An Unofficial rose

by Iris Murdoch

  Lindsay Rimmer was not in the ordinary sense a particularly accomplished or a particularly distinguished girl. She was, to the very discerning nose, possibly even not a very nice girl. Her age, never divulged, was certainly a trifle over thirty. She came from Leicester, where she had been first a clerk, then a dental receptionist, and then a reporter on a local newspaper. Her general culture had startling lacunae, although because she was also a clever girl, they rarely showed. She had come to London four years ago in search of adventure and in answer to an advertisement of Emma's for a secretary and companion. She was, whatever her other short-comings, undeniably beautiful, with a pale complexion, very rounded head, long golden braids of hair, large brow and great expressive light brown eyes. She resembled Diane de Poitiers, and had round small breasts which would have delighted Clouet, and with which Randall's acquaintance had been but brief and tentative; since Emma intervened.

  Randall's love for Lindsay had come violently and suddenly, the entire transformation of the world in a second, a wild cry after long silence, the plunge of a still stream into a deep ravine. This falling in love was, he felt, the best thing he had ever done. It had that absolute authority which seems to put an act beyond the range of right and wrong. It had a splendour. Before it Randall had passed years of restlessness, weary of Ann, weary of the nursery, weary of himself, and yet not able to conceive of any other life. He had had two or three scrappy love affairs, but they had seemed to him, even at the time, senseless and ugly. He only half believed in his plays, only half believed that they represented a way of escape. There had been in his unhappiness no touch of fury or madness, only a dreary whining discontent. Steve had died; and after that there had been black lassitude and drink. And then he had met Lindsay.

  Randall saw her, he was certain, with a clear eye. He was no longer a romantic boy; and this very fact made the sovereign violence of his love the more astonishing, the more worthy of complete and ruthless adhesion. He had never, he felt, really seen Ann when he loved her; and had indeed married her under certain complete misapprehensions about her character. But Lindsay, without illusion, he saw. He took her in, for what she was, her whole person: and her aroma of tough slightly ruthless even slightly vulgar vitality drove him mad. It even delighted him that she was the tiniest bit, but patently, 'on the make'. Some people, those ones with the discerning noses, might have called her calculating or sly; but with him she was honest, in a gorgeous and unpretentious way which made her little cleverness all the more attractive. With him she was honest, she was open, and what was best of all about her, except perhaps for her resemblance to Diane de Poitiers, she was divinely indifferent to ordinary morality, she was, he felt, free. She was his angel of unrighteousness, so he often told her, and through her he enjoyed a most exhilarating holiday from morals. She was, he delighted to tell her, a demon, but an angel for him, heartless, but warm for him, a natural tyrant, but for him a liberator, evil, but for him good. She was indeed, his good, that towards which his whole being magnetically swung. The madness, the fine fury, had come at last.

  And Lindsay loved him: the miracle of that still retained its freshness. Taken by surprise, she had hesitated only a moment after his first cry. Then she had opened her arms. There had followed days of drunken beauty when they had wandered about half fainting hand in hand, and he had shown her things she had never seen and given her things she had never had, and watched the tall structure of her demonic self-assurance shiver and bow to the ground before him. That had been sweet indeed. He had only, and how often later he cursed himself for it, because of some lingering weakness caught in his years of frailty, because of some fear of her which persisted, because in a way he felt so certain and did not want to hurry, not possessed her; and then there had been Emma.

  Emma had descended upon them with something which was not exactly anger, though it had seemed like anger in the first days; later it had seemed more like love. Whatever it was it had been like a storm. What exactly happened Randall did not know. But when the first whirl subsided he found himself confronted not with Lindsay, but with Lindsay and Emma. It was not that Lindsay's will had been subdued, for Lindsay was altogether unsubdued. It was as if she had moved smartly into another dimension, or on to a higher plane, and now looked down at him merrily with undiminished love through a barrier of glass. She was become suddenly as inaccessible as a Vestal Virgin. He was certainly still loved. Only now he was loved by both; and at times he wondered whether he were not coming, by some chemistry of the situation, or by some more positive influence of their wills, to be in love with both.

