’s “lease”.’

  ‘Is it not “peace”?’ said Mr Enstone.

  ‘“Lease”?’ said Clara. ‘She must mean the lease of the house.’

  ‘Where is the lease of the house?’ said George.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Charlotte. ‘It used to be in the drawing-room bureau. Shall I look?’

  ‘I’ll come too,’ said Clara. The two sisters left the room.

  ‘I can’t see it.’

  ‘Does it matter if it’s lost?’

  ‘I wonder if there’s some snag.’

  ‘Oh God, you mean legally —’

  ‘Have you found it?’ said George from the door.

  ‘Char thinks there’s some legal snag.’

  ‘Have you ever seen the lease?’

  ‘No, but — Here it is.’

  ‘Let me look.’

  ‘No, let George look.’

  ‘Supposin
g there’s some snag?’

  ‘How long has it got to run?’

  ‘Better give it to her.’

  ‘But she’s in no state to —’

  ‘You give it to her, Char.’

  ‘Perhaps she wants to show us —’

  ‘God, I hope it’s sound.’

  ‘Better open it out so she can —’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Enstone,’ said George. ‘I don’t think she wanted a priest after all. But we’re very glad you came. Please don’t go.’

  ‘Here, mother,’ said Charlotte. ‘The lease. The lease of the Villa. Was that what you wanted?’ She put the unfolded document onto the bed, working it in under the palm of the limp hand. But Alison did not look at it and made no attempt to grasp it and in a moment it fell to the floor. George picked it up and began to examine it eagerly.

  Alison Ledgard stared up at her eldest daughter. Visibly concentrating all her power she whispered and at last Charlotte understood. What Alison was saying was ‘Treece’. Treece was the family solicitor. Oh God, thought Charlotte, she wants to change her will. She hates me, she has always hated me, she will disinherit me. Could she, would she, at this last hour, do so? Yes. Hatred was pure now. Charlotte hesitated.

  ‘I can’t understand what she’s saying, can you?’ said Clara. ‘It can’t have been —’

  ‘She’s saying “Treece”,’ said Charlotte.

  ‘Of course that’s it!’ said George.

  ‘What is that?’ said Mr Enstone.

  ‘Our solicitor,’ said George.

  ‘I’ll telephone him at once,’ said Charlotte. She turned to go. Then she turned back. ‘Don’t worry, mother. I’ll get Treece. He’ll come at once. I’m sure he will. Don’t you worry, dear.’

  The great staring eye closed and tears suddenly washed down Alison’s cheek.

  Tears came to Charlotte too. She went out and began to dial Treece’s number. The number started ringing but there was no reply. She heard it ring and ring as she turned her head about, trying to toss the flooding tears from her. There was a strange sound from the bedroom like the cry of an unfamiliar bird.

  ‘There’s no answer,’ said Charlotte.

  She returned to the doorway. Alison was lying sideways now, her head drooping towards the edge of the bed, the eye open and fixed in a kind of surprise. Clara was sobbing. Gracie pushed past Charlotte into the hall. ‘She is with God,’ said Mr Enstone.

  Austin Gibson Grey put the telephone down. Ludwig had just rung to say that old Mrs Ledgard had died and that he and Mitzi would be waiting up for Austin with a bottle of whisky. Austin felt no regret about old Mrs Ledgard. Clara once, thinking he would not mind, had gaily told him ‘Mama says you’re a buffoon!’ He did mind. So the old woman was gone. Good. Charlotte would be rich and would lend him money. Charlotte had a feeling for him, one always knew. And Ludwig and Mitzi were waiting. And the whisky. That was good too.

  Then he recalled with pain that Ludwig was now engaged to Gracie. Why had just that had to happen to just those two? Everyone was going away from him and entering into a conspiracy with everyone else against him. It was always like that in the end, he could never keep anybody. Betty. And Mavis had taken Dorina, everybody had taken her. Ludwig had been his shield against more things than could be told. Gracie he had always adored. She was the only being he had loved simply from childhood. Only now of course it was not so simple, now that he could sense so sweetly in her eyes, in her whole maidenly body, her intimate knowledge of his desire. That was his secret with her. To Ludwig he had entrusted everything in the sure faith not only that nothing would be judged, but that nothing would be understood. There were sometimes wonderful people of whom one could be sure in this way. But now Ludwig and Gracie would discuss him. There would be complicity and betrayal.

  He stood alone in the middle of the sitting-room panting a little. It would be an asthma night. It was late now, after eleven o’clock. Two cases which he had packed stood by the door. He would get a taxi. He would go to Mitzi for whisky and a kiss. My life is on the change, he thought, what will be? Whatever will be I must survive it and go on believing in the other side where everything will be all right. The flat was full of toy-like knick-knacks which he had bought to please Dorina, she was so easy to please, any little thing delighted her. At one time he had brought her home a present every day, a china cat, an electric torch, anything. The pureness of these pleasures sometimes amazed him, they smelt of spring, of all that had once seemed lost. Dorina was renewal of life, his innocence, his youth. And yet she was also something old, ghost-haunted, touched with sadness, touched with doom. Or was that doom just his own sense of the impossiblity, after all, of being saved by her?

