A Fairly Honourable Defeat

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘I think we’d much better wait until Morgan is here and see what she wants.’

  ‘She may be coming back to live with Tallis.’

  ‘If he’ll have her after two years unscheduled absence and a stormy love affair.’

  ‘Tallis would forgive her, Hilda, as you perfectly well know.’

  ‘Oh forgiveness, forgiveness, what’s the use of that? Morgan needs a strong hand.’

  ‘All her things are still over at Tallis’s place, aren’t they?’

  ‘I know. Tallis wouldn’t let me take them away.’

  ‘I suppose he reckoned that was still her home!’

  ‘Pathetic. But I felt it was rather thoughtless of him really.’

  ‘Or thoughtful.’

  ‘Assuming he wants to see her, yes. All her work manuscripts are there, that book she was writing on glossy what was it?’

  ‘Glossematics.’

  ‘What a word! How clever of Morgan even to know what it means!’

  ‘Well, I think we must keep an open mind here, Hilda, and if Morgan shows any signs of wanting to go back to her husband we should give her every help and support. It is not for us to judge whether these wounds can be healed or no.’

  ‘I agree. But I can’t quite see Morgan returning to hubbie after all that excitement in South Carolina. Well, she might. But please not a word to Tallis, Rupert. After all we don’t even know if Morgan is proposing to stay in London. She may be just passing through on her way to somewhere else.’

  ‘She may not find it all that easy to get a job. Biologists are universally welcome, but philosophically minded philologists are getting a bit expendable in the modern world.’

  ‘It was that philology conference at Dibbins that started it all, wasn’t it. She met Julius on the second day. She went for a fortnight and stayed two years. And it was all your fault.’

  ‘Well, it seemed quite natural to suggest to my old college friend that he should look up my visiting sister-in-law and show her around!’

  ‘I wonder if Tallis will try to see Julius. They’ve never met each other, have they?’

  ‘No. I shouldn’t think they knew of each other’s existence before Morgan took up with Julius. But do you mean Tallis should see Julius to make an outraged husband scene? That hardly seems in character!’

  ‘No, just out of curiosity. Just to inspect the man who’s wrecked one’s marriage.’

  ‘But you kept saying it wasn’t Julius’s fault, Hilda. Your theory was that Morgan and Tallis were breaking up in any case.’

  ‘And you always disagreed. You are too sentimental about the marriage bond, Rupert.’

  ‘What a thing to say to me today of all days, my darling!’

  ‘Well, sentimental. You get so soppy about couples. One’s got to be realistic. You’re even soppy about Axel and Simon.’

  ‘I believe they’re happy, if that’s what you mean. I want them to go on being happy, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘But do you think Simon is really homosexual?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I suppose you should know your own brother.’

  ‘And after all, I’ve known Axel a long time too. As a student, then as a colleague in the department. I think those two are all right.’

  ‘How does Axel know Julius?’

  ‘They were graduate students at Oxford together, we all three were.’

  ‘Funny, I’d forgotten Julius was at Oxford. He’s such an exotic foreign object. How secretive of Axel not to say he knew him. I suppose queers are always a bit sly.’

  ‘My dear Hilda, being homosexual doesn’t determine a man’s whole character any more than being heterosexual does! Axel’s just a rather silent man. And probably the matter simply didn’t come up. Axel’s silent, Simon is a chatterbox—Did Simon come for his swim today, by the way?’

  ‘Yes, he was splashing round like mad just before lunch. We had a few words. It’s nice that the pool brings Simon here more.’

  ‘He did know they were supposed to be coming round tonight?’

  ‘Oh yes. You know they’re always late.’

  ‘We must remember to ask his advice about redecorating the bathroom.’

  ‘For an eighteenth-century expert his taste in bathrooms is rather lurid. Dear Simon. What a pretty pair he and Morgan made at our wedding, do you remember? It’s hard to believe that’s twenty years ago, Rupert darling.’

  ‘They were children then. And you were already making plans to marry them to each other!’

  ‘Yes. Your brother and my sister. A little incestuous, but it would have been rather neat.’

  ‘And they really did get fond of each other.’

