by Айрис Мердок
No one seemed to know the answer to this question or be prepared to enter into a discussion of it. Mary was cooking rhubarb, Paula was looking through a page of the Aeneid into some private worry of her own, and Ducane was engaged in composing and censoring some very private pictures of Judy McGrath.
'Uncle Theo wants Mingo please,' said Henrietta who had just come into the kitchen. 'Here's a postcard come for you, John.'
The twins shovelled the sleepy Mingo up from his comfortable place in Montrose's basket and departed carrying him between them.
Ducane surveyed a picture of some veiled women. On the other side Kate had written, Darling, veiled women are so thrilling, though mean to be thrilled as would hate to be veiled self. This place is super. This morning saw some dogs doing something quite extraordinary. Can't possibly tell you on postcard. Didn't know dogs had vices. Much love.
Ducane turned the card again and looked gloomily at the veiled women. He too recalled being excited by veiled women in Tangier, and the memory mingled rather horribly with the strong aura of Judy which still hung about him. It was odd that his confrontation with the unveiled Judy should now seem to remind him of the hidden women of Africa. There was something mechanical in himself which responded to the two visions in much the same way. I am becoming cut off, he thought, I am becoming like Radeechy, it is all indirect, it is all in my mind.
Then he wondered, what are my things anyway? The question was not without interest.
He turned the card over again and tried to concentrate his attention upon Kate: sweet Kate, with her halo of wiry golden hair and her affectionate and loving nature. But Kate seemed to elude his regard, and the place in the centre where she should have been seemed either empty or concealed. There was the same sense of the mechanical. I need her presence, he thought. I am not good at absence, at least I am not good at her absence.
Ducane had been disturbed not only by Judy but by what she had told him. At first sight the discovery that Radeechy's 'goings-on' had taken place in the old air-raid shelters underneath the office strongly suggested that those who feared a 'security risk' were not being idly suspicious. The magic might be simply a front, a characteristically extravagant and farfetched facade, to conceal quite other nocturnal activities.
However, on second thoughts Ducane decided this was unlikely.
If Radeechy wished to remain all night in the office there was really nothing to stop him, and the additional indulgence of fantasies involving girls seemed too wantonly risky if his purposes were quite other. No, Ducane concluded, once again the thing was what it seemed. But what did it seem? That dreary sense of the mechanical came to him again. Was there perhaps no centre to the mystery at all, nothing there but the melancholy sexual experiments of an unbalanced man?
Ducane had decided that his next move was to see McGrath again and to get McGrath to show him the place in the vaults where Radeechy did what he did. Ducane did not want any further view of Mrs McGrath, so he had written to Mr McGrath summoning him to the office on Monday. After this, obeying an almost panic instinct of flight, Ducane had told Fivey to drive him to Dorset. He was upset by the whole business and wished heartily that Octavian and Kate were not away. A message had come from the Prime Minister's office to confirm, what Octavian had earlier told him, that the Radeechy affair had 'gone off the boil', and to ask him for an early report, however inconclusive. When he received this message Ducane realized how very far, by now, his interest in the inquiry was from being a purely official one. He was deeply involved and for his own sake would have to try to understand. felt too as if he were being drawn onward almost deliberately by a never entirely broken thread. Whenever the trail had seemed to end something had unexpectedly happened to show him the next piece of the way.
That Judy McGrath was 'Helen of Troy' and that McGrath had, not perhaps for the first time, used his wife as a decoy for a blackmail victim had occurred to Ducane a little earlier as possible. He had not expected the link between Judy and Biranne; but once the link had been so sensationally given it seemed something so suggestive as to be obvious. Ducane had been at first rather sorry that he had now given so definite a warning to Biranne and lost the possible effect of a surprise; though indeed Biranne had probably been kept informed of the direction of the inquiry by the kind offices of Judy and her husband. In all likelihood McGrath was also, in the friendliest possible way, blackmailing Biranne as well. In any case Biranne must know himself to be under suspicion and on further reflection Ducane decided that this was no bad thing. He had been greatly struck by the sudden expression of terror on Biranne's face when he had encountered Ducane in Smith Street. Ducane thought, Biranne will come to me. It was not an unpleasant thought.
