by Iris Murdoch
‘Because it is so sudden.’
‘Because of what it is.’
‘Yes, it is like nothing on earth.’
‘We are like nothing on earth.’
‘We are made divine. Let us be worthy.’
‘We shall be.’
‘To say we are sure may seem rash.’
‘And naive.’
‘But we are sure.’
‘We are lucky. You feel it had to be?’
‘Yes.’
‘All those years it was making itself, like a creature in a chrysalis, buried in the moist earth.’
‘Yet there is accident – like you falling on the bridge.’
‘I would have been in Florence now.’
‘The gods tripped you up and you had to be here. But we could not be as we are without that long knowledge of each other, we are not people who have just met.’
‘Yet we are people who have just met.’
‘You were so close to Aleph – so many evenings, we, Louie and Moy and me, heard your soft inaudible conversations and your laughter – ’
‘All that was simply a weaving of our impossibility.’
‘You loved each other.’
‘Only in a childish way.’
‘You were ceasing to be children.’
‘Sefton, don’t torment me with this. I love you, I love only you, I worship you, I am you. This is the truth and we are in it.’
‘Yes, yes – we must be always in the truth. Oh my angel, I feel transfigured, I feel dazed with light.’
‘Come closer, let me hold you again, your heart against my heart – ’
‘Oh my sweet boy – oh my love – ’
Later, dressed, they sat on Harvey’s bed, enlaced, feet and legs tangled, facing each other, hands round each other’s necks, like Indian gods, Sefton said.
‘We must tell them soon.’
‘How will they take it? They may not like it!’
‘They will be very surprised and then very pleased. My mother has always loved you, she wanted to keep you with us, she once said to me that she wished you were her son.’
‘I felt she was putting me at a distance.’
‘She was afraid of showing too much affection and seeming to appropriate you. She was sensitive about your mother’s rights. And she may have thought too much affection might put you off! She’ll be so glad.’
‘I hope so. And Moy?’
‘She’ll be delighted too. Of course she’s fixated on Clement, but she’s always liked you.’
‘If we’re going to tell Clement and Louie, we must somehow tell my mother at the same time, she mustn’t hear it from them.’
‘I wonder how she will take it?’
‘Amazement, horror, relief, delight.’
‘She wants you to marry a rich woman. She also wants you to marry someone she can dominate. I am neither of these. She is still with Cora, isn’t she?’
‘Sefton, you must love her, you must, she will long to love you, and she will love you – she has that sort of brittle mask, but it’s just acting – she is so gentle and so vulnerable and so kind, and she has had such a rough time, she longs for love, she longs for security – ’
‘How can we give her security, we are penniless students?’
‘I mean the security of loving kindness. Sefton, don’t be afraid. You have more fears than I have. I fear your fears.’
‘Then I shall send them all away! We have so much love, let it overflow, you are right.’
‘She may even learn to be happy at last.’
‘I hope that we may all make Louie happy too one day. I fear – that word again – that she may mourn for Aleph all her life.’
‘Perhaps Aleph will come back, or – ’
‘No, never. And Aleph will never speak to us truthfully again, and we will never speak truthfully to her. Now you stay here please, I shall go home.’
Walking back to Clifton in the cold still afternoon among wandering snowflakes, Sefton thought, how was the path so suddenly cleared for us, so that we could speed along it? Did we somehow unconsciously know that Aleph was leaving, did we feel her going, her absence, and how everything would now be different? He has taken me instead of Aleph. Aleph he could not take, something which perhaps I shall never know stood between them and made it impossible. It may be that they had so thoroughly, working it out over the years in those long long conversations, made themselves brother and sister. Perhaps he thought I was Aleph, and for an instant, that instant, I was Aleph, the possible Aleph, as if her head and shoulders were laid upon me like one of Moy’s masks. I was the Aleph yet not Aleph that could be desired. But my Aleph mask will fade and become transparent and dissolve away. Is this a myth, is it all a myth? It is just a dream of mine, a fear-dream, and that will dissolve and fade away. I am in love, truly in love, and I am happy, blazingly happy, with a happiness I never knew existed, which gives me back the world and all the things in it brilliantly coloured and divinely blessed. ‘Travel light, simplify your life.’ I have set aside his advice, and he has set aside his own advice, and both our lives are to be very different from now on. I am no longer the cat that walks by herself on by her wild lone. Well, I shall simplify my life by love and work and truth. But what has really happened to them I shall never know.
