A Fairly Honourable Defeat (56 page)

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Authors: Iris Murdoch

BOOK: A Fairly Honourable Defeat
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‘I won’t help you. You’ve done me enough damage already. Now let me out.’
Simon swam forward, gripped the steps and started to mount. Julius, laughing, lifted his hand again. Before Julius could push him Simon fell back, swam as fast as he could to the other end of the pool and began to pull himself out. There was no ladder here and the smoothly rounded edge of the pool was slippery. Julius strolled round, waited until Simon had got one knee upon the edge, and then tipped him back in again with a touch of his patent leather shoe. ‘You are my prisoner, little one.’
Simon, spitting water and panting, stared furiously up at his tormentor. ‘Stop doing that. I’m getting cold. And I’m not a strong swimmer.’
‘In the soup. That is an English expression, isn’t it? You have to swim when you are in the soup.’
‘I’m going to tell Axel everything,’ said Simon.
‘No, you aren’t, little one. If you do I shall give Axel a circumstantial account of how you and I had our little romance.’
‘But we haven’t had any little romance!’
‘Come, come, have you forgotten our intimate luncheons at my flat at Brook Street and the long afternoon you took off from the museum?’
‘He wouldn’t believe you. Anyway everything’s so terrible now—’
‘Do not imagine that it could not be worse. That would be a great mistake. Axel is deeply attached to you. Your little tiff will probably pass. Nothing irrevocable has happened—yet. If you are good I may even help you to regain Axel’s confidence. If you are not good—’
Simon made a dart for the other side and had one leg stretched sideways on the pavement before Julius’s foot hooked him gently in the stomach. He rolled back into the pool with a loud splash and the foaming water closed over his head. He rose gasping.
‘You’ll drown me. Let me out.’
‘Don’t be silly. I just want your assurance that you will be discreet. ’
‘I’m cold and exhausted. Let me get out. I shall get cramp.’
‘No. I am going to step on your fingers. Look out.’
Simon withdrew to the middle of the pool. He was beginning to feel very cold and very tired.
‘Please, Julius.’
‘That’s better. I will let you out if you will say after me—’
‘Oh
damn
you!’
‘If you will say after me, “I will not tell Axel.” ’
‘What’s the use of my—’
‘Say it. Fingers! Say it.’
‘I will not tell Axel.’
‘All right. Now you may get out.’
Simon held onto the edge of the pool and struggled to pull himself up. He felt limp with exhaustion and sick from swallowing water. He fell back, hauled himself up again with weak trembling arms, and got one leg out onto the slippery edge. Julius, who was watching and laughing, did not assist him. Simon got onto his knees on the pavement and slowly rose to his feet. He was shivering with cold. Then he turned and with a quick rush, hands outstretched, he pushed Julius into the deep end of the pool.
At that moment Axel and Rupert and Hilda emerged from the drawing room. Hilda screamed.
The pool surged and boiled, suddenly filled by an immense bulk of struggling blackness. The water tilted and leapt up. Julius’s limbs were everywhere. A dark sleeved arm lifted and clawed the air. Julius’s head seemed to have vanished. It emerged for a brief moment, red-faced, gulping, gasping, the mouth round and open. Julius’s tongue showed red, his eyes were visible suddenly like wild sea-eyes in a contorted creature, his arms whirled aimlessly, and his head sank like a great stone. The frenzied water rushed back and closed again above the bulky twisting helpless mass.
‘Simon, you crazy fool, he can’t swim!’
Simon threw himself onto the ground and stretched out his hands. The others were rushing forward. He felt his wrist gripped and jerked. The next moment he had been dragged head first back into the pool and something was clasping him about the neck. His body was liggoted, weighted, sinking. He choked and fought desperately with knees and arms to free himself. Green water was arching over his head, a green glassy dome was above him, an iron bar was pressing on his throat. My next breath, he thought, my next breath, my next breath. There was agony in his mouth and lungs.
