A Fairly Honourable Defeat

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘They have that lovely fresh furnishing-material smell. Mmm. I love smells. Where did you say Hilda was this evening?’

  ‘She’s at a meeting of the Chelsea Preservation Society.’

  ‘Hilda has so much energy. I feel I have enough to do to preserve myself without preserving Chelsea. Did Simon come for his swim?’

  ‘Yes. He and Hilda had another set-to about the new bathroom plan. He was very sorry to miss you. He keeps missing you.’

  ‘There will be a time for Simon. I’m only just beginning to feel human again.’

  ‘More whisky?’

  ‘Yes, please, Rupert, I depend terribly on this stuff. Is it wrong?’

  ‘You keep asking me that question about all sorts of things! Well, you’d better watch it. I must say, I depend on it too.’

  ‘What a bloody wreck my life is.’

  ‘Don’t be foolish, Morgan. If you use your mind and your heart you can put everything together again.’

  ‘My mind is bedlam and my heart’s dead.’

  ‘That’s not true and it’s treachery to say so.’

  ‘Treachery—to whom, to what? There isn’t a God.’

  ‘You know quite well what I mean.’

  ‘Oddly enough I do. How’s your book getting on, Rupert? Could I read part of it? Do you explain about treachery?’

  ‘I try to explain. You’ll see it when it’s finished.’

  ‘Is that it over there, that huge pile of yellow notebooks?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh God, there’s all that stuff of mine over at Tallis’s place. At least I hope it’s there. I don’t imagine he’ll have torn it up in a rage. All that stuff on language theory. I wish Hilda had managed to get it away.’

  ‘Tallis wouldn’t give it up.’

  ‘I know. Hell.’

  ‘Morgan, what are you going to do about Tallis?’

  ‘I knew you’d ask me that. When you asked me to come in this evening I knew you were going to tell me off, to put me through it.’

  ‘Morgan, don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Well, why not? In a way, Rupert, you’re really the only person who can help me. I’m too close to Hilda. And there isn’t anyone else I really respect.’

  ‘You know I’d love to help you, Morgan. But there are things you’ve got to do for yourself.’

  ‘Do have another drink, Rupert. I hate drinking alone. It makes me feel even more immoral.’

  Rupert poured himself out some more sherry. He tried to keep off spirits until late in the evening, but did not always succeed. He sighed. He had had a long tiring day at the office including an extremely exhausting session with the Computer Forecast Working Party. He felt weary now but fairly satisfied with himself and his tired body was filled with compassion for his sister-in-law. Without at the moment being able to think very clearly, he wished for her sake that he could become wise and good.

  ‘You’ll have to go and see Tallis, you know,’ said Rupert.

  ‘Yes. But I can’t even think about it yet. Thank God he doesn’t know I’m here.’

  Rupert frowned uneasily. He had heard from both Simon and Axel of the curious encounter between Julius and Tallis, and how Tallis had been told of Morgan’s arrival. He had informed Hilda, who had persuaded him to say nothing to Morgan. Hilda did not want Morgan rattled. And she seemed to think that Morgan would detest the idea that Tallis and Julius had met. ‘Spare her feelings for a little while longer,’ she pleaded with her husband. Rupert did not fancy the deception and could not understand or picture Morgan’s state of mind, but he agreed. If he had been in Morgan’s place he would have been incapable of recuperating in someone else’s house while the person whom he had offended was kept waiting in ignorance. To have delayed the meeting would have been torment.

  ‘Have you seen Julius again?’ said Morgan.

  ‘No.’ Rupert was to see Julius for lunch the next day, but he saw no reason to tell Morgan that.

  ‘I do wish Julius would move on. I expect he will soon. Someone from Dibbins told me he was on his way to a job in Germany. I don’t want to run into him in Oxford Street.’

  ‘Have you got over him, Morgan?’ Rupert asked. He felt intensely curious about the mind and heart to which he had just so confidently alluded, but he was much less good than Hilda at asking the right questions.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t want to see him. I want a clear head.’

  ‘You’ll need one.’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes. Keep me to it, Rupert. I feel such a bloody coward at the moment. How’s Peter by the way? Are you going to see him?’

  ‘I’ve asked him over here. Perhaps he’ll come, perhaps he won’t.’ Rupert shrank from the possibility of encountering Tallis.