  ‘They did. But I remember once, later on, asking Morgan what they’d been talking about so intimately, and she said Simon was recounting his homosexual adventures! I think they talked a lot about sex. Morgan wanted information. I suspect she would have liked to be an adventurous boy hunting for other boys in Piccadilly Circus station.’

  ‘Hilda!’

  ‘Rescue that bumble bee from the pool, will you, Rupert. That’s right. I do wish insects had more sense of self-preservation. I do hope our hedgehog won’t fall in. Have hedgehogs got any common sense, I wonder. Is it awful of us to have started drinking champagne before our guests arrive?’

  ‘No. Anything is permitted to us.’

  ‘Is it disgraceful to be so happy?’

  ‘A grace not a disgrace, Hilda.’

  ‘Too much at home in Zion?’

  ‘Natural Zionites.’

  ‘Do you think it makes us the teeniest bit selfish?’

  ‘Yes. But we ought to forgive ourselves, don’t you think? Today of all days.’

  ‘I agree. Rupert, it’s so super that after all these years you don’t want anyone else. Most men of your age run after younger women. It’s so super that you wear a wedding ring and still write me love letters.’

  ‘It’s so super that you still keep them.’

  ‘And I’m older than you—’

  ‘Forget it, Hilda. You aren’t really.’

  ‘Did you remember to send this month’s money to Oxfam?’

  ‘Yes. I see the connection of thought!’

  ‘I know. It’s silly to feel so guilty about one’s luck, isn’t it?’

  ‘More champagne, darling. Heavens, it is hot, I’m sweating like a pig. You don’t think I drink too much, do you, Hilda?’

  ‘Well, we both put away a good deal. It doesn’t make us any slimmer. I hoped the swimming might.’

  ‘Swimming refreshes the soul, but does not affect the waist line, I’m afraid. Anyway, drink is good for my insomnia. Thank heavens I’m happy. Insomnia must be hell if one isn’t.’

  ‘It’s so luxuriously sunny, Rupert. I’m quite glad we didn’t go to Pembrokeshire after all.’

  ‘It would be nice at the cottage. But it’s quite like the country in our garden today.’

  ‘Perhaps it was silly to invite Simon and Axel to drinks this evening.’

  ‘Why? It’s a moment for family.’

  ‘Axel is so anti-family. He’s the sort of queer who doesn’t like to be reminded of normal relationships.’

  ‘I could hardly invite Simon without him. They are so very married.’

  ‘I sometimes feel Axel hates to see a successful heterosexual marriage. He would like all men to leave all women.’

  ‘Nonsense, Hilda. He can even be quite conventional and high-minded about it. You remember how shocked he was at Morgan leaving Tallis?’

  ‘That was because he likes Tallis and dislikes Morgan.’

  ‘Well, he doesn’t dislike you.’

  ‘I know. He’s another ironical devil. But I am rather fond of him. Do you think that ménage will last?’

  ‘Why not? It’s lasted more than three years. I don’t see why it shouldn’t go on.’

  ‘Those queer friendships are so unstable.’

  ‘That’s simply because they run more hazards of an external social k
ind, Hilda. Heterosexual relations would be just as unstable if it were not for the institution of marriage and the procreation of children. But if people suit each other why shouldn’t they stay together?’

  ‘Do you think you and I would have stayed together all these years if we hadn’t had the blessing of society?’

  ‘Yes, I do, my darling wife. Don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I do, Rupert. Angel! But we’re a special case, as we’ve already agreed, and we’re so unlike in some ways. Axel and Simon are so different. Axel must be a very difficult man to live with. He’s so gloomy and morose. And Simon is so sensitive and childlike and sort of pleasure-loving. I don’t mean this in a bad sense. And really, all queers do like trouble. I’ve never met one who didn’t.’

  ‘Any sentence beginning “All queers …” is pretty sure to be false! It’s like “All married men …” “All married men over forty deceive their wives”.’

  ‘Well, we know that’s false! But I’m sure Axel bullies him.’

  ‘Some people like to be bullied.’

