An Accidental Man

by Iris Murdoch

  Your slave

  Karen

  Are you really very sad about Gracie? ? My darling.

  Dearest Sis,

  I have told the parents that I cannot, because of an examination, (a fiction this) attend the funeral games. I hope you enjoy them. Poor old grandma. Everyone will be rejoicing, won’t they, especially Aunt Char. What news of the carve-up? Aunt Char will be able to act out her fantasy of cocking a snook at the family. Us I am afraid she has never liked since the days when she baby sat us while the Ps were out on the tiles. Now maybe she’ll light out for Monte Carlo. I would if I were her.

  About the egregious Leferrier. (What does ‘egregious’ mean exactly? I must look it up.) He is decent and clever and too good for you and I respect his decision not to return to that ghastly place. Perhaps now at last you’ll stop flirting. I have had to speak to you about this before. Flirtatiousness cuts you off from people. Some women (e.g. our mother) are eternally cut off from the world by a flirtatious temperament, only they never realize it. Yes, he’s decent and I’m glad. Or am I? Am I not a little jealous? Will not our old alliance suffer? Ralph Odmore says that Sebastian (ought I to tell you this?) is dashed.

  Ralph still doesn’t know how I feel about him. We have dignified conversations about European history. God. I confess I’m relieved you aren’t wedding Sebastian. Foresuffering all, like the Grecian sage, I know that whatever the fate of my passion for Ralph all will in a year or two be dust and ashes. So young and so untender, love’s victim though I be. I pant for Ralph, yet panting know that all is vanity. A family connection would prove an embarrassment.

  Talking of embarrassment I have had another of those letters from mum, partly tosh about grandma (faugh!) and also about the Gibson Grey biz about which she is agog, and into which pie she proposes to plunge up to the elbow with the highest of motives. (People like our ma should be forbidden to write letters.) God, how I think one should leave other people’s things alone and not crawl all over them. I see our dear Ps as two giant snails with waggling inquisitive eyes leaving long slimy trails behind. Do not let us be like them. Fear it, sweet Gracie, fear it, my dear sister. Aunt Char is at least a decent sardonic letter-alone.

  I now have an appointment with Ralph in the cricket pavilion of which nothing will come. Look after yourself, my child. What you and Ludwig have so far done about it I forbear to ask, though I should certainly like to know.

  Ever your loving sibling

  Patroclus Tiresias Tisbourne

  My dear Dorina,

  Thank you very much for your little note about poor mama. Expected though it was, we are all very grieved and will miss her sorely. I will not dwell on this further. She was a wonderful person, and as you may imagine our hearts are full. And Gracie’s engagement, in a happier way, has made us feel the fateful passage of time.

  May I take this little chance to say something? We were very sorry indeed to hear about Austin’s misfortune about his job, of which I gather you have now learnt. George, who sends his best regards by the way, is scouting around for a suitable post and has told Austin this, which has relieved Austin’s mind very much indeed, so don’t you worry either. Job-hunting can be so depressing. Meanwhile, may I suggest that you yourself should come and stay with us for a while? There are times when it may be better to be away from one’s own family, on neutral ground as it were, and in a new scene! Even lucky I feel this now and then! Regard it as a holiday, as a treat. Also I am sure it could help you to talk a bit to an outside well-wisher. You understand. And we could invite Austin or not as you pleased. You know how very sincerely we hope for both your happinesses. To see you here would, I need hardly say, gladden our hearts after our recent troubles. Do say I may fix with Mavis for you to come.

  Ever, with love

  Clara

  PS. We have just heard that Matthew has come home! What a surprise! Austin tells us he came straight to Austin from the airport in the most touching way. Austin seems delighted about his return and one cannot but think this a happy augury!

