An Accidental Man

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘Perhaps it was like that — but no. I do remember it quite clearly, not just as dream. It was something that happened to me when I was about eleven, a sort of mystical experience.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing to tell. And I can’t convey the atmosphere. I was alone in a wood and I took my clothes off and kissed a tree. It was a sort of sustained vision. It was like being released into another world, as if I’d never ever be the same again. Yet it wasn’t religion really, it was nothing to do with God or Jesus Christ.’

  ‘And were you the same again?’

  ‘I — don’t — know. It seems silly not to know, but — It comes back to me sometimes with a sense of being reserved — sort of —’

  ‘Reserved for?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s sometimes made me disappointed with things as they are. Then occasionally it would all come back in a sort of feeling about a particular thing, as if that thing partook of it, came from that world —’

  ‘I think I — yes —’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  Garth said nothing. He moved the boat onward very slowly, lipping the glossy surface delicately with the light oars.

  ‘It was odd, dreaming it suddenly like that. I have dreamt about it — sometimes — I think — only unless one tells one’s dream one forgets it. Do you find that? So I was never certain. And now — oh yes — in this dream I ended up by fainting. That was rather marvellous actually. Do you ever faint in dreams?’

  ‘But in real life — if you remember — you didn’t faint?’

  ‘Oh no. I held on to the tree for a while, and even then it was all fading. And then I put on my clothes and ran after my mother and Patrick. I never told anybody, anybody.’

  ‘Not even — ?’

  ‘No.’

  The boat glided into a bower of willows and Gracie gently arrested its movement, letting the lanky green streamers pull through her hands.

  ‘And — so strange — you know we often went back to that wood afterwards but I could never find that special tree again, though I looked for it and looked for it. Wasn’t that odd? And it wasn’t any kind of tree that I knew at all.’

  ‘Where was it? Somewhere in Scotland?’

  ‘No, in Gerrards Cross.’

  ‘Well, there are gods even in Gerrards Cross.’

  ‘Then you think it was religious?’

  ‘There are gods and gods.’

  ‘You know, I had that feeling, that feeling, and almost that sort of faintness, when —’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Oh well — nothing — I’m making too much of it. I usually don’t think about it at all.’

  They were silent, Garth regarding the girl, Gracie edging herself up a little more and trying to pull her pink sun hat back into shape. It was not and green in the domed willow arbour but there was a coolness of watery smells muddled in the air. Gracie looked up.

  Garth propelled the boat quietly out into the open and London was distantly lucidly hazily present, smudged with trees, the Serpentine bridge, the Hilton hotel, Knightsbridge barracks, and tiny and far away the towers of Westminster.

  ‘Did you ever have anything like that?’ said Gracie. She punched her hat.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, what is it?’

  ‘You’ll be cross if I tell you.’

  ‘No, I won’t — Oh you don’t mean —’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just sex?’

  ‘You needn’t say ‘just’. Intellect is sexless, but spirit is almost all sex. In fact it is all sex, only it sounds misleading to say so.’

  ‘It sounds horrid.’

  ‘Not horrid. Consider Shakespeare. All sex, all spirit.’

  The boat glided a little faster now towards the bridge. Gracie looked at Garth. He was looking thin and fit and sunburnt, his face hard and shiny. The sun had made golden tints in his flowing dark hair and he looked a little more like his handsome father only — what — grimmer. She turned her head aside and said, ‘There’s Peter Pan. I met Matthew there once.’

  ‘Matthew —’

  ‘I feel I’ve lost Matthew.’

  ‘I feel I’ve lost him too. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I know. It doesn’t matter. Now I feel almost sorry for him somehow — and I think that’s a bit awful — a sort of sacrilege — and yet —’

  ‘One must relax one’s grip on people. Your pity doesn’t harm him, you know. It doesn’t even touch him. It doesn’t even reach him.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’ She sighed, and with the sigh all her sorrow came flooding back, not after all diminished by one merciful iota. The boat moved into a cool echoing cave in the shadow of the bridge. Dim watery lights wanly flickered overhead. Obscurity at once brought tears into her eyes, like the blank undiverted relaxation of the night-time.

  Her days were dreadful now. She lived inside a maimed wreck of herself. Insane hopes still survived in scattered parts of her being, and there were terrible encounters with little separated minds which did not yet know that all was lost. A blind stupid idea of consolation, dying but refusing to perish, was her chief torment: the idea of being consoled by Ludwig for all this suffering. She would take it, where else should she take it, to him. His sweetness, his absurdity, his pure strength, his absolute devotion, were present in every detail to all her thoughts, and he was sovereign over her misery. There was no question of there being anything else in the world at all. Love rolled her and tossed her and trampled her. She had wept more than all her childhood’s tears, and such bitter unrelieving tears these were now, tears of hopeless regret and defeat and the rending tenderness of a rejected heart. If she could only hold him in her arms and all be well again. Oh if only if only if only.

  ‘I’ll take you back and get you a taxi,’ said Garth.

  ‘Sorry —’

  ‘That’s all right, Gracie. Old friends must help. And I did know you when we were both children.’

  ‘You’re so kind, Garth, you help everybody.’