'Where's Barbara?' Ducane asked Mary. 'Is she out riding?'
'No, the pony's strained a fetlock. I think she's up in her room.'
'Is she still upset about Montrose?'
'Yes, deadfully. She was crying again yesterday. I can't imagine what's happened to the wretched creature. Cats don't just vanish or get killed.'
'I heard Pierce telling her Montrose was drowned,' said Ducane. 'He shouldn't say things like that to Barbara.'
'I know he shouldn't,' said Mary shortly, stirring the rhubarb.
'Well, I think I'll go up and see her. She shouldn't be moping in her room on a day like this. We might go for a walk to Wi1ly's. Like to come, Paula?'
'No thanks.'
Paula gave him an anxious preoccupied stare. Her face seemed enclosed and grey, the face of a fencer looking through the thick mesh of a mask. Ducane thought, with a familiar pain of conscience, I ought to see Paula properly, make her talk to me and tell me what's the matter. He thought quickly, shall I see Barbara now or Paula? But by now the pain of con. science had brought the accusing image of Jessica sliding before his mind. I ought to see Jessica soon, he thought, and the idea so depressed and confused him that the energy of his sympathy for Paula was at once decreased. Inclination triumphed. Barbara could console him. He would go to Barbara. He rose to his feet.
'Try to bring Willy down to tea, John,' said Mary.
'I'll try, but I'll not succeed.'
Ducane left the kitchen. The sun shone through the glass panels of the front door, revealing the polished slightly rosy depressions in the worn stones of the paved hall. Ducane picked up Edward's copy of The Natural History of Selborne from the floor and replaced it on the table. On the lawn in front of the house he could see Casie and the twins sitting on a red tartan rug shelling peas. He felt, as his hand touched the table and he paused in the sunny familiar hallway, another and a different pang, touching, pleasant, painful, the apprehension of an innocent world, a world which he loved and needed, and surely could never altogether mislay? He thought: innocence matters. It is not a thing one just loses. It remains somehow magnetically in one's life, remains as something quick and alive and utterly safe from the n'iechanical and the dreary. He thought, poor Biranne. And he thought again the disturbing strange thought, Biranne will come to me. He began to mount the stairs.
As Ducane reached the landing he saw at the far end of it Pierce, who had just come up the back stairs from the scullery quarters. Pierce, who had not seen Ducane, was walking rather cautiously carrying a white dish in his hand. Balancing the dish, he opened the door of his bedroom and went in. Ducane half consciously took in what he had seen and half consciously reflected on it. Then, with a sudden flash which brought him back to the present moment, he understood its meaning. He paused, considered, and then walked quickly on past Barbara's door. He gained the door of Pierce's room and flung it open. Montrose was curled up on Pierce's bed.
'Pierce, you rotten little bastard,' said Ducane. pierce, who had just put the saucer of milk down on the floor, slowly straightened up and took off his glasses. He thrust out his plump lower lip and drew his hand slowly down over his straight forehead and long nose as if to secure the expression of his face. He waited.
Ducane picked up Montrose and strode out. He
knocked on the door of Barbara's room and entered at once. The room was empty. Pierce, who had followed Ducane directly, came after him into the room. They faced each other.
'God, what a rotten thing to do!' said Ducane. He was sud: denly trembling with anger. All the trouble, the anxiety, the guilt in him seemed focused into this simple anger.
'I didn't hurt Montrose,' said Pierce slowly.
'No, but you hurt Barbara. How could you be so bloody?'
Ducane set Montrose down on the table. As he did so he saw close to his hand Barbara's small silver-handled riding whip.
The image of the whip came to him incapsulated, separate, framed, and was blotted out.
'You see,' said Pierce in the same slow explanatory tone, 'if she had only come to see me, come to my room like she used to do, if she hadn't treated me like a leper, she would have found where Montrose was. It was a sort of test.' He put one hand on the table, leaning earnestly forward.
