A Word Child

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘What?’

  ‘I never knew who my father was. Did your father ever visit the north of England?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Did he ever go to ————?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What did he do? I mean did he do anything besides being a lord or whatever?’

  ‘Yes, he was an engineer, an inventor. He invented all sorts of big engines — he used to visit, oh, iron foundries and — ’

  ‘There is an iron foundry at ———.’

  ‘Hilary, you aren’t suggesting — ’

  ‘No, no, of course not, not seriously. How could your father have met my mother, it’s inconceivable. It’s just that if, as well as everything else, we turned out to be brother and sister it would somehow — well, it really would be the Taj Mahal!’

  ‘Hilary, please stop laughing.’

  ‘Dearest Kitty, I can’t do it, you know I can’t. Objectively it would be a terrible crime against Gunnar, and even if we got away with the consequences, which we wouldn’t, I should be driven mad by the crime. I’ve done enough to him without fucking his second wife, even with the highest motives!’ But as I said this I could not help thinking how wonderful it would be and hang the motives. In any case, ought I to take Kitty’s idea seriously, ought I to? How does ‘ought’ work in such outlandish regions? She was leading me far, ought I not to go far, to risk the crime and the madness after all?

  ‘Please try to understand — ’

  ‘You couldn’t stand it either. Your emotions about it would wreck you. You’d confess it to him in the end.’

  ‘This would be something absolutely special, not like anything anyone else could ever do or think of. It is only possible because of you, only possible between you and me. I couldn’t ask this mad thing of anyone else. If you don’t help me, help us, nobody can.’

  ‘Oh I know. I’m the dedicated one, the anointed one, the sacrificial victim if you like. But I doubt if these high conceptions would impress Gunnar if he were to find out.’

  ‘But he wouldn’t find out, he couldn’t, this idea would never occur to Gunnar in his wildest dreams, that you should be the father. Just think of it! So we would be quite safe.’

  ‘Oh Kitty, darling sweet, you are living in a fantasy world.’ And I am living there with you, and please please let it last just a little longer.

  ‘Don’t decide yet,’ she said. She was looking at me with a fierce hardened desperate face which I had not seen before. I took her hand again, holding onto her as if in a whirlwind. I could feel that a sense of time had returned to us both, time as terror, time as death. Kitty looked quickly at her watch.

  ‘Must you go?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  We stared huge-eyed at each other. The lightness, the joy, even the craziness, were gone. I felt the chill touch of an inevitable doom: nothing dramatic, only the slow blundering crushing force of the many circumstances which every day announce impossibilities in human lives.

  ‘Hilary, don’t say anything final. Just think, will you, about both the things I’ve said, both the plans. It’s all so difficult and complicated, we can’t decide anything quickly, we’ll have to think, and meet again, and — ’

  ‘Yes, of course, whatever — yes, yes, we must think and meet again — But Kitty, darling heart, you do see, don’t you, that your two plans are incompatible? This piece of logic had only just that moment become clear to me.

  ‘Incompatible?’

  ‘Yes. We can’t do both these things. Perhaps we can’t do either, but we certainly can’t do both.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Kitty, see it, think. If I were to become your lover, for whatever high and holy and Gunnar-directed a purpose, how could I then meet him as a friend? How could I come to your house, as you so charmingly envisage, if I had that secret under my belt? It would be impossible, I should detest myself and — no. If we are to meet all three together as friends, I cannot be your lover — and surely you didn’t imagine this as any part of your first plan — no, no. But if I were to try to give you and Gunnar a child then I must vanish forever from your lives when the thing is done.’

  Kitty looked away from me, looked down, shifted her boots around in the pool of melted snow which they had made upon the floor. The sun was still shining outside, we were still alone in the bright dim snow-lit cave within.

  She said nothing. I felt that she was going to cry.

  I said quickly, in an attempt to bring the craziness to our rescue, ‘Of course, it would be a marvellous finale, wouldn’t it? Like the end of Hassan.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Never mind. But it does look as if, my dear dear love, you will have to choose, we will have to choose, between, well, everything for a short time and very little for a long time, whether to live dully or die gloriously. Not that I admit that either plan is feasible, I don’t know what to think, I don’t know what I want — Oh Christ, oh my dear, how mad, what madness encompasses us! You say that because Gunnar couldn’t conceive of anything so wild we’d be safe. You mean you’d be safe. I would have vanished for ever, I would have had to. How long do you think it would take me to make you pregnant? How long would you let me make love to you if you didn’t become so? Seven times? Seventy times seven?’

  ‘Hilary, don’t. We mustn’t see it as madness. I don’t think I agree with you anyway. I’m sure there’s some way — ’

  ‘To have everything? No.’

  ‘I don’t know either what I think. Only don’t suddenly decide against us.’

  ‘Against us? Against whom? You and me? You and me and Gunnar? You and Gunnar and baby? You’re looking at your watch again.’

