Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

She was trembling with excitement and terror. Her head felt huge and full of points of electricity, little shocks of intense pain. And all the time she was sitting perfectly still with the engine running, watching the road ahead which seemed to Iii; shuddering and heaving and boiling up in atoms of dark. Slip was aware of the moon, even of the stars, of the frosty moonlit tarmac just in front of hers, and of the lights of Crimond's car, the pale glow of headlights, the rear lights, briefly lost to view, now well up upon the further slope, slowly climbing up on the waves of the dark. She saw the lights diminish, seem to vanish, the red lights disappearing, there seemed to be an interval, it gulf into which she could fall; then the headlights came slowly I out of the dark, first dim then rising to a full flash, three times repeated. Her mouth open now, gasping, finding her hmid ready on the switch, she flashed her own lights in reply. The distant signal was repeated, and almost simultaneously slit repeated her answer. The far off lights were dipped and slit dipped her own. She put the car into gear and released dip clutch. The car began to move down the hill and in a few moments the headlights upon the opposite hill disappeared from view. As she began to accelerate Jean felt a sudden surge of energy, something very intense, perhaps fear ,perhaps joy, perhaps, in the depths of her body, a prolonged sexual thrill. She pressed her foot down. Faster, faster. At the same time slip found herself thinking, after this we'll drive across France. I'll be driving, he doesn't really like driving. She had so often gined that going away with Crimond, which would come after the book was finished. When the book was finished they would drive about, as they had done in Ireland, and be perfectly happy. But the book was finished, and were they not already perfectly happy, was not this, what she was doing now as an instrument of Crimond's will, perfect happiness?

When she reached the crest of the dip she saw the headlights of Crimond's car again, much nearer. The road descended a little then began the long very gradual ascent. Jean kept her gaze fixed upon the pale glowing eyes ahead of her, the eyes which seemed so quickly to be becoming larger and brighter. The Rover sped on beautifully, effortlessly, bird-like. Jean flickered her glance to look at the speedometer, but for some reason could not see it. The pale increasing eyes seemed to tie blinded her to all other things in the world. In the world. Will it be quick? she thought. The faster the quicker. Oddly enough, in all the long terrifying, thrilling and somehow unreal discussions which they had had about the Roman Road, Jean had never tried to imagine any of the detail. There had been so much metaphor, so much myth, so much sheer peal excitement, like a prolonged orgasm, in that extraordinary period, so brief, so crammed and crowded with their untied being, after she had realised that Crimond really meant it, they would actually come to it. That time now seemed memory like a sunlit battlefield, a joust, with pennants flying and naked deadly lances, not yet stained with blood. From that engagement Jean had been able to escape into endless oscillating speculation about what Crimond really intended. Her imagination had rested intermittently upon perfunctory pictures: the two cars would become one car, there would be nothing on the road except a compact box of metal. But inside the box? She would be there, with Crimond, inside the box, joined together in an eternal blackness. There would be blood, a mingling of blood, a mingling of flesh, but they would have vanished, united forever in a clap of thunder. She began to gasp and moan, not yet to scream, though she could already hear the scream she was about to utter.

Is he on the left side of the road or the right side, she wondered. It was still hard to tell. He had told her to stay on the left and leave the rest to him. In your will is my tranquil. lity. Only now she was alone. But she must not think that, Faster, faster, nearer, nearer. Jean's eyes flickered again, this time toward the near side of the road. There was a long low stone wall, a dry stone wall the pattern of whose golden-yellow stones was hypnotically, very swiftly, unravelling in the head lights of the Rover. A wall. The other side of the road seemed to be invisible, as if covered by a black patch. Then there were those wheelchairs. Crimond had only just mentioned thi, wheelchairs, but Jean's mind had already set up a picture, as of she had been brooding upon it for years, of herself and Crimond slowly moving about in a large room, passing each other like mindless insects as they laboriously propelled their chairs by turning the wheels with their hands. Old age, was it an image of old age? We don't want to grow old, we don't want to be cripples either, I mustn't muff it. Crimond's car, now perhaps a mile away, or less, was certainly upon the right side of the road, his right, her left, they were joined by a straight line, it would be nose to nose. Her foot was pressing tho accelerator into the floor of the car, there was a roaring in lici ears, the sound of the engine of which she had been unawai,, the wheel seemed fixed in her hands, locked into position. Shr had never driven so fast in her life, yet she felt in perfect control of the car. If I were to cross his path at the last moment, slot thought, he would hit the side of the car, there would be it, accident. The stone wall was still with her. The pale brilliant eyes ahead which had for a time seemed to grow larger widimit moving, were now perceptibly coming nearer, rushing near, i nearer, fast, very fast. Jean began to pray, Crimond, oh, Crimond, Crimond. How could she kill her lover? If she cotilil only die and he became a god. He had said, keep on the leftaii-I leave the rest to me. The bright eyes were near, hypnotic, glaring dazzling, filling her vision, directly ahead of Iwo, rushing, charging towards her. She thought,-he's not going lot swerve, it isn't a test, it's the real thing, it's the end. jean begrin to scream, she screamed into the roaring of the engine. Slit uld see now, not just the eyes, but the car, illumined now by hrr own headlights, a black car, with a figure in it, coming, coming. The box, the box, the box. Oh my love.

The stone wall suddenly ceased and Jean's gaze, still fixed brad upon what was about to happen, took in a five-barred gate. She turned the wheel. She missed the gate, but the car crushed through a thick hedge and turned over on its side upon grass. The lights went out. There was a distant screech, then silence, an amazing silence. Darkness and silence.

Jean breathed for a while. She could breathe. She thought about her body and moved parts of it about a little. The car was lying on its left side. Her seat belt was still holding her suspended. She could not, in the black dark, make out what space she was in. She fumbled for the clasp of the seat belt. It seemed to snap and she jolted against the side of the passenger seat which had been propelled forward. Drawing up her knees rested, holding the steering wheel with one hand. Her heard was hurting, and her right foot was hurting, perhaps, oven as she hurtled through the hedge, she had been pressing down the accelerator. Her whole body felt battered. She concentrated on breathing.

A light appeared, a wandering light. The door of the car above her, beyond the wheel, began to rattle. Someone was trying to open it. It opened. It's like a box after all, she thought, and someone has opened the lid. The light of the torch shone into the car revealing her knees, the displaced seat, the shattered windscreen, a kind of snow everywhere which she realised was broken glass. Looking at her knees she noticed her stockings, dark brown stockings which she hold selected, had chosen to wear, when she rose at midnight .Earlier, Crimond had told her to sleep and she had actually slept, though that had seemed impossible. She remembered now that she had forgotten to ask Crimond Whether he had slept. She made a guttural sound to discover if she could still speak, then said in a strange voice, 'I'm all right – I think.'