A Fairly Honourable Defeat

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘I blame myself—’

  ‘For what? That’s the trouble. For what? What mistake did we make with Peter? You must see him soon again, Rupert, you really must.’

  ‘When I see Peter I find myself play-acting the stern father. It’s not what I feel at all. It’s just mechanical.’

  ‘I know. We’ve both of us been rather mechanized about Peter I’m afraid. We thought if he found Cambridge too luxurious he would automatically enjoy helping Tallis with Jamaicans. But he doesn’t appear to like that either!’

  ‘If only he wanted to go abroad. When I was his age—’

  ‘Yes, yes. I suppose Tallis hadn’t anything new to say when you last saw him? He never has.’

  ‘About Peter? He made one rather cryptic remark. He said Peter wasn’t too strong on the mine and thine front.’

  ‘What on earth does that mean? He can’t mean that Peter steals things?’

  ‘I didn’t pursue the matter. I’d just had a pretty grim half hour with the boy. And a number of black children were screaming in the doorway.’

  ‘Darling, I suspect Tallis really irritates you just as much as he irritates me!’

  ‘He lacks the concept of privacy.’

  ‘Anyway, Tallis always exaggerates. He likes everything to be awful.’

  ‘It’s the characteristic of an unhappy man.’

  ‘Rupert, I think we should ask Tallis over here and discuss the whole matter and make some entirely new plan. Oh damn, we can’t if Morgan’s here.’

  ‘I’m afraid Tallis has just rather lost touch where Peter’s concerned. He used to have some authority over him, but not any longer.’

  ‘The scales have fallen. People get over Tallis. I’m sure Morgan has. Anyway, I wish to God someone would persuade Peter to go back to Cambridge in October!’

  ‘I thought perhaps a talk with Axel might—’

  ‘Yes, I thought of that, but I rather suspect that Peter’s gone off Axel. He used to like him. But recently—And you know how Peter’s never really got on with Simon.’

  ‘The two things may be connected. There’s still a good deal of time, you know, Hilda. And the college is being very decent about it.’

  ‘I know, we mustn’t fret too much. I wonder if Morgan could help Peter?’

  ‘He used to be awfully attached to her, and he admires her, which is important with Peter.’

  ‘Of course he’s grown up a lot since he last saw Auntie Morgan.’

  ‘Morgan may be in need of help herself.’

  ‘I know, Rupert. I suspect this whole thing has been a pretty severe shipwreck. Morgan treasures her self-esteem. And it must have taken a knock. What’s that Latin tag you’re always quoting about dilig something?’

  ‘Dilige et fac quod vis. Love and do as you please.’

  ‘Yes. I think Morgan imagined she could live by that. And it’s turned out a mess.’

  ‘I doubt if any human being can live by that. That we can’t is a fundamental feature of this jumble.’

  ‘Did you say “jungle” or “jumble”?’

  ‘Jumble. Human existence.’

  ‘Why are you always quoting the thing then, if it has no application? ’

  ‘It’s—an attractive idea.’

  ‘Pouf! Yes, I do think Morgan will need help, and not only from me. Everyone must rally round. After all she’s very fond of you and Simon. We must all support her.’

  ‘When is Morgan arriving from America? She’s coming by boat isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, it’ll be another ten days at least. She didn’t say the exact date.’

  ‘Julius may have moved on by then.’

  ‘That might be just as well. I wonder if Morgan has written to Peter?’

  ‘We’d have seen the letter.’

  ‘She might have written to college.’

  ‘You mean if she has, Peter will have told Tallis she’s coming?’

  ‘I doubt if she’ll have written to him, actually. She’s been so terribly depressed lately. She’s probably forgotten Peter’s existence. Anyway she might have a go at him when she does arrive. At least she’s an intellectual, not like me.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Hilda. Of course you’re an intellectual. You—’

  ‘I can’t think of anything dottier than arguing about whether I’m an intellectual on our twentieth wedding anniversary! I mean I’m not one of your trained minds.’

  ‘Well, you could have been, only I snatched you up so early. You don’t regret it, do you, darling, not having been to a university? You know it isn’t important.’

