A Fairly Honourable Defeat

by Iris Murdoch

  Groaning again, Simon stepped out of his trousers.

  ‘You can keep your underpants. But I’ll need your socks and your shoes. I think our feet are about the same size.’

  Morgan began to pull the black trousers on, tucking in the purple shirt. She zipped them up. She fumbled with the tie. ‘Could you do this for me? I’ve never tied a tie.’

  ‘You can’t do it on someone else,’ said Simon. He was shivering. ‘You can do without it.’

  ‘No, I can’t. I want to be properly dressed. I must have the tie as well. Do please try.’

  Simon tied the tie rather clumsily and Morgan slipped into the jacket. ‘My God, Morgan, you look just like a chap!’

  ‘I feel I look terrific. Your trousers fit me marvellously. And look, so do your shoes. Let me look at myself in the bathroom. Oh Simon, I look so smart in a tie! I must wear one always!’

  It was getting dark outside now and Morgan had turned the light on in the bathroom. Shuddering a little, his bare feet chilled by the tiles, he looked over her shoulder into the mirror. Morgan was transformed again. The bony face, the dark cropped hair, the narrow eyes, sentient now, seemed to belong to a clever boy, not even raffish, not even a dandy, just hard and clever. Morgan put on a stern stare and tightened her lips. Simon, feeling vulnerable and frail, saw his own white naked shoulder behind the square shoulder of the black jacket. He was only very slightly taller.

  ‘We resemble each other a little,’ she said. ‘I’ve often thought it. Only your hair is flowrier. If your hair were straight—’

  She turned to Simon and began to strain his locks back behind his ears. ‘Morgan, you make a lovely lovely boy.’ He clasped his hands together in the small of her back and drew her up against his body. They were silent for a moment.

  ‘I must go.’ Her lips warmed his skin. ‘The sooner I go the sooner I’ll be back. I don’t want to see anybody but you this evening. Thank you for your clothes.’ She slipped from his embrace. ‘Where do you keep your money?’

  ‘In that pocket.’

  ‘It’ll seem strange without a handbag. Au revoir.’

  The front door opened and closed and Simon was alone. He surveyed himself for a while in the mirror and ran his hand up and down the narrow band of curly black hair which ran from his chest to his navel. His navel was absurd and always caused him shame. His body was horribly pale and in this light looked faintly bluish like watery milk. His collarbones jutted out grotesquely. He was distinctly skinny and he looked a good deal less keen-eyed without his clothes. He was beginning to feel seriously cold. He went into the kitchen hoping to find some gin or whisky, but could discover nothing except refrigerated Danish lager. He went back into the sitting room where it was now rather dark.

  Simon could not decide whether he thought the whole thing amusing or whether it were not thoroughly frightening, the beginning perhaps of those horrors of which he had felt the cold premonition in Bond Street. He imagined himself telling the story to a lot of people who were shrieking with laughter, ‘And there I was left all alone in my underpants …’ It would certainly sound madly funny. Except that I won’t want to tell anyone, he felt suddenly.

  The twilight was a little eerie and the room looked different. He moved to turn on the light, but then realized that he would be visible through the denuded window. He went to the sofa and piled up a few cushions. He reclined, and dragged one of the velvet curtains up to cover himself.

  There were distant sounds from the street. But the room had an incapsulated silence of its own, a slightly dramatic silence as if a clock had only just stopped ticking. It grew darker. The walls seemed to be changing into huge hanging shadows charged with positive obscurity. They became menacing and deep, tall mahogany bookcases that reached to the ceiling, immense carved wardrobes with open doors and soft furry interiors of dark suspended clothes. Places where a child might get lost. A very long time seemed to be passing.

