Iris Murdoch - Bruno’s Dream

Although Miles and Danby were about the same age Danby had always felt as if Miles were his senior. He had taken this attitude over from Gwen, who had revered her brother and regarded him as an oracle. Danby had early accepted the notion that Miles was something remarkable, and he had now to remind himself that really Miles was a very ordinary person, even by some standards a failure. Before he had ever met Miles he was already a bit afraid of him, and more rationally afraid of his power over Gwen. Miles had not concealed his opinion of Danby, and this had caused Danby considerable pain, even after he had made certain that Gwen was not going to allow her brother to forbid the banns. Danby, as he now realized, standing in the dark room looking at Miles’s back, as indeed he now knew he had simply forgotten, had genuinely admired Miles in the days gone by. And the shock of his presence brought to Danby again that old familiar humiliating sensation mixed of fear and admiration and bitter hurt resentment.

Miles turned and indicated an armchair beside the fireplace and Danby sat down.

”Look here,” said Miles. He sat down on an upright chair beside the window. “What is all this?”

”It’s fairly clear I should have thought,” said Danby. “Bruno wants to see you.”

”Does he really ?”

”Well, he says he does and goes on saying it. I’m not a mind reader.”

Danby had thought a lot beforehand about this interview without being able to decide upon the tone of it. The tone would have to be settled impromptu. And here he was already becoming aggressive.

”It seems a bit pointless after all these years,” said Miles. He was folding a piece of paper, not looking at Danby. The room was getting darker.

” He’s dying,” said Danby. He felt a rush of emotion, an obscure feeling which connected together Bruno, Gwen, Miles’s profile seen against the glowing dark grey window.

”Yes, yes,” said Miles in an irritable voice. “But children and parents don’t necessarily have anything to say to each other. I’m not conventional about this and I shouldn’t have thought that Father was.”

His saying “Father” like that brought back Gwen, even the tones of her voice. Danby said, “He wants to see you. Any discussion is just frivolous.” Miles stiffened and threw the paper away, and Danby felt that it was rather strange and wonderful for him to be calling Miles frivolous. He noticed with satisfaction that Miles’s tossed hair was falling apart to reveal a bald patch.

”I’m afraid you are not being very clear-headed,” said Miles. “My point concerns my father’s welfare. An interview with me might upset him seriously. I mean, the situation has to be thought about. Does Father propose that we should see each other daily, or what?”

Christ, you cold-blooded bureaucrat, thought Danby. “I don’t think Bruno has thought it out beyond the idea of just seeing you once.”

”I see no point in our meeting once.”

”I mean, after meeting once you’d both just have to see how you felt.”

”I think this could be very agonizing indeed for my father, and I’m surprised you didn’t dissuade him. You must have control over him by now.”

Was that a reference to the stamps? “Bruno controls himself, I don’t run him.”

”If we meet once either to meet again or not to meet again may be equally dreadful.”

It occurred to Danby for the first time that there might indeed be a problem here. Like Bruno he had not thought be yond the first occasion. “You’re complicating the matter,” said Danby. “You are after all his only child and he is near death and wants to see you. It seems to me a matter of plain duty, whatever the consequences.”

”One cannot divorce duty from consequences.”

”Oh all right,” said Danby, standing up abruptly and pushing his chair back. “Shall I go back and tell him you won’t come?”

”Sit down, Danby.”

Danby hesitated, shuffled his feet, and sat down slowly.

”I’m sorry,” said Miles. “I probably sound rather hard hearted, but I want to see what’s involved. I think we might turn the light on.” He pulled the curtain and moved to the electric light switch. Danby gritted his teeth.

Miles was not really very like Gwen, and yet there were details of her face which memory and even photographs had retained for Danby only in a hazy generalized form which were now suddenly manifest in flesh-and-blood clarity: the sharply marked mouth with the deep runnel above it, the brow coming closely down over the intent eyes, the heavy quality of the dark hair.

Danby looked away and looked quickly about the room which was now revealed by two green-shaded lamps. It was a book-lined room, evidently a study. A table was half drawn up under the window, covered with neatly squared-off piles of paper and notebooks and an orderly row of ballpoint pens. The clean open fireplace contained a pyramid of fir cones and was surrounded by William Morris tiles which gleamed in a swirling profusion of blues and purples. Gwen would have liked those tiles. She would have enjoyed collecting the fir cones. There was a vase of daffodils on the white painted mantelshelf, and a small square gilt mirror above it. Here and there a shelf of books had been cleared to display glittering Chinese porcelain, ultramarine ducks, dogs, dragons. Everything looked formidably neat and clean. A donnish room: and yet the flowers and the ducks and the fir cones did not seem quite like Miles. Vaguely, and the thought somehow disturbed him, Danby remembered that Miles was married.

”Quite honestly,” Miles was going on. He had sat down again and was intent on folding pieces of paper and cutting them carefully with a sharp knife. “Quite honestly, I rather dread this operation not only because of what it might do to him, but also because of what it might do to me. I’m rather through with the emotions, that kind anyway, and I’ve got other things to do. Is it all about money?”

”Money?” said Danby. “Good Lord, no!” Or was it? Perhaps after all Bruno just wanted to decide the destiny of the stamps. Damn the stamps, they complicated everything.

”You see,” said Miles, concentrating upon a neat clean severance of a folded sheet. “You see , I don’t know whether you know this, but I’ve been writing to my father regularly for years, and I’ve never had any reply. I rather assumed he’d written me off. This desire to see me is a bit surprising. Is he senile?”

”No!” said Danby. “He has to take various drugs and some days he gets a bit vague and rambles a little, but on the whole he’s perfectly clear-headed. He’s certainly still a rational being.”

”Is he much-changed?”

”Physically, yes. Not in other ways. I suppose you know what’s wrong with him?”

”Oddly enough I do,” said Miles slowly, raising his brooding eyes in a significant way which was very reminiscent of Gwen. “Oddly enough I do. I wrote to his doctor about eighteen months ago. I suppose there’s no new development?”

”No. Just the progress of the-thing.”

They were silent, Danby watching Miles and Miles intently examining a piece of cut paper. “All right. I’ll come and see him. But I think it’s going to be awful. Awful .”

Danby stood up. He felt a strange defensive tenderness for Bruno combined with an acute wish that Miles would offer him a drink. He wanted to be asked to stay, given a drink, somehow comforted by Miles. He would like to have talked about the past. “Bruno has been very brave.”

”I don’t doubt it, I don’t doubt it. When shall I come?” Miles had risen too.

”Of course he may change his mind when he knows you’re coming. He may funk it.”

”You mean he’s nervous too?”