  He now scarcely saw them except together; for they relentlessly chaperoned each other. He attended upon them, or more precisely he visited them, since Emma rarely stirred Abroad, in a manner which would not have disgraced the most solemn of Jane Austen's beaux. When in their company alcohol never passed his lips. He was sober, quiet, serviceable, docile, and, alas, chaste. It was at times incomprehensible to him how he had come, to this extent, to kiss the rod. He desired Lindsay no less than before. He knelt trembling to her physical presence. The magnetism, the tension between them had not slackened, and he apprehended with continually renewed pleasure her half-concealed excitement at his arrival. Yet this totally inexplicit, never-discussed, 'temporary solution' had lasted now for nearly a year and all three parties seemed to have settled into it with zest. Randall was well aware of the deliberation with which they weakened him, with which they turned his love-relation into a play-relation. Yet he felt strangely little resentment. The strains and paradoxes were thrills and pleasures, and he came even to delight in the convention whereby his love for Lindsay was supposed to be still a secret; and the nearest he could come to his satisfaction was the guilty enjoyment of Lindsay's dry-lipped kisses while Emma's stick tapped slowly across the next room. It was, in fact, a pleasure so extreme that he could sometimes feel that a total possession could give him no more.

  Emma, although he now saw so much of her, remained obscure and still a little frightening. Emma was the centre-piece of the relationship, and it was here that the darkness was. Emma joined with Randall in flattering Lindsay, and with Lindsay in teasing Randall; but she was herself never either flattered or teased. She would sit there, rather plump in her flowery old-fashioned dresses, her short frizzy dark-grey hair standing out on either side of her sharp-nosed intelligent face, which seemed like that of a clever dog, and she would watch them with a morose benevolence, leaning forward on her silver-topped cane. F. rom the exact nature of the relation between Lindsay and Emma Randall's imagination shied away. But whenever they touched each other he felt the shock of the contact within himself. That too was pleasurable.

  Sipping his tea, Randall contemplated Lindsay now, as she bent over her embroidery frame. She was wearing a green linen dress with a low square neck. The plaits of hair, with the docility of gold beaten into a close chain, coiled tightly about her head, emphasizing its roundness. The pain of physical desire, which was sometimes so sharp, was deliciously diffused now in an aching of his whole body. She raised her head and gave him a quiet solemn very conscious look. Emma was lost in a haze of cigarette smoke. The many clocks ticked in the quiet room. Randall was in heaven.

  The situation often struck him in a strange way as an appeal to his intelligence, and this pleased could such a structure remain rigid; and at times he felt the sheer cleverness of Emma, Lindsay and himself, coiled like three great muscular snakes at the very centre of the edifice. Yet also love was its centre; and perhaps here cleverness was love. With the passion of the artist which he now increasingly felt himself to be he adored Lindsay's awareness, her exquisite sense of form, which was a sort of dignity of wit, a sense as it were of the movement and timing of life which made her like a great comedian. She was shapely and complete; and like a kaleidoscope, like a complex rose, her polychrome being fell into an authoritative pattern which proclaimed her free. With exhilaration Randall felt himself become light, light, able to rise at last into the airy
world of the imagination, the world above the mess of morality, the world inhabited by those two angelic beings.

  Yet there were weights. Randall could at times, in the midst of his curious enjoyment of his indulged frustration, feel a special gratitude to Emma for having so thoroughly 'swallowed' them. What, after all, could he have done, what would he have done? He could not have taken Lindsay away because, quite simply, he had not enough money. Some knowledge of her, which could not now be muted, told him that it would be idle to expect her to help him through some new beginning. The merits of his plays were still unrecognized; and he simply could not see himself starting again to build up, somewhere else in England, another rose nursery. He could not see Lindsay getting up at six and turning the earth herself as Ann had done.