  Simon was moving through a dark twilit garden underneath huge plane trees through whose leaves a luminous but darkening sky could intermittently be seen. There was different light under the trees, strange light, dark and yet lurid. He was following his mother who was walking some ten paces ahead of him and guiding him. He felt terrible choking anxiety and had difficulty in walking. His mother moved onward like a dog, turning every now and then to look back at him, and when she turned the luminosity under the trees was reflected in the steel rimmed spectacles which she was wearing, and her eyes gleamed cold like those of a nocturnal animal caught in a ray of light. Simon knew that she was going to show him something appalling. The garden seemed to go on and on and the plane trees grew thicker and darker overhead. At last his mother stopped and pointed at something on the ground. In the illuminated darkness Simon saw a long mound of ashes, like the ashes of a bonfire. There were sticks and fragments of branches and withered flowers lying all about as if they had been part of the bonfire but had not been consumed. He felt an urge to touch the ashes and leaned down. Then he saw, only a few inches from his hand, a piece of brown tweed. It was a trouser leg. He saw the turn-ups of the trouser, and then a protruding leg with a dark sock and a shoe. He withdrew his hand with horror, thinking instantly, this is my father’s grave. My mother has led me to my father’s grave. Yet that cannot be. My father was cremated. Would he be lying like this in his clothes underneath a pile of ashes? Is that what happens to people when they are cremated? He began to stir the ashes with his foot. The material of the brown suit, filthy with ash, began to emerge from the mound. Simon fell on his knees and dug. He dug his way up the recumbent body, clawing the cold sticky ash away frantically with his hand. He dreaded to uncover the face which his digging fingers were now touching. He brushed the ash aside. The dead face was that of Rupert. Suddenly there was a great deal of light.

  Simon woke with a gasp. The terror of the dream made him breathless and his heart was beating violently. He panted for breath, struggling against a great weight upon his chest. He saw his bare arm and his hand clasped upon some heavy blue and gold material. He thrust the stuff away, trying desperately to sit up.

  The light had been switched on in the sitting room and Julius was standing in the middle of the room regarding him. Simon had the impression that Julius had been there for some time. He was in evening dress, looking grave and thoughtful as if by now he was really looking at something else. Simon remembered, succeeded in sitting up, then pulled the curtain back about him. He looked at Julius with appalled staring eyes.

  ‘This is certainly a day of surprises,’ said Julius. He went out of the room and Simon could hear him turning the key in the bedroom door.

  ‘Julius! Julius! I’m sorry—’ Simon began to stagger up. He tried to lift the curtain to wrap it round him, but it was too heavy. He ran after Julius.

  Julius was opening a cupboard in the bedroom and taking out a bottle of Bourbon whisky.

  ‘Julius, I must explain—’

  ‘Get two glasses from the kitchen, there’s a good boy.’

  Simon ran to the kitchen. He looked at his watch. It was midnight. What on earth could have happened to Morgan?

  ‘I’m most terribly sorry—’

  ‘Would you like to borrow my dressing gown? You are shivering in a most unbecoming manner and you do look a trifle quaint with nothing on but those openwork pants. You really should try to put on a little weight. I see somebody has destroyed my curtaining and you must be plainly visible from across the street.’

  ‘It wasn’t me—I mean—’ Simon pulled on Julius’s dressing gown of quilted dark red silk.

  ‘And I see one of my T’ang horses has been broken. A pity.’

  ‘Morgan pulled the curtains down because she hadn’t any—she was very sorry—and about the horse—I can’t think what can have happened to her.’

  ‘I leave a naked girl and I return to find a naked boy.’

  ‘You see, I arrived—’

  ‘All right, I can reconstruct it. Morgan took your clothes and fled.
She would, of course.’

  ‘You mean she won’t come back?’

  ‘I have no idea whether she’ll come back or not. Have some whisky. You seem to be in a rather disturbed state.’

  ‘She said she’d just get her own clothes at Rupert’s and come back here. But that was hours ago.’

  ‘The point that puzzles me is what you are doing here. Why did you arrive?’

  ‘But you asked me to!’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Don’t you remember? When you came to dinner with us. You whispered to me in the hall, “Come on Friday. Don’t tell Axel.” ’

  ‘Did I? Well, I may have done. Oh yes, I do recall it now. I’m afraid it had entirely slipped my mind. Did you tell Axel?’

  ‘No. I couldn’t think what you wanted. I thought you might be planning something for Axel’s birthday, you know, some treat or something.’

  ‘I wasn’t actually. When is Axel’s birthday?’

  ‘The twentieth.’

  ‘Well, I must try and give him a treat!’

  ‘But Julius, if it wasn’t that what was it? Why did you ask me to come and not to tell Axel?’

