Айрис Мердок - A Severed Head

I acted quickly. I took Georgie's wrist and pulled her over to the french windows. I opened them and then drew her into the garden and round a little to the side of the house so that we should be invisible from the room. I whispered to her, 'Go out of that little gate and you can get back into the square. Then go straight home and I'll join you.' .

'No!' said Georgie, speaking softly but not whispering, 'No!

Panic possessed me. I had to get her away. I felt horror and nausea at the idea of an encounter between Antonia and Georgie at Hereford Square: there was something here horrible, almost obscene. I put all my will into my voice. 'Go at once, damn you.'

'I don't want to,' said Georgie, in the same tone. She glared at me. Our heads were close together. 'Let me meet your wife now. I won't be made to run away!'

'Do as 1 tell you,' I said. I took her arm and applied a pressure until she winced.

She pulled her arm away and turned. 'I haven't any money.'

I gave her a pound quickly from my wallet, made a violent gesture of dismissal, and went back into the drawing-room. To my relief the room was still empty. I closed the doors quickly. I did not look back to the garden.

I waited a moment. There was a profound silence. What could Antonia be doing? I wondered if I perhaps had been mistaken after all. I walked across the room and out into the hall. Honor Klein was standing just inside the door.

The appearance, so unexpectedly, of this absolutely immobile figure had something of the uncanny, and she had for a moment the snapshot presence of a ghost. We stared at each other. She was hunched up inside her overcoat and her troll-like face was still moist with the raw air outside. She did not smile or speak, but regarded me with a steady tense meditative gaze. I felt, at seeing her, relief mingled with a profound dismay and a certain deep unreasoning fear. I felt her dangerous. I said, 'May I help you?'

She threw her head back, pulling her coat open at the neck. 'You mean, Mr Lynch-Gibbon, why the hell am I here.'

'Precisely,' I said. I never seemed destined to achieve politeness with Palmer's sister.

She said, 'The explanation is this. Your wife told me that you would be away today. I needed to have a certain key to a bureau. This key is in my brother's wallet. This wallet he lent to your wife for the paying of some bill. She put it into a basket which she accidentally left here when she called in yesterday. As my need was urgent, and as you and she were both to be away, she lent me your front-door key. So here I am. And there is the basket.'

She indicated a basket standing under the hall table. On the hall table I saw Georgie's handbag and two books on economics. I picked up the basket and handed it to her.

'Thank you,' she said. 'I am sorry I disturbed you.' Her gaze seemed to pass slowly over Georgie's bag.'

'Not at all,' I said. I experienced a sudden fierce desire to detain her. I wanted to know what she was thinking. But I could not find the words. I felt lame and foolish before her. She too seemed for a moment to want to stay. But as neither of us could find the means to prolong the situation she turned about and I opened the door. As she passed me I bowed.

I went back into the drawing-room. The garden was empty. I slipped the copy of Napier into my pocket. I found I was breathless. I leaned on the mantelpiece and began to stroke one of the cockatoos. The gritty dust came off on my hand.

The next thing was that Georgie was not at her place. I had gone straight there by car after I had recovered my wits, and banged on the door, but there seemed to be no one in. I went to her room at the school, but she was not there and had not been there. I rushed back to her lodgings. There was still no reply. I went back to the school again and wasted time asking people. I felt both upset and offended, and after a while I returned to Hereford Square and spent the rest of the evening making a list of furniture, and telephoning Georgie, without result, at intervals. I did not seriously think she had been kidnapped or run over. I imagined that she must have been affronted by the way in which I pushed her off. I hated this idea: but felt confident of bringing her round fairly easily. It was not a pleasant evening, however. I drank a great deal of whisky, and went to bed.

I woke late the next day to hear the phone ringing. How well one sleeps when one is in grief. It was not Georgie. It was Antonia. She said she was glad to find me back, and asked if I would come to Pelham Crescent before lunch instead of her coming to Hereford Square in the afternoon. I agreed to this. Since I had made a fairly complete list of our belongings the matter could be as well discussed there as here. I telephoned Georgie's number again and got no reply. I decided I would call on Antonia, leave the furniture list with her, go to Georgie's, and come back to Antonia later on. I felt, still, hurt and cross rather than seriously anxious at Georgie's behaviour.

After I had washed and shaved I telephoned Georgie again, and tried the school, still with no results. When I was about to leave the phone rang again, but it was only Alexander to say that he and Rosemary were in London. He had come up to speak at a debate at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and had stayed last night at Rosemary's flat. He wanted to know when he could see me. I told him I would ring him back.

It was a sunny morning, the first for a long time, frosty and very cold, but bright and clear with a light which, as it made the white crystals shine upon the leaves in the Hereford Square garden, reminded me of Austria, snow, skis, and old happiness. The painful elation which I had experienced yesterday at seeing Georgie in my house had vanished without trace; I was depressed, cross, weak, and terribly on edge. As I entered Palmer's front door I felt a sort of confused craven relief. At least here were people who would be gentle with me.

There was no one in the drawing-room. Then as I heard from Palmer's study the sound of Antonia's voice I knocked on the door. I opened it and went in. Antonia and Palmer were both there. Antonia was dressed in a quilted check housecoat which was new to me. Her hair hung down over her breasts in two plaits in a fashion which I had not seen her use and which disturbed me very much. She was tall, Greek. She was standing at the end of the divan, leaning with one hand on Palmer's desk. Palmer was sitting on the divan facing the door. He was wearing his loosely woven French jacket, a blue shirt, and a purple cravat. He looked sleek, clean, agile, young, a little raffish. In the bright sunny light I saw both their eyes fixed on me with concern, with a certain excitement, Antonia's big soft and fawny, Palmer's blue clear and cold. Behind them on the wall was the row of empty marks where the Japanese prints had been.

I realized instantly that something odd had happened. Neither of them greeted me, they simply stared, not smiling, and yet with a certain gentle retaining solicitude. I closed the door. For a wild moment I imagined that they were going to tell me that they had changed their minds about getting married. I took an upright chair from the wall by the door and placed it in the centre of the carpet and sat down on it facing them. 'Well, my friends?'

Antonia shook her head and half turned away. I began to feel rather alarmed.

Palmer said, 'Shall we tell him?'

Antonia, without looking at me, said, 'Yes, of course.'

Palmer gave me his level cold stare. He said, 'Martin, we have found out about Georgie Hands.'

This took me so terribly off guard that I instantly covered my face with one hand. I drew it away quickly, to change the gesture of weakness into one of surprise. I felt sick. I said, 'I see. How did you learn this?»