by Iris Murdoch
‘Reeve, I must go back to London,’ said Rose, uttering words she had wanted to utter for some time.
‘Oh no! Why? The children have gone but there’s still me to look after! And how will the house run without you? You haven’t anything to do down there. I’ve often wondered why you weren’t with us oftener. You should regard this place as a second home.’
‘Oh I do,’ said Rose vaguely.
‘Evidently you don’t, as you’re so mean with your time! You know how attached the children are to you, how much they depend on your advice.’
Rose could not recall ever having ‘advised’ Neville and Gillian, who were bouncily independent young people, though it was true that she had had some ‘good talks’ with them during this, exceptionally long, stay at Fettiston.
‘How much they need you,’ Reeve went on, ‘and will – even more – in the future –’
Rose heard uneasily the slight weight which he put upon these words. She said, rather firmly, wanting now to be clear, ‘I must get back. Gerard is in a rather unhappy state because a friend of his died in an accident.’
‘Jenkin Riderhood.’
‘Yes. I didn’t know you knew –’ Rose was surprised.
‘Francis Reckitt told me, you know, Tony’s son. Someone in London mentioned it to him quite recently and he remembered the chap’s name. I met him with you once, years ago.’
‘Of course, you met Jenkin, I’d forgotten.’
‘Odd business – that man Crimond, wasn’t it – that Communist or whatever –’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t say anything to you. I felt we had enough on our plate.’
‘Indeed. Anyway – I feel I must go home – I’m sure you understand.’
‘I think this is your home, but I won’t argue! There aren’t many of them left now, are there –’
‘You mean –?’
‘Gerard and his friends. He’s living with his sister now, isn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, come back again soon. We do need you very much. Things are going to be different now – and – Rose – blood is thicker than water.’
‘A lot of things have happened since you went away,’ said Gerard.
Rose had telephoned him on her return and he had come round at once.
‘So you’re living in Jenkin’s house?’
‘Yes. He left everything to me. I think I shall stay there.’
‘So Patricia and Gideon got you out after all!’
‘Yes. But I wanted to go. I’m tired of being surrounded by possessions. It’s time for a radical change.’
‘You mean you’ll become like Jenkin?’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘Sorry, I’m being stupid. I feel terribly stupid just now.’
It was late evening. Rose professed to have had supper, though she had only had a sandwich. Gerard also said he had eaten. They were drinking coffee. He had refused whisky. The preliminaries of their conversation, so much looked forward to by Rose, had been awkward, almost irritable, as though they had both forgotten how to converse. She thought, he’s angry with me for having stayed away so long. I hope it’s only that.
Gerard looked different. His curly hair was dull and disordered, standing out in senseless directions, like the fur of a sick or frightened animal. His sculptured face, whose fine surfaces usually cohered so harmoniously, looked disunified and angular, even distorted. His mouth was awry, twisted in repose by a twinge of distress or annoyance. His normally calm eyes were restless and evasive, and he kept turning his head away from Rose in a sulky manner. Sometimes he became still and abstracted, frowning, as if listening. Oh he is ill, he is not himself, thought Rose miserably, but it seemed that she could do nothing now but irritate him.
‘You know Duncan’s resigned from the office?’
‘No.’
‘Of course that’s since you went away, you’ve been away such ages. He kept saying he’d resign, and now he’s resigned. They’re in France now looking for a house.’
‘What part?’ said Rose.
‘I don’t know what part!’
‘I rang their number, I wanted to see Jean. So they’re away. How are they?’
‘Very cheerful, not a care in the world.’
‘How are Gull and Lily? I hope they’re all right.’
‘Not very,’ said Gerard with an air of satisfaction. ‘You know Gulliver ran off to Newcastle? Yes, of course you know that. Lily hasn’t heard from him.’
‘I expect she thinks he’s got a girl up there! I think she should go after him. So you’ve seen Lily?’
‘No, of course not!’
‘Perhaps he wants to vanish until he can return in triumph.’
‘In that case he’ll just vanish.’
