The Book and the Brotherhood (13 page)

The next morning he woke up very early feeling like a sick dying animal. He had a pain in the stomach and a pain in the head and a dry shrivelled mouth and his whole body was heavy and aching and smelly and fat. Through the flimsy torn curtains cold daylight filled the window. He lay for a while almost whimpering with self-pity with his head under the bedclothes. Then he suddenly sat up and stood up, dressed without washing, paid his bill, found his car, and set off back northward. There was a cold white light at the sea horizon pressed down by a low ceiling of thick grey cloud. Curtains of rain could be seen descending ahead, yet from somewhere the sun managed occasionally to shine illuminating the grey wall of cloud and the vivid green hillsides and brightly coloured trees. Upon the farther mountains on his left segments of rainbow came and went. He drove very fast. He had a violent headache and a dark iron pain in his diaphragm, boiling particles and flashing lights skidded above the focus of his eyes as he frowned intently upon the flying road. His reflections of last night, his not sure, his why bother, his ignore it, his merciful cameraderie with other sinners, all that was gone. He felt himself, sitting upright in the car and dominating his body’s wretchedness, as a black machine of will, a vindictive machine black with misery and rage, powered by one intention, to find and destroy. He no longer entertained any temperate delaying sense of uncertainty, no haze of doubt now gentled his mind. Uncertainty had been a restless torment, but certainty, clarity, was a hell fire from which, in which, one ran screaming. All this he thought and felt as he drove so urgently fast along the wet shining road with the frenzied
windscreen wipers hurling aside the now persistent and increasing rain.

When he turned off the main road into the lanes which led toward the tower he began to feel faint and had to stop the car and lean his head upon the wheel. He thought he might be sick. He wondered if he would be able to go on. The rain was lighter now, more like a driving mist, the clouds were higher, the still invisible sun was making an intense greyish light in which the grass at the little field beside him shone violently green. He got out of the car and stood in the rainy air with his head bowed forward, breathing open-mouthed. He thought, I am mad, I have become temporarily insane and must somehow stop myself. He felt as if his hate, without ceasing to be hate, had been changed into pure fear. Too much could happen, terrible things could happen which could change his whole life, he could destroy the world, he had that power now, to destroy the world. He thought this, knowing that he could not now check the engine which was driving him on. He stood upright and saw nearby a stone wall, and a horse and a cow looking at him. The rain had stopped. The horse had come over to the wall. He thought he might eat a sandwich, he still had some left, he might go over and stroke the horse, that would be a sensible sort of delay, would it not, to stay quietly there with the horse and the cow. He got into the car and drove on. He said to himself, there will be no one there and I can drive on into Dublin and go to the flat and
rest
, and things will be ordinary and I shall be able to think quietly and without the pain. He tried to wonder whether to drive straight to the tower, but found himself driving along the lane which ran behind his hillcrest viewpoint. He stopped the car and got out and looked at his watch. It was just before nine o’clock. He began, panting and gasping with the effort, to climb up the steep wet grass slope toward the summit, leaning forward and grasping grass tufts and little bushes to haul himself upward. When he reached the top he did not attempt to hide, but stood there upright looking down into the valley. Crimond’s car was on the track.

Duncan walked, slowly now and seeming to glide dreamlike
over the ground, down the hill toward the tower. It took him about ten minutes to reach it. He heard the birds singing and noticed some very small flowers growing in the grass. Everything was very wet and now shining in the sunlight. At the bottom of the slope some black-faced sheep stared at him with amazement and hurried away. He crossed the stream just above Jean’s pool. As he moved he had a sudden clear vision or hallucination of Crimond naked, tall, pale, thin as a lance, slim as an Athenian boy, long-nosed and brilliant-eyed. The doors of the cottage and the tower were both open. There was no one in the kitchen. Duncan entered the tower and began to climb the spiral staircase. He climbed firmly, not in haste, not trying to mute his steps. The staircase led to a small landing, not directly into the bedroom. Duncan opened the bedroom door.

