by Iris Murdoch
‘Yes.’
‘Well, take up another two and moisten them with whisky —’
‘There isn’t any, he had it all.’
‘Then put a little water in the bottle and —’
‘I can’t,’ said Austin, ‘I can’t, I can’t, my mind’s gone blank.’
‘All right, just sit still.’
‘Suppose he wakes up and accuses me? Oh God, he is dead, isn’t he? Oh God, what am I to do —’
‘Keep quiet.’
Austin continued to sit on the stairs. He looked through the open door of Mitzi’s sitting-room into a sunny dusty haze. Matthew was grunting, moving up and down, his legs brushing against Austin’s shoulder.
‘Where are the brushes kept?’
‘There.’
‘I’m putting the file in here.’
‘Yes.’
‘Where can I burn things?’
‘Kitchen boiler.’
‘Where do you keep glasses?’
‘There.’
Something flashed over Austin’s head and shattered to pieces on the landing. ‘What was that?’
‘His glass.’
‘Why break another one?’
‘Only one glass broke. Couldn’t sort out one from two.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Austin, ‘oh I don’t understand —’
‘Get out of the way, would you,’ said Matthew.
‘You’ve broken one of Mitzi’s best cut-glass tumblers,’ said Austin. He walked towards the sunlight. He tripped over something. It was Norman’s arm.
‘You remember what happened.’ Matthew’s voice followed him out of the darkness. ‘You asked me to meet Norman, we discussed the novel, we decided nothing, we said we’d let him know, he was talking on the landing, he stepped back —’
‘Yes.’
‘We had the impression he was a little drunk when he arrived.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll do the talking.’
‘Yes.’
‘Austin —’
‘Yes.’
‘If the police suspect anything at all this story won’t stand up.’
‘You are Sir Matthew,’ said Austin. ‘They’ll believe you.’ He went over to the cupboard where Mitzi kept the drink.
Matthew was on the telephone. ‘There has been a serious accident —’
There was a little gin. Austin drank it from the bottle. He sat down and a hazy dead feeling came over him. He had no worries, he had no responsibilities, he was being looked after. He laid his head back in the chair and went straight off to sleep.
My dear Oliver,
please forgive us, but after careful thought we feel that Kierkegaard is not for us. Such a distinguished vehicle deserves a connoisseur, and we are rather dull people, we have decided, probably mere ‘family car’ owners. We terribly enjoyed the ‘spin’ and we thought Kierkegaard did very well. Blowing a gasket is something which might happen to anybody. (I am not sure what a gasket is, but I understand this to be the case.) And it was just bad luck about that policeman. We got home all right, and were glad to hear that you did too. No, you certainly cannot pay for the hire of the automobile. We enjoyed the day very much in spite of the tiny mishaps. We look forward to seeing you on Thursday at the Odmores’ party. With all our thanks to you and best wishes from us both,
Yours
Ludwig
PS I am so glad to hear that your little sister is to be our second bridesmaid! I do look forward to meeting her.
Dear Patrick,
don’t you think that you are behaving rather childishly? There is no need to shun me like a leper just because I don’t belong to the brotherhood. The way you are avoiding me is becoming, I feel, conspicuous. I hope you don’t think my letter to you was offensive or priggish or pi. It wasn’t intended to be. I just felt it kinder to make things clear. Also, and in general, I think it is foolish of you to embark upon a path which seems to guarantee a lifetime of misery. Meanwhile, I confess that I miss our discussions on history and philosophy. Perhaps after this salutary interval of clarification we might, if you still feel inclined to, resume them?
