Айрис Мердок - The Nice and the Good

'Pierce! Pierce!'

It's an echo, Ducane said to himself. He said it coldly, utter= ing it articulately inside his head. He called again, 'Hello!'

'Hello!' I must get back, he thought. He let go of his rock and struck out vigorously to swim back the way he had come. But the strong current seized hold of him and hurried him with it, on, on.

Ducane was now very much afraid. He fought his way to the wall where the water seemed less swift and tried to cling to it.

The absolute darkness confused his sense of direction, confused his sense of his body. He had to use mental imagery to tell himself how to swim. He thought to himself, strength will do it, every bit of strength I have, supernatural strength. He began half to edge, half to swim, along the wall of rock in what seemed to be the direction from which he had come. He moved very slowly, but at least now he seemed to be moving.

He thought he was coming back to the place where the tunnel turned. For a moment he seemed entirely out of the current.

Then he sensed a change of direction and the tunnel seemed airier, wider, and the force of the water less strong. He must be nearly back in the main cavern.

Ducane felt an enlargement and the tunnel wall, which he had been touching, disappeared. He could swim quite easily now. He took several strokes. He must have reached the main cavern. But it was dark now. There was a faint greenish line ahead of him of subaqueous light. But the low sun-streaked gap of the cavern mouth was not to be seen. The cave was closed.

Now there were new pictures. Ducane seemed to have been swimming for some time. Coloured images appeared upon the darkness with such brightness that it seemed as if he must be able to see the cavern walls by their light. He saw Alice standing upon the mantelpiece, at the moment when the looking glass begins to turn into a silvery gauze through which she can pass. He saw Mary Clothier's face, no longer anxious but looking tender and sad. We have both died, he thought, and then could not recall who 'we' were. Himself and Pierce of course. He called out to Pierce at intervals but received no reply. The sound echoed close about him as if unable to penetrate further, but telling him at least that the channel along which he was swimming was still reasonably large.

He was beginning to feel cold and his limbs were very tired, but the swimming had now become automatic, as if he were in a natural element. Something very dreadful moved along with him, just above his head, a noiseless black crow made of ectoplasm.

It was fear, panic fear, such as would disfigure a man and make him disintegrate and scream. Ducane was very conscious of its presence. He tried to breathe slowly and evenly.

He pictured the cavern rising, rising, into the dry safety of the cliff side. He tried not to picture other things. At least the cavern went on and there was nothing else to do but go on with it, to go on and on as far as one could go. But so far there had been nothing to touch, as he constantly tested his surroundings with outstretched hands, except the sheer walls of wet stone containing the moving water. No cranny of pebbles, no strand, no rock even on which to rest. And now he was seeing Alice falling down the rabbit hole, falling slowly, slowly.

Ducane thought, in this sort of darkness I could pass within a yard of the way to safety and not know. It's all chance, utter chance. The current was not very fast now and he could easily swim to and fro across it touching the walls of the channel which were now about fifteen feet apart. The channel seemed to be narrowing very slightly. There were irregularities in the wall, but these were merely bumps, projections, worn to a slimy roundness by the water which proceeded onward into the depths of the cliff along its black interminable pipe. The air was still fresh, but it carried a faintly rotten sea smell, as if the water itself were decomposing, and indeed it did seem as if the stuff were becoming thicker and oilier. Amid the extinction or derangement of all his other senses Ducane smelt the smell with a monstrous clarity as if the smell itself were a black structure of gluey air and water within which, perhaps without moving at all, he made, more and more feebly, the yearning movement of swimming, of praying.

It seemed to him that he had not called out for some time and he called now, hoarsely, not very, loudly, 'Pierce!'

'Hello.'

'Pierce!'

'Hello there.'

The cry was from near. Ducane stopped swimming. Everything was changed. He inhabited his body again, he felt his extremities moving in the water. All round him he could feel things resuming their sizes. The darkness was no longer a stuff of which he was part, but a veil, an accident.

'Where are you?»

'Here, here.'

Ducane was suddenly brought up against a ridge of rock, its surface soft with slime. He could feel the water dividing about him, holding him against the rock.

'Where?'

'This way.'

Ducane edged round the rock and let the water take him.

His knees suddenly touched bottom, then his hand. He was no longer swimming but crawling. He felt something touch his shoulder and grip him. The touch was painful, as if dazzling.

He realized he must be almost anaesthetized by cold. He crawled further and lay full length. He could feel pebbles under his hand.

'I am terribly sorry,' said Pierce's voice beside him.

The earnest serious boy's voice sounded strange in the blackness, with its ring of the ordinary world, apologizing.

'Could you just try to massage me or something,' said Ducane. 'I feel absolutely numb.' The brilliant pain returned and moved over his back. He began to twist and stretch his limbs. He now felt so tired he could not understand how a moment ago he could have been capable of swimming. 'What's that? V 'It's Mingo. He followed me in. I am so very sorry – '

'That's enough. Is there any way on here?'

'I don't know,' said Pierce's voice. 'I've just arrived. At any rate we're out of the water, for the moment. I tried one of the other channels and it just ended in a wall and the roof was pretty low so I thought I'd better get out quick. It wasn't too easy to get back against the tide. Then I came in here and reached this – place – and then I heard you call.'

'Are you all right?'

'yes, I'm fine. Are you warmer now?'

'Yes.' If I don't drown I shall die of exposure, Ducane thought. He sat up, chafing his arms and legs. His flesh felt alien to him, like ice-cold putty.

'We'd better move on,' said Pierce. 'This one may be a culde-sac too. Or shall I go ahead and look and then come back for you?'

'No, no. I'll come too.' For God's sake don't leave me, he thought. He got to his knees and then to his feet. Something touched his head lightly. It was the roof of the tunnel. 'What's that noise?'

'I think it's the tide running through holes in the rock.'

There was a slightly irregular moaning sound nearby, punctuated by soft hollow reports.

'That's the water hitting the roof of the next cave,' said Pierce. 'It seems to be getting more excited.'

The water, which had flowed so calmly on into the darkness, now seemed in these more confined inner spaces to be becoming violent. Ducane felt an impact at his feet. 'Get on, Pierce. The bloody sea's beginning to arrive.'

'Have you got shoes?'

'Get on.'

They began to shuffle forward in the blackness. The ground seemed to be rising a little but in such complete darkness it was hard to tell, and Ducane's feet, contracted into rounded hobbling balls of pain, could not discern whether he was still walking in the water. The low keening noise and the echoing slapping noise continued.

'It goes on anyway,' said Pierce. His voice sounded a little high and wavery. The noise behind them, which was increasing a little, was hard to bear. 'You'll have to stoop here.'