by Iris Murdoch
‘Certainly not,’ said Mitzi. ‘You can have one of the big rooms, one’s just gone empty.’
‘But, Mitzi, I couldn’t pay you enough.’
‘You can have it free. Don’t be silly, Austin, we’re old friends.’
‘Could I, Mitzi, honestly?’
Ten guineas a week gone bang, she thought, and Secombe-Hughes offering another IOU. Still, Austin in her house! ‘You could pay me something later.’
‘When I get a good job. Of course it may be difficult. I don’t want to take just anything. It may take time. I can’t promise, you know. I’d really rather — I mean, I could sleep just anywhere.’
‘Austin, don’t worry about the money. You can have the room for nothing.’
‘You’re a friend in need, Mitzi old girl.’ He clasped her hand, squeezed it, dropped it, looked relieved and reached for his coffee.
Mitzi felt an old amicable exasperated pity for him and a momentary desire to hit him. She laid her fingers spread wide upon his chest, touching the material of his jacket rather than him, an incoherent gesture such as an awkward affectionate animal might have made.
Austin patted her arm briskly and rose. ‘Can I come this evening?’
‘Yes, yes.’ Austin in her house. She felt protective, huge. Austin there at night, every night, like in the old days. ‘You can have the front room on the second floor. Oh by the way, guess who’s engaged?’
‘Engaged?’
‘Engaged to be married.’
‘Who?’
‘Ludwig. And guess who to?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Austin, looking worried.
‘Gracie Tisbourne.’
‘Oh. How do you know?’
‘He rang me just before lunch.’
‘Oh. I wouldn’t have thought of that match, would you? I wonder if it will work?’
Mitzi felt a vague thoughtless interest in Ludwig’s engagement, not pleasure since she did not like Gracie, but not displeasure either. Now seeing Austin’s annoyance she felt sad herself. She was fond of Ludwig. And she knew that Austin was fond of Gracie. He liked Ludwig too. But the spectacle of the young people’s happiness clearly gave him no joy.
The sunny sky was producing rain again. Austin said, ‘I’ll go and pee if you don’t mind.’ He went through the studio and out into the ragged garden. Mitzi followed and watched him. He went over by the wall with his back to her. As the sky slowly darkened he looked like Mr Secombe-Hughes, standing there sturdily with his feet apart. The smell of male urine was wafted on the damp air. I hate men, she thought. I just hate men. I hate them.
‘Clare, is that you? This is Charlotte. I think she’s going.’
‘Oh God. We’re dining with the Arbuthnots.’
Charlotte was silent for a moment. ‘Well, do as you like. I’m just reporting.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. The doctor says — Yes, I’m sure.’
‘All right. We’ll come round.’
Charlotte replaced the telephone.
Doctor Seldon was putting on his coat.
‘Please, doctor, don’t go. Please don’t go.’
The doctor took his coat off again, controlling a look of annoyance. ‘There is nothing more I can do, Miss Ledgard.’
‘She may have one of those awful seizures and you said if she did you would give her a shot — you know — to send her off quickly.’
‘Close the door, please, nurse,’ said the doctor.
Nurse Mahoney closed the door of Alison’s room. As the door closed Charlotte saw Alison looking at her. Only one of Alison’s eyes was open, but such a fierce consciousness was collected in it that Charlotte felt as if a dart had pierced her. Why had she spoken like that almost in Alison’s presence? She would not have done so this morning. As the day went on she had come to see her mother as remote, a ship moving slowly away. How much could that fading mind still perceive?
‘Sorry. She couldn’t have heard and understood, could she?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the doctor. ‘I don’t think it will be necessary to help her on. She will go very soon.’
‘Will she go peacefully?’ I couldn’t bear it if she fights, thought Charlotte.
‘I think so.’
‘But suppose she doesn’t? Please stay.’
‘The nurse can do all that is needed.’
‘You mean the nurse can give her the shot to — help her on?’ Charlotte used the doctor’s phrase. It sounded strange, more like birth than death. Death can be a struggle, an achievement too.