  ‘One does one’s best.’

  ‘And I meant to ask you about your novel. Did you hear from the publisher?’

  ‘Yes. They’re going to publish it in the autumn.’

  ‘I’m so glad.’

  It is odd, thought Gracie. I am still alive. I have put a pretty dress on. I cannot remember putting it on, but here it is. Though I am screaming mad in my heart I can converse. I can even check my tears. I am here in a rowing boat on the Serpentine. I can feel the sun.

  ‘Garth.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This will sound silly and I don’t mean it that way but —’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You know I said I sometimes had that feeling, that special feeling, about things — on some occasions — you know —’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I had it that day in the King’s Road, when you followed me and wouldn’t come to me.’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘I don’t quite know why I call it that feeling, because it was different too — and yet it was that, it sort of shook me, I suppose it’s a kind of fear, a sense of the world being quite without order and of other things looking through. I mean, when you went away and then I turned round and saw you walking behind me along the road.’

  ‘And you pretended not to notice.’

  ‘And I pretended not to notice — that was part of it — but I knew that you knew —’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I felt quite frightened on the station platform, as if I were afraid that you would arrive before the train.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No, no, it wasn’t bad at all. Then we met again by accident. Wasn’t that odd?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you asked me for a drink. Would you have got in touch with me if we hadn’t met in the street on that evening? I suppose you wouldn’t. I’ve never asked you why you wouldn’t talk to me at Matthew’s?’

  ‘It would have been all false.’
/>
  ‘But this isn’t false.’

  ‘This is — nothing, Gracie. I help you to pass the time. That is really all you have got to do just now. This is a little enclosed moment. You will move out of it and forget even its atmosphere. You will remember nothing of this time. You will recover. You have many friends who are waiting for that. One friend perhaps in particular.’

  ‘You mean — yes. I must try to — believe in the future. You are so kind, Garth. You are a kind helper and a kind person.’

  ‘An instrument. All’s well here at least. Let me help you out.’

  Gracie took his warm hard hand in hers. With a slight shock she stepped from the rocky yielding surface of the boat onto dry land.

  ‘Are you thinking of taking a holiday?’ said Austin.

  ‘A holiday?’ said Matthew. ‘What from?’

  ‘Oh I don’t know. All one’s monied friends run off at this time of year. I supposed you might be thinking of Scotland or a trip to the Med.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re looking tired. I’m sure you need a change of air.’

  ‘In fact I’ve been idling.’

  ‘I daresay that’s what’s tired you. Why don’t you do some government work? A chap like you can always pick up the threads. I’m told Charles Odmore is dying to rope you in for something or other.’

  ‘I might.’

  ‘Well, I must run. It’s very kind of you to have asked me for a drink.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘I’ve got to beetle over to the flat to pick up some warmer clothes now the weather’s changed.’

  ‘One can get a touch of autumn at this time of year in London.’

  ‘You know Garth’s living at the flat now? He’s done some redecorating. The place looks quite something. Even the bathroom.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘It’s amazing what a lick of paint and some Regency wallpaper can do.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Oh I forgot to tell you. Garth’s publishing a novel in the autumn. He wrote it in America.’

  ‘Good for him.’

  ‘Crazy avant-garde stuff I imagine, I haven’t read it. He’s awfully busy. He’s just started another novel. And he’s revising that thing of Norman Monkley’s. You remember that chap Norman Monkley wrote a novel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, Garth’s revising it and it might be published too. Garth’s going to let the Monkleys have all the royalties.’

  ‘That’s good of him.’

  ‘Well, he could hardly do less. I went to see the Monkleys last week. Norman was doing some sort of basket work. He’s quite a sweet character now.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I must fly. I’ve got to get over to the flat, and I said I’d cook supper for Mavis. She’ll be exhausted. She’s been spending today carting the char’s idiot child to an institution.’

  ‘Mavis is very kind.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t she. You know, her kindness to me has been an absolute revelation. I felt such a miserable wreck and she’s quite put me on my feet again. I must say I had a rotten time. But now I feel like a reconstituted Humpty Dumpty.’

  ‘She’s good at helping.’

  ‘You can say that again. You know, she’s awfully like Dorina in a way, she’s got that concentrated sweetness, but without any of the feyness and the fear. I don’t think Mavis is afraid of anything.’

  ‘No, indeed.’

  ‘Poor old Dorina was just a sort of half-person really, a maimed creature, she had to die, like certain kinds of cripples have to. They can’t last.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘That idiot child will probably die in its teens, the doctor told Mavis. A good thing too. Mavis didn’t tell the mother, of course.’

  ‘Naturally —’

  ‘Mavis has certainly helped me to see the world in perspective.’

  ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘One must have a sense of proportion. I used to be a bundle of nerves. I used to worry about every damn thing.’

  ‘One shouldn’t do that.’

  ‘Well, ta-ta.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Matthew. They had both risen. A darkish evening brooded like mist in the unlighted room. A wet chill wind had plastered a few translucent stocking-coloured leaves from the walnut tree upon the window pane.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Anything. Anything in the world.’

