Symposium

by Muriel Spark

  ‘I’ll make you another,’ said Annabel. ‘You shouldn’t ring up Hurley and Chris to tell them something denigratory about one of their forthcoming guests. It’s crude.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Roland, putting his hand to his head to signify how much the ‘flu was upon him.

  When Annabel came back from the kitchen with another glass of hot whisky she said, ‘I wish I could remember what programme that girl Murchie was on. It was something unusual.’

  Helen wrote:

  Dear Pearl,

  Your letter made me laugh so much. I hope you have a good time at the ball. Brian says he doesn’t mind the postponement of your trip so long as you’re having a good time. I went to the fashion show at the Metropole in Brighton, a lot of nothing new. Those starving girls, but still the men like it when you look like some kind of Barbie doll.

  Do you think I have the Stockholm syndrome? You know what that is. It’s when you’re so grateful to the man that’s holding you prisoner just because he treats you better sometimes than the other times or than other people. Then you actually take an affection for the one that knocks you about the least. I don’t say Brian knocks me about in the real sense, but he goes on about the robbery. Why else I should stay with your dear father I really do not know.

  He has gone off today thank God to the House of Lords to express his demented opinions about things that go towards the rule and government of us his perfectly sane fellow citizens. Then home again tonight and believe me it will be the robbery again for dinner. After all they left the Francis Bacon on the wall. Do you know what the next move is? The picture is to go in the bank. I won’t miss the picture but it’s just the idea of putting paintings in the bank. Sometimes I feel the age gap is just too wide and sometimes I don’t.

  We’re going to dinner with that fun painter Hurley Reed. You remember you liked them so much and his wife, I suppose one should say friend, Chris. After that a trip to Venice, how lovely, I can’t wait.

  Encl, is a cheque for you. I had him write it out before he left for the Lords while he was in the mood. Cash it quick before he puts the money in a vault.

  All love,

  Helen

  Ella and Ernst were in the drivers’ lounge of the cross-Channel ferry on the way home from Brussels. It was the second day of his having his beard removed, and he kept on putting his hand to his chin, stroking the beard that was.

  ‘I hope’, she said, ‘that Luke remembered to turn on the heating.’

  ‘We can turn it on and go out to eat.’

  ‘It isn’t easy, going out to eat, after Brussels,’ said Ella, who liked her food.

  Ernst was busy with papers in the briefcase open on his knee. ‘Luke,’ he said.

  ‘What about Luke?’

  ‘He might be there, waiting for us.’ He smiled at her, frankly acknowledging that she would regard this as a sort of treat.

  ‘Why, did you ring him up?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘Well, we can take him out to dinner with us.’

  Ernst touched his non-existent beard. ‘Yes, we can. That’s what I thought.’

  Ella went to stretch her legs in the dilapidated ferry which chugged its way to Dover. The windows were coated with oily grey dirt, the painted frames were chipped. She walked the length of the boat among passengers dressed unsuitably for the season, in bright holiday colours, as they always did in the fanciful belief that across the Channel lay summertime. Ella nosed round the duty-free gift shop and came back.

  ‘I could have bought him a Waterman pen,’ she said.

  Ernst smiled. ‘With his looks he can get more than a Waterman pen,’ he said.

  Luke was the main thing they now had in common. It had positively begun to draw them together, so that they were actually further from separating than they had ever been in their married life.

  ‘That watch,’ said Ella. ‘You know there are fakes, copies. There is a big trade in copies of prestigious goods.’

  ‘It might be a fake,’ said Ernst, ‘but knowing Luke I don’t see why it should be.’

  ‘I hope he’s all right,’ said Ella. ‘That’s all, I hope he’s all right and takes care of himself.’

  ‘That’s what I hope. There’s something very appealing about his willingness to take these serving and catering jobs. It shows a decent side.’

  ‘He called me’, said Ella, ‘about a couple of likely flats he’d seen, suitable for us. In Bloomsbury. What do you think of Bloomsbury?’

  ‘Not a bad part. It depends on the price. Did he say the price?’

  Ella shook back her long fair hair. ‘The prices are I suppose whatever they are.’

  ‘You might miss the room-service,’ said Ernst. ‘It’s convenient to phone down.’