‘No,’ said the doctor.
‘No?’
‘It will not be necessary,’ he repeated.
‘Please sit down in here. Can I bring you anything? Wait a little while. She’ll go soon, you said so, it will be such a comfort. Please wait until my sister and brother-in-law come. My brother-in-law wants to ask you something.’ Charlotte invented that. Men attended to what other men wanted.
‘All right. I’ll wait.’
‘Can I give you tea, a drink?’
‘Some tea perhaps.’
‘Nurse, would you make some tea for the doctor? I’ll sit with her a while.’
Charlotte had opened the door again. Nurse Mahoney got up from the bedside. She said, ‘Could I make a telephone call, please, Miss Ledgard?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
The nurse went out. She was red-haired and Irish, broad-faced with golden eyes, very young, utterly untouched by the drama in which she was taking part. Next week it would be another one. She was kind and efficient, but her thoughts never engaged with these people, they were all, except the doctor, unreal to her.
Charlotte took the nurse’s chair and stared at Alison. Alison’s face was villainously contracted with what seemed already a pain of the spirit rather than of the body. Spirit too travailed. Perhaps it finally travailed most of all. Or did it mercifully perish first? One eye was tightly closed, the other hugely wide, moist as with unshed tears and full of consciousness, Charlotte thought. Yesterday there had been tears, and they had been terrible. Today none. Had Alison overheard that conversation? Even with the door shut Charlotte could hear Nurse Mahoney talking on the telephone to her boyfriend. She was telling him that she would be free tomorrow. And I too, thought Charlotte, I too shall be free tomorrow.
Today had been so busy, so awful. This is the first moment I’ve had to sit down, thought Charlotte. Now everything is fixed, everything is arranged for. Alison must do the rest. There had been turmoil. Now at last there was silence. Alison was looking at her. The single eye stared, not with love or hate or even fear — there had been such dreadful fear — but just with a sort of pure consciousness. As with a small child now perhaps consciousness had become an end in itself. She sees me, thought Charlotte, purely at last, and then knew that this was nonsense. Alison saw nothing, knew nothing, in all probability. ‘How is it with you, mother?’ said Charlotte. Even language had become strange, estranged.
Alison stared, then murmured something, a word. She had murmured the same word once before. It sounded like ‘trees’.
Charlotte looked at the window. The window was full of light blue evening sky. The two lime trees in the front garden had been cut down. Alison had wished it, Charlotte had arranged it. Later on Alison had regretted it and spoken of ‘My dear trees. My poor trees. I killed them.’ Charlotte had been harsh with such sentimentality. There were so many other real things to regret.
‘It’s better without the trees,’ said Charlotte. ‘More light.’
Her mother murmured the word again.
‘More light, mother. Better.’
Oh let me not pity her now, thought Charlotte, later, not now. Go, go in peace, she prayed. Poor poor mother. She’s had a good life, she thought. But what did that matter now, and was it even true?
‘Are you comfy?’ said Charlotte. She touched the pillows, touched her mother’s dull dry grey hair, always now undone and straying, which sometimes in a dim light made her look like
a girl. There was nothing more to be done. She did not try to adjust the pillows. Though it was evening time there was no point in feeding Alison again. That was a strange thought. Alison would need no more food. That life-long rhythm had ended though consciousness itself was not yet at an end. There was nothing more to be done, in the many years’ long task. It was strange, like after an examination when suddenly books that have been a part of daily life are set aside for ever. Oh let me not pity her, not yet.
‘Would you like some tea, Miss Ledgard?’
‘No, thank you, nurse. I think there’s someone at the door. Could you sit with my mother?’
Charlotte went out into the hall. The doctor had opened the door and George and Clara were coming in, followed by Gracie.
Charlotte was irritated that Gracie had come. Gracie would be a spectator with alien thoughts.
‘Oh Char darling!’ said Clara in a loud whisper. Clara had been crying.
‘My dear,’ said George. He gripped Charlotte’s arm, pressed it hard and let it go. He touched her cheek with his hand.
