The Book and the Brotherhood

by Iris Murdoch

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  THE BOOK AND THE BROTHERHOOD

  Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin in 1919 of Anglo-Irish parents. She went to Badminton School, Bristol, and read classics at Somerville College, Oxford. During the war she was an Assistant Principal at the Treasury, and then worked with UNRRA in London, Belgium and Austria. She held a studentship in philosophy at Newnham College, Cambridge, and then in 1948 became a Fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford, where she lived with her husband, the teacher and critic John Bayley. Awarded the CBE in 1976, Iris Murdoch was made a DBE in the 1987 New Year’s Honours List. In the 1997 PEN Awards she received the Gold Pen for Distinguished Service to Literature.

  Iris Murdoch wrote twenty-six novels, including Under the Net, her writing début of 1954, the Booker Prize-winning The Sea, the Sea (1978) and, more recently, The Green Knight (1993) and Jackson’s Dilemma (1995). She received a number of other literary awards, among them the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Black Prince (1973) and the Whitbread Prize for The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (1974). Her works of philosophy include Sartre: Romantic Rationalist, Metaphysics As a Guide to Morals (1992) and Existentialists and Mystics (1997). She also wrote several plays, including The Italian Girl (with James Saunders) and The Black Prince, an adaptation of her novel. Her volume of poetry, A Year of Birds, which appeared in 1978, was set to music by Malcolm Williamson.

  Iris Murdoch died in February 1999. Among the many who paid tribute to her as a philosopher, novelist and private individual was Peter Conradi, who in his obituary in the Guardian wrote ‘Iris Murdoch was one of the best and most influential writers of the twentieth century. Above all, she kept the traditional novel alive, and in so doing changed what it is capable of… She connected goodness, against the temper of the times, not with the quest for an authentic identity so much as with the happiness that can come about when that quest is relaxed. We are fortunate to have shared our appalling century with her.’

  IRIS MURDOCH IN PENGUIN

  Fiction

  Under the Net

  The Flight from the Enchanter

  The Sandcastle

  The Bell

  A Severed Head

  An Unofficial Rose

  The Unicorn

  The Italian Girl

  The Red and the Green

  The Time of the Angels

  The Nice and the Good

  Bruno’s Dream

  A Fairly Honourable Defeat

  An Accidental Man

  The Black Prince

  The Sacred and Profane Love Machine

  A Word Child

  Henry and Cato

  The Sea, the Sea

  Nuns and Soldiers

  The Philosopher’s Pupil

  The Good Apprentice

  The Book and the Brotherhood

  The Message to the Planet

  The Green Knight

  Jackson’s Dilemma

  Non-Fiction

  Acastos: Two Platonic Dialogues

  Metaphysics As a Guide to Morals

  THE BOOK AND

  THE BROTHERHOOD

  Iris Murdoch

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

  First published by Chatto and Windus 1987

  Published in Penguin Books 1988

  11 13 15 17 19 18 16 14 12 10

  Copyright © Iris Murdoch, 1987

  All rights reserved

  ISBN: 978-1-101-52309-4

  Printed in the United States of America

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject

  to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,

  re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s

  prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in

  which it is published and without a similar condition including this

  condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  CONTENTS

  PART ONE

  Midsummer

  PART TWO

  Midwinter

  PART THREE

  Spring

  TO

  DIANA AVEBURY

  PART ONE

  Midsummer

  ‘David Crimond is here in a kilt!’

  ‘Good God, is Crimond here? Where is he?’

  ‘Over in that tent or marquee or whatever you call it. He’s with Lily Boyne.’

