Authors: Iris Murdoch
‘An agitating puppet. Yes, I feel so tired out with waving my arms about.’
‘Brooding about the past is so often fantasy of how one might have won and resentment that one didn’t. It is that resentment which one so often mistakes for repentance.’
‘Do you know, there’s something that hurts me even more than not having gone to Janie.’
‘What?’
‘Being mocked on that landing by the lodgers.’
‘You mean –?’
‘When Janie went into Maureen’s flat and locked the door, you remember I told you–Well, no, I didn’t tell you, I left that bit out, it was too awful. When Janie made me take her to see Maureen, Janie went into the flat and locked the door against me and I could hear Maureen crying inside and I was knocking on the door, and the other lodgers in the house came down and mocked me.’
‘Poor Bruno.’
‘Something which ought to be quite unimportant turns out to be the most important thing of all.’
‘A demon wouldn’t feel this. Don’t you see that you can’t get it all clear?’
‘If there were God one could leave it to God.’
‘If there were God one could leave it to God.’
‘Do you believe in God?’
‘No. Listen. Miles will be coming to see you. Be very quiet with him and don’t expect him to do anything for you.’
‘I think I wanted him to go through some kind of ceremony, like a rite of exorcism. Funny thing, I’d forgotten, I’d just forgotten, how awfully much he irritated me!’ They both laughed.
‘Well, be kind to him, anyway.’
‘You do love Miles, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s lucky. That girl who came before, your sister is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does she live with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Miles doesn’t mind?’
‘No.’
Lisa drew a cool ringless hand back over the soft damp fleshy folds of Bruno’s furrowed brow and down over the shiny bony dome of the skull to the ring of thin silky hair.
‘I don’t horrify you, my dear?’
‘Of course not.’
‘I daren’t look in the mirror. You know that? And it must smell horrible.’
‘No.’
‘Very old people still feel sex, you know.’
‘I know.’
‘It gives me such joy to hold your hand.’
‘I’m glad. I’ll tell you something you may not believe.’
‘What?’
‘You’re still attractive.’
Tears surged over the bulges of Bruno’s cheek and soaked into the huge spade-shaped expanse of grey hair which was just beginning to look less like prickles and more like fur. The growth of hair was painful as it forced its way out through the fleshy folds and crevices of the tumbled face. But Bruno had not even tried to make Nigel change his mind about shaving him. It had soon begun not to matter.
‘I must go now, Bruno.’
‘You’ll miss Danby. He’ll be home in half an hour.’
‘Never mind. You didn’t mind my coming unannounced?’
‘No, it was a lovely surprise. A sort of–apparition.’
‘Yes, a ghost.’
‘A heavenly ghost.’
After the girl had gone Bruno lay back on his pillows and stroked his bearded face. He had had a moustache very long ago when he had been courting Janie. He had never worn a beard. How it pricked and tickled. Yet perhaps it was a good idea after all. It concealed the bulbous fleshy contours into which his face had collapsed. It might make him look more human. Of course the girl didn’t mean it, but how wonderful of her to say it. It had been a happy surprise, her visit, and now there were suddenly a lot of quite new and agreeable things to think about. It was good to find that there could still be pleasant surprises and absolutely new thoughts. Bruno said to himself, perhaps the doctor was serious, perhaps I might last out those years after all. He reached out his hand for
Soviet Spiders.
‘I’ll kill Nigel.’
‘Well, he’s not here.’
‘And you can tell that swine Danby what he can do with himself. I’ll get even with that swine after I’ve fixed Nigel.’
‘Don’t shout so, Will.’
‘Writing me a damned condescending letter saying would I be so kind as to return the stamp and if a trifling loan would assist he’d be very glad to oblige!’
‘You still haven’t given me the stamp.’
‘Here’s the bloody stamp. I wish you’d never snitched the damn thing.’
‘Well, it was your idea!’
‘Don’t keep saying that!’
‘Mind the camera, you’re banging it against the kitchen table.’
‘Fuck the camera. It’s all the blasted camera’s fault.’
‘Never your fault, I suppose.’
‘Shut up, Ad, unless you want your head punched.’
