by Iris Murdoch
This unfortunate obsession had another aspect. It was as if Emma had produced the situation in which he had desired Lindsay. Emma had been, as it were, the impresario of his passion. He had loved Lindsay as the enticing but untouchable princesse lointaine which Emma had (how deliberately and with what end?) made of her; and in now possessing Lindsay Randall experienced, though very rarely and for a second at a time, the touch of a disappointment analogous to that of the girl who desires the priest in his soutane, but wants him no more when he has broken his vows to become, less ceremoniously, available.
It was not that Lindsay, possessed, brought with her anything of the sober commonplace. The region they jointly inhabited was mad and exotic enough. But Randall felt curious stirrings of another freedom, as if this degree of hurling himself about still did not satisfy his awakened energy. It was not, either, that Lindsay was below her destiny. She was, on the whole, magnificent. Her moments of faltering were few compared with her great serenities and certainties. She dressed exquisitely in the array of flowered marvels, soft or crisp, flowing or sleek, which Randall had bought for her by the armful. She wore her jewels like a duchess, and everywhere she went, leaning upon his Ann, admiring heads were turned. Whatever her occasional blanks where the quattrocento was concerned, Lindsay could sufficiently impersonate a great lady. She had, in the void of their new existence, both style and form, and moved in its boundlessness with a boldly spread and finely articulated wing.
Randall wished that he was sure that he could say the same of himself. He had said once to Lindsay that they were, in strength, an equal match. He had in the last weeks quietly become aware, in the nebulous inexplicit way in which one realizes such things, that this was not so. He noted in her a barbaric strength which her present finery made subtly more apparent. Lindsay was the stronger, Lindsay was the boss; and even if she herself had not yet realized it, it could not be long before she did. Randall sometimes wondered whether this discovery were not the real source of his discontents. He attempted in any case to survey it with a cool eye. In spite of his anxieties about the present and the past, he had gained, for a further future about which he remained totally agnostic, a little self-confidence. As for the past, he would never know; but people survived. He would certainly survive.
He could not help being disappointed in his performance. He reemembered how much he had admired Lindsay and Emma, and wished to emulate the serene quality of their egoism. He had thought of them as living high up in a region of perfect freedom, in a sort of paradise of the imagination. He had thought of this as some quite different mode of being to which he was prepared to attain even by committing crimes, to which perhaps he was likely to attain especially by committing crimes. But he had not, or had not yet, been able to live up to the promise of those dreams and those early moments. Something in his sloveuly darkened self prevented his attaining the immaculate condition which he had pictured, and for which he had conceived Lindsay as the perfect consort.
What here impeded him was, he was fairly sure, not the demon of morality. It was more like some restless rapacity, a rapacity such as is the mark of mediocrity in art. The great artist is not rapacious. Randall felt restless, he wanted, now more than ever, to have everything; and he could not but picture his life with Lindsay as a perpetual Bight, from Rome to Paris, from Paris to Madrid, from Madrid to New York, from New York to… And as he imagined them thus covering the globe he also put it to himself: the world is large and there are other women in it besides Lindsay.
Randall stubbed out his cigarette. On the table beside the bed was a glass of water, a little pile of aspirins, a detective story, and a toy dog which Lindsay had bought him two days ago at a street market. They had not named it yet. Toby was still packed away in his suitcase. He caressed the other dog and fancied he heard from the cupboard Toby's disapproving barlq. He smiled a little and ate an aspirin. Would he, in the end, ditch Lindsay?
What was he going to do, in the big airy spacious» roture, anyway?
He knew in his heart, and he knew that Lindsay assumed, that he would never be a playwright. Distanced now by so much more of experience and suffering from his plays he realized clearly tbanhey were no good. They were pretentious, m. uddled and insipid. Perhaps he would try his hand once more; but it would be merely an amateurrish game. There was only one thing in the world that he was really good at, and that he would never do again. He saw in a vision the sunny hillside at Grayhallock with its slight haze of green and its myriad little coloured forms and he sighed. Ann.
Through some mechanics of reality the figure of Ann remained steady. But its power was broken. It was this breaking of the power which enabled him to entertain, halflaughingly, a sort of nostalgia. Ann's tyranny was broken, her dead hand was gone. Why had he fretted so in the old days when freedom was, after all, so easy? Perhaps this, and only this, was what Lindsay was for, to free him from Ann; and if it were so it would be justification enough. Whereas Emma's awareness of him still seemed to hover over him like a cloud, Ann's awareness of him had vanished, it was nothing. By passing through extremity, by committing the final crimes, he had freed himself forrever of any concern about what Ann thought. And sometimes he imagined weirdly that this put them into a new and innocent relationnship, as if they could set up house together like Christie and Old Mahon; and he would be the boss then. Or more vividly at other times he pictured himself based on Ann and the roses and having as many other women as he pleased without troubling. Perhaps after all it was there where the new world lay, in some almost impossible fusion whereby he could eat his cake and have it. He knew that these were otlJ. y wild fancies. But it gave him pleasure all the same to think, almost with a perverted tenderness, that now he did not care a fig about what went on in Ann's mind.
