by Айрис Мердок
'Very good, Sir,' said Fivey. With an air of nobility he descended the stairs.
'Go on down,' said Ducane to Judy. 'I won't come with you.
Wait for Fivey at the door. He won't be a moment, Good night.'
'You're not cross with me? You'll see me again? Please? T 'Good night, my child, good night,' said Ducane gesturing towards the stairs.
She passed him slowly and went on down. A minute later he heard the sound of the car and the closing of the front door.
Ducane went back into his bedroom and shut the door and locked it. He stood for a moment blankly. Then he lowered himself carefully on to the floor and lay there face downwards with his eyes closed.
Thirty
'Isn't it funny to think that the cuckoo is silent in Africa?' said Edward.
Henrietta, have you taken that toad out of the bath?' said Mary.
'I wanted to tame him,' said Henrietta. 'People can tame toads.'
'Have you taken him out of the bath?'
'Yes, he's back in the garden.'
'Cuckoos can't perch on the ground,' said Edward. 'They have two claws pointing forward and two pointing backward; They just sit on the ground. I saw one yesterday, just after we saw the saucer '
'Do bustle along, Edward. If you value More Hunting Wasps so highly, why do you cover it with marmalade?'
'Listen, he's changing his tune,' said Edward. 'Cuckoo in June changes his tune. Listen.'
A distant hollow cu-cuckoo cu-cuckoo came through the open window of the kitchen.
'I wish it would rain,' said Henrietta.
'Off you go, twins,' said Mary, 'and take Mingo with you.
He's getting under my feet.'
The twins went off in procession, Henrietta pushing her brother and Mingo following with a slow wag of his floppy tail for anyone who might be attending to him. Montrose, once more in curled luxurious possession of the basket, watched his departure and drowsed back to sleep. The cat was not an early riser.
'I expect we're getting under your feet too, darling,' said Kate. 'Come on, John, we'll go into the garden, shall we? What a heavenly morning. Gosh, it's good to be back!'
Kate picked up her Spanish basket and led the way across the untidy hall and out on to the lawn at the front of the house.
The warm morning air enfolded them, thick and exotic after the cool of the house, full already of smells and textures which the hot sun, who had been shining for many hours although by human time it was still early morning, had elicited from the leafy slopes and the quiet offered surface of the sea.
'Did you hear the old cuckoo this morning at about four o'clock?' said Kate. 'I do hope he didn't wake you.'
'I was awake anyway.'
'We've had the longest day, haven't we? But midsummer just seems to go on and on.'
'Midsummer madness.'
'What?'
'Nothing. It's a crazy time of year.'
'Beautifully crazy. I hope we didn't wake you coming in.
I'm afraid Octavian made an awful row.'
'No.'
Ducane had come to Trescombe late the previous night, and later still Kate and Octavian had arrived back from Tangier.
Today was Friday and Octavian had already had to set off for London to attend an urgent meeting.
'Poor Octavian, having to rush off like that,' said Kate. 'He hardly saw you at all.'
'Mmmm.'
'John, are you all right? You seem a bit down. Barbie said she thought you were ill or something. Nothing nasty happen when I was away?'
'No, nothing at all.'
'Well, now I'm back I'll look after you and make you all plump and happy.'
'Like Octavian.'
'John, John, you are a grump this morning! You haven't even asked me about Tangier. Well, I shall tell you anyway. Oh what marvellous weather! I love this time of the morning in England when it's really hot. I tell you what I missed in Africa, the dew.
I suppose there is dew in Africa. I must ask the twins. But everything was so dusty. Can you feel it now, the dew sort of jumping off the grass on to your ankles? It's so cooling. Well, of course you can't with your socks on. I can't think how you can bear to wear those heavy woolly socks in this weather. Why don't you wear sandals? Octavian wore sandals all the time in Tangier, they made him look so youthful. Here, let's sit down on this seat.' She sat spreading out the skirt of her red and white striped dress. Ducane, about to sit on the edges of the dress, awkwardly thrust it aside.