‘How is she?’ whispered Clara.
‘Take your things off,’ said Charlotte in her ordinary voice. She felt stiff with something, embarrassment, hatred, grief, or perhaps the pity for her mother which she had been fighting off all day. How dare Clara cry.
George and Clara put their coats on the settee in the hall. They were in evening dress, George very formal, Clara in long green silk with black embroidery, oriental. Gracie, who was wearing a white mackintosh, dug her hands into her pockets and leaned back against the hall door.
‘Pretty dress,’ said Charlotte to Clara mechanically.
‘Thank you, dear Charlotte.’
The old litany.
‘You wanted to see me, I believe,’ said the doctor to George.
‘Oh, er, yes,’ said George, responding instinctively to the doctor’s important male manner. ‘How, er, — Nothing unexpected I suppose? Is she likely to pull round again this time? I remember last time —’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said the doctor. He and George went into the drawing-room. The dining-room was Alison’s bedroom. Charlotte took her meals in the basement. There were no living-in servants. There had been a maid called Pearl, but Alison sacked her because she thought she had taken a Georgian spoon which later turned up inside the sofa. Charlotte did most of the work of the house.
‘Dear Char, has it been awful?’ said Clara in a low voice.
‘Not particularly. Come in and see her. She won’t know you.’
Gracie pushed past them into the drawing-room, following her father.
Charlotte opened the door again and there was Alison still there, propped up in what looked like a little shrine. The nurse had turned on the bedside lamp. Bottles glinted on the side table like offerings, there were flowers, too many flowers. It was like a Hindu temple Charlotte had once seen in a picture.
‘Clara to see you, mother.’
‘My darling,’ said Clara. She had never said that to her mother before in her life.
‘Don’t upset her,’ said Charlotte.
Clara advanced and took the chair which the nurse was offering. She took hold of Alison’s hand and then relinquished it quickly. Charlotte knew why. The hand felt dead already.
Alison slowly turned her head. She had to turn it so as to see Clara out of her one eye. Her lips moved, muttering something.
‘What’s she saying?’ said Clara. ‘“Release”? Oh my darling —’
‘Don’t cry, Clara. You can stop those tears.’
‘I’m sorry, Char. You are always so strong. I’m not sure that I can bear this.’
‘Then go away,’ said Charlotte. ‘You told me to tell you. Now say goodbye and go.’
‘I can’t — say goodbye —’
‘Clara!’
‘Sorry —’
The single eye regarded Clara with intensity, the weak drooping lips moved.
‘“Trees”,’ said Charlotte. ‘“Trees”, she’s saying. You know.’
‘I don’t think so. What is it, mama? Tell Clara.’
‘May I come?’ said George. ‘Dear Alison, hello, it’s George.’
The doctor entered and stood beside the nurse at the door. George was behind his wife, leaning over her, looking into the old crooked face with a kind of curiosity. A handsome pair, thought Charlotte. George’s copious hair was greying into a pleasant peppery salty brown. He could not help looking youthful and calm and debonair. Now he was full of concern, but soon he would be thinking about stocks and shares. Clara looked beautiful, older; her face made keen by anxiety and pain, the light of cheerful self-satisfaction withdrawn. Only her unconscious hair, dyed to a rich dark chestnut and carefully done for the evening, curled with a light casual art about her head, waiting for gaiety to return.
Alison was trying, terribly, trying, the closed eye twitching.
‘What’s she saying?’ said Clara. ‘What’s that she’s saying?’
‘“Priest”,’ said George.
‘No!’ said Charlotte.
‘Oh dear,’ said Clara, ‘do you think we’d better —’
‘Doctor, what do you think?’ said George. ‘Is she conscious enough to — ?’
‘Quite possibly,’ said the doctor. ‘It’s hard to tell.’
‘Who shall we — oh dear —’ said Clara.
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Charlotte. ‘She can’t have said “priest”. Mother would never use that word.’
‘You know she had that Roman Catholic phase,’ said George.
‘She never had a Roman Catholic phase,’ said Charlotte. ‘She abominates Catholicism. Mother, you don’t want a priest, do you? You don’t want a priest surely?’
The eye turned on Charlotte and the lips moved and the face was very lightly convulsed as with some huge inner effort which could find only a tiny tiny outward expression. Charlotte made herself stiff, controlling sudden choking emotion.
‘I think she does,’ said George. ‘There was that priest she had talks with.’
‘That wasn’t a religious thing, it was about charity.’
‘We can’t know, Char,’ said Clara. ‘We’d better be on the safe side. Hadn’t we better call him? What was his name — Father Mennell —’
‘I will not have a Roman priest in this house,’ said Charlotte.
There was silence.
‘But if she wants —’ said George. ‘Don’t you agree, doctor?’ He was standing back now, responsible, serious.
Why did I say that, thought Charlotte. It’s not what I meant. I just meant — I must protect her — we can’t have all that mummery here — we can’t have a priest mumbling over her and scattering holy water — it’s a matter of dignity — We must let her go in peace.
‘Has she some customary spiritual adviser?’ said the doctor.
‘No,’ said Charlotte. ‘She was brought up a Methodist, but she hasn’t been near a Methodist church or any other church for years.’
‘There’s that nice man, the local parson chap,’ said George. ‘Mr Enstone. What about him.’
‘She didn’t say “priest”!’ said Charlotte.
‘Hadn’t we better ring up Mr Enstone,’ said Clara. ‘He knows her quite well, he sometimes came here, didn’t he — and it’s better to be on the safe side, isn’t it. After all she may last for hours or days or —’
‘Charlotte?’ said George.
‘Do what you like,’ said Charlotte. Now she must concentrate on feeling nothing.
George left the room. As he brushed by Charlotte she smelt whisky on his breath. The doctor was looking at his watch. The nurse was surreptitiously looking at herself in the mirror and patting her hair. George was telephoning in the hall.
Charlotte turned and left the room. She went into the drawing-room. A decanter and two glasses stood on the table where George and the doctor had been treating themselves. Gracie was sitting on the sofa, her long legs stiff in front of her, her hands stiffly clasped, not
looking up. Clara and the doctor came in.
‘I think I’ll have a drink too,’ said Clara. ‘Doctor, will you have a little more?’
‘Thank you. Then I must run.’
‘Char?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Gracie, anything?’
‘No.’
Like the nurse, Charlotte looked into the mirror and automatically patted her hair. Rarely now did she give more than a quick glance at a looking-glass, more rarely still did she look intently into her own eyes, as young people do. What could she see therein but things better not avowed? She gazed now at her distinguished narrow face and coiled-up pale-grey hair and big violety-blue eyes. Her life was on the change. Would there be a time when it was not pain to regard herself so? How delicate and yet how steely had been the bonds of her servitude. She had the head of a Victorian blue stocking. She should have spent her life fighting for something, education perhaps. As it was it was spent, spent, as she had not even fought for what she had too late come to regard as her rights. It had been given for what she had too late realized were not even her principles. And now she was very nearly old. Yet tomorrow she would be free and rich. And when she had said, surprising herself, ‘I will not have a Roman priest in this house’ she had meant ‘in my house’. Alison had told her that the Villa would be Charlotte’s. Had she told Clara? The sisters never spoke of such things.
‘He isn’t there,’ said George from the door. ‘I left a message. We’ve done all we can.’
‘We mustn’t leave her alone,’ said Clara. She had taken a good dose of neat whisky. ‘Hadn’t we better do something — I don’t know — read the Bible to her or something? It’s so awful not being able to communicate.’
‘You go in and see her, Gracie,’ said George.
‘I don’t want to,’ said Gracie.
‘Charlotte, read something to her, we must, since we can’t talk to her. We can’t just sit and stare at her. She used to care about the Bible.’
‘It’s impertinent,’ said Charlotte. ‘Why should we force religion on her now?’
‘It could do no harm to read a psalm,’ said Clara. ‘That’s not really religion. I’m sure she did say “priest” anyway.’
