Iris Murdoch: The Black Prince

«You want me to pose as your friend?»

«But we could be friends, Brad-Look, is there anything to drink in the house?»

«No.»

The telephone began to ring.

«Go away, please,» I said, «and stay away.»

«Bradley, have a heart-«Out!»

He stood before me with that air of revolting humility. I threw open the sitting-room door and the door of the flat. I picked up the telephone in the hall.

Arnold Baffin's voice was on the wire. He spoke quietly, rather slowly. «Bradley, could you come round here, please? I think that I may have just killed Rachel.»

I said immediately, quietly too but in emotion, «Arnold, don't be silly. Don't be silly!»

«Could you come round at once, please.» His voice sounded like a recorded announcement.

I said, «Have you called a doctor?»

A moment's pause. «No.»

«Well, do so!»

«I'll-explain-Could you come round at once-«Arnold,» I said, «you can't have killed her-You're talking nonsense-You can't have-«

A moment's pause. «Maybe.» His voice was toneless as if calm. A matter doubtless of severe shock.

«What happened-?»

«Bradley, could you-«Yes,» I said, «I'll come round at once. I'll get a taxi.» I replaced the receiver.

It may be relevant to record that my first general feeling on hearing what Arnold had to say was one of curious joy. Before the reader sets me down as a monster of callousness let him look into his own heart. Such reactions are not after all so abnormal and may be said in that minimal sense at least to be almost excusable. We naturally take in the catastrophes of our friends a pleasure which genuinely does not preclude friendship. This is partly but not entirely because we enjoy being empowered as helpers. The unexpected or inappropriate catastrophe is especially piquant. I was very attached to both Arnold and Rachel. But there is a natural tribal hostility between the married and the unmarried. I cannot stand the shows so often quite instinctively put on by married people to insinuate that they are not only more fortunate but in some way more moral than you are. Moreover to help their case the unmarried person often naively assumes that all marriages are happy unless shown to be otherwise. The Baffin marriage had always seemed pretty sound. This sudden vignette of home life set the ideas in a turmoil.

Still rosy with the rush of blood which Arnold's words had occasioned, and also, I should make clear (there is no contradiction), very alarmed and upset, I turned round and saw Francis, whose existence I had forgotten.

«Anything the matter?» said Francis.

«No.»

«I heard you say something about a doctor.»

«The wife of a friend of mine has had an accident. She fell. I'm just going over.»

«Shall I come too?» said Francis. «I might be useful. After all, I am still a doctor in the eyes of God.»

I thought for a moment and said, «All right.» We got a taxi.

I pause here to say another word or two about my protege Arnold Baffin. I am anxious (this is not just a phrase, I feel anxiety) about the clarity and justice of my presentation of Arnold, since this story is, from a salient point of view, the story of my relations with Arnold and the astounding climax to which these relations led. I «discovered» Arnold, a considerably younger man, when I was already modestly established as a writer, and he, recently out of college, was just finishing his first novel. I had by then «got rid of» my wife and was experiencing one of those «fresh starts» which I have so often hoped would lead on to achievement. He was a schoolmaster, having lately graduated in English literature at the university of Reading. We met at a meeting. He coyly confessed his novel. I expressed polite interest. He sent me the almost completed typescript. (This was, of course, Tobias and the Fallen Angel. Still, I think, his best work.) I thought the piece had some merits and I helped him to find a publisher for it. I also reviewed it quite favourably when it came out. Thus began one of the most, commercially speaking, successful of recent literary careers. Arnold at once, contrary, as it happens, to my advice, gave up his job as a teacher and devoted himself to «writing.» He wrote easily, producing every year a book which pleased the public taste. Wealth, fame followed.

It has been suggested, especially in the light of more recent events, that I envied Arnold's success as a writer. I would like at jnce and categorically to deny this. I sometimes envied his freedom to write at a time when I was tied to my desk. But I did not in general feel envy of Arnold Baffin for one very simple reason: it seemed to me that he achieved success at the expense of merit. As his discoverer and patron I felt from the start identified with his activities. And I felt, rather, distress that a promising young writer should have laid aside true ambition and settled so quickly into a popular mould. I respected his industry and I admired his «career.» He had lany gifts other than purely literary ones. I did not, however, much like his books. Tact readily supervened however and, as I have said, we soon instinctively avoided certain topics of conversation.

I should make clear that Arnold was not in any crude sense «spoilt» by success. He was no tax-dodger with a yacht and a house in Malta. (We sometimes laughingly discussed tax-avoidance, but never tax-evasion.) He lived in a fairly large, but not immodest, suburban villa in a «good class» housing estate in Ealing. His domestic life was, even to an irritating extent, lacking in style. It was not that he put on an act of being «the ordinary chap.» In some way he was «the ordinary chap,» and eschewed the vision which might, for better as well as worse, have made a very different use of his money. I never knew Arnold to purchase any object of beauty. He was indeed quite deficient in visual taste, though he was rather aggressively fond of music. As to his person, he continued to look like a schoolmaster, dressed shapelessly, and retained a raw shy boyish appearance. It never occurred to him to play «the famous writer.» Or perhaps intelligence, of which he had plenty, suggested this way of playing it. He wore steel-rimmed specs, behind which his eyes were a very pale bluish-green, rather striking. His nose was pointed, his face always rather greasy, but healthy looking. There was a general lack of colour. Something of an albino? He was accounted, and perhaps was, good-looking. He was always combing his hair.

Arnold stared at me and pointed mutely at Francis. We were standing in the hall. Arnold looked unlike himself, his face waxy, his hair jagged, his eyes without glasses crazed and vague. There was a red mark like a Chinese character upon his cheek.

«This is Dr. Marloe. Dr. Marloe-Arnold Baffin. Dr. Marloe happened to be with me when you rang up about your wife's accident.» I stressed the last word.

«Doctor,» said Arnold. «Yes, you see-she-«She fell?» I suggested.

«Yes. Is he-is this chap a-medical doctor?»

«Yes,» I said. «A friend of mine.» This untruth at least conveyed important information.

«Are you the Arnold Baffin?» said Francis.

«Yes, he is,» I said.

«I say, I do admire your books-I've read-«What's the situation?» I said to Arnold. I thought he looked as if he was drunk, and immediately after I could smell drink.

Arnold, making some sort of effort, said slowly, «She locked herself into our bedroom. After it-happened-She was bleeding a lot – I thought-I don't quite know what-the injury was-At any rate-At any rate-« He stopped.

«Go on, Arnold. Look, you'd better sit down. Hadn't he better sit down?»

«Arnold Baffin,» said Francis, to himself.

Arnold leaned back against the hall stand. He leaned his head back into a coat that was hanging there, closed his eyes for a moment, and then went on. «Sorry. You see. She was sort of crying and wailing in there for a time. I mean in the bedroom. Now it's all quiet and she doesn't answer at all. I'm afraid she may be unconscious or-«