  ‘Frightful meals,’ said Ella. ‘And by the time you’ve paid that rent you might as well buy a flat.’

  ‘We can look at these places that Luke has found.’

  ‘If they’re not gone already. Luke says Hurley Reed advises to hurry up.’

  ‘Will Luke be helping at Hurley’s dinner?’

  ‘Yes. I want to get a dress for the dinner.’

  ‘Oh, I think that dinner’s going to be quite a simple affair; nothing grand.’

  ‘Yes, but I want to look nice,’ said Ella. ‘You always look nice.’

  ‘I think I’ll get a new dress for Hurley Reed’s dinner,’ said Margaret.

  ‘It’s nothing grand. Quite simple,’ said William.

  ‘Well, I want to look nice.’

  She had just made their big double bed. It was a Sunday morning. Very carefully she set out, along the top of the counterpane, a series of worn-out teddy bears and other woolly animals, and three much-handled dolls. William as a bachelor had retained an affection for his old toys, and Margaret, when she realized this, had added a few of her own to the collection.

  William’s previous girl-friend hadn’t liked William’s old woollen animal-toys. He had been obliged to hide them in a cupboard all the time they lived together. She was horrified when she found them there; she had thought he had thrown them away. When she parted company from William he brought out his teddy bears, dogs, cats and rabbits again and laid them out along the pillow. It was an enormous relief to him that Margaret not only tolerated the toys but added some tattered dolls of her own. It was in keeping with her goodness and sweetness. He had in the bathroom a plastic duck that swam, quacked and flapped.

  ‘Inspiration from nature’, said Margaret, ‘is after all, from what you tell me, the basis of the study of artificial intelligence.’

  ‘I never thought of that,’ said William. ‘Yes, it all ties up with bionics.’ He seemed relieved at the thought that his indefatigable feeling for his old cuddly toys might have this serious and respectable connotation.

  ‘I always felt’, he told Margaret, ‘that they had some sort of sensing mechanisms. Absurd as it sounds, I know, when I hid them in the cupboard I felt I was hurting their feelings.’

  ‘It’s so understandable. They have a musky smell, all their smells seem to be a definition of their life.‘

  ‘I wouldn’t like my colleagues to hear that,’ William said. ‘But there’s a certain something in what you say. It’s not scientific of course.’

  ‘Is artificial intelligence a scientific study?’

  ‘Not really. It takes a lot of scientific knowledge to study nature, though, and mimic nature even, and to adapt and apply the way living things work, even with computers. Snakes, moths, birds, even plants, they all tell us something. It’s a question of neural conductors, signals, nervous systems.’

  ‘And your toy animals?’

  ‘Symbolic, to be frank, only symbolic.’

  ‘I wonder’, said Margaret, ‘if there’s anything in that practice of sticking pins into dolls?’

  ‘We don’t know enough about it,’ William said. She was combing her long red hair at the dressing-table mirror while he sat on the new-made bed, watching her.

&nbs
p; ‘I wouldn’t like to try it,’ said Margaret. ‘Why stick pins into the poor dolls?’

  He went off to fetch the Sunday newspapers. On the one hand he felt easy after talking to Margaret and on the other hand he felt uneasy. On the whole, he knew very little about her. But then, he reflected, she knew very little as yet about him.

  Margaret finished combing her hair, then looked at the bed with its row of dolls and teddies. She quoted to herself a couplet from an ancient Border ballad:

  Now speak to me, blankets, and speak to me, bed,

  And speak, thou sheet, enchanted web.

  SHORTLY after the convent was closed down Margaret had gone home to recover her equanimity, as she put it. She complained bitterly about her sisters, who had once again turned on her.

  ‘What did I have to do with Sister Rose’s murder?’ she said. ‘I wasn’t there. Nowhere near. I was with Eunice. And what does Eunice say? She says, “It looks very fishy, Margaret. You were mixed up with Granny’s murder and now you’re mixed up with the murder of the nun.” That’s so unfair.’

  ‘Take no notice,’ said Dan.