‘But you’ve seen Tamar?’
‘You think I’ve seen everybody! Actually, I have literally seen Tamar, but not to talk to. My God, she’s sleek, you wouldn’t recognise her.’
‘What do you mean, “sleek”?’
‘Well, fit, in cracking form.’
‘Really – how splendid!’
‘I don’t know whether it’s splendid,’ said Gerard, ‘it doesn’t seem real. I think she may be deranged or drugged or something.’
‘I could never make out what was the matter with her – just Violet I suppose.’
‘Do you know, I don’t think Tamar cared at all – about – Jenkin –’
Rose said hastily, to cut off his emotion, ‘I’m sure she cared. She’s such an odd girl, she conceals things.’
‘She’s been seeing that priest, your parson.’
‘Father McAlister.’
‘She’s been baptised and confirmed.’
‘Good heavens! Well, if it’s done her some good –’
‘She’s been stuffed full of a lot of consoling lies. Gideon’s been looking after her too.’
‘Gideon?’
‘It seems so. I found her round at my – his – house twice lately. Of course I tried to see her, but she wouldn’t see me.’
Rose thought, he’s furious because Gideon is succeeding where he’s failed. I must change the subject. ‘Do you find you can work well in Jenkin’s house? Are you writing something?
‘No. I’m not going to write – anything. I’ve decided not to.’
‘Gerard!’
‘I haven’t anything to say. Why write half-baked rubbish just for the sake of writing?’
‘But you –’
‘Crimond’s book is being published by the Oxford University Press. I may be able to get hold of a proof copy from somebody who works there.’
As soon as Crimond’s name was spoken it seemed as if the whole conversation had been simply steering towards it. Gerard, who had been looking away, now looked directly at Rose, he flushed and his lips parted, his face expressing a kind of surprise.
‘Have you seen Crimond?’
‘Of course not.’
As Rose was trying to think of something suitable to say Gerard got up. ‘I must go. I’ve sold my car, that’s another thing that’s happened. I’ll have to get a taxi. I can walk actually. Thanks for the coffee.’
‘Wouldn’t you like whisky, brandy?’ Rose got up too.
‘No, thanks. Rose, I’m sorry to be so – so – hideous.’
Rose wanted to embrace him, but he went away with a wave, without kissing her. The savour of that word hideous remained in the room. Rose could taste it upon her lips. She thought, he is sick, he is sick, he is poisoned by those thoughts, by those terrible thoughts.
Gerard, at home in Jenkin’s parlour, was feeling wretched because he had not been able to communicate with Rose. He regretted what he had said to her. In conveying his news he had adopted a surly cynical tone, he had sneered at almost everyone he mentioned. He had behaved badly, he had lost his rational reticence, he had been deliberately hostile and hurtful to Rose. He thought, I am not myself, my soul is sick, I am under a curse.
Crimond
was the name of the curse which Gerard was under. He could think of nothing and no one else and could not see how this degrading and tormenting condition could change. He thought every day of going to see Crimond, and every day saw how impossible this was. He dreaded seeing the book in case it was very good, equally in case it was not. Of course he thought continuously about Jenkin, but his mourning had been somehow taken over by Crimond, everything to do with Jenkin was misted over and contaminated by Crimond; and how terrible that was, and how degraded and vile Gerard had become to allow it to happen. Gerard was not even sure by now whether he found it conceivable that Crimond could have murdered Jenkin. It couldn’t be true. And yet… Why had Jenkin been there? He said he didn’t go to Crimond’s house. Crimond must have invited him or lured him. Maybe it was an accident, but had not Crimond somehow made an accident possible, unconsciously as it were? Could this make sense? Another rumour that circulated, and which was mentioned to Gerard by a malicious acquaintance who added that of course he did not believe it, was that Jenkin and Crimond had been lovers, and it was a jealousy killing. This simply could not be true. Jenkin had never been close to Crimond, and would never have concealed anything of such importance from Gerard. He could not believe anything of the sort. And yet, perhaps, might not Jenkin and Crimond, possibly very long ago, have been very close friends or lovers, and would not Jenkin have felt bound to keep this secret? Perhaps there had been something – and such things can be timeless. Had Gerard’s ‘proposal’ to Jenkin somehow – not of course by Jenkin telling Crimond – but by some perceptible change in Jenkin’s demeanour and plans, imparted to Crimond that ‘something had happened’, even that Jenkin was thinking of leaving his celibate state? Had Jenkin suddenly become, in some mysterious way, newly attractive? If so then in some sense Gerard was responsible for Jenkin’s death. But this idea, awful as it was, was shadowy, and tortured him less than some very particular images of the hypothetical relationship, however long ago, between Jenkin and Crimond. And then he kept hearing Jenkin’s voice, laughing, saying: ‘Come live with me and be my love.’
