The Nice and the Good

by Iris Murdoch

  A faint smell arose from Judy’s body. It was a not unpleasant smell, mingled of sweat and cosmetics. Ducane looked down between Judy’s shoulder-blades. He saw a grey tumbled heap of dead pigeons. He opened his mouth and devoured the smell of Judy. He felt again the onrush of Luciferian lightness, and saw in Radeechy’s handwriting, written across Judy’s bare golden shoulders, the message Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of law.

  At the same time Ducane felt perfectly cold. A cold watcher within him saw the scene and knew that he would not even with the most diffident or momentary gesture lay his hand upon the satiny golden back of Judy McGrath. He thought, she knows I will not touch her. She knows I will not, perhaps she conjectures I cannot. He put his hand down holding himself instead, restraining and comforting that which so much wanted Judy.

  I am the perfect whited sepulchre, Ducane thought. I’ve fiddled and compromised with two women and been a failure with one and a catastrophe to the other. I am the cause that evil is in a man like McGrath. I cannot pity the wretched or bring hope or comfort to the damned. I cannot feel compassion for those over whom I imagine myself to be set as a judge. I cannot even take this girl in my arms. And that not because of duty or for her sake at all, but just because of my own conception of myself as spotless: my quaint idea of myself as good, which seems to go on being with me, however rottenly I may behave.

  “Get up, Judy,” said Ducane in a gentle voice, turning away from the bed. “Get up, child. Put your clothes on. Time to go home.” He looked about the room. A white feathery heap lay beside one of the chairs. Judy’s summer dress, patterned with green and blue flowers, hung over the back of the chair. Ducane picked up the pile of soft slithery perfumed underwear and hurled it on to the bed. Judy turned over and groaned.

  “I’m going into the bathroom,” said Ducane. “Get dressed.”

  He went into the bathroom and locked the door. He used the lavatory. He sleeked back the thick locks of his dark hair and looked closely at his face in the mirror. His face was brown, shiny, oily. His eyes seemed to bulge and stare. He put out his tongue, large and spade-like. He could hear movements in the bedroom. There was a soft tap upon the door.

  “I’m ready now,” said Judy. She was dressed. The wisp of blue and green dress fitted her closely, sleekly. Her breasts, thought Ducane, oh her breasts. I might have touched them just for a moment. And he thought, how pretty she is with her clothes on. It was as if he had made love to her and now felt a calmer and more tender renewal of passion at seeing his mistress clothed.

  He moved quickly past her and opened the bedroom door.

  There was a quick flurry on the landing and Fivey retreated as far as the head of the stairs, hesitated, and then turned to face Ducane in the half light. Fivey, dressed in black trousers and a white shirt, looked like the leader of some Balkan revolution. He stood, a little self-consciously defiant, his huge head thrown back, his fingers slowly exploring one of his moustaches.

  Ducane said, almost shouting now, “Fivey, how absolutely splendid, I’m so glad to see you’re still up. You can get out the car and take this young lady home.”

  “Oh, but—” said Judy, shrinking back again into the room.

  “Come on, out you go,” said Ducane. Without touching her he walked round behind her and half ushered half shooed her out through the open door. He turned on the lights on the landing.

  “Goodnight,” said Ducane. “My man will drive you home. Go along, Fivey, go and get the car. Mrs McGrath will wait for you at the front door.”

  “Very good, Sir,” said Fivey. With an air of nobility he descended the stairs.

  “Go on down,” said Ducane to Judy. “I won’t come with you. Wait for Fivey at the door. He won’t be a moment. Goodnight.”

  “You’re not cross with me? You’ll see me again? Please?”

  “Goodnight, my child, goodnight,” said Ducane, gesturing towards the stairs.

  She passed him slowly and went on down. A minute later he heard the sound of the car and the closing of the front door.

  Ducane went back into his bedroom and shut the door and locked it. He stood for a moment blankly. Then he lowered himself carefully on to the floor and lay there face downward with his eyes closed.

  Thirty

  “ISN’T it funny to think that the cuckoo is silent in Africa?” said Edward.

  “Henrietta, have you taken that toad out of the bath?” said Mary.