  Dearest Gracie,

  All my congratulations! I have just seen it in The Times. May you be happy and glorious! Nor will I withhold the tribute of saying that the news caused me pain, I will not specify how much! I will always feel something special about you, even when we are both ninety. Why it didn’t come off with us I think we both very well understand, though it would be hard to say and now will be never said. I like your intended a great deal. I understand you will in all likelihood be decorating the Oxford scene? When a decent interval has elapsed I will invite you both to lunch. That will occasion another pang. Dare I hope in your bosom too a little? I say no more. All greatest happiness to you, dear Gracie, and love from,

  Yours, a good loser,

  Sebastian

  Dear Louis,

  I have heard of your engagement and write to congratulate you so much upon it. Gracie is a lovely girl, and we are all so glad that you will stay in England. I expect you will now be very busy as engaged people are. But I hope you will still find time to come and see me. I have expected you on several days but you did not come, though I understood from Austin that you would come. Your visits are precious because I know you are on Austin’s side and with many other people I am not sure what side they are on. This connects with what we spoke of when you were last here. I am sorry to be so sunk in my own concerns. I know I am not important except to myself and I suppose to Austin and Mavis but I am at a loss. I am sorry this letter which was meant to be very short is getting incoherent. I just meant to say that I value you because of Austin and because you are a good person and have been a good friend to me. Please continue to visit me now and then if you can find time. I am rather depressed. With my very best wishes to you and Gracie,

  ever

  Dorina

  Dear Leferrier,

  I believe I may be the first to bring you the glad news, since the Master’s letter won’t get into the post till tomorrow, that you have (of course) been elected to the fellowship in ancient history. We immensely look forward to you and are in a fever lest you may have changed your mind about us! I personally tremendously enjoyed our arguments. The school of Lit. Hum. is, as you know, trinitarian in form, its pillars being in this case yours truly, as the Greek and Latin language hand, MacMurraghue, whom you didn’t meet, as the philosopher, and now yourself as the ancient history merchant. MacMurraghue is incomprehensible and distinguished. Our joint pupils will be lucky men. Our common room though not quite a small Athenian state, is a gay enough place. May I say how glad I and MacMurraghue (and also the Master who I fear designs you to be Dean!) are that you are a single man. There are too few merry bachelor dogs left among us young Turks. I did enjoy getting drunk with you on that second evening and I shall take pleasure in returning to the charge about your heresy concerning the De Rerum Matura and the Delphic Oracle! And I hope you have forgiven me for describing your interest in Aristophanes as limited to his value as a source of information about the price of sausages! In anticipation, in short, of larx, this being I fear not the sort of solemn letter you may have expected to receive from a prospective colleague and an Oxford dignitary,

  I nevertheless sign myself,

  Yours sincerely

  Andrew Hilton

  Fellow and tutor

  My dear Austin,

  I am sorry that I visited you so precipitately and so late on the evening of my arrival. My heart was full of you and I had to come to you directly, it could not have waited till the morning. Please forgive my rather abrupt appearance and departure. I have called twice since but got no reply, though I think Miss Ricardo was in on the second occasion. Your telephone appears to be out of order. May I suggest that we have lunch soon, somewhere quiet, perhaps my club? I think I should tell you this much of my plans. I am looking for a house and propose to settle here for good. I do not intend to hunt for old acquaintances and I shall not be calling at Valmorana. I have diplomatic cronies in London if I crave for company, which I do
not expect to do. But I very much want to see you. I found (this condenses a long story which I will tell you at more leisure) that it was impossible to settle elsewhere with any peace of mind while our old difficulties remained as an unresolved cloud upon the horizon. I do not presume to imagine that I can help you. But you can certainly help me. And if I speak in this context of fraternal affection these are not, as far as I am concerned, empty words.

  As ever,

  your devoted brother

  Matthew

  Dear Ludwig,

  I’m sorry we’ve kept missing each other. I hope you got the note which I left on the door of the flat. I shall be back there on Friday. I’ve been in the East End job-hunting. I want to find something straightforward to do for other people. I can’t express to you how sick I got of philosophy, much more so than when we last talked. I said then it was rubbish. I think now it is muck. More of this when we meet. I haven’t said, and I say now, how good it is that you are marrying Gracie Tisbourne. Good for her, since she is getting a first class chap, and good for you since you are getting what you want. I wish you happiness, and the things which are more important than happiness. You know what they are. About my father: I cannot think very highly of Miss Ricardo as a companion for him, but I am glad that he is where you are. My intuitions about him and you at Cambridge, Mass, were just ones. Do stay by him. At present I can do nothing for him, except keep clear of him and also of Dorina and Uncle Matthew. In families people are often automatically gifted with an ability to cause awful pain by moves which are innocent in themselves. I don’t know how much you have studied, and if so understood, our curious scene. Anyway, stick to Dorina whatever happens as well as to father. She is probably best at Valmorana for the moment and so long as you go there father will feel easier about her. Excuse all this family rot. When we meet let us talk about quite other things.

