Iris Murdoch - Bruno’s Dream

Danby started to walk quickly back. The figure quickened its pace. Danby began to run. The figure ran. Danby ran harder. He caught it up just short of Warwick Road underneath a lamppost and grabbed it firmly by the collar.

”Nigel!” Nigel twisted and struggled and squirmed but Danby held him fast. “Nigel, you swine, you spy! You were there in that garden!”

”You’re choking me, let go!”

”Were you there in that garden?”

”Yes, yes, stop it, stop it-“

”You heard it all!”

”You’re killing me.”

”You bloody spy!”

”Please, please, please-“

Danby shook the limp and now unresisting figure violently to and fro and then hurled it away from him. Nigel staggered, slithered on the wet slippery pavement, and fell, the side of his head meeting the lamppost with an audible crack. He lay still. Danby, who had started to walk away, paused a moment until he had seen Nigel stir and begin to get up. Danby turned again and faced the force of the rain and the wind, walking unsteadily in the middle of the road.

Nigel was kneeling beside his twin brother’s bed. Will was sleeping heavily. Soft rain was running quietly, ceaselessly down the glass of the skylight. A very faint illumination from the lamp-lighted street showed the old brass-railed bedstead and Will’s large round face, flushed and swollen with sleep, a weight upon the pillow, the moustached upper lip twitching slightly.

The tossed bedclothes also revealed an outflung right arm clad in purple and white spotted pajama, a hand drooping over the edge of the bed, and a large plump left foot peeping out of another expanse of purple and white pajama. Nigel, armed with a length of rope, two thick bands of perforated rubber, and a smooth stick about twenty inches long, carefully contemplated the position of the hand and the foot.

He decided to start with the foot. He laid the stick and one end of the rope silently down upon the floor and approached the other extremity of the rope to the well-padded and rather fragrant sole of his brother’s foot, which seemed to be regarding him with an insolent expression. The rope ended in a slip-knot with the perforated band of rubber threaded onto the rope within the area of the knot. Nigel began very gingerly to draw the slip-knot over the insolent protruding foot without bringing it into contact with the sole. As the band of rubber descended onto the sheet it very lightly touched the roughened edge of the heel and Nigel quickly looked round. A faint smile appeared on Will’s face, but he continued to sleep, now uttering very light snores like little sipping noises. He shifted slightly, moving his legs, and as he did so Nigel, holding the upper side of the noose clear with his left hand, thrust his right hand deep into the mattress and drew the slip knot loosely up over Will’s ankle. He laid the upper part of the noose very lightly down across the pajamaed leg, ob serving Will’s face again, which continued to smile a little and twitch in between the snores.

Rising very quietly from his kneeling position Nigel now lifted the other end of the rope from the floor, and after contemplating the brass rails at the foot of the bed for a moment or two, led the free end of the rope between the rails close to the slumbering foot, out again two rails further back, and round the brass bed post on the far side of the bed. Holding the end of the rope bunched and high, he sidestepped noiselessly to the head of the bed and slid the second slip-knot with its perforated rubber bracelet through the head rails of the bed, past two rails, and out again round the brass bed post on the near side of the bed. The wrist, which was dangling free, presented fewer difficulties. Holding the centre portion of the rope well up with his left hand, Nigel caught the wrist in the swinging slip-knot and ventured to pull the knot tighter until it was touching the pajama cuff very lightly all round.

The machine was now almost complete. Nigel slung the loose centre of the rope over his shoulder and attended once more to the foot, tightening the knot very carefully just above the bone of the ankle. He adjusted the rope at the head and foot of the bed, pulling it down the rails towards the mat tress, and then stood back, drawing the middle of the rope steadily towards him. He picked up the stick and laid it against the rope and began quietly and deliberately to shorten the rope by twisting it about the stick.

Will woke up with a flurry and an exclamation. Nigel retreated, pulling hard on the rope and twisting faster. The slip knots tightened, the rubber bracelets clung, and Will’s wrist and ankle were drawn up taut against the rails at the head and foot of the bed. Will yelled.

”Sssh, Will, you’ll wake Auntie.”

”Damn you, you’ve done it again!”

”It’s more ingenious this time,” said Nigel. “I doubt if you will be able to get out.”

”You bastard!”

”The rubber is the essential thing. I ought to have thought of it earlier.”

”Loosen the rope, for Christ’s sake, you’re breaking my wrist.”

”I doubt that. Excuse me while I just maneuver this chair.” Keeping the rope taut with one hand, Nigel reached the other for a wooden upright chair which stood against the wall. Lean ing over he threaded the stick through, twisting it so that it was held braced against the two wooden rails under the seat of the chair. He sat down on the chair.

”Nigel, loosen it a bit, fuck you, the bloody rail is cutting into my wrist, it’ll open a vein.”

”I remember hearing a story like this once before. I shouldn’t struggle if I were you, it’ll only make things worse.”

Will, stretched out between the head and the foot of the bed, had contorted his body, his left hand struggling to curl round the brass rails to reach his captive right wrist. The fingers clawed without force at the tightened surface of the rubber bracelet.

”This damn thing will stop my circulation. Do you want to kill me?”

”Not quite. Stop struggling, Will, you’ll feel better.”

”Loosen the rope, you’re pulling me apart.”

”Say please.”

”Please, bugger you.”

Nigel moved the chair a fraction forward. “That’s not enough.”

”Lie still and relax your muscles and listen to me.”

”How can I listen when I’m in the most frightful pain?”

”You’re not in the most frightful pain. The pain is negligible. Listen to me.”

”Go to hell.”

”If you get treated like this it’s your own fault for being so violent. That’s something which you would have under stood long ago if you had been capable of thinking. Of course violent men get put into cages and stretched on racks by men who are less violent but more clever. It’s the only way to make them listen.”

”I’ll never listen to you, not if I have to scream for an hour. Loosen the rope, my ankle’s breaking.”

”No, it isn’t. You have listened, Will. The violent men do listen in the end, because it’s to their advantage. You remember that time when we were ten and I hung you up by your wrists from the scaffolding on the building site because you wouldn’t do what I wanted?”

”Yes, and I remember what I did to you after you let me down!”

”All right, but you also did what I wanted.”

”And damn stupid it was too. You always were a crazy pervert.”

”You see, you’ve quite forgotten that you’re supposed to be in pain.”

”I haven’t. You’ll kill me one day with one of your damn contraptions. I can feel my wrist bleeding. Could you look?”

”You can’t catch me that way, Will. If you don’t mind I think I’ll turn the light on. You’re an interesting sight.”

Nigel tilted his chair slightly and turned the electric light switch. An unshaded electric bulb above the bed revealed Will outstretched and twisted between his pinioned wrist and his pinioned ankle. The unbuttoned pajamas showed his braced polished chest with a runnel of jet-black curls running down the centre of it. Will jerked again, clawing at his caught wrist with his free hand. Then he lay still panting, eyes bulging, his flushed face turned full to Nigel, his gritted teeth flashing under his moustache. “You’ve tightened the rope again, damn you.”