  ‘Oh I forget. I expect I just wanted to see if you would.’

  ‘If I would—?’

  ‘If you would come. And not tell Axel. And you have come. And not told Axel. Would you like some water in your whisky?’

  ‘I just can’t understand—’

  ‘Where is Axel this evening, by the way?’

  ‘At Fidelio.’

  ‘Will he be missing you?’

  ‘No. He’s going on to a sort of supper party afterwards. But I must get back—I can’t—But—Oh dear, oh dear—’

  ‘Don’t fret, child. All manner of thing shall be well. Drink your whisky and then we’ll decide what to do next. You can have some clothes of mine. I’m rather larger than you but I expect we can fit you out.’

  The front door bell rang. Julius got up and went to the door, leaving Simon standing distractedly in the middle of the floor with his glass. Morgan entered slowly. She glanced at Julius, passed him and came on into the room. She was wearing a dress and her grey mackintosh and carrying a small suitcase. She turned and looked very coolly at Julius.

  Julius began to laugh. Simon gave a sickly smile. Morgan looked detached, dignified. Then in a moment she began to laugh too. She and Julius laughed, falling about the room, swaying weakly with ever renewed paroxysms of helpless mirth. Simon sat down and drank some neat whisky. He surveyed them morosely.

  ‘Oh Julius,’ said Morgan at last, reeling to the sofa, ‘you really are a god!’

  ‘Have a drink,’ said Julius. ‘Simon, get another glass and also a jug of water.’

  Simon padded gloomily out to the kitchen.

  ‘So you were holding out on me, you had some Bourbon after all! Oh gosh, I’m sorry about the T’ang horse. I’ll pay for it.’

  ‘You couldn’t afford to,’ said Julius.

  ‘Why were you so long?’ said Simon accusingly to Morgan, bringing the glass and the jug. ‘I thought you were never coming. And what about my clothes?’

  ‘Poor Simon, oh poor Simon—’ More laughter.

  ‘I want to go home,’ said Simon.

  ‘Yes, yes, your clothes are here, in the case, I’m terribly sorry—’

  Simon took the suitcase into the bathroom and began to dress rapidly. He could hear Morgan explaining to Julius. ‘You see, everything went wrong, you know, like it does in dreams, first I couldn’t get a taxi, then when I got to Priory Grove no one was in and I remembered Hilda and Rupert were out to dinner and I couldn’t remember where, and you know usually they leave the back door unlocked only this time they hadn’t, and I spent ages trying to get in but I couldn’t, and I fell off a window sill and thought I’d twisted my ankle, I’m afraid I tore your trousers, Simon, I’m terribly sorry, and then I decided I’d go to another friend’s place and borrow her things, only she wasn’t in either and it took ages getting there and getting back and there were just no taxis, and then I waited at Priory Grove and at last Hilda and Rupert turned up and I got the clothes and do you know all they said when they saw me was “What a frightfully smart trouser suit you’ve got yourself, it does suit you”!’

  Simon emerged. ‘Good night!’

  ‘Oh Simon, don’t be cross with me!’

  ‘One moment, Simon,’ said Julius. ‘Wait just a moment. Morgan will be going with you.’

  Morgan looked at his face and raised her eyebrows. ‘All right, Julius. Still God.’

  ‘Simon,’ said Julius, and he was very serious now, almost grim. ‘I advise you not to tell Axel about this evening’s little farce.’

  ‘Oh Simon, you can’t tell Axel,’ cried Morgan. ‘I couldn’t bear it. He wouldn’t think it funny.’

  ‘It isn’t funny!’ said Simon.

  ‘You know how dignified Axel is,’ said Julius. ‘He hates the absurd.’

  ‘Whereas you have a genius for it, Simon darling,’ said Morgan.

  ‘He would feel you had let him down,’ said Julius.

  ‘Besides it wouldn’t be fair to me,’ said Morgan. ‘Just think, Simon. Suppose Axel were to tell Rupert? This must be our secret, no one else must know.’

  ‘Morgan is right,’ said Julius.

  ‘All right,’ said Simon. He felt that fear again, a feeling as of taking a first step in under a dark canopy. ‘But suppose Axel is home when I get there—’

  ‘Then invent something, you fool,’ said Morgan.