  ‘I’d like to see Peter. I wish he wasn’t living—over there.’

  ‘So do we, now.’

  ‘He must look so different. Have you got a recent picture of him?’

  Rupert leaned over to forage in the drawer of his desk. Hilda kept the fat family photograph album meticulously up to date. ‘Here.’

  ‘Good heavens. He’s a man. He looks like you.’

  ‘Handsomer.’

  ‘No, you’re handsomer. But he must be taller. You both look awfully noble actually. I love those big blond commanding faces. You look awfully young, you know, Rupert, with that floppy fair hair and that shy smile you look just like a boy.’

  ‘Sounds more like an ass. I’ve put on weight, I’m afraid. So has Hilda.’

  ‘It suits you. Let me look at some of the earlier ones. Being with you and Hilda makes me feel continuous again. One ought to feel continuous, oughtn’t one? Lately I’ve just felt like a sort of stump. Why there’s Hilda and me. That must be ages ago. How stunning Hilda looks, she’s got her angel-look. Of course Hilda looked marvellous in those days. Well, she still does.’

  ‘You’ve changed,’ said Rupert. He looked at the photo. A much slimmer Hilda with the dark hyacinthine locks and the radiant brave face. Morgan looking shrunken and sulky, shoulders hunched and hands stiffly in pockets. ‘You’re—in flower—now.’

  ‘Marriage and adultery have evidently done me good. Hilda—yes—’

  ‘Do persuade Hilda to dye her hair. She can’t make up her mind.’

  ‘Dye her hair? Is it going grey? I didn’t notice.’

  ‘A little. I don’t see why she shouldn’t dye it. That sort of dark hair dyes quite successfully.’

  ‘You amaze me, Rupert. I would have expected you to view hair-dyeing as a falsification! Remember that great lecture you read me about smuggling that time I smuggled the camera from Switzerland.’

  ‘Smuggling involves lying.’

  ‘Rupert, I do admire you so much!’

  ‘Stop teasing!’

  ‘I’m not teasing, I mean it. And oh God I envy you. I envy you and Hilda. You’ve got what I need. Order, order, order. I told Hilda I envied her having a husband that functioned. As a spouse poor old Tallis was just a broken spring.’

  ‘I can’t imagine Tallis providing order! But he has other qualities.’

  ‘Living with Tallis was like living in a gipsy encampment. At first all seemed very unworldly and spiritual and free. Later it was depressing. Later still it was frightening. It made me lose my sense of identity. I resented the muddle but I couldn’t dominate it. The trouble was that Tallis didn’t expect me to, he didn’t expect the right things of me. With Tallis there were no forms and limits, things had no boundaries. Oh it’s hard to explain. In the end everything about him began to irritate me terribly, even his freckles.’

  ‘Why even his freckles?’

  ‘I adore it when you’re a little catty, Rupert. You’re so confoundedly charitable most of the time.’

  ‘What did Julius expect of you?’

  ‘To respond to his magic. To be predictable. To be gay at the right times, quiet at the right times. To live to his timetable. To cook. Julius is quite a good cook himself, actually.’

  ‘I can see it was
different.’

  ‘And yet not easy either. With Julius everything was ritual. Oh Rupert, there are people who communicate with the deep abysses of one’s mind and these people are frightening.’

  ‘Julius did this.’

  ‘Yes. And Tallis too. Why couldn’t I have found an ordinary man?’

  ‘Like me.’

  ‘You aren’t ordinary, silly. Tell me, Rupert, what did Julius do during the war? I asked him once and he wouldn’t tell me.’

  ‘I don’t know either.’

  ‘I suspect he was doing something absolutely beastly for the Americans. Some awful biological thing.’

  ‘He said to me once, “I had a cosy war.” I expect he was doing research of some kind.’

  ‘I’m sure it was something horrible. Do you mind if I help myself to some more whisky?’

  Morgan got up and began to prowl around the room swinging her glass. She stretched her long legs. She stood on her toes. She was wearing navy blue stockings and blue sandals. She went to look out of the window, pushing the open sash a little bit further up. Rupert watched her. He felt that his tiredness was making him stupid. Morgan was in an electrical mood. She needed to be questioned, cornered, pinned. She wanted to be, to use her own words, put through it, told off. Rupert wished that he could be swift, accurate, compassionate and stern instead of clumsy and vague and somehow sentimental.