  ‘Hilary, I’ve got to go. I have to be back for luncheon.’

  ‘Who’s coming to “luncheon”?’

  ‘Oh, some Liberal M.P.’

  ‘What’s to eat?’

  ‘Oh curry — ’

  ‘I suppose you have curry every day. All right, my dear, off you go. Mustn’t keep the bigwigs waiting, must you?’

  ‘Please try to — ’

  We stood up. Then suddenly we grabbed each other, rushing together as if our bodies and our souls would join, trying desperately to overcome the awkwardness of two clumsy overdressed material objects. Kitty’s fur hood fell off onto the floor. I felt her boot jar against my trouser leg. I was trying to open my overcoat and feel her breasts and get an arm well round the mink coat all at the same time. Our cheek-bones ground together, her hair slid across my mouth. I drew her very close up against me and kissed her and felt her answering kiss, as if her lips were burning. Then I felt her withdraw, saw her hand swoop to pick up the fur hood, saw her reddened fingers trembling as she did up the buttons of her coat.

  ‘Oh Kitty, I do love you. Forgive me, forgive me — ’

  ‘I love you too. I can’t not.’

  ‘Kitty, let’s not lose each other, if only we can somehow not lose each other — ’

  ‘We mustn’t. Look, we needn’t do anything in a hurry, we shouldn’t, let’s think — ’

  ‘When can I see you again?’

  ‘Come — come to the boat jetty on Tuesday at six.’

  ‘I’ll be there. Go now, darling, darling — ’

  She was gone. I stood there for some time, my heart pounding, my breath coming in little gasps, my flesh shuddering in a plucked torment of desire. The sun, shining in through the door of the pavilion, was making the damp floor steam gently, and now I could hear the melting snow trickling off the roof in a steady stream. Some water had found its way down the wall and had soaked the back of my coat without my noticing. I put my cap on and twitched my shoulders against the dampness. I was just then desiring Kitty so fiercely that it really seemed that her ‘final solution’ would be worth anything, the best of all. To possess her utterly, and then to go, to die. That would be, somewhere in one’s life, a piece of perfection.

  And yet, a little later, as I walked slowly out into the stony garden a
nd looked away past the fountains where the jagged white ice had become soft and wet and grey, towards the dazzling blue arcade of the sky above the lake, it came to me: of course after all the difficulty was a very much more difficult difficulty than we had either of us yet made out. There were not two possibilities, there were four. I could become Kitty’s lover and vanish, I could become her and Gunnar’s friend and stay — or I could become Kitty’s lover and continue to visit Gunnar’s house. A secret life with her, a public life with both. Such things could be. Was that perhaps what she herself would want in the end? Or the fourth possibility was total vanish, now. Nothing more. No more meetings, no more ‘thinking what to do’. No more Kitty, no more Gunnar, nothing. Had I not, as I told her, done my work? Was it not all over? That was the last choice. And as I looked at the vibrating sky and the sparkling water I began to have a terrible little idea somewhere in my mind that I would soon know pretty clearly which of these choices was the right one.

  ‘Where’s Christopher?’ said Tommy.

  I had found her waiting, wrapped up in a tartan cape, outside my door when, after a long time, I returned to my flat.

  ‘He’s left me.’

  ‘I thought at least he’d be here to let me in. I’ve been freezing to death out here.’

  ‘They’ve turned the heating down again.’

  I opened the door and let her into the flat. It was not much warmer inside.

  ‘Have you had lunch?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. I had had half a sandwich in a pub where I had continued my ruminations.

  ‘Well, I haven’t. Do you mind if I eat something?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  She went into the kitchen and began fumbling noisily among the tins in the cupboard. I stood for a while staring into my bedroom. Then I came and sat at the kitchen table. Tommy had made some toast and had opened a tin of spaghetti and tomato sauce and was heating it up.

  ‘Will you have any?’

  ‘No, thanks. Well, yes I’ll have a little.’

  ‘Is there anything to drink?’

  ‘There’s half a bottle of Spanish burgundy, unless Christopher took it.’

  I ate a little of the spaghetti and drank a glass of wine. Tommy, in silence, made a more extensive meal. It did not take long however.

  ‘I’m sorry you came,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s no good, you know.’ It suddenly struck me as comic, and I had an impulse to tell Tommy, that I was now being badgered by three childless women in their thirties, two wanting me to present them with a child, the other wanting me to sanction her marriage. Child-hunger seemed to be the thing just now.

  ‘However, I’m glad to see you,’ I said. It was true. Tommy was the accustomed. She was a dear girl, and today she was looking especially fetching in her silly little way. She was wearing a long blue and green kilt and one of the long brown jerseys and an insipid Scottish silver ornament in the shape of a sword. She had on, and had evidently forgotten, a ridiculous little blue woollen hat like a night-cap, standing straight up on her head, with a long tassel hanging down her back. Her brown suede boots were much darkened by the wet. Our muddy footprints covered the kitchen floor. Tommy was now trying to erase them with a piece of newspaper. Yes, Tommy was a dear. If I were going to choose desolation she could be, at least, a crumb of comfort. But was I going to choose desolation, could I ?

