The Unicorn

by Iris Murdoch

  The trout took the narrows, visible for a second as a silver flash in the rapid water between the rocks. Pip plunged after, the rod lifted high; the taut line grated on a boulder, cleared it, and sped to a check in the deep centre of the next pool. Effingham, after slipping on a wet stone and getting one foot soaked, retreated to make a more dignified inland detour over the springy grass. When he reached Pip again, it was almost over. Pip was deep in the water winding the fish in. The taut line shortened, the man leaned forward almost tenderly over his victim. As the fish came very near, rising to the light in bright twisting arcs, Pip slowly retreated, then reached for the landing-net which was secured to his back, whipped it down driving the handle between his legs, and quickly manoeuvred the fish into it. The next moment with a cry of triumph he was splashing back to the bank. ‘A three-pounder, Effie! You’ve brought me luck!’

  Effingham looked at the big struggling fish with pity and revulsion. It was dreadfully alive. Pip took it by the head, pulling it out of the net. He disengaged the line, and before Effingham could look away he had killed the trout, putting a thumb in its mouth and breaking its back by a quick pressure of his hand. Such a rapid passage, such an appalling mystery. Effingham sat down on a rock feeling slightly sick.

  Pip was soaked in water and muddy almost to the waist. His face was glowing and exalted and his damp wisps of hair were lacquered to his little round head. He began to pull off his waders, revealing dark cotton trousers clinging wetly to his legs. He seemed a long, thin, brown water sprite. ‘All the same, I’ll have no more luck today.’ He crouched beside the beautiful dead trout which lay glistening between them on the grass. He stroked it. ‘What was it you wanted me to tell you, Effie?’

  Effingham, who had been humped over the trout staring at it sadly, jerked up. Pip was half kneeling. The exaltation had passed into a gay, tense, teasing expression. The sky behind him was becoming golden. ‘Everything, roughly,’ said Effingham, alert now and cautiously sensitive to Pip’s precarious mood. ‘But first of all about Scottow. I’ve never understood how Scottow fits in. Perhaps you can tell me.’

  Pip sat back on his heels and then subsided on to the grass, one hand upon the dead fish. He looked away from Effingham across the pool, now become sleek and still again after the recent violence. The trout were rising again. “Hannah’s never talked to you about Gerald?’

  ‘No, I’ve never asked.’

  ‘You’re a funny chap, Effie. I wonder why I’ve never wanted to talk to you? Well, there are hundreds of reasons. I’ll tell you a bit about Gerald if you like. There could be no harm in that. You know Gerald’s as queer as they come?’

  ‘Homosexual. Yes. I suppose I thought Gerald might be anything,‘ said Effingham slowly. Yet he hadn’t quite thought that. Out of some sort of weird respect for Hannah he hadn’t had any clear thought about Gerald at all.

  ‘Gerald’s a local boy, you know that. He and Peter Crean-Smith are just of an age and they knew each other well as children when Peter’s father, that was Hannah’s mother’s brother, used to come to Gaze for the shooting. Then when they were grown up a little Gerald went off and got himself some education and a new accent Whether that was all Peter’s idea I don’t know. Maybe. Anyway just after Peter’s marriage Gerald was back in the neighbourhood and Peter settled him with some sort of vague job in a cottage on the estate.’

  Pip paused, still looking away across the pool. The golden glow deepened, outlining his head against the seaward sky. He was tense and grave now as if surprised at the emotion which his own speech had aroused in him. He went on softly as if for himself.

  ‘I think Gerald and Peter must always have been very attached to each other, if one can attribute attachments to their natures. Obsessed with each other, anyway. Peter was queer too, you know. I don’t know why I speak of him in the past, a wishful thought no doubt. Peter is queer, though of course he chases women too. Inter alia no doubt. That was the least of the things Hannah had to put up with.’ He was silent again, his eyes widening thoughtfully.

  ‘Anyhow, Peter’s marriage didn’t stop Peter from carrying on with Gerald, though at least he kept it from Hannah. Peter’s attitude to Gerald at that time was a sort of sexual feudalism. I dare say it has fancier names. Gerald was his man, his servant, his serf. He encouraged Hannah and everyone else, as I remember, to treat Gerald as a menial, even to kick him around a bit. And of course that was all part of the game. They both enjoyed themselves enormously. Then two things happened more or less at once. I fell in love with Hannah and Peter fell in love with an American boy called Sandy Shapiro.’

  I’ve heard that name,’ said Effingham. ‘He’s a painter, isn’t he? Lives in New York. Is Peter still -?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Pip. ‘Anyway, Peter was wild about this lovely boy and Gerald was wild with jealousy. Gerald had always rather made up to Hannah in a servile sort of way, as part of the game you understand. And then, when Hannah and I - Gerald helped us.’

  ‘Gerald helped you and Hannah? Out of jealousy? But how - helped?’