  ‘What do you mean, take no notice? She says I’m not to go and visit her any more, she’s afraid for her squalling brat. She didn’t say squalling brat, of course, she said darling Mark. And then, that very day, when I get back to the Convent of Good Hope, who should ring me up but Flora and that husband of hers, the anal-compulsive bureaucrat. Do you know what she said? She said there had been too many unfortunate incidents, starting from my schooldays.’

  ‘So there have been,’ said Dan. ‘Nobody’s blaming you.’

  ‘Oh, aren’t they; oh, aren’t they? I would like to know, I said to Flora, how you think I could be involved in the murder of Sister Rose, a complete and harmless nobody who was the assistant to Sister Rooke who at least was a plumber, a somebody.’

  ‘Nobody’s blaming —’

  ‘Oh, no? Listen to this. Flora got questioned again by the police. She’s furious. They said it was only a matter of routine. That ought to please her a lot, not to mention her ghastly Bert, they are slaves to routine both of them. But no, the police came to their door, and that was enough. All my fault. Only a couple of months ago, perhaps a bit more, they were saying how sorry they were for me. And now, look how quick people can change. It’s —’

  ‘Margaret,’ said Dan, gazing in despair and confusion at her wonderful complexion and her piled-up dark-red hair, ‘Margaret, leave your sisters out of it. Your mother and I —’

  ‘Oh no, oh no,’ said Margaret. ‘Mother is terrified. She’s inclined to take their part. She is terrorized altogether. And you know it.’

  ‘What can I do? There is no proof against you, Margaret. There never has been any proof.’ Oh God, he seemed to be saying there has always been everything except the proof. He had a small red silk handkerchief tied round his neck, a light brown shirt.

  And she answered, ‘The Mother Superior made a clear confession.’

  In came her mother, Greta, in a pale mauve jersey, a pale fawn skirt and pearls; but nothing could make her look distinguished, which would not have mattered in the least if only she had been friendly. Instead, Greta was frightened. She looked at Margaret with a look that said, What, what, have I begotten?

  It might have been strange that they had neither of them, Greta nor Dan, asked themselves this question at least ten years ago, when the unexplained deaths by violence began. But it was not strange. The previous deaths had not drawn public attention as the last two had. Therefore, being more or less feeble, they had taken the previous deaths into their minds only, and stored them away until further notice. Now that the two public occasions had occurred, further notice had likewise happened.

  Margaret’s best friend at school had jumped into a lake in the school grounds, had swum for it, got caught in some reeds and had drowned. The lake was in a private area, forbidden the girls. Margaret said she saw her friend struggle, having been drawn to the spot by her cries, but was too far away to help. Everyone said what a dreadful thing it had been for Margaret, aged twelve, to witness. Her parents were advised not to mention the incident again. They found another school for Margaret. It was near Hawick on the Borders of Scotland.

  Here she was taken to tea in a teashop in the town by one of the teachers as a treat. It was this teacher’s habit to take the girls out one by one for a treat. Only, on this occasion the teacher disappeared. She left her gloves on the table, took her bag and went, apparently, to the ladies’ room. Margaret waited a long time, over an hour. She then applied to the owners of the tearoom who investigated the ladies’ room without success and telephoned the school. No sign of the teacher, a woman in her early thirties whose home was in Staffordshire. It was an unsolved mystery. The papers were full of it for a time, the district was combed by the police and their dogs. Nobody had the slightest clue what had happened to Miss Dewar. Had she said anything special to Margaret before she left the table? ‘No, nothing special at all. She ordered the tea and then she went to the bathroom.’

  ‘And you just waited doing nothing?’

  ‘I drank the tea, it was getting cold, and I ate two biscuits. Then I asked the teashop lady to look in the ladies’ room as it seemed a long time.’

  At that time Magnus was in one of his good periods and on the Sunday he came to his brother’s house for lunch and to spend the afternoon. It was only four days after the teacher’s disappearance and the search for her was still on.

  ‘It’s so bad for young Margaret,’ said Greta. ‘She’s impressionable. What a thing to happen!’

  ‘Such a nice woman, too,’ said Magnus.

  ‘Well, you can’t tell from a photograph on the television or in the papers. She’s probably bonkers,’ said Greta.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ said Magnus. ‘She was highly intelligent and very sweet.’

