An Accidental Man

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘You are by nature a guilty man.’

  ‘I worry about my parents.’

  ‘They will come round, they’ll have to.’

  ‘I sometimes feel it’s dishonourable to take the easy way.’

  ‘Of course you do. And you sometimes feel nervous frenzied impulses to get yourself punished. But these are not your deepest and most serious thoughts.’

  ‘I guess you’re right.’

  ‘You see, we still have a vocabulary.’

  Ludwig laughed again. ‘Well — that’s something.’

  ‘Possibly everything.’

  ‘So you think —’

  ‘You are not one of the heroes we spoke of just now. All this adds up to the appropriateness of your continuing your present course of action.’

  ‘But appropriateness is not enough.’

  ‘So indeed you feel, and this is where guilt and worry about your parents and ridiculous considerations about honour and so forth find a fault through which they can enter. You are discontented. You want to work it out so that you are perfectly justified and absolutely guaranteed. You feel there must be such a structure.’

  ‘But there isn’t.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ugh-hu,’ said Ludwig. ‘I think I’ll have some more cake.’ After munching for a moment he said, ‘But then, according to you, virtue is an illusion?’

  ‘The idea of it is an inspiration, an important one, in some sense conceivably a necessary one.’

  ‘But it is an illusion?’

  Matthew looked out of the window at the Irishman who was asleep under the walnut tree. ‘What does it matter what we say here? Very few people ever come here. Here language breaks down.’

  ‘But those heroes you spoke of?’

  ‘It may cheer them up for a short while to feel that they acted rightly.’

  Ludwig whistled. ‘Wow!’

  ‘By the way,’ said Matthew, ‘have you been to see Dorina?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I think you ought to go.’

  ‘What’s that funny word you used?’

  They laughed.

  ‘Well, you can see her at the Tisbournes,’ said Matthew. ‘It will be all much easier there and much less dramatic.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ Ludwig was about to say that Garth had written to him about Dorina. He was about to go on to tell Matthew about Garth’s man killed in New York. Then he decided he did not want to mention Garth to Matthew just now. He felt ridiculously possessive already about Matthew. Again he had given his heart. How easily it had happened.

  ‘I’ve brought your supper on a tray,’ said Mavis.

  ‘I was just coming down,’ said Dorina.

  ‘Well, dear heart, I’ll take it down again. Mrs Carberry has set the table.’

  ‘No, I’ll have it here.’

  ‘No, please, Dorina. Let me take it down, we’ll have supper together.’

  ‘No, no, Mavis, I’ll have it here, please don’t argue, I can’t bear it, sorry.’

  ‘Sorry, darling. I hope you’ll like it. I wish you’d eat some meat.’

  ‘I hate meat.’

  ‘I suspect undernourishment may be part of — part of it all.’

  Dorina’s room was powdery dim and yet sunny, obstructed by great shafts of hot evening light which seemed to fill it, making the sisters almost invisible to each other. Sunlight on a window in another street dazzled in Dorina’s eyes, and she shifted, shaking her head. She was wearing a short light padded dressing-gown, white and a little soiled. Her feet were bare.

  Mavis put the tray on the tousled bed. Dorina had been lying down.

  ‘Will you come down after?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Mrs Carberry is watching telly in the kitchen with Ronald. We could sit with them.’

  ‘Ronald upsets me so.’

  ‘You said you could get on with Ronald.’

  ‘I can’t any more.’

  ‘Then we’ll sit in the drawing-room.’

  ‘I know I’m stupid but —’

  ‘We’ll sit quietly in the drawing-room. I’ll find you another novel.’

  ‘I can’t read. I didn’t really finish the other one. It upset me.’

  ‘Well, come down afterwards and we’ll talk. Dorina.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know Clara’s coming for you at eleven tomorrow.’

  Dorina picked at the button of her dressing-gown. ‘You said something about it yesterday but I thought you were just asking me, I didn’t know you’d arranged it all. I said I didn’t want to go to Clara’s.’

  ‘You did agree.’

  ‘I don’t think I did, I just wanted you to stop talking about it. Mavis, I can’t go to Clara’s, you must know that.’

