by Iris Murdoch
Gulliver had been supported through the later years of an unhappy childhood, and through his happy student days and after, by an idea of himself as rather beautiful and raffish. As a student actor and in his early post-graduate years he had been markedly good-looking and attractive to both sexes. He found himself at home with both, but, with high expectations, failed to find the desired wonderful partner. In his raffish persona he at one time frequented various, reportedly louche, gay bars. He wore black leather and studded belts and chains and sinister boots. He could never decide whether this was mere play-acting or whether it was a brave and ingenious search for reality. There was always a lot of talk about ‘identity’. But when he went to the gay bars he couldn’t tell pretence from real. Later he wondered why he hadn’t been murdered. He never told Gerard about that period. Another thing which he never told Gerard was that it was in a rather special gay bar that he had first heard Gerard’s name mentioned. Of course Gerard never came near these places, but people talked about him. He had first got to know Gerard through a rescue operation for a little avant-garde theatre in Fulham; Gerard made a financial contribution and turned up once or twice. The theatre did not survive long however. Gulliver’s heart still beat a little fast for Gerard, but he had never expected to be that sort of favourite, it being generally known that Gerard did not now have them. Gull was sufficiently flattered to have become friendly with Gerard’s friends, and to have been (at a moment when Gerard was feeling guilty about him) co-opted onto the book committee. In fact, such was Gerard’s habitual reticence that the ‘encouragement’ which he imagined he had given Gulliver existed largely in Gerard’s mind, and had scarcely appeared perceptibly in the external world.
Gulliver had applied for job after job, gradually reducing his expectations and humbling his pride. He applied to the BBC, the British Council, the Labour Party, the local Town Hall, the University of London. He tried and failed to get a grant to continue his education. Of course he looked for acting jobs but soon realised this was hopeless when good and experienced actors were out of work. He applied wildly for jobs at an increasing variety of institutions and offered himself as numerous kinds of school teacher or social worker. He discovered he had many unsuspected talents and enthusiasms: he was very good with children, with old people, with lunatics, with animals, he was very young, very mature, very experienced, very versatile, very ready to learn. He had no success, aware that every job attracted hundreds of applicants. He had not yet applied to be a porter, waiter, unskilled factory hand, assuming he would be rejected, and regarding this anyway as a desperate perhaps fatal move. He had savings, he kept on hoping; but by now he had clearly envisaged the possibility that, although he was young and talented and had a university degree, he might never be employed again.
Gulliver had gone through the routines of pitying the unemployed and blaming the government. Now he was experiencing the thing itself. Often did he think resentfully, it’s not fair, I’m not the kind of person who is unemployed! Waking in the morning the misery of his situation quickly blackened his consciousness. He had not realised how solitary he was, or had now become. He had been lonely as a child, but when he was a student imagined himself established, received into society, destined to be forever surrounded by friends. Now he was realising that if you are unemployed and have no money you can cease to be a person. He realised how ‘subjective’ this was, influenced even by the current language of do-gooders who were so ready to deplore and describe what they were not experiencing. It was absurd to feel so ashamed, so bedraggled, so useless. He just knew that he was being destroyed by an alien force, sinking into an abyss out of which he would never climb. He pictured himself in a few years, a shambling figure, begging from old friends. The bloom had departed, only for a brief moment is the flesh perfect, now he was becoming creased and stained. He hated the sight of younger men, a terrible symptom. Soon he would be unable to keep up appearances, which to get a job you must do. He had no family to turn to, he had hardly known his father, had suffered a hostile step-father and step-siblings, he was the outsider, the misfit, his mother turned against him. He had taken pleasure later in demonstrating his contempt for them all, communication dwindled. There was nowhere to go. He would soon have to leave the modest flat which he rented. He sold his car, gave up his telephone and shunned his literary friends with their expensive luncheons. He could not accept Gerard’s help a second time, nor present himself in this abject state. Jenkin sent three postcards, but Gull had never been able to see the point of Jenkin. He felt a tiny bit romantic about Rose, who had rung up and, after his ’phone was disconnected, written asking him for a drink. He refused of course. He had sent her, anonymously, some flowers. That cheered him up a little.
