A Fairly Honourable Defeat

by Iris Murdoch

  Hilda looked uneasily at the objects on the dressing table. They included two transistor sets, three silk handkerchiefs, obviously new, a camera, a shiny leather box which might have contained cuff links or jewellery, a rather expensive-looking electric torch and an enamelled cigarette lighter. Hilda was about to ask Peter a question about these things when the door flew open.

  A lot of white teeth and a hazy flurry of black hair came round the door.

  ‘Cannayeh berroo yatipout aggen?’

  ‘Sure, you know where it is.’

  The door closed.

  ‘What was that?’ said Hilda.

  ‘A Muslim.’

  ‘What language was he speaking?’

  ‘English.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘He wanted to borrow our teapot.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he buy one of his own? They aren’t expensive.’

  Peter reflected for a moment. ‘I don’t know.’ He closed his eyes.

  ‘Oh Peter, Peter!’ said Hilda. ‘I wish you didn’t live in such a mess. And by the way, where are all those books I brought you from home last time I came? I don’t see them anywhere.’

  ‘I sold them.’

  ‘Peter! Your art books! You used to love them.’

  ‘I’m through with that sort of art. And the money was useful. I gave some to Tallis.’ Peter opened his eyes a little and surveyed his mother.

  ‘There’s no need to give money to Tallis. I pay for this room. And surely you can keep yourself on what your father gives you and what I give you extra?’

  ‘I’m not complaining. In fact I’m grateful.’

  ‘And for heaven’s sake don’t tell anyone, not even Tallis, that I’m giving you that extra money, because I haven’t told your father! He wouldn’t stand for it, and I daresay quite rightly.’

  ‘I have already told Tallis, but Tallis never tells.’

  ‘Oh dear, I wish everything wasn’t becoming so complicated. I’m afraid I’m just no good at being a parent.’

  ‘Don’t start that again, mother, please. We don’t want any tears this time.’

  ‘But what are you going to do? You’ve got to make yourself into a going concern. You’ve got to fit into this society somehow. You can’t spend your life in bed.’

  ‘Sssh, sssh, my darling mother. Give me your hand. That’s right. No, just your hand. Yes, yes, there, there, you know I love you.’

  ‘But, Peter, you’ve got to try—’

  ‘You mean compete. I’m not going to compete.’

  ‘And there’s Cambridge and you’ll have to decide—’

  ‘I’ve decided. We see things differently, mama. We see time differently. You worry about time, you strain against it. I just give myself up to it and it carries me quietly along. As for Cambridge, it incarnates that whole rotten set of beastly old class values. One simply mustn’t touch it. It’s no compromise and no surrender.’

  ‘Homer and Virgil and—Sophocles and—what’s his name—Aeschylus don’t represent the whole rotten set of beastly old class values.’

  ‘No, they’re all right in themselves. But the whole set-up is corrupt. I can’t explain to you, mother darling. But I’ve got my own categorical imperatives. I’ve just got to reject the thing in toto.’

  ‘Peter, do try to think. You’ve got to earn money. Or do you expect us to support you all your life?’

  ‘Of course not. Money isn’t important though. I can easily earn a little if I want to.’

  ‘When you’re older you’ll want more money and you won’t have the capacity to earn it!’

  ‘This thing about more money as one grows older is precisely one of the assumptions of this lousy society which I refuse to accept. People spend their whole lives chasing money and chasing more of it and wanting more and more unnecessary things. They feel they’ve failed unless they’re continually climbing up a sort of pyramid of material possessions. They sacrifice themselves to houses and refrigerators and washing machines and cars, and at the end they realize they haven’t really lived at all. Their houses and their washing machines have lived their lives for them. I don’t want to be like that. I want to live my own life, out in the open, outside the rat race, outside the capitalist dream. This room contains everything that a human being needs.’

  ‘No books,’ said Hilda. ‘What about your mind? You’re clever. Don’t you want to develop your talents?’

  ‘Don’t you worry about my mind, mother dear. A great deal is happening in my mind. Probably more than ever happened in your mind in the whole of your life.’

  ‘Peter, you’re taking drugs!’