  ‘I suppose they do. And of course he is so much younger than Axel. Thank heavens our relationship is democratic. I suspect they quarrel bitterly every night.’

  ‘You’ve no reason to think so, Hilda. And they might quarrel bitterly every night and still love each other.’

  ‘We don’t quarrel every night, thank God. And if we did I would take it as evidence against the view that we loved each other.’

  ‘There are all kinds of marriages.’

  ‘You are incurably compassionate, Rupert.’

  ‘I should have said the trouble with those two was almost the opposite. They’re so wrapped up in each other they can hardly see the outside world at all.’

  ‘Talking about the institution of marriage and the procreation of children, I don’t suppose our son will honour us with his presence tonight?’

  ‘Naturally I asked him. Naturally he has not replied.’

  ‘He won’t come.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh dear, Rupert—Are you going to write to Cambridge again?’

  ‘There’s nothing new to tell them. I must say, they’ve been very patient so far about Peter’s tantrums.’

  ‘How much does it matter, his not having done that first year exam?’

  ‘Not much—so long as he can be persuaded to go back in October. ’

  ‘He knows he doesn’t have to read classics. He could change to something else.’

  ‘It isn’t the subject he objects to, it’s the university!’

  ‘You’d think at his age Cambridge would be heaven. Nineteen, first year at the university, lots of friends—’

  ‘But there weren’t lots of friends, Hilda. I think young people don’t make friends nowadays the way we used to. Friendship’s out of fashion. When I was his age at Oxford I had hundreds of friends.’

  ‘And you’ve still got most of them. I know. If only at least he’d shown signs of having a girl friend. I hope he isn’t going to take after his uncle! Whatever made Cambridge go wrong for Peter? Well, we’ve asked ourselves that question often enough.’

  ‘I don’t think it was anything specific. Just a quite different view of the world which you and I can scarcely begin to imagine.’

  ‘I just don’t understand the modern young. I can’t see any conceivable merit in this dropping out, can you?’

  ‘They’ve got a sharper eye than we have for what’s rotten in this society.’

  ‘Young people have always had that. But it usen’t to affect their joie de vivre. We rejected society at his age, but it didn’t stop us from going to commem balls!’

  ‘We didn’t really reject it, Hilda. And sometimes joie de vivre can amount to irresponsibility and compromise. These kids want to register some total protest against a set-up where they see so much that’s bad. You must remember, Hilda, that Peter belongs to the first generation that can really envisage the end of the human race. And he belongs to the first generation that’s grown up entirely without God.’

  ‘We disbelieved in God. It didn’t turn us against the whole of creation.’

  ‘God was still around when we were young. It’s different now.’

  ‘Then let him join the Communist Party. I think dropping out is cynicism.’

  ‘No, no. Cynicism is real vice. It’s the vice of the age and it could be the end of us all. These young creatures are really consumed by a sort of incoherent love—’

  ‘Sometimes you talk rot, Rupert darling, but I adore listening to you all the same. I do wish now we hadn’t agreed to his going to stay with Tallis. Tallis is a sort of drop-out himself.’

  ‘Come, come, Hilda. But I agree it may have been a mistake to let Peter go to Notting Hill. I thought it might bring him back to some sense of reality. You know, after our relations with him became so—well, mine did anyway—’

  ‘Peter was certainly keen to get away from us.’

  ‘And better living with Tallis than living all alone in digs.’

  ‘I know. I’m so terrified of his starting to take drugs. And he did want to stay with Tallis, and just then one was jolly glad that he wanted to do anything.’

  ‘And Tallis thought he could help him.’

  ‘That’s the trouble. Poor old Tallis often thinks he can help people but really he’s hopelessly incompetent. And that house, Rupert. It’s never cleaned. It’s littered with filthy junk of every sort. It smells like the Zoo. And the old father making messes in corners. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were lice, only of course Tallis would never notice. Peter needs discipline and order. Living on that stinking rubbish heap can’t be good for his mind.’

  ‘You exaggerate, Hilda. When Tallis and Morgan were living together in Putney their house was pretty untidy too, as I remember. ’

  ‘And I always took it as a bad sign. If people love each other they keep things neat.’

