The Good Apprentice

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘Oh God — ’ said Edward, standing helplessly beside her with his hands hanging.

  Brownie had found a handkerchief and had with deft speed recomposed and dried her face, so that the quick storm seemed like a mirage. She said, in an almost calm voice, a little husky, ‘Sorry. Must go.’

  ‘Brownie, just say — oh Christ, what can you say — say you’ll see me again — I’ll go on my knees — I need you — you’re the only person who can save me from hell — please, please say you’ll see me again — sometime — before too long — just say we can meet again, I beseech you, I beg you — ’

  ‘Oh — yes — all right — but — ’

  ‘Oh, thank God — ’

  Brownie’s face suddenly changed again, looking past Edward towards the river, her lips parted. Edward turned.

  A man was standing on the other side of the river near to the cherry tree, a bearded man standing with legs wide apart and looking towards them. Edward thought it was the tree man. Then he saw that it was Jesse. As soon as Jesse saw Edward he waved. Then he turned and began to pick his way along the bank over the hummocky grass.

  Edward said to Brownie, ‘Excuse me — that’s my father.’

  ‘What — ? Can I help?’

  ‘No, no. I’ll tell you later if you’ll let me. You did say we could meet again. I’m so glad about that. I can manage here. Thank you, thank you.’

  She turned and went away along the line of willows.

  Jesse had by this time gone quite a distance, walking upstream. His back could just be seen beyond some elder bushes as he continued on his way. Edward ran as fast as he could along his bank of the river. He shouted, ‘Wait, wait for me.’ He thought, I’ll swim across.

  Jesse paused and turned. He was wearing a rather dishevelled shirt, some sort of knee breeches, socks and boots. He stood there smiling at Edward. Edward understood the look of surprise on Brownie’s face. For Jesse, though fully clothed looked extremely odd, his head, now seen in the open, being unusually large, his eyes also round and huge, and the knee breeches giving somehow the effect of shaggy haunches. Edward called, ‘Jesse, stay there. I’m going to swim over.’

  Jesse waved again in a nonchalant manner and began to descend the bank. Then, as Edward stared, he began to cross the river, walking upon the water. He came steadily across, taking carefully step after step, with the stream swirling about his boots, leaping sometimes up to his ankles. Edward, amazed, ran down to where the bank descended smoothly to a little beach and stepped into the water, reaching out his hand. Jesse, avoiding the proffered assistance, came ashore with a childishly triumphant smile. As he did so Edward saw, just below the surface of the fast river, a line of stepping stones to which he would not have liked to trust himself.

  ‘Oh Jesse — you — oh I’m so glad to see you!’ Edward suddenly overcome, threw his arms round his father.

  ‘Used to be a ford here,’ said Jesse, disengaging himself.

  ‘You mustn’t walk about like this,’ said Edward, ‘it’s dangerous, you might fall, I must take you home, you mustn’t be out here by yourself — come home now, please, with me.’ He was afraid that Jesse would resist. However he allowed Edward to take his arm and they began to walk slowly back toward Seegard, whose weird ungainly form was illuminated by the now declining sun.

  They had reached the green meadow where Edward had seen the yellow flowers when Jesse, who had been walking quite well, suddenly stopped and seemed disposed to sit down on the wet grass. ‘Jesse, just come a little farther. It’s drier up there on the path.’

  ‘I like it here.’

  ‘Where were you going when I saw you?’

  ‘Looking for those flowers — what they — cowslips — didn’t find any.’

  Edward pulled him a little and he walked on as far as the path, where he promptly sat down, then lay down, between two gorse bushes. Edward sat down beside him. He took off his mac and rolled it up inside out and put it under Jesse’s head, which Jesse lifted to receive the pillow.

  ‘Jesse, are you feeling all right?’

  ‘Of course not. Smell, that smell, I remember it — the smell of gorse — like — like what — coconut.’

  ‘Why, yes, so it is.’

  ‘Who was the girl?’

  Edward was surprised that Jesse remembered the girl. He answered, ‘She’s Brenda Wilsden — ’ ‘Never liked that name, Brenda.’