  As he had not yet found a tenant there was no need for him to move, but now that he had made his plans he wanted to get out, to run quickly onward all alone towards the future. The flat was already beginning to feel weird and quiet, like a revisited place, afloat in time and streaked with hallucinations. Betty was there, poor dead Betty in a place she had never known and where all his thoughts about her had been secret. He had opened a drawer and found another photograph. He had always hidden these relics from Dorina. Poor Bet. Smiling, young, dim, far off and dead. Sometimes at night he thought about her mortal remains. Once he tried to find her grave, but there were only stretches of mown grass. He had never raised a memorial. While he lived Betty’s story was not yet over, and when he died it could not be told.

  He must put off seeing Dorina until he had found a job. He would send Ludwig with a present. The funny thing was that he and Dorina understood each other perfectly in spite of all the people who crowded in between them. That was a secret which the others would never know. Some pure ray, perhaps even simply of pity, from that girl came uncontaminated to his heart. She alone truly divined his inward collapse, and yet she knew not what she knew. He had always been surrounded with women who wanted to run him. Dorina had never wanted that. Her compassion was part of her own helplessness. He thought, from her and from her alone I can accept pity. The thought made him feel humble and good. That was what women were for, to make a man feel good in spite of everything, but why had it never really worked for him? Dorina should have been the perfect rescuer. Yet somehow big Mitzi’s mushy affection relaxed his nerves more than Dorina’s pure love.

  The front door bell’s violent ringing pierced his reverie so rudely that he could not at first think what had happened to him, it was like being shot. He felt instant terror. The police? The final accusation? Who could be calling on him at this hour and ringing his bell with such dreadful urgency?

  Austin stood by the door.

  ‘Who is it?’

  Someone spoke outside.

  Austin opened the door. A man stood there. The man was Garth.

  ‘Come in, Garth,’ said Austin. He held the door open and his tall son came in.

  Austin went back into the sitting-room. Garth followed, dropping a brief case and a mackintosh and the evening paper with weary deliberation on to the floor. He gave his father a faint smudgy smile and then started to stare around him. He looked very tired and brown and in need of a shave. His clothes were greasy and tight-fitting like some sort of ancient uniform. How tall he is, thought Austin, he has lost all the soft looks of boyhood. How tall, how thin, how stern, how dark his hair, how hard his face, he is like an Indian.

  Austin said, ‘My God!’ and fell into a chair. ‘I didn’t expect you till July.’

  ‘Didn’t you get my wire? Things look different here. You’ve moved things.’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t expect you till July.’

  ‘I decided to chuck it all up. Where’s Dorina?’

  ‘She’s visiting Mavis.’

  ‘Do you mind if I use the telephone?’

  Garth lifted the telephone and dialled. ‘Is that the Air Terminal? Could I have enquiries, please? My name is Gibson Grey. I rang a little while ago about a suitcase. Yes, a dark blue suitcase, off the plane from New York. Yes, I see. Ye
s, I filled in that form. You’ll let me know if it turns up. Thank you. Goodnight.’

  ‘What is it?’ said Austin.

  ‘I’ve lost my suitcase. I put it onto a bus at London Airport, at the back you know, and then couldn’t get on myself. I had to come on the next bus twenty minutes later, and then at the Air Terminal, you know, where that thing with the luggage goes round and round —’

  ‘Round and round?’ said Austin.

  ‘Yes, you know, it’s a circular thing and the cases go round until someone picks them up. Well, when I got there my case wasn’t on the thing. Someone must have seen me miss the bus and pinched it. Or else it just stayed going round and round until it was obvious its owner wasn’t there and someone took it away.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Austin. ‘Perhaps it’ll turn up. Was there anything valuable in it?’

  ‘Only a manuscript.’

  ‘A philosophical manuscript?’

  ‘No. A novel. Unfortunately it’s the only copy. But it’s of no importance. How are you, father, are you all right?’

  I used to be dad, thought Austin. But of course I couldn’t be now. How different Garth looked, a strange tall man in need of a shave, a visitor, an intruder, a judge. ‘I’m fine,’ said Austin. He added, ‘I’m so glad you’ve come home.’

  ‘Home,’ said Garth. ‘Yes, I suppose this is it. How are things, how’s everybody, how is Ludwig, is he still staying with that Ricardo person?’

  ‘Yes. Oh, Ludwig’s engaged.’

  ‘Who to?’

  ‘Grace Tisbourne.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ said Garth. ‘Sorry, I can’t talk. I’m just crazed up by that aeroplane. If you don’t mind I’ll just make myself some scrambled eggs and turn in.’

  ‘I’m afraid there isn’t any food in the house — at least, there was a loaf only I threw it away.’

  ‘Is there any milk?’

  ‘No, sorry, you see —’

  ‘Well, I’ll just have a hot bath and turn in.’

  ‘The hot water’s turned off,’ said Austin desperately. ‘I’m sorry. You see, I’m just leaving on holiday.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To the seaside.’