  The first speaker was Gulliver Ashe, the second was Conrad Lomas. Gulliver was a versatile, currently unemployed, young Englishman in his early thirties, pointedly vague about his age. Conrad was a more gorgeously young young American student. He was taller than Gulliver who was rated as tall. Gulliver had never hitherto met Conrad, but he had heard of him and had addressed the remark which caused such excitement to, jointly, Conrad and his partner Tamar Hernshaw. The scene was the so-much-looked-forward-to Commem Ball at Oxford, and the time about eleven p.m. It was midsummer and the night was not yet, and was indeed never entirely to be, dark. Above the various lighted marquees, from which various musics streamed, hung a sky of dusky blue already exhibiting a few splintery yellow stars. The moon, huge, crumbly like a cheese, was still low down among trees beyond the local streamlets of the river Cherwell which bounded the more immediate territory of the college. Tamar and Conrad had just arrived, had not yet danced. Gulliver had confidently addressed them since he knew, though not well, Tamar, and had heard who her escort was to be. The sight of Tamar filled Gulliver, in fact, with irritation, since his partner for the momentous night was to have been (only she had cried off at the last moment) Tamar’s mother Violet. Gulliver did not particularly like Violet, but had agreed to be paired with her to oblige Gerard Hernshaw, whom he usually obliged, even obeyed. Gerard was Tamar’s uncle, or ‘uncle’, since he was not Violet’s brother but her cousin. Gerard was considerably older than Gulliver. Gerard’s sister Patricia, who was to have had Jenkin Riderhood as her partner, had also not turned up, but had (unlike Violet, who seemed to have no reason) a good reason, since Gerard’s father, long ill, had suddenly become iller. Gulliver, though of course thrilled to be asked, was irritated by being paired by Gerard with Violet, which seemed to relegate Gulliver to the older generation. Gulliver would not have minded partnering Tamar, though he was not especially ‘keen’ on her. He found her too shy and stiff, she was pale and thin and rather schoolgirlish, she was wispy and waifish and lacked style, she did her short straight hair in a little-girl way with a side parting. He did not like her virginal white dress. Gull, who was not always sure that he liked girls at all, preferred ones who were bolder and able to take charge of him. In any case there was never any question of Tamar, since she was known to be going to the dance with her new acquaintance, this clever young American, whom she had met through her cousin Leonard Fairfax. Gerard, apologetic about Violet’s defection, had said vaguely to Gulliver that he could no d
oubt ‘pick up a girl somehow’, but so far this did not seem likely to be possible, all the girls being firmly held onto by their chaps. Later on of course as the chaps got drunk the situation might change. He had wandered about in the warm blue twilight for some time hoping to meet someone he knew, but Tamar’s had been the first familiar face, and he felt on seeing her annoyance rather than pleasure. He was also annoyed because he had not, after much consideration, put on his frilly lacy blue evening shirt, such as most of the younger generation were now seen to be dressed in, and was wearing the conventional black and white uniform which he knew that Gerard, Jenkin, and Duncan would have on. Gulliver, who thought himself good-looking, was tall and dark and slim, with straight oily dark hair, and a thin slightly hooked nose which he had come to terms with when someone called it aquiline. His eyes, which he had been told were beautiful, were of a very pure unflecked liquid golden brown. He very much wanted to dance and would have felt thoroughly cross with Gerard for messing things up if it had not been that Gerard had paid for Gulliver’s (very expensive) ticket without which he would not be there at all. While these thoughts were mingling and colliding in Gulliver’s mind, Conrad Lomas, with a murmured apology to Tamar, had shot off like an arrow in the direction of the marquee where David Crimond was said to be. He ran upon his unusually long legs across the grass and disappeared, leaving Gulliver and Tamar together. Tamar, surprised by the amazing speed of his departure, had not immediately followed her swain. This should have been Gulliver’s opportunity, and he did indeed wonder for a moment whether he should quickly ask Tamar to dance. He hesitated however, knowing that if Tamar refused he would be upset. Nor did he want to find himself, perhaps, later on, ‘landed’ with her for some long time. He had really, in spite of his cherished grievances, quite enjoyed wandering around by himself and being a voyeur. Moreover, the idea had just occurred to him of returning to the room where Gerard and the oldies were still drinking champagne, and asking Rose Curtland to dance. Of course Rose ‘belonged’ to Gerard, but Gerard wouldn’t mind, and the notion of putting his arm, where it had never dreamt of being, round Rose Curtland’s waist, was certainly an appealing one. His moment for Tamar passed and she began to move away.

  Gull said, ‘That was Conrad Lomas, wasn’t it? Whatever got into him?’

  Tamar said, ‘He’s doing a thesis about something about Marxism in Britain.’