‘And there was a funny little thing that rolled about in her room, like a little ball. She said I must never touch it. Of course I tried to, I wanted to pick it up, but it always rolled away somehow, underneath something. I was never sure whether it was alive or not.’
‘But look, your grandmother wasn’t a real witch, I mean there aren’t real witches, just poor mad creatures, or cheats who pretend to be –’
‘I think she was a mid-wife, or had been, perhaps not an official one, but she knew all about herbs, she used to collect them when the moon was full. If you wanted to hurt somebody you picked the herbs when the moon was getting smaller –’
‘She must have been mad –’
‘She wasn’t, nor a cheat either – you don’t understand, witchcraft is an old religion, far older than Christianity, it’s about power. I think she hated her parents, they belonged to some awful strict Christian sect, she hated Christianity.’
‘Well, there’s a psychological explanation.’
‘When you say explain you mean explain away! Sometimes she said she was a gipsy, sometimes she said she was Jewish. People were afraid of her, but they asked her for help too, she could do all sorts of things. She was a dowser, and she could get rid of poltergeists, and she could make it rain by urinating – and she did abortions, of course –’
‘Of course!’
‘She had the evil eye, she had one strange eye, and –’
‘Like Duncan! I don’t imagine he’s got the evil eye – he must wish he had, poor chap!’
‘She had a lot of books, I think she thought she’d discover something amazing.’
‘Mad people do.’
‘All right, we’re all a bit mad then. Why do you think they planted yew trees in churchyards? And it’s like socialism.’
‘Like socialism?’
‘Yes, it’s an anti-society society, it’s a form of protest, it’s like what Crimond does, and –’
‘Oh Lily,’ said Gull, ‘do stop mixing everything up together, first it’s your awful grandmother and now we’ve got onto Crimond again!’
‘Well, he wants power too, he’s writing a magic book.’
‘You know him, don’t you?’
‘I used to know him,’ said Lily in a cautious tone. ‘We haven’t seen much of each other lately.’
It had just occurred to Lily that it would be rather nice if Gulliver were to believe that she had been Crimond’s mistress. She had never dared to hint this to anyone. Even now she felt afraid that Gulliver might see what she was hinting and not believe her; or worse still believe her, and say something about it to Crimond. What exactly had she said? She had already forgotten. That was the wine.
They were having a picnic lunch at Lily’s flat. Lily’s flat, near Sloane Square, was well provided with big windows with window seats and broad Edwardian doors made of teak. The bow window of her drawing room, where they were picnicking at an oval table, looked out onto a street where the wind was removing large yellow leaves from the tall plane trees and laying them carefully upon the pavements. A fire was burning in the grate. The room was multi-coloured, cluttered, almost garish; sensual and oriental, as Gulliver thought of it, possibly something to do with the awful grandmother. Perhaps he was the ideal spectator of t
hat room. Gulliver liked Lily’s crazy mixed-up taste, the almost-black wallpaper, the modern green and ivory chequered carpet with trompe-l’oeil recessions, which was like a pavement in an exotic courtyard, the sofas on which Lily lolled, covered with tapestries and embroideries, the polished surfaces crowded with boxes and figurines, expensive little things which Lily had bought impulsively at expensive shops. He liked the way it smelt of new things, even the old things seemed new here.