The lawn in front of the house sloped to the leafy spiraea hedge, now in scattered points of raspberry-pink blossom. A gap in the hedge led to a small enclosed field of mown hay which fell steeply to a wood, over the top of which the sea was stretched out, filling the horizon with a silvery blue glitter.
There was a strong murmuration of bees. In the deep dappled green of the wood birds called and fell about obscurely in the branches. Ducane sneezed.
'Bless you! I hope you don't mind the hay. It has a wonderfully remindful smell, somehow, hasn't it. Oh John, I am so glad to be back. One is, isn't one? I feel a bit tired though, in a nice way. The sun is tiring, don't you think. Look how brown I am. And Octavian's quite coffee coloured all over. Well, almost all over! When he wore that fez thing during the last week he looked just like that super eunuch in the Entfiilhrung. Oh, John, I've got a funny present for you, one of those charming Moroccan hats, I meant to bring it down, they make them in the villages.'
'How kind of you.'
'I just haven't managed to get around and see everyone yet.
I hope everybody's all right? Nothing's happened here, has it?
I thought somehow people were a bit nervy.'
'Who's a bit nervy?'
'Well, you for instance.'
'It's not that we're nervy, it's that you're relaxed. You've got vine-leaves in your hair. You're full of wine and olives and Mediterranean sunshine and'
'Yes, yes. But after all you've had the sun too.'
'It doesn't shine in my office in Whitehall.'
'John, you're being childish. I believe you need a holiday.
I must speak to Octavian about it. Oh look, isn't that a cuckoo, and there's another one chasing it.'
Two hawk-like birds flitted out of the wood and doubled back to become invisible among the receding green hollows where the sun pierced the thick foliage. Cu-cuckoo, cu-cuckoo.
'Crazy birds,' said Kate. 'Do they think about nothing but sex? Chasing each other all day long and no responsibilities. Do you think they spend the nights together too?'
'Copulation is a daytime activity in birds,' said Ducane. 'At night they are quiet. Unlike human beings.'
'I adore you when you sound so pedantic. Tell me, why are cuckolds called after cuckoos? That's one bit of ornithological information I can't ask the twins for!'
'Something to do with eggs in other people's nests, I suppose.'
'Yes, but then the lover ought to be the cuckoo, not the husband.'
'Maybe it's a past participle. Cuckooed.'
'How clever you are. You have a plausible answer for everything.'
'True or otherwise.'
'Yes, you are nervy, all of you. I must go round and attend to you, each one. See what happens when I go away! Everyone gets unhappy. I can't allow it! Even Mary was quite sharp with the twins this morning, so unlike her. And Paula looks positively hollow-eyed. She didn't seem at all pleased when I handed her that letter from Aden. And Barbie's in one of her antisocial moods and won't consort with anyone who isn't a pony, and Pierce is impossible. Mary told me some extraordinary story about his kidnapping Montrose.'
'He behaved very badly,' said Ducane, 'but it's all over now.'
He kicked the strewn sheets of mown hay at his feet and sneezed again.
'You sound just like a schoolmaster. I'm not going to lecture Pierce. Anyway I expect you and Mary have already done so.
I think Barbie is being horrid to him. And then there's Theo.
I've never seen him looking s
o morose. When I said hello to him this morning he just looked through me. Why, there he is now going down the path. I bet you he'll pretend not to notice us.
A gap at the far end of the spiraea hedge led into the kitchen garden and from it a path led down beside the line of ragged hawthorns towards the wood. It was the most direct route from the house to the sea. Theo was walking very slowly, almost uncertainly, down the path.
'Theo!' Ducane shouted. His tone was peremptory and angry.
Theo paused and turned slowly round to look at them. He looked at them with the vague face of one who, on his way to the scaffold, hears his name distantly hallooed in the crowd.
'Theo!' Kate cried.
Theo eyed them. Then he lifted his arm a little, moving it awkwardly as if it were paralysed below the elbow. His hand made a floppy gesture which might have been a wave and might have been an invitation to go to the devil. He continued his slow shuffling towards the wood.
'Poor Theo,' said Kate. 'I think he's upset about Mary and Willy, don't you?'
