by Iris Murdoch
‘I want to help you, Joe, I feel desperate to help you. I thought she might be able to—influence you—or could tell me of somebody who could. But it was no use.’
‘She’s just a drunken tart.’
‘Don’t say that about your mother, Joe. Can’t you pity her? She needs love so much. Can’t you find any love for her in your heart? If you could it might be such a wonderful thing for you both.’
‘She’d scream and curse if I went near her. Don’t talk of her, please. She’s over and done with. She might as well be dead, the bitch.’
Cato sighed. He decided there was indeed little point in pursuing the matter or in bringing Joe up to date with the situation of Dominic, Benedict, Pat, Fran and Damian.
‘I have tried,’ said Cato. ‘I have tried other ways. There aren’t any.’
‘What are you saying, Father?’
‘Sorry, I was just thinking aloud. Do you think you’ll ever get married, Joe? It could do you a lot of good to get married.’
‘Married? Nah! The sort of birds I get near are muck. If I had a wife I’d kill her. I like men more than girls really. Girls are just for sex. And even that can be better with a chap.’
Cato considered this. He felt that he was in a labyrinth in which he must very carefully and meticulously find his way. Except that everything was moving so fast that it was more like being in an aeroplane than in a labyrinth. There was a sense of physical rushing as if the ceiling were somehow sliding away over his head. With an effort he focused his eyes on the shuddering candle flame. He knew that he ought to terminate the conversation but also knew that he would not. He thought, get things sorted out, get them into some sort of order, tell the truth. Everything would come right if he could only get to the bottom of it all.
He said, ‘Joe, there’s something important that I have to tell you about myself.’
‘I know it, Father.’
Cato could make nothing of this answer. He went on, ‘I’ve decided that I have got to stop being a priest.’
This was evidently not what Joe had been expecting. ‘Oh, no! You don’t mean it, Father. You can’t be anything else but a priest. If you weren’t a priest, you’d be nothing.’
‘Then I shall have to be nothing,’ said Cato. He had never seen it so clearly.
‘No, no, Father. You’re not serious. You’ll never give it up, I know you won’t, you can’t. You’re just worried about me.’
‘About you?’ There was some logic somewhere, but where was it? Logic was a frame tilting over him, coming down upon him, about to mince him up with its sharp edges. ‘Joe,’ said Cato, ‘tell me the truth. Are you really a criminal?’ ‘I don’t mean worried like that, Father.’ ‘What other way is there to worry?’ said Cato. He was trying so hard to keep his mind clear, but everything Joe said sounded wrong, as if it were the answer to some quite different question. ‘Joe are you a criminal? Are you involved with really bad people?’
‘No, of course not, Father. Nobody’s really bad. It’s society that’s bad. As for being a criminal, practically everybody’s a criminal. You aren’t, that’s why I love you. That’s why you’ll go on being a priest. There’s got to be some people who aren’t involved.’
‘But do you break the law?’
‘Yes a bit, but so does everybody almost. Everybody cheats, everybody steals. They’d break the law all the time if they could, help themselves, only often they don’t know how or they’re afraid. I just nick a thing or two, and I never nick from poor people, only from big places like, big shops, they won’t miss it, they reckon on a lot of hoisting. It’s not stealing really, lots of people do, respectable people too, you don’t know. You live in a funny world of your own, Father. You don’t know how ordinary folk go on. But I like you like that, I’m glad you exist, for us, for the others, in your funny world.’
‘What you call the funny world is the real world,’ said Cato. ‘It’s where God is, where truth is anyway, I don’t know about God any more. Joe, you’re young. And you’re very beautiful.’ Cato had not intended to say the last bit, but when it came out it quite blocked what he was going to say next, which had been something important.
The swaying candle flames sent big shadows and a small restless light spiralling about the room. Beautiful Joe’s face seemed in this rhythmical obscurity to glow rather than to be illuminated. Intermittent light fell upon his thin legs, showing the faded colour of his jeans at the knees, and upon his rather large long hands which dangled as he leaned forward or rose expressively to pat his hair or administer, as he spoke, a kind of blessing. In spite of the coldness of the room, he had taken off his jacket and neatly rolled up his shirt sleeves. His glittering tidy hair had been recently trimmed.