There was a flurry going on inside. Crimond was standing, not completely naked as Duncan had pictured him, but pulling a shirt over his head. Jean was on the bed, sitting on the far side of it, and had pulled the quilt up round her, looking back over her shoulder towards the door. Duncan remembered later that he had actually reflected for a second or two whether he should now stand and look at them and say something. During that second or two Crimond succeeded in getting his shirt on. The next moment Duncan launched himself forward, attacking like a large wild animal which propels its whole weight onto its victim to crush it. He hit Crimond with his whole body, knocking him backward and seizing him, clasping him in savage bear-like arms, feeling the thin crushable bones inside his clasp, dragging at the shirt, feeling the smoothness of Crimond’s skin and the terrible warmth of his flesh. As he held on he kicked violently with his booted foot against the slim bare leg. Jean screamed. They reeled a moment, then Duncan felt a jabbing pain in his side where Crimond had freed one arm. For a moment he relaxed his grip, received Crimond’s knee in his stomach, and staggered back into the open doorway, and they separated. Jean screamed again, ‘Stop! Stop!’ There was a second’s interval. Then Duncan, now uttering whimpering cries of rage,
launched himself again with clawing hands outstretched. Crimond stepped to meet him and with a long straight arm punched Duncan as hard as he could between the eyes. Duncan fell back and tumbled all the way down the spiral staircase into the room below.

This was the fight which had such long and dreadful consequences; and Duncan knew at once that the terrible thing that was to happen had happened to him. How he managed to fall, to roll his big thick body, all the way down those iron stairs he could not afterwards imagine. His head, his shoulders, his back, his legs, crashed against the rails, against the hard sharp edges of the treads, he struck the floor below with a violent echoing impact and lay for a moment stunned. But even as he lay there, even it seemed later as he was falling, he knew that whatever else might have been damaged, something frightful had happened to his eyes. The pain was extreme, but worse than the pain was the sense that both were injured, and one of the precious orbs actually crushed. He got up slowly, wondering if he had also broken a limb. The centre of his field of vision seemed to have disappeared and the periphery was full of grey bubbling atoms. He hobbled slowly, carefully, out of the door and across the level grass toward the hillside. He did not pause to wonder why no one followed him down to see if he was badly hurt. Jean told him later that Crimond had to keep her in the room by force. The door had slammed after him, perhaps no one heard him fall. Now he was anxious only to get away and reach a hospital as soon as possible. He crossed the stream walking through the water, he crawled up the hill clutching the wet grass. Then with intense concentration he drove himself back to Dublin.

He went first to the Rotunda Hospital, who sent him on to an eye clinic. Once there, and sitting down on a chair, he became for a short period almost completely blind. He was led about by porters, by nurses, answered questions, lay flat while drops were put into the eyes, bright lights shone upon them, machines lowered over them. He was told that normal vision would probably return to one eye, the other would need an
operation. Meanwhile, since he was certainly suffering from concussion, he had better go home and rest. Pushed out of the door clutching a card telling him when to return, Duncan found he could see enough to walk back to his flat in Parnell Square. Before he reached it he had come to an important conclusion.
Nobody must know what had happened.
He had of course told the doctors simply about a fall. Now it was essential to conceal, if possible, both his mutilated condition, and the shame of his defeat. That meant, and at once, leaving Dublin where everybody found out everything. He passionately did not want to see Jean and was relieved that there was no sign of her. He was wondering whether he would ever be able to read again, to work again. His world had changed indeed; he had changed it himself, by force. He telephoned the embassy to arrange his absence, he summoned a taxi and went to the airport. He wore dark glasses to conceal his bruises. He remembered that the hired car was still parked in a road near the Rotunda. He posted the keys to his secretary, Miss Paget, asking her to return the car. He caught a plane to London and a taxi to Moorfields Eye Hospital. It had been a long day.

Their house in London, then in Putney, was let, so Duncan stayed at a hotel. He sent a note to Jean simply giving the address of his club. He was busy with his physical condition, attending University College Hospital for head tests. He tried not to think about Jean’s reply. An irritating evasive one arrived saying, ‘Why have you run away?’ A little later, after his second eye operation, she sent another note saying that she was living with Crimond. This news was confirmed by a letter from Dominic Moranty which said it was ‘all over Dublin’. Moranty expressed a sympathy which Duncan could have done without, and indignation that ‘everyone’ was blaming Duncan for having brought it about by his insane jealousy. Duncan was not surprised that gossip sided with the lovers; and was relieved that Moranty’s tactless missive omitted the point which would surely have been of the greatest interest if known. A little after this Duncan sent his official letter of resignation to the Foreign Office. He wrote telling Jean that he had resigned and was staying in London. He added, without
complaints or endearments, ‘I suggest you return to me.’ After a little while Jean wrote that she was sorry he had resigned, that she was staying in Dublin, and would follow his instructions about the flat, the car and ‘the property’ (she did not say ‘the tower’). A PS said,
I am very sorry.
Duncan asked his solicitor to acknowledge the letter.

