by Iris Murdoch
‘I haven’t any friends either,’ said Charlotte. ‘I think Dorina should come and stay with me. Wouldn’t you like to, Dorina?’
‘Yes,’ said Dorina, ‘but —’
‘It wouldn’t be suitable, Char,’ said Clara. ‘We’re much more ordinary than you, if you see what I mean. Dorina needs the ordinary.’
‘I agree that you are more ordinary than I am. But do you mean that Dorina and I might drive each other even dottier than we already are?’
‘Don’t be silly. I just mean we’ve got more of a real base than you have. After all a happily married couple — all right we know we’re very bourgeois — but we can give a sense of security — we can organize things — if she needs to see anybody or —’
‘You mean if she needs to see a psychiatrist?’ said Charlotte.
‘No, no, I just thought — nothing in particular — Dr Seldon for example, he’s so understanding — in a way it’ll be easier for her than here with Mavis.’
‘Does Mavis agree?’ said Charlotte.
‘Yes,’ said Mavis, looking at Charlotte for the first time. Their eyes met with a shock. Could Mavis read Charlotte’s thoughts, Charlotte wondered. ‘I think a change from here will do Dorina good.’
It will do her good, thought Mavis, I am not just pursuing my own ends. I never thought of it in this way before, but perhaps Clara is right. Dorina and I have always kept up the fiction that all is well. Maybe Dorina should see a psychiatrist. But she would be ashamed to see one under this roof.
Dorina thought, they want to tidy me away. As things are at the moment I stand between Mavis and Matthew. Matthew cannot come to this house with me in it. I contaminate it, I contaminate Mavis. Matthew must not come near me because of Austin. My case has got to be tidied up and closed. They want to arrange for Austin to come and collect me. But I can’t go to the Tisbournes, I can’t. Oh let me not weep now.
‘Thank you, Mrs Carberry,’ said Mavis.
Mrs Carberry put down a tray of tea and biscuits. Mrs Carberry was thinking about Ronald. Ronald had been crying all the earlier part of the morning at home. Mr Carberry, who was out of work again and living on National Assistance, had shouted, ‘Take that bloody brat out of this house before I murder it.’ Mrs Carberry had brought Ronald to Valmorana although she knew that Miss Argyll did not really like this. Ronald was now crying in the kitchen downstairs. Mrs Carberry was listening hard to see if Ronald’s crying was audible in the drawing-room. She thought it was not, but then she was becoming increasingly deaf. The doctor could do nothing about that any more than he could about her arthritic leg.
‘What do you think, Garth?’ said Clara.
‘What does it matter what Garth thinks?’ said Charlotte severely, but with a friendly look at Garth all the same.
‘I am only here by accident,’ said Garth. He had come to consult Mavis about the future of his job. Something was wrong, he wanted his life to have some sort of significance which it lacked. ‘What I’m doing is all bits and pieces,’ he complained to Mavis, who seemed surprised that he thought this mattered. ‘Our work is like that,’ she said. ‘Perhaps the best thing in the world is just visiting old people. What do you expect?’ He did not know what he expected. He felt that he could not think properly about anything, and perhaps the solution was not to think at all. Yet was that his solution? He was going that afternoon to see Mrs Monkley, who had had some sort of collapse and was in hospital. He was looking forward to this because there was drama in it. He had thought a lot about the little girl and he felt very sorry for the parents and for Austin but he could not conceal from himself the fact that he found it all a bit exciting. It was life-giving, even pleasurable. Because of Austin, these things were significant, just as what was happening at this moment was significant. It was helping dreary people with whom he was not dramatically connected that made his life seem grey. He had not anticipated this at all. Of course he must change himself, but how? He admired Mavis’s slightly cynical professionalism the more because he felt it was not natural to her. As Clara and Mavis and Charlotte were still looking at him he said at random, ‘I think Austin and Dorina should go away together for a holiday in Italy. Uncle Matthew will pay.’
‘A sort of honeymoon?’ said Charlotte sarcastically.
‘Are you serious?’ said Clara.
Mavis just shook her head.
Dorina dissolved quietly into tears.
‘Now look what you’ve done!’ said Clara.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Garth. He wished he could talk to Dorina alone. Now whenever he came to Valmorana she ran away to her room. He felt sure he could help Dorina, but it was the old dramatic feeling again.
Mavis thought, why is all this happening, I did not intend it. I was talking to Garth and then Charlotte arrived to see Dorina and then Clara arrived as if she expected to take Dorina away in her car. And Clara seemed to know about me and Matthew, well I suppose everybody does by now. Does Dorina imagine I organized this scene? Does she think I’m trying to get some public sanction for throwing her out? She thought, I shall discuss it all with Matthew tonight, he is so wise. Thank God. Tonight. Yes, yes, yes.
Mavis said, ‘Darling, you shan’t do anything you don’t want to do, that’s clear at least.’
Dorina wailed, ‘But I don’t know what I want to do!’
Garth said, ‘Well, I’m off. I can’t help. I just think nothing makes sense here until Dorina and my father get on to ordinary speaking terms again. Sorry, and goodbye. Cheer up, Dorina.’ He left the room. He ran into Mrs Carberry on the landing. She had been sitting on the stairs. He thought she was eaves-dropping. But in fact she was just taking a short holiday from Ronald’s tears. Just to be quietly somewhere by herself was a relief to Mrs Carberry now. It was one of her few positive pleasures, just to sit like an animal and breathe. She was too deaf anyway to hear what was going on in the drawing-room.
Garth went on down to his bicycle. It was simple and satisfying to get around London on a bicycle. Garth liked to see himself as a cyclist. He put on his bicycle clips, seeing himself. He wished he could talk to someone who was intelligent and educated enough to be impersonal, and not a woman of course. A pity Ludwig was locked away inside his ghastly ‘engagement’ and its horrible social world. Garth felt too that Ludwig was somehow disappointed in him, and that grieved him. He was somehow disappointed in himself. As he cycled away he thought again of Mrs Monkley and cheered up.
Mavis led Dorina weeping up the stairs as if she were a little girl who had disgraced herself in the drawing-room. They went into Dorina’s bedroom. Dorina spent more and more time in this room now. Dorina lay down on the bed and stopped weeping almost at once. Mavis sat down beside her and sighed deeply. A happiness concerned with Matthew floated Mavis upward like a rising tide.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Dorina. ‘I know I must go away from here. It isn’t just — Clara is very kind. But if I go to her she’ll be busy about me all the time, and I — Oh how I wish everybody could forget me. I’m such a thing for you all — It’s a form of wickedness. I mean it is in me.’
‘Don’t be so foolish, my darling.’
‘It’s an illness then. I don’t want to see Dr Seldon.’
‘You shan’t see any doctor if you don’t want to.’
‘I know I must see Austin soon. Garth is right. But any particular moment for seeing Austin seems the wrong one, if you see what I mean. It’s all become such a drama. And everyone’s watching and they’re so interested. I wish I could go away somewhere where no one knew me.’
‘Don’t grieve so, my pet. It’ll all come right somehow. I’ll ask — Look, you take two aspirins and rest for a while. Then you’ll feel better.’
‘I’m always resting. I do nothing else.’
‘Well, stay here now. I’ll come back soon. Perhaps we might go out for lunch.’
‘I don’t want to. Sorry, Mavis. Don’t let Clara take me away. I’ll go away soon somewhere, I promise, I know you want — But not with Clara. I’ll see Aust
in soon. But I won’t go to Clara’s, please —’
‘Dear dear child, I love you,’ said Mavis. ‘You shan’t go anywhere. You shall stay here with me. Time will help us somehow, it must.’
‘There’s nothing left but time, is there,’ said Dorina. ‘That’s the only thing that’s inevitable here. Yes, yes, I’ll rest. I may sleep. Go, please, dearest Mavis.’
‘Shall I pull the curtains a little?’
‘Yes, please.’
The door closed softly and Dorina’s tears began to flow again. What had happened to her mind? She knew in some sort of abstract way that she must see Austin, talk to him, try to make things ordinary and workable again. But in the part of her mind that dealt with real day to day things this simple act seemed impossible, and it was almost a luxury to give herself over to fears of all kinds. If only she could become unknown, become nothing. So many people thinking about her, this paralysed her.
She lay on her back in the shadowy room. There was a dark patch upon the wall and a strange truncated shape leaning out of it. With her will she could send it away, and yet with her will it crept, making the room horrible. Why was she thus destined to carry her fears outside her? She lay looking with fixed fascinated lightly weeping eyes upon the room of fear.
When Mavis came down to the drawing-room Clara and Charlotte were just leaving. They seemed to have been having some sort of argument which they wanted to continue elsewhere. Mavis was relieved.
‘It was premature, that’s all,’ said Clara. ‘Give her a day or two to get used to the idea. You do understand, don’t you, Mavis? I’ve thought a lot about it and I’m quite certain she should come to us. It’ll sort of break the deadlock, if you see what I mean. Don’t you agree?’
‘Yes, I do understand,’ said Mavis. ‘You’re very kind. Give it a few days. Are you going too, Char? Come back soon. Goodbye, dear. Goodbye.’
Mavis forgot them before the purr of Clara’s departing car had made itself heard. She sat down in the drawing-room in the most comfortable chair. She let the sweet thought form itself in the silence. Mostly it was with her simply as a cloud which gilded all that she looked upon. Now she spelled it out in letters of gold. She was in love and she was loved. The angel of miracles had come to her, to her. Each day luxuriously she put off the full realization of her felicity. She teased herself with thinking that it could not be, blessed with the knowledge that it was. Out of this, she thought, good will come to everyone. Out of this, in the end, we shall all be saved. She lay there limply with closed eyes and almost slept for sheer joy.
In the car Charlotte was saying to Clara, ‘I think I shall have to have all my teeth out, my gums are rotting. Does my breath smell awful?’
‘Not at all,’ said Clara, averting her head.
Charlotte touched the pieces of paper in her pocket. A handbag was a thing she never carried. She did not possess one. She had seen and understood Mavis’s dazed look. She knew what happiness looked like. She had never experienced it herself but she could recognize it in others. The sight sickened her.
She felt constrained with Clara. For nearly a week now Clara had taken to sending her picture postcards every day, carefully chosen with some sort of tender witticism inscribed thereon. Clara had done this once before when Charlotte had been in hospital for the removal of a cyst. Did Clara think that Charlotte was ill again? The stream of affectionate postcards irritated Charlotte and somehow alarmed her. She felt she was being touched by a slimy hand. One thing she would not stand for was being treated as sick by Clara.
‘Thank you for the postcards.’
‘Not at all.’
‘But why send me postcards all the time? I’m not a schoolchild with the measles.’
‘I thought — I just felt I —’
‘I suppose you’d like to feel I put them in a row along the mantelpiece?’
‘I just wanted to —’
‘Oh never mind. Do you really want Dorina to stay with you, or is it just some sort of ploy or pose?’
Clara, driving, was silent for a moment. ‘Why are you getting at me so?’ she said. ‘Of course I really want her to come, and I really think it would do her good. Almost any change would. Don’t you think so?’
‘Maybe,’ said Charlotte. ‘I haven’t any theory really. How about Gracie? I can’t see her nursing Dorina, can you?’
‘Gracie is full of her own life. I’ll nurse Dorina.’
‘How kind and good you are!’
‘Char — please —’
Clara suddenly steered the car in to the side of the road, stopped it, and burst into tears. It was a quiet road in Kensington, pretty with pastel-painted stucco and wistaria. Charlotte was surprised, upset. She turned and stared at her sister.
Clara took off her smart hat and tossed it into the back of the car. She rumpled her cascade of well waved, well dyed, chestnut brown hair. Tears blurred the carefully applied make-up. She looked uglier and younger. Charlotte was appalled.
‘Sorry, Char.’
‘I should be saying sorry,’ said Charlotte. ‘What’s all this in aid of?’
‘Oh nothing to do with you, sorry, I mean it’s not your fault. It’s just everything. I suppose I’m growing old. I know everyone sees me in a certain sort of way, as a sort of busy interfering person, you know, and I act it too, I act it, but it’s not me at all. Oh I can’t explain.’
‘I think I understand,’ said Charlotte. ‘Sorry, old thing.’