  Yours

  Garth

  My little bird,

  How is it with you? I think about you constantly. I will send Ludwig over with some flowers. When you have the flowers, will you please send one back to me the way you used to? Your husband is still a sentimental old silly where you are concerned. I miss you horribly day and night. You know I told you in that note about having chucked up my job. Well, I think I will stay on a little longer in the Ricardo lodging house so as to get some money by letting the flat while I look for a better job. Mitzi is a blousy old whore but kindly and lets me have the room cheap. I believe she is having some sort of romance with her photographer. As I expect you have heard Matthew has turned up again. He came round late one evening, rather hang-dog. I’m afraid I was somewhat brisk with him and indicated in the politest possible way that he should keep clear of my affairs. I rely on you to support me in this. (Please, Dorina. Important.) I haven’t seen him since but he has written me a hypocritical letter, wherein he says incidentally that he would rather hobnob with ‘diplomatic cronies’ than be seen dead with ‘old acquaintances’! (That might interest Mavis.) I fear he has become quite incurably grand and will not be met with in our little world any more.

  About us, it may be better at the moment to continue things as they are. I feel you are resting at Valmorana and you are safe there. If the Tisbournes suggest your going to their place, for God’s sake don’t go, they are prying peepers and first class trouble-makers. George very kindly announced he would find me a job! I told him to go to hell. Rest well, dear child, and become better in your heart and your soul. Quietness will make you feel whole again and will dispel those anxieties which made us both so naughty. Then you will come back to your tiresome old husband who loves you — who loves his dearest little bird so much. Let me know, as always, how your days go, what you do. I so much want to know that, to be able to picture you.

  Ever, ever, ever,

  Austin

  Dearest Patrick,

  grandma’s funeral was a riot, I wish you’d been there. The graveyard bit was gloomy of course and I found myself shedding tears. Poor old thing, she never had much fun. Aunt Charlotte cried and mama patted her face (her own face not Aunt Char’s) with a black hankie. Papa wept a bit, would you believe it, I was quite shaken. He is very sensible. (The French word.) He never got on with grandma of course, but he took it all in a literary sense. He was talking about mortality and so on in the car, the brevity of life and all that. That was in the car going. In the car coming back he was enormously cheerful, as indeed we all were. Aunt Char looked twenty years younger. Mama was chattering about the Spode dinner service and the Georgian silver. Then everyone came back to our house and there was a sort of party. Sir Charles had come. (I cannot get used to his elevation.) (We were spared Hester, Sebastian and your beloved.) And a lot of rather chic people I didn’t know, and some of the linen people from Ulster, only they sheered off when they saw the drink! You see, everyone stood around for a while trying to be solemn, and then we heard a burst of gay laughter from the kitchen where papa and Sir Charles had opened a bottle of champagne. Then we all converged on the kitchen and there were drinks all round, and people were sitting on the kitchen table and draped round the hall and stairs with glasses in their hands and corks were popping, it was quite a wake. Ludwig was there of course and he obviously rather disapproved, but he had a drink to please me and then cheered up. Yes, of course he is too good for me, and I thank heaven fasting. He will be a good husband — dread word — you see how old I have become that I can even utter it. He is clever and wise and sweet, and if he is solemn his other half will provide the laughs. I am glad, chicken, that you are jealous! But fear not for our alliance, that is eternal, and a brother is forever. Oh dear, Ludwig wants me to write to his parents and I don’t know how. I suspect they are difficult, (religious!), so unlike our dear parents whom you were so idly knocking. Ours have, so far as I know, never prevented either of us from doing anything that we wanted ever, which is not bad for aged Ps. As for your curiosity about what Lud and I are doing, you must reck your own rede and be contained! Best of luck with Ralph Odmore whom I always think of (sorry, lover boy) as a grubby urchin. But of course he’s huge now. I suspect he’s cleverer than Sebastian. Only I can’t help hoping your being hooked on your own sex is just a phase, and you aren’t going to be like Oliver, I think the other sex is always more fun. Write soon. Much love, little one. Your matronly sister,

  G.

