A Word Child

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘Don’t say that. If we’ve gone wrong we’ve misused our religion.’

  ‘I won’t argue. The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide.’

  ‘Don’t see her.’

  ‘Crystal, I’ve got to.’

  SUNDAY

  IT HAD snowed all night. Now the sun was shining. I was with Kitty in Kensington Gardens. We had met at Peter Pan and walked up to my ‘Leningrad garden’. Here there were few people about. Some well-padded individuals were exercising their dogs, watching with absurd pleasure the dogs’ amazement at the snow, their play, the doggy footprints. The stone basins were frozen and some ducks, with comical caution, were slithering about on the ice. The fountains were bearded with opaque white icicles. We had carried a couple of chairs into the little stone pavilion at the end and were sitting there in a corner. The pavilion, heaped over with snow, was enclosed and private, our corner almost obscure. The snow had dulled the traffic noise, muffled the world about us, arched us in. Every now and then a dog ran up to the doorway, sniffed and ran off, wild with snow-joy, and a smiling wool-clad owner plodded by. No one else came. Straight ahead, between two stone nymphs, the lake curved away, goldened with willows, and the cloudless glittering blue sky arched over the snowy park. There was not a breath of wind.

  The meeting with Kitty was a climax of quiet joy. There had been anguish, fear, indecision, then gradually the brightness of her presence cast beforehand, obliterating all else. Then I was with her and there was a strange blankness, an utter calm of delight. Suddenly, down into the furthest crannies of being all was well. It was all so strangely simple too, with a blameless simplicity as of childhood. Even Peter Pan, heaped up with snow, a scarcely decipherable crystal mound with streaks of polished gold, seemed for once a monument to innocence, as unsmirched as the very children who came to dig with little woolly mittened hands for the rabbits and the mice whom they knew so well. And Kitty and I too were like children, we laughed, we swung along together.

  ‘Oh Kitty, I do love you, I’m sorry, I do, I just love saying it, it’s my song of praise to the world, you don’t have to do anything about it, I love your coat, it’s so expensive and it smells so nice, I love your nose, I — ’

  ‘Hilary, stop, dear Hilary. You talk as if we could really be light-hearted.’

  ‘Let’s be. So much has happened in my mind since I last saw you — ’

  ‘Yes, yes. And in mine. Oh dear — I care for you so much, I care so much what happens to you, you’ve no idea what a figure you’ve been in my mind all these years — ’

  ‘A horrible figure I should have thought.’

  ‘Of course I was curious.’

  ‘You must have expected to hate me.’

  ‘It’s odd, but I never expected that.’

  ‘You pitied me. That was prophetic. And you didn’t just take on Gunnar’s feelings.’

  ‘I tried to be detached. And his feelings were never all that clear, I mean they were such a battlefield — ’

  ‘He was so wonderful to me on Friday, so generous, so simple, it was suddenly all sort of clarified and easy like it should be in heaven.’

  ‘You think it will be easy in heaven?’

  ‘Oh Kitty, I do just love talking to you, talking’s so natural, babbling’s natural, I don’t usually babble. Yes, but heaven can only be on earth. Everything falls away, some crystal of personality that is most of all you, which perhaps you never new existed, understands it all clearly at last and you pardon everything, not even that, that’s too personal, everything is in the light of God — ’

  ‘I’m so terribly glad you talked like that with Gunnar, he’s been a different person since.’

  ‘Really somehow better?’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes.’

  ‘You didn’t listen, did you? Why did you come in at the end? I nearly fainted when you came in.’

  ‘It was rather sort of — rash — but I wanted to be with both of you together — to sort of — establish that it was possible — ’

  ‘Oh my dear — Am I to see Gunnar again?’

  ‘Wait, wait, I’ve got a lot of things to say — ’

  ‘Kitty, I can’t waste this love, I can’t, it mustn’t be wasted, poured away upon the face of the universe, you must help me — ’

  ‘You have helped me so much — ’

  ‘Helped you?’

  ‘Yes, and not only by helping Gunnar. I feel, you know, it sounds a bit weird, she’s gone away at last.’

  ‘Anne — ’

  ‘You did love her very much, didn’t you?’

  The idea that Kitty might be jealous of Anne because of me flickered luridly, then burst like a kind of rocket. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m glad you did — I mean, otherwise it would all have been — ’

  ‘Even more awful.’

  ‘You know, it’s a sort of strange experience, a strange pain, to have her coming at me now through you, as if differently made in a new life, a new Anne — ’

  ‘The same Anne, dear Kitty. Gunnar and I both loved her and she’s dead. If there was any ghost it was something that Gunnar’s anger invented and it’s gone now.’

