A Word Child

by Iris Murdoch

  The door bell rang. I listened to it thoughtfully. It went on ringing. I began to get up. It was difficult. I got to my knees, to my feet, and stepped over Jimbo. I felt all right, rather well really, only a little odd spatially. My jacket had disappeared and my shirt was open and hanging out of my trousers. My mind functioned. The bell was ringing again. I opened the door. It was Freddie Impiatt.

  By this time I was fairly in control of myself. I stood there looking at Freddie and pushing my shirt in. Freddie was red-faced and hatless. He said in a tense choking voice, ‘Is Laura here?’

  I reflected. She had better not be. I said, ‘No. Sorry.’

  ‘I’ve been here before, I kept ringing the bell only no one answered. I could see the light was on. I don’t know where she is.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I believe she’s here. I’m coming in.’ He put a foot through the door.

  ‘Sorry, Freddie, not now. The boys have freaked out. I can’t. Anyway it’s the middle of the night. It is the middle of the night, isn’t it, it’s not the day? I mean it’s not one o’clock in the afternoon, is it?’ I began to push Freddie’s foot with my foot. My foot pushed harder. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. I managed to shut the door.

  I started to look round for the telephone so as to ring the speaking clock to find out if it was day or night, only the telephone seemed to have disappeared. Somebody loomed up. It was Jimbo. I held onto him.

  ‘Are you all right, Hilary?’

  ‘Yes, are you?’

  ‘I didn’t take anything, I was just asleep. Don’t be cross.’

  ‘That was Freddie looking for Laura. I told him she wasn’t here. I didn’t want him to come in and see this.’

  Christopher was still lying on his back with his mouth open. Laura had shifted, turning on her side, her head now resting on a cushion up against his shoulder, her bare arm extended across his chest. They were both slumbering reposefully, deeply.

  ‘We’d better try to wake her up,’ said Jimbo. ‘Come on now, wake up, time to go home.’

  We pulled her into a sitting position and pushed her arm back into her sleeve and buttoned up her dress. She was heavy and floppy and warm. She opened her eyes, still smiling, and rose quite steadily, holding onto Jimbo’s hand.

  I said to her, ‘It’s late, Laura, off you go. Freddie was here looking for you. I said you weren’t here, but you were. Take her home in a taxi, will you, Jimbo?’

  I went into my bedroom. The light was still turned on. I lay down on the bed. I heard Jimbo talking to Laura, helping her on with her coat, leading her out of the front door. Of course it was night as everything was dark outside. I did not feel at all sleepy, just rather relaxed, and I lay back on my pillow and meditated. I had not been very intelligent with Freddie. Laura would presumably tell him the truth, which was not after all in any way discreditable, and all I had done was make something which was innocent look like something which was not. I had also prolonged poor Freddie’s anxiety about his wife. Yet surely it was also right to keep him out of that room. What a difficult situation and how naughty of the boys to drug us! I hoped that Freddie would understand.

  Then suddenly I remembered, first that there was something I ought to have done, and then what it was. I was to have gone to Crystal’s this evening to supervise Gunnar’s visit, and to go in to her immediately after it was over. This evening. But it was now nearly two o’clock in the morning. I sat up abruptly and put my feet on the floor. Crystal would have expected me, waited anxiously for me. Gunnar had been with her, and there had been no one to protect her. I stood up and held my head. I wanted to telephone, to run to her at once, but after a moment this seemed absurd. She would be asleep by now. I would go to her in the morning at breakfast time. I sat down again, filled with anxiety and pain. The sense of a ‘good dream,’ which had been with me, was fading and my ordinary consciousness, my ordinary misery, were reasserting their rights. I had failed to be there to look after Crystal, to watch over her. What could she have imagined, what feared, when I so shamefully failed to turn up? I had slept, I had dreamed, when I should have been standing sentinel against the enemy.

  I heard the quiet sound of Jimbo returning. He came and tapped on my door.

  ‘You took her home?’

  ‘Yes, he was waiting up. He was very glad to see her.’

  ‘Well, I hope that was all right.’

  As I spoke I was staring at a little rectangle of white upon my bedside table. I wondered what it was. It appeared to be a printed card. I picked it up, and read Neville Osmond, Educational Consultant. I stared at it uncomprehendingly.

  ‘Where on earth did this come from?’ I said to Jimbo.

  ‘He left it.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘Yes, the chap who came last night, he said he’d taught you at school.’

  Then it came back to me, a strange strange image of Mr Osmand as some kind of beast, peering closely into my face. Yet it seemed like a dream.

  ‘He came, he really came? But I saw him in a dream. He can’t have been here.’

  ‘You were under the influence. He tried to talk to you, he went down on his knees and looked at you. I said you were on a trip.’

  ‘What did I do? Did I talk?’

