An Accidental Man

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘I see no reason why you should,’ said Garth.

  ‘Dear, dear Charlotte,’ said Hester.

  ‘We all realize it’s a way of drawing attention to oneself,’ said Clara, ‘but all the same —’

  ‘Why isn’t Austin here?’ said Charlotte.

  ‘Austin?’

  ‘He ought to be visiting Miss Ricardo.’

  ‘Oh, Miss Ricardo, yes. Er, Austin, I don’t know, I expect he’ll come — Matthew, should we tell — ?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m tired,’ said Charlotte. ‘Would you mind going? Thanks for the flowers. Now please go.’

  ‘Miss Ledgard should rest,’ said Nurse Mahoney.

  ‘We’ll come again tomorrow,’ said Clara.

  ‘I won’t be here.’

  ‘I liked what you said about the psychiatrist,’ said Mitzi, when they had gone. She had sat demurely in her bed during the visitation, sedately and silently bowing over Clara’s polite wishes. Now she had bounced up again. ‘Oh, Rose, there you are. Rose, I’m worried about poor Mrs Baxter, she’s still asleep and she’s got that rather funny look, do you see what I mean? Oh well, Doctor will soon be here.’

  ‘I’m sorry Austin didn’t come,’ said Charlotte, ‘it would have completed the picture. I expect he will.’

  ‘Oh bother Austin, never mind him. What lovely flowers you’ve got. Rose, do you think we could have another vase, those ones are all bunched up?’

  ‘You have them,’ said Charlotte.

  ‘No, no, they’re yours. Rose is getting married next week, aren’t you, Rose? She’s marrying a petty officer in the navy. “Every nice girl loves a sailor.” Look at her blushing!’

  ‘Do have the flowers,’ said Charlotte.

  ‘No, no —’

  ‘Why did you do it, Miss Ricardo?’

  ‘Do call me Mitzi.’

  ‘Mitzi.’

  ‘Do you really want to know?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mitzi, settling down on Charlotte’s bed, ‘it was like this, Charlotte. I was born in the East India Dock Road, you see, and my father was in the old clothes business, but his father had been a docker, and my mother’s father was a ship’s chandler, if you know what that is, and. . . .’

  In these days Austin set out every morning to look for Dorina. He had quite settled in at Valmorana. Mrs Carberry made his breakfast and at about ten o’clock he set off as if he were going to work. Sometimes he went a little earlier and travelled on the tube in the rush hour with the people who were really going to their offices. He made no special plan for his search. He went every day at random to different places, to places which he knew Dorina liked, to places which they had visited together. He went to the big picture galleries and the royal parks. He hung about the Festival Hall and the Embankment and lingered on the bridges. He looked into restaurants and teashops. He usually had a quiet lunch in a pub, reading the newspapers, and sometimes spent the afternoon at the cinema. Rooting in a cupboard in Dorina’s room at Valmorana he discovered a small water-colour in the style of the Norwich School which he removed and sold, receiving to his surprise fifty pounds. He felt rich, but spent carefully, taking only sandwiches and beer for lunch, or occasionally a salad and a glass or two of wine, and occupying the cheaper seats in the cinema. He ate heartily at breakfast time and in the evening when Mrs Carberry left his supper ready for him in the kitchen. He saw little of Mavis, though they were not on bad terms. They exchanged silent and sympathetic smiles when they met on the stairs. He had not communicated further with Mitzi and thought very little about her, though he had heard some vague story about a farce with sleeping pills. He felt curiously enclosed and almost contented. The occupation suited him. He had a little money to spend, he had an objective and he felt free. He did not doubt at all that Dorina was alive and well and that she would soon reappear. Meanwhile she was safe, she was away, she was elsewhere, and none of the others knew where she was. She was even more safely stored for him now than when she had been incarcerated at Valmorana. There were moments of panic, but those concerned himself really more than her. About her he felt, when he was alone, strangely little anxiety. He avoided Mavis, so as not to be touched by her fear or by the notion that there was really anyone else involved in the matter at all besides himself and Dorina. He loved his wife and expressed his love naturally and easily in his wanderings round London. He enjoyed searching for her, being preoccupied with her all day in a vague manner, and feeling that he was doing something necessary and good and was not supposed to be doing anything else. Sometimes he forgot her entirely.