  ‘No, no. Well, I took some pot once or twice, harmless stuff. No, I’m not on drugs, I don’t need them. I just wait quietly and the strangest and most wonderful things come. Just to wait, that’s the secret. All this struggling and straining with conscious thought separates us from the real world. Look at that brass knob on the end of my bed. To you it’s just a brass knob. To me it’s a golden microcosm.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hilda, ‘to me it’s a brass knob and it’s going to stay a brass knob! These are just moods and feelings, Peter—’

  ‘Moods and feelings are very important, my old square angel of an aged parent. I want to be my moods, to live in the present. Feelings are life. Most people in this society just never live at all.’

  ‘I know your father thinks—’

  ‘Please, mama. We did agree.’

  ‘Oh all right. Has Tallis been putting these dotty ideas into your head I wonder?’

  ‘Tallis! Really, mama! Tallis is on your side!’

  ‘Well, I think that if you reject this society, and you’re quite right to do so in many ways, you ought to equip yourself to try to change it, and not lie on your bed having feelings, and that means—’

  ‘That means the struggle for power. No. Power is just what I don’t want, mother. That’s another false God. Gain power so that you can do good! That’s another way to waste your life. Just look at Tallis. When did dear Tallis ever live?’

  ‘He’s a terribly anxious man, but—’

  ‘Tallis is always somewhere else, he never really exists in the present at all. Can’t you at least see how anxious I am?’

  ‘Ye-es. But I think one should try to help people—’

  ‘Yes, but not anyhow. And if one’s a real person oneself one can help more. I know you belong to the Socialist Old Guard, dear mother, but that’s not the sort of thing that’s needed now, truly it isn’t. Now be a darling and don’t hustle me. I have to discover myself first of all.’

  ‘I can’t understand you, Peter. When I’m with you, now, it sounds as if you’ve got some sort of real argument. But when I remember it later on it seems like nonsense, it’s just faded away like the dream rushes in Alice.’

  ‘True wisdom looks unsubstantial in the materialistic world. But really it’s your life that’s a dream.’

  ‘I can’t agree, Peter, but I can’t argue either. I don’t know what to say to you. I must get Morgan to talk to you. Maybe she will be able to argue with you properly.’

  ‘Morgan?’ Peter sat up. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and fanned out his rather long golden hair. ‘Is there any prospect of Aunt Morgan?’

  ‘Well, yes. Look, Peter, will you please keep this under your hat and not tell Tallis? Morgan is here, she’s at our house at this moment. She arrived yesterday.’

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said Peter. He teased out his hair between his fingers, then smoothed it down and relaxed slowly, lifting his legs and burrowing his bare feet into a nest of blankets at the bottom of the bed. ‘That’s good. I’d very much like to see Morgan again. Is she going to rejoin Tallis?’

  ‘We don’t know. And just for now, not a word to him, please, Peter. Morgan just wants a little peace and—’

  ‘OK, OK. By the way, did you by any chance bring me a tiny cheque, dear mother? That’s fine. Just put it under the pillow, would you.’

  ‘You’re tellin
g me to go.’

  ‘I think it’s wiser, my dear. This is just the stage where if you stay any longer you start to get upset. And then you upset me.’

  ‘And that spoils your communion with the brass knob. All right, all right. But, oh Peter, I do so hate leaving you—’

  ‘Now then, mother, no love scene. Yes, yes, I love you very much. Now off you go, old dear, off you go.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘SIMON, I wish you wouldn’t call everybody “darling”. It’s one of those damned tribal habits I wish I could cure you of. It’s all right for you to call me “darling”. If you feel like it. You probably don’t at the moment. But if you use it on everyone you cheapen it and then it’s no good to me. You ought to have the intelligence to see that.’

  ‘Sorry—darling.’

  ‘Don’t simulate.’

  ‘I’m not simulating!’

  ‘You must be annoyed with me.’

  ‘I’m not annoyed with you, Axel, damn you!’

  ‘That sounds jolly convincing, doesn’t it.’

  ‘I don’t call everybody “darling” anyway.’

  ‘You called Morgan “darling” the other day—and Hilda.’