  ‘So he’ll have read all Crimond’s stuff.’

  ‘He idolises Crimond,’ said Tamar, ‘he’s read everything he’s written, but never met him. He wanted me to get someone to introduce him but I felt I couldn’t. I didn’t know he’d be here tonight.’

  ‘Neither did I,’ said Gulliver, and added, ‘neither do they.’

  Tamar, with a vague wave, set off in the direction of the tent into which Conrad had disappeared. Gulliver decided not to go back to the others yet after all. He wanted to wander about a little longer. This was not his college or his university. He had done his degree in London, and although he regarded Oxford and Oxford ways with sardonic detachment he was ready, on this unique evening, to give himself up to the charm of his surroundings, the ancient buildings floodlit, the pale exquisite tower, the intense green of illumined trees, the striped tents as of an exotic army, and the peregrinating crowd of colourful young people of whom, now that he had had a few drinks, he did not after all feel too uncomfortably envious. Perhaps the immediate thing to do was to have some more drink. He made his way toward the cloisters where he could get some whisky. He was tired of Gerard’s champagne.

  Tamar had not failed to notice Gulliver’s indecision about asking her to dance. She would have refused but felt hurt at not being asked. She clutched her embroidered cashmere shawl closely about her, crossing it upon her breast and humping it up high about her neck. The day had been cloudlessly hot, the evening was warm, but there was now a slight breeze and Tamar felt chilly, she tended to feel the cold. Her white evening dress swept the grass upon which she imagined that she could already feel the dew. She reached the marquee where the lights had been turned up, since the pop group were knocking off for refreshments, and the dancers were standing about upon the wooden floor talking. She could not see Conrad anywhere, but soon noticed a closely packed group of young people, like a swarm of bees, in one corner where a high-pitched voice with a slight Scottish accent was holding forth. Tamar did not like Crimond, she was frightened of him, but she had had occasion to meet him very rarely, and, since the row with Gerard and the others, never. It did not occur to her to go over to the group of worshippers and join Conrad. She sat down for a while on one of the seats round the edge of the tent and waited. She noticed Lily Boyne, who had been reported as being with Crimond, sitting alone on the other side. Lily had taken off one of her sandals and was examining it, now smelling it. Tamar, who did not want to talk to Lily, hoped that Lily would not notice her. Of course she knew Lily Boyne, who was a friend, at any rate a sort of friend, of Rose Curtland and Jean Cambus, but Lily made Tamar feel ill at ease, slightly made her shudder. In fact Tamar disapproved of Lily and so preferred not to think about her. When the loud music and the flashing lights started up again Tamar moved out into the dark. The deep vibrating beat of the music upset her, she wanted very much to dance.

  Tamar was poised ready to fall in love. It is possible to plan to fall in love. Or perhaps what seems like planning is simply the excited anticipation of the moment, delayed so as to be perfected, of the unmistakable mutual gesture, when eyes meet, hands meet, words fail. It was thus, in these terms, in this expectant state of being, that Tamar had allowed herself to look forward to this evening. She had in fact met Conrad, who had been at Cambridge and was soon returning to America, only a few times, and usually in company. On the last occasion, seeing her home, he had kissed her ardently. Her cousin Leonard Fairfax, who was in America studying art history at Cornell, had introduced them by letter. Tamar had let herself like, then more than like, the tall American boy. but had as yet made him no signal. She had dreamt about him. Tamar was twenty, at the end of her second year of studying history at Oxford. She was apparently grown up, but her shyness and her appearance made others, and indeed her herself, think of her as younger, naive, not quite an adult. She had had two love affairs, the first inspired by anxiety, the second by pity, for which she blamed herself severely. She was a puritanical child, and she had never been in love.