  ‘You giggled a lot and you recited some sort of gibberish.’

  ‘Oh Christ. Oh Christ —’

  ‘Sorry, Hilary — Look, it wasn’t my idea — ’

  ‘Did he leave an address, did he say he’d come back?’

  ‘No, he just left the card with his name on.’

  ‘Oh God. Go away, will you. Go away and turn the light out.’

  I lay there staring into the darkness. So, after all these years, Mr Osmand had managed to track down his prize pupil, his creation, his great achievement, Hilary Burde. What a proud moment.

  IT WAS Thursday morning. I was with Crystal before eight o’clock. She seemed quite surprised to see me.

  ‘Why, darling, hello, I didn’t expect you now.’

  ‘Why didn’t you expect me now? You expected me last night I suppose?’

  ‘Yes, but when you didn’t come I thought you’d been detained.’

  ‘Detained?’

  ‘We looked out every now and then — ’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Gunnar and I.’

  ‘You mean you told Gunnar — ?’

  ‘Yes, I told him you were going to walk up and down outside, only we looked out several times and you weren’t there and then I’m afraid we forgot.’

  ‘You forgot?’

  ‘Well, yes. Then when he went away — ’

  ‘What time did he go away?’

  ‘It must have been nearly midnight.’

  ‘You mean he was here from seven till midnight?’

  ‘Yes. I gave him supper. I didn’t expect him to stay so long. I had the supper here for you. But he ate it.’

  ‘He did, did he. What did you give him for supper?’

  ‘Fish fingers and peas and apricot tart. He liked it. He said he’d never had fish fingers before.’

  ‘God! Don’t you want to know why I didn’t turn up? I thought you’d be worried stiff.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The boys drugged me. They gave me a cake with some foul stuff in it.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, but I had a jolly weird evening. I didn’t come to till after midnight.’ I did not tell Crystal about Mr Osmand, it was too painful. It had certainly been a weird evening. What I remembered of it was not really like a dream, it was more like an experience, as if I had actually been taken somewhere and shown things, which I could not now recall quite clearly. I could see Mr Osmand as a beetle walking. I could remember the gentle good beast who was everything. But there had been something else which was important, a sort of mathematical equation or something, but what had it been?

  ‘Make some tea, will you, darling? What on earth was it like, what did Gunnar have to say, he didn’t sort of make advances to
you, did he?’

  ‘No, of course not! We talked.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Oh, about everything. About the past, about you, about his job, about what it was like living in New York, about a dog he’d had in New York, it was called Rosie, and this dog — ’

  ‘Stop, Crystal, stop, you’re driving me mad. You mean you and Gunnar sat here and ate fish fingers and talked in a quite ordinary way about quite ordinary things? I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Well, of course it wasn’t ordinary. It was very strange. I felt so frightened before he came I thought I’d faint. But he was so kind, so kind. After he’d been in the room a minute I felt better, oh so much better, and I feel better now — ’

  ‘And you chatted about his dog in New York.’

  ‘We talked about all sorts of things, it all felt quite easy. He wanted to know what we’d been doing since he last saw us.’

  ‘That must have made a glittering tale.’

  ‘And he asked all sorts of things about you.’

  ‘Such as what?’

  ‘Whether you’d been unhappy, whether you’d ever had psychoanalysis — ’

  ‘I hope you told him I hadn’t had that!’

  ‘Of course I did. He spoke of you so gently and kindly — ’

  ‘He was sorry for me, that was nice of him!’

  ‘Yes, it was, wasn’t it — and I said it was so kind of him to see you.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said it had done him good.’

  ‘Oh, Crystal, Crystal. You don’t understand, this is all dust and ashes. Give me that tea, for Christ’s sake. He just came to despise us, to despise you, to see our poverty and find out what a lousy life we’d had. He came to triumph over us.’

  ‘He said that you ought to be in a better job.’

  ‘He looked at this room, he looked at your dress. That’s not kindness, it’s revenge. You can’t think it’s kindness. If you do you’re bloody thick.’

  ‘It was kindness,’ said Crystal, ‘it was. You don’t know, you weren’t there. He was so gentle.’

  ‘And did he kiss your hand again?’

  ‘When he was going, yes.’

  ‘How touching. And when is he coming round again for a feast of fish fingers and apricot tart?’

  ‘Never,’ said Crystal composedly. I was drinking the tea and she was sitting opposite me, her hands folded upon the table. She was wearing a rather dirty overall over her dress. Her frizzy thick hair was strained back behind her ears, her face was big, greasy, defenceless, her moist lip pouting, her wide up-turned nose a little red. The room was cold. She took off her glasses revealing the weak peering golden eyes.

  ‘Never?’

  ‘We shall never meet again.’