  ‘She’s called Brownie — ’

  ‘That’s better, nice — ’

  Jesse lay relaxed, gazing at Edward, his big furry spherical head propped up, heavy, lolling to one side, his arms crossed on his chest, his feet, in muddy ill-laced boots, crossed too. Edward noticed again the ring with the red stone whose wide gold band made the soft flesh bulge a little.

  ‘Your girl?’

  ‘No,’ said Edward.

  ‘You got a girl?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Had girls?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What were you talking, with that Brownie?’

  ‘We were talking about her brother. I gave him a bad drug and he fell out of a window and was killed, it was my fault. She wanted me to tell her how it happened.’ In the short silence after this Edward wondered what on earth Jesse would now find to say. He had not been looking at him as he spoke, but now turned toward the propped head. The dark round eyes were looking at him with intelligence.

  ‘Funny,’ said Jesse, ‘you looked so nice with that girl — in the sun — and you were talking about that.’

  ‘I came here to tell you about it,’ said Edward. ‘It makes me feel so bad that sometimes I want to die.’

  ‘You’re not to die, no, no. I to die, not you.’

  ‘You mustn’t,’ said Edward, ‘I won’t let you. Jesse, let me take you to London, we could see a doctor there who could help you — you’ re not old — please let us go to London — ‘

  Jesse smiled, protruding his red lips out of their surroundings of luxuriant dark straight hair, hair which as it flowed shone like some strong self-confident plant. ‘No. No. It’s all happening here.’

  ‘What is happening?’

  ‘Life and death, good and evil. I wouldn’t go to London for that.’

  Edward thought, no, of course, what I suggested is impossible, I can’t quite see why, but it’s impossible.

  Jesse went on, and Edward was surprised at his command of the conversation.

  ‘So you wanted to tell me — about the boy that fell?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I thought you might help me, let me out of this — hell. Sort of-forgive me.’

  ‘Has she, that girl, forgiven you, his sister?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Edward.

  ‘Then I forgive you.’

  ‘Oh — Jesse — ’ Edward reached out and touched the back of one hand. Then leaning quickly forward he kissed the hand. The long hairs tasted salt.

  Jesse, still gazing at Edward without visible recognition of the homage, said, ‘I don’t see young girls now — except Ilona — and she hasn’t been around — ’

  ‘They won’t let her. She loves you.’

  ‘Oh I know, I know — ’

  ‘And I love you, Jesse. I love you so much. I must tell you. You could do everything for me, you could make me all over again — ’ As Edward found these words emerging from his mouth he felt a thrill of fright as if the words were actually little animals which had leapt out of his mouth and were now running about. He was hypnotised by Jesse’s large protuberant red-dark eyes in whose depths he seemed now to see deep seas and sea creatures moving.

  ‘Oh, well — I’ve forgotten it all.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What I knew once — about good and evil and those — all those things — people don’t really have them, meet them — in their lives at all, most people don’t — only a few — want that — that fight, you know — think they want — good — have to have — evil — not real, either — of course �
� all inside something else — it’s a dance — you see — world needs power — always round and round — it’s all power and — energy — which sometimes — rears up its beautiful head — like a dragon — that’s the meaning of it all — I think — in the shadows now — can’t remember — doesn’t matter — what I need — is a long sleep — so as to dream it all — over again.’ At this point Jesse’s eyes closed for a moment and Edward was afraid he was actually falling asleep or going off into one of his trances. However he opened his eyes again and said, ‘As beautiful as fire.’ ‘What is, who is?’

  ‘He is, I was once, no matter. It’s all very close now. But you will live. You will be — all right. You’re wearing my boots.’

  ‘Yes, I came without any, they fit perfectly, I hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘So you’re in my boots. Well, you’re not involved, it won’t touch you, when it comes. Perhaps spirits need a master — after all — if it isn’t — too late. I used to know about that — I used to know everything — once. It doesn’t matter. Perhaps I’ll die of it, in the end, in the very end.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Old age. Done my job, maybe. I’ll think about all that — when I’m asleep. Help me up, dear boy. It’s getting dark.’

