A Word Child

by Iris Murdoch

  I rang the bell and Laura let me in, but without saying anything or even looking at me returned at once to the drawing-room. I took off my coat and shook it — it was very damp and a little speckled with snow flakes, though in fact the snow had now almost ceased — and hung it up on a coat hanger. I dried my hair on a dry end of my scarf. I went into the drawing-room.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘It’s almost stopped snowing.’

  I realized that I had entered into the middle of a tense silence.

  Freddie, looking very grim, was standing with his back to the fire. Laura was staring at him with a peculiar bright-eyed intensity. She was wearing an ordinary day dress, not one of her robes. Christopher, wearing a suit and tie, was very red in the face, staring at the floor. Freddie, who was looking at Laura when I entered, now looked at me. He said, ‘Why have you come?’

  ‘It’s Thursday, isn’t it?’

  ‘Have you forgotten what happened last night?’

  The extraordinary thing was that I had. Dreams have an inbuilt tendency to be forgotten, an ingredient of oblivion. Perhaps certain drug experiences have this too. I could now clearly remember both the great gentle beast and the metaphysical equation, but I had completely forgotten that Freddie had arrived at one in the morning and that I had told him that Laura was not there and that I had subsequently sent Laura home in a taxi with Jimbo.

  ‘Oh of course,’ I said, ‘I do remember now.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you do!’ said Freddie.

  ‘I was drugged,’ I said. ‘I’m very sorry. Christopher, will you explain?’

  ‘Well — er — ’ said Christopher, looking at his feet.

  ‘There you are,’ said Freddie.

  ‘He was drugged,’ said Laura. ‘So was I.’

  ‘He seemed perfectly normal when I saw him,’ said Freddie, ‘except that he seemed recently to have had his clothes off!’

  ‘I shouldn’t have said you weren’t there,’ I said to Laura. ‘I see that now.’

  ‘I think Christopher had better go,’ said Freddie. ‘I can’t think what possessed you to invite him.’

  ‘I didn’t think Hilary would come.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Christopher, no one blames you for anything. I’d like to talk to you again about the pantomime, but not tonight.’

  ‘I want Christopher to stay,’ said Laura. ‘Christopher, you are to stay.’

  ‘I didn’t go to bed with Laura,’ I said to Freddie. ‘Did I, Laura? Is that what you think?’

  ‘I’d better go,’ said Christopher.

  ‘Christopher, I forbid you to go,’ said Laura.

  ‘Are we going to have any dinner?’ I said. ‘I’m fearfully hungry.’

  ‘I don’t care what you did or didn’t do,’ said Freddie, ‘I don’t want you in this house again.’

  ‘Am I to go now, then?’

  ‘Hilary, I forbid you to go,’ said Laura.

  ‘Freddie, you really have got hold of the wrong end of the stick.’

  ‘You’ve been coming here for years,’ said Freddie, ‘you’ve been a bloody nuisance with your Thursdays. We’ve refused hundreds of invitations because of you. We’ve entertained you, we’ve fed you, we’ve stayed in to be bored by you, and it’s never occurred to you in all this time to offer us as much as a drink.’

  ‘A drink? You mean round at my place? I didn’t think you’d want to come.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Laura, ‘about Hilary not — ’

  ‘Freddie, I’m terribly sorry, if I had thought for a second that you wanted me to invite you round — ’

  ‘I didn’t!’ said Freddie. ‘Don’t worry!’

  ‘But I thought you said — ’

  ‘I think I’d better go,’ said Christopher.

  ‘Nobody is to leave the room,’ said Laura.

  ‘Laura,’ I said, ‘do tell Freddie that it’s not like he thinks.’

  ‘You’ve been coming here for years,’ said Freddie, ‘and drinking us out of house and home, and taking it all for granted and never uttering a word of thanks and then you start intriguing behind my back. I know it’s not important, Laura has told me all about it — ’

  ‘I haven’t,’ said Laura.

  ‘I know it’s not important, but it’s disgusting and I won’t have it. Thank God you’ve at least had the decency to resign from the office.’

  ‘I didn’t resign because of Laura!’

  ‘You’re not even gentleman enough to admit it.’

  ‘A gentleman doesn’t have to admit what isn’t true, even in a situation like this one.’

  ‘You’re a rotter, a complete cad. I can’t think why I didn’t realize it before. I might have expected this — ’

  ‘From someone who came out of the gutter.’

  ‘That has nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Of course proles who haven’t been to public schools don’t know how to behave themselves.’

  ‘I suppose I can excuse you for falling in love with my wife — ’

  ‘But I haven’t, I didn’t — ’

  ‘The sheer meanness of this denial — ’

  ‘I’m not in love with Laura!’

  ‘You told Tommy you were.’