‘Yes,’ said Cato, and he stretched out his hand. Joe took the outstretched hand in both of his with a gesture of confident calmness for which Cato felt impulsive gratitude. Joe shifted his chair a little nearer. How tactful he is, thought Cato, how charming, how just bloody intelligent.
‘I care for you a lot, Father,’ said Joe. ‘I didn’t think I would at first. It was just kicks, like a joke. We all thought it was funny. We used to have you on, you and the other two, more than you ever knew.’
‘I expect you did,’ said Cato. He left his captured hand limp, moving it very slightly in response to the pressure of Joe’s fingers upon his palm.
‘But now it’s different. And you feel the same way. You mustn’t let it worry you.’
‘Joe, I love you,’ said Cato.
‘I know, Father, and I’m very grateful to you, it means a lot.’
‘But, Joe, what can we do?’
‘What do you mean, Father?’
‘I must help you, I must save you, you’re all I’ve got left now, you’re the only good thing I can do any more in the world. I must stop you destroying yourself, I just know that if you go on as you’re going now you’ll become a terrible person.’
‘You are very fanciful, Father.’ Joe pressed Cato’s hand, released it, and reached for the wine. He filled Cato’s glass, Cato put his hand on Joe’s knee, feeling the bones, the warmth of the flesh.
‘My dear boy, don’t become a rogue, a ruthless selfish person. It doesn’t have to happen. Just tell me what I can do to help you. Let me be with you and share your life. We could leave London and go and live somewhere else and work, help people maybe. You could like that, you have it in you—’
‘I doubt it, Father. Your mind’s running away with you altogether. What would we live on now? Would your rich friend support us, the one who wants to get rid of all his money?’
‘We could work. I could teach. I could support you while you get some training. You’re a clever boy, there are all sorts of things you could learn to do—’
‘Would your rich friend help us?’
‘Well, he might. But we must help ourselves, Joe. We could do it, the two of us, why not? I wouldn’t be a burden or a nuisance to you, you could live your own life, I’d just be there helping. And once you got on the right track—’
‘You’re too unworldly, Father. What do you want really? Do you want us to be lovers?’
Joe took Cato’s hand off his knee, squeezed it and dropped it. Cato sat back. He looked at the glowing face, letting his gaze wander over it. In thought and vision he outlined the bright hexagonal glasses. The hazel eyes were amused, alert, gentle. Cato felt curiously calm before the, after all, perfectly fair question.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Then what is this all about, Father dear?’
Suddenly the candles ducked as the door swung open, and one of the flames disappeared. Joe’s chair jerked backwards and Cato gave a gasp of alarm. He saw the gaping blackness of the open doorway and beside it a tall pale faintly luminous figure. It seemed for a moment as if some commanding angelic presence had come into the room. Then by the fainter light of the single candle he recognized his sister.
‘Colette!’
‘Hello,�
�� said Colette, who was wearing a long silver-coloured macintosh. She turned to Joe. ‘Hello, Beautiful Joe.’
‘Hello, beautiful.’ Joe was standing behind his chair with the candle light beyond him. He lifted up the chair, then let it drop with a sound as if he were clicking his heels.
‘Colette, what on earth are you doing here at this time of night?’
‘It’s not very late. I’m staying with Aunt Pat. I say, it’s terribly cold in here. Why are you sitting in the dark? I couldn’t find the light downstairs.’
‘They’ve turned the electricity off. What do you want?’
‘Don’t sound so cross. I was just feeling happy so I thought I’d come and see you.’
‘Joe, could you light the other candle again,’ said Cato. ‘Shut the door, Colette, please—It’s so—’ He could not find the word.
In the swaying dancing light as the boy lit one candle from the other, Cato looked at his sister and she seemed immensely tall, a heavenly being radiant with some sort of pure joy. She had said she was happy and this somehow made Cato feel sad. Was he damned then? There was a connection of thought. He focused his eyes. Colette was smiling and wriggling her shoulders inside the silver coat.