  ‘Are you?’ said Tommy. ‘Thanks.’ She was staring at me, her eyes screwed up in a peculiar way, the corners of her mouth turned down.

  ‘Cheer up, Thomas. Have some more wine. It’s a mad world, Thomas.’

  ‘I’ve come to tell you various things,’ she said.

  ‘Carry on. I hope they’re amusing and nice. I could do with some amusing and nice things in my life.’

  ‘I don’t know whether you’ll think them nice. Perhaps you will. I’m giving up my job at King’s Lynn.’

  ‘Are you? Why am I supposed to be interested? I’m not going to support you in idleness, my dear, so don’t imagine it!’

  ‘I don’t imagine it,’ said Tommy, staring at me. ‘I shall be supported in idleness by my husband.’

  ‘By ?’

  ‘I’m getting married — Hilary.’

  I looked at Tommy’s screwed up staring face. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m going to get married.’

  ‘Who to?’

  ‘To a man at King’s Lynn.’

  ‘Who, what man?’

  ‘There are other men in the world,’ said Tommy, ‘besides you. He’s one of the teachers there. And he’s an actor. He sometimes acts in the rep. He’s been in love with me for ages. His name’s Kim Spranger. We’re going to get married in January. We’re looking for a cottage.’

  ‘Tommy, you don’t mean it — ’

  ‘Why not? Aren’t you pleased? I should have thought you’d be pleased. You kept saying it was no good, you said so just now. You kept telling me to go away. Well, I’m going away.’

  I reached across and took her wrist in a fierce grip. She winced with pain but remained motionless. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this? You mean all this time you’ve been carrying on in secret with somebody else?’

  ‘Let go,’ said Tommy.

  I let go.

  ‘I haven’t been “carrying on”,’ she said. ‘I loved you and I wanted you. I didn’t want Kim, and he knew I didn’t. There wasn’t anything to tell you. Only now it’s different. I’ve given up hope of you. I’ve accepted him. And I’m very happy.’ Two small tears came out and trailed slowly down her cheeks.

  ‘You look the picture of happiness,’ I said. ‘You can’t love this man.’

  ‘I do love him,’ said Tommy, dashing the tears away with a fierce gesture. ‘He’s a very very nice man and he loves me and he wants to marry me and to look after me forever and — ’

  ‘Don’t tell me, and you’re over thirty and you want a child.’

  ‘He’s a widower and he has a sweet little boy of five.’

  ‘A ready-made family. Of course, I can’t compete with that. No wonder you’re in such a hurry to desert me just when I need you.’

  ‘You don’t need me,’ said Tommy in a dead voice, examining her hands. ‘That’s just what at long last I’ve realized. You don’t. There’s no good fighting it any longer. You just don’t.’

  ‘If you leave me now — ’

  ‘I’m not with you so I can’t leave you. You left me.’

  ‘If you leave me now you’ll drive me to an act of desperation. I warn you.’

  ‘It’s too late for your warnings,’ said Tommy. ‘I haven’t been anything to you for ages except a nuisance. If I’d had a scrap of pride I’d have cleared off long ago.’

  ‘It looks as if you did. You had a secret liaison with this Spranger.’

  ‘I didn’t! There was nothing secret.’

  ‘You never told me he existed.’

  ‘You never asked. You never asked me a single question about what I did at King’s Lynn or who I met. If you’d asked me I would have told you. You never wanted to know what happened to me except in relation to you.’

  This was true. I felt the more furious. ‘You deceived me.’

  ‘No! Besides, you were always deceiving me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I never did anything with Kim. I told him I loved you. I never lied. But you’ve been in love with another woman, God knows what you’ve been doing, and you never told me, I suppose you thought it was a dark secret — ’

  ‘I’m getting a bit tired of this legend about me and Laura Impiatt.’

  ‘Oh well,’ said Tommy, suddenly limp. She stroked her eyes and her cheeks and gave a long sigh. ‘I suppose it doesn’t matter now. I can’t exactly complain if you prefer someone else to me, even if she is married. That’s your affair. I thought I’d better come directly and tell you about Kim. I thought I’d write a letter, but it seemed more honest to come like this and — say good-bye.’
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  ‘Tommy, I can’t believe what you’re saying, you love me.’

  ‘Do I? It doesn’t necessarily go on, you know. Eventually it’s just rags and tatters. It’s worn through, worn away. I’m so tired, Hilary, I’m so tired, and I’m not as young as I was. I hate my job, well I don’t hate it, but it has no meaning for me any more. I’m tired of living in a little lonely horrid London flat and wondering when I’ll see you. I want a home of my own and a man of my own and maybe a child of my own, and anyway there’s little Robin and he’s sweet — ’