As Duncan saw it later, he was enabled to go coldly on with this hideous business because he had another engrossing mortal anxiety, another job to do, ‘going to work’ at Moorfields. He wondered, later, if he should have screamed, accused and begged, at any rate by letter; he could not, in his present state, have presented himself in person. Later he bitterly regretted not having tried, somehow, intelligently, passionately, to get his wife back. Vindictive hatred of Crimond, Crimond whom he regarded practically as a murderer, had made him icy cold to Jean. Had he been able to think simply, whole-heartedly, about her he could have written tear-stained pages. As it was, in his imagination and in his dreams, Crimond stood between them, as thin as a lance, as tall as a
kouros
, pale and glimmering. Meanwhile however his ‘work’ had been going unexpectedly well, all was by no means lost. His right eye gradually regained normal vision, and his left eye, though oddly ‘stained’, regained enough sight to help its colleague. He had worn glasses before, and now with perceptibly thicker lenses was able to envisage, and then attain, a return to an ordinary life of walking and reading. The situation was even likely to improve further, and he might expect to be able to drive a car again. ‘You don’t just see with your eyes, you see with your brain,’ his cheerful doctor told him, ‘and it’s amazing what ingenious adjustments
it
can make!’ The same doctor assured him that his ‘funny eye’, certainly noticeable, looked ‘fascinating’, even ‘positively attractive’.

During this ordeal Duncan had become mortally tired. He had enacted being blind, experienced being unable to read. He had felt the cold shadow of death, being determined if he did not regain the power to read, to kill himself. Now as he gradually recovered from one horror he was seized by the
other. His spirit regained, with its strength, its capacity for a different suffering. He re-enacted again and again his walk to the tower, the bedroom scene, Crimond with his shirt, Jean looking over her shoulder, the blow, the fall. He dreamt about Crimond. He did not dream about Jean, except perhaps as a black muddy lump or black ball which figured in many dreams. Day and night he desired her, longed for her presence, fancied her return, reconciliation, happiness. Remorse tormented him and he imagined innumerable ways in which it all need not have happened. He ought to have spoken frankly to Jean instead of spying on her, he ought to have admonished her and warned her, he ought to have protected and looked after his wife instead of becoming her enemy. He ought not to have resigned his job, he ought to have stayed in Dublin and faced it all out there, eyes and all. She had accused him of running away. He had shirked an ordeal which might have won her sympathy, he had too hastily embraced defeat instead of standing out for victory. Now it was too late – or was it? He was paralysed by hatred of Crimond – or was it fear?

Duncan had taken care not to announce his return to any of his friends. At that time Gerard, Jenkin and Rose were all in London, Gerard in the Civil Service, Jenkin teaching in a polytechnic, Rose working for a magazine. The news of course got round quickly enough that Duncan had resigned from the service, then that his marriage was in trouble, then that the third party was David Crimond. Gerard, the first to hear from a friend in the Foreign Office, rang up Jenkin, then Rose, neither of whom knew anything. Rose said she had thought it odd that she had not had a reply to a letter she had written to Jean, for they kept up a frequent correspondence. Gerard, who kept up more intermittent communication with Duncan, also now noted that he had not heard. Jenkin hardly ever wrote to anyone. Gerard took it on himself to check the now more numerous sources of information and concluded that what was rumoured was true. It was obviously not a situation for telephone calls. They were in any case not used to chatting by telephone. Gerard said they must do something, make some gesture. After writing it out carefully in several different drafts
he despatched an immensely tactful letter to Duncan in Dublin where he thought (not having imagined so prompt a departure) that his friend still was. Rose wrote a letter, also tactful, but very brief and quite unlike Gerard’s to Jean. Both letters ‘said nothing’, only indicated they had heard something and were feeling upset and sympathetic. Jenkin sent a postcard to Duncan saying:
Be well. Love, Jenkin.
He chose the card with care (it was a peaceful landscape by Samuel Palmer) and enclosed it in an envelope. These missives in due course found their way back to Duncan’s London club where he regularly picked up mail, wondering when he would hear again from Jean. Rose, Gerard and Jenkin were meanwhile constantly in touch, and met to discuss the situation at Gerard’s house in Notting Hill. (By this period, Robin Top-glass was married and gone to Canada.) They were unanimous in being inclined to blame Crimond. They then started to compare notes about him, repeating that they must not be influenced by their distaste for his politics. They concluded that his extremist militant socialism must show something about his personality, that he was a ‘fey’, unpredictable person. They agreed that though they had liked and esteemed him at Oxford, they had never really got to know him. They were genuinely worried about Jean and Duncan, but speculation was inevitably interesting. These conversations (during which they constantly said, ‘Of course we don’t know the facts!’) were inconclusive, but from them dated Rose’s positive dislike of Crimond which became important later on. Meanwhile no one seemed to know where Duncan was.