  ‘Careless talk costs loves, my Simon,’ said Julius. ‘A necessary ingredient in a happy marriage is the ability to tell soothing lies to your partner.’

  ‘All right then,’ said Simon. He looked from one to the other of them. They were still glowing with laughter and they looked authoritative, strong.

  A few minutes later he and Morgan were out in Brook Street looking for a taxi. Simon arrived home before Axel.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘YOU’D BETTER GO FAIRLY SOON, darling,’ said Hilda to Morgan, ‘if you don’t want to run into Tallis.’

  ‘Are you two going to courtmartial Tallis?’ said Morgan.

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘You’re going to ask him if his intentions about me are honourable! ’ Morgan went off into wild laughter.

  Hilda looked at her sister anxiously. For the last two days Morgan had displayed a sort of desperate feverish cheerfulness which Hilda was at a loss to understand. She had not succeeded in making Morgan talk. Something was being concealed.

  ‘I do wish you weren’t moving into that flat,’ said Hilda. ‘I hate the idea of your being all alone there. I can’t think why you won’t stay on here, you know we love having you.’

  ‘I’ve got to think things out by myself, Hilda. I know you’re worried. But it will be better in the long run, I do assure you.’

  ‘I wish you’d let me give you some money.’

  ‘Oh I will, I will! I’ll borrow some anyway, a bit later on.’

  ‘Morgan, you really must think about Tallis.’

  ‘I assure you, Hilda, Tallis is a permanent feature of all my thoughts. Even if I’m thinking about what there’ll be for dinner, Tallis is there, like a little brown picture stuck up in the corner!’ More wild laughter.

  ‘I wish you’d be serious, sweetheart.’

  ‘Oh but I am serious. Deadly serious. Deadly serious.’

  ‘Tallis will expect us to know what you propose to do.’

  ‘Anyone who knew that would know more than I do. Perhaps a little bird knows it. Or God. I certainly don’t.’

  ‘But you must make up your mind. It’s something you’ve got to do. You can’t expect to wake up one morning and find it’s been done for you.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I do expect, Hilda. Exactly. I’ll wake up one morning and I’ll say to myself—’

  ‘Oh Morgan, Morgan! What is the matter?’

  ‘Nothing’s the matter. Except that I’ve gone mad. When is poo
r Tallis coming to be courtmartialled?’

  ‘About six.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got an hour.’

  ‘Do you want to borrow the car?’

  ‘No, I probably wouldn’t be able to park it. I’ve got enough for tonight and I’ll fetch the rest of my stuff tomorrow by taxi.’

  ‘I hope you’ll be warm enough over there in the evenings. Did you air the bed properly?’

  ‘Oh Hilda, do stop worrying! I’ll be perfectly all right.’

  ‘By the way are you seeing Peter again?’

  ‘I hope so. Fingers crossed, but I think I’ve persuaded him to go and see his supervisor! The idea of my driving him to Cambridge seemed to be attractive!’

  ‘Oh Morgan, if only you could! You really are our last hope with Peter. I suppose that’s one advantage of your living somewhere else. You might see a little of the wretched boy.’

  ‘I’ve asked him round for a drink. Better lay in buns and ginger pop!’

  ‘Oh dear, Peter was unspeakable the other day. One would think that at least good manners could be absolutely bred into somebody.’

  ‘I thought Axel was pretty unspeakable too, Hilda.’

  ‘Axel wrote a long emotional letter to Rupert, castigating himself. ’

  ‘Much good that does. I wish Simon wasn’t living with Axel.’

  ‘I respect Axel. Simon was leading a pretty crazy sort of life before Axel turned up.’

  ‘Well, I expect he was happier, and I’m not sure that a crazy sort of life isn’t the best kind of life to lead.’

  ‘Morgan, have you seen Julius again, since that time he turned up here and you ran after him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re lying—’

  ‘Quite right, I’m lying. Oh I’ll tell you all about it later, Hilda. Whatever happens, you won’t think too ill of me, will you? I think if I absolutely lost your good opinion it would kill me.’

  ‘Darling, you’re always attributing harsh moral judgements to me, but I’m not making any! I just want you to be happy! I couldn’t condemn you!’