A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch Page A

sacrilege. You bring me closer to reality. You have always done that for me. ’
    I took her hand and laid it on the Meissen cockatoo. We held each other ’ s eyes. Georgie drew her hand back. Then after a moment she rapidly touched all the other objects on the mantelpiece. I took her hand again. It was marked with dust. I kissed it in the palm and raised my eyes to her again. I could see she was on the point of tears. I began to take her in my arms.
    At that moment I heard a sound which made my heart violent with fear even before my mind had understood it. It was the familiar sound of a key turning in the front door. Georgie heard it too and her eyes became wide and hard. We stood thus for a second, paralysed. Then I pulled myself roughly out of the embrace.
    It could only be Antonia. She had changed her mind about going to the country, and had decided to come and look the furniture over before our interview tomorrow. In another moment she would come straight into the drawing-room and find me with Georgie. I could not bear it.
    I acted quickly. I took Georgie ’ s wrist and pulled her over to the french windows. I opened them and then drew her into the garden and round a little to the side of the house so that we should be invisible from the room. I whispered to her, ‘ Go out of that little gate and you can get back into the square. Then go straight home and I ’ ll join you. ’ .
    ‘ No! ’ said Georgie, speaking softly but not whispering, ‘ No!
    Panic possessed me. I had to get her away. I felt horror and nausea at the idea of an encounter between Antonia and Georgie at Hereford Square: there was something here horrible, almost obscene. I put all my will into my voice. ‘ Go at once, damn you. ’
    ‘ I don ’ t want to, ’ said Georgie, in the same tone. She glared at me. Our heads were close together. ‘ Let me meet your wife now. I won ’ t be made to run away! ’
    ‘ Do as 1 tell you, ’ I said. I took her arm and applied a pressure until she winced.
    She pulled her arm away and turned. ‘ I haven ’ t any money. ’
    I gave her a pound quickly from my wallet, made a violent gesture of dismissal, and went back into the drawing-room. To my relief the room was still empty. I closed the doors quickly. I did not look back to the garden.
    I waited a moment. There was a profound silence. What could Antonia be doing? I wondered if I perhaps had been mistaken after all. I walked across the room and out into the hall. Honor Klein was standing just inside the door.
    The appearance, so unexpectedly, of this absolutely immobile figure had something of the uncanny, and she had for a moment the snapshot presence of a ghost. We stared at each other. She was hunched up inside her overcoat and her troll-like face was still moist with the raw air outside. She did not smile or speak, but regarded me with a steady tense meditative gaze. I felt, at seeing her, relief mingled with a profound dismay and a certain deep unreasoning fear. I felt her dangerous. I said, ‘ May I help you? ’
    She threw her head back, pulling her coat open at the neck. ‘ You mean, Mr Lynch-Gibbon, why the hell am I here. ’
    ‘ Precisely, ’ I said. I never seemed destined to achieve politeness with Palmer ’ s sister.
    She said, ‘ The explanation is this. Your wife told me that you would be away today. I needed to have a certain key to a bureau. This key is in my brother ’ s wallet. This wallet he lent to your wife for the paying of some bill. She put it into a basket which she accidentally left here when she called in yesterday. As my need was urgent, and as you and she were both to be away, she lent me your front-door key. So here I am. And there is the basket. ’
    She indicated a basket standing under the hall table. On the hall table I saw Georgie ’ s handbag and two books on economics. I picked up the basket and handed it to her.
    ‘ Thank you, ’ she said. ‘ I am sorry I disturbed you. ’ Her gaze seemed to pass