Then his head was in light and air and he was gasping and spitting. His breath came in with a moan, with a screech. He saw, very clearly and brightly coloured, the sunny garden above him, the roses, frightened faces, blue sky. Something broad and dark in front of him was Julius’s back. Julius had been drawn up against the edge, with Rupert and Axel supporting his arms.
‘Hang on, Julius, you’re all right, we’ve got you, just breathe quietly, we’ll pull you along to the steps, you’ll be able to stand in a minute.’
No one paid any attention to Simon. He tried to put his hands onto Julius’s waist from behind and help him along, but there was no strength left in him and he found that he was clinging weakly to the soaking velvet of Julius’s jacket. He let go. Julius was being towed towards the steps. He was being steadily hauled out. Simon followed.
Julius lay immense and limp upon the stones, water pouring off him. Hilda, her green dress darkened and stained, was kneeling beside him. Axel and Rupert, their sleeves soaking, were jostling each other, both talking at once.
‘Turn him over.’
‘No, not like that.’
‘Artificial respiration.’
‘Water in his lungs.’
‘He’s lost consciousness.’
‘No, he hasn’t,’ said Julius. ‘I am perfectly all right. I am breathing normally. Just let me be for a minute,
let me be.
’ He lay with his eyes closed, breathing deeply. Then he turned slowly on his side and began to sit up. He pulled at the neck of his shirt. Rupert began to unbutton it.
‘Have you become dangerously insane or what?’ said Axel savagely to Simon in a low voice. Simon was shivering, hopping from one foot to another.
‘Bring that towel, would you,’ said Rupert. Simon’s towel was brought. Julius began to mop his face and push back his hair, darkened by the water, which had been plastered to his cheeks and brow.
‘I think I’m going to faint,’ said Hilda. She sat down in one of the chairs and drooped her head between her knees. Rupert ran to her. Julius began to get up.
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ said Julius, ‘to have occasioned all this fuss.’
‘You didn’t occasion it,’ said Axel.
‘I’m all right, I’m all right, leave me alone!’ said Hilda. She began to cry.
‘Are you really recovered, Julius?’ said Axel.
‘Yes, I’m fine. A change of clothes, if Rupert doesn’t mind. Hilda, my dear—’
Hilda ran into the house. A low weird wail echoed in the drawing room.
Rupert hesitated, turned to Julius. ‘Yes, yes, come inside—I’ll give you some clothes—’
‘I think we’d better go,’ said Axel. ‘It’s scarcely the evening for a dinner party.’
‘If you don’t mind—’ said Rupert. He half ran towards the drawing room, then came back again. Julius was standing, rubbing his face and neck with the towel.
‘Get dressed,’
Axel said to Simon.
They began to move towards the house.
‘One moment,’ said Julius. He beckoned to Simon.
Julius’s back was towards the others. Simon stepped towards him. Then he thought, he is going to hit me. He began to raise a hand to protect himself. Then he saw Julius’s eyes glowing at him. His hand was seized, lifted, and he felt the warmth of Julius’s lips upon his cold fingers. Julius murmured something. It sounded like ‘Well done!’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
 
‘HILDA! HILDA! Open the door!’
Julius was changing his clothes. Simon and Axel had gone.
The lock turned in the bedroom door and Rupert went in. Hilda had gone back and was sitting on the bed. She had taken off the green silk dress which lay damp and twisted across the back of a chair. She was wearing a white lacy petticoat, sitting hunched and shuddering, staring away into the corner of the room.
‘Hilda, what is it? What’s the matter?’
‘You know what’s the matter,’ she said in a dull heavy voice, still staring and frowning a little as if she were trying to discern something in the corner.
Rupert felt terror. He moved closer, made as if to kneel but did not, touched her light green stockinged knees with a finger. She flinched away, not looking at him.
‘Hilda—I beg you—whatever—’
‘Oh
don’t
,’ she said. ‘Don’t pretend. It makes it worse. It makes me sick. And don’t come too close to me, please.’