  ‘In a quite natural sort of way Hannah herself brought him into the picture. She’d got quite used, you see, to treating him as a servant. Hannah is half feudal too. She’d almost have undressed in front of him, she regarded him so much as a domestic. And oh, he was very useful. He carried messages, arranged meetings - and eventually betrayed us to Peter.’

  ‘Good heavens,’ said Effingham. ‘I’ve often wondered -sorry -‘

  ‘How we could have been such fools as to be discovered so together? Yes. That was Gerald.’

  Pip was silent again, and as if he had come to the end of the story. He relaxed on the grass, pulling up a damp trouser leg to massage his calf. The sun was going down now in a blaze of soupy reds and the near scene was vividly greenish and yellowish about the darkening pool.

  Effingham leaned forward, almost beseeching. He must make Pip go on talking. The spell must not be broken. He murmured softly, coaxingly, ‘And then, and then -?’

  ‘That was Gerald. Well, then - Ah, God - Anyway.’ He stopped again, as if this were the curtailment of the story. Then he went on in a rush. ‘And then, you say. Well, and then Peter just went berserk -‘

  ‘But Peter did really love her?’ This was the question that had haunted Effingham for years.

  ‘Oh yes. Why doubt that?’ Pip spoke suddenly in his old jaunty tone, as if it were not important

  Effingham felt, I have come too near. He looked down on Pip with awe and envy. This boy had known the simple Hannah of the ordinary world.

  Pip went on the next moment, gravely again. That is his mystery. And her mystery. What Peter feels. Anyway he behaved like a jealous husband and like a jealous man.’

  ‘And Gerald-?’

  ‘I don’t know what passed between them. But when Peter went away he left Gerald in charge.’

  ‘As her gaoler. So that was Gerald’s punishment - to become Peter’s eunuch. But why should he endure it?’

  ‘Gerald? Oh, for hundreds of reasons,’ said Pip, lightly and impatiently, tearing up the thin grass and strewing it upon the damp scales of the trout. ‘Why be complicated? Gerald has no money. Peter must pay him handsomely, oh, handsomely, handsomely, for what he does.’

  ‘But Gerald is in effect imprisoned too -‘

  ‘You romantic ass, you don’t imagine Gerald stays at Gaze? He’s there a lot of the time. But in between he’s stepping on and off aeroplanes. The airport is less than two hours from here by car - and from there he can take off to anywhere in the world. I’ve heard of Gerald in Rome, in Paris, in Tangiers, in Marrakesh -‘

  ‘In New York?’

  ‘Ah - that’s another mystery -‘

  ‘But will Peter come back - for her, for Gerald? Will he set Gerald free, will he set him free after seven years? Is there unfinished business between them?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Pip. ‘I’m damned cold,’ he said, and began to get up. He was shivering.

  ‘Afte
r all,’ said Effingham. ‘Whatever the advantages for Gerald, surely he wouldn’t stay here unless there was, between him and Peter, unfinished business?’

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t know. We shall be late for dinner.’

  A darker greenish sky was pressing the sunset down into the sea. ‘I’ve got the car below. What will end it, Pip?’

  ‘His death. Or if her nerve breaks. Or, or, or. I don’t know.’ He tossed a pebble into the pool, full now of its own boggy darkness. ‘Good night, fish.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘What are we going to do, you and I, about Mrs Crean-Smith?’ Effingham had not expected this. Or had he? Had he not, ever since he had set eyes on the clever long-nosed girl, expected to be thus brought to the point? If this was the point, to which he was so sharply being brought. He had certainly been nervously awaiting something from this quarter: a sensation which had merged not unpleasantly with a straightforward interest in the girl and a desire to know her better.

  The Greek lesson had gone well. Of course Alice had insisted on making coffee, bringing biscuits, installing them in the drawing-room at a specially erected table. And of course Miss Taylor had proved a delightful and intelligent pupil. Armed beforehand with Abbott and Mansfield, she had learnt her alphabet, mastered the inflections of the first and second declensions, and discovered a remarkable amount about the verb to loose’. They had jested together in a sophisticated way about the fact that one starts Greek by saying ‘I loose’ and Latin by saying ‘I love’. Effingham had taken her through some elementary sentences in a severe pedagogic manner which pleased them both. There was an immediate rapport; and Effingham found himself suddenly nostalgic for the days when he had been a teacher. There was something singularly purifying in the business of teaching. He got pleasure from the presence of a hard lively mind eager for instruction. It was nice too to be looking, with an attractive girl, at some third thing. More than an hour had fleeted away.

  It was still early in the afternoon. Miss Taylor had come to lunch and had got on well with Max. Alice had made a cheerful friendly show. Pip had been witty but preoccupied. They sat now at one of the big drawing-room windows. The terrace outside was empty except for a somnolent, bored Tadg, and the sun shone intermittently, so that Gaze Castle opposite alternately sprang into shadowy relief and was blurred back into the hillside. A lot of small woolly golden clouds were crowding in from the sea and falling quickly down behind the peat bog. It was restless weather. There was rain in the air.