On that day when Jenkin had left Tamar so hurriedly ‘for an emergency’ and had said, ‘Stay and keep warm, I’d like to think you were here, stay here till I come back,’ Tamar had waited, at first feeling a security in being alone in Jenkin’s house, then after a while beginning to feel wretched and lonely and longing for his return. She went into the kitchen and looked into the refrigerator at bread, butter, cheese, she looked at tins of beans in the larder and apples on a dish. It was as if for her the food were contaminated, or seen in some future state mouldering away. She could not eat. She lay down on Jenkin’s bed, but though she turned on the electric fire the room was cold. She shivered under a blanket, lacking the will to burrow deeper into the bed. The little infinitesimal spark of hope which she had gained simply from Jenkin’s presence was extinguished. It was blackness again, ravaged, smashed, crushed, pulverised blackness, like the night after the earthquake, only the dark was silent, there were no voices, no one was there, only herself, her vast awful smashed up self. Tamar, in running to Jenkin, had wanted simply to be saved from some sort of imminent screaming insanity. The speech she had made to him about becoming a Christian and about magic and so on had been entirely impromptu, something wild, even cynical, said to startle Jenkin and perhaps herself. The words were hollow, another voice speaking through her. Of course she had listened, but with unabated despair, even with a kind of contemptuous anger to Father McAlister’s talk about ‘accepting Christ as her Saviour,’ which seemed to her like the gabble of a witch doctor. Now, waiting for Jenkin to come back, she gave herself up to the old repetitive misery, and to waiting impatiently, then anxiously, for his return. After a while she started inventing excellent reasons why he had not come back, he had said it was an emergency, someone was seriously ill, or even more miserable than she was, or had attempted suicide, he was holding someone’s hand, he was urgently needed, he was detained. During this time Tamar had nothing to do. She thought vaguely of cleaning the house, but the house was clean. She made herself a cup of tea, and washed up her cup and saucer, together with a mug which was beside the sink. After some time, after hours had passed, she could do nothing but feel very anxious, then very frightened, because Jenkin had not returned. She lay down and fell into a chilled coma, she got up, she cried for a while. About five o’clock she decided to go and started writing a letter to Jenkin which she then tore up. She put on her coat but could not make up her mind to return to Acton and to her mother. At last she rang up Gerard and asked if he knew where Jenkin was. Gerard told her he was dead.