  ‘How strange these summer twilights are,’ said Morgan. It was darker in the room. ‘The light becomes so intense and yet it dissolves forms instead of revealing them. Your garden looks so odd. There’s such a peculiar bluish lustre on the pool. It’s a light for seeing ghosts in. One could easily imagine—it looks as if—You know, Rupert, I think Tallis used to see things, things he didn’t tell me about. It was rather alarming sometimes.’

  ‘Tallis never hit the bottle much, did he?’

  ‘Oh no, nothing like that. How luminous your roses are. And the air gets heavy and you can smell the dark. Oh Rupert, Rupert, Rupert—’

  ‘I know, my dear. I wish I could help. I feel a dolt with you this evening. Shall I turn the light on?’

  ‘No, no light! There speaks a guilty voice. Tell me what I need, Rupert. Do I need an ordeal, punishment or something? What will make me stop feeling like a piece of filthy screwed up newspaper?’

  ‘Do you really want me to talk to you, Morgan?’

  ‘I’m screaming for it! I need your help, Rupert, absolutely.’

  ‘Is it clear that Julius is over?’

  ‘For the sake of argument, yes.’

  ‘Do you still in any way love Tallis?’

  ‘I suppose I must do. He obsesses me.’

  ‘You did love him?’

  ‘There was a terrible fatal tenderness. He was so unutterably touching—before he started to annoy me.’

  ‘Suppose someone were to say: why not try going back to Tallis?’

  ‘I love the way you say, “Suppose someone were to say X”, instead of just saying X! I expect it’s your philosophical training. I don’t know, Rupert. Perhaps I just want to get away from Tallis, to escape. Oh God, if only it were simple.’

  ‘Suppose someone—Well, what about divorce?’

  ‘You are right to administer shocks.’

  ‘Yes, but what about it?’

  ‘Everything about divorce is ugly and destructive and horrible.’

  ‘Try to think clearly, Morgan. If you really want to get away from Tallis—which I doubt actually—you must be fair to him too. His life is passing as well as yours. And he’s put up with a pretty unclear situation in a very patient way.’

  ‘Yes, yes. I want to be honest and just. How’s it done, Rupert?’

  ‘Ultimately through love, my dear. Love is the last and secret name of all the virtues.’

  ‘That’s pretty. Do you say that in your book? But how can an obsession be changed into love? I can’t see Tallis any more. He’s just something hung round my neck. I think love in your sense is too hard, Rupert. Give me an intermediate goal. What can I try to do that I might conceivably manage to do?’

  ‘Be calm. Calm of mind is so terribly important. Be quiet and let yourself sink. Sink into the depths of your own spirit and lose your fretful ego there.’

  ‘Rupert, you are marvellous. I’m dying to read your book. But how can I be calm when I’m living with the prospect of seeing Tallis?’

  ‘Go and see him and get it over.’

  ‘Oh not yet, not yet, Rupert—’

  ‘Yes, child?’

  ‘I did a very caddish thing to Tallis. I don’t mean carrying on with Julius, that was a catastrophe but not caddish. I took some of Tallis’s money.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘We had a joint bank account. Idiotic thing to have of course. It was rather more my money than his. But when I decided to stay in America I pretty well cleaned it out.’

  ‘How much do you owe him?’

  ‘About four hundred pounds.’

  ‘You must pay it.’

  ‘I haven’t got it, Rupert. I saved quite a lot at Dibbins but I spent it all dilly dallying on the West Coast and in Vermont trying to make up my mind to come home. And I had to pay for—oh various things—and—’

  ‘I’ll lend it to you.’

  ‘Rupert, I didn’t really mean to bring this up—’

  ‘Look, Morgan, don’t worry about money, for Christ’s sake. I mean don’t worry about borrowing it from me. I’ve got plenty. And I am your brother.’

  ‘You’re my angel. I’m sorry. I feel awful—’

  ‘If you want to be able to think you must pay the debt. Any trouble to do with money confuses the mind.’

  ‘You’re right. I didn’t really reflect about it in America. Since I got back it’s been tormenting me more and more. But it seems—’

  ‘Oh don’t be silly, Morgan! Look, I’ll write you a cheque straightaway. Do you want any more money? I can easily let you have more.’