The great thing was that there was no hurry. He turned on his side to look at Lindsay and saw that she was stirring and would soon be awake. He looked upon her with love, with a possessive positive love which made nothing of his moments of disloyalty. He prepared his presence, his smile, for her like a table arrayed. In a moment she would open her eyes and draw him instantly to her with a beaming laziness. She always knew deeply and at once where she was and with whom. He waited tenderly for her to awaken. Had he made a terrible mistake? The wonderful thing now was that no mistake was terrible. There was plenty of time, and time would show him what he really wanted to do. He would survive. He could always, and after his own beautiful fashion, return to Ann. Ann would always be waiting.
Chapter Thirty-four
'WELL, Emma, said Hugh, 'what about it?
'Oh that, she said. 'Was I supposed to be thinking it over?
For some weeks now she had managed by a combination of procrastination, feigned illness, and sheer vagueness to see him only infrequently, while the idea was kept up of a continual communication. Much time was spent on the telephone making and unmaking arrangements which rarely matured: which was all mysterious to Hugh, since it seemed that, especially since Emma was not working, she should have nothing in the world to do except to see him. However she patently did not want him to go away and appeared to put considerable energy into tormenting him, and he had to be content with that.
For Hugh the interim had had a sad and haunted character. He shunned society and seemed to wander in a void where tall shadowy figures with ghostly heads loomed over him and vanished. He heard a babble of voices and was at a loss to know whether they were the product of a deranged ear or a wandering mind. He visited his ear specialist and departed from him with his usual contempt. Yet he had his own grip on life and took the time almost after a religious fashion as a suspense to be endured. He took out his old painting equipment, looked at it, and put it away again. He went often to the National Gallery and gloomily visited the Tintoretto which still drew its knot of admirers at lunch-time. Once he stroked it absently, as he had done when it was his, and was savaged by an attendant. He called on Humphrey at Cadogan Place and drank sherry with him and with Penn. Penn was looking be
tter, altogether gayer and more attractive, quite the young man. He had let Humphrey buy him a new suit as a retrospective birthday present. He met them again by accident when they were on their way to the Tower, and saw them distantly another time lunching at Pruniers. He was sorry not to see anything of Mildred, who was the only person he could have talked to, but she was still in the country.
This occasion of visiting Emma he was resolved to make into something of a crisis. He had a sense of a due time, perhaps a significant testing time, having passed: and he feared to fail with her simply through timidity. He had by now sufficiently also a sense of grievance. His need for her did not diminish; and very sweetly now the notion of her as a strange forbidden fruit mingled with the old passion which had so risen from the depths, encrusted and yet the same. She filled his mind, she was his occupation. Though what solution, bringing them together, would crown this time he did not know or trouble too closely to inquire.
It was tea-time. It seemed to be always tea-time at Emma's. The weather had changed and it was a bleak windy day, and tugged-at leaves and whirling branches knew that summer was defeated and departing. Outside the window the little evergreen garden tossed itself about in a tumultuous undulating mass of dark shapes. The wind came in sudden roars and whines. In the room a fan heater purred, mingling its faint rattle with the now perpetual noises inside Hugh's head. He had just made the tea and brought it in. Emma was sitting in her usual chair. She had a new dress on, or at any rate one which Hugh had not seen before, and looked singularly handsome. The dress was of a dark fine very light tweed with a thin green stripe, cut wide and long in the skirt like all her dresses. Leaning back, the silver-topped cane in its place, her frizzy grey hair more orderly than usual like a contrived and generous wig, she seemed something remote, something French, something vastly clever and timeless out of some courtly world of ceremony and sophistication. Tender, admiring, covetous, and unreasoningly pleased with himself, he took her good looks as an omen and as a tribute.
She looked at him with the air of resolute vagueness which he had come to know, and said, 'Would you pour out the tea, dear? I just don't feel strong enough. I'm sure you've made it beautifully.
Hugh poured out. 'Now don't put me off this time, Emma. Don't treat me as if I scarcely existed. Talk to me properly. I deserve some real speech.
'Real speech? she said. 'You're bullying me.
'Me bullying you, for God's sake, when you haven't seen me in weeks? And you know how much I want from you.
'Oh yes. You were the one who wanted, roughly; everything. The second time round. She laughed her shrill little laugh.
He edged his chair closer. 'Well, what about it, Emma?
She turned to stare at him, her eyes heavy with some sad extinguished light. 'I could never decide in the old days whether you were cliv'inely simple or just stupid.
'What do you think now?
'I don't know. Perhaps that you are divinely stupid and God loves fools. Perhaps God is a fool. Could you fetch me those tablets, please, from the desk.
He fetched them and stood fidgeting, aware of himself as stout and shambling before her. He was vaguely conscious of the room as looking different. 'Why must we always fight? Why can't we be at peace together at last? Why do you always try to confuse me?