  ‘Yet it’s important that Tallis got a second. You mention it about once a month. All right, I’m only teasing you. I’m not an academic type. Morgan is, to her finger tips. You know, her being cleverer than Tallis was half the trouble. Tallis is a man without ideas, and Morgan lives by them. No wonder Julius turned out to be a pretty strong counter-attraction.’

  ‘Yes. She would be likely to be dazzled by Julius’s cleverness. I’m afraid your sister is a bit of a clever-snob.’

  ‘Why snob? These are serious values. And cleverness can be sexual power. I must say Julius is terribly good-looking anyway, with that weird fair Jewishness. And Tallis is such a sort of runt.’

  ‘What a horrid word, Hilda. Surely that can’t truthfully describe anybody.’

  ‘Why not, you high-minded old ass? Can “sagacious, open-faced and virile” truthfully describe someone?’

  ‘Who are you trying to describe?’

  ‘You, of course!’

  ‘Hilda, you should have been a philosopher.’

  ‘I suppose Julius will ring up? I mean, I hope he won’t feel he’s persona non grata here after the story with Morgan?’

  ‘I think he’ll ring up. Julius is a tremendously straightforward person.’

  ‘I must confess I’m curious to see how Julius will carry it off. Not that I know him particularly well, he’s always been so much your friend. But he’s a very interesting object.’

  ‘I’m curious too. But there’ll be no excuses or undignified prevarications, that’s certain. Julius may be clever, but he’s also very truthful and sort of simple.’

  ‘If only Julius and Morgan had met years ago.’

  ‘Well, they’ve met now and it doesn’t seem to have worked.’

  ‘We’ll see, we’ll see. Give me more champagne, will you, darling, and could you just tilt the umbrella a little more? Rupert, if only Peter would come, if only he’d come out through that door now. I said I was happy. And in everything to do with you I am, quite perfectly. But this other thing is such a cloud on the horizon. I can’t help worrying the whole time with Peter in this awful mood.’

  ‘I think it is a mood, my dear, and as moods pass, it will pass.’

  ‘I hope you’re right. If we could only break down the mechanism. If I could only stop acting the emotional mother and you the stern father.’

  ‘I am sure that love tells in the end, Hilda. There are times when one’s just got to go on loving somebody helplessly, with blank hope and blank faith. When love just is hope and faith in their most denuded form. Then love becomes almost impersonal and loses all its attractiveness and its ability to console. But it is just then that it may exert its greatest power. It is just then that it may really be able to redeem. Love has its own cunning beyond our conscious wiles. Peter is being difficult, but he knows that he has got a home in our love. He probably relies on it more than he realizes.’

  ‘Amor vincit omnia. That’s one of the tags I do know.’

  ‘In some sense. Ultimately. In the end.’

  ‘You are such a wise person, Rupert. You have so much instinctive wisdom and goodness of heart. It sometimes worries me that you’re putting it all into a book, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘You think I may damage my excellent instincts by analysing them! But I am not talking about myself in that book. The book is about real virtue, not instinct.’

  ‘I think you have real virtue. All right, I’m
not being fulsome; it’s quite an important remark. I think real virtue only comes in the instinctive kind, in your kind. It’s connected with the heart, with natural responsibilities and real affections. Anything else is just cold—it’s abstract—it’s philosophy.’

  ‘Well, my book isn’t philosophy either, Hilda. I’m a civil servant. I’m not a proper philosopher. I’m just a Sunday metaphysician. ’

  ‘It looks like philosophy to me.’

  ‘If it was you wouldn’t understand it.’

  ‘I don’t understand it! I’m not against your book, darling. But I do wish you’d finish it. Oh, I know you’ll miss it. But I keep worrying in case it gets burnt or lost or something. Eight years’ work. All those precious pages of tiny writing and no carbon copy.’

  ‘I have very nearly finished it. Then we’ll have a celebration. And it can be typed and you can stop worrying.’

  ‘Will it make you famous, Rupert?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, dear. Do you want me to be famous? Hilda, you didn’t really mind my refusing that title, did you?’

  ‘No, that’s different. Though “Lady Foster” would have sounded rather well. I could have had some pink postcards printed with From Lady Foster on them. No, no, sweetheart, you must follow your judgement. Or what I called your instinct. I absolutely trust its absolute rightness. God bless you, my darling. Here’s to the next happy twenty years.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘PENNY FOR THEM.’