  ‘No, Rupert, just that. I will pay you back. And I’m very very grateful. I won’t say more. You must know how I feel. And there’s one other thing, Rupert.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Would you mind not telling Hilda?’

  ‘Not telling her—’

  ‘About the loan. You see, I never told her about the original thing. Oh I will tell her. But I feel so damned ashamed—and you know I’ve always—all my life—been afraid of Hilda’s disapproval. ’

  ‘You should tell her. But, all right, I won’t.’

  ‘Thank you, Rupert. You see, she’d hate this much more than the love affair. But I will tell.’ Morgan had put her glass down and drawn an upright chair close up against the desk, staring at Rupert in the half light. ‘So you doubt if I really want to get away from Tallis? And you think I must see him?’

  ‘Yes. And soon. And not here. On his territory. Write to him, Morgan. You needn’t say much in the letter. Say you’ll come. You know he’ll be very gentle.’

  ‘Don’t Rupert, don’t, don’t—’

  ‘You’ve got to decide what sort of person you want to be—’

  ‘The thought of even writing to him makes me feel giddy. And the thought of his gentleness makes me want to vomit. And the idea of going into his house—Tallis oughtn’t to have a house—sorry, I’m talking nonsense. Leonard’s there now too, isn’t he. God, I don’t want to see Leonard either. I couldn’t stand the relation between Leonard and Tallis. It’s so unnatural for a man to love his father. Sorry, Rupert, I’m just crazed. You’re quite right to reproach me but I’m afraid I simply enjoy your reproaches. They comfort me. They don’t connect with any real possibility of change at all. How very peculiar one’s mind is. There’s no foothold in it, no leverage, no way of changing oneself into a responsible just being. One’s lost in one’s own psyche. It stretches away and away to the ends of the world and it’s soft and sticky and warm. There’s nothing real, no hard parts, no centre. The only reality is just—immediate things—like—oh like what—like this.
’ Morgan stretched out her hand. She picked up a green oblong paperweight off the desk and laid it against her brow. There was a moment’s silence. She lowered her hand and began examining the paperweight. ‘How pretty this is. It’s some kind of mineral, isn’t it. Such a marvellous swirly grain.’

  ‘It’s malachite. Keep it. It’s yours.’

  ‘Oh Rupert—dear—you mustn’t—’

  ‘I’ve had it since I was a child. I’d like to give it to you.’

  ‘It must be so precious—I—thank you, Rupert, I’ll keep it. You are inconceivably good to me, my dear—you have been so good to me, you and Hilda. Perhaps we should put the light on, Rupert.’ Morgan got up.

  There was a sound behind them and the door began to open slowly. A tall pale-clad figure was seen standing in the gloom in the doorway. Morgan gave a little shriek and retreated to the window. ‘Switch on the light, please,’ said Rupert in a sharp voice. A number of lamps went on and the room sprang into brightness. It was Julius.

  Rupert leapt up. Morgan stood with her hands at her throat and the darkened sky behind her. Smiling, Julius closed the door. He said, ‘Hello, Rupert. Good evening, Mrs Browne.’

  Rupert said, ‘Look here, Julius, I asked you—’

  Julius was still smiling, his eyes glistening. ‘I’m sorry, Rupert. I see I’ve come at an inconvenient moment and I’m disturbing a tête-à-tête. I was passing near by and I thought I might manage to catch you alone. It was not an unreasonable idea. I want to change our arrangement for tomorrow. But perhaps I had better go. Forgive me.’ He did not look at Morgan.

  ‘I’ll see you out,’ said Rupert. He felt very angry. He followed Julius down the stairs, closing the study door behind him.

  At the front door the evening light seemed brighter, still intense and not yet quite dark. The garden smelt almost unbearably of limes and honeysuckle. A blackbird was singing. Rupert took Julius’s arm and propelled him to the gate. He said in a low voice, ‘Damn you.’

  Julius murmured, ‘Sorry. About tomorrow. I’ll telephone. Good night.’ He turned quickly away in the direction of Gilston Road. Rupert ran back into the house.

  Morgan was standing by the window in the same attitude. She lowered her hands and stared at Rupert with a blank expression. Then she said, ‘More Scotch please.’ Rupert picked up her glass. Then she said, ‘Oh God why did that have to happen.’