Iris Murdoch - The Black Prince

«Bradley, you look as if you've gone blind, here, don't walk out into the roadway like that, you ass.»

Arnold had hold of my sleeve. He held onto me. The other two crowded up, staring.

Rachel said, «Leave her there for a day or two. Then she'll have recovered and you can take her away.»

«You don't understand,» I said. My head ached and my eyes were intolerant of the light.

«I understand perfectly, as a matter of fact,» said Arnold. «You've just lost this round and you'd better relax. I'd go to bed if I were you.»

«I'll come and look after you,» said Francis.

«No, you won't.»

«Why do you keep shading your eyes and screwing them up like that?» said Rachel.

«What made you miss the train?» said Arnold.

«I think I'll go to bed, yes.»

«Bradley,» said Arnold, «don't be cross with me.»

«I'm not cross with you.»

«It was all an accident, my being there I mean, I called in because I thought you'd be back, Christian rang and then she turned up, and Rachel had had about enough of Priscilla and there was no sign of you. I know it seems hurtful, but really it was just common sense, and it amused Christian so much, and you know how I love a scandal and a little bit of turmoil. You've got to forgive us. We're not all conspiring against you.»

«I know you're not.»

«I only went along today because-«Oh never mind. I'm going home.»

«Let me come with you,» said Francis.

«You'd better come with me,» said Rachel. «I'll give you lunch.»

«That's a good idea. You go along with Rachel. I must go to the library and get on with my novel. I've wasted quite enough time on this little drama. I'm such an incorrigible Peeping Tom. You're sure you're not cross with me, Bradley?»

Rachel and I got into a taxi. Francis ran along beside it trying to say something, but I pulled the window up.

N. ow at last there was peace. Rachel's big calm woman's face beamed upon me, the beneficent full moon, not the black moon dagger-armed and brimming with darkness. The bruise seemed to have faded, or perhaps she had covered it with make-up. Or perhaps it had only ever been a shadow after all.

Feeding my hangover, I had consumed a lunch which consisted of three aspirins, followed by a glass of creamy milk, followed by milk chocolate, followed by shepherd's pie, followed by Turkish delight, followed by milky coffee. I felt physically better and clearer in the head.

We were sitting on the veranda. The Baffins' garden was not big, but in the flush of early summer it seemed endless. A dotting of fruit trees and ferny bushes amid longish red-tufted grass obscured the nearby houses, obscured even the creosoted fence. Only a hint of pink rambler roses between the trunks suggested an enclosure. The garden was a curved space, a warm green shell smelling of earth and leaves. At the foot of the veranda steps there was a pavement covered with the mauve flowers of creeping thyme, beyond this a clipped grassy path starred with white daisies. It stirred some memory of a childhood holiday. Once in an endless meadow, just able to peer through the tawny haze of the grass tops, the child who was myself had watched a young fox catching mice, an elegant newly minted fox, straight from the hand of God, brilliantly ruddy, with black stockings and a white-tipped brush. The fox heard and turned. I saw its intense vivid mask, its liquid amber eyes. Then it was gone. An image of such beauty and such mysterious sense. The child wept and knew himself an artist.

«So Roger's blissfully happy?» said Rachel, to whom I had told all.

«I can't tell Priscilla, can I?»

«Not yet.»

«Roger and that young girl. God, it sickens me!»

«I know. But Priscilla is the problem.»

«What am I to do, Rachel, what am I to do?»

Rachel, relaxed, barefoot, did not reply. She was gently stroking her face where I had imagined the bruise. We were reposing now in deck chairs. She was relaxed yet animated, in a characteristic way: what Arnold called her «exalted look.» A bright expectancy blazed in her pale freckled face and in her light brown eyes. She looked alert and handsome. Her reddish golden hair was deliberately frizzed out and untidy.

«How mechanical they look,» I said.

«Who? What?»

«The blackbirds.»

Several blackbirds were walking jerkily about like little woundup toys upon the clipped grass path.

«Just like us.»

«What are you talking about, Bradley?»

«Mechanical. Just like us.»

«Have some more milk chocolate.»

«Francis likes milk chocolate.»

«I feel sorry for Francis, but I do see Christian's point.»

«All this intimate friendly talk about 'Christian' makes me feel ill.»

«You mustn't mind so much. It's all in your head.»

«Well, I live in my head. I wish she was dead. I wish she'd died in America. I bet she killed her husband.»

«Bradley. You know I didn't mean any of those violent things I said about Arnold the other day.»

«Yes, I know.»

«In marriage one says things which are, yes, mechanical, but it doesn't affect the heart.»

«The what?»

«Bradley, don't be so-«How heavy mine is, like a great stone in my breast. Sometimes one feels suddenly doomed by fate.»

«Oh brace up, for God's sake!»

«You don't hate me for having seen-you know, you and Arnold, the other day?»

«No. It just makes you seem closer.»

«I wish, I wish she hadn't met Arnold.»

«You're very attached to Arnold, aren't you?»

«Yes.»

«It's not just that you care what he thinks?»

«No.»

«It's odd. He's awkward with you. I know he often hurts you. But he cares very much for you, very much.»

«Do you mind if we change the subject a bit?»

«You're such a funny fellow, Bradley. You're so unphysical. And you're as shy as a schoolboy.»

«That woman coming back bang into the middle of everything has been such a bloody shock. And she's got her claws into Arnold already. And Priscilla.»

«She's beautiful, you know.»

«And you.»

«No. But I appreciate her. You never described her properly.»

«She's changed.»

«Arnold thinks you're still in love with her.»

«If he thinks that it must be because he's in love with her himself.»

«Are you in love with her?»

«Rachel, do you want me to scream and scream and scream?»

«You are a schoolboy!»

«Only because of her I understand hatred.»

«Are you a masochist, Bradley?»

«Don't be daft.»

«I sometimes thought you enjoyed it when Arnold went for you.»

«Is Arnold in love with her?»

«Where do you suppose he went to when he left us today?»

«To the-Oh, you mean he went back to her?»

«Of course.»

«Hell. He's only met her twice, three times-«Don't you believe in love at first sight?»

«So you think he is-?»

«He had a pretty long session with her in that pub. And again last night when-«Don't tell me. Is he?»

«Oh Jesus Christ.»

«That was in the pub. Last night I gather they-All right, all right! I just wanted to say I'm on your side. We'll bring Priscilla here if you like.»

«It's too late. Oh Christ. Rachel, I don't feel terribly well.»

«Oh confound you, Bradley. Here. Take my hand. Take it.»

Under the opaque glass of the veranda it had become very hot and sultry. The earth smells and the grass smells were exotic now, like incense, not rainy and fresh. Rachel had edged her deck chair close up against mine. I could feel the nearby weight of her sagging body like a gravitational pull upon my own. She had wound her arm in underneath my arm and rather awkwardly taken hold of my hand. So two corpses might ineptly greet each other on resurrection day. Then she began to turn over towards me, her head pressing onto my shoulder. I could smell her perspiration and the fresh clean scent of her hair.