  Yes, about the aged Ps not getting imbrued in the Gibson Grey mess. As I think ma told you telephone-wise, Matthew is back. There’s another man I want in my net! I’m told he’s got fat, though.

  Dearest Clara,

  I was glad and sad to hear of Gracie’s engagement. Our age-old plan for our young had something too-good-to-be-true about it, hadn’t it? I think, probably from some time ago, they had both deeply decided otherwise, and I daresay they are being sensible and it serves middle-aged dreamers right! As Charles is always telling me, one shouldn’t dream too much about other people’s destinies, even if they are one’s children. I hope Gracie will be very very happy and I look forward to meeting the boy.

  I am told Matthew Gibson Grey is in England. Is this true? Do you know his address? Charles is very keen to get hold of him about some government thing, to serve on a comission or something. I thought he was going to join a religious order in the east? I suppose that was just a legend. Matthew is the sort of person who generates legends. Poor Austin can’t be too pleased. Even if the old story about Betty isn’t true, Austin can hardly want Big Brother as a spectator of his current catastrophes. But perhaps Matthew is only passing by? Will we see you at the Mill House this weekend? Mollie says she has invited Penny Sayce again but not Oliver and Henrietta! (Apparently Geoffrey cannot stand Oliver.) We count on you for the weekend following, of course. Charles sends love. He did enjoy himself at the funeral!

  Au revoir and love

  Hester

  I gather Garth Gibson Grey is home too and has become a drop-out. I’m so terrified Ralph will be one. Thank heavens he and Patrick are pals now. Patric
k will be such a steadying influence.

  My dear Charlotte,

  I should have written to you much sooner to say how sorry I was to hear of your mother’s death. These are not empty words, and it is not just that in every death we mourn our own. I saw little of her lately, but I recall with gratitude her vigour and directness in the days when she used to help me financially with my girls. Her charity was always judicious. I only wish I could have recruited her as a fellow worker. She came of a good breed, and it is only sad that so much energy and character had to be confined to the narrow field of family life. What a general she would have made!

  On another topic. I am so worried about Dorina. Clara has invited her. She won’t go. (You know why.) I think indeed she cannot go to Clara’s, but she does desperately need to see somebody other than me. In a way I am the last person who can help her at present. She is fond of you and respects you. Will you not come and see us, especially now that you are more free? Ring up soon about this. Only don’t tell D. I asked you to come!

  I hope it’s in place to add that I am so glad that you will now be in easier financial circumstances! One does like to see the big money going, for once, to those who deserve it and are one’s friends! Forgive this faintly cynical note, which issues, as you know, from affection! Come soon. With love,

  Mavis

  PS Is it true that Matthew has come home? Could you let me know if you hear anything about him?

  My dear father,

  I grieve deeply at the pain which I am causing to you and to my mother, and I beg you to forgive me and to try to understand. This is not anything hasty and surely you know me well enough to realize that ‘the pleasantness and ease’ of England is not something which could tempt me away from my duty if I thought that it lay elsewhere. I cannot be an active partner in an iniquitous proceeding. That this war is an unjust war and a crime I have many times argued to you and I will not rehearse the arguments. We see this differently. All right. But granted that I believe what I do believe, I cannot be morally justified in donning the American uniform. I should regard myself with abhorrence, as a murderer, if I were to let conventional attitudes or public opinion or even my love for you lead me to be a slaughterer of the innocent. If ever I saw my duty plain before my face it is here, and I cannot do otherwise than refuse this summons into a place of wickedness.