Gerard had been one of the first people to learn of the event for a curious reason. The police had asked Crimond if he knew Jenkin’s next of kin, or closest connection, and Crimond had given them Gerard’s name and address. Gerard came back from the London Library to find the police on the doorstep. He was taken to a police station in South London where he was questioned about Jenkin, about Crimond, about the situation, about their relationship. It was partly, perhaps largely, Gerard’s testimony which saved Crimond from being treated as a ‘suspect’. Gerard was saved from having to identify his friend’s body by the fact that Marchment had instantly, on Crimond’s ’phone call, made contact with the local police and made his own appearance on the spot in the role of best friend. The whole matter remained, during that day, in a state of confusion and coming and going, during which Gerard might well have come face to face with Crimond but did not. He got back home in fact just in time to receive Tamar’s telephone call. Gerard asked her where she was. Tamar said she was in a telephone box. Gerard told her to wait there and he would fetch her by car. Tamar said, no, thank you, she would go home, her mother was waiting, and rang off, leaving Gerard to reproach himself for having, in his own shocked state, told her the news so bluntly. She went back to Acton, said nothing to Violet, listened to Violet’s complaints, toyed with her supper and went to bed early. Her condition then, as she saw it afterwards, was the sort of suspended shock which enables a soldier whose arm has been blown off to walk, talk sensibly, even crack jokes, before quite suddenly falling dead. Tamar never told anyone, except Father McAlister, that she had been with Jenkin on that day. The idea of being questioned about it was intolerable. Anyway, that meeting was a secret between her and Jenkin. Tamar had not waited to be told by Gerard how Jenkin had died, it was sufficient to know that he was dead. Then after she had gone to bed that night and was lying in the darkness choking with grief, it occurred to her that, whatever might have happened to him, he had been killed by the dead child; and henceforth and forever anyone who came near to her would be cursed and destroyed. So she was responsible for Jenkin’s death.
On the following day Tamar had an appointment to see the priest which she had intended to cancel but had forgotten to do so. She kept the appointment, and thereafter saw him at regular intervals. Father McAlister specialised in desperate cases. Over Tamar, he might positively have been said to gloat. His eyes sparkled but he did not underestimate his difficulties. His father had been a High Anglican clergyman, his mother a devout Methodist. Father McAlister could pray as soon as he could speak and the high spiritual rhetoric of the Bible and of Cranmer’s Prayer Book was more familiar to him than nursery rhymes. His God was that of his father, but his Christ was that of his mother. He spoke the dignified and beautiful language of a reticent spirituality, but he breathed the fire of instant salvation. Beyond this felicitous amalgam lay Father McAlister’s secret: he had by now ceased to believe in God or in the divinity of Christ, but he believed in prayer, in Christ as a mystical Saviour, and in the magical power which had been entrusted to him when he was ordained a priest, a power to save souls and raise the fallen. Herein, carefully judging her needs and her intelligence, he colluded with Tamar. He sought diligently in her despair for the tiny spark of hope which could be kindled into a flame. When she called herself evil he appealed to her reason, when she proclaimed disbelief he explained faith, wh
en she said she hated God he spoke of Christ, when she rejected Christ’s divinity he preached Christ’s power to save. He sang both high and low. He promised strength through repentance, and joy through renewal of life. He exhorted her to remake herself into an instrument fit for the service of others. He used the oldest argument in the book (sometimes called the Ontological Proof) which, in Father McAlister’s version, said that if with a pure passion you love God, then God exists, because He has to. After all, what your best self, your most truthful soul desires must be real, and not to worry too much about what it’s called. To these arguments, this struggle, this as it were dance which she was executing with the priest, Tamar become addicted. She surrendered herself to him as to an absorbing task. She was moving, as it seemed to her, and thus it came to her also in dreams, through a vast palace where doors opened, doors closed, rooms and vistas appeared and vanished and she knew no way, yet there was a way, and the thing to do was to keep going forward. A great many different things had to fit together, had to, for her, for Tamar, for her salvation from despair and degradation and death. That breathless, precarious, often tearful, prolonged and ingenious ‘fitting together’ was perhaps the cleverest thing that Tamar had ever done. She must live, she must be healed. This hope, appearing first as an intelligent determination, coexisted with the old despair, which now began to seem like self-indulgence, her sense that she deserved no happiness and no healing and was doomed. At this early period she recalled with bitter tears the time when she had felt innocent and was proud and pleased to be called an angel, and a ‘good girl’ who would always ‘do people good’. Her fallenness from this state made her especially anxious to avoid Gerard who had done so much to build up this illusion. This shunning of Gerard, almost a resentment against him, was what gave Gideon his chance since he emerged as the only person with whom Father McAlister could discreetly cooperate. Here the priest found an eager, even too enthusiastic, ally; and hence the surprising appearance of Tamar and even Violet at the Christmas rituals.