The Sandcastle by Iris Murdoch
As Mor saw the ladder rising he turned, and let one of the boys take his place. He ran back out of the door and up the two remaining flights of stairs towards the stack room. Two boys ran after him. One had already gone ahead. As he ran an alternative plan occurred to him. It might be possible to push the ladder straight up vertically to Donald, holding it from the windows and resting its base on one of the lower window sills. But as soon as he had thought this he realized that the overhang was too wide — for the ladder to get to Donald it would have to lean out farther from the building than their arms would reach, and this would mean supporting it precariously with the rope. Could they control it then, even without Donald’s weight upon it, and would he be able to turn round and get himself even partly on to it without falling? The swaying ladder, moving about somewhere above their heads, would be as likely to knock the boy off as to bring him down to safety. It was altogether too dangerous. His mind reverted to the first plan. But the first plan was terribly dangerous too. If only he could think clearly!
Mor was now inside the lower segment of the tower, mounting a narrow zigzag iron staircase. His footsteps clattered and echoed. He thought, before I reach the top he will have fallen. His breath came in violent gasps and it felt as if blood were flooding into his lungs. Outside the door of the stack room there was an iron platform. Here a boy was standing, pulling at the handle of the door. Mor reached the top with a rush and began to drag at the door too. He gave a cry of despair. It was locked.
‘Where is the key kept?’ said someone below.
Rigden was now fighting his way up, past several boys on the iron stairs. ‘No time for that,’ he cried, ‘we must break the door!’
Mor stood aside. He saw as in a dream that Bledyard, Hensman, and several other people were standing below him on the next landing. He noticed the curling details of the iron work and the green paint of the walls and the naked electric-light bulb. Rigden and three others were hurling themselves against the door. It withstood them. They began to kick the lower panels. With a loud splintering sound the door was beginning to crack. In a moment Rigden and his friends had kicked a hole in the bottom large enough for them to crawl through. With some difficulty Mor followed them.
Framed in the small square window and clearly seen in the brightness of the flood-lights which fell directly upon it was the top of the ladder, which was being held up by the boys in the upper classroom. Mor threw the window open and tried to lean out. It was too high. He dragged a chair into position and Rigden mounted another one beside him. Mor looked down. The crowd was there as before, now much farther away below him, still looking up. He thought, in a detached way, Carde can hardly have survived. Above him in the air, as he leaned out to grasp the ladder, something was hanging, some six feet above him. He knew that it was his son’s foot. He did not look there. He and Rigden began to draw the top of the ladder backward into the room. It was still being held from below. He thought, when we take the full weight of it, it will drop. ‘More hands here,’ he said.
The boys crowded round the window and began to pull the ladder in. The people below, whom Mor could vaguely see leaning out of the upper classroom, let go, and the ladder hung in the air swaying, a small section of it inside the stack room, and most of it outside, tilting away into space. Diagonally opposite in the Library building faces were at several of the upper windows and hands outstretched to catch the ladder. But it was still swinging, a long way beyond and below them.
Mor looked back into the room. It was now crowded with boys, who were stumbling about among the books, trying to move a set of steel shelves that stood in the centre. A steady stream of volumes was falling to the floor, and other books which had been piled against the walls were collapsing towards the middle of the room and being trampled under foot. More boys were crawling in through the hole in the door. Someone who had got hold of an axe was aiming blows at the lock.
The difficulty was that there was not enough space inside the room to draw enough of the ladder in through the window to give the leverage necessary to lift it up towards the top of the Library. And even if we could lift it, thought Mor, it may just fall to the ground when we begin to pay it out of the window again. He moaned to himself. He began to wonder, is it long enough in any case?
The end of the ladder now reached across the room and was jammed against the angle of the ceiling. ‘Pull it down,’ he said to the boys behind him.
They began to drag on the ladder, swinging on it, and clambering on to piles of books to get on top of it. Under their weight the near end swung down abruptly. The longer section, which was outside the window, swung upward. It was now well above the level of the Library roof. The boys clung on desperately, and the ladder swung erratically to and fro, pivoting on the edge of the window. It was very hard to control it.
‘We’ll have to rest it on the roof,’ said Rigden. This was already clear to Mor. The Library windows were too far below, and the ladder, once the weight on the near end was released, would probably fall too quickly for the people at the other end to catch it. This meant, since there was no access to that part of the Library roof, that no one would be able to hold it at the far end. But nothing could be done about that.
‘Let it go out slowly,’ said Mor, ‘keeping this end down as long as you can.’
