Iris Murdoch - Bruno’s Dream

Danby reached out to Nigel’s shoulder with the intention of shaking him, but he had no force in his arm and remained leaning there, staring down into the swooning beatific face. There was a sound of crunching footsteps.

Will, the still-smoking pistol hanging limp at his side, said, “Which of you have I hit?” His face was white, his mouth open and shuddering.

”Neither of us, fortunately for you,” said Danby. He began to get up.

”Nigel, Nigel-“ Will fell on his knees beside his brother.

Nigel’s eyes opened. “Hello, Will. I think I’ve been in heaven.”

”Are you all right, you bloody fool?”

”Yes. But look. I spy police.” A uniformed figure had appeared on the next wharf, which belonged to the cattle-cake mills. Somebody was distantly shouting. Danby turned about and began to walk in the opposite direction along the slippery shore. Then he decided it was silly to walk and began to run. The mist was lifting and he could see through the light now rather luminous curtain of rain a line of barges, the outline of the bridge, and the surface of the river smoothed and pitted with rain.

The water was lapping the base of the brick wall below the churchyard. The strand was coming to an end. Danby’s feet splashed in the water. He heard shouts behind him. He plunged in deeper, wildly splashing, and then with a sudden sense of blissful release gave himself to the Thames, losing his footing and falling forward into the deeper water. He began to swim towards the line of barges. He passed under the stern of the last barge and the shore behind him was blot ted out.

Now there was a sudden peace and silence. Danby swam slowly, breast stroke, scarcely stirring the surface of the quiet water. It did not seem cold. The still-flowing tide took him gently with it. He felt a strange beatific lightness as if all his sins, including the ones which he had long ago forgotten, had been suddenly forgiven. The mist had lifted and the rain was abating. A little pale sunlight began to glow from behind him, and he saw that a perfect rainbow had come into being, hanging over London, bridging the Thames from north to south. Danby swam towards it. He swam under Battersea Bridge.

It was raining, raining, raining. Adelaide stood in her bedroom with the light switched on. She felt frightened. It had been dark outside for so long now that it was hard to know if it was evening or night. The rain had darkened the whole after noon. Her watch had stopped. It must be night by now.

There had been another flood warning. But there had been so many and nothing had happened. The darkness was just so hard to bear and that continual violent rain battering the windows. The house had become terrible to her. It was as if it had been taken over by an evil spirit. She could not bear even to look into the kitchen. She feared Nigel, she feared Danby, she feared Bruno. She was afraid that Bruno would suddenly start to die when there was no one there but herself. The others came and went mysteriously. Perhaps one day they would go and not come back. She wanted to go herself, she had packed her bags days ago, but she had no will to move herself and nowhere to go to.

I can’t stay here, Adelaide kept thinking, I must go to a hotel. But she did not want to spend her money on a hotel. She had never stayed in a hotel in her life, and did not know how to choose one to go to. She thought, I must find another job. But the idea was nightmarish. She felt utterly incapable of working, of seeing new people. She felt incapable of living any more. She had at last understood that the person she had always loved was Will. That jerky violence which had so plucked at her nerves now merged magnetically with the sovereign forces of her own nature. She responded, she submit ted, but too late. The years with Danby seemed an insubstantial dream. She should have recognized this lord out of her childhood, she should never have questioned his authority over her. Beside that brute reality the charm of Danby faded to a wisp. Adelaide had forgotten her love for Danby. It seemed to her that she had been kind to him for some other reason which she could not now understand. She had ceased to feel animosity against Danby, though she was still very anxious not to meet him. She did not feel that he had used her unjustly. Her sense of being, through her new indifference to him, Danby’s equal, had removed all sense of grievance. Her anger was against herself, for her frivolity and her blindness. She had had him at her feet, the only one, for years and years, and now had lost him utterly.

Adelaide sat on the edge of her bed crying. She had rehearsed in her mind a hundred scenes of reconciliation, of throwing herself before him and accepting his anger and receiving his forgiveness. But she knew really that it would be profitless to try to see him, she knew him well enough. He was capable of assaulting her, hurting her, and this would have none of the splendour of imagined violence. It would be ugly, humiliating, final. She had thought of asking Nigel to intercede for her, even of asking Auntie. But for all she knew Will detested Nigel, and she dared not go near Auntie for fear of an encounter with Will. She had written him a let ter. Please forgive me.1 know now I love you. But it looked unreal, flimsy, utterly unlike the terrible force which she now felt rising up underneath her heart. She had posted the letter just for something to do, as an unbeliever might light a candle in a church. He would never forgive her now. He would hate her forever.

”Adelaide!”

He had called before and she had taken no notice. Dully she got up and began to mount the stairs.

”Adelaide!”

”I’m coming, I’m coming, don’t shout.”

It was cold in Bruno’s room. The centre light and the lamp were both on. The uncurtained window was a shiny black void full of beating drumming rain. Bruno’s bed was disordered and one pillow had fallen to the floor. He lay sideways in the bed, his head drooping awkwardly towards one side as if the neck were broken. A spider book fell heavily off the side of the bed.

”What’s the matter?”

”Where’s everybody?”

”I don’t know.”

”Where’s Danby, where’s Nigel?”

”I don’t know.”

”This rain is so awful.”

”Do you want tea or something?”

”No. I feel rotten. Could you arrange my pillows, Adelaide? No one looks after me. I could be dead and no one would even notice.”

Holding her breath and gripping the thin fleshless bone of his shoulder Adelaide threw the vagrant pillow in behind him. She straightened the blankets and the counterpane. Bruno with some difficulty arranged his two thin arms upon the counterpane, pulling down the sleeves of his red and white striped pajamas.

”Could I have that book? Could you pull the curtains?”

Adelaide dragged the curtains across the window and threw the book onto the bed. “Anything else you want?”

”Could you turn on the electric fire? It’s like winter in here.”

”If you didn’t disarrange your bed so you wouldn’t feel so cold.”

”All my limbs are aching so, I can’t stay still. Adelaide, the wireless says the Thames is flooding.”

”They’re always saying that.”

”There’s a northwesterly gale blowing and the flow over the weir at Teddington-“

”Oh don’t worry your head.”

”Could you bring up the Evening Standard ?”

”It hasn’t come.”

”Adelaide, could I have a hot-water bottle? I’m so cold. I’m sorry to trouble you.”

Adelaide went to the bathroom and filled a bottle at the hot tap. She dried it hastily on a towel and brought it back and held her breath again as she pushed it in at the bottom of the bed underneath the foot cage. “Can you reach it?”