A Word Child

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘Poor Biscuit. Have you been waiting for him all these years, your prince, poor disinherited princess?’ The words were cruel, as I knew when I had uttered them. And yet her enigmatic dignity did not evoke pity. Suddenly I thought and uttered my thought. ‘Not me — darling Biscuit — I can’t be him.’

  ‘I know.’ She got up. ‘You see, you love her. They always do.’ She began to walk away towards the bridge.

  I went after her and caught the sleeve of her coat. ‘Biscuit, don’t spoil things.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Don’t — Don’t — It’s such a lovely day.’

  A quartet of Canada geese whizzed under the bridge and took the water with a noisy checked flurry.

  ‘Biscuit, has Lady Kitty talked to you about me? Has she told you why she wants to talk to me? It’s not perhaps — what you think at all. Has she told you anything?’

  ‘No.’ We watched the geese fussily settling their wings. ‘I think nothing. She has told me nothing. Why should she. I am a servant.’

  ‘A plaything. A toy. Come! Biscuit, I may not be the prince but I do love you. I do. Is that any good?’

  She smiled, first at the geese and then at me. ‘No.’

  It was exactly six p.m. I had not returned to the flat for I feared an invasion by Tommy. I would have liked to shave again but by six o’clock this did not matter any more. I had been walking the embankment since five and was sick and faint with anxiety. It was a cold clear night and some stars were visible over the river. My limbs were restless and twitching with a chill ague, and I was fidgety and nervous with dread. I had resisted the temptation of the King’s Head. I had eaten practically no lunch. This was no moment for seeking alcoholic inspiration. I must be chaste and cool. As it was I had reduced myself to a shuddering wreck with hunger and with cold.

  My teeth were chattering. I pressed the iron gate and walked up to the door and rang the bell. Biscuit opened the door and a rush of warm air came out. Biscuit could not possibly have been wearing a white apron and a white starched cap and streamers, but the effect was somehow the same. She looked at me coldly. ‘Will you come in, please? Madam is upstairs.’

  ‘Come off it, Biscuit.’

  ‘Put your coat here, please. Madam is upstairs.’

  ‘Well, kindly tell Madam to come down,’ I said. ‘I am not coming in.’

  Biscuit turned expressionlessly towards the staircase, leaving me standing in the doorway. After a moment’s hesitation I drew the door to without shutting it and went back down the path and through the gate and waited on the pavement. I looked up at the well curtained windows of the first floor where a little line of golden light was showing.

  I had thought this out beforehand. I could not possibly enter Gunnar’s house. My presence there without his knowledge would be an outrage. And how could I possibly talk to Kitty while listening for Gunnar’s key in the door? I would be in continual fear in his house, suspecting his presence in darkened alcoves or behind screens. It was not that I rationally imagined that I would be walking into some sort of trap. I just did not want to step onto his territory at all. And I did not want to see his wife in the context of a conjugal home. Better the blasted heath for whatever conversation we were to have together.

  I waited for what seemed a long time. Then Kitty slipped out of the door and closed it behind her. She was wearing the magnificent fur coat, pulled to her waist by the metal belt, and a scarf over her head. She came swiftly down the path, smiling, as if my refusal to enter had been the most usual thing in the world. ‘How kind of you to come.’

  ‘How kind of you to ask me.’

  ‘Shall we walk on the embankment?’

  ‘Yes, if you will.’

  ‘You needn’t be afraid to come in, you know. Gunnar is dining at Chequers.’

  ‘I would rather talk to you out here.’

  ‘I quite understand.’

  We went through the garden and across the road and approached the embankment wall. The tide was in and very full, upon the turn, and the black water moved slowly just below the wall, turning back meditatively towards the sea.

  I did not want to stay near the house, and we walked on a bit in silence until we reached a wooden jetty which stretched out into the river, with one or two launches moored and bobbing beside it. There was a light halfway down the jetty. We passed the light and moved on into darkness. The water was all about us now, we could hear it splashing below our feet, gently slapping at the structure of the jetty.

  ‘What a pleasant region of London you live in,’ I said. The shuddering and chattering had quite gone. I felt perfectly calm, even warm. A thrilling current of sheer joy came from the woman beside me and warmed my whole body and made it tingle with well-being. I could look at her, at the gorgeous soft coat with its turned up collar, at the slim waist and the way her pulled-in scarf had made her face seem thinner, more hawk-like. I could smell her perfume. Our steamy breaths, pumped out into the night air, mingled.

  Hands in pockets she replied, ‘Yes, it is delightful, isn’t it. I used to live in Chelsea when I was a child.’

  When she had coveted a little Indian girl and received her as a Christmas present.

  We were silent for a moment, not awkwardly, looking at each other. I could just make out her face, her long nose, the flash of her eyeballs, in the dimness.

  I said, ‘How is Gunnar? Does he want to see me?’

  ‘That’s just the question,’ said Kitty. ‘That is what I want to talk to you about.’ As if there might have been hundreds of other possible topics of conversation. ‘Gunnar is in a frenzy.’