  Garth searched more scientifically. He wrote, after consultation with Matthew and Mavis, a large number of letters to people who might have heard of her or to whom she might have gone. Often these were quite remote people, elderly family connections or old school friends whose addresses Mavis had found in Dorina’s diaries. He visited small hotels, methodically taking one area and then the next and combing it through. He questioned taxi drivers and guards on stations and assistants in big shops in Oxford Street. The police had by now been informed, though no one had told Austin this. The police were sympathetic, but politely unwilling to mobilize their resources in order to look for an eccentric lady who was obviously staying with friends in a fit of pique. They took Dorina’s description and promised to let the family know if she turned up drowned. Garth too felt occupied but profoundly unhappy. He was working part-time in Notting Hill and devoting the other half of the day to the search. No one at Notting Hill bothered about him very much or questioned him about his views or his ideals, and it did not seem to him to make much difference to the sum of human welfare whether he worked or not. Though he felt no desire to return to philosophy, he felt that his brain was rotting. He worried intensely about Dorina, imagining her miserable or mad or dead. He regretted bitterly that he had not ‘done something’ about Dorina earlier, somehow secured for himself a place in her mind, in her, yes, heart, which he could easily and harmlessly have, with a little cunning, done. So he might now have held her, saved her. A thread would have connected them. He had let her pass by not so much because he was scrupulous as because he was afraid. With more courage he could have prevented whatever awful thing might be impending. He felt a vacuous possessive love for her which tormented him with restless physical aches. Of his father he saw nothing. With Matthew and Mavis he was brief and business-like. They wanted him to move into Valmorana, but he refused. He lived now in a single room in a shabby road off Ladbroke Grove, in a noisy house full of West Indian busmen. He knew that Matthew wanted to talk to him, wanted even some kind of reassurance from him, but he took a grim pleasure in treating Matthew very correctly but blankly. He knew that this time was an interim however. He knew that until Dorina should be found he himself was a dedicated man, a wandering man under a curse.

  Matthew did not search, he waited. He organized, as he could, the searching of others. He and Mavis briefed Garth, briefed the police, even put a discreet notice in The Times. The Tisbournes, who had perforce been told and who had told everyone else, had to be restrained and placated. People rang up with theories. Mavis made little darting visits to the Villa occasionally when Mrs Carberry was at Valmorana, and sometimes she and Matthew met somewhere for a quick lunch or a drink, but they always felt guilty and hurried back to their posts. If ever Matthew left the Villa he would leave the door unfastened, in the evening all the lights were left on, and the door was never locked even when he went to bed. At night he would start up often, thinking he heard a soft foot on the stairs. He was quiet and easy with Mavis and they comforted each other, but there was, for the moment, no intensity between them. Their feelings and their fears were concentrated upon Dorina. Matthew was alone a lot of this time, keeping the Villa in readiness for her return, and thinking immensely about her and bending his will upon her. He also thought with puzzlement about himself, amazed to find how, after so many years of reflection, he remained baffling to himself. Occasionally at ni
ght he found himself reliving that scene with Norman on the landing, his own calm lies to the police, the awful doomed smoothness of it all. He would have liked to talk to Garth, but Garth was cold. Ludwig was still away. Charlotte, who had left hospital and returned to the flat, had not communicated with him. He thought that she would probably do so before long, in spite of her ferocity to him, but he felt no keen interest in seeing her, only a sort of hurt guilt. He experienced a vague fretful desire to change his life utterly, but could see no way in which this could be done. Mavis’s quietness and sweetness consoled him very much and he laid up in her constancy all his hopes of future joy.

  On the evening in question Matthew had been out to have a quick drink with Mavis. She had been tearful, and he had felt, as he held her hand in a dark cocktail bar, deprived of eloquence. The extension of time had affected them both. Too many days had now passed, each one like the last, and why should not such days go on succeeding each other until they should seem no longer like an interim? The postponement of life could not go on much longer but it was not clear how it could be ended. Hope was living through change and on and on into fear. So Mavis wept with fright and bafflement and Matthew told her that he loved her, not so much feeling the words as using them as a talisman. He did not any more know how to live through this time either, or how to relate himself to its peculiar future.