  ‘Well, they’re special. I’ve always had a thing about them and—’

  ‘What do you mean a “thing”? Must you talk basic English? Who were you trying to telephone when I came in, by the way?’

  ‘I was just ringing Rupert’s place.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I—well—I just wanted to talk to Morgan. Only she wasn’t in.’

  ‘You put the telephone down damn fast.’

  ‘Really, Axel—Don’t you think the drawing room’s looking nice?’

  ‘Not bad. I see you’ve bought another ridiculous paperweight. I wish you wouldn’t keep buying trinkets. We’ve already got far too many possessions.’

  ‘It wasn’t expensive.’

  ‘And for God’s sake, Simon, don’t drink too much tonight. Remember, when I start fingering the lobe of my ear it means I think you’ve had enough.’

  ‘I won’t accept that signal, Axel.’

  ‘You’d better! You got tight that last time at Rupert’s and I couldn’t get you away and you broke all those glasses. I was quite ashamed of you.’

  ‘Sorry—sweetheart.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t hum nervously when you’re doing things. I wonder if you realize that you’ve been humming? You even hum when I’m talking.’

  ‘Sorry—’

  ‘Do finish with those blasted flowers. You’ve been arranging them for twenty minutes. Why you want to mess around with dried flowers at this time of year is beyond me.’

  ‘Don’t be so conventional, Axel.’

  ‘And surely you can’t mix plastic bulrushes in with real flowers?’

  ‘You can with dried ones. How do you know they’re plastic anyway?’

  ‘I can see they are.’

  ‘I saw you touching them just now.’

  ‘Horrid fascination.’

  ‘You weren’t sure they were plastic! And if they don’t look—’

  ‘That you should have plastic bulrushes in your possession at all or introduce them into this house is a scandal. You’re supposed to be the expert on interior decoration, but sometimes I think you have the taste of a suburban housewife.’

  ‘You only noticed it because Julius is coming.’

  ‘What is that idiotic remark supposed to mean?’

  ‘You usually don’t care tuppence what this place looks like.’

  ‘Perhaps I don’t want your lapses in taste to be put on public show!’

  ‘All right. You can arrange the bloody drawing room yourself.’

  Simon went down to the kitchen and slammed the door. For a second he felt hot about the eyes as if he were going to cry. But the next moment he felt better. Even the smallest quarrel with Axel upset him. But he knew by now that this was the sort of thing which usually blew away directly into the surrounding air. Axel had said to him at the start: absolute rule, one does not make tantrums with someone one loves. One never sulks. In fact Axel often snapped at him and sometimes said, even in public, rather accurate and wounding things. As on the occasion when Axel had let Simon hold forth for some time about the Titian Pietà in the Accademia before pointing out that it had been finished by Palma Gióvane, a fact which Simon certainly ought to have known. In public Simon suffered in silence. In private he sometimes hit back. But he knew that Axel was almost always sorry and a feud was not maintained. It was not really in Simon’s nature to fight at all and he was incapable of sulking.

  Two bottles of Puligny Montrachet and a bottle of Barsac had been uncorked and put in the fridge. They were going to start with a confection of cucumber and yoghourt with pepper which Simon had invented. After that there was a salmon trout with almonds, and new potatoes. Then pears stewed in white wine and served with a creamy egg custard. Then English cheese. Simon observed the salmon trout, wrapped in foil, through the glass front of the cooker. The cucumber and the pears were ready to serve. The potatoes would not take long and need not go on yet. Everything seemed to be under control. There was still nearly half an hour before Julius was due to arrive.