  ‘I may have let her think it just to shut her up. Tommy was dead keen to imagine there was another woman — ’

  ‘Hilary,’ said Laura, ‘how can you tell such awful lies.’

  ‘Which lies, what—?’

  ‘I know you’re trying to help me but it’s very much better at this stage to tell the truth, and that’s what I suggest we all do.’

  ‘I really must go,’ said Christopher, ‘I’m sure you can explain everything very much more easily if I’m not there.’

  ‘But Laura, dear, I am telling the truth!’

  ‘I agree with Christopher,’ said Freddie. ‘I suggest he goes and we sort the matter out between the people involved.’

  ‘But he is involved.’

  ‘We don’t need “witnesses”. I don’t want to know what Christopher saw.’

  ‘He didn’t see anything.’

  ‘I’m going to have another drink,’ said Laura.

  ‘Can I have a drink?’ I said. ‘I haven’t had one yet.’

  Laura poured out some neat whisky for herself. I went and helped myself to a generous dose of gin and vermouth. I suddenly saw that Christopher was trembling.

  Laura was wearing a smart unobtrusive dress of blue tweed and her hair, though undone, had been neatly combed down her back. It was not anything like as long as Biscuit’s. Laura’s prominent brown eyes were horse-wild and her emphatic voice a trifle higher and louder than usual. She looked partly like an experienced hospital matron taking charge of an accident, and partly like an ageing actress playing Lady Macbeth with studied moderation. She drank a measured amount of the whisky as if it were medicine. ‘I am to blame,’ she said.

  ‘Come, come, Laura,’ I said, ‘don’t let’s exaggerate. No one is to blame. Freddie has simply made a mistake.’

  ‘No, he hasn’t.’

  ‘I wish I had,’ said Freddie.

  ‘I think I had better explain everything,’ said Laura. ‘I’m sorry. But it is for the best. Especially as I feel that, after all the muddle which has occurred, Hilary must be exonerated.’

  ‘Oh, thanks.’

  ‘No one is to blame but me.’

  ‘Look here, Laura — ’ Christopher began.

  ‘Be quiet, Christopher, leave this to me. I just want to state a few facts.’

  ‘Often a mistake,’ I observed, ‘but thanks for the exoneration.’

  ‘Perhaps after all,’ said Freddie, ‘we needn’t — ’

  ‘Yes we need. To begin with, of course Hilary is in love with me.’

  ‘I’m not!’

  ‘He thinks his denial will help me, but it’s quite immaterial. Of course he has been in love with me for some time, but equally of course nothing has happened since I am not the least in love with him.’

  ‘But I’m
not — ’

  ‘I have felt sorry for Hilary, we all have, he is a lonely unhappy man. And let me say here that I never felt he ought to invite us back. Those who have rich lives should help those who have poor lives and not expect a return.’

  ‘Oh never mind about that,’ said Freddie. ‘I don’t know why I mentioned it.’

  ‘Hilary isn’t well off and his flat is a slum — ’

  ‘I wish I had invited you, I would have if I’d thought — ’

  ‘He isn’t the sort of person who is capable of entertaining, anyway.’

  ‘I hope you didn’t think I was ungrateful — ’

  ‘I felt sorry for him and I thought that his loving me at a distance was something quite harmless. Perhaps that was unwise of me.’

  ‘Look, Freddie, I am not in love with Laura.’

  ‘Yes, you are,’ said Freddie, ‘anyone can see that with half an eye. But I don’t blame you for that, I — ’

  ‘Hilary isn’t to blame at all. I suppose we ought to have stopped inviting him — ’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Freddie.

  ‘As soon as it was clear how he felt, but it seemed a shame to deprive him of his only really happy bit of social life.’

  ‘What do you know about my social life?’

  ‘As far as Hilary goes, I was perhaps guilty of imprudence, but — ’

  ‘You say I bored you, well you’ve certainly often bored me! I have plenty of happy social life, I don’t have to rely on — ’

  ‘Hilary, be quiet.’

  ‘Please don’t get the idea that I’m not grateful for all those expensive meals and all the drink I’ve lapped up, as Freddie pointed out — !’

  ‘Oh shut up. The fact of Hilary loving me isn’t important.’

  ‘It’s not only not important, it’s not a fact!’

  ‘Of course I never really thought that you were in love with Hilary — ’ said Freddie.

  ‘What is important,’ said Laura, ‘is that I fell madly in love with Christopher.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘Oh no — look, really — ’

  Freddie said, ‘Laura, are you serious?’

  ‘Yes. But listen — ’

  ‘With Christopher, with this boy, with — ?’

  ‘Yes, yes, old enough to be his mother, such things happen — ’

  ‘Laura, don’t exaggerate,’ said Christopher. ‘Please let’s — ’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate! Well really! However as I was saying — ’

  ‘Laura, please — ’

  ‘As I was saying, nothing happened in this case either because Christopher was never in the least in love with me.’