Dearest Louie,
I am so sorry I didn’t write sooner again, we have been travelling a lot and visiting various universities. I think our final home will be at Berkeley, but at present we are in New York where Lucas is giving some lectures and we are staying with a friend, a former colleague of his, at the address above – we will be here for at least a month, and I will of course send other addresses. Please excuse a short letter now just to let you know where we are. I love America, and have seen some wonderful things in our travels. Lucas is showing me America! California is wonderful, so is New York. I hope you will come and see us at Berkeley, where we are going to rent a house with a view of the Bay! (Berkeley is just by San Francisco.) When we are settled there I shall join the university and go on with getting my degree and then my doctorate. My dear dear Mother, I am so sorry about the trouble and distress which I may have caused you all – words cannot express this – and I hope that you have now ‘got used’ to my absence, and that your love for me has not been damaged. I rely upon this love and crave for it and ask for it. This I say to you and to Sef and to Moy. I look forward to the time when you will visit us in California and we can show you America! Please understand, please forgive, and do please write to me as soon as you receive this letter at the address above to tell me you are not angry and that I am still your daughter whom you love. Lucas sends greetings! With much much love, my dear, my dear, ever your
Aleph
Dearest Aleph,
We have all received your letters with great relief, as of course we were worrying terribly about you when we didn’t know where you were. Of course we were surprised! But surprise fades and love as you say is eternal. Please send news, write often, let us have addresses, and be sure that we think about you all the time, and of course wish you and Lucas every possible happiness and joy. Please do not be distressed or imagine for a second that we could be angry with you! We miss you very much – we shall look forward to seeing you again before very long. Please, please be happy, be well, and do visit us when you can. This is just to say that I have your precious second letter. My dearest Aleph, my dearest daughter, from me and from all of us, much much love,
Louie
‘Well,’ said Louise to Clement. They were sitting side by side on the sofa in the Aviary. Clement had just read Aleph’s letter, then Louise’s reply. It was the day after Louise’s adventure in the theatre. They both felt by now that all that had been decided yesterday had been decided long ago, perhaps many years ago.
Clement said, ‘I don’t know what to say – ’
‘I don’t, didn’t know what to say – and I don’t know what to think either.’
‘One cannot say what one feels.�
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‘No. What does one feel?’
‘We have lost them both.’
‘There is a great emptiness. It comes home now doesn’t it, I can’t quite believe it, I have to go through it every morning when I wake up, remembering it, and then trying to think it.’
‘Both of them gone – it’s a terrible blow. One feels that now seeing them must always be a lie.’
‘As my letter is a lie – and hers too. Yet the love is there, the love is there – only it’s as if it’s so wounded it has curled up and gone into a black hole.’
‘I hope the love will recover though it can never be as it once was, it can never again be really expressed. Or is all this nonsense? We are suffering from shock. Perhaps in a year or two we’ll be spending our holidays with them in California!’
‘I hope so. No, I don’t hope so, I mean I can’t see it, it’s impossible. Being with them affectionately, openly, with mutual love?’
‘With Aleph conceivably. Lucas will be polite, but will be away at the university, giving seminars, attending meetings, she will show us around, drive us about in her big car – ’
‘At least I hope she will go on at the university. But suppose he ditches her, will she come back here, will she be with us? Or will she stay in America and find an American husband?’
‘She won’t come back here. She’ll stay in America and find an American husband. But he won’t ditch her. And do you know, I can imagine them happy together – and Lucas, really happy, for the first time in his life.’
‘Clement, you haven’t changed your mind since last night?’