Yours
Ralph
My dear Karen,
I don’t seem to have heard from you for some time. Don’t think I’m complaining, I just notice a gap in my post. Also, my spies tell me that you are going off with Richard Pargeter on his yacht. Is that wise? I should have thought Richard was a dead end for any girl. However, I am, as you know, old-fashioned. Isn’t it about time you bought me another meal? Will you be at the party? I met your mother in Sloane Street and promised to visit the boutique. Perhaps you would support me. I may ring up. Excuse the above frankness of your old friend and well-wisher
Sebastian
Dearest bro,
I’ve been in such a tizzy, going to Oxford and that, please forgive neglect. The flat at Oxford is sweet, so cosy and ordinary, it makes me happy in a special new way. I think loving Ludwig is improving me morally. Is this possible? By the way, there’s been another jolly disaster, or has ma already told you. The father of that little girl that Austin killed fell down the stairs at Austin’s place after getting drunk discussing a novel he’d written with Austin and Matthew and managed to break his skull and is still in a coma. There’s potted history for you.
What news of the Ralph biz? By the way, I have got the answer to your question about Ralph’s heart condition. It appears that Ralph loves Ann Colindale who loves Richard Pargeter who (currently, he never does anything for long) loves Karen who (although she denies it) loves Sebastian who loves me who loves Ludwig who loves me. So that’s that situation tied up.
Other news in brief. Ludwig has moved to the Villa and I am over there all the time now so I see a lot of Matthew. He asked after you. Sebastian says Ralph has permish to come up to the Odmores’ party. I suppose you can’t make it? The parents are well. They are still trying to get their hooks on to poor old Dorina. They also plan to cruise to the Greek islands with R. Pargeter. You are not included since you are understood to disapprove of him. I enclose a cheque.
Your loving sister
G.
PS. I have decided to have a second bridesmaid, little Henrietta Sayce. She and Karen will look so pretty together, with the same dresses, one big and one little.
Dear Mrs Monkley,
may I on behalf of my brother and myself express our profound sympathy with you in respect of your husband’s recent accident. As I am sure you appreciate, everything possible has been done for him. My brother and I did what we could at the time, and the doctors in charge of the case are as competent as can be. I have arranged for him to have a private room and extra nursing care. I gather he is still unconscious and it is as yet too early to know what will happen and whether serious brain damage has been sustained. We must all, in our various ways, hope for the best. We were glad to hear of your release from hospital, and Miss Argyll (who also sends her condolences) and myself will hope to wait upon you in the near future. With deepest sympathy and sincere good wishes,
Yours sincerely
Matthew Gibson Grey
My darling Mavis,
thank you for your careful letter (which I have destroyed) about the matter I spoke to you of. I think we had both better now, in a sense, try to forget this. What has happened and what has been done, rightly or amiss, has been done and will have whatever consequences it will have. Let us meanwhile bury it in decent silence.
With Valmorana and the Villa both impossible we are like the babes in the wood, are we not, my dear. I suggest National Gallery tomorrow, British Museum on Tuesday and Wallace Collection on Wednesday! It is not satisfactory, but at least it is temporary. August will dispose of Gracie, who now treats this house as her own, which indeed it is. And meanwhile: can you not persuade Dorina to go to the Tisbournes, who are so anxious to have her? Clara says Richard Pargeter would be very willing to take Dorina along on this yacht cruise which they seem to be contemplating. Quite apart fro
m our interests, I think this change would do Dorina a world of good.
Mavis, you have asked me to live in the present and I am (especially in view of what I spoke of at the beginning of this letter) prepared to do so for the moment. But one day I shall again think of the future, and think of it as inseparable from you. A habit of unhappiness may be hard to break. But we are not too old to break it. Nor is it too late to think extravagant and beautiful thoughts. I love you. Let us be ambitious for ourselves. I kiss your hands. Tomorrow.
Matthew
My darling husband,
I was so terribly sorry to hear of the accident to poor Mr Monkley. How unfortunate, and how unhappy it must have made you that it should have happened in your house and just when you were so kindly trying to help him. I am so sorry.
Mavis wants me to go to the Tisbournes. They are going to go on some sort of cruise, I am not quite sure when, and want me to come too. Mavis is very kind and doesn’t press it but I know she wants me to go. I do not want to go. The idea of the ‘cruise’ fills me with horror and the Tisbournes being so sympathetic to me the whole time reduces me to whimpering. Sorry I cannot express this, I am very unhappy. I know it is all my stupidity and my fault. Austin, can we not find a solution for ourselves, this endless dependence on other people is so bad, oh I know, I know, that it is my weakness that has made us so. From where can strength come? How I wish we could go away together, you and I, though I know we have no money and I am so unable to deal with the world. Oh what can we do? Dear husband, I think of you so much, especially in the night time, and pray to you in my thoughts, for you are all that I have. There is no God, but I pray to you and lodge there in the thought of you all the good that I know or dream of.