  In any case, there was still Ann and perhaps there would always be Ann. Pity for unloved Ann haunted Randall like a demon, preventing him from rising, preventing him from being free. Yet he had advanced a little, had he not, he had gained some ground. During the years of quarrelling, the years of irritation in that indifferent house, when they had torn each other and then wretchedly sought each other out because in their solitude there was no other consolation, it had seemed to Randall that nothing could ever alter, it would always be so. Even his love for Lindsay had made at first no impression on the futility of his life with Ann. But after his mother's death something new had seemed possible, and something new had indeed seemed to emerge from the solitary vigil which he had imposed upon himself. The period of meditation in his room, the abstention from Ann, the long hours of whisky and roses, the walks in the misty dawn among the dew-laden rose bushes to a chorus of newly wakened birds, out of all this had come some fresh strength, some breaking of the spell. After the monastic dignity of this period of retreat, the final scene could not be dwelt upon with satisfaction. How unfair he had been to Ann, how cunningly he had awaited a pretext, how careful and deliberate his anger had been, all this was known to Randall; though he could not altogether suppress a sense of almost technical pleasure in the success of the operation. Only he was sorry his father had been there. He was sorry to have seen his father ineffectual, frightened, resigned. He was sorry to have exhibited to him that most sordid moment of his own mechanism of change. More obscurely he respected and at moments envied the presence in Hugh of workable principles. His father's life had had dignity, had not degenerated into chaos. But for himself, principles in that sense were out of the question. It remained to be seen whether out of his present chaos some higher form would yet emerge.

  Of course he had been monstrously unfair to Ann; yet the unfairness was only something superficial and immediate, and in a more remote, more complex sense there had been justice. He could never have treated Ann rationally, he could never have explained to her what his grievances were. She would not have understood. She would have stood there, strong in her kind of honesty, that honest simplicity which destroyed the footholds of his imagination and which made her for him so deadeningly structureless, so utterly lacking in significance; and she would not have understood. As he pictured her thus he saw her indeed as the incarnate spirit of the Negative. The fact was that she was his destroyer, and some ultimate instinct of self preservation initiated and justified his proceedings against her. Yet he pitied her; and he knew that he had not even now left Grayhallock for good. He was bound to the place, still by Ann, by the pilgrimage of the rose year which he could not yet do without, and by Miranda; by Miranda most of all, the heart of that mystery, the green central button of that rose: Miranda, whom he had seen asleep in the last moments before he left the house, the pointed strands of her blazing hair fallen across her cheek, and a doll open-eyed beside her on the pillow.

  'Ah, he said to them at last to end the silence, although they were often thus happily silent together, 'Whatever are you two like when I'm not here? How I should love to know that!

  'Whatever it is: said Lindsay, looking at one of the clocks, 'we're going to be like it very soon, because we're going to throw you out. It's time for Emma's evening session, and I've got a pile of typing still. I don't want to be up all night.

  'I shall be sleepless' said Randall, 'so think about me if you are!

  ‘You'll be sleeping soundly, Randall, my son' said Emma. 'And so will Lindsay, for I've no intention of letting her type after supper. Come here, little one, did you hear what I said? She caught Lindsay's hand as the girl moved past her, and looked intently up into her face.

  'She's getting insubordinate and needs discipline!

  'Well, we'll fight it out when Randall’s gone, shall we? said Lindsay, looking down at her friend with a tender rapacious expression.

  Randall got up. They were still holding hands.

  'One of these days, he said, 'I'll put Lindsay across my saddle and carry her away. He often said this..

  Emma laughed. 'No, no, she said. 'I can't do without her! can't do without my gaiety girl. And I saw her first, after all! She pressed Lindsay's hand against her cheek and released it.

  Randall picked up his hat. He said to Emma, 'My father saw you at the funeral. He asked me about you.

  Emma was leaning forward to take the lid off her tape-recorder.

  'Really?

  'Yes, said Randall. He added, 'It wouldn't altogether surprise me if he were to turn up here one of these days.

  'Well, well — said Emma. She turned the switch and the tape began to purr backwards.

  Chapter Eight

  'I TOLD you Hugh said it was good of Felix to be so nice to Ann. said Mildred Finch.

  Humphrey laughed. 'Hugh is an ass, he said. 'He has a quite remarkable capacity for not seeing what's under his nose.

  Felix Meecham had been in love with Ann, in a gentle resigned gloomy way, for some years.

  'Well, I think nobody has seen that, said Mildred. 'Felix himself is like a clam. And you and I, dearest.

