The Philosopher's Pupil

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘Or let’s go up to the Common,’ said Bobbie. ‘The fair will still be on, won’t it?’

  ‘Some people were dancing round the stones at the Ennistone Ring.’

  ‘Some people dancing! Who are they?’

  ‘I don’t know, someone said all dressed in white.’

  ‘Druids obviously!’

  ‘Let’s go up to the Common.’

  ‘Everyone bring a bottle!’

  Tom, laughing, trying on Bobbie’s bearhead, was also in torment. He had not yet written to Rozanov, though he had tried several times to compose a letter. How could he tell that man that he was not attracted to that girl? Of course there were hundreds of ways of putting it: we’ve talked, and though we like each other awfully … we both think we’re too young … She doesn’t feel I’m quite right … we’re just not interested enough … But the awful thing was that Tom was interested, only not in the right way. He thought almost with rage, that bloody autocrat has tied me to her, I don’t want to be but now it’s so hard to undo, I’ve changed. He’s made me think about her so much. I can’t just write a letter and forget it all. It’s inside me, growing like a nasty poisonous plant. It’s degrading to be afflicted like this. She probably hates me. And she frightens me, she seems like an evil maid, a sort of magic doll, bringing ill fortune, a curse, blighting my happiness and my freedom. He’s tied me, and it’s so damnably unfair. But if I get furious with him and write him some awful letter, if I write him any letter, because any letter is bound to be wrong, I shall go mad with remorse. I care about him, I care what he’s thinking, that’s what it’s come to!

  Tom was experiencing for the first time in his life (and no doubt he was lucky to have escaped it so long) that blackening and poisoning of the imagination which is one of the worst, as well as one of the commonest, forms of human misery. His world had become uncanny, full of terrible crimes and ordeals, and punishments. He felt frightened and guilty, anticipating some catastrophe which was entirely his own fault, yet also brought about by vile enemies whom he detested. It was no good appealing to reason and common sense, telling himself it was all just a dotty episode which he could put behind him and soon laugh about. Oh if only he had just said no at the start; it was right, it was easy then. Where was his happiness now, his luck, he whom everybody liked so much, and who, once, had liked everybody?

  Tom had thought, and there was something childish in the thought, that the day at the sea would somehow ‘cure’ him. The old idea of the family holiday at the sea was replete with innocence and calm joy. He needed to see Hattie again in some sort of ordinary way so as to wash off, as it were, the painful unclean impression of their previous meeting when he had behaved like a cad. But the meeting in the wild garden had been, as it seemed in retrospect, equally horrid. Was it that he wanted to impress her more? He had cut a poor figure. She had held the advantage, she had been cold, superior, almost cutting. There had been no exorcism. And after that he had got into that funny exalted emotional state, which he scarcely understood later, about Christ having been in England. He had tried to write a pop song about it afterwards: Jesus was here, he was here, man, do you hear, he came as a child with his uncle the tin merchant, Joseph of Arimathea, don’t fear, man, do you hear, and did those feet, they did, man, did they those feet, those feet did walk, when he came as a child (and so on). But the spiritual exaltation was gone and he could not get the song right. Then, on that seaside day, there had been the nightmare of losing Zed and Adam’s awful crying which the rescue could not efface. And now, later on, what Tom horribly, and with a sense of degradation, remembered most clearly was what he had seen from the top of the rock and not instantly reported to his companion: Hattie undressing, her mauve stockings which matched her dress, the tops of the stockings which were a dark purple colour, and her thigh above.

  ‘Time, gentlemen, please.’

  ‘Have we got enough drink?’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To the Common.’

  ‘The fair’s still on and people are dancing at the Ring.’

  ‘Can I come?’

  ‘Wait, I’ll get another bottle too.’

  ‘I’ve got my transistor set.’

  ‘So have I.’

  ‘What about glasses?’

  ‘Pick them up at Hector’s.’

  ‘I’ll carry that,’ said Tom to Anthea.

  ‘No, I’ll carry it, you’ve got your own.’