'You mean he feels he's losing Willy? Possibly. I suspect Willy's the only person Theo really communicates with.'
'Heaven knows what they find to say to each other! I'm so glad about Mary and Willy, it's so right. It's not exactly an impetuous match, but then they're not exactly an impetuous pair. I do. think they're both deeply wise people. And Mary's so sweet.'
'She's more than sweet,' said Ducane. 'Willy's lucky.'
'He's very lucky and I shall go up and tell him so before lunch. It was a good idea of mine, wasn't it, matching those two.
It keeps them both here.'
'You think so?' said Ducane. 'It wouldn't surprise me if they both went away.'
'Oh no no no no. Whatever would we do without Mary?
Besides, no one is to leave. You are all my dear – children.'
'Slaves.'
'You are a sour-puss today! Now if only we could find some really nice man for Paula. He'd have to be terribly intellectual of course. We'd have to build another house I suppose. Mary and Willy will be in the cottage. Well, Octavian did think of building another bungalow up by the graveyard, it wouldn't show from the house. Only I do like having us all under one roof. Do you know, I used to be so afraid that you'd fall for Paula. She's so much cleverer than me. I was quite anxious!'
'I adore Paula,' said Ducane. 'I respect and admire her. One couldn't not. But'
'But what?'
'She isn't you.'
'Darling, you are eloquent today. Oh look, there go the twins going down to bathe. Twins! I say! Do find Uncle Theo and cheer him up. He's just gone into the wood.'
Trailing their white bathing towels along the dulled prickly green of the hedge, the twins waved and went on, followed by prancing darting Mingo, who uttered at intervals not his seabark but his rabbit-bark.
'Those are the only two really satisfactory human beings in our household,' said Ducane.
'You are severe with us! Yes, the twins are super. Fab, as Barbie would say. It's sad to think they'll have to grow up and become tiresome creatures like Barb and Pierce.'
'Sexual creatures you mean. Yes, we are tiresome.'
'You are tiresome. Well, now let me tell you all about Tangier.
It was perfectly extraordinary seeing all those women wearing veils. And they wear their veils in so many different ways. Or should one say «the veil» like one says «the kilt»? It wasn't always becoming, I assure you. And there was this extraordinary market place – '
'I've been to Tangier,' said Ducane.
'Oh all right, I won't tell you!'
Kate, who was always delighted to go on holiday, was always delighted to come back. She loved the people who surrounded her and felt a little thrill at the special sense, on her return, of their need for her, a tiny spark as at the resuming of an electrical connexion. She was glad to be missed and prized that first second at which she, as it were, experienced being missed. This time, however, as she had already expressed to John, things seemed just a bit out of gear. Her people seemed preoccupied, almost too preoccupied to rejoice as they ought to at her reappearance and romp gleefully about her.
She decided, I must go round and visit everyone, I must have a tete-a-tete with everyone, even Theo. She felt like a doctor.
The thought restored her to good humour.
Not that she was exactly out of humour. But she had felt ever since the cuckoo woke her from a short sleep soon after four, an uneasiness, a sense of jarring. She later traced this unusual sensation to its origin in the presence of Ducane, indeed in the consciousness of Ducane. If the others were out of sorts she could cure them. She was aware of what she called their nerviness as something separate from herself upon which she could operate externally. But John's depression, his tendency to be 'horrid', affected her intimately. Things between herself and John were for the moment, for the moment only, dislocated and out of tune. Kate reflected rather ruefully that she thought she knew very well what it was that caused this momentary disharmony. She only hoped that John did not know it too.
Kate had certainly had a splendid fortnight in Tangier. What she did not propose to explain was that she had spent a very large part of this fortnight in bed with Octavian. Hot climates affected Octavian like that. Indeed, she had to admit, they affected her like that. After a long and vinous lunch they had positively hurried back to the hotel each day. Octavian could hardly wait. It amused Kate to think that if Ducane knew this he would probably be not only jealous but shocked. We're as bad as those cuckoos, she thought to herself, only of course we're monogamous and good, while they're polygamous and bad! It was true that she was plump and brown and healthy and energetic and relaxed, just as John had said, full of wine and olives and Mediterranean sunshine and – Was it possible that John knew? He must have missed her terribly. And now on her return, at that electrical moment of resuming contact, he might especially resent her belonging to another and somehow sense in her that luxurious belongingness. He can sort of smell it, she thought. Then she wondered, perhaps he can literally smell it? Was this scientifically possible? She must ask – well, no, that was another piece of scientific information for which she could hardly ask the twins.