  'Are sufficiently oyster-like.

  'When we want to be. I'm glad the poor things had a little moment together — while you so tactfully kept young Penn out of the way.

  Humphrey smiled. He and his wife understood each other very well. Their relation was intimate yet abstract, a frictionless machine which generated little warmth, but which functioned excellently. 'You're not worrying about young Penn, I hope?

  'Certainly not, said Mildred. 'I don't think you're quite mad.

  'You, after all, were tactfully keeping Hugh out of the way!

  'Ah, Hugh — said Mildred. 'Yes, he is an ass, dear slow old Hugh, but I love him. What's more, Humpo, I'm going to have him. Would you mind?

  Humphrey looked at his distinguished reflection in an oval gilt mirror and smoothed down his white hair. 'Of course not, my dear.

  'You often said you wished I had someone. And I've waited long, enough for Hugh: 'But do you think you will positively get him? Humphrey looked down at his wife, amused and coolly tender. It was evening at Seton Blaise and the big drawing-room was already obscure, the lamps not yet turned on. But the garden was still full of light. A near-by thrush sang.

  'I don't see what can stop me, said Mildred. 'I mean to have him, what's more, deliciously all to myself! I've wanted him for years, and that gives me a sort of right, doesn't it? Only he was so infernally faithful to poor Fanny, except for that one business. Dear Hugh, he really thinks no one knew about his caper with Emma! Just as Randall imagines now that no one knows he's carrying on with the Rimmer girl, whereas everyone knows!

  'Ann doesn't know. You're a bit inclined to say» everyone knows» when what you mean is that you know.

  'Well, it's true I know plenty. I certainly mean business here. To flaming youth let virtue be as wax. You don't think I'm too old for such nonsense, do you, Piggy?

  'Too old? Humphrey laughed. 'I wonder what you really want, though.

  'I want the impossible, Piggy. To be young again. I want a little miracle.

  'Why not? said Humphrey. 'I'm not sure that I see Hugh as up to it, though.

  'I'll bri
ng him up to it! She rose to her feet. Now I'm going to interview Felix. Where is that boy? Is he still felling trees?

  'When I last saw him he was carrying logs the size of himself into the woodshed. I told him to leave them for Smeed and the boy, but he took no notice.

  'He's trying to take his mind off things, said Mildred, 'instead of using it on things. That's what I want to talk to him About. What are you going to do, Piggy?

  'I think I'll just drive over to Grayhallock.

  'I know, dominoes and whisky. That's where Felix ought to be too, now that the cat's away, only the boy is so confoundedly honourable. I suppose there's no word of the cat coming back?

  'None at all, so far as I know.

  'Well, enjoy yourself, only remember what I told you!

  'But you didn't tell me anything this time!

  'Well, remember what I would have told you if I hadn't thought you'd heard it so often before!

  Mildred drew a light shawl about her shoulders and issued from the house. She paused upon the step to survey the garden. Against a sky of intense blue the thrush sang upon the cedar tree, winding all the visible things into the endless thread of his song. The stream seemed motionless, a line of green enamel beneath the chestnut trees, but the bamboos moved ever so slightly, like the secret gestures of friends.

  The garden, so long familiar that it seemed a part of her mind, rapt Mildred into a trance of recollection, so that for the moment she forgot about Felix. Who knows what may be the results of random and seemingly isolated actions? She herself had embraced men whoso faces, even whose names, she had forgotten: gone, killed in two wan. So much of the past is annihilated and swept away. But other pieces live, and grow in the memory like powerful seeds. Perhaps some of her own forgotten actions were, in the minds of distant and unheeded persons, just such seeds. And Hugh, did he know, did he at all guess, what thing he planted, with what long consequences, when suddenly on that summer evening he had turned from looking at her reflection in the stream, and throwing his Ann over her shoulder had kissed her, holding her tightly for a long moment before he let her go? They had not spoken, then or since: But that quite isolated moment had had, for her, results. She recalled it now with such clarity, saw it in such detail, that the relentless interval of time seemed itself a dream. She remembered. And after the citronella Hugh had certainly remembered too; she had tricked him into remembering, she had, with such joy, seen him remembering.