by Iris Murdoch
‘What about? Why on earth should Lady Kitty write to me? Do you know?’
‘No,’ said Biscuit. She added, ‘Of course I don’t know, I’m only the messenger.’
I stared down at Biscuit and her lovely eager thin face seemed to harden and recede and become the face of a stranger. Anger, fear, almost superstitious terror possessed me.
‘Well, messenger, you’d better go then. You’ve done your job. Now go.’
‘But I — ’
‘Go. Go.’
Biscuit turned and disappeared into the fog. I stood there alone in the middle of the bridge holding Lady Kitty’s letter in my hand. After a little while I put the envelope in my pocket and began to walk back towards Westminster Station. Ten minutes later I was in the bar on the westbound platform at Sloane Square.
I was drinking gin and reading Lady Kitty’s letter. People came and went in the bar and there was a constant cackle of conversation and an intermittent rattle of trains. I read Lady Kitty’s letter carefully several times over. It ran as follows:
Dear Mr Burde,
I hope you will forgive me for writing to you like this out of the blue. I would not do so without a very good reason. I should say at once that my husband has of course told me all about what happened at Oxford in relation to you and the first Mrs Jopling. It may seem strange to you that I should write and what I want is not easy to say. The past has remained something very awful for my husband and he has felt a bitterness which does not diminish. It seemed that there was nothing that could be done about this. (And we have tried.) Now it turns out so surprisingly that it seems the work of providance that you are in the same office. I think that he will not speak to you. The resentment and the pride are great, as you can imagine. But I want you to speak to him. I think that he would like to talk to you about the past, and I think if you could both just begin to talk quietly about it, it would help my husband very much indeed. I think if you only met once and talked like that it would help him. I wonder if you understand? A psychoanalist might not help him, but you might help him, and only you. I do not mean that he is unbalanced about it, not at all. He is a healthy successful man, bursting with energy and can enjoy his life. But there is all the time this shadow that will not go away. I do not mean either that it could ever go away, but a single talk with you could help to remove a sort of anger at the world, a desire for revenge even, which is with him like an endless toothache. If he could see you as a real person who has grown older and has suffered too perhaps. I know that I ask a lot of you as you may well prefer not to talk about those events or be made to think about them. But I ask this as something important which I think that you can do to help my husband. And I hope perhaps that you might like to help him. It is important that I have not told him that I am writing to you. This must remain a secret, he must not know that I asked you to approach him, as this would of course reduce the value of your coming, you see this. So please whatever happens keep this absolutely to yourself. Also, I write on my own writing paper, but please do not write to me or telephone me at Cheyne Walk. I send this letter to you by the hand of my maid. I wonder if you would be so good as to tell her whether or not you will do what I ask. You can easily go to him in the office and ask for a talk. Please excuse me for writing to you to ask this great favour.
Yours sincerely,
Katharine Jopling.
P.S. I have read this letter through and I feel there are more things, which it is not easy to say in a letter, which you should know before you see my husband. If you would be so good as to meet me once briefly I could explain them. I believe you like the park, and I suggest we might meet there next Monday morning about eight o’clock, by the Serpentine on your side of the bridge. Please tell my maid if you will come. I shall quite understand if you prefer not to. Please be sure to destroy this letter.
This communication put me into such a state of wild emotion that I could hardly breathe. The blood rushed to my face and my heart beat with such violence that I had to restrain it with my hand for fear it might do itself a mischief. The roar of the trains, the chatter of the people, made an undulating din in the midst of which my mind floated, dazed and separate. I sat blind with emotion, alone, rapt by pain and fear and by something else which made me want to cry, something which quite dreadfully touched the heart: and at the same time I was able to notice that Lady Kitty could not spell and to wonder if she realized that at this time of year it was still almost dark at eight o’clock in the morning.
The letter was dated a week ago and was presumably what Biscuit had tried to deliver last Saturday. It was a neatly written letter, doubtless the result of several drafts. Lady Kitty had acted quickly and yet carefully. Then I realized that Biscuit was supposed to take a message back, only I had dismissed her. This upset me very much. For of course there could be no doubt or hesitation about it. I would certainly do whatever Lady Kitty wanted. I would see her, I would see Gunnar, I would take the initiative which she said he would not take. I must do this and trust to her judgment that it would do more good than harm. Whether she was right or not was another matter. But it was not for me even to speculate about this. I simply had to do what her letter told me. As for my failure to return an answer at once by Biscuit, I must hope that this would not be interpreted as indecision. Of course there could be no question of my communicating with the house in Cheyne Walk. But Biscuit would surely come again for her reply. I was confronted, I suddenly realized with a mixture of alarm and awed relief, with an organization of almost military efficiency. There was no doubt, and as I saw this I let my head fall back against the wall in a kind of frightened admiring amaze, that Biscuit had been sent to observe me, to report on me, to see if I was the sort of person who could be trusted to receive Lady Kitty’s — oh my God — so precious letter. Biscuit would turn up again to learn my answer to it, to learn if I would speak to Gunnar and whether I would be beside the Serpentine at eight o’clock on Monday.