  Later than he intended Matthew was now walking along the road towards the Villa. He had had to park his car quite a long way off in another street. It was evening and the lamps had just been lighted up against the sky of throbbing dark blue with very high corkscrew towers of brilliant pink cloud. It was a sky such as he had often seen in southern Japan, but which was rare in England. The sky held his gaze and the street below it was dark, until he had nearly reached the Villa. Then, blinking into the sudden obscurity, he looked down and saw that the front door of the Villa stood wide open.

  Matthew was suddenly breathless with apprehension and joy. His heart accelerated violently and he went gasping along by the railings and up the steps and in through the open door. It was murky in the hall and his eyes were still darkened after the light above. He called out, ‘Dorina! Dorina!’ Then he stumbled upon something on the floor, threw out his hands and stopped. There was something whitish spread all about on the floor of the hall, and now he could see into the drawing-room whose floor was also strangely pale, the carpet strewn with pieces of — something. There was something hard and clinking underfoot as now he moved to turn the light on.

  As soon as Matthew saw what it was he also knew what had happened. He leaned down and picked up a handful of small fragments. Blue and white Ming this, famille verte, amber yellow Tang, pallid creamy Sung, celadon Sung, ash-grey Sung. He looked about the drawing-room, moved again into the hall, looked into the dining-room. The glass display cases were empty. Everything had been smashed, every single thing.

  ‘Where is she?’ said Austin.

  Austin was standing on the stairs. He was panting and had pulled his shirt open almost to the waist. His blond hair stood out stiffly in every direction. His face glowed. It seemed a brazen head crowned with spikes.

  It was difficult for Matthew to turn his back upon his brother, but he did so and walked as slowly as he could into the drawing-room, turning on more lights. Austin followed.

  ‘Shut the door, would you,’ said Matthew.

  Austin kicked the door to behind him with his foot.

  Matthew began to get out the whisky decanter and glasses, shuffling his feet through the fragments of porcelain. His hands were shaking violently.

  ‘I said where is she?’

  ‘If you mean Dorina,’ said Matthew, and his voice was shaky too, ‘I don’t know.’ He felt sick and frightened and very sorry for himself indeed.

  ‘You called her name as you came in.’

  ‘I thought she might have come back here.’

  ‘Come back?’

  Oh God, thought Matthew. But he must know anyway. Yet how, and what can I say to him, and what is going to happen?

  ‘She was here,’ said Austin. ‘It’s true. I could hardly believe it. Where is she now? Where is she now?’ He came close to Matthew.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Matthew. He looked into the glaring eyes. ‘Have a drink.’

  Austin knocked the glass out of his hand and it joined the fragments upon the floor.

  ‘Do you mind if I have a drink?’ said Matthew. ‘This is all rather a shock.’ He poured some whisky into the other glass.

  ‘Where is she?’ Austin repeated. His voice was thick and bubbling with anger and he could hardly gasp out the words.

  ‘I’ve told you,’ said Matthew. ‘I don’t know where she is. I swear to you that I do not know where she is. That is true.’

  ‘You’re hiding her somewhere,’ said Austin. ‘You’ve got her somewhere, somewhere secret. I’ve looked all through the house. I can’t see her. I thought she might be here. I found one of her things, oh God — she left a — handkerchief — in one of the — bedrooms — I knew it was hers — it had a — ladybird on it — Where is she — is she here — are you expecting her — now — why was the door open — why did you call her name —’

  ‘Austin, I don’t know where she is,’ said Matthew. ‘I thought — I thought she might call on me if she came back. But I had no special reason to think this. You know how we’ve all been looking for her. I don’t know any more about her going away than you do.’

  ‘But she was here — You had her here when I called to see her at — and they told me she was lying down — then they told me she was gone — and all the time — she was here — with you — oh God I’ll —’ Austin’s voice broke on a sob.