‘Will, stop shouting, and
go away
for heaven’s sake. You know I don’t like having you in the house.’
‘The way you’re going on you soon won’t have me in any house.’
‘Well, that would suit me down to the ground!’
‘Oh, it would, would it–well,
goodbye.
’
Will pulled the strap of the camera case over his head and hurled the camera down violently on to the stone floor of the kitchen. He bounded out of the door and up the stairs and slammed the front door after him. Adelaide dissolved into tears.
After a while she dried a glass which had been standing on the draining board and went to the kitchen cupboard. She had been down to the Balloon Tavern that morning and bought herself a half bottle of gin. It helped a little bit.
She had not seen Danby. She had kept her bedroom door and the kitchen door resolutely shut and locked. She had heard him coming and going. Twice he had tapped on the door and called her name and she had not replied. She was beginning to need desperately to talk to him, but she could not bear to see that frightened pitying look upon his face again. She felt that before she saw him she should have something to confront him with, she should have made a plan and developed an attitude, but she had no plan and no attitude, only tears and total misery. She had been glad to see Will, but then of course they had quarrelled.
After sipping a mixture of gin and tears for a while she leaned forward and picked the camera up from the kitchen floor. Her body felt heavy and stiff and old. She wondered if the camera was broken. It must be. Yet when she shook it it didn’t seem to rattle so perhaps it was all right. She hung it round her neck and shed a few more tears.
A little later she heard someone coming down the stairs. She had heard someone mount the stairs earlier in the afternoon and enter Bruno’s room, and she had assumed that it was Nigel, though she had prudently told Will that Nigel was not there. She moved out to the foot of the stairs. Ought she to warn Nigel about Will?
Lisa Watkin passed through the hall and out of the front door. Without a moment’s hesitation Adelaide dashed up after her.
She caught up with Lisa just as she was turning into Ashburnham Road.
‘Miss Watkin–’
‘Oh, hello.’
‘Could I have a word with you?’
‘Yes, surely. I do hope you don’t mind my going straight up to Bruno? I didn’t like to ring the bell in case he was asleep.’
‘That’s all right. Look, there’s something I want to tell you.’
‘Oh yes. About Bruno?’
‘No. About Danby.’
‘About–Danby?’
‘Yes. You see I know all about you and Danby.’
Lisa slightly quickened her pace and her face put on a cold stiff slightly amused expression which enraged Adelaide. ‘I am unaware that there is anything to know about me and Danby.’
‘Don’t give me that. You know he’s been making advances. He wrote you a letter.’
‘Really.’
‘Or are you denying it?’
‘I object to your rude and aggressive tone of voice.’
‘Well, you’ll just have to put up with it, won’t you.’
‘I have no intention of putting up with it. You seem to be under some sort of misapprehension. But I am certainly not going to discuss it with you.’
‘You can put on airs, but I bet you’re dying to know what I’ve got to tell you.’
‘If you have something to say, say it.’
‘There you are you see! Well, before you get going with Danby there’s something about him you ought to know.’
‘There is no question of my, as you put it, getting going with Danby. I scarcely know Danby.’
‘I bet that’s a bloody lie. Anyway, you keep away from Danby. Danby is my lover. We live together. We’ve been lovers for years.’
‘I cannot think why you trouble to press this information on me. It’s of no conceivable interest to me and it doesn’t concern me. I can see you’re upset and I’m sorry if I was rude to you just now. Now will you please go back. Bruno may be needing you.’
‘I’m not your servant, madam. Do you believe me? If you don’t believe me ask Danby, just
ask
him.’
‘I have no plans for seeing Danby. You are upsetting yourself about nothing. I haven’t the slightest intention of interfering with your arrangements. Now be kind enough not to trouble me any more with this nonsense. Good afternoon.’
They had reached the King’s Road. Lisa darted quickly into the traffic and crossed the road leaving Adelaide standing on the kerb. Adelaide stood for a moment, then slowly turned back. Then she paused and pulled off the camera, which had been bobbing round her neck, and hurled it down violently on to the pavement. This time all its inward parts came out and scattered themselves in the gutter. She left them lying there.