  ‘Dear child, you can’t stay on here forever. It’s not that I want to send you away, you know that I love you and want to protect you and help you. But just letting you stay on here vaguely from week to week isn’t helping you. You’re getting — well, it’s not doing you good, you’re living too much inside yourself and I’m probably the worst person for you to be with because we’re so close, in a way it’s not like being with another person at all.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You must be forced to make an effort, my darling, you must, before you just forget how, try to do what other human beings do, deal with what’s alien, face it, wear a hard surface, live in public. I thought at first this sort of rest would make you stronger, but it’s doing the opposite. You’re hiding from the world. You need the ordinary compulsory things of social life, having to talk, having to dress. You’re becoming a dream figure.’

  ‘They’ll make me see Dr Seldon.’

  ‘No they won’t, they won’t make you do anything. They’ll just absorb you into their silly busy social goings-on. It’ll do you far more good than anything else could at the moment. You need frivolity and gossip, you need Clara. As soon as you find out that you can manage after all, as soon as you see that no one notices you or bothers about you particularly, you’ll feel far more brisk and human. Do at least try it, Dorina. If you hate it you can come back here.’

  ‘The Tisbournes won’t let me be ordinary,’ said Dorina. ‘They’ll exhibit me. Everyone will come to the house to look at me.’

  ‘That’s just vanity,’ said Mavis. ‘You aren’t as interesting as all that, my dearest child, except to those who love you. You won’t even be a nine days’ wonder. There, see how bracing I’m being with you!’

  ‘I don’t want to go,’ said Dorina. ‘It would be the beginning of a bad road. It would hurt Austin, it would divide me from Austin.’

  ‘Dorina, you mustn’t treat Austin as if he was fragile or insane. He’s very tough. You can’t hurt him as easily as you imagine. Really, Austin’s as tough as an old boot. If you can only get back a little backbone and ordinary stamina, you can manage Austin and make everything good again. It’s this drifting on which is so hopeless.’

  ‘You want me to go —’

  ‘I want what’s best for you.’

  ‘I know, but — Oh, Mavis, I’m sorry, but I just can’t bear the idea of leaving here, except to be with Austin.’

  The pale wedges and walls of light had dissolved into hazy atoms of obscurity and it was almost dark in the room.

  Mavis said after a moment, ‘Well, you think about it. When you come downstairs we’ll talk.’

  ‘I think I won’t come down, if you don’t mind. I feel so tired. I’ll go to bed early. I’ll put the tray outside.’

  ‘Oh dear, your supper’s been getting cold. Are you sure — ?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’ll go to bed early, we’ll talk tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll help you to do your packing in the morning,’ said Mavis. ‘You know you need only go for a little while. It’ll be a holiday. You’ll feel so much better. You need a change. You can come back whenever you like.’

  ‘Yes, yes, thank you.’

  ‘Darling, are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, o
f course, goodnight my dearest, yes, all’s well, goodnight.’

  Mavis went down the stairs. It was hot and dark in the belly of the house. She switched on a light. What would Dorina be like in the morning? But it was true, it was true that Dorina would be better off almost anywhere else. I’m just a part of her mind, thought Mavis. And Austin too, in another way. She needs the company of people who are indifferent to her. It’s true that she ought to move. I’m not just being selfish or unkind.

  Mrs Carberry and Ronald were watching telly. It was a ridiculous play about a couple who simply couldn’t stop adopting stray dogs. Their house was full of dogs, big dogs, small dogs, shaggy dogs, sleek dogs, sad dignified dogs and dogs with comical clown faces. Ronald found it all so funny he simply could not stay on his chair but kept falling off it choking with laughter and clutching his mother who set him upright again. Mrs Carberry was laughing because the play was so funny and because Ronald was laughing and seemed so happy, but she was also crying. Mavis began to laugh. It really was too absurd, all those dogs. Now they were all trooping down the stairs, it was too absurd. Then Mavis found that she was crying too. In the telly-lit obscurity she and Mrs Carberry cried and cried.

  Tomorrow she would pack Dorina’s things and put Dorina into Clara Tisbourne’s car. It was the right thing to do. Then at last it would open before her, the ever-after land of Matthew love and joy. Mavis wept hot tears of ecstasy at the back of the kitchen in the flickering dark. But Mrs Carberry wept out of a broken heart to see Ronald so happy and to know what his life would be.