  They came out together into the warm night where there was still light in the sky. Some drunks gathered on the pavement were softly singing, I will make you fishers of men, fishers of men, fishers of men, I will make you fishers of men if you follow me. Tom felt immediately giddy, rather drunk. Anthea took his hand and tears came into her eyes. She passionately loved Joey Tanner who did not love her, and she dearly loved Tom McCaffrey, but as a friend, as a brother.

  The road from the Green Man which led down to the level crossing and then through the railway cutting to the Common went past Hector’s digs, where Hector and Valerie and Nesta stopped to collect glasses in a basket. The chorus of animals, with whom Hector was having so much trouble, had not yet been ejected from the pub. A bright light from the signal-box shone down on the red-and-white bars of the level crossing, and Tom and Anthea approached it hand in hand, bottles swinging in their other hands.

  As they reached the crossing they paused at the little narrow wicket-gate which allowed people to walk across the track. Someone was coming over the rails, and the gate was only wide enough for one. The person who emerged into the light close beside them was Rozanov.

  Tom let go of Anthea’s hand and dropped his bottle, which shattered on the tarmac. He stopped instinctively as if ducking, as if hiding his face; then when he recovered himself the philosopher was gone.

  ‘Oh bad luck,’ said Anthea.

  ‘Damn, all that drink gone west.’

  ‘Wasn’t that Professor Rozanov?’

  ‘I think so.’

  There was no doubt that Rozanov had seen him and had seen his hand holding Anthea’s. Tom turned and made a step as if to run after him, then stopped. Anthea was kicking the broken glass into the gutter.

  Someone else came through the wicket-gate. It was Dominic Wiggins.

  ‘Hello, Dominic’

  ‘Hello Anthea, hello Tom. If you’re going to the fair I’m afraid it’s over.’

  ‘Someone said there was dancing at the Ring.’

  ‘That’s over too. There were some funny people there but they’ve gone. Still, it’s a lovely evening for seeing flying saucers.’

  Hector and Nesta and Valerie were coming up the road, with the rout of actors just behind them.

  Anthea said, ‘The fair’s over, and the dancing too.’

  ‘Back to my place then,’ said Hector.

  ‘I’m going to the Slipper House,’ said Tom.

  ‘To the Slipper House?’

  ‘Yes, there’s a party there. I’ve just remembered. Must be off. Cheerio.’

  ‘What’s that? What’s Tom saying?’

  ‘A party at the Slipper House.’

  ‘A party! Let’s all go!’

  ‘Come on, Tom says there’s a party at the Slipper House!’

  ‘Hooray, to the Slipper House!’

  ‘Hooray!’

  Exactly how what was later known as the ‘Slipper House riot’ began was wrapped in confusion for some time, and a lot of wild charges and counter-charges were made afterwards. That it was really quite an innocuous and accidental business, at first at any rate, and in no sense a conspiracy, is made clear by the foregoing account which I had from Tom himself much later on. Many of the more outrageous things which people said and believed were quite untrue; though it must also be added that a number of those involved had good reason to feel ashamed about what happened on that notorious night.

  However that may be, shortly after the departure of the rout from Burkestown, Alex’s dream came true. She was drinking by herself. (She had taken
to solitary drinking lately, and had been twice seen alone in the bar of the Ennistone Royal Hotel.) She looked out of the bow window of the drawing-room and saw the Belmont garden full of strange people and moving lights.

  ‘Whatever’s happening?’ said Diane to Father Bernard as they reached the back gate to the Belmont garden in Forum Way.

  There was a sort of murmurous buzzing noise from within, a subdued sound of voices, occasional loud laughter, faint confused music.

  The priest pushed the door open. ‘There’s some sort of fete or party or something or else they’re acting a play.’ He went in through the gate.

  Diane said, ‘I can’t come, I haven’t been invited,’ but she followed him in.