Yes, they were friends. Gull had never had a woman friend before. This was the only thing that had happened lately that was not ill-omened and awful, and even over this some ambiguous cloud was hanging. He could not believe in anything which would not soon be spoilt. It had not been Gull’s idea, it had been Lily’s. This fact had already been discussed. In the late summer when Gerard was in Greece and Rose in Yorkshire, and Gulliver was just beginning to despair, he received a card from Lily asking him to lunch at a restaurant in Covent Garden. He decided to refuse, then went. They met again a few times, at restaurants, at Lily’s expense. Gulliver had not expected to get on with this rather ridiculous person, but he did. He had first met her some time ago at a party of Rose’s and had scarcely given her a thought. Was he now attracted by her money? This was the first time they had, at Gull’s suggestion, lunched at her flat. He was tired of seeing her pay and feared this might be noticed. Gull felt at ease with Lily because he did not fear her judgment or indeed care much what she thought. There was a grain of some relaxing superiority which he had probably imbibed from the people with whom he had first met her. At the same time he felt bound to keep up appearances with her, and that was good for him. With Lily he played the penniless writer, the garret genius, implied he was not really interested in getting a job, that he had always wanted to be alone and live simply and write. He told her that drop-outs were the saints of the modern world. Lily admired his asceticism. Of course there was nothing romantic involved. Lily talked a bit about the plausible men, Gull a bit about the gay bars. It was all remarkably easy and casual.
Lily was pleased to have acquired Gulliver. She regarded him as a minor extension of Gerard and a link with ‘that world’. She believed his ‘penniless writer’, ‘drop-out saint’ story, and was unaware that he no longer saw Rose and her friends. She considered Gulliver a social asset or stepping stone, but she also enjoyed his company and found it nice to have just this kind of friend. They were, they both agreed, misfits, eccentrics, unusual people. She had enjoyed hearing about his rotten family, and telling him about her rotten family; how her father had vanished before she was born, how her mother, who had been converted to Catholicism, had handed her over to the paranormal grandmother, of whom Lily (though now proud of her) was terrified. From school she escaped to the ‘crummy polytechnic’ where she learnt to type and messed about with painting and pots. The Catholic mother died of drink, the grandmother, who planned to live to be a hundred and twenty, died suddenly under mysterious circumstances, murdered (she claimed) by the spells of a rival witch. Lily had lost touch with both of them. ‘I never loved them,’ said Lily. ‘They never loved me. It was all a dead loss. Ah well.’
They had been eating ham and tongue and salami and peperonata and artichoke hearts and lima beans. Both Gull and Lily liked eating but not cooking. They had drunk a lot of cheap white wine. (Lily was not fussy about wine.) Cheese was to follow, and chocolate gâteau with cream, then Spanish brandy which Lily preferred to French. The flat was dusty, because Lily, very suspicious and fearful of thieves, would employ no char, and did not like dusting, it was also untidy, but Lily was in other ways systematic, even ritualistic. The ‘picnic’ was slow and orderly, the pretty plates and glasses carefully arranged upon a tablecloth made of an Indian bedspread; Lily had never really learnt to paint at her polytechnic, but the instinct that took her there expressed, perhaps, an artistic temperament. She was also, Gulliver learnt by observation, exceedingly superstitious, worrying about ladders, bird omens, crossed knives, inauspicious dates, numbers, phases of the moon. She was afraid of black dogs and spiders. She believed in astrology, and had had her horoscope cast several times, undismayed by finding that the prognoses did not agree. She also had a number of mixed-up ideas about Yoga and Zen. Another of Lily’s little mysteries was that she could look remarkably old or remarkably young. When old, a pinched mask of anxiety descended on her face, stained wrinkled skin obscured her light brown eyes, her long neck looked starved and stringy, and her skin sallow and pitted, as if drawn toward her mouth in a querulous pout. At other times her face was smooth and youthful and alert, its pallor glowing, her sweetmeat eyes shining with intelligence, her slim figure taut with energy. With this would go a fey liveliness sometimes suggestive of desperation. Lily’s clothes also varied between a zany smartness and messy uncaring dowdiness. Today, smartish, youngish, she was wearing tight black corduroy trousers, bare feet, a high-necked blue silk shirt and an amber necklace. Gulliver, who always dressed for Lily, was wearing his oatmeal jersey with red spots over a white shirt, his best jeans and boots, and his gorgeously brown soft leather (reindeer) jacket, which he had had to take off because Lily’s flat was so warm.
Gulliver did not pick up, indeed had not noticed, Lily’s hint about her relationship with Crimond. He had just bitten his tongue. He often did this now. Was it a sign of something, loss of physical coordination perhaps, a symptom of some fell disease? How on earth, when he came to think of it, did his tongue manage anyway, leading such a dangerous life between those powerful clashing monsters? He said, ‘Have you seen Jean Cambus?’