Austin, will you come to see me here? I, we, have put this off for reasons which we both understand. You have hoped for better fortune, a new job, getting the flat back and so on, and I have hoped — for a calmer mind. But maybe we are wrong to wait, and cannot without somehow coming together attain any of these goals. I have thought a lot about this. I do not want to displease you. If you would like to see me please come. Telephone first. But if you would rather wait a little longer I am happy to wait too. I am happy always in your will. Apart or together, I am a place of safety for you. You know that. Ever your patient and loving wife
Dorina
My dearest son,
your father has suggested that I should write to you so that you can be sure that he and I are of one mind in this matter. I am not very good at this sort of letter and I did not earlier write because the discussion was between yourself and your father, you understand. Dear Ludwig, I cannot express to you how much we miss you. To say that I think of my dear son every day says little. I think of him every minute and remember what times in our day and night are his bed times and his getting up times, and every night and indeed always in my thoughts I pray for him that he may be protected and guided to do the right. So it is. Ludwig, we have had such a nice letter from Miss Tisbourne. Please thank her from us both. I think we cannot write to her, it is too hard to write. She seems good-hearted though rather a young child, it seemed to us. We still hope and trust that you will put off this marriage which seems to us, with your general position in so much doubt, to be not well thought of. A marriage is forever, as I am sure you feel this as we do, and it may be that this very young lady, though so charming, is not the strong and spiritual stay which you, which any man, has need of upon that long road. Please consider this carefully, Ludwig. And do not think that we are just prejudiced and unable to understand the ‘tone’ of a society which might seem to us, as perhaps it does to you, a little ‘grand’ or even worldly.
About the other matter I do beg you to come home and sort it out. How can you go on to your work at Oxford with this hanging over your head? At least come home and face it and do so before making any more plans to get married. Mr Livingstone tells us that you can now plead objections to war on general moral grounds which need not be actually religious. You speak of being ‘honest all the way through’. Dear son, it does not seem to us that you are being honest all the way through if you seek all the advantages and shirk all the unhappy consequences of the position which you have taken up. If you wish to bear witness this cannot be done by running away but only by ‘facing the music’. Your father and I have talked this over again and again and again, among ourselves and with Mr Livingstone. You know that we do not wish you to be in trouble. But neither do we wish you to seem and perhaps to be a coward. And if you do not come back now you will be in very much greater trouble later on. Even leaving aside the concern which I know you have for our feelings, surely you cannot sincerely believe, at your young age, that you will never want to set foot in the United States in your life again. We so much fear that you will suddenly decide to come later when it will all have such terrible consequences. And who knows what will happen in Europe? Oh, Ludwig, come back. Now and only now can all be put right. Mr Livingstone is sure that it can all somehow be arranged for the best and we can see about it when we can talk to you properly ourselves and see your dear face. Please reply soon and say that you will come. Time is very pressing in your situation. And please, surely this is simple and reasonable, at least postpone your wedding. That cannot be difficult. Write soon, my dearest son, and relieve the anxious loving mind of your devoted mother
R.F.
We were surprised to hear that the college authorities approved. Can they really have understood the situation?
My dear Ludwig,
thank you for the excellent stuff on Aristophanes, it’s just right. How modest you are! With you doing the history and me doing the poetry we shall be able to put Big A. on the Oxford map as he hasn’t been for ages. We shall have fun next year and I can’t tell you how much I look forward to it. I hope you will be down at the weekend as suggested? There is a big auction sale of self-styled antiques and you and Gracie might pick up one or two things for the flat. By the way, I think your lovely fiancée has made a conquest (I mean other than of the undersigned — and of the Master!). Going down to the room of the brutish MacMurraghue to borrow a trifle of sherry I saw on the table his form for next term’s lectures decorated as follows: ‘Gracie is and ought only to be the slave of the passions.’ Make what you can of that! But fear not, McM, though a philosopher, is a gentleman. Oh what fun we shall have! See you on Sat. I hope.