The ladder began to ease outwards through the window. Mor guided it as best he could. Eight or ten boys were still hanging on to the end, crowding and climbing on top of each other in the small room, and swinging with all their weight from the last rungs. As more and more of the ladder came to be on the outside of the window, it began to incline downward at an increasing pace. There was a final tumbling flurry inside the room, the near end of the ladder went flying upwards, and the far end met the Library roof with a clatter. Mor saw that the ladder had landed in the gutter. He hoped it was secure. It was not possible to lift it again now.
Mor looked upward. He could see Donald’s foot, clad in a white gym shoe, still dangling several feet above him. It was not directly over the ladder. Helped by Rigden Mor began to push the ladder into a more diagonal position, one end of it in the comer of the window. This made the far end more precarious, but it still looked as if it were firm, provided the gutter held. The ladder was now placed as nearly as possible underneath where Donald was hanging.
Mor began to lean far out of the window, putting one hand on the ladder. Rigden was holding on to his coat. He could now see most of Donald’s leg, and his other foot drawn up just under the edge of the parapet. The rest was out of sight above. As Mor saw the body still perched there over the sharp edge, and as he felt the terrible drop opening beneath him, he was in such an agony of fear that he almost fell himself. Then he began to try to speak. That Donald could be spoken to was in itself something fantastic. Mor hardly expected that the boy would be able to understand him. He took a quick glance to his right. The arterial road was visible, marked by the flashing lights of cars, for several miles in both directions. There was neither sight nor sound of the fire-engine.
Mor spoke, his voice coming out strangely into the empty air above him. ‘Don,’ he said, in a loud clear voice, ‘Don — ’ He had to choose his words carefully. ‘Listen. A fire-engine is coming with a long ladder - it’ll arrive soon, but we don’t know exactly when. If you feel that you can hang on securely till it comes, then do that. But if you feel that you’re slipping, then listen to me. We’ve stretched a ladder across from here to the Library building, passing just underneath you - it’s about five feet below. If you feel you can’t hang on, then drop on to the ladder and clutch on to it hard, and we’ll pull you in through the window. So - if you’re secure, stay where you are — if you’re not, drop on to the ladder. We’ll just be waiting here.’
There was silence. Mor swayed back into the window. He leaned his head against the frame of the window and looked straight out into the night. In the pit of darkness before him he could see, after a moment or two, a few dim stars. He began to pray. He was mutteri
A second later all was still again, the ladder suspended between the two buildings and Donald lying upon it lengthways, his head towards the window, his arms and legs twined into the rungs. He lay there quite still, his face turned sideways. He seemed to be scarcely conscious. Mor began to lean out again. Donald’s extended hand was within reach of his.
‘No, leave this to us,’ said a voice behind him, and someone was dragging at his coat. It was Hensman. Mor stepped, or fell back into the room. He saw that someone had got the door open and there was a crowd upon the stairs. He saw Bledyard climbing past him towards the window. Hensman and Rigden were leaning far out, being held from behind by those inside. Mor could see that they had each secured hold of one of Donald’s arms, and were trying to draw him towards them. This was difficult, because his legs were entwined in the ladder. As he felt the pressure on his arms Donald began feebly to try to get his legs free. His head was moving upward towards the window. More hands were stretched out. Then the ladder began to tilt. One side of it seemed to have come clear of the guttering at the Library end. It swayed. Then, as Donald’s head and shoulders were to be seen at last appearing at the window of the stack room, the ladder tilted right over and fell into the gap between Main School and the Library, landing on the asphalt with a resounding clatter. Donald was pulled head first into the room.
Mor found that he was sitting on the floor, sitting somewhere in the sea of books, and leaning his back against more books. The body of Donald, breathing and unbroken, lay somewhere near him. He stretched out a hand and touched his son’s leg. People were leaning over them both. Someone was offering him brandy. Mor drank a little. His relief was so intense that he was stunned by it. He could see Donald being raised and propped up against the other wall. The boy’s eyes were open and he seemed to be taking in his surroundings. He turned his head and accepted some of the brandy. Bledyard was kneeling somewhere between them and trying to say something.
Donald was sitting more upright now. He drank some more and looked about him. He put his hand to his head. Then after a little while he tried to get up. People were saying soothing things to him. He pushed them aside, and began to stumble to his feet. He stood for a moment, staring about the room, his feet spread wide apart upon the sea of books. Then without warning he made a dive for the door. The boys scattered before him. His recent peril had made him numinous and alarming. He could be heard clattering away down the staircase.
Mor got up. He rubbed his hands over his face. He did not try to follow. Several boys were running down the stairs after Donald. A minute later Rigden, who had stayed beside Mor, and had now mounted one of the chairs by the window, said in an astonished tone, ‘There he goes!’