  “I wanted to tame him,” said Henrietta. “People can tame toads.”

  “Have you taken him out of the bath?”

  “Yes, he’s back in the garden.”

  “Cuckoos can’t perch on the ground,” said Edward. “They have two claws pointing forward and two pointing backward. They just sit on the ground. I saw one yesterday, just after we saw the saucer—”

  “Do bustle along, Edward. If you value More Hunting Wasps so highly, why do you cover it with marmalade?”

  “Listen, he’s changing his tune,” said Edward. “Cuckoo in June changes his tune. Listen.”

  A distant hollow cu-cuckoo cu-cuckoo came through the open window of the kitchen.

  “I wish it would rain,” said Henrietta.

  “Off you go, twins,” said Mary, “and take Mingo with you. He’s getting under my feet.”

  The twins went off in procession, Henrietta pushing her brother and Mingo following with a slow wag of his floppy tail for anyone who might be attending to him. Montrose, once more in curled luxurious possession of the basket, watched his departure and drowsed back to sleep. The cat was not an early riser.

  “I expect we’re getting under your feet too, darling,” said Kate. “Come on, John, we’ll go into the garden, shall we? What a heavenly morning. Gosh, it’s good to be back!”

  Kate picked up her Spanish basket and led the way across the untidy hall and out on to the lawn at the front of the house. The warm morning air enfolded them, thick and exotic after the cool of the house, full already of smells and textures which the hot sun, who had been shining for many hours although by human time it was still early morning, had elicited from the leafy slopes and the quiet offered surface of the sea.

  “Did you hear the old cuckoo this morning at about four o’clock?” said Kate. “I do hope he didn’t wake you.”

  “I was awake anyway.”

  “We’ve had the longest day, haven’t we? But midsummer just seems to go on and on.”

  “Midsummer madness.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. It’s a crazy time of year.”

  “Beautifully crazy. I hope we didn’t wake you coming in. I’m afraid Octavian made an awful row.”

  “No.”

  Ducane had come to Trescombe late the previous night, and later still Kate and Octavian had arrived back from Tangier. Today was Friday and Octavian had already had to set off for London to attend an urgent meeting.

  “Poor Octavian, having to rush off like that,” said Kate. “He hardly saw you at all.”

  “Mmmm.”

  “John, are you all right? You seem a bit down. Barbie said she thought you were ill or something. Nothing nasty happen when I was away?”

  “No, nothing at all.”

  “Well, now I’m back I’ll look after you and make you all plump and happy.”

  “Like Octavian.”

  “John, John, you are a grump this morning! You haven’t even asked me about Tangier. Well, I shall tell you anyway. Oh what marvellous weather! I love this time of the morning in England when it’s really hot. I tell you what I missed in Africa, the dew. I suppose there is dew in Africa. I must ask the twins. But everything was so dusty. Can you feel it now, the dew sort of jumping off the grass on to your ankles? It’s so cooling. Well, of course you can’t with your socks on. I can’t think how you can bear to wear those heavy woolly socks in this weather. Why don’t you wear sandals? Octavian wore sandals all the time in Tangier, they made him look so youthful. Here, let’s sit down on this seat.” She sat, spreading out t
he skirt of her red and white striped dress. Ducane, about to sit on the edge of the dress, awkwardly thrust it aside.

  The lawn in front of the house sloped to the leafy spiraea hedge, now in scattered points of raspberry-pink blossom. A gap in the hedge led to a small enclosed field of mown hay which fell steeply to a wood, over the top of which the sea was stretched out, filling the horizon with a silvery blue glitter. There was a strong murmuration of bees. In the deep dappled green of the wood birds called and fell about obscurely in the branches. Ducane sneezed.

  “Bless you! I hope you don’t mind the hay. It has a wonderfully remindful smell, somehow, hasn’t it. Oh John, I am so glad to be back. One is, isn’t one? I feel a bit tired though, in a nice way. The sun is tiring, don’t you think. Look how brown I am. And Octavian’s quite coffee coloured all over. Well, almost all over! When he wore that fez thing during the last week he looked just like that super eunuch in the Entführung. Oh, John, I’ve got a funny present for you, one of those charming Moroccan hats, I meant to bring it down, they make them in the villages.”

