Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

`Yes – if you don't mind – I think I'll stay here – for the moment -'

`Could I talk to -'

Annushka was already on the line. Annushka spoke slowly and calmly, as she always did. Mrs Cambus had had a car accident. Yes, quite nearby, she had been driving to Boyars. She wasn't hurt except for a badly sprained ankle, and some concussion. She saw the landing light, which Annushka always kept on when she was alone, and she walked all the way, with her bad ankle. Yes, Dr Tallcott had been there, he came at once. Yes, he said concussion and she was just to rest, he strapped up her ankle and gave her some pills. He said he'd come back. She was on the sofa in the drawing room because she couldn't get up the stairs. They didn't ring Rose at once because -

`Just keep her there,' said Rose, 'don't whatever you do let her go away, I'll be ringing up again and I'll drive down very soon.'

Frantically, turning on all the lights, she dressed, fumbling with her clothes, unable to find her handbag and the car keys, forgetting her overcoat. At last she had found everything, even gloves, and had put on her heaviest coat and a woollen cap and scarf. Leaving the lights on she ran downstairs into the very cold empty lamp-lit street. It was six o'clock. There was no sign of dawn.

In the car she let her fear loose. Terrible things were happening and would happen. She could not yet let herself feel glad that Jean had left Crimond. All this, whatever it was, might be part of one huge catastrophe. Suppose she arrivs and found Crimond lying in a pool of blood with his head blown off? She had lied to Jean, of course she thought that Crimond was a person who might commit suicide – in fact, if they had really parted, it was very possible. He had finished.the book, he had finished with Jean too. Except that perhaps he hadn't, perhaps they would be back together again tomorrow. Oh, let him not be dead, Rose prayed. Almost, she was wanting that Jean should be back with him tomorrow, everything else was so terribly dangerous. Jean would go mad, Duncan would go mad, people would die, it would all end in dreadful chaos, the end of all order, the end of the world.

The streets were almost empty of traffic, the street lights lit up empty lonely pavements. As she crossed the Thames she could see lights reflected in the quivering water. The tide was in. Whatever happened she must not get lost. Everything in the dark looked so different, so awful. She could not remember the way and kept looking for landmarks. She began to wail with vexation and fear.

At last she was there, and had run the car up onto the pavement outside Crimond's

house. The door was open and there was a light in the hall. Getting out of the car Rose felt her legs weak with fear. The sudden coldness seared her face. She put on her scarf, which she had taken off in the car. She took off her loves and put her ungloved hand upon the iron railing beside the steps. The railing was frosty and deadl ycold and her hand stuck to the metal. She stumbled up into the hall.

The rooms here were dark, she went into each one turning on the light, no one was there. She ran to the stairs leading down to the basement. The stairs were lit and there was another lighted open door down below. She ran down, leaning the banisters, and hurried into the big basement room.

Crimond was standing at the other end of the room. A centre light was on and a lamp upon the desk at the far end. He was standing so still that Rose, her hand upon the door, had the sudden illusion that actually he was dead, but standing up. He had evidently not noticed her, though she must have made some noise descending the stairs. Then he moved his head slightly, looking towards her with evident surprise, his hand rising to his throat. Rose thought, he thinks I'm Jean. She pulled off her cap and her scarf and undid her coat.

‘Rose!’

His utterance of her name gave her an unpleasant shock. She came down the room. She felt an intense desire to sit down. A chair beside the desk was draped with a woollen shawl. She took off the shawl and dropped it on the floor and sat down. Crimond moved away, facing her across the desk.

‘So you're all right-‘

`You've seen Jean?'

`I've talked to her. She thought you might have shot yourself.'

'As you see I have not.'

'And you aren't going to?'

'Not in the foreseeable future. Probably not at all.'

'You've really – really parted?' said Rose. The room was very cold and her speech puffed steaming out of her mouth.

'Yes.'

'You will leave her alone now, won't you, you won't come after her ever again?'

Crimond said nothing. He just stared at Rose. He was wearing a black jacket and a black pullover with a white high-necked shirt emerging, and with his pale thin face and thin lips he looked like a priest, a cruel censorious dangerous priest.

Rose got up and replaced the shawl on the chair. She felt there was something very important she ought to do and which could only be done now, in this minute, there was some information, or some promise, which she must extract from Crimond, or something which she must tell him. She said,'I so much hope – I want Jean to be all right. You mustn't trouble her any more. Now that you've managed to separate, you mustn't come near her again ever, let it be absolutely over,'

Crimond continued to stare at her and said nothing.

Rose turned and went back up the stairs. She put on her scarf and her cap and buttoned up her coat and went out in I bitterly cold street and the grey light of dawn. She got into the car and drove away. She stopped at a telephone box near Vauxhall Bridge and rang Annushka telling her to tell Jean that Crimond was all right. Then she set off for Boyars. As she drove along she began to cry.

'But why were you down here, why were you driving along that road, were you coming to Boyars?'

'Yes, I told you -'

'Why didn't you take the road through the village?'

'I lost my way!'

'Why did you think I was here, I'm usually not.'

'I thought you might be, I wanted to get right out of London, I wanted to drive fast, right away, somewhere, anywhere, I was driving crazily, too fast, then I shot through the hedge-‘

'You said a fox ran across the road and you swerved.'

‘Yes, yes, the fox -'

‘You'd had this row with Crimond-‘

‘It wasn't a row! We were both icy cold. We agreed to part.'

‘You said he'd left you.'

‘We left each other. It's finished. We agreed.'

‘All the same, you thought he'd kill himself.'

‘I was in a state of shock, I'm sorry I bothered you with that. Of course he won't kill himself. He's a cold fish.'

‘You didn't tell him you were coming here?'

‘Of course not.'

‘Is he after someone else?'

‘No!’

‘Then why – Oh Jean, forgive me for asking you things, I'm so glad that you're here and that you've left that man! But it's so odd, like too good to be true! He took so much trouble to get you away, I imagined he'd hold onto you forever! Are you sure it was mutual, wasn't it you who wanted to escape?'

‘That’s what you want to believe!' said Jean.

‘What I want to believe is that we shall never see him again!'

It was the afternoon. Jean, dosed by Di- Tallcott, had slept till noon. She was in bed in the huge old carved oak bedstead in the bedroom which Jean and Duncan had usually occupied at Boyars. The police had been. Rose had deemed it prudent to ring the local police, whom she knew. Jean's car had already been noticed. The police talked to Jean after she awoke. They brought her her handbag. There was nothing mysterious about the accident. Miss Curtland's friend had served to avoid a fox. The police gave her a lecture on not avoiding foxes. Dr. Tallcott had come again. He wanted her to go to hospital for checks, but Jean said she was about to go to, London to her own doctor. Doctor Tallcott was a man filled with curiosity, a student of human nature, who had intended to be a psychiatrist. Rose had difficulty in preventing him from prolonging an interrogation of his patient. Had she been drinking? Did she take drugs? What, not even tranquillisers. Had she been under stress? Wasn't there anything which she would like to tell to a sympathetic medical man? Rose directed his attention to Jean's ankle, and asked about the concussion happily so slight. Privately, Dr Tallcott told Rose that he thought Mrs Cambus was in a thoroughly disturbed mental state. Was she living with her husband? He wondered about her sex life. Rose let him wonder. He ventured to doubt the truth of her account of what had happened. Rose doubted it too. For instance, Jean had introduced the fox after twice telling the story without it, and could she possibly have ‘lost her way' on a clear night on a road she had travelled hundreds of, times?