Mor mounted the other chair and looked out. He saw once again far below the lighted expanse of the playground, scattered with groups of people. Then he saw a running figure. Donald had issued at speed from the door of Main School and was streaking across the asphalt towards the darkness of the drive. The crowd of boys stood there and stared at him. It was a moment before they realized who it was. By then Donald had almost reached the drive. A cry arose from the School. Donald disappeared into the darkness, running fast. Like a pack of hounds, the other boys began to stream after him, shouting incoherently as they ran.
Mor got down from the window. He subsided again on to the floor. Two figures were leaning over him. They were Rigden and Bledyard, who were the only people left in the room. They were saying something. Mor did not know what they were saying. He leaned his head back wearily against the wall and lost his consciousness, half fainting and half falling into an exhausted sleep. In the far far distance now he began to hear the clanging bell of the fire-engine.
Chapter Seventeen
NAN thrust her arm through Mor’s as they began to walk slowly back up the hill, taking the little path that led from the Headmaster’s garden into the wood. It was the end of term. They had just been talking with Mr Everard. It was now four days since the climbing of the tower, and nothing had been seen or heard of Donald since the moment when he ran away across the playground and disappeared into the darkness. The boys who had pursued him as far as the main road had lost him there in the wilderness of fields and waste land on the other side. He had vanished, and there had been no news of him since. After two days of waiting, Mor had asked the help of the police, but without much hope of results. Nan and Felicity had of course returned home at once, and now one of them was always in the house in case the telephone rang. But it did not ring, and Donald’s absence and silence continued.
Jimmy Carde had had a miraculous escape from death. He was saved largely by Mr Everard’s pile of blankets; and was now in hospital with broken ribs, two broken legs, and a fractured skull. He was declared to be in no immediate danger, and likely to recover. Two of the boys who had tried to break his fall were also in hospital with concussion.
Against both Carde and Donald Mor Mr Everard had reluctantly invoked the law that decreed instant expulsion for climbers. He had been so apologetic to Mor about this that the latter had virtually had to make up his mind for him, pointing out that he had no choice but to expel them both. This was grave. What was in a way more grave was that it was now two days before Donald’s chemistry exam was due to start. Everard had told Mor that there would of course be no objection to Donald’s taking the exam at St Bride’s and using the laboratories as he would normally have done. But Mor knew that now his son would not take the examination, and was perhaps deliberately staying in hiding until the date was past. This was very grievous to him; but to think of it in this way a little relieved his more profound anxieties concerning Donald’s well-being.
On the night of the catastrophe Rain and Demoyte came to see Mor at a very late hour in Rain’s car, and wanted to take him back then and there to Brayling’s Close. Mor had refused, since he felt he must stay in his own home in case of telephone messages or in case Donald came back. Rain had cooked him a meal, which he was unable to eat, and had administered a sedative. She and Demoyte persuaded him to go to bed, and then they went away. Since then Mor had seen her frequently, now always at the Close. He had convinced her of what he himself hoped was the truth, that Donald was perfectly well but simply hiding so as to miss his exam. Mor had not yet spoken to Nan about what he and Rain intended to do. He knew that Rain was by now intensely anxious that he should speak; but she had not yet attempted to discuss the matter with him again. Mor found meanwhile that his resolution was unshaken, indeed the stronger for these new troubles. But he had not yet found the moment at which, in the midst of such distresses, he could decently tell his wife that he proposed to leave her.
Mor’s anxiety about Donald was intense. But his anxiety about Rain was equally intense; and he might, even then, have been able to speak decisively to Nan if the latter had given him the slightest chance. Mor knew that what he needed, in order to be able to speak with finality, was a moment of violence. If Nan, by provoking him, or by visiting almost any extreme of emotion, had given him the gift of anger or the sense of extremity, he would have spoken the words which would be fatal. But Nan, as if once more to cross him, had been since her return enormously calm, reasonable, and compliant, doing her best to generate once more that atmosphere of homely ennui which Mor could still remember that he had once found reassuring.
Nan was very worried too about Donald, but she had reasoned it out with Mor that the boy had almost certainly come to no harm, and would reappear after the opening date of the examination. As far as the exam was concerned, Nan was obviously more glad than otherwise that Don would miss it, but she refrained from irritating Mor by sayi
‘Evvy has been awfully nice, hasn’t he?’ said Nan, still clinging on to Mor’s arm.
The wood was silent and empty. Many of the boys had already gone away on early buses and the rest were hanging about in the playground or the upper drive, waiting to be picked up. Some more charabancs were due at eleven o‘clock to take the West Country contingent to the station.
‘He’s very decent,’ said Mor. ‘Did he say anything special to you before I came?’
Last year’s leaves, and a few that had already floated down from the branches after the recent storm, drifted about under the trees or blew sharply to and fro across the path, striking their ankles. It was a dark windy morning.
‘He said they’re going ahead with the presentation dinner for Demoyte’s picture,’ said Nan. ‘It’s happening on Tuesday.’