  Dan first noticed Magnus’s use of the past tense, then the reflective glaze in his brother’s eyes.

  ‘How could you know?’

  ‘I met her when I went to visit Margaret,’ said Magnus.

  ‘You went to visit Margaret?’ said Greta. ‘When was that?’

  ‘A few weeks ago. Lovely school. Beautifully situated.’

  ‘She didn’t say,’ said Greta.

  ‘Oh, I always believe in visiting young Margaret at school. The other girls are extremely self-sufficient. They’re all right. But Margaret’s very different. I understand her.’

  ‘Magnus, it’s time for you to go back,’ said Dan. All those years ago, and Miss Dewar was never found. It was obvious she had gone somewhere of her own accord, but nobody knew where.

  ‘You didn’t say Uncle Magnus had been to see you,’ Greta said to Margaret.

  ‘I forgot. He often comes to see me. There’s nothing wrong with him when they let him out.’

  ‘And he met Miss Dewar.’

  ‘Yes. You met Miss Dewar yourself.’

  Margaret was now beginning to look attractive. It was noticeable to Dan that she had a special affinity with Magnus. She took advice from him. As soon as she had a car she drove off to visit him from time to time at the Jeffrey King hospital. When Magnus came to Blackie House for his Sunday outings he always had a special greeting for Margaret if she was there. He liked to quote the Border ballads, and he did it heartily:

  ‘O where hae ye been, my long, long love,

  These seven long years and more?’ —

  ‘O I’m come to seek my former vows,

  That ye promised me before.’

  Dan was frightened; of himself, of Margaret, and of Magnus. Before the other two girls were married, they, too, were afraid of Margaret, but without being aware of it. Flora, the eldest, translated her fear into disapproval and, this not being a straightforward emotion, it took a hysterical turn. She would shriek at Margaret on those Sundays of the school holidays when they both happened to coincide at Blackie House, before the arrival of Uncle Magnus.

  ‘You shouldn’t encourage hi
m the way you do. Putting forward your sex. Don’t you see his pills have side effects and he’s got a sex fixation on you?’

  ‘Effex a fix sexation?’ Margaret taunted. And then Uncle Magnus arrived, dressed, even in those days, too loudly; dressed, for instance, in a bright blue Harris tweed coat and bright brown Harris tweed trousers, and, as it might be, a purple tie. There was no knowing what Uncle Magnus might wear.

  The second sister, Eunice, three years Margaret’s senior, and fearful of Margaret, was timid with her red-haired attractive young sister; she was timid but underhand. Her fear took the form of secret bitchiness so that she seemed to be highly amused when Uncle Magnus greeted Margaret with the verse:

  O was it a wer-wolf in the wood,

  Or was it a mermaid into the sea,

  Or was it a man or a vile woman,

  My true love that mis-shapit thee?

  but later, when Magnus had gone, she said, ‘What did he mean by “a man or a vile woman”? Why wasn’t the man vile but only the woman?’

  ‘That’s the ballad, that’s how it goes,’ said Margaret.

  ‘Don’t take Magnus seriously,’ said Dan. ‘At best he’s an enthusiast for Scottish lore.’

  ‘But you ask his advice,’ said Flora.

  ‘Forget it,’ Greta said. ‘I’m the vile woman of the ballads, all right. But I don’t think Margaret’s misshapen; far from it. Is she? Now be honest.’

  ‘Uncle Magnus meant it in another sense.’

  ‘Why do you always laugh when he recites like that?’ Margaret said. ‘You should ask him to his face what he means.’

  Eunice became flustered when Margaret spoke like this.

  And now, years later, after the murder in the nunnery, when Margaret returned home, both Dan and Greta were frightened, as they had every reason to be. Because Margaret’s capacity for being near the scene of tragedy was truly inexplicable in any reasonable terms. If they had been able to see, as, to do them justice, nobody else was capable of seeing, that there was absolutely no link of any rational, physical or psychological nature between Margaret’s personal activities and what went on around her, Dan and Greta might have felt a certain consolation. But still they would never have let well alone. One can see their point of view. Whether they understood Margaret or not, they couldn’t help waiting with dread for the next disaster.