The whole vista which now unravelled before my dazzled eyes was so extraordinary that I panted with emotion as I viewed it. Fancy, and this was the least of shocks, those two women discussing me! Biscuit must in some sense have reported favourably, yet on what evidence and in what terms? Lady Kitty would not have written such a dangerous brave letter to just anybody. How fantastically kind of her to write to me! And what on earth could she think about me, what image of me was there in her mind? I now realized that, with my idiotic conception of myself as scarcely existing, I had not imagined that she would ever have given me a single thought. I must have supposed, when I knew that Gunnar had married again, that he must have told his spouse about the past. Only I had not reflected. I had not really conceived that some conception of me had existed all these years in the minds of Gunnar and his second wife. And thus I had of course protected myself. What monster had been there all these years of which I knew nothing and which was yet a part of my being?
It was odd, almost frivolous, that I thought first about the women. But I thought about them briefly. The important thing was Gunnar. And as I read the letter through for the fourth time my imagination began to be stirred and very uncomfortably stirred. ‘Bitterness … resentment… anger… revenge …’ I had in truth not imagined Gunnar as brooding. I had conceived of him as hating me, but I had pictured this hatred as something clean, hygienic, separate and somehow essentially past, like a sharp knife put away forever in a drawer. Not that I thought that such things fade or vanish in the end. But I did not rate it among the live continuing functioning changing things of the world, partly because I did not conceive that I would ever meet Gunnar again. As far as my life was concerned it was all over. But supposing all these years Gunnar’s hatred had grown, had flowered? Suppose he had meditated schemes of revenge, suppose he had wanted to kill me, suppose he still wanted to? What use was Lady Kitty’s touching idea of a quiet talk in the face of a horror like that?
And yet she had written to ask my help. Her letter bewildered me, since it conjured up for the f
irst time a genuinely biting image of the real Gunnar, and in the same breath spoke of reconciliation and cure as being at least worth the attempt. I had to trust her here. She must have some good enough reason to think the quiet talk a possibility. If there was really nothing for me in Gunnar except mad rage, she would not have made the suggestion — unless she was a very silly woman. But then perhaps she was a very silly woman? That had to be considered too. Altogether it was important that I should see her before deciding exactly how to approach Gunnar. It might be wisest to write him a letter. Then if he did not want to see me there need be no drama at all. All he had to do was not to reply.
But then, the imagination raced frenziedly on, what would become of me? How would I feel as the hours and the days went by and Gunnar did not answer me — or if he just replied formally that he would not see me? I measured what an immense mental change I had already undergone since opening that fateful letter. What a completely new landscape confronted me now! I had never for a moment envisaged a reconciliation with Gunnar, even the degree of reconciliation which talking would imply, as being available to me. Even God could scarcely have brought it about. Could Lady Kitty manage to do what God could not? Of course Lady Kitty had the advantage of existing, of sitting in her room at Cheyne Walk and writing this letter and handing it to her maid … But amazing as were her possible achievements, what she had already brought about was perhaps equally remarkable. She had totally altered my mind. I now thought it at least conceivable that I might speak again to Gunnar and be in some way at peace with him; and now that I could conceive of this, I wanted it, I needed it, with a desperation which was something new in my life. If that could only happen … How terrible suddenly to want this almost impossible thing, to realize that it could be, and yet might never be. This was a new suffering which the damned had not imagined, as if Christ should open a window into hell, look through, and then close it again.
This consideration, this glimpse of a completely new torture, brought my thoughts abruptly back to myself. Of course they had never really been away, but now all the old familiar solipsistic self-protective instincts were active, rejecting the possibility of change, the possibility of failure. I could now have faced the idea of Gunnar’s murdering me more readily than the idea of his ignoring me, of his simply failing to respond to my appeal. After all, nothing had happened yet, nothing need happen, to alter the arrangements of my life. I had only to say no to Lady Kitty. It would be a reasonable enough no. No might indeed be not only the prudent answer but the right answer. I could say no and remain in safety. And yet — how could I not be there beside the Serpentine on Monday morning where in my feverish imagination I could already see myself waiting?
I rose now in sheer confused agitation and blundered out of the bar onto the platform, holding the letter still unfolded in my hand. A Hounslow train was just roaring into the station in a loud climax of dry clamour. Not knowing what I was doing I began to walk towards the escalator.
‘Hilary!’
The face of Biscuit suddenly materialized. I cannoned into her, then grabbed her coat and pulled her back beside me against the wall. The people on the platform surged forward, the people off the train streamed past. Biscuit and I leaned back against the advertisements.
‘Hello, Biscuit, we meet again. Why are you here?’
‘I followed you.’
‘Followed — you mean from — ?’
‘Yes, from the bridge. I wanted to bring back the message. I was to bring it back tonight. I thought I would wait until you had finished the letter. Then I could take the message.’
‘Oh, my God, And how long have you waited?’