'You deliberately made her unhappy and wretched, and you kept it up too,' said Ducane. 'I think – 'His hand closed on the handle of the whip and with a quick yet very deliberate movement he raised the whip and brought it down sharply across the back of Pierce's hand. The boy flinched but went on staring at Ducane and did not remove his hand.
'What on earth is going on here?' said Mary Clothier, who was standing in the doorway.
Pierce turned slowly and without looking at his mother walked past her out of the door, away down the corridor and into his own bedroom.
Mary hesitated. Then she moved into Barbara's room. She found she was having to use a lot of strength to deal with the considerable shock of seeing Ducane strike her son. She did not know what she felt. A confusion of feelings silenced her.
'I'm sorry,' said Ducane, obviously confused too. 'I'm sorry., 'Why there's Montrose '
'Shut the door, Mary.'
'What happened?»
'You see – shut the door. You see, Pierce has been keeping Montrose prisoner all the time we all thought he was lost.'
'Oh – how very dreadful – I '
'Yes. I'm afraid I lost my temper with him. I shouldn't have done.'
'I don't blame you. It was very wrong of him. I'll go and look for Barbara.'
'Wait a minute, Mary. Just let Montrose out, will you. That's right. Sit down. Sorry. Just wait a minute.'
Mary sat down on the bed and looked at Ducane who was standing by the window frowning and still holding the whip. He shrugged his shoulders suddenly and tossed it on to the table and then crossed his two hands over his forehead covering his eyes.
'You're upset,' said Mary. 'Oh don't be! Do you imagine I'm going to be cross with you?'
'No, no. I'm upset about something, I'm not even sure what.
I suppose Pierce will hate me for this.'
'He's just as likely to love you for it. Young people have a strange psychology.'
'All people have a strange psychology,' said Ducane. He sat down at the table and regarded Mary. His rather round blue eyes, so markedly blue now in his bony sunburnt face, stared at Mary with a sort of puzzlement and he thrust back the limp locks of dark brown hair with a quick rhythmical movement. Mary studied him. What was the matter?
'I'm sorry,' said Ducane after a moment. 'I'm just having a risis of dissatisfaction with myself and I want sympathy. One ways asks for sympathy when one least deserves it.'
He's missing Kate, Mary thought. She said, 'I'm sure you have little reason to be dissatisfied with yourself, John. But let me sympathize. Tell me what's the matter.'
Ducane's blue eyes became yet rounder with what looked like alarm. He started to speak, stopped, and then said, 'How Id is Pierce?'
'Fifteen.'
'I ought to have got to know him better.'
'I hope you will. But you can't look after everyone, John , You see me as always looking after people?'
'Well, yes – '
'God!'
'Sorry, I didn't mean – '
'It's all right. He's a very reserved child.'
'He's been a long time without a father, too many years just with me.'
'How old was he when his father died?'
'Two.'
'So he scarcely remembers him.'
'Scarcely.'
'What was your husband's name, Mary?'
Oh God, thought Mary, I can't talk to him about Alistair, She recognized that particular coaxing intentness in Ducane's manner, his way of questioning people with close attention so as to make them tell him everything about themselves, which they usually turned out to be all too ready to do. She had seen him doing this to other people, even at dinner parties. He had never done it to her. She thought, I won't tell him anything, I've never talked to anyone about this, I won't talk to him. She said, 'Alistair.' The name came out into the room, an alien gobbet floating away into the air, drifting back again, hovering just above the level of her eyes.
'What did he do? I don't think I ever knew his profession.'
'He was a chartered accountant.'
'Does Pierce resemble him?'
'To look at, yes, though Alistair was taller. Not in temper.'
'What sort of person was he?'
I can't go on with this, thought Mary. How could she say, he was a funny man, always making puns. He was gay. He sang so beautifully. He was a universal artist. He was a failure. She said. 'He wrote a novel.'