'This isn't fighting, Hugh. I've been very gentle with you. I haven't struck you once, really to hurt. Though I could. As for the other, you are so adorably confusable. C' est plus fort que moi. She swallowed a tablet with a gulp of tea.
'Talk to me properly! He let his voice now entreat her shamelessly.
Emma was still looking up at him sadly. Then as if shaking herself into an effort, she said, 'You want some real speech, do you? All right I'll see what I can arrange. Do you notice anything different in this room?
He looked about him. There were many new things. The but too symbolically stripped look which the room had worn as a result of Lindsay's depredations had quite gone. There were new rugs, a new bookcase, a new writing-desk in the window, cushions, miniatures, Chinese vases, which had not been there before, and on every level surface were scattered little specks of treasure in gilt and silver and glass. The room had put on its attire again, it was adorned like a bride.
'Good heavens! said Hugh.
'You are an unobservant chap, you know.
'Is it — for me? he said. He was moved, and also sad that he had not thought himself to bring her armfuls of expensive knick-knacks to fill those empty spaces..
'No, it's not for you, said Emma. 'It's for Jocelyn.
'For who?
'For Jocelyn. Jocelyn Gaster. She's my new companion. Lindsay's successor.
'What? said Hugh. He glared down at her with anxiety and suspicion.
'Well, really, said Emma, 'your inability to think about anyone but yourself is really colossal. How do you think I can manage without a companion?
'But the whole point was —
'That you were to have the job? But that would never have done.
I need so much attention. And you're so unpractical, you know. Would you like to see a picture of her? She pointed to a thick envelope on a near-by table. Hugh brought it to her and she drew out a large photograph and put it in his hand.
Hugh saw a dark tousled boyish-looking girl with an arrogant ironical face. He laid the photo down. 'Well, I think you might —’
'I wanted. to be sure she'd come, said Emma, speaking quickly. 'I always ask them to send photos. She's handsome, isn't she? Such a clever face. And her dossier is good too. Second in Mods and a third in Greats. That seems all right, doesn't it? Somerville, of course. I like them to be well educated. r took Lindsay plutat pour ses beaux yeux. But Jocelyn is really cultivated as well, and awfully nice. She starts work next week.
Hugh stood before her looking down at the dog-mask of her face in which the eyes burned so sadly and anxiously. Did he see there pity or cruelty? He felt with a gloomy foreboding that he was near the truth with her. 'Emma, why clid you come to Grayhallock?
'Oh that, she said, with the same emphasis as if he were always mentioning the irrelevant. 'I had my reasons.
'What were your reasons?
'Is this real speech? All right, let us go on. I wanted to see Randall's wife'.
'Why?
'I just wanted to make sure it was all all right.
'What was all all right?»
'What was going to happen.
'And is it all all right?
'You mean Ann?
'I mean myself.
'Oh, you. I don't know. But Ann — I did develop a little plan for Ann that would have been nice —’
'A little plan?
'Yes. Did you have no ideas yourself, for Ann, no ideas at all? Hugh stared at her in complete puzzlement. 'Ideas? What sort of ideas?
'Never mind. They came to nothing. The girl is a goose. She's not the only one. And of course I was just curious.
'Look, said Hugh, 'I don't understand. You speak as if you arranged everything yourself. You're confusing me again. Please —
'Arranged? How crude you are. No, no. But I had another reason. I wanted to decide about the money.
'About what money?
'My money.
'Decide what?
'Who's to have it.
'But — why now? And why there?
'You see, she said, 'I had the beautiful idea of swindling my way into your family via your descendants! I thought it would be marvellously confusing. Perhaps confusing you is a way of loving you.
'I don't understand, he said, humbly now and encouraged by the gentleness of her teasing manner.
'I have selected my heir. Your grandchild.
'Miranda!
'No, not Miranda. I didn't like her. Young Penn. He's the lucky one. Isn't it a happy idea?
Hugh sat down heavily on a delicate petit-point stool which creaked violently under him. The wind moved and the bushes hurled themselves about outside like puppets and the fan heater clattered and the v
oices that argued inside his head continued their yapping polemic. He said, 'But why, why?
'Well, someone's got to have it! said Emma impatiently. 'And I have no family except for two cousins I detest, and I don't like my old college, so what can I do? And there's no point in leaving it to you.
'Anyway I'll be the first to go. But you astonish me.
'You won't be the first to go, said Emma. 'That's rather the point. She looked at him still with the holding gaze, sharper now and more anxious, as if trying to retain him in a difficult argument.
'You mean —?
'I'm ill, really ill. I've never told anyone, and I've let people think I just make an absurd fuss. But I've got a heart thing that could take me off at any time. Or of course I might live for years too. But that was why I hurried you about Grayhallock. One never knows how much time one has.
'Oh, my darling —’ said Hugh. He put his hands to his face.
'Now, now! she said. 'Don't be emotional. You make me soft, and that's bad for me. That's another thing I've got against you. Anyway, I've made the will, so if I die soon Penn will get the lot. Unless perhaps I get awfully fond of Jocelyn and give her some. But there's plenty. Poor old Lindsay!