Kate laughed aloud.
'What is it?' said Ducane.
How peevish he sounded today. 'Nothing, nothing. I was just thinking about those dogs. Never –mind, I don't think their antics are fit for your ears. I haven't the vocabulary anyway, I'd have to draw it!'
Ducane did not seem disposed to pursue the matter of the dogs. He began pounding his nose with his handkerchief, staring straight ahead of him into the wood. The sex-mad cuckoos darted past again with their irregular side-slipping flight. Cucuckoo.
He looks his least attractive at this time of year, Kate was thinking. He murders his poor nose so, it's quite red, and his eyes are always watering. He doesn't look a bit like the Duke of Wellington now. His face is a nice colour, though, that reddish brown, and so glossy and shiny where the bones stick out, I think he's got even thinner. It suits him actually. How oily his hair looks, it darkens it like black rats' tails; I expect it's the heat, perspiration perhaps. Poor fellow, he is sweating. Why does he wear that ridiculous flannel shirt on a day like this? I must give him a nylon one.
We're out of key, she thought. I'm clumsy with him today.
But it'll pass. Just being silent together like this helps. I knew from the start that I'd have to work at this. Men are so obtuse, they don't understand that one has to work at a relationship. If things aren't quite in harmony they get grumpy and desperate at once. I can't possibly kiss him yet. He doesn't desire me, she said to herself, at the moment he doesn't desire me. How does one know? Then she thought, and I don't desire him. But this cloud between us will pass. We must just get quietly used to each other again. I won't fuss him or press him. I'll just leave him to himself a little and attend to something else.
She said aloud, 'John, do you mind if I just glance through my letters to see there's nothi
ng awful? There's always such a pile when one gets back from holiday, it's quite a chore. I've got them all here in the basket and if you don't mind I'll just sort them out. You stay here if you like, or perhaps you'd rather walk down to the sea. You might meet Barbie coming back from her ride.' gate up-ended the Spanish basket and strewed about thirty letters about on the dry pale yellow mats of the hay. She leaned forward and began turning them over and laying them out in rows.
Ducane, suddenly interested, leaned forward too, inspecting the letters. Then with a soft hiss he reached out a long arm and snatched up a brown envelope which lay at the end of one of the rows. Fingering the letter he turned to face Kate, frowning and narrowing his blue eyes against the sun. The frown made his face look even bonier and thinner, a wooden totem anointed with oil.
Kate felt a sudden slight alarm. He looked so stern; and her first thought was, he's jealous of someone. Who can it be? He's recognized someone's writing. Kate, who was on very affectionate terms with a number of men, preferred for humane reasons to keep her friends in ignorance of each other. However, the writing upon the envelope, a rather uncultured hand as far as she could see, seemed unfamiliar.
'What is it?' she said playfully. 'You're stealing my mail!' She reached out for the letter but Ducane withdrew it.
'Whatever is it, John?'
'Will you do me a great favour?' said Ducane.
'Well, tell me what it is.'
'Don't read this letter.'
Kate looked at him with surprise. 'Why?'
'Because it contains something unpleasant which I think you shouldn't see.'
'What sort of thing?'
'It's – it's something concerning me and another person.
Something that belongs entirely to the past. A malicious busybody has written to you about it. But there is absolutely no point in your reading the letter. I will tell you about the whole thing myself later on, now if you wish it.'
Kate had turned sideways and they faced each other knee uh to knee. The hem of the striped dress brushed the hay. She did not know what to think. She was still a bit alarmed by Ducane's sternness, though relieved to find that the misdemeanour in question appeared to be his rather than hers. She thought, perhaps it's to say that he was once a homosexual. He might not understand that I wouldn't mind. She felt very curious about the letter.