‘No my love, I feel we arranged all this ages ago, it’s so simple, it’s so right, it’s just that we have idiotically delayed it. For this we must forgive each other.’
‘But now we must tell the others. Sefton will be delighted, I know she will. Only Moy – you know how Moy feels about you – ’
‘We must be firm and sensible about that. These were feelings she had as a child, in a childish game. But she is grown up now and probably already embarrassed that we were ever able to notice them.’
‘We must just assume she’s got over it. She’ll be all right, she’s shedding her childishness very fast. She’s taller and she’s becoming quite beautiful, have you noticed?’
‘Yes, she’ll survive. Where’s Sefton, out slogging away as usual?’
‘She works too hard. Wait, listen, Sefton is just coming in now, someone’s with her. Why, I think it’s Harvey! Sefton, Harvey, hello, come up, Clement and I are up here!’
Two radiant beautifully dressed young people entered the Aviary. Sefton was wearing a dark green dress of very fine corduroy pulled in at her waist by a red belt. Her abundant reddish brown hair, grown a little longer, was combed back from her brow, her green hazel eyes shone, her firm lips were parted, her pale face, blushing, glowed. Harvey, tall, slim and noble, the raffish prince, had put on his best second-hand suit of dark brown tweed, with a blue striped shirt and a red and green tie, his glossy flowing blond hair falling neatly to his shoulders, his fringe carefully trimmed, his large gentle brown eyes narrowed with joy. Clement and Louise, rising to meet them, were wearing respectively, Louise a pale blue velvet dress with a lace collar and a dark blue cardigan, and Clement a light golden brown suit, with a dark red shirt and a light red bow tie. Louise, smiling though also near to tears, looked flushed, her stiff hair combed upward and backward making a crown. Clement alone looked solemn, lifting his long nose, pouting his red lips, running his hand with a graceful movement through his copious dark hair. They were a handsome foursome. There was an instant’s silence. Louise looked at Clement. Harvey looked at Sefton.
Louise said, ‘My dears, I’m so glad you’ve come. How smart and pretty you both look! We have something to tell you.’
‘We have something to tell you too!’ said Sefton.
‘Who shall tell first?’ said Louise.
‘We shall,’ said Clement. ‘Listen, dear children. I am going to marry Louise.’ He put an arm round her waist.
Sefton and Harvey gasped, then laughed, then wailed with joy.
Sefton said, ‘Oh how perfectly wonderful, and listen, listen, I am going to marry Harvey, and Harvey is going to marry me!’
After an instant they all began to talk at once, till talk was taken over by helpless laughter, and they were waving their arms and kissing each other. Clement sat down at the piano and began to play Mendelssohn’s wedding-march. Then Sefton cried out, ‘Where’s Moy?’
‘Yes, indeed, quiet Clement, we must tell Moy, I’ll fetch her, no you fetch her, Sefton, she’s working as usual, she must think we’ve all gone mad!’
‘All right, Louie,’ Clement and Louise looked at each other as Sefton rushed away up the stairs. She returned with Moy. ‘I haven’t told her,’ Sefton said.
Moy stood in the doorway, then came in and closed the door behind her. She smiled at her mother, then became grave. The others became suddenly grave too. Moy was in her new being. She had become taller and slimmer. She was wearing a blue dress with a round neck and a belt, not like her old shapeless shifts, very nearly a smart dress, as Clement said later. Her thick golden plait was hanging down over her left breast. She was carrying her painting overall, which she had hastily taken off after Sefton’s summons and absently tossed over one arm. Her blue eyes, which matched her dress, gazed anxiously only at her mother.