  Simon was feeling nervous. He sometimes wondered if other people’s minds were as hard for them to control as his was for him. It was not easy to find out such things. It was no use giving himself instructions and upbraiding himself for being irrational. Immense flights of fantasy were taking place. During the last few days he had lost Axel in any of a dozen different ways, all somehow connected with Julius. Simon tried hard to be generous in his thoughts. That at least he could usually manage. His temperament helped him to turn all conceivable blame onto himself. He did not seriously imagine that Julius would deliberately try to steal Axel. As far as he knew Julius had no interests of that sort at all. He did not imagine that Julius would deliberately make any sort of trouble for him. He simply feared that the proximity of this very intelligent and high-powered old friend would open Axel’s eyes. Axel would suddenly see how flimsy Simon was, how unsophisticated, how lacking in cleverness and wit, how hopelessly ignorant about important things such as Mozart and truth functions and the balance of payments. ‘There’s just not much there,’ Axel had once damningly said of an acquaintance. And here, how much is there here? Simon wondered. And he sometimes despairingly felt, not much. How could he, by what felicitous accident, have inspired Axel to love him? Simon had very little sense of his own identity and often it seemed to him that he only existed at all by virtue of Axel’s love which was directed by what must be a mistake upon this almost-nothing.

  Yet this was not the sum of his fear. He was afraid in some other way too, and even less rationally, afraid simply of Julius, as he remembered him, afraid of certain emanations from Julius which he had never quite been able to understand. Simon had poured himself out a glass of sherry, and as he now lifted it to his lips he noticed that his hand was trembling slightly. He wondered again if he ought not to have told Axel frankly everything that he had been feeling during the last few days. He knew that in concealing these thoughts and keeping everything on a casual ‘How nice to see Julius again’ basis he was offending against an important canon of coexistence with his lover. Axel had adjured him to tell all dangerous thoughts and of course Axel was right. If he had told his thoughts Axel would probably have found some way to reassure him absolutely. This often happened when he told his thoughts. But he had hesitated, and not only because he felt he was being foolish and did not want to ‘make too much of it’. He had discerned in Axel too a counterpart of his own unease. Axel was quietly excited at the idea of seeing Julius again. And Axel was being equally disingenuous about it. I’ll watch, thought Simon. I won’t speak, I’ll watch.

  Axel had come into the kitchen. Simon did not turn round but continued to fiddle with the electric stove, turning on the ring to cook the potatoes. After a moment or two he felt his waist being encircled from behind. He had learnt
from experience that Axel liked him to remain impassive on such occasions. He pushed the sauce-pan onto the glowing ring. Axel was beginning to pull him round.

  Simon regarded him coldly.

  ‘ “When I lie tangled in your hair and fettered to your eye, The birds that wanton in the air know no such liberty.” ’

  ‘Good show,’ said Simon.

  Sometimes they exchanged roles.

  The doorbell rang.

  ‘I must say, Axel,’ said Julius, ‘when I heard that you had taken up with this brown-eyed beauty I did feel the tiniest bit jealous!’ He beamed at Simon through his spectacles.

  They were eating the cheese. The salmon trout and the pears had been excellent. There was something wrong with the cucumber and yoghourt however. Not enough salt possibly.

  The dining room was lit only by six tall black candles in the two Sheffield plate candlesticks. Axel, in softened mood, had agreed to candlelight for once. Julius and Axel had talked without ceasing. It was the sort of conversation where a surfeit of interesting things to say and hear made the protagonists leap constantly to and fro. Every subject suggested six others one or two of which might be rapidly pursued before a meticulous return was made to the starting point. There were no lacunae in the logical matrix. Nothing was dropped or left to the side. One or other of them was constantly saying, ‘Yes, well that arose out of your saying so and so,’ and then they would turn back to deal with so and so. They hardly noticed when Simon removed the plates and no one had praised the salmon trout.

  Julius was plumper than Simon remembered him as being, but the plumpness suited him. He looked older and more benign. There had been a tigerish look, but that was gone. His curiously colourless hair, not exactly fair, seemed like a pale wig upon a dark man. The hair was fairly curly and fairly short, bringing into prominence the big long rather heavy face, bronzed by the sun and now a little flushed perhaps by argument. He had drunk very little wine. The eyes, of a dark colour hard to determine, a sort of purplish brown perhaps, were rimmed by heavy lids and much inclined to twinkle. At this moment, between two radiant candle flames, they appeared to be violet, but that must be an illusion. The nose was very slightly hooked and the mouth, which imparted a certain sweetness and sadness to the expression, long and very finely shaped. It was a face that was not noticeably Jewish except perhaps in a watchful heaviness about the eyes. Julius spoke with a faint central European accent and a faint stammer.