I
T WAS SUNDAY
. Miles was walking along the crowded pavement of the Fulham Road in the rain. With vague unfocused eyes he sidestepped his way through the oncoming crowds. His hair was plastered darkly to his uncovered head and the raindrops moved down his face like tears. He came to the discreet doorway of the Servite church and went mechanically through it. He needed somewhere to sit and think.
Miles had been to see Bruno. It had been all right. He had said that he was sorry and almost felt it. Bruno had told some rambling story about a stamp being lost and Danby finding it stuck underneath the stair carpet. None of the women had been mentioned. They had talked at random, darting from subject to subject in a way which Bruno seemed to find quite natural. They had talked about the house where they used to live in Fawcett Street and Miles had said it was all let out in flats now. They had talked about the printing works and about Miles’s job and about the state of the economy. They had recalled a dog called Sambo who had been part of the family when Miles was a child. Miles had discussed whether Bruno would like to have a cat since he knew someone whose tabby had just had most attractive kittens, and Bruno had said no, he would get too damned attached to the cat and then it would be certain to run away or get run over. They had discussed the difference between cats and dogs. They had talked about spiders. It had all been quite easy. Bruno was quite rational and much more relaxed, and looked a good deal less appalling. No terrible memories had been stirred, only innocent and sad ones. Miles had not thought about Sambo in years. He came away, moved by the old man, and with a fresh and strangely pathetic sense of himself.
Now however he had already ceased to think about Bruno. He went through the corridor into the cold inward light of the church. There was a plaintive urgent melancholy sound of chanting, but after he had stood for a moment just inside the door he made out that there was no service in progress. The singers must be the choir who were practising invisible to him in a side chapel at the far end. The body of the church was almost empty, though here and there between bunchy brown granite pillars he could see one or two people kneeling before the shrines which arched along the side walls in a series of rich shadowy caverns. The plain-song chant ceased, leaving an intense quietness behind it. Miles knew the place. He had come here in the past to meditate. He took off his dripping mackintosh and hung it over the back of the pew in front. He sat down and began to dry his face and hair with his handkerchief.
What on earth was he going to do about Lisa? She had avoided him on Saturday, leaving for work early and coming back late. He had managed to see her for a moment early this morning in the garden, when all she had said to him was, ‘I’ve got to go away. Don’t let it start, don’t let it
start.
’ But this was impossible, it had already started. On Saturday evening, after Lisa had resolutely planted herself in the drawing room with Diana, he had withdrawn to his study. What had the women said to each other after his departure? Perhaps nothing. Before going to bed he had tried Lisa’s door. It was locked.
He had not spoken of the matter to Diana either, after a very brief exchange which they had had after Miles came to bed in the early hours of Saturday morning. Diana had of course
seen
what had happened between him and Lisa. It must have been fairly obvious: those looks, those sighs, those shudderings, those significant almost-touches. She said, ‘I knew it would happen one day.’ Miles did not believe her. He did not believe the possibility had occurred to Diana for a single second. She said, ‘She’s much better for you than I am. You ought to go away together.’ Miles said, ‘Nonsense, Diana. I’m married to you. Now shut up.’ They had lain rigid and sleepless side by side until the daylight came.
Miles had thought at first in these terms: as it is utterly impossible and inconceivable that I should part from either of them there is really no problem. The only question is how exactly to manage it, how to juggle it. There is no question about whether it should or can be managed. And fortunately the question of concealment does not even arise. This extremely simple and as it seemed to him radical way of seeing the problem persisted with him, together with sensations of mad joy, throughout most of Saturday. It had been almost a relief to be at the office, to perform neutral compulsory activities, and to think about Lisa dreamily and abstractly without considering any plan of action whatsoever. Saturday evening had been rather a trial, particularly the experience of leaving the two women behind together in the drawing room, reading their books. No eyes had been raised to meet his as he lingered at the door. The light head and the dark head both remained resolutely bowed. After he had walked for about half a mile up and down the three pace extent of his study he had considered the possibility of creeping downstairs to see if they were talking about him, but the idea seemed too sickeningly nightmarish.