The Green Knight by Iris Murdoch

get the car any nearer, the way’s blocked. Bellamy and I can hold onto you and you can hop.’
    â€˜We can still get to Ravenna in time – ’
    â€˜We aren’t going to Ravenna,’ said Clement.
    â€˜Of course not,’ said Bellamy, ‘we must get a doctor in the town to look at your ankle.’
    â€˜If it could be just strapped up a bit,’ Harvey was going on, ‘it’ll be better in a day or two.’
    â€˜We’ll see,’ said Clement, ‘but if it’s as bad as it looks I think we must head for the nearest airport and take you back to London.’

    â€˜Poor Harvey!’
    Everyone was saying this.
    The first news came to Louise, when Harvey telephoned her from the airport at Pisa, asking her to tell his mother. The news was that he had hurt his foot and was coming home, just briefly he said, to have it seen to. The gravity of the situation dawned upon his anxious friends, and indeed upon him, after his return. Harvey had first, after the mishap, visited the nearest pronto soccorso in the little town. The first-aid man had, after a glance, told them to go to the hospital. They decided to drive to Pisa to the hospital there, where they could also if necessary get a direct flight to London. At Pisa X-rays revealed a thoroughly smashed ankle. Harvey’s foot and leg were immediately put into plaster for the journey home. At Heathrow he left the plane in a wheelchair. At the Middlesex Hospital the plaster was removed, more X-rays were taken, and the grim diagnosis was confirmed, with hints of further complications. The leg went back into plaster, and Harvey was issued with crutches and forbidden to let his foot touch the ground. It was agreed at a conference consisting of Harvey, Joan, Clement, Bellamy and Louise, that it would be prudent, for the present, to keep Harvey in London near to the specialist who was dealing with his case. To the surprise of the others, Harvey had accepted this plan. He had, everyone said afterwards, more sense than they had realised! The walk over the bridge remained a secret however. Clement and Bellamy, present when Harvey telephoned his mother, noticed that he had simply told her that he had ‘jumped off something’. This now appeared to be the story as generally reported, and Clement and Bellamy did nothing to disturb it. They were easily able to imagine that Harvey did not want, with this outcome, to talk about the exploit which had given him so brief a moment of triumph.
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    â€˜You start, Moy, you’re the artist,’ said Aleph.
    Laughing, sitting in the large armchair in the Aviary, Harvey rolled up his trouser leg and extended his heavy white plaster cast. Its weight, with every movement, still startled him. It was late evening, he and Clement had had supper with Louise and the girls.
    The others stood watching while Moy, solemn, kneeling before him, armed with thick coloured crayons drew, round the top of the cast, a green wiggling design which turned out to be a caterpillar. Sefton, who was next, declined the privilege, declaring that the thing was already a work of art and should now be left alone. This was voted to be a negative spoilsport approach, the point being to cover the thing with random scribblings which would in the end, as Moy said, add up to a complex work of art. Aleph then quickly drew some sort of animal (‘It’s a dragon,’ said Sefton) then criss-crossed it out. ‘I can’t draw!’ ‘Anyway, it’s a something,’ said Moy. Louise, saying she couldn’t even manage a something, wrote in fine well-spaced capital letters – HARVEY GET WELL. Clement, sitting on the floor, drew a comical dog with a fancy hat and a sweeping line to make the dog say what Louise had written. Everyone laughed, Moy’s caterpillar was voted best, and all agreed it was a good start. Harvey, laughing longest, thanked them all.
    The atmosphere, thick with love and