  ‘That’s absurd. And surely there was no doubt that they did love each other?’

  ‘Maybe. I was never so sure. Well, they did, but they were both such ninnies.’

  ‘If only they’d had a child.’

  ‘I doubt if Morgan wanted a child. She wanted to be free to take off. Of course Tallis is a terribly odd man in a way. Losing his twin sister at the age of fourteen probably crazed him up for life.’

  ‘I think Tallis is one of the sanest men I know.’

  ‘I was just waiting for you to say that, darling. I could see that marriage would never work.’

  ‘But you shouldn’t have said so quite so often! Sometimes the just prophet is not forgiven.’

  ‘Morgan would forgive me anything. I would forgive her anything. ’

  ‘I know. You are very close.’

  ‘Yes. Closer perhaps than you’ve ever really realized.’

  ‘You’re making me jealous!’

  ‘Don’t be silly, darling.’

  ‘Aren’t you the tiniest bit possessive about your younger sister?’

  ‘Certainly. I would never have thought anyone good enough for Morgan.’

  ‘Of course, the fact that you’re beautiful and she’s not—’

  ‘Has nothing whatever to do with it. Morgan has an interesting face. And she’s so clever. She could have married whoever she wanted. In a way, Tallis was the last thing she should have chosen. She needed someone with more dignity.’

  ‘Or possibly one of those bullies.’

  ‘No, no, Rupert. Morgan is a democrat too. If Tallis had even got himself a decent job, a university job, he could have done if he’d tried—’

  ‘He only got a second, and—’

  ‘Oh, all you dreary firsts with your built-in-for-life sense of superiority! Tallis is a perfectly self-respecting intellectual, or he could be if he’d only pull his socks up. What’s happened to that book on Marx and de Tocqueville that he was writing?’

  ‘I think he’s abandoned it.’

  ‘There you are. His activities are all so wet and dilettante and disconnected. All
that bitty adult education and dribs and drabs of social work and nothing ever achieved or finished. There’s something feeble about it. And I wish he’d behave more normally about Morgan.’

  ‘You mean more jealously?’

  ‘Yes. And don’t tell me it’s noble to overcome jealousy.’

  ‘I was about to do so.’

  ‘You can’t cheat nature, you can’t cheat biology.’

  ‘I personally find magnanimity very attractive. But in fact, my dear Hilda, we have no means of knowing how jealous or unjealous Tallis really is. Why should he tell us anything?’

  ‘I know. But he’s so spiritless. And such a muddler.’

  ‘He’s damn tired at the moment is my impression.’

  ‘Tired? Of course he’s tired. He takes on far too much and then he gets confused and overborne. And since Morgan left him he’s begun to go to pieces anyway. He just can’t cope.’

  ‘For us whose lives so pre-eminently work it may be hard to imagine. But I do think you’re a little too down on people who can’t cope, darling!’

  ‘Well, I do think a reasonable amount of efficiency is an aspect of morals. There’s a sort of ordered completeness of life and an intelligent use of one’s talents which is the mark of a man. And Tallis is a peculiarly dangerous example to Peter just at this moment. Tallis never seems to know what he can manage and what he can’t. Having his old papa to live with him is crazy. Then wanting to take on Peter as well. And do you know that Tallis calls Leonard “Daddy”? A grown man who calls his father “Daddy” is really out.’

  ‘Out, Hilda? Out of what?’

  ‘Don’t be so bolshy, Rupert. “Yes, Dad.” “Certainly, Daddy.” Oh, I suppose it’s harmless but it’s somehow a symptom of total ineptitude. Leonard is no fool, you know, though he’s pretty peculiar too in some ways. I think I get on with Leonard now better than I do with Tallis.’

  ‘Leonard was very fond of Morgan.’

  ‘Yes. The break must have been a blow to him. I thought I’d go over there tomorrow. Have you got any matchboxes for Leonard?’

  ‘I’ll look. What are you going to say to Peter?’

  ‘Nothing special. I can do nothing with Peter, dear heart. You know how it is. We both get emotional, and then Peter just withdraws into that awful unfeeling blankness. Oh God!’