  ‘He said so?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He thinks he’s God. Did he say anything about seeing me again?’

  ‘He said he might want to see you once more, but he’d have to think about it.’

  ‘How gracious of him.’

  ‘Hilary, I think we should leave London.’

  ‘Did he suggest that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Crystal, I shall have a fit.’

  ‘He said it in the nicest way, he was thinking of our welfare. He said he thought you should be able to get a job in a provincial university. We might start a new life somewhere. Exeter or Glasgow or somewhere.’

  ‘Crystal, darling, I know you aren’t very intelligent, but can’t you see the difference between kind concern and bloody impertinence?’

  ‘It wasn’t impertinence, it wasn’t, we were so open, he was so sincere, I’ve never talked like that, we were so frank, we said what we thought, we discussed everything, and it was needed, it was good, not just for him, but for me, he understood that so well, so wonderfully. I told him all about being in love with him, when I first felt it and — ’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was in love with Gunnar, I told you, how could I help it, he was so kind — I still love him— ’

  ‘Crystal — did he know — then?’

  ‘I told him — on that night — I would never have let him — otherwise — oh he knew — and he remembered — ’

  ‘How kind of him to remember. Crystal, you’re killing me.’

  ‘But I told you — ’

  ‘I didn’t take it in, not like that. Never mind. So you chatted about that memorable night and he thanked you and you thanked him and you said good-bye forever.’

  ‘Not just like that. You’re trying to make it all sound different from what it was. He was very upset, I mean he felt things, he came here to feel things, and it was a help to him to tell me, I know it was, and I was very glad, oh so glad, to help him — and now we’ve both helped him and — ’

  ‘Hail and farewell.’

  ‘How could we go on knowing him — ’

  ‘Christ, I don’t want to go on knowing him!’

  ‘It wouldn’t be possible. It’s much better to do what we can and say good-bye. We shall both feel much better, ever so much better, and perhaps it will change things, I feel already that things could change. Couldn’t we really leave London and live somewhere else and have a new life somewhere else? I’d so love to live in the country. I feel suddenly that it’s possible now, a new life, a better life — ’

  ‘Let’s go to Australia.’

  ‘Well, why not? I’d go anywhere with you — and I could work anywhere — ’

  ‘Crystal, you don’t know what you’re saying. It’s just as well I didn’t turn up last night. I might have killed him. I think I intended to.’

  ‘But why — oh why — when he was so kind — ’

  ‘Don’t use that word again or I shall scream.’

  ‘It has done good — it has done me good — seeing him — ’

  ‘You certainly seem very calm and pleased with yourself.’

  ‘I’m not calm,’ said Crystal, ‘I’m not calm at all.’ Huge tears came out of her eyes and spread all over her broad cheeks and continued to well up. ‘Do see him again,’ she said. ‘Do see him just once more and be kind to him, please do, just to make it perfect.’

  ‘It can never be perfect. He can never forgive me.’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ said Crystal. ‘What you must do is forgive him. That’s what will make it perfect. If you forgive him then there’ll be — a kind of open space — and he’ll be able — ’

  At that moment I recalled what the equation had been which had teemed to me last night to be so important, the secret of the universe. Forgiving equals being forgiven. Now in sober daylight it seemed just a piece of verbal nonsense.

  I drank my tea. Crystal went on crying.

  Once more I was on the Chelsea embankment at five o’clock for six. A little snow was falling in tiny pinpoint flakes which hovered about in the still air uncertain whether to go up or down.

  All day in the office I had felt fit to scream with joy and pain. I reclaimed some of my work from Arthur but could make nothing of it. Already it seemed incomprehensible rubbish. Had I ever understood and enjoyed all these intricate trivialities? Arthur and I rather avoided each other by mutual consent, and I was relieved when one of his junkies rang up and he went apologetically away. It looked as if after all I could not really pardon him for daring to chuck me out, and he could not really pardon me for insulting the woman he loved. Of course I was more to blame than he was but that was highly irrelevant. It appeared that this business of forgiving and being forgiven could be pretty tricky even in the best of cases.

  The office day was now interminable, but I managed to struggle through it without losing my mind. I was invited into the Registry by Jenny Searle to play desk-top football. Now that I was known to be going I had suddenly become quite a popular figure, in demand everywhere. Two men, whom I did not know at all, from distant divisions, even turned up to question me about Australia. I attempted to reflect on my future, but the object in question was a blank. It was kind of G
unnar to suggest that I might join the university at Exeter or at Glasgow, but even if I wanted to do this I knew that my chances of getting an academic post, at my age and with my record, were nil. Who would write me a testimonial? Gunnar? As Stitchworthy had observed long ago, I was not really a scholar. I had nothing but my little versatile grammatical talent, my kinship with words, and of that I had, in all these years, made precisely nothing.