  ‘No, no, everything they told you at Valmorana was true, I promise, I swear.’

  ‘Your false — words — how can I listen — lying swine — she was here, you said so yourself — and her little handkerchief — in a bedroom —’

  ‘Dorina was here,’ said Matthew, ‘just for one night — I’ll explain —’ What was the best lie to tell now? Whatever was said Austin would believe more than the truth. It hardly mattered now what was said.

  ‘Three nights — they said — but I knew more — all that time — she was here —’

  ‘Who told you?’ said Matthew.

  ‘Never mind, I always find out about you, you can’t hide from me, you kept her here, upstairs, while I was in torment —’

  ‘Stop it, Austin,’ said Matthew. ‘I’ll tell you exactly what happened, listen, will you. Dorina came here looking for Charlotte. She didn’t even know I was here. It was a night when there was a rainstorm and as it was quite late she stayed here overnight and went back to Valmorana in the morning. Then later on she left Valmorana and disappeared. That was how it was. I promise you, honestly.’

  ‘Do you swear on your very deepest honour that every word of this is true?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can tell you’re lying. I can always tell when people are lying. And especially you, you have such a rotten — look. What you say can’t be true. Why didn’t Dorina answer my letters? And she knew where Charlotte was, I told her myself —’

  ‘She’d forgotten.’

  ‘Forgotten! You got her here, you kept her here, you made love to her, you —’

  ‘Austin, I did not make love to Dorina, nor even conceive of it, I swear on my knees, how can I make you believe the truth, look —’ Matthew picked up a sharp fragment of cut-glass tumbler from the floor and squeezed it violently into the palm of his right hand. He let the glass fall. Blood streamed over his fingers.

  Austin, who had been standing close to him, bent forward swaying from the waist and gave a long shuddering breath. He stared at the blood as if examining it and then sat down heavily in one of the armchairs. Matthew, almost crying with the sudden pain, fumbled for a handkerchief. He wrapped the hand in the white handkerchief and watched the bright red stain spreading.

  ‘Austin, I didn’t —’

>   Austin leaned back in the chair. He let something fall with a crack on to the carpet beside him. It was a piece of cast iron, part of the leg of a cast-iron table, something which might have been seen in a nearby rubbish tip.

  ‘You made love to Betty,’ said Austin.

  ‘I did not,’ said Matthew. He felt a little faint. He sat down too and found that his eyes were swimming with tears.

  ‘You did. I have the proof.’

  ‘Austin,’ said Matthew, and he had now to control a whimper in his voice, ‘when will you and I find the truth? I did not ever make love to Betty or dream of such a thing, or Dorina either.’

  ‘You used to meet Betty secretly in London. People saw you together. And I found a letter — torn up — in your flat —’

  Matthew gave a long sigh. ‘Let us get rid of this anyway,’ he said, ‘at last. I met Betty secretly once because we were going to buy you a birthday present. It was her idea, and her present. We were going to buy a tennis racket. You remember that time when you got so keen on tennis. Betty wanted to give you a new racket, but as she didn’t really know about tennis rackets she asked me to come with her to Lillywhites to choose one. That’s all that was. It was a secret because she wanted to surprise you. She loved you. Dorina loves you. God knows why.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ said Austin. ‘You’ve just invented that.’ He was leaning forward now, drooping his head, mopping his mouth, his hair flopping before his face.

  ‘Would you like some evidence?’ said Matthew. ‘I can give it to you.’ He got up and went to the desk. He returned with a piece of folded paper which he gave to Austin.

  It was an old faded letter. Austin stared at it, his lips trembling. Betty’s writing.

  Dearest Matthew, about our tennis racket plot, could we meet not Piccadilly station after all but Café Royal? I have told Austin I am meeting a school friend! He is very credible really, though he is so nervy and anxious about things. I believe he’s going to forget his birthday this year just like he did last! I’m longing to see how surprised he’ll be when he sees an enormous package! ! I promise I won’t mention you. Thank you very much for helping with this, I couldn’t poss have managed alone, would have made a bloomer! Won’t A. be surprised!