  ‘Julius King.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘What do you mean, “oh”?’

  ‘Just “oh”.’

  ‘You seem dismayed.’

  ‘I’m not dismayed.’

  ‘Perhaps you ought to be.’

  ‘Stop it, Axel.’

  ‘You are so teasable, Simon!’

  Axel was edging the light blue Hillman Minx along through the closely packed rush hour traffic in the Cromwell Road. It was a mystery to Simon, who could not drive, how all those cars could bustle along together without scraping each other. Simon, although he was so slim and graceful and handy in the house, was accident-prone, and Axel would not let him learn to drive. Simon pretended to have a sense of grievance about this. It might always come in useful to make Axel feel that he owed him a treat. In fact, being driven by Axel was a source of ecstasy which never dimmed. Simon felt this ecstasy now as he extended his arm along the seat behind his friend, the stuff of his sleeve just touching the collar of Axel’s jacket.

  ‘When’s Julius arriving?’

  ‘He’s arrived.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me.’

  ‘I only heard it this morning, Simon. He sent me a letter to the office.’

  ‘Why to the office?’

  ‘Because he didn’t know my address, fool.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Simon and Axel had lived in Axel’s small flat in Bayswater during the first two years of their liaison. A year ago they had purchased a house in Barons Court. Simon was still happily engaged in interior decoration. Axel was indifferent to his surroundings. Simon felt the purchase of the house to be a deeply significant move. Axel had never professed to believe that their relationship would last. He still firmly refused to predict its future.

  ‘When did you last see Julius, Axel?’

  ‘Nearly four years ago. Before he went to South Carolina. And a bit before my momentous meeting with you in Athens, my dear. When did you last see him?’

  ‘Oh ages ago. It must be six years. I met him at Rupert’s. But I’ve never really known Julius. He never paid any attention to me.’

  ‘Well, don’t sound so aggrieved!’

  ‘I’m not aggrieved. He was Rupert’s friend anyway. Funny, he’s never seen us together.’

  Axel was a coeval colleague of Rupert’s in the Civil Service. He was a clever dry silent man. Through Rupert, Simon had known Axel slightly for some time without having any notion that he was homosexual. Simon suspected that Rupert had not known it either. He also suspected that Rupert was not altogether pleased when his old friend and colleague took up with his younger brother. But of course he could never discuss Axel with Rupert now. Axel had had love relationships with men when he was a student, and he had subsequently lived for some time with a dentist who later emigrated to New Zealand. At the time of the accidental and revelatory meeting in Athens Axel had been living alone for several years and, he told Simon, was resigned to living alone forever. Axel never hunted. He once said, and it lightened Simon’s life for many days, ‘You were a fantastic stroke of luck for me, kid.’

  ‘We’re late again, Axel. You always make us late when we go to Rupert’s. I suspect you do it on purpose.’

  ‘Possibly I do, little one.’

  Simon knew that Axel felt that it was rather bad form of Rupert to invite them to a wedding anniversary celebration. But nothing was said about this. Rupert and Axel remained close friends. Simon, though he was very fond of his elder brother, felt the association to be faintly menacing, just as he had in earlier years felt as menacing the association of Rupert and his father, even though it was so patently dedicated to Simon’s welfare. He had deeply loved his mother, formerly an actress, who died when he was ten. Elder brother and papa had brooded lovingly over his teens. Simon was grateful but oppressed. His father had died when Simon was twenty. Rupert was still instinctively paternal.

  ‘Let’s invite Julius to dinner,’ said Simon. This suggestion, unexpected to Simon himself, was the result of a very quick trait of thought, beginning with a mental picture of Julius and Axel tête-à-tête at luncheon. Simon was a good cook. He liked to entertain in his own home. He was proud of his ménage with Axel and liked to show it off to selected friends.

  ‘If you like. You think of a date and I’ll drop Julius a note.’

  ‘Where is Julius staying?’

  ‘At the Hilton Hotel. But he’s looking round for a flat.’