‘Hilda, I don’t know what you think, but—’
‘Don’t lie any more please. Oh Rupert, if it had been anybody but Morgan. I wouldn’t be silly and conventional about a—At least I’d try—But
this
—You don’t know what you’ve done to me between you, you’ve simply killed me.’
‘Hilda, there’s nothing between me and Morgan, it’s just—’
‘I know everything. So don’t talk. I won’t stand in your way.’
‘Hilda, listen,’ said Rupert. ‘There has been a misunderstanding, which I will explain. Meanwhile just keep sane will you, and help me to keep sane. We must hold up the world and not let it collapse on top of us. I love you and you are my wife. I will tell you the whole truth, as I ought to have done at the start. I blame myself terribly—’
‘Don’t you see it’s no good? There is nothing you can say. The facts say it all. You can’t
explain
something like this. You have this pathetic belief in words. But words can’t console me or make whole again what you’ve irrevocably spoilt and broken.’
‘But nothing is spoilt, Hilda, nothing is broken! I’m not having a love affair, I swear to you—’
‘I am afraid that I know otherwise. And I hate to see you lying so shabbily and so
stupidly.
Can’t you see the extent of what you’ve done?’
‘You can’t know what isn’t the case.’
‘You shouldn’t leave ecstatic letters lying around.’
‘I haven’t left anything lying around, I destroyed—’
‘All right, there were ecstatic letters, only you destroyed them. You can’t even lie efficiently. Oh Rupert, I loved you so completely, I revered you, I admired you, I trusted you—’
‘Hilda,
listen.
’ He sat down on the bed. ‘I have deceived you a little and I have acted wrongly, but it’s not what you think. You see, Morgan fell very much in love with me—’
‘I don’t want to hear the details,’ said Hilda. ‘These anecdotes about who first caught whose eye are for you and Morgan to entertain yourselves with. I don’t want to hear.’ She got up and went to sit before the dressing table. She began with slow weary movements to smooth some lotion into her face.
‘Will you
listen.
She fell in love with me. I couldn’t ask her to go away. I was trying to talk her out of it—’
‘Of course. Such fascinating talk. And then you talked yourselves into bed. You’re not denying that you’re in love with her.’
‘I care for her,’ said Rupert. ‘I love her. But—’
‘Oh well, what does it matter,’ said Hilda. ‘Men of your age often fall in love with younger women and have love affairs with them. I should be thankful it hasn’t happened before. Well, perhaps it has happened before, for all I know. On all those evenings when you said you had to stay on at the office and I felt so sorry for you when you came home tired! It’s just that here you’ve chosen the one person whom I can’t and won’t tolerate in this role. Because I love her as well as because I love you. I don’t mean that I’m going to insist that you part. It wouldn’t make any difference to me anyhow, if you and Morgan never met or communicated from this day forth, it wouldn’t be any good. Something like this is eternal, it lives inside one forever, and what you have broken you have broken forever and there is nothing that either of us can do to re-establish our marriage as it once was.’
‘But Hilda,
nothing’s
happened—I feel I’ve already exaggerated it—Morgan was emotional and upset—I just talked kindly to her—we were both very worried about you—’
‘How extremely kind of you to be worried about me. I’m sure you were both very concerned about poor old Hilda. I find your solicitude
vile.
As vile as your treachery.’ She turned to him for a moment, her face glowing and shining with the lotion, her mouth and eyes wrinkled up. Then she gave a sob and turned back to the mirror.
Rupert stood in the middle of the room gasping for breath. He could not believe that something so unspeakably dreadful was happening to
him.
There must be some way to halt the destruction, to switch off the machine.
‘Hilda, I will not let you destroy our marriage.’
‘I am not destroying it. Rupert, don’t you see that these things are completely automatic? My will can do nothing here. I can’t undo this change any more than I can make the sun turn back. You and Morgan have simply altered the world.’

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