  ‘Oh God.’ She was going to tell me it was all no good, and then to say good-bye.

  ‘He is in a perfect frenzy. He cannot think about anything but you.’

  ‘Does he want to kill me?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  I thought to myself, suppose I were to offer myself to Gunnar’s rage, like a hare jumping into a fire? Was that what Kitty wanted? Was she pleased that Gunnar wanted to kill me? Perhaps. Women could be like that.

  I spoke coolly. ‘Am I then to assume that our little meeting in his room was not a success? He told you of it, I imagine?’

  ‘Yes, of course. But he is in a frenzy, he is totally confused and obsessed, he doesn’t know what he wants, or what he will do. He didn’t then. When you spoke to him he had to see you, but — ’

  ‘He didn’t know whether to talk to me or to strangle me?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Well, what am I to do now? You said I should try to see him. I have. He hated it. What next, if anything?’

  ‘Please don’t be so impatient, Hilary.’

  Her use of my name nearly sent me spinning off into the water. I wanted suddenly to turn right round like someone in a dance. I think I gave a sort of gasp.

  ‘I may call you “Hilary”, mayn’t I?’

  ‘Of course. I’m not impatient. I’m prepared to hang on indefinitely if it’s any good. But what can I do? Have you discussed it, have you tried to persuade him to see me?’

  ‘Oh yes, we’ve immensely discussed it, we’ve had such long long talks about you.’

  What a vista.

  ‘You see,’ she went on, ‘as I told you, we’ve been thinking about you for years. That’s partly why I called you “Hilary” just now.’

  Partly? And had they been thus bandying my name in their long talks ‘for years’? I felt a mixture of humility and exasperation which made me want to bow my head and mean, but the coolness persisted. We were still facing each other like two antagonists. She had thrown her head back and the scarf had fallen to her shoulders releasing the tumble of dark hair. Her hands were still deep in her pockets.

  I did not pick up any of these fascinating matters. I said rather brusquely, ‘Well, I came here for instructions and you seem to have none.’

  ‘I am frightfully sorry. I know the whole thing is a terrible imposition, a terrible — impertinence.’

  What a ridi
culous word. I felt I wanted to laugh with despair. I was spending these privileged minutes of my life in her presence and I was behaving like a stolid churl and we could not communicate and she would never and could never know how I felt and had perhaps even the impression that I was annoyed with her. Wanting to scream I stood very still. The traffic rumbled along the embankment but the plopping meditating tide-turning river spoke of silence.

  ‘Lady Kitty,’ I said, ‘it is for me to be sorry. I will do anything I can to help you and Gunnar. Shall I try to see him again? Shall I write to him?’

  ‘No, no. Just wait. The fact is that — things are now in motion. It is very good that you saw him in the office, that was brave of you and I am so pleased. It was a fearful shock, but good. You see, he is moving now, it is sort of dynamic, he can’t rest, he’ll decide something soon, he’ll have to, it will be too much for him not to, he will have to see you in order to break the spell.’

  This was not altogether reassuring. It also occurred to me that so far Kitty had had nothing to say to me which could not have been conveyed in a note via Biscuit just saying Wait. I wondered if there was more to come. I certainly hoped so. I dreaded her now saying good-bye. Soon, in any case, there would be between us a good-bye which was good-bye forever. Perhaps it was this one, which was now in an instant coming. I clenched my fists, trying hard to think of something important to say.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you,’ she said rather abruptly, as if we had not hitherto been talking.

  ‘Anything you will.’

  Kitty began to pace to and fro, her shoes striking the frosty boards with a muted hollow sound.

  ‘You see,’ she went on, ‘the strange thing is, well I suppose it’s not strange, that you’re the only person I can talk to about certain things. Of course I’ve talked to Gunnar, as I told you, but between us there’s only a sort of narrow area — I mean, we discuss the same things over and over, about how Gunnar feels, about whether time makes any difference, whether he feels better than he did a year ago, whether seeing this or that psychiatrist has done any good and so on and so on. It’s been like living with a disease. Can you understand? Am I boring you?’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ I said.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, I mean that in some awful sense it is boring, dreadful but boring and somehow hopeless. Any deep obsession is boring. One is always in the same place saying the same things, going round and round in the same routine, and one wants to break out, one wants a huge absolute change and that’s just what’s impossible.’ She paused but I said nothing. ‘When we met at Peter Pan I told you — I think — you see I’ve talked to you in my mind and I’m not sure what I’ve told you really and what I imagine I’ve told you — I’ve lived all these years — under her shadow.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But we never really talked about her, Gunnar and I, we couldn’t. At least I could have, but he couldn’t. We talked about it, his obsession, his illness, but her name could not be mentioned. And yet she was there, she is there.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve been living with a ghost — well, with two ghosts.’

  ‘Two?’

  ‘Hers, and yours.’

  ‘Of course. And you must lay them both.’ It had never come to me more clearly that it was not only my destiny but also my duty to vanish: to perform the necessary rites and then to crumble to dust and, in their lives, walk no more.