‘No, not lately.’ Lily did not want to admit that her friendship with Jean belonged to the past.
‘What a business,’ said Gulliver. They had frequently discussed it of course. Gulliver could not help feeling pleased that other people were in a mess too; fancing being cuckolded twice by the same man! ‘If I were Duncan I’d be so sick with rage and shame and hate, I’d shoot myself!’
‘Why ever should he?’ said Lily. ‘He ought to go and get Crimond, with a gang. My women’s lib friends would kill someone like Crimond, like I once saw in a judo demo, a woman was showing what to do if a man attacks you, was she tough! She had that man down, he was a great big chap too, right on his face, and she was twisting his arm, and all the women in the audience were screaming “Kill him! Kill him!” It was great.’
Gulliver shuddered. ‘I don’t see Gerard and that lot doing anything violent. They tend to sit and think.’
‘That circle of cultured gents!’ said Lily. ‘They sit apart like little gods with no troubles. Even when their dear friend has trouble they do nothing.’
‘There’s nothing they can do,’ said Gulliver. ‘Gerard cares a lot really, he looks after people.’
‘He’s too bloody dignified,’ said Lily.
Gulliver laughed sympathetically. He was in a mood to demote Gerard a little. He felt he had been too impressed. He had copied out some of his poems for Gerard early last year. Gerard had been nice about them, but Gull noticed them in a wastepaper basket later.
‘And Jenkin Riderhood’s a wet,’ Lily went on, ‘he’s a teddy bear man.’
‘He’s a complacent little chap,’ said Gulliver, ‘but he’s harmless.’ He instantly blamed himself for this horrible utterance. He found himself gossiping in this loose spiteful way with Lily and saying things which he didn’t mean, which she seemed somehow to elicit. I’m degenerating, he thought, it’s because I’m demoralised. ‘You side with the women.’
‘Rose Curtland is nice,’ Lily admitted. ‘She can’t help being a bit posh. She’s timid though, and that exasperates me, I can’t stand timid women. The best of the bunch is little Tamar.’
‘Tamar?’ said Gulliver surprised. He had not heard Lily mention Tamar before.
‘Yes,’ said Lily. She added, ‘She was kind to me once.’ Tamar had once made a point of talking to Lily and staying with her at a party, at the Cambuses house in the old days, where Lily was getting left out. Lily never forgot this.
Gull was touched. ‘She’s a good kid, but not exactly precocious, she’s a modest violet.’
‘Thank heavens for a girl who can be like that these days! She’s pure, she’s innocent, she’s sweet, she’s unspoilt, she’s fresh, she’s everything that I’m not. I’m shop-soiled, I guess I was born shop-soiled. I adore that child.’
Gulliver was surprised by this little outburst. Perhaps he had underestimated Tamar, perhaps he ought to notice her more? But of course Lily’s emotion was really concerned with herself and not with young Tamar.
‘She’ll be someone,’ said Lily, ‘the others are soft, they live in the past, in a sort of Oxford dream world. Tamar was right to get out of that, she’s brave, she’s a survivor type. You’ve got to be hard to understand what’s happening today, let alone do anything about it.’
‘Jean’s hard,’ said Gulliver, ‘she’s very fond of Tamar too, and Tamar had quite a crush on her.’
‘Really?’ Lily wondered for a moment whether she could somehow get Jean back, perhaps with Tamar’s help. But it was no good. ‘I’m out of it,’ she said. ‘I can’t get on with men, and I can’t get on with women either.’
‘You get on with me.’
‘Oh, you –!’
‘What do you mean, oh me?’
‘Actually the idea that men and women are different is put about by men and by slave women. That Freud thing, penis-envy, means nothing but Freud feels superior. We used-up liberated women are best placed to see and know all. I don’t know why I say “we”. I’m the only one who sees and knows all.’
‘That’s because you’re a witch,’ said Gull. ‘I know you met Jean at that yoga class where you stood on your head, but where did you meet Crimond?’