Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

There is unfinished business between us.

If would like to deal with it come to

this address next Friday morning at eleven.

D. C.

This letter had arrived two days ago. Duncan had at onto replied accepting the invitation. He had told no one. It was now Wednesday.

Jean had been present when, at breakfast time, he had misuspiectingly opened the typed envelope. He had dissembled his emotion and pocketed the letter quickly. His first sensation had been fear, his second elation. He was living now in a state ofextreme terrified excitement. He had of course considered ever ypossible explanation, including the implausible one to the effect that Crimond wanted to bring about some sort of reconciliation. Such a project was contrary to common sense, but Crimond's brilliant crazy mind did not accommodate common sense. After all, he and Crimond had once been friends, even, in the context of the group, quite close friends, in those far off but eternally significant Oxford days. Perhaps Crimond had continued to like him, even felt, as man to man, sorry that they had been divided by a woman. Men who have loved the same woman can feel a bond over many years. Such a bond can have various foundations, of which contempt for the woman in question could be one. There is a relationship, which can also consist of chivalrous surrender on one side and grateful possession on the other. There can also be shared loss and romantic nostalgia mutually enlivened. Working along these lines, for of'course he had thought in the werim of nothing else, Duncan could just ima gine that what Crimond wanted was a cosy chat, a manly conversation, herein they wouldboth reminisce about their relations with Jean, and conclude that really, in the end, they were both satisfied with the situation as it was now and need no longer egard each other as enemies. They might even envisage the occasional meeting, a drink together, perhaps billiards or chess. However, distraught as he had become in the intervening days, Duncan was not quite mad enough to take this picture seriously. It was difficult enough to think of Crimond in t his mood, it was even more difficult to believe that he might expect Duncan to fall in with it.

No. The invitation meant war, it signified confrontation. But of what kind? Could Crimond be considering some kind of belligerent self'-justification? Was it just possible that he did not want to cut, in Duncan's vision of him, too bad a figure? He would not want Duncan to see him as a mean despicable rat, would want to explain, perhaps, how inevitable it had all seemed, how eloquently Jean had represented her marriage as unsuccessful, unimportant, virtually over in any case. Th was also difficult to envisage and would involve a sort of denigration of Jean, a sacrificing of her in the interests of son, kind of understanding with Duncan, which did not seem at a characteristic of Crimond. It was equally out of'character to think of him as wanting to demonstrate to Duncan how little he cared that Jean had gone, how relieved he was, to explain perhaps that he had positively thrown her out, so as to efface any image of himself as a defeated man. Crimond was far too arrogant, also perhaps too much a gentleman, to descend to any such justification, however belligerent in tone. Duncan could not really imagine any conversation between them it likely to be possible. He was in any case determined not to let any such conversation begin, and felt sure that Crimond did not envisage it either. These exclusions left only the possibility of some sort of fight – but then again of what kind?

It was certainly possible that Crimond was testing his courage. If Duncan refused to come Crimond would despise him and Duncan would know that he was despised. If Duncan accepted Crimond might contrive to humiliate or terrify hill Duncan of course dismissed the undignified, indeed contemptible, idea of arriving with a bodyguard. This was man to man, and it was a safe bet that Crimond hated Duncan as much as Duncan hated Crimond. The detested, also the ridiculous, husband. Duncan remembered Jean's stories of Russian roulette, which she had described as being both tests of courage and elaborate charades. Jean had never believe, that the guns were loaded, but it had also been clear that she was required to take the risk. From something which Jean had said, not of course in answer to any question from Duncan, it appeared that Crimond still played with guns, at any rate possessed them. Supposing in this case, the guns were loaded supposing Crimond intended simply to kill Duncan and make it out to be an accident? Was not Duncan walking straight ito, a trap, offering himself gratuitously as a target to a man who loathed him? What was clear, was that whatever grim drama he might imagine now, it was impossible to refuse the allenge. Supposing, later on, Jean were to discover somehow that he had funked it?

Duncan's inflamed mind went on to imagine a variety of outrageous and ingenious ways in which Crimond might intend to entrap and torment him. The most horrible prospect wits that of humiliation, of being tied up, handcuffed perhaps, tortured till he begged for mercy. The room could contain taps, devices. Well, he would act rationally, he would not resist, he would not risk serious injury or extreme pain, he would capitulate and say and do whatever was required. As he imagined scenes of this kind Duncan writhed with misery and rage. After anything like that it would be impossible for Duncan to go on living without killing Crimond. Here he reverted to old familiar, now almost traditional, fantasies of how he would one day destroy his rival.

Duncan was well aware that Crimond had in him some sort of steely element, some pure mad self-indifferent recklessness, which Duncan, however strong his emotions, however fierce his hatred, simply lacked. Whatever the game was, Crimond was likel y to win it; and Duncan even found himself relying, contemptibly, for the outcome, upon Crimond's rationality, or upon some hypothetical sense of decency which would preclude too brutal a treatment of the hated husband. And from here he would revert to discarded hypotheses about unimaginable conversations. One thing Duncan was determined to attempt was not to lose the initiative. Here the picture was not very clear or well-omened one. A very little preliminary talk would make clear what it was to be. Then Duncan would hurl huself upon his adversary, as he had done in the tower, relying on hisweight and a quick wrestling hold to frustrate whatever fiendish device Crimond seemed to be intending to bring into play. So, he would fight, but not under Crimond's rules. It was a function of this scenario that Duncan had, on the previous day, purchased a knife. He had posed as a bookbinder who wanted a long sharp knife with a narrow blade which could pass up the spine of a large book, a not too flexible knife with a sharp point, opening with a spring. He had considered and dismissed arming himself with a revolver. It would not be easy to get one in the time available, and the weapon seemed to him otiose. A knife would be unexpected and at close quarters more effective. Close up against thim imagined encounter Duncan found his thoughts dwelling not so much upon murder as upon grievous bodily harm. It was in this context that he then thought of the hammer. The smashed kneecap, the crushed right hand, the eye reduced to pulp, Crimond in a wheelchair, Crimond blind. Of course with such a Crimond still alive Duncan could never sleep secure. On the other hand, a murder charge could rest upon him, with its consequences which in his distraught state he was scarcely counting. The knife man would remember selling the knife. A few well-aimed hammer blows delivered with all his force could do irrevocable damage, and yet could also be passed oil, by Crimond, later, discovered bleeding and alone, as some sort of accident; and here Duncan found himself, with another twist of the screw, relying upon something like Crimond'-, generosity! There was also Crimond's vanity, his pride, his, unwillingness to appear so very publicly as the victim of the man he had wronged. As Duncan went about his work in the office and lived his quiet convalescent life with Jean, his mold crowded with these gory fantoms, he felt at times that he was going insane.