  Dorina was sitting on her bed. She had eaten nothing. She was not crying. She had not managed to make Mavis understand, to make her see. Mavis’s eyes had been hazy with private happiness. How could Mavis see?

  The room was dark now. Dorina covered up the cold scrambled eggs after messing them about a little and put the tray down silently outside the door. Then she lay on her bed.

  Tomorrow Mavis would pack her things and put her into Clara Tisbourne’s car at eleven. Clara would carry her off in triumph. There would be rejoicing at the Tisbourne house. People would flock to see her. Not unkindly, but with deadly effect.

  Austin had said he would come. He had not come. He had sent a note to say that he would soon come. At the Tisbournes he would never show his face. How energetically the Tisbournes would try to persuade him, try to supervise a reconciliation for which they would take the credit, and how much damage it would all do at this delicate time. Oh why had Mavis suddenly abandoned her and stopped understanding? Mavis was so determined now to see only part of the picture.

  There were no presences tonight, only an echoing void which made the dark room seem like an empty concert hall which was somehow full of silent sound. It was as if the sound was really clamouring about her like an electric storm and she had screamed into it. Had she really screamed? Waters of electric sound closed over her head.

  She sat up, feeling sick and giddy. If she went to Clara Tisbourne’s tomorrow she would not find Austin again ever. There would be a grimacing wall of monkey people between herself and Austin. She would be a traitor to him and in revenge he would kill their love. There was a precious private faithfulness which she must keep whole until the true moment when they were together again. If she went to the Tisbournes everything there would speak to her of a possible life without Austin. This was what Mavis meant when she talked of healing: treachery and the death of love.

  Mavis will pack my bag, thought Dorina, and I shall walk down the stairs in a daze and Clara Tisbourne will take my arm in a firm grip, like a policewoman, and I shall get into the car.

  Dorina held her head. The silent storm of sound drummed in the huge hall. Help, she asked, help. Impossible de trop plier les genoux. She knelt beside the bed.

  Her knee touched her suitcase. She pulled the suitcase out. Then she got up and switched on the light. She took off her dressing-gown and put on blouse, skirt and sandals. She threw things into the suitcase. She plaited her hair and thrust it into an elastic band. She put on a mackintosh. She found her handbag. There was money in it. She listened at the door and then began to glide across the landing and down the stairs. Howls of awful laughter came from the kitchen. Dorina went out of the front door and clicked it behind her.

  ‘We might go to Canada,’ said Mitzi.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Austin.

  ‘Start life anew.’

  ‘Impossible. We’re both done for. Why not admit it?’

  ‘You’re such a cynic,’ said Mitzi. ‘Have some more whisky. There, you always get round me, don’t you, you always will. You know when I get in a rage it’s just because I love you. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you forgive me?’

  ‘Yes. I know you love me. We have a lot to forgive each other. Don’t think I’ve just taken your love and your kindness for granted. I’m a sod, but not that much of one.’

  ‘I do love you, and it’s so nice to talk like this, so cosy, isn’t it.’

  Only one lamp was alight in Mitzi’s sitting-room, and Mitzi and Austin were sitting at the table with the bottle of whisky between them. It was a hot close evening and the door stood ajar to give a cool draught. Mitzi’s bulgy armchairs were ranged round the table like spectators. Obscure upon the mantelpiece were china gnomes and peasant maidens of Germanic origin. Austin feels hot, cosy, sexy. His sleeves are rolled up, his shirt lolls open at the neck, he is sweating. Sweat rolls down his neck through the furry gold of his lengthening shaggy hair. Sweat rolls down his chest through a tunnel full of golden curls. He rubs his sweaty chest with the back of his hand and looks with satisfaction at the dirty smear on his knuckles. He smells his hand furtively. He feels hot and pleasantly restless and slightly drunk. His shirt is widely stained with sweat under the arms. So is Mitzi’s light blue dress. She is sweating too. Her dress is open-necked and the dark well of her breasts is visible within, moist and pungent. As they sit at the table and lightly caress each other’s bare arms his fingers can explore the tender dew in the crook of her elbow. Her plump arms are covered with long reddish down which glints freshly in the lamplight like young vegetation.