  ‘Yes, I heard him say that. He had to suffer of course. And so did you. But my sufferings were idiotic, I mean my sufferings because of her. I was jealous of her as if she were still alive.’

  ‘We can be jealous of the dead, but we must remember that they are dead — there’s a sort of inevitable pity mixed in.’

  ‘Yes. I feel the pity so much now, I feel all pity, as if all the resentful things were going away.’

  ‘You said when we first met that you wanted your husband to be entirely here in the present with you, not a haunted man.’

  ‘Yes, and I think it’s happened, or at any rate it’s happening — ’

  ‘Then my work is done.’ The phrase had a disturbing ring. I said quickly, ‘This is the first time I’ve ever been able to look at you properly.’

  ‘In a good light! I’m not young any more, not like her — ’

  ‘Sssh.’

  In the shadowed corner the reflected snow-light was soft yet very clear. We were sitting half turned to each other, our knees almost touching. Kitty was wearing the mink coat, which she had thrown open, and underneath it a mousy-brown woollen dress and some pearls. Her high black leather boots were wet with melted snow. A big dark fur hood concealed her brow and her hair. Her face blazed with vitality and response to the cold, her checks red with a deep cloudy mantling of colour, as of a poured and mingling liquid, her long resolute mouth red too, where she kept drawing in her lips in little moves of emotion. The spotty stone-blue eyes were a little moist with the cold, as if the stone of them was sea-wet.

  I kissed her cheek. It was exceedingly cold and smooth, like kissing a frozen fruit. I quickly kissed her lips, which were moist and warm. She continued to look at me but she did not stir.

  ‘Kitty, we’re mad, anyway I am. I’m yours. Dispose of me. I wish I could be your servant, like Biscuit.’

  The mention of Biscuit’s name carried some sort of unpleasant aura and I half remembered yesterday’s scene. I also remembered someone (who?) saying that of course Biscuit was busy carrying Kitty’s letters around to half the population of London. I could not ask Kitty how many slaves she had. It was not for slaves to ask such things. I said, to parry the idea of Biscuit a bit, ‘Has she gone?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Biscuit. She said she was going to leave you.’

  ‘Oh, did she talk to you?’

  It seemed a little quaint of Kitty not to conceive of this possibility, or did she imagine that Biscuit delivered her missives in respectful silence? The memory of having kissed Biscuit more than once raised an inconvenient and accusing head.

  ‘No, of course she hasn’t gone,’ said Kitty. ‘She’s always talking about leaving me. She never has and I daresay she never will.’

  Kitty did not seem to like the subject of Biscuit either. Perhaps there were tales which Biscuit could tell. I fe
lt, and could feel Kitty feeling, that we must, between us now in this precious time together, keep to essentials and communicate only what was necessary and clear. For my salvation, I prayed, for my salvation.

  ‘Listen, Hilary,’ she said, and she drew off her glove. Her hand warmly sought my gloveless hand in the gaping sleeve of my overcoat. ‘You said that we were mad. Perhaps we are. But let us be mad to some purpose. I have two special things to say to you, two enterprises to suggest. One is a little crazy and will need a good deal of courage, the other is very crazy and would need a vast amount of courage.’

  ‘For courage,’ I said, ‘I’m your man.’ And as I held her wrist, edging her warm dry firm hand further up my coat sleeve, I loved and desired her so much I could have moaned. I added, ‘I notice you distinguish here between “will” and “would”.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You say the first enterprise will need courage, the second one would need it. So it seems we shall certainly carry out the first, but the second is doubtful.’

  ‘About the first one perhaps there is nothing surprising. I am very happily married to Gunnar, we love each other deeply.’

  I very gradually released her hand and she very gradually withdrew it.

  ‘I say this because it must be the background to what follows.’

  ‘To the enterprise.’

  ‘To both enterprises. You said — that you loved me — and that you did not want to waste that love, you wanted it to live — ’

  ‘I couldn’t prevent it from living, it’s the most living thing in the universe, you know how rare absolute love is — ’

  ‘I told you I wanted to stand with you and Gunnar in the same room just to see if it was possible. It was possible.’

  ‘The world didn’t end. The stars didn’t crumble.’

  ‘You see — to use your word — I don’t want you to be wasted either.’

  ‘You want me to be — around?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But Kitty, aren’t there lots and lots of people in your life, everyone must love you — ’ It was as near as I dared come