  The little damp path led through the shrubs and trees at the end of the garden, and as they followed it they saw the Slipper House with all its lights on throwing an illumination upon the grass. Mostly outside this patch of light, though intermittently in it, there moved or surged a number of people, some in medieval costume, some dressed as animals, some carrying lighted lanterns (these were props from the play). Transistor sets were droning, not loudly, mingling classical music with pop, and a member of the Music Consort was playing a treble recorder. A few people were practising a minuet, while others were absorbedly dancing by themselves. On the darker parts of the lawn groups had settled down and were opening bottles and sloshing beer and wine into glasses. As Diane and the priest advanced, someone with a huge stag’s head and antlers came up and put drinks into their hands. Someone else said, ‘Hello, Father, I’m not quite sure what’s happening here,’ and reeled off.

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Bobbie Benning.’

  Meanwhile on the lighted part of the lawn Tom was having some sort of quarrel or explanation.

  ‘No, you can’t go into the Slipper House, there isn’t a party, I just said that, it was a joke!’

  ‘Well, there’s a party now.’

  ‘Why can’t we go in? You said there was a party.’

  ‘Yes, but there isn’t - I was upset. It was just an excuse — ’

  ‘You brought us here.’

  ‘I didn’t, you followed me!’

  ‘I want to go inside, I’ve always wanted to see inside this house.’

  ‘No, stop, you can’t.’

  ‘Let’s knock anyway.’

  ‘Let’s ask them out!’

  ‘I want to go in .’

  ‘What’s going on, why can’t we go in?’

  ‘I wish you’d all go away!’

  ‘But it was your idea to come here.’

  ‘It wasn’t, don’t make such a noise.’

  ‘Shall we bang on the windows?’

  ‘Let’s give the girls a song!’

  ‘Please stop, please go away from here!’

  ‘There’s someone in the garden,’ said Hattie. ‘There are people in the garden.’

  ‘Don’t worry, the doors are locked.’

  ‘Oh Pearl, do you think we should phone the police?’

  ‘Of course not, they’re probably guests of Mrs McCaffrey’s.’

  ‘I think they’re awful people. Pearl, let’s turn on all the lights. I feel so frightened in this house. I wish we were living in London. I hate this place. I feel someone will break in.’

  ‘All right.’ The girls ran all over the house turning on the lights.

  ‘Wait, don’t light up my bedroom, we’ll look out of the window. They’re making a noise.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s something to do with the fair.’

  ‘They can’t be having a fair here. They’re all dressed up as animals. Pearl, this is some sort of attack —’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘It is, they’re making a mock of us, it’s an insult, listen to the people laughing — ’

  ‘I think they’re drunk.’

  ‘Shall I ring up John Robert?’

  ‘No, for God’s sake, he’ll think we’re perfectly stupid! Anyway he isn’t on the telephone!’

  ‘Isn’t that Tom McCaffrey there?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Oh Pearl how awful, how horrid, he’s brought all these horrible people here to annoy us, I can’t bear it — ’

  I’m sure he hasn’t, it must be a party at Belmont that’s just come out.’

  ‘Then why are they all down this end, and more people coming from the back gate — ’

  ‘Hattie, don’t panic — ’

  ‘I think it’s scandalous. Let’s close all the shutters.’

  Alex turned away from the window, frightened and angry. A lamp was alight on the other side of the drawing-room, but much of the room was rather shadowy. Something rolled or ran across the carpet in front of her and she gave a little yelp of alarm. She made for the door and turned on all the drawing-room and landing lights. The fine wide curving staircase was revealed with its fretted banisters thickly covered with reassuring white paint. The soft tufty brown stair-carpet glowed with good-as-new fibrous cleanliness. Alex stood at the top of the stairs and called ‘Ruby! Ruby!’ There was no answer. She shouted once more, frightened by the tone of her own voice. No answer.

  She went downstairs and turned on more lights. Ruby was not in the kitchen or in her own room. Alex went to the back door, which stood open, and looked down the garden. Some distance away lights and figures were moving and voices speaking. Alex did not dare to call again. She stepped out on to the pavement behind the house. Then she gasped and mouthed a cry as she saw the figure of a man standing near her.