  ‘How blue your veins are and all hot and sort of elastic, I can feel your blood moving.’ She drew her finger along.

  ‘That tickles.’

  ‘But really, about Canada, why shouldn’t we go there and have a new life where everything was right? We’ve both been so unlucky.’

  ‘We’d still be our same bad hopeless old selves.’

  ‘We could try. They pay well over there. I’d get a typing job, you’d look around —’

  ‘It’s a sweet dream and you’re a sweet girl. God, how hot it is tonight.’ He bent down and kissed her at the elbow where the skin was soft and wet and a little stained and tired on the inner side.

  Mitzi shuddered and moaned. ‘Oh, Austin, if you knew how much I love you, it shakes me, it does.’

  Austin looked vaguely at the large head, the round bronzed face glowing with simplicity and health, the short clipped slightly gingery fair hair. And Mitzi’s eyes, what colour were they? A light stony greyish greenish blue. Big and adoring. Nice.

  ‘I am a cad,’ he said, ‘capable of caddish things. You have been warned.’

  ‘That won’t do, Austin, talk to me properly, tell me about Dorina.’

  ‘No. Never.’

  ‘How is she, poor girl, is she really bonkers, you know, binworthy?’

  ‘Do not speak in that coarse way.’

  ‘Sorry, but she is awfully odd, isn’t she, and she ran away, and she hasn’t been much of a wife, I mean you haven’t had much of a marriage, have you?’

  ‘No,’ said Austin. ‘I haven’t had much of a marriage.’ He caressed the big warm soft hairy arm with even strokes and then passed his damp fingers across his face, eyes half closed.

  ‘I think you’re scared of her. Does she get at you?’

  ‘No, she’s an angel.’

  ‘Bu
t sort of creepy?’

  ‘Creepy, yes.’

  ‘God, I’m sorry for her. One is so lucky so have an ordinary healthy mind.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You didn’t want children?’

  ‘Children of hers? God no!’

  ‘Have some more whisky, dear.’

  ‘She doesn’t support and cherish me,’ said Austin. ‘I support and cherish her.’

  ‘You need a wife like a carthorse.’

  Austin laughed. ‘Be my carthorse, Mitzi. Let me jump on your back and we’ll gallop to Winnipeg and live happily ever after!’

  ‘Oh if only you would!’

  Austin joggled his chair closer. He leaned his head against the strong warm bouncy flesh of her shoulder. He kissed its warmth through the thin dress and felt in his lips her trembling.

  ‘Oh, Austin —’

  ‘Go on talking, Dobbin.’

  ‘Yes, I am your Dobbin, aren’t I?’

  ‘Dear horsie, I am swinish and you are coarse, we are made for each other.’

  ‘I don’t think we’re swinish and coarse, not now we aren’t.’

  ‘No, actually now we are rather divine.’

  ‘I feel so close to you, I feel we can really talk. Do tell me things. I bet you and Dorina were never any good in bed.’

  ‘No. That was part of the trouble.’

  ‘We’d be good, you and me. Can’t you feel that now?’

  ‘Feel it? Yes. You can feel it too, if you like.’

  He took her hand and laid it where she could feel it. He took off his glasses. They both sighed and their eyes closed. Austin’s knee nuzzled at the hem of the blue dress and his fingers followed. He raised his head and let his lips browse across her cheek.

  A few minutes or perhaps longer later on Austin was aroused from a sort of swoon by the sound of somebody falling down the stairs. That clattering bumping sound was unmistakable. Somebody had just fallen down the flight of stairs which led from the landing just outside to the front door. Austin came to, sorted himself out from Mitzi and stood up. He felt damp, drugged, dirty. He hauled at his clothes and said ‘Oh hell’ and went to the door and switched on the landing light.

  Dorina was lying at the bottom of the stairs. Her face stared back at him over the heap of her twisted body. Then she kicked, knelt, and was up. Paralysed, Austin saw her convulsive legs, her tossed tail of hair, her frantic hand snatching at her bag, her little foot dabbing for a shoe which had come off. Then there was a flurry, a small explosion, and she had disappeared out of the front door and slammed it after her.