'Was it published? T 'No. It was no good.' Mary had spent part of yesterday read. ing Alistair's novel. She had taken out the huge typescript with the intention of destroying it but had found herself unable to. It was so bad, so childish, so like Alistair.
'He died young,' said Ducane softly. 'He might have done better, he might have done much better.'
Mary supposed this was true. It was not a thing that she felt.
Perhaps it was unfair to dub him a failure. Yet somehow the judgement was absolute.
'What did he die of?' said Ducane in the soft coaxing voice.
Mary was silent. A black wall rose up in front of her. She was coming nearer and nearer and looking into the blackness, She stared into it, she entered it. She said in an almost dreamy voice, 'He was run over by a car one evening just outside our house. I saw it happen.'
'Oh – I'm sorry – was he – killed at once?'
'No: She recalled his cries, the long wait for the ambulance, the crowd, the long wait in the hospital.
'I'm sorry, Mary,' said Ducane. 'I'm being '
'It was the accidentalness of it,' she said. 'Sometimes I've nearly gone mad just thinking of it. That it should be so accidental. If I'd just said another sentence to him before he went out of the room, if he'd just stopped to tie his shoe lace, anything, and oh God, we'd just been quarrelling, and I let him go away without a word, if I'd only called him back, but he went straight out all upset and the car went over him. If he'd died of an illness or even been killed in the war somewhere far away where I couldn't know I could have felt it was inevitable, but to have him killed there accidentally in front of my eyes, I couldn't bear it, I've never told anyone how he died, I told Kate and Paula he died of pneumonia and I told Pierce that too. Pierce slept through it all in an upstairs room: I loved him, of course I loved him, but never quite enough or in the right way, and I haven't been able to think of him properly since, and it's somehow because of that awful accident, be cause things were cut off in that particular way, it made all our life together seem meaningless, and I haven't been able to feel properly about him, it's as if he were changed into some awful ghost with which I can't make any peace. I remember an awful feeling I had when I was going through his clothes afterwards as if he were watching me, all sad and deprived and unappeased, and I've had that feeling since, it comes at odd times in the evening, and I feel as if he still wants my love and I can't give it to him. I see his faults and his weaknesses now and what made me love him has faded utterly. It's terrible that one doesn't love people forever. I should have gone on loving him, it's the only thing I can do for him any more, a
nd I have tried, but one can't love in a void, one can't love a sort of nothing for which one can't do anything else, and there's nothing left any more except the novel and that's so terribly silly and yet it's him in a way. If only it hadn't happened like that, so suddenly and all by chance, he walked straight out and under the car. You see, so few cars came down our road – '
'Don't cry so, Mary,' said Ducane. He moved beside her on to the bed and put an arm round her shoulder. 'Chance is really harder to bear than mortality, and it's all chance my dear, even what seems most inevitable. It's not easy to do, but one must accept it as one accepts one's losses and one's past. Don't try to see him. Just love him. Perhaps you never altogether knew him. Now his mystery is free of you. Respect it, and don't try to see any more. Love can't always do work. Sometimes it just has to look into the darkness. Keep looking and don't be afraid. There are no demons there.'
'Words, John,' said Mary. 'Words, words, words.' But she let herself be comforted by them, and felt that the tears were really for Alistair which she was weeping now.
'Mind the steps, Sir. This bit's rather slimy. Better take my hand.'
The slowly moving circle of light from the torch revealed a short flight of steps sheeted over with a fungoid veneer of damp dust. There was a pattern of footprints in the centre, and tangles of dangling black threads at the side. Beyond them a concrete ramp went on down into the darkness.
Ducane steadied himself by pressing his knuckles against the cold brick wall. He did not want to touch McGrath who was just in front of him. They descended slowly as far as the concrete.
'You say Mr Radeechy told you to cut the electric cable at the top of the passage, where we left the air-raid shelters? T 'That's right, Sir. Mr Radeechy liked it all to be by candle light. I think he thought it was safer too, you know, in case anyone came.'
'Was the door we've just come through usually locked? T 'Yes, Sir. Mr. had a key and he gave me a key.'
'Did you ever come down here without him?'