  ‘Oh. He’s going to stay some time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  At the beginning of their association Axel had given Simon a lecture about jealousy. ‘We must trust each other and not be jealous.’ Simon had nodded his head, but he could no more control such feelings by acts of will than he could control the peristaltic movement of his gut. Whenever another man came close to Axel Simon ached with jealousy. In fact, Axel was by nature a very jealous man himself, which perhaps accounted for the seriousness of the lecture.

  ‘How was the day at the museum, dear boy?’

  ‘Much as usual. That quarrel with the V. and A. is still going on. How was the day at the office?’

  ‘Boring. The balance of payments meeting went on interminably. I do wish Rupert was still in the chair.’

  Axel had several times explained to Simon what the balance of payments was, but Simon had never understood. He felt he could not ask again.

  ‘Did you have your swim today?’

  ‘Yes, it was marvellous.’

  ‘You’re quite an addict. Did you see Hilda?’

  ‘Yes. Axel, Morgan is coming back.’

  ‘Really? When?’

  ‘Oh soon—in about ten days. I wonder if she knows Julius will be in London?’

  ‘I suppose she’ll stay with Rupert and Hilda.’

  ‘I suppose so. By the way, Hilda said not to tell Tallis that Morgan was coming.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Well, Morgan might not want to see Tallis and there’s no point in upsetting him, I imagine.’

  ‘I don’t approve of these subterfuges.’

  Another subject upon which Axel had had occasion to lecture Simon at the beginning of their love was the subject of truthfulness. ‘Don’t tell me lies, even trivial ones, and don’t conceal things from me. Love should be without fear.’ Simon had found this injunction surprisingly difficult to follow. He concluded that he must have an exceptionally evasive temperament. Now that he had begun to notice it, he saw that he tended to tell small almost pointless lies almost all of the time and to embroider any tal
e in the telling. He confessed this once to Axel and was rewarded by an unusual demonstration of affection. The lies decreased in number and were almost always unimportant. The tendency persisted however. Axel himself was an extremely truthful person. Perhaps in this case it was his early perception of Simon’s frailty which accounted for the seriousness of the lecture.

  ‘I think it’s quite wrong to conceal this from Tallis,’ said Axel.

  ‘Well, you argue it with Hilda.’ Oh dear, I hope it isn’t going to be one of those evenings, thought Simon. Axel could be quite aggressive. ‘Let’s ask Tallis over soon,’ he added. ‘We haven’t seen him for ages.’

  ‘You suddenly want to see Tallis because you’re interested.’

  ‘You are funny, Axel. You never want to see people when they’re in trouble.’

  ‘One’s interest is always base.’

  ‘But you know I like Tallis anyway, we both do. And what’s wrong with being interested?’

  ‘Any concern we have with that matter is bound to be vulgar. I think we’d much better leave Tallis alone for the present. We can’t help him, we’d merely be tourists.’

  ‘You think he’s in for a bad time?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Simon. He had been shaken by the news of Morgan’s imminent return. He had been surprisingly shaken by her marriage to Tallis, though he was genuinely attached to Tallis and though he certainly did not want to marry Morgan himself. That had never been in question. Morgan, who was a year his senior, had always been like a delightful sister. He went to bed with her one night when he was a homosexually experienced twenty-one and she was a heterosexually experienced twenty-two. In spite of encouragement from Morgan nothing was able to occur however. This was Simon’s only experiment with the other sex. It preyed on his mind that he had never told Axel. Axel had never been to bed with a woman.

  ‘You don’t think Morgan will go back to Tallis?’ said Simon.

  ‘No, I don’t in fact. But it’s not our affair.’ Axel was puritanical about gossip.

  Simon did not know what he felt about Morgan going back to Tallis. He supposed he wanted it to happen because he supposed he wanted Tallis to be happy and he supposed that Tallis wanted Morgan back. Tallis could never be vindictive. All the same, would it not be more dignified of Morgan not to go back? Simon cared about Morgan’s dignity. To go back: that smacked of penitence, humility, forgiveness, things which slightly made Simon shudder when he envisaged them for Morgan, though for himself in his relations with Axel they were an aspect of sex. Simon had been upset by Morgan’s staying on in South Carolina and upset by the news of her love affair with Julius. Morgan was altogether a source of considerable upset.