  “How kind of you.”

  “I just haven’t managed to get around and see everyone yet. I hope everybody’s all right? Nothing’s happened here, has it? I thought somehow people were a bit nervy.”

  “Who’s a bit nervy?”

  “Well, you for instance.”

  “It’s not that we’re nervy, it’s that you’re relaxed. You’ve got vine-leaves in your hair. You’re full of wine and olives and Mediterranean sunshine and—”

  “Yes, yes. But after all you’ve had the sun too.”

  “It doesn’t shine in my office in Whitehall.”

  “John, you’re being childish. I believe you need a holiday. I must speak to Octavian about it. Oh look, isn’t that a cuckoo, and there’s another one chasing it.”

  Two hawk-like birds flitted out of the wood and doubled back to become invisible among the receding green hollows where the sun pierced the thick foliage. Cu-cuckoo, cu-cuckoo.

  “Crazy birds,” said Kate. “Do they think about nothing but sex? Chasing each other all day long and no responsibilities. Do you think they spend the nights together too?”

  “Copulation is a daytime activity in birds,” said Ducane, “At night they are quiet. Unlike human beings.”

  “I adore you when you sound so pedantic. Tell me, why are cuckolds called after cuckoos? That’s one bit of ornithological information I can’t ask the twins for!”

  “Something to do with eggs in other people’s nests, I suppose.”

  “Yes, but then the lover ought to be the cuckoo, not the husband.”

  “Maybe it’s a past participle. Cuckoo-ed.”

  “How clever you are. You have a plausible answer for everything.”

  “True or otherwise.”

  “Yes, you are nervy, all of you. I must go round and attend to you, each one. See what happens when I go away! Everyone gets unhappy. I can’t allow it! Even Mary was quite sharp with the twins this morning, so unlike her. And Paula looks positively hollow-eyed. She didn’t seem at all pleased when I handed her that letter from Aden. And Barbie’s in one of her antisocial moods and won’t consort with anyone who isn’t a pony, and Pierce is impossible. Mary told me some extraordinary story about his kidnapping Montrose.”

  “He behaved very badly,” said Ducane, “but it’s all over now.” He kicked the strewn sheets of mown hay at his feet and sneezed again.

  “You sound just like a schoolmaster. I’m not going to lecture Pierce. Anyway I expect you and Mary have already done so. I think Barbie is being horrid to him. And then there’s Theo. I’ve never seen him looking so morose. When I said hello to him this morning he just looked through me. Why, there he is now going down the path. I bet you he’ll pretend not to notice us.”

  A gap at the far end of the spiraea hedge led into the kitchen garden and from it a path led down beside the line of ragged hawthorns towards the wood. It was the most direct route from the house to the sea. Theo was walking very slowly, almost uncertainly, down the path.

  “Theo!” Ducane shouted. His tone was peremptory and angry.

  Theo paused and turned slowly round to look at them. He looked at them with the vague face of one who, on his way to the scaffold, hears his name distantly hallooed in the crowd.

  “Theo!” Kate cried.

  Theo eyed them. Then he lifted his arm a little, moving it awkwardly as if it were paralysed below the elbow. His hand made a floppy gesture which might have been a wave and might have been an invitation to go to the devil. He continued his slow shuffling toward the wood.

  “Poor Theo,” said Kate. “I think he’s upset about Mary and Willy, don’t you?”

  “You mean he feels he’s losing Willy? Possibly. I suspect Willy’s the only person Theo really communicates with.”

  “Heaven knows what they find to say to each other! I’m so glad about Mary and Willy, it’s so right. It’s not exactly an impetuous match, but then they’re not exactly an impetuous pair. I do think they’re both deeply wise people. And Mary’s so sweet.”

  “She’s more than sweet,” said Ducane. “Willy’s lucky.”

  “He’s very lucky and I shall go up and tell him so before lunch. It was a good idea of mine, wasn’t it, matching those two. It keeps them both here.”

  “You think so?” said Ducane. “It wouldn’t surprise me if they both went away.”

  “Oh no no no no. Whatever would we do without Mary? Besides, no one is to leave. You are all my dear—children.”