  Effingham glanced quickly round to see that the door was shut. He said rather sternly, ‘I don’t know exactly what you mean, Miss Taylor.’

  ‘Yes, you do. Forgive me for being so blunt. Of course, I know all about the situation and I’ve been dying to talk to somebody. Surely something must be done, something pretty drastic - we can’t let things go on like this.’

  Effingham was silent, staring at her with a stern mask. He was alarmed. He said then, ‘You’ve only just arrived here, and -‘

  ‘I’ve only just arrived here, and that’s why I’ve still got some common sense. Everyone else seems to have become completely stupefied.’

  Effingham closed the books. He would have to be alert and quick to deal with this fierce unclouded young mind. He would have to be strong too. He was alarmed; but he was also exhilarated. He kept his face grave. ‘All right. I’ll assume you know the outline of the situation. And I won’t tell you to shut up, why should I. What was it you wanted to say?’

  ‘That we must rescue her.’

  Effingham spread his hands, and a smell of hopelessness was wafted to him from the shabby furniture. The room had old memories of his visits to Riders. The sky was darkening outside. He had been in all these places before. He said, ‘Naturally that is what one thinks at first. But believe me, Miss Taylor, it is not so simple. Mrs Crean-Smith doesn’t want to be, as you put it, rescued. She’s all right as she is, more all right I suspect than you and I have any means of knowing, and we must respect what she has chosen.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Miss Taylor.

  Effingham felt a thrill of delight. He could not determine whether he was thrilled simply at being contradicted by a handsome clever girl with the face of a Michelozzi angel, or

  whether he was somehow pleased at the prospect of being forced to think in some new and dramatic way about his imprisoned lady. He had had, after Pip’s revelations of yesterday, a night of bad dreams; and his visit to Hannah this morning had had a painful exciting quality.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘this is something which it’s very hard for an outsider to understand. It’s something very delicate and curious, like one of those strange shells that Alice picks up on the beach. Any violent or clumsy interference could only do harm. Hannah has lived with this business for a long time and has made her peace with it. Her life is her own property, and however odd or painful it may seem to us to be, we have no right to try to alter it against her will. There’s a great deal here that we can’t see, a great deal in Hannah and a great deal else. We can’t even remotely know the consequences of actions. Damn it, we must respect her enough to let her decide for herself how she wants to live! There’s no place for arguing or pressing or persuading. There’s plenty we can do for her just by letting her know we care. But there’s no place for action. Come, Miss Taylor, you must see that. And now let’s just wind up our lesson, shall we? It seems to have ended anyway. I suggest for next time -‘

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Miss Taylor. ‘And do please call me Marian, by the way. I’ve thought about all this too, I’ve thought about it in exactly this way, but I’m still not convinced. You say we don’t know the consequences of actions. But we don’t know the consequences of inactions either, and inactions are actions.’

  ‘And please call me Effingham, well, Effie. I was an existentialist when I was your age, Marian. Now I suggest you read -‘

  ‘Please, please don’t put me off,’ she said, stretching out her hands across the table. ‘I’m tormented by this business, I really am. And there’s no one to talk to.’

  Effingham hesitated. It was true that inactions were actions. What was it that had given him such bad dreams last night? Pip’s remark about ‘if her nerve breaks’. Yet why should her nerve break, had she any nerve left to break? He felt a strong desire to unburden himself to Marian Taylor.

  It was beginning to rain. Tadg scratched at the door and Effingham got up to let him in. The wet dog shook himself and then made much of Marian, who had knelt to greet him. Effingham said, ‘I think I’ll light the fire, it’s getting cold.’

  They moved over to the fireplace and while Effingham crouched to set a match to the paper and sticks, Marian and Tadg settled themselves on the rug. The girl was wearing a big blue skirt of light local tweed which she must have bought in Blackport. She spread it out and the dog sat upon it, beaming up at her. Effingham seated himself on a footstool, tending the fire. It was another scene, suddenly more intimate.

  ‘How do you get on with the people over there, apart from Hannah I mean? I know you get on splendidly with Hannah.’

  ‘Oh, well enough. Denis Nolan is quite nice and Jamesie is perfectly sweet. I’m a bit nervous of Violet Evercreech, but she doesn’t bother me. I think Gerald Scottow is charming - oh, very very charming - only I can’t make him out.’

  Effingham was slightly irritated by this eulogy of Scottow and for a second tempted to give Marian some further information, but he restrained himself. ‘No one you talk to - about Hannah? Who was it told you about the situation?’

  ‘Nolan did. But I haven’t discussed it with him. I think he’s -well, hostile to any idea of doing anything.’

  ‘He’d be out of a job!’ said Effingham. He mustn’t be spiteful about Nolan.