Iris Murdoch - The Sea, the Sea

Concerning what I was actually going to do I had evolved a number of quite different plans, which were still more or less at the stage of being fantasies. When I was alone I would have the concentration necessary to convert one of these into a practical proposition. I thought of going to the police. Someone had attempted to kill me and an explanation of all the circumstances would point an unambiguous finger at Ben; and it would, I guessed, be in Ben’s character to answer a formal, or even hinted, accusation with a defiant avowal of guilt. This indeed might be the simplest easiest way to catch him: to open a big net and let him run straight into it. I saw Ben as a simple aggressive man who would be made uneasy by the subtleties of the law and would then scorn the refinements of lying. I played with this fantasy so much that the whole thing began to seem as good as done. On the other hand, if Ben did consistently deny the charge, I was certainly short of proof.

I also, and equally, considered various mixtures of guile and violence. If I could lure him to the house and push him into Minn’s cauldron that would be the justest thing of all, but of course he would be too cautious to come. I considered other ways of drowning him. None was easy. I was more attracted by some straightforward sort of violence, which however could not be too straightforward since Ben was a strong dangerous man, and if he were to do me a serious damage while I was trying to damage him I really would go mad with chagrin. An accomplice would help, but I had vowed to act without one. I had not forgotten what Hartley said about Ben having kept his army revolver. I had no doubt that he kept it oiled and polished but he might have no ammunition. I possessed, but in London, a beautiful replica automatic, property of the theatre. Suppose I were to hold him up with that, make him turn round, then hit him with a hammer! And then? Tell the whole story to the police? Get Hartley to testify that I did it in self-defence? As it was at every moment possible that Ben might make another attempt to kill me, my fantasy actions did in fact begin to look to me more and more like self-defence.

Those who are caught in mental cages can often picture freedom, it just has no attractive power. I also knew, in the midst of it all, that some unexamined guilt of my own was driving me further into hatred; but this was no moment to be confused by guilt. As I moved like a ghost, performing in the house and its environs a sort of ritual dance under the eyes of James and Lizzie and Perry, I thought about Hartley and I pictured peace with her, in that little house where we would hide forever after. Yet if I did what I so intensely desired and consoled myself by desiring, if I destroyed Ben, if I killed him or crippled him or damaged his mind or got him sent to prison, could I then walk away with Hartley in peace? What would that peace be like? What would the idea of justice be able to do for me afterwards? Was it not, under all these disguises, my own death that I was planning?

I said to James, pulling away my sleeve which he was still holding, ‘I am not going to do anything. I just feel all smashed up by misery.’

‘Come to London with me.’

‘No.’

‘I can see you’re scheming. Your eyes are full of awful visions.’

‘Sea serpents.’

‘Charles, tell me.’

These particular words brought back to me how extremely difficult I had found it to mislead James when I was a boy. He had a way of worming things out of one, as if the intended lie turned into truth on one’s very lips. I was not going to tell now however. How could I reveal to anyone the horrors that now crowded my mind? ‘James, go to London. I’ll come later, soon. I’ll come and sort out my flat. Don’t torment me now. I just want a day or two of peace here by myself, that’s all.’

‘You’ve got some awful idea.’

‘I have no idea, my mind is empty.’

‘You said something to me before about imagining that Ben pushed you into the cauldron.’

‘Yes.’

‘But of course you don’t really think that.’

‘I do, but it’s not important any more.’

James was looking at me in a calculating way. Lizzie called from the kitchen that breakfast was ready. The sun shone calm and bright on the grass, refreshed by the rain, on the border of pretty stones, on the sparkling yellow rocks. It was a caricature of a happy scene.

‘It is important,’ said James. ‘I don’t want to leave you behind here with that totally false notion in your head.’

‘Let’s have breakfast.’

‘It is false, Charles.’

‘You sound quite passionate! That’s your view, and I have mine. Come on.’

‘Wait, wait, it’s not just a view, I know. I know it wasn’t Ben.’

I stared at him. ‘James, you can’t know. Did you see it happen?’

‘No, I didn’t, but-’

‘Did someone else see it?’

‘No-’

‘Then how can you know?’

‘I just do. Charles, please, will you trust me? Surely you can trust me. Just don’t ask any questions. Accept my statement that Ben didn’t do it. Ben did not do it.’

We stared at each other. The intensity of James’s tone, his eyes, his fierce face, carried conviction into my resisting mind. But I could not believe him. How could he know this? Unless-unless-James himself had pushed me in? What after all lay behind that Red Indian mask? We had always been rivals for the world, I the more successful one. A childhood hatred, like a childhood love, can last a lifetime. James was an odd card, a funny man with a funny mind. He was in a ruthless profession. I recalled his respectful remarks about Ben. It might even be that he had tried to remove me simply because he knew I had guessed that he was a secret agent and was returning to Tibet. I put my hands to my head.

I said however, ‘Listen, James, and stop trying to impress me. Not only did Ben try to kill me. Ben killed Titus.’

‘Oh-Lord-’ said James. He turned away with an air of distracted hopelessness, then said, ‘What’s your evidence for his having killed Titus? Did you see him?’

‘No, but it’s obvious. No one examined that blow on the head. Titus was a strong swimmer. And when Ben had tried to murder me-’

‘Yes, that’s your “evidence”. But I know it isn’t so.’

‘James, you can’t know! I understand this man and how much he can hate. You were just gratified to see a fellow soldier. What I see is an able killer and a man absolutely consumed, mad, with jealous spite, with a whole history of it. And I know what jealous spite is like.’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ said James, ‘ your spite. What can I swear upon that will satisfy you? I swear by our childhood, by the memory of our parents, by our cousinhood, that Ben did not do this thing. Will you not please just accept this and ask no more? Oh let it all go now, let it go. Come to London, let’s get out of this place.’

‘How can I “accept” it? I notice you argue that it wasn’t Ben, but not that I imagined it all! Would you just “accept” the fact that some person unknown had tried to kill you? And you can’t be sure it wasn’t Ben. Unless by any chance it was you?’

‘It wasn’t me,’ said James frowning, ‘don’t be absurd.’

I felt a ridiculous degree of relief. Had I then for a moment seriously entertained the idea that my cousin was filled with murderous hate against me? Of course I believed him at once, and of course it was absurd. But if it was not James, or as he argued, Ben, who was it? I was impressed by his solemn oath, though I could not believe him. Gilbert, mad with secret jealousy because of Lizzie? Rosina mourning for her lost child? Perhaps there were quite a lot of people with motives to murder me. Freddie Arkwright? Why not? He hated me, he was now at Amorne Farm where Ben had been to get the dog. Suppose Ben had hired Freddie to kill or perhaps just maim me, and it had ended with that dreadful fall?