  When Edward raised his eyes from his father’s face he saw that it had indeed got dark. The form of Seegard, the tower unlit, a dim light shining from the high windows of the Atrium, was outlined against a reddish sky. Then the other way, toward the sea, Edward saw as he rose that the sky was a dark clear blue, a blue full of the ink of the night.

  Getting Jesse up was not easy. He seemed to have become abnormally heavy, his limbs falling about like leaden sacks. At last he was on his feet, leaning heavily on Edward, and they walked on very slowly toward the house. As they approached the stable yard a figure was waiting for them. It was Mother May. Edward began, ‘I found him — ’

  Mother May thrust a strong arm in between Edward and Jesse, prising them apart. Her rough movement squeezed Edward’s damaged finger, which he had forgotten, and which now began to burn with pain. He fell back, letting Mother May take Jesse’s weight and lead him on, trying to hurry him over the uneven stones. ‘Oh come along!’, Edward heard her say as she hustled him through the outside door into the Interfectory. When Edward entered the room the door opposite into the tower had already closed.

  Edward walked out of the front door into the moist warm dark. Clouds must be covering the sky where there was no light, but the wind had dropped. He could smell the pine trees. He began to walk along the front of the house toward Selden. Supper was over now. Wine had been served. Jesse’s escapade had not been discussed. Edward’s mention of it was passed over with vague anodyne comments. ‘Oh, he sometimes does that.’ ‘He can go quite a long way.’ ‘Some day he’ll go off altogether.’ Ilona, trying to say something, had been shut up and had burst into tears. She sat there at the table, her tears dropping into her bowl. It was not the first time Edward had seen this happen. He thought, they reduce her to childishness. But he made no overt movement of sympathy. Ilona’s tears were ignored. And he wondered: did they want Jesse to go out, to get lost, to go away? Was it true that he was capable of becoming lucid and mobile and setting off for London or Paris, as they had more than once said? Today he had left the house with his boots on. Evidently doors had been unlocked, presumably no one had seen him go.

  Edward was now in total darkness. The glow of the oil lamps through the high windows of the Atrium had been extinguished, wrapped up in an obscurity which was like some black velvet textile or soft inky stuff which filled space and touched Edward’s face like ectoplasm. His feet, lacking confidence in this deprivation of sensory guidance, moved slowly and uncertainly, and he had lost his sense of direction. He suddenly came up against something, knocking into it first with his knee, then with his whole body. He exclaimed with fright. His exploring hands told him that he was up against the trunk of one of the ilex trees which he had imagined to be still many paces away. He felt the ridgy densely textured bark of the tree. He looked up, then round about, then stepped back a little. He could see nothing. He had lost all intuitive sense of his surroundings. The night sky, the arching trees, could as well have been the walls of a tiny black lightless room, an oubliette in the centre of which he was standing. He reached out again but could touch nothing. Then suddenly something took him by the throat, a frightful sensation that made him stagger and gasp harshly. He brought his hands up to his face. His legs, suddenly devoid of force, gave way at the knees and he squatted, losing his balance and about to prostrate himself as at the effect of a blow. One open hand found the ground and one knee, and he levered himself up and stood for a moment, legs wide apart, gasping. The sensation which had suddenly felled him was fear, pure contentless fear such as he had never experienced before. He was not capable of screaming. He checked the instinct to run as he knew he would instantly fall. He set off walking in long strenuous strides, his staring eyes wide open to the black dark, in what he took to be the direction of the house. After long moments he saw the lighted windows and a pale smudge lower down which came from the open door of the hall. He moved a little to his right and stretched out one hand to touch the stones of the wall, feeling their altering texture. As he approached the door someone came out of it and at once vanished into the dark. It was Bettina. Edward hurried in, then, in the light, paused to adjust his breathing. As he stood and breathed he heard behind him a weird high-pitched cry. It’s only an owl, he told himself, but he made haste to close the door and get well away from it.