Yrs
Andrew
My dear Charlotte,
I am sorry not to have replied sooner to your charming letter, and very sorry not to have seen you. Wherever were you hiding at that party? Let us indeed meet. Only it cannot be for a little while as I shall probably be out of London. I have to go to Cambridge to see a man at the Fitzwilliam about the possibility of putting my collection of Chinese porcelain on permanent exhibition there. And I have other calls to make. It is remarkable how busy one can be when one is allegedly ‘retired’! However we must definitely meet before long and talk about old times. When I am back in London and the timetable looks a little less horribly full I shall give myself the treat of a quiet luncheon with you. So I will get in touch with you later if I may. Meanwhile my very best wishes to you and au revoir.
Yours
Matthew
My dear Ludwig,
I’m sorry I haven’t seen you. I’ve been, in what seems a rather ineffectual way, very busy. This Mission, which used to be a Christian Mission to Seamen, is now (and no doubt more valuably) scarcely more nor less than an old clothes shop. You would be surprised how many people, especially children, are ill-clad in our Welfare State. However I’m not writing about this. I shall be moving soon anyway to a housing thing at Notting Hill. Do persuade Gracie or someone to go to see Charlotte. I gather she’s still all alone in my father’s flat. Women like Charlotte are crazier than you think. It’s no good my going. She’d think I was pitying her. (Rightly.) Also: she should be got out of the flat soon so that my father can have somewhere to take Dorina. These little mechanical details are often i
mportant. Here, money helps. Matthew and Gracie both have that. Can’t they for Christ’s bloody sake use it intelligently? Or why can’t Charlotte go on this cruise everyone seems to be going on? Sorry to bother you with such drearinesses. I hear you are living with Matthew, which some would think enviable. Excuse a rather non-theoretical letter. I am becoming a rather non-theoretical sort of chap. See you.
Garth
My dear Matthew,
I am sorry to reply so soon to your charming letter, thereby putting you once again in the position of owing me one. I appreciate, and indeed hear on all sides, how extremely busy you are and how beset by urgent and pressing engagements. Naturally you are much in demand. You are quite a public figure, and must have a very different sense of your day from home-keeping small fry who idly pass their solitary hours. I do not want to waste your time. Our chat about the old days can doubtless be postponed indefinitely without too much chagrin. There is not all that much pleasure in talking about the past, even with someone one is fond of. The future, as the poet observed in his cups, is the only ‘serious matter’. Lucky are they who can still boast of one. I write to repeat, tediously perhaps, that I would like to see you. And also to say that I have got some information, or perhaps I should call it a theory, which I should like some time to impart to you. I think it might interest you very much.
Regards.
Charlotte
Dearest Sis,
for heaven’s sake do not put it around that I disapprove of R. Pargeter! How could such a ridiculous idea gain currency? How can one disapprove of a man with a yacht and a plan to visit the Greek islands? Will you now kindly insinuate in all quarters your brother’s profound respect for the misunderstood Pargeter, together with your brother’s seafaring expertise, handiness with ropes, helpful knowledge of the classics, and all that? The Ralph biz cooketh. I will tell you later. (I am still very unhappy.) Thanks for the data re A. Colindale beloved by R. Odmore. I suspected this actually. Thank God she is not fancy free but loves the excellent Pargeter, that sound man. Don’t say anything stupid to Ralph, will you, if you see him at that thrash. I may even illicitly come myself. Thanks for the cheque, but when I said money I meant MONEY. Kindly forward fifty pounds. What rotten luck for the Monkley fellow. It shows one shouldn’t associate with Austin. Give my love to Matthew. Does he really remember me? He is an old crook in a way but he’s a bit larger than the usual pattern in our rotten circle. Are you keeping yourself pure? I mean spiritually of course.