‘Aunt Pat wondered if you could come and have lunch with us tomorrow.’
Cato was feeling very strange. He had wanted to get up when Colette came into the room, but his legs from the knees down felt weighty and cold, as if they were encased in plaster. The upper part of his legs did not seem to be present at all. What has happened to me? he wondered. It can’t be just the drink. He stretched out one hand rather slowly along the bed beside him and saw it receding into the distance like a pale armadillo.
‘Your friend could come too if he’d like.’
‘Come where?’ said Cato.
‘Come to lunch with Aunt Pat tomorrow. Cato, are you all right?’
‘I am afraid lunch tomorrow is completely impossible,’ said Cato. ‘But thank Aunt Pat all the same. I’m sorry, I must be a little—intoxicated, or else it’s the ’flu. You’d better be off now, Colette. Come again when it’s daylight. Everything’s so extremely—difficult in the dark.’
With a great effort he got the lower part of his legs up onto the bed. The mechanics of this new position meant that he was now lying flat on his back. At least he assumed that this must be the case since all he could see now was the ceiling, light green in colour, covered with black crevasses, and suddenly flickering wildly in the candle light as the door of the room opened and closed again.
Cato heard Beautiful Joe speaking. ‘You say you love me, Father, but you won’t let me come near your precious sister, will you!’
‘Joe,’ said Cato, ‘did you put anything in the wine?’
‘Why couldn’t we have gone to that lunch? I wanted to go.’
‘Did you put anything in the wine?’
‘Well, yes, just a little bit of something—not like for a real trip—I thought it might sort of make things easier for you.’
‘I feel very odd,’ said Cato. ‘It’s not unpleasant. Just—odd.’
He heard Beautiful Joe speaking again, farther off, his voice echoing in a great hole. ‘I wish the bloody cunt hadn’t come.’
Cato closed his eyes, At once the chequer-board mincing machine of logic came swooping down towards him, and its squares were a hundred windows and in each window he saw his father dressed as a cardinal, laughing, laughing. Bells were ringing, happy bells, wedding bells.
‘Mother,’ said Henry, ‘may I introduce my fiancee, Stephanie Whitehouse. Stephanie, my mother.’
‘I’m very glad to meet you,’ said Gerda.
‘It is so kind of you to invite me,’ said Stephanie.
Henry had been amazed and pleased by his mother’s change of attitude, by, as he saw it, her realism. She seemed to have accepted his plan for the estate without another word of complaint. He had even had quite an amicable discussion with her about the future of Rhoda. Of course, thought Henry, now that the essential idea is accepted, I can make all sorts of humane modifications. How right I was not to present the thing apologetically or piecemeal. Now, having had the main shock, they will be grateful for any little changes I may decide to make later. They will feel I am being generous. How perfectly mad it all is, though.
Henry felt at present that he was living in a sort of myth. It was nothing to do with happiness, happiness seemed a kind of frivolity which belonged to some much lower form of consciousness. Henry felt that he was huge, like a giant, like an ancient hero, and the other people with whom he had to deal were huge too, and brilliantly coloured, under a sky as cloudless and brilliant as that of Max’s Fisher King. They had emerged from the cellar, they had emerged from the cave. Gerda, Stephanie, even Lucius, were huge and significant and dignified, even bird-headed Rhoda was. Henry was the arbiter of their fates; yet he knew that he too, at this time, was far from free, he was a creature of some higher destiny, a creature of the gods. Why had he got to get rid of his inheritance? He did not even any more know why. He just had to transform all these objects, these things and spaces, into clean easily disposable money, and then to get rid of the money and be—what—free, good? Even these names were too flimsy for what god-possessed Henry had to achieve.