  The supper table had not been cleared. At the table Mother May was sitting alone. Edward saw before her a wine bottle and a half-filled wine glass. He sat down opposite to her, moving an oil lamp to illumine her face. She had her calm young look, as he had first seen her, her face seeming entirely smooth and exuding, in the lamp light, a powdery golden glow. Her hair, glowing red and gold, was pulled back into a large neat bun, displaying the full intent gentle luminosity of her gaze, as she looked dreamily at Edward.

  Behind him, outside in the fearful dark, other sounds were now arising, long wailing cries and shrieks. ‘What in heaven’s name is that?’

  ‘Owls, of course.’

  ‘I’ve never heard those sounds before.’

  ‘They’re mating. There are all sorts of owls and they have different cries. I meant to tell you, you must be careful going out at night, an owl could peck out your eyes if you came near its nest.’

  ‘But why are they all suddenly shrieking together?’

  ‘Bettina is calling them. She can simulate many birds’ cries. She can make sounds higher than the human ear can catch. It’s a sort of physical endowment. Jesse had it.’

  Edward sat listening to the cacophany of wailing. ‘Where’s Ilona?’

  ‘Gone to bed.’

  Edward had wanted to see her and comfort her. He regretted not having done so at the dinner table. He found an empty glass and reached out for the wine bottle. The wine tasted delicious, fragrant and complexly sweet. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Dandelion wine.’

  ‘I didn’t know you could make wine out of dandelions.’

  ‘You can make wine out of anything.’

  ‘I’ve never had this one before, it’s good.’

  ‘What have you done to your finger?’

  ‘I sliced it, slicing herbs. Look.’ Edward began to pull the dark blood-stiffened bandage off. He was doing this, he was well aware, as an aggressive gesture, a reckless exposure, an exhibition designed to produce pity, fear and disgust. The bandage was stuck hard to the wound. A sharp pain shot through Edward’s hand and up his arm. He wrenched the bandage off, feeling his flesh tear as if half his finger were being severed. He yelped, then gazed at the large raw wound out of which blood was promptly oozing, coming up fast in bright red globules out of the deep mouth of the cut and pouring down his hand and dripping onto the table.

  ‘Here.’ Mother May handed him a table na
pkin. ‘Wait. I’ll get something.’

  Mother May returned with a steaming basin, cloths, towel and a small box. Edward held his hand over the basin while Mother May, holding up his wrist, mopped the cut, staunched it a little, then covered it with a poultice of leaves covered with a finger-shaped piece of linen and loosely tied with thread.

  ‘That’ll stop the bleeding and heal the wound. It won’t stick.’

  ‘Thanks. What is it?’

  ‘Comfrey.’ She cleaned the table carefully with another cloth and dried it, then put the basin on the floor.

  Edward sat quietly inhaling the fragrant herbal smell from the basin. He was aware of silence. The concert of owls was over. Bettina was outside somewhere, standing or roving in the pitch dark. He could still feel the firm soothing grip of Mother May’s fingers upon his wrist. Some white moths were circling round the lamp. He said, ‘I want to take Jesse to London.’

  ‘He wouldn’t go with you.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t you all come?’

  ‘It would be impossible.’

  ‘Do you imagine you’d die if you left this place?’

  ‘No, but I should very quickly grow old.’ Mother May was staring at him with her large gentle lucid eyes. She poured some more wine into his glass, then into her own.

  ‘You’re all eternally young — except Jesse, and he — ’

  ‘Oh, he will never die, he’ll simply metamorphose himself!’

  ‘I wish I could help him, serve him. He did want to see me, didn’t he?’

  ‘Perhaps you imagine that you were the longed-for boy — your mother could have put that into your head — but don’t be charmed by him. You realise he’s crazy. He has all sorts of illusions, and he would tell you anything. He’s just the wreck of a wicked old man.’

  ‘He isn’t wicked.’

  ‘Pure wickedness never seems wicked. It’s when it’s mixed with good that it shows. He is an incarnation of evil. He has opened the door of evil and seen within.