  “Slaves.”

  “You are a sour-puss today! Now if only we could find some really nice man for Paula. He’d have to be terribly intellectual of course. We’d have to build another house I suppose. Mary and Willy will be in the cottage. Well, Octavian did think of building another bungalow up by the graveyard, it wouldn’t show from the house. Only I do like having us all under one roof. Do you know, I used to be so afraid that you’d fall for Paula. She’s so much cleverer than me. I was quite anxious!”

  “I adore Paula,” said Ducane. “I respect and admire her. One couldn’t not. But—”

  “But what?”

  “She isn’t you.”

  “Darling, you are eloquent today. Oh look, there go the twins going down to bathe. Twins! I say! Do find Uncle Theo and cheer him up. He’s just gone into the wood.”

  Trailing their white bathing towels along the dulled prickly green of the hedge, the twins waved and went on, followed by prancing darting Mingo, who uttered at intervals not his sea-bark but his rabbit-bark.

  “Those are the only two really satisfactory human beings in our household,” said Ducane.

  “You are severe with us! Yes, the twins are super. Fab, as Barbie would say. It’s sad to think they’ll have to grow up and become tiresome creatures like Barb and Pierce.”

  “Sexual creatures you mean. Yes, we are tiresome.”

  “You are tiresome. Well, now let me tell you all about Tangier. It was perfectly extraordinary seeing all those women wearing veils. And they wear their veils in so many different ways. Or should one say ‘the veil’ like one says ‘the kilt’? It wasn’t always becoming, I assure you. And there was this extraordinary market place—”

  “I’ve been to Tangier,” said Ducane.

  “Oh all right, I won’t tell you!”

  Kate, who was always delighted to go on holiday, was always delighted to come back. She loved the people who surrounded her and felt a little thrill at the special sense, on her return, of their need for her, a tiny spark as at the resuming of an electrical connection. She was glad to be missed and prized that first second at which she, as it were, experienced being missed. This time, however, as she had already expressed to John, things seemed just a bit out of gear. Her people seemed preoccupied, almost too preoccupied to rejoice as they ought to at her reappearance and romp gleefully about her. She decided, I must go round and visit everyone, I must have a tête-à-tête with everyone, even Theo. She felt lik
e a doctor. The thought restored her to good humour.

  Not that she was exactly out of humour. But she had felt, ever since the cuckoo woke her from a short sleep soon after four, an uneasiness, a sense of jarring. She later traced this unusual sensation to its origin in the presence of Ducane, indeed in the consciousness of Ducane. If the others were out of sorts she could cure them. She was aware of what she called their nerviness as something separate from herself upon which she could operate externally. But John’s depression, his tendency to be ‘horrid’, affected her intimately. Things between herself and John were for the moment, for the moment only, dislocated and out of tune. Kate reflected rather ruefully that she thought she knew very well what it was that caused this momentary disharmony. She only hoped that John did not know it too.

  Kate had certainly had a splendid fortnight in Tangier. What she did not propose to explain was that she had spent a very large part of this fortnight in bed with Octavian. Hot climates affected Octavian like that. Indeed, she had to admit, they affected her like that. After a long and vinous lunch they had positively hurried back to the hotel each day. Octavian could hardly wait. It amused Kate to think that if Ducane knew this he would probably be not only jealous but shocked. We’re as bad as those cuckoos, she thought to herself, only of course we’re monogamous and good, while they’re polygamous and bad! It was true that she was plump and brown and healthy and energetic and relaxed, just as John had said, full of wine and olives and Mediterranean sunshine and—Was it possible that John knew? He must have missed her terribly. And now on her return, at that electrical moment of resuming contact, he might especially resent her belonging to another and somehow sense in her that luxurious belongingness. He can sort of smell it, she thought. Then she wondered, perhaps he can literally smell it? Was this scientifically possible? She must ask—well, no, that was another piece of scientific information for which she could hardly ask the twins.

  Kate laughed aloud.

  “What is it?” said Ducane.

  How peevish he sounded today. “Nothing, nothing. I was just thinking about those dogs. Never mind, I don’t think their antics are fit for your ears. I haven’t the vocabulary anyway, I’d have to draw it!”