The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch [219]
Those who are caught in mental cages can often picture freedom, it just has no attractive power. I also knew, in the midst of it all, that some unexamined guilt of my own was driving me further into hatred; but this was no moment to be confused by guilt. As I moved like a ghost, performing in the house and its environs a sort of ritual dance under the eyes of James and Lizzie and Perry, I thought about Hartley and I pictured peace with her, in that little house where we would hide forever after. Yet if I did what I so intensely desired and consoled myself by desiring, if I destroyed Ben, if I killed him or crippled him or damaged his mind or got him sent to prison, could I then walk away with Hartley in peace? What would that peace be like? What would the idea of justice be able to do for me afterwards? Was it not, under all these disguises, my own death that I was planning?
I said to James, pulling away my sleeve which he was still holding, ‘I am not going to do anything. I just feel all smashed up by misery.’
‘Come to London with me.’
‘No.’
‘I can see you’re scheming. Your eyes are full of awful visions.’
‘Sea serpents.’
‘Charles, tell me.’
These particular words brought back to me how extremely difficult I had found it to mislead James when I was a boy. He had a way of worming things out of one, as if the intended lie turned into truth on one’s very lips. I was not going to tell now however. How could I reveal to anyone the horrors that now crowded my mind? ‘James, go to London. I’ll come later, soon. I’ll come and sort out my flat. Don’t torment me now. I just want a day or two of peace here by myself, that’s all.’
‘You’ve got some awful idea.’
‘I have no idea, my mind is empty.’
‘You said something to me before about imagining that Ben pushed you into the cauldron.’
‘Yes.’
‘But of course you don’t really think that.’
‘I do, but it’s not important any more.’
James was looking at me in a calculating way. Lizzie called from the kitchen that breakfast was ready. The sun shone calm and bright on the grass, refreshed by the rain, on the border of pretty stones, on the sparkling yellow rocks. It was a caricature of a happy scene.
‘It is important,’ said James. ‘I don’t want to leave you behind here with that totally false notion in your head.’
‘Let’s have breakfast.’
‘It is false, Charles.’
‘You sound quite passionate! That’s your view, and I have mine. Come on.’
‘Wait, wait, it’s not just a view, I know. I know it wasn’t Ben.’
I stared at him. ‘James, you can’t know. Did you see it happen?’
‘No, I didn’t, but—’
‘Did someone else see it?’
‘No—’
‘Then how can you know?’
‘I just do. Charles, please, will you trust me? Surely you can trust me. Just don’t ask any questions. Accept my statement that Ben didn’t do it. Ben did not do it.’
We stared at each other. The intensity of James’s tone, his eyes, his fierce face, carried conviction into my resisting mind. But I could not believe him. How could he know this? Unless—unless—James himself had pushed me in? What after all lay behind that Red Indian mask? We had always been rivals for the world, I the more successful one. A childhood hatred, like a childhood love, can last a lifetime. James was an odd card, a funny man with a funny mind. He was in a ruthless profession. I recalled his respectful remarks about Ben. It might even be that he had tried to remove me simply because he knew I had guessed that he was a secret agent and was returning to Tibet. I put my hands to my head.
I said however, ‘Listen, James, and stop trying to impress me. Not only did Ben try to kill me. Ben killed Titus.’
‘Oh—Lord—’ said James. He turned away with an air of distracted hopelessness, then said, ‘What’s your evidence for his having killed Titus? Did you see him?’
‘No, but it’s obvious. No one examined that blow on the head. Titus was a strong swimmer. And when Ben had tried to murder me—’
‘Yes, that’s your “evidence”. But I know it isn’t so.’
‘James, you can’t know! I understand this