Gerda’s volte-face about Stephanie was another mystery of the situation. His mother, having taken the line ‘I will not have that woman in the house’, had lately actually suggested that she should be invited. Henry was amazed, a little disconcerted. ‘If you are determined to marry her, I have got to like her, haven’t I?’ said Gerda with a sudden access of calm reasonableness. Henry was touched. He had previously decided that there was absolutely no point in bringing Stephanie to the Hall, partly because of Gerda’s opposition, but also because really, as things were to be, Stephanie and the Hall belonged to different orders of reality. This was indeed rather the essence of Stephanie, that she belonged to the world of the deprived whom Henry was going to join. Also, more simply, why show Stephanie a bauble which he was shortly proposing to dispose of? Not that he thought that Stephanie would be in any way shaken. He had already, though perhaps a little incoherently, explained his plans to her, and she had made no objection. She remained touchingly submissive and grateful, and Henry viewed the future with a still somewhat anxious satisfaction. In America he had lived simply. Even his apparently complex relation with Russell and Bella had become, because they were such splendid people, simple. When he had left America his deep fear had been that he would never be able to go back and that he would never elsewhere be able to live simply again. Now when he saw himself in a vision, living an ordinary existence with his wife, working for her and looking after her, he felt a pleasing glow of virtue. The great destructions led, and had to lead, back to simplicity after all.
‘You and Lucius run along,’ said Gerda to Henry. ‘Stephanie and I are going to have a talk over tea.’
Bird-headed Rhoda, who had set out the tea things, said something to Gerda in her incomprehensible patois. ‘Yes, Rhoda, four for dinner. Don’t forget to ask Bellamy for the onions.’
Henry grinned at Stephanie and waved as if saying ‘good luck’. What a very peculiar scene. But after all, peace was better than war and reconciliation than resentment. He and Lucius followed Rhoda out of the drawing-room.
‘China or Indian?’
‘Er—China—please.’
‘Milk, sugar?’
‘Yes—please.’
‘You had better put in your own sugar. Now do eat a sandwich, you must be tired and hungry after your journey.’
The journey, by Volvo and motorway, had taken about three quarters of an hour, but Gerda still behaved as if Lax-linden had to be reached over a bad road by a carriage and horses.
Stephanie hesitantly took a damp limp sandwich, instinctively peered inside it, then blushed and raised her eyes. The two women looked at each other.
Both had taken trouble with their appearance. They were dressed very simply. Gerda was wearing a
light wool dress, mousy brown in colour, with an open neck and a brilliantly blue and green silk scarf. Her dark hair was loose, combed sleekly to her shoulders. Stephanie was wearing a plain black dress with a diamanté brooch in the form of a fox terrier upon the collar. Her chestnut brown hair had been discreetly layered and a little fluffed up by an expert hairdresser. She clutched a shiny black handbag. She was wearing very little make up.
She told Henry she was thirty-four, thought Gerda, I wonder if that was true? I wonder if she really loved Sandy, or if it was just for the money? I wonder if Sandy … This was a mystery, an obscenity upon which she knew that, for her sanity, she must not meditate. Yet if Henry married this woman how could she not become obsessed with it? How could he not? Of course Gerda’s realism was not as benevolent as Henry imagined. It was necessary for her to meet Henry’s fiancee. But thereafter, when she had assessed the situation, there were many possible courses of action.
She smiled encouragingly at Stephanie. ‘Henry told us you were a communist, but now he says that was a joke.’
‘Oh, no, I’m not a communist. I’m not political at all, really.’
‘Neither am I. I don’t think it suits a woman, do you?’
‘No, I er—No.’
There was a silence. Then Stephanie said, ‘I hope you don’t think it’s too awful—I mean, I believe Henry told you—’
‘No, no, I—you must have suffered so much—we regard you as a victim.’ This was Henry’s word and Gerda found it useful. She resolved: I will never let this woman talk to me about her past. And I will never let her talk to me about Sandy.
‘Thank you!’ said Stephanie. She too seemed to regard this aspect of the matter as satisfactorily closed, at any rate for the present. She helped herself to another sandwich, then coughed with embarrassment. She said, ‘You are very kind to me. I never thought that I would get an invitation to the—er,—to the Hall.’
Gerda, hastily, in case Stephanie was going to say something about Sandy, said. ‘It’s a pretty place, isn’t it.’
‘Yes, it’s as pretty as a dream.’