Louise said, turning to the others as if for permission and support, ‘Moy, my darling, we have to tell you two – new things – I am going to marry Clement, and Sefton is going to marry Harvey, so there, you see – what a happy family – we all shall be – ’ After this Louise burst into tears, and Clement led her to the sofa and sat down beside her. Sefton, also in tears, ran to Moy and hugged her and kissed her. Harvey, breathing deeply, went to the window and looked out, adjusting his tie. Some real snow was falling. Of course Moy shed some tears too and said how glad she was. Clement said there should now be champagne, and then they could all sing together. Harvey said he thought he and Sefton should now go on to tell his mother, who was still with Cora. It was then voted that they should all go to Cora’s house, and Louise ran downstairs to telephone Cora (without giving anything away) that she and Clement and the children would so much like to come over. Sefton said she would run out for a bottle of champagne, and Clement revealed that he had brought a case, it was in his car. They began to troop down the stairs and put on their warm clothes. Moy said she was sorry, she was in the middle of a picture, and disappeared back upstairs.
‘What’s all this?’ said Cora, opening the door.
Clement carried the case of champagne and put it down in the hall. He had been thinking on the way over that after all it was unseemly and unkind, and perhaps unwise, to arrive in just this way to inform Joan of his intentions. How would she react? Was she really still with Cora, perhaps she was not, he now hoped she was not. But of course she had to know soon, indeed at once, and he must tell her. The presence of others might indeed be helpful to them both, precluding drama – so he hoped. Also, his heart at this moment strangely went out to Joan and he thought of her more lovingly perhaps than he had ever done before. He thought, she’s tough, she’s brave. She will take it calmly, proudly, without a shudder, probably without even an exchange of significant glances. And he thought, she will think: poor fool!
‘May we go into the drawing-room?’ said Clement.
‘Yes, who’s stopping you. Joan is in there.’
They trooped in, leaving their slightly snowy coats in a pile in the hall. Joan, who had been sitting on the window-seat, stood up. They could not avoid the significant glance. Clement thought, perhaps she understands already. As agreed beforehand, Harvey, stepping forward, addressed his mother. ‘Maman, please don’t faint, listen, I am going to get married. I am going to marry Sefton.’
Joan replied instantly but calmly, ‘Don’t be silly, Harvey.’ Her crackling eyes flashed at Clement.
Ignoring her, Harve
y turned to Cora and said, ‘And Clement is going to marry Louise – so, you see, this is how it is – ’ His strong voice trailed away.
Cora, sturdy, said, ‘How absolutely marvellous! Was that champagne I saw out there? Let’s celebrate! We have something to celebrate too. So bring in the bubbly, and I’ll get glasses directly.’ There was a bustle with everyone moving about, bringing in bottles, handing glasses.
When they were more or less gathered again, Joan, who had briefly disappeared, said in her loud commanding voice, ‘May I say, on behalf of myself and Cora, how glad we are to hear your news. I’m sorry, Sefton, for that slip of the tongue, not a good start for a mother-in-law. I didn’t mean anything personal, I just thought Harvey was too young to marry, but now I see he isn’t and I think you are ideal, you will keep him in order.’
‘So may we raise our glasses?’ said Clement.
‘No, wait a moment. There is something to be added to this happy scene. Shall – I – Cora – ?’
‘Yes, yes.’
Joan went out, crossed the hall, and returned after a minute followed by a tall handsome middle-aged man with a large head and a lot of almost colourless straight fair hair. He was smiling shyly, showing long white teeth. His light blue eyes were narrowed among wrinkles.
Joan took his hand. She said to him, pointing. ‘This is Clement, who is going to marry Louise, this is my son Harvey who is going to marry Sefton, this is Sefton, she is Louise’s daughter.’ She then said, addressing Clement, ‘And this is my fiancé, Humphrey H. Hook from Texas.’
Fortunately for her hearers, Hook took charge at once, approaching Harvey with his long stride and his broad glinting smile and taking his hand. ‘So, I’m going to be your step-father, Harvey, is that OK?’ Harvey, dazed, said, ‘Oh, yes, sir, that’s OK, certainly that’s OK.’ He rescued his hand from the iron grip. Clement reached out his hand to Joan. Joan kissed him. He said, ‘My dear, I wish you every happiness, well done – I mean – ’ Cora was pouring out the champagne, as Hook shook hands with the others.
