Iris Murdoch - The Black Prince

I glided out and down the stairs and opened the front door. I pulled it to very softly after me but it would not close. I pulled it harder and it banged. I ran down the path and slipped upon some moss and came down with a crash. I staggered up and began to run away down the road.

At the end of the next road I was slowing down to a quick walk when, just as I rounded the corner, I cannoned straight into somebody. It was a girl dressed in a very short striped garment, she had bare legs and bare feet, she was Julian.

«So sorry. Oh Bradley, how super. You've been visiting the parents. What a shame I missed you. Are you going to the station? May I walk along with you?» She turned and we walked on together.

«I thought you were at a pop festival,» I said, breathless, frantic with emotion, but concealing it.

«I couldn't get on the train. At least I could have done if I didn't mind being squashed, but I do, I'm a bit of a claustrophobe.»

«So am I. Pop festivals are no places for us claustrophobes.» I was speaking calmly, but now I was thinking: She will tell Arnold that she met me.

«I suppose not. I've never been to one. Now you're going to lecture me about drugs, aren't you?»

«No. Do you want a lecture?»

«I wouldn't mind one from you. But I'd rather it was on Hamlet. Bradley, do you think Gertrude was in league with Claudius to kill the king?»

«No.»

«Do you think she was having an affair with Claudius before her husband died?»

«No.»

«Why not?»

«Too conventional,» I said. «Not enough courage. It would have needed tremendous courage.»

«Claudius could have persuaded her, he was very powerful.»

«So was her husband.»

«We only see him through Hamlet's eyes.»

«No. The ghost was a real ghost.»

«How do you know?»

«I just know.»

«Then the king must have been an awful bore.»

«That's another point.»

«I think some women have a nervous urge to commit adultery, especially when they reach a certain age.»

«Possibly.»

«Do you think the king and Claudius ever liked each other?»

«There's a theory that they were in love. Gertrude killed her husband because he was having a love affair with Claudius. Hamlet knew of course. No wonder he was neurotic. There are lots of veiled references to buggery. 'A mildewed ear blasting his wholesome brother.' Ear is phallic and wholesome is a pun-«I say! Where can I read about it?»

«I'm teasing you. They haven't thought of that yet, even in Oxford.»

I was walking fast and Julian had to give a little run every now and then to keep up. She kept turning towards me as she did so, performing a sort of dance beside me. I looked down at her bare brown very dirty feet executing these hops, skips and jumps.

We had nearly reached the place where I had seen her in the twilight tearing up the love letters, when I had at first taken her for a boy. I said, «How is Mr. Belling?»

«Please, Bradley-«Sorry.»

«No, you know you can say anything you like to me. All that's over and done, thank God.»

«Your balloon didn't come sailing back to you? You didn't wake up one morning and find it tied to your window?»

«No!»

At that moment Julian stopped outside the same shoe shop where I had parted from her on the previous occasion. «Oh I do adore those boots, the purple ones, I do wish they weren't so expensive!»

On impulse I said, «I'll buy them for you.» I wanted to gain a little time to think of a suitably plausible way of asking her to keep quiet.

«Oh Bradley, you can't, they're far too much, how awfully kind of you but you can't-'

«Why not? It's ages since I gave you a present. I used to when you were little. Come on, be brave.»

«Oh Bradley, I'd love it, and you're so kind, which is even better than the boots, but I can't-«Why not?»

«I haven't any stockings. I can't try them on with my feet like this.»

«I see. I think incidentally that this barefoot cult is perfectly idiotic. Suppose you step on some glass?»

«I know. I think it's idiotic too, I won't do it again, it was just for the festival, it's terribly uncomfortable, my feet are hurting like anything already. Oh dear, what a shame though.»

«Can't you buy some stockings!»

«There isn't a shop near-I had been fumbling in my pocket looking for my wallet. Suddenly as my hand emerged a pile of stuff fell out onto the pavement: my tie, underpants and socks. My face blazing with guilt, I swooped on them.

«Oh look, what luck, I could wear your socks. It's so warm, I don't wonder you took them off. May I, would you mind?»

She put them on immediately, balancing on each foot and holding on to my sleeve. We went into the shop.

It was cool and dim inside. Not at all like the nightmare shop that haunted my sister and myself; and not at all like the remembered interior of the womb either. More like the temple of some old unpassionate rather ascetic cult. The tiers of white containers (perhaps containing relics or votive gifts), the quiet darkly clad acolytes, the lowered voices, the rows of seats for meditation, the oddly shaped stools. The shoe horns.

We sat down side by side and Julian asked for her size. The black-clad girl began to ease the purple boot on over Julian's foot and my grey nylon sock. The high boot enveloped her leg and the zip fastener moved smoothly upward.

«It fits beautifully. May I try the other?» The other boot slid on.

Julian stood in front of the mirror and I looked at her reflection. The boots looked stunning on her. Above the knee there was a piece of bare thigh, only faintly brown, and then the blue-andgreenand-white striped hem of her brief dress.

Julian's delight was literally indescribable. Her face dissolved and glowed, she quite unconsciously clapped her hands, she rushed back to me and shook me by the shoulders and then rushed back to the mirror. Her innocent pleasure would have moved me very much upon a better occasion. Why had I thought of her as an image of vanity? This delight of the young animal in itself was something pure. I could not help smiling.

«Bradley, you do like them, they don't look absurd?»

«They look smashing.»

«I'm so pleased, oh you are so sweet-Thank you so much!»

«Thank you. Present-giving is a form of self-indulgence.» I asked for the bill.

«No, I won't wear them, it's too hot,» Julian was explaining to the sales girl. «Bradley, you are an angel. May I come and see you soon and we'll talk about Shakespeare? I'm free any time-Monday, Tuesday-how about Tuesday morning at your place at eleven? Or whenever you like?»

«All right, all right.»

«And we'll talk seriously and look at the text in detail?»

«Yes, yes.»

«Oh I am so pleased with the boots.»

When we parted company at the station and I looked into those purely coloured blue eyes I could not bring myself to dim her joy by asking her to lie, even though I had by then thought of a fairly ingenious cock-and-bull story.

It was not until later that I remembered that she had gone away still wearing my socks.

Somehow or other it was twelve noon. Returning eastward to my flat I felt a good deal more sober, and I soon regretted my «high– minded» failure to silence Julian. Out of some ridiculous sense of dignity I had failed to take an absolutely essential precaution. When Julian blurted out about meeting me, what would Arnold guess, what would Rachel devise, what would she confess? Trying, and failing, to get the problem into focus I felt a guilty excited painful feeling not unlike sexual desire. Julian must be home by now. What was happening? Perhaps nothing. I felt an intense need to telephone Rachel at once, but knew that this would be profitless. «Knowing the worst» would have to wait awhile.