  ‘It seems an unkind way to put it, but yes. You see, I’ve never had it really straight with Gunnar. He keeps saying it isn’t fair to me and that I married a sick man. Our love has always been crippled, damaged, because I could not get in to the place where he was suffering and help him. And I want, oh more than I can express to you, to see him let go of the past, became free, able to come forward into the future with me with a whole heart.’

  I was rigid, every muscle hard, like a man about to be shot who keeps conjured before his eyes his absolute duty to the cause which brought him to that moment. Bitterness here could break all, was a more dangerous enemy than any kind of softness. There was a narrow comfortless line in the centre to which I must keep. I said, but it was not out of bitterness, ‘She existed.’

  Kitty was silent. She did not answer this, but said in a few moments, still pacing, ‘What was she like?’

  ‘Has Gunnar never told you?’

  ‘Never in the world. You obviously haven’t understood. Nothing could be more impossible.’

  I reflected. ‘I don’t think I can tell you either, not just like that.’

  ‘Say something. Please. Anything. What colour was her hair?’

  ‘Mouse.’

  ‘But she was beautiful?’

  ‘She had lovely — bright — clever — eyes. I’m very sorry but I can’t — I can’t — ’

  Kitty sighed deeply and stood still gazing out over the dark now faster moving tide of the river.

  ‘You never saw a photograph of her?’ I said after a moment.

  She shook her head. I wondered if she was beginning to cry, but I could not now see her face.

  She spoke again in a firm voice. She had evidently decided to leave that subject. ‘You told me that this — business — had wrecked your life.’

  ‘Yes. And my sister’s.’

  ‘You have a sister?’

  Kitty’s discussion of me with Gunnar could not after all have been very detailed if even this had not emerged. I did not know if I was pleased or not.

  ‘Yes.’

  Kitty did not pursue the sister. ‘Well, as I think I said then, ought you not to see to yourself, try to cure yourself as well, or get cured and better and so on?’ The words were awkward and could not but sound cold.

  ‘Ghosts don’t get cured. They just fade away.’ This ought not to have been said.

  She replied, perhaps even a trifle more coldly, ‘You know that’s silly. You must try, you can try. And if you help Gunnar you will at least have done something to sort of rescue the past.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose so.’ With desperation I felt the current of communication between us drying up, ceasing. In a moment now she would tell me to go, and I could think of nothing to say to stop her. And I was behaving as if I resented everything she said. How could I remove this impression without seizing her hand and crying out? I said abruptly, ‘You got my letter?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Thank you — thank you for writing at such length — ’

  Silence. The letter had been a mistake, everything I did here was a mistake.

  Kitty spoke again, sounding a little now as if she too wanted to ‘save’ our conversation. ‘You mustn’t worry so.’

  ‘Worry? Well, one does rather!’

  ‘Sorry, my words are all going wrong this evening. I mean — you think everything’s your fault, but it isn’t.’

  ‘I can’t see whose else’s fault anything can be here!’

  ‘Well — his — even mine — ’

  ‘Scarcely yours!’

  ‘Yes, mine. I haven’t — at least — brought him luck — I haven’t been able really to help him — another woman might have — and I’ve had no children — and he so much wants — ’

  ‘I expect he does, after losing two, but I don’t see — ’ I felt now as if I were plunging around in the mud.

  ‘Two?’

  ‘Yes — ’ Then I covered my mouth with my hand.

  ‘How do you mean two?’

  ‘Oh well — I suppose — there might have been — I don’t mean anything — ’

  ‘Why two, you said two?’

  Kitty had stopped in front of me. Her glaring eyes shone with passion. There was no escape.

  ‘Anne was pregnant — his — ’

  ‘He never told me.’

  I moved away from her. I did not want to see her face, I wanted to cover my own.

  Kitty too had turned away. It was as if a bell had rung to separate two fighters. Or as if two planes peeling off east and west were suddenly separated by the who
le sky. She sat down upon the edge of the jetty, the expensive coat trailing in the mud.

  I had never felt more a victim of the past. I said, ‘I am very sorry — ’

  ‘Please go away now.’

  ‘May I — ’

  ‘Please go. Thank you for coming. Now please go.’

  I went slowly away from her in the direction of the embankment.

  It was only seven-thirty when I reached the North End Road. I had of course in the previous days, and even during today, and even somehow in Kitty’s presence, not forgotten that I was to see Crystal on Saturday evening. Saturday was Crystal’s day and unless I told her I was not coming she would expect me. When I telephoned her on Thursday evening I had heard that lonely echo from the private inwardness of her sad existence. Of course I knew that Crystal had stripped her life for me, that she was alone because of me. How I had planned once to surround her with friends, with sources of joy, to make up forever for those horrible childhood years! It would have been possible, even easy, if I had been happy myself. As it was she lived in poverty and solitude and of the two friends whom I had brought to her one (Clifford) had caused her misery and the other (Arthur) she had surrendered because of me. Did I measure her loneliness or try to imagine it? No. I never reflected on how she passed the long hours and days between our meetings.