  Rose Curtland was dancing with Gerard Hernshaw. They were in the tent where ‘sweet’ old-fashioned music was being played, waltzes, tangos, and slow foxtrots, interspersed with eightsome reels, Gay Gordons, and ambiguous jigs which could be danced to taste. The sound of the famous pop group was now audible in the distance. In yet another tent there was traditional jazz, in another ‘country music’. Rose and Gerard, who were good dancers, could cope with all these, but it was an evening for nostalgia. The college orchestra was playing Strauss. Rose inclined her head gently against Gerard’s blackclad shoulder. She was tall but he was taller. They were a good-looking couple. Gerard’s face, describable as ‘rugged’, had been better characterised by his brother-in-law the art dealer as ‘cubist’. There were a number of strong dominant surfaces, a commanding bone structure, a square even brow, a nose that appeared to end in a blunt plane rather than a point. But what might have seemed a hard set of mathematical surfaces was animated and harmonised by the energy which blazed through it, rendering it into an ironic humorous face, whose smile was frequently a mad and zany grin. Gerard’s eyes were a metallic blue, his curly hair was brown, now less than it used to be the colour of an undimmed chestnut, but still copious and ungreying although he was now over fifty. Rose’s hair was blond and straight, plentiful and rising up sometimes into a fuzz or aureole. Looking lately into her mirror Rose had wondered if all those lively light brown locks were not, all together, changing into a light grey. She had dark blue eyes and a positively pretty slightly retroussé nose. She had kept her figure and was wearing a simple very dark green ball dress. Rose had a con
spicuous air of calmness which annoyed some people and comforted others. She often wore a faint smile, and was wearing one now, although her mingled layers of thought were by no means entirely happy. Dancing with Gerard was an icon of happiness. If only she could experience that sense of eternity in the present about which Gerard sometimes talked. She ought to be able to be happy now simply because of Gerard’s firm arm round her waist, and the so slight but authoritative movements of his body whereby he led her. She had looked forward to this evening ever since Gerard had announced his plans for his friends. It was he who had arranged the presence of Tamar and Conrad. But now that what she had wanted was here she was allowing herself to be wilfully absent. She smiled a little more, then sighed.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking about,’ said Gerard.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘About Sinclair.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Rose had not just then been thinking about Sinclair, but the thought of him was so profoundly associated with the thought of Gerard that she felt no qualm in assenting. Sinclair was Rose’s brother, ‘the golden boy’, so long dead. Of course she had thought about him earlier that evening when entering the college, remembering that other far off summer day when she had come visiting her undergraduate brother at the end of his first year, and Sinclair had said to her, ‘Look, that tall chap over there, that’s Gerard Hernshaw.’ Rose, a little younger than Sinclair, had been still at school. Sinclair’s recent letters had been full of Gerard, who was two years his senior. Rose inferred from the letters that Sinclair was in love with Gerard. It was only on that day in Oxford that she realised that Gerard was equally in love with Sinclair. That was all right. What was not so all right was that Rose had promptly fallen for Gerard herself, and remained, after all these years, hopelessly, permanently, in love. The extraordinary affair which she had had with Gerard less than two years after Sinclair’s early death was something they never spoke of afterwards, perhaps, such was their curious discipline, never even in their thoughts turned over, as one turns over memories, reworking, refurbishing, exposing to air and change. It lay rather in their past as a sealed package which they sometimes very gently touched but never, alone or together, envisaged opening. Rose had had other lovers, but they were brief shadows, she had had proposals of marriage, but they did not interest her. Now, feeling the pressure of Gerard’s hand upon hers very slightly increase, she wondered if he were now thinking of that. She did not look up, removing her head from the place where it had momentarily rested against his shoulder. After Sinclair left Oxford he and Gerard had lived together, Gerard working as a journalist, Sinclair continuing his studies in biology and helping Gerard to found a left-wing magazine. After Sinclair’s glider crashed into that hillside in Sussex, and after the very brief dream-interlude with Rose, Gerard gave up left-wing activities and went into the Civil Service. He lived at that time with various men, including Oxford friends, Duncan Cambus, who was then in London, and Robin Topglass, the geneticist, son of the birdman. Robin later married a French Canadian girl and went to Canada, Duncan married Rose’s schoolfriend Jean Kowitz and went into the diplomatic service. Marcus Field, probably not one of Gerard’s lovers, became a Benedictine monk. Gerard had always had plenty of close men friends, such as Jenkin Riderhood, with whom he had no sexual relations; and in more recent years seemed to have settled down to living alone. Of course Rose never asked. In fact she had stopped worrying about the men. It was the women she was afraid of.