‘Not long. Only an hour and a half.’
‘An hour and a half? Have I been sitting in there for an hour and a half?’
‘I watched you through the window. I did not like to interrupt you as you were thinking.’
‘Thinking? Was that thinking? I wondered what it was.’
‘The message — ’
‘Oh yes, the message. What message, incidentally?’
‘Will you do what Lady Kitty asks and will you meet her on Monday?’
‘I thought you didn’t know what was in the letter.’
‘I don’t. I ask what I was told to ask.’
‘You’re a handy girl, aren’t you. I wish you were my maid. The answer is yes and yes.’
‘Yes and yes?’
‘Yes, I will do what she asks and yes I will meet her on Monday.’
‘Thank you. Good night — then — Hilary.’
I looked down at Biscuit. She was looking up at me. Her duffle coat was dry now (had she really been sitting patiently on the cold platform all that time?), her eyes were glistening and big, but I did not interrogate them. Her bony face looked tired. In the rough shapeless coat she looked like a refugee. I kissed her lightly on the cheek.
‘Off you go. How will you get to Cheyne Walk from here?’
‘I shall walk, it is not far.’
‘Good night, then.’
She turned and went slowly away without looking back and got onto the escalator and was carried upward out of sight. I waited a while to let her get ahead on her journey back to Cheyne Walk, where she would report, in some bright cosy unimaginable boudoir, to her unimaginable employer. Then I followed up myself and came out into Sloane Square. The night air bit with a coldness which shocked the blood into retreat. I thrust my hands deep into my pockets. The fog was a little less dense. I stood still for a while, then began to walk along in the direction of the King’s Arms.
Suddenly I remembered Tommy. I looked at my watch. Biscuit’s vigil had lasted more like two hours. Tommy had been waiting for me for well over an hour. I went into the telephone box outside the Royal Court Theatre and rang her number.
‘Tommy — ’
‘Oh darling — darling — thank God. I couldn’t think what had happened — I thought you’d been run over, I thought you’d been killed — I was so worried — Oh thank God, thank God — ’
‘Tommy, I’m so sorry — ’
‘That’s all right, I’m just so relieved to hear your voice, oh I am so relieved — I was imagining all sorts of things — ’
‘I’m sorry, darling — ’
‘Will you come now?’
‘Well, no, I can’t — ’
There was a silence.
‘Tommy, I’m sorry, it isn’t that — I mean I’m not with anyone else. I’m in a telephone box in Sloane Square and I’m just going home. I had a drink or two and forgot the time — I think I’d better — go home now — please forgive me — ’
After another silence she said, ‘All right — darling — I’m just so disappointed not to see you — I was so longing to see you. Will you — see me tomorrow?’
‘Yes, yes, tomorrow — tomorrow morning if you like — come to the flat about eleven — we could go for a walk.’
‘Oh good, oh thank you, I’m so glad — don’t worry, I’ll be all right, I’ll sleep well. I do hope you’re not upset about anything — you will tell me, won’t you?’
‘Yes, yes — ’
‘Sleep well, my darling.’
‘And you too, Tommy, sleep well — good night.’
And I did sleep well. And the final thing I thought before I fell asleep was that now, at last, in the end, Lady Kitty had taken over and she would dispose of everything in the best way possible. Lady Kitty … would … arrange … it … all…
SATURDAY
IT WAS the next morning and Tommy and I were at the Round Pond. Tommy was happy. She knew from of old that this was a place of reconciling.
Earlier in the morning Mick and Jimbo had arrived as usual to visit Christopher. Jimbo had bought me a potted plant, a gloomy resigned growth which looked as if it had never heard of flowers. I was touched however. Did Jimbo, in the gentle sympathy of his half-feminine Welsh heart, know that I was shortly to face the flames? He gave it to me hastily and shyly, as if anxious not to display any sort of pity
. Later the telephone engineer arrived and then the boy with the elastic band hair style. This contravened the rule of only three visitors at a time, but I forgave them on this occasion for the sake of Jimbo’s potted plant. The telephone engineer had brought a guitar and after a while there was a cautious sound of plucked strings, then the hollow tap of the tabla and fragments of muted singing. Perhaps the Waterbirds were coming into existence after all. I did not disturb them. When Tommy came I took her away at once. I did not want to let her into the flat.
We had strolled along the vista which belongs to Watts’s Bronze Horseman, and had reached the Round Pond, that centre of intense and innocent diversion, that perhaps mysterious and holy place, the omphalos of London. The quick-change artist weather had put on another show today. The fog had gone, to be replaced by a vivid russet-yellow light, cloud almost pierced by sun, which lent bright but strange colours to all things visible, the calm dark façade of Kensington Palace, the choppy metallic surface of the pond, the iridescent feathers of the ducks, the white sails of the model yachts, the red jerseys of the children, Tommy’s blue mac, Tommy’s grey eyes. Tommy held my hand and I let her, feeling myself like a child. I had no grain of sexual desire for her today.