  ‘Alex — ’ It was George.

  ‘Oh thank God! What is this awful business in the garden, what’s happening?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Of course, those horrible girls are giving a party, how dare they, in my garden, they never asked me, I shall go and tell them to stop, there are hundreds of people trampling everything, oh damn them, damn them — ’

  ‘No, don’t, there’s something odd about it all, I don’t think it’s that.’

  ‘What is it then?’

  ‘I don’t know. Devil’s work.’

  ‘Ruby’s gone.’

  ‘Go inside, Alex, and give yourself a drink and lock the door.’

  ‘Don’t go - you were coming to see me — ’

  ‘No, I heard the noise just as I was passing.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Just walking about the town, walking to the canal.’

  ‘To the canal? Why? To that place? Don’t go there, stay with me, please — ’

  ‘I’ll just go and see what all this business is.’

  ‘Come back, won’t you, please — ’

  George had already disappeared.

  The shutters of the Slipper House were now closing one by one, quenching the light which had been illuminating the patch of lawn. Outside there was a groan of disapproval followed by laughter. Tom ran forward.

  Hattie, spreading out her arms to take hold of the shutters of the sitting-room, cried out when a figure appeared suddenly outside the window, like Peter Pan, close up against the glass.

  Tom tapped. ‘It’s only me! Can I come in?’

  Hattie stared, then violently swung one of the shutters across.

  Tom, dancing outside the still unshuttered half of the window, shouted, ‘It’s not my fault! I didn’t bring them!’

  Hattie swung the other half of the shutter across with a bang and fixed it with a bar. She stood looking into the painted eyes of Alex’s eternally young brother. Then she began to cry.

  The shutters closed and the lights went out on the lawn just as George was making his way down the garden. Someone rose up from the grass and gave him a glass of wine.

  Pearl said to Hattie, ‘Look, if you’re so upset I’ll go out and ask him in.’

  ‘No!’

  Then I’ll go and talk to him and find out what’s happening, I’m sure he didn’t mean to — ’

  ‘No, don’t go away!’

  Nesta said to Diane, ‘Come back
to my place tonight. Just as a beginning, just to show you can — ’

  Sitting on a seat embowered in bushes Bobbie Benning, who had had a great deal to drink, was starting to feel sick. He thought, I’m no good, I must resign my job. I’ll never get another, I’ll be on the dole, whatever will my mother think, it’ll kill her.

  Peter Blackett was saying to anyone who could hear, ‘I gave him a drink, then I saw he was George McCaffrey, did I have a turn!’

  Jeremy Blackett said, ‘Peter, it’s time for you to go home.’

  ‘I think we’d all better go home,’ said Olivia Newbold.

  ‘Are things going to turn nasty?’

  Valerie Cossom, portentously beautiful in her long white robe, had heard that George was in the garden and was looking for him. Hector Gaines was looking for Anthea. The middle of the garden was dark, but lights from Belmont could be seen at one end, and the street lights in Forum Way at the other illuminated the trees.

  Tom was at his wits’ end. The noise and the laughter was louder than before and he had the impression that a number of complete strangers had come in through the back gate. He wanted to explain to Hattie, but couldn’t see how to do this and couldn’t bear to go away either. He had thought of something else which distressed him: Dominic Wiggins must have assumed, and would tell Nesta, that he was taking Anthea to ‘Lovers’ Lane’ to lie down under a hawthorn bush.

  Father Bernard had lost Diane but found Bobbie Benning. He sat beside the distraught youngster with his arm around him. ‘My dear boy, tell me all.’

  Pearl said to Hattie, ‘I’ll go out and find him, don’t grieve, I won’t be long. I’ll go the back way, you lock up, and I’ll call when I’m back.’

  Valerie said, ‘Hello, Nesta, have you seen George? Oh hello, Diane, have you seen George?’

  ‘Is he here?’ said Diane, and scuttled away among the shrubs.

  ‘She’s like a terrified little mouse,’ said Nesta. ‘It makes me sick to see a woman so frightened of a man.’