  ‘You said once,’ said Matthew, ‘you said it to several people, that Betty committed suicide. But that wasn’t true, was it?’

  ‘Of course it wasn’t true,’ said Austin.

  ‘You said it out of resentment against me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So that you could blame me and make me feel guilt?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Anything else you’d like to know?’

  ‘Why did you say at the inquest that Betty couldn’t swim?’

  ‘I didn’t say it,’ said Austin. ‘Betty was quite a good swimmer. She just hit her head in falling.’

  ‘You did say it. I distinctly remember.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Oh well,’ said Matthew, ‘maybe my memory is at fault. Anyway, what does it matter now.’

  ‘You seem depressed,’ said Austin. ‘You mustn’t give way to depression. You need a week or so at the seaside.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Well, I really must dash now, I’ve got to buy frozen peas and all sorts on the way back. Goodbye, then, and chin up.’

  ‘Goodbye, Austin.’

  Alone, Matthew sat down and poured himself another stiff whisky. He was drinking too hard these days.

  When a man has reflected much he is tempted to imagine himself as the prime author of change. Perhaps in such a mood God actually succeeded in creating the world. But for man such moods are times of illusion. What we have deeply imagined we feign to control, often with what seem to be the best of motives. But the reality is huge and dark which lies beyond the lighted area of our intentions.

  I came to set him free, thought Matthew. I came to change magic into spirit. It was all to be brought about by me. Now when it appears that somehow or other, by means which I do not even understand, he has got out, I ought to be glad. Did I really want to be his mentor and to set up as his judge? No. He has his desolation as I have mine, and let him be free of it. I wanted that bond to be cut, but I did want to cut it myself. And now I am sad as if I had lost a beloved.

  ‘Pinkie —’, said Clara, coming into the dining-room where her husband was reading The Times over breakfast, ‘that was Hester on the telephone. She says that Henrietta Sayce has been killed in an accident.’

  ‘My God!’

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear —’ said Clara. She sat down at the table and dissolved into a speechless rigmarole of whimpering whining tears. Her face looked haggard, wrinkled, smaller, older. Inside her crumpled housecoat with its frayed collar she clung to herself and swayed with the sudden mourning of those who realize that they are old. George watched her with compassion, with fear.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Clara, mopping her eyes with her sleeve and shuddering anew, ‘it’s so unbearable. Poor little girl. I know she was a difficult child but she was so sweet and so awfully clever, I can hardly believe it, it sounds idiotic but I used to think sometimes she might make a wife for Patrick when she grew up, they were so fond of each other, and there’s all that money on Penny’s side, and now she’s dead, oh dear, dear, dear —’

  ‘Poor little wretch. What happened?’

  ‘It was last night. She was climbing on some scaffolding and she fell off and broke her skull. She never regained consciousness.’

  ‘Poor Penny.’

  ‘Yes. Poor Penny. Martin dying of cancer for two years and now this.’

  ‘Is Oliver with her?’

  ‘That’s another thing. Oliver’s incommunicado somewhere in Greece with that Oxford — you know, that Hi
lton boy. They don’t know where he is.’

  ‘You’d better go to Penny.’

  ‘Hester says Mollie’s with her. Mollie knows her better than I do, but I’ll call over just in case. Oh dear — And it will upset Gracie so. Everything upsets her now. She cries so over the television.’

  ‘You’d better ring up Patrick and tell him.’

  ‘Oh — I can’t.’

  ‘Well, I will. Do compose yourself, Clara. After all it isn’t one of our children.’

  ‘Yes, but it might be. Patrick is so rash and Gracie is wasting away.’

  ‘Charles says Matthew told him that Ludwig is going back to America. That’s one good thing. Gracie will feel better when he’s gone.’

  ‘I hope so. I hope he won’t get himself killed in the war just so as to upset her more.’

  ‘She needs distractions. Perhaps she’ll interest herself in the Villa now Matthew’s moving out.’

  ‘Why is Matthew moving out, I wonder?’

  ‘So as to make a love nest for himself and Mavis, I imagine.’

  ‘I gather Mavis is having an awful time with Austin. I think she’s a saint.’

  ‘Austin is exploiting her. He always exploits women. He’s the sort of man who always manages to find the right woman for the sort of trouble he’s in.’

  ‘You sound envious.’

  ‘I’m not. I manage it too. Only in my case she’s always the same.’

  ‘Darling —’

  ‘Matthew will rescue Mavis at the appropriate moment.’

  ‘Oh, Pinkie, I must get dressed. Do you think I should ring Penny now? Oh how awful it is! What can I say?’

  ‘Leave it till after ten. Here, have some more coffee. Would you like some brandy?’

  ‘No, no. I’m glad about the Villa.’

  ‘So am I, especially if Gracie really means it.’

  ‘About our all going to live there together? Oh I’m sure she does. She needs the family terribly just now. We all need each other. We must close our ranks. At least we’ve still got each other, not like poor Penny, oh dear I can’t bear to think of it —’

  ‘Clara, please, coffee.’

  ‘Pinkie, it will be good, won’t it, when we’re all together in that lovely house. It’s the only thing that cheers me a little, that and hoping that now Gracie and —’