‘Even George doesn’t really see — Well, George is a man, he has so many interests and he’s getting so important now, he has all sorts of things to think about which aren’t personal things, and I have only personal things, and when they sort of fail or become different one feels so let down. And I do try to help people and I do sometimes really do it, and it’s not just a ploy or a pose.’
‘Sorry, Clara. What do you mean by personal things failing or becoming different?’
‘Oh well, the children. I don’t know. I feel I’ve lost Gracie. And Patrick was just rude, rude, all the time when I went down to school. He said he had his own troubles. He said, “Oh fuck off, ma.” He actually used those words to me. And I can’t get on with Ludwig really, I think he despises me. No, well, he just thinks I’m a nonentity. I suppose I am a nonentity. I’m just George’s wife and Gracie’s mother and so on, I’m nothing in myself and I can’t even help people properly, everybody just laughs at me, I know they do. Oh I do wish Gracie was marrying Sebastian. Sebastian understands me and Ludwig never never will. I could have loved Sebastian like a son. But Ludwig will never even notice me. I’m already beginning to look forward to my grandchildren. That’s how desperate I am, that’s what it’s come to. And I’m not fifty yet. I feel I’ve got nothing in my life at all.’
Charlotte looked at the row of pretty little houses with their wrought iron porches and their climbing roses and their well-clipped creepers, all very trim and very expensive. She thought, I am an absolute swine, but there it is. It’s years since I really thought about Clara. And now there’s nothing I can do for her, I can’t even think what to say to her. I am so absorbingly sorry for myself I can’t even enact being sorry for Clara. Anyway she’ll hate me later on because she broke down like this.
‘Sorry, Clara,’ she said again. ‘I think we’re both still suffering from shock from mother’s death. That changed so many things. We’ll settle down again. Life isn’t an ideal business at the best. We are all disappointed. One just has to jog along, give cheerfulness a chance to break in. One should count one’s blessings. There are a few.’
Clara pushed back her hair and started the car again. She said, ‘I never thought to hear this sort of dreary worldly wisdom from you, Char. You were always the intense one. However I expect you’re right. Where shall I drop you, at the flat?’
‘No, I’m not going to the flat. Drop me at High Street Ken Station. Cheer up, Clara. Things aren’t too bad. The children are just going through a phase.’
‘Life is a phase,’ sa
id Clara. ‘Here’s High Street Ken if you really want it.’
‘You’re bloody lucky to have any children,’ said Charlotte.
‘I know. Goodbye, Char. Forget all that stuff. Goodbye.’
As soon as Clara’s white Volkswagen had turned the corner Charlotte hailed a taxi and went on to the flat. She climbed the stairs, came in, listened carefully, as she always did, prowled, and then went into the little sitting-room. She always feared that somebody, Austin, Mitzi, Garth, would have come in in her absence. I don’t belong here, she thought, I must move. But with her tiny income, where to? She could not rent even a single room in this part of London for what she was paying Austin. She would have to move out to — where? Already the solitary evenings were terrible. She saw herself in the mirror, blazingly blue-eyed and full of strength, her pale grey hair tied in a negligent yet elegant bun, her plain dress sufficiently smart. She looked like the head of a woman’s college, an eminent doctor, a scholar, all the things she might have been and ought to have been and was not. She looked brave. She also looked unmistakably like a single woman.
She sat down and drew out of her pocket the three items which she had been carrying with her. She laid them on the table. The first was a snapshot which had been torn into several pieces and then mended (not by her) rather crookedly with sellotape. It was a snapshot taken many years ago and showed Matthew and Betty outside Matthew’s cottage in Sussex. Betty looked sportive, juvenile, very dated. She was wearing shorts and a satin blouse and high-heeled shoes and a great deal of lipstick, and her hair was bobbed and stiffly waved. She was turning towards Matthew and laughing. Matthew was staring self-consciously at the camera with his distinguished scholar of Trinity look, which was also curiously dated.
The next item which Charlotte laid on the table was a letter which had also been torn to pieces and also mended (not by her) with sellotape. It was in Betty’s rather schoolgirlish hand and it read as follows,
Dearest Matthew, yes, we’ll meet then Piccadilly station as you suggest. I am sure Austin doesn’t suspect. Thank you for everything!