  ‘Of course he wasn’t, and neither was I.’

  ‘You keep out of this, Hilary,’ said Christopher.

  ‘After all, how could he be in love with me? Look at me.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Laura — ’ I said.

  ‘What I want to know,’ said Freddie, ‘is what happened yesterday.’

  ‘Nothing happened yesterday,’ I said. ‘That at least we can establish.’

  ‘What happened yesterday,’ said Laura, ‘was just what Hilary said and what I said. Christopher and Jimbo thought it would be funny to hide some dope in a cake, and we all had a trip. At least Hilary and Christopher and I had a trip. Jimbo didn’t take any, he looked after us.’

  ‘He fell asleep actually.’

  ‘Hilary came round when you had come back for the second time.’

  ‘The fourth time.’

  ‘And because he didn’t want you to see me lying there stoned he said I wasn’t there, which was very stupid of him, but he was still a bit stupefied. Then I came round and Jimbo brought me home — I can’t remember any of that — the first thing I remember is sitting here and talking nonsense to you.’

  ‘Then nothing really happened?’

  ‘No, of course nothing happened! Only silly Hilary loved me, and your silly wife had an infatuation for a boy who could be her son. And now thank God it’s all over. I’m sorry, Christopher, I didn’t intend this embarrassing scene when I asked you here this evening. I didn’t think it would be necessary. But I had to show Freddie he was wrong about Hilary. And the best way to do it was to tell the whole truth. In fact when one really starts to tell the truth it’s indivisible, it all has to come out. And not only does that make everything plain, it — it sort of — destroys everything too. I’m sorry, Christopher, that you’ve been annoyed by the affections of a silly middle-aged woman. Not that you really ever noticed me at all! It all just happened in my mind. Anyway it’s over now. I’ve come to my senses. I think you’d better go now, and Hilary too.’

  ‘Laura,’ I said, ‘you’re magnificent. Perhaps I love you after all.’

  ‘But then why did Hilary resign from the office?’ said Freddie.

  ‘Because I was thoroughly bored.’

  ‘Hilary may not have been to a public school,’ said Laura, ‘but he is a gentleman.’

  ‘Thanks, Laura, but — ’

  ‘So you had this infatuation with Christopher,’ said Freddie, ‘but he did not return it?’

  ‘No. Did you, Christopher?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘In fact, he couldn’t take it seriously, he just laughed.’

  ‘And nothing happened?’

  ‘No, of course not! How could it? Some foolish emotions ran about, mine, Hilary’s, Christopher behaved throughout like Jesus Christ.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Freddie, ‘I see now — ’

  ‘So it’s all clear and I feel ever so much better, and honestly, it’s all over. Thank heavens for that!’

  ‘Perhaps you two had better go,’ said Freddie.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I hope you really don’t blame me. I’m sorry I said that about being bored here. I’ve hardly ever been bored actually. I just said it because — ’

  ‘And I hope you’ll understand,’ said Freddie, ‘if we now discontinue these Thursday invitations.’

  ‘No more Thursdays?’

  ‘No more Thursdays.’

  ‘What about the panto?’ said Christopher.

  ‘I won’t need your assistance,’ said Freddie.

  Laura, who had been standing in the middle of the room with eyes blazing now sat down beside the fire. She began to cry quietly. Freddie went and leaned over her, his hand upon her shoulder.

  I moved to the door and out into the hall. My overcoat was still wet. I shook it and put it on and went to the front door. I could hear Christopher coming after me. I left the house and went a little way along the pavement in the direction of Gloucester Road and, without turning round, waited. Christopher caught me up.

  ‘Hilary, I’m terribly sorry.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Using you as a front.’

  ‘Using me as a front?’

  ‘Laura thought that as you were in love with her — ’

  ‘I wasn’t!’

  ‘She could make a sort of joke of it and then no one would notice her thing with me.’

  ‘And did she make a sort of joke of it?’

  ‘Well, yes — ’

  ‘So I suppose everyone imagines I’m leaving the office because of Laura!’

  ‘I say, I’m terribly hungry, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I wonder what if anything was for dinner there?’

  We went into a pub and got ourselves sausages and mashed and beer. We sat down. Throughout all these absurdities in the Impiatt drawing-room I had not for a second stopped thinking about Kitty. The thought of her now filled out about me like a great vibrating sphere.

  ‘What I can’t understand,’ I said, ‘was why Laura had to tell Freddie about you at all. Why make such a thing of it? Freddie obviously had some crazy idea about me which had to be dealt with. But why drag you in, why couldn’t she just have kept quiet?’

  ‘She wanted a drama, a smash-up. She wanted it to end with a bang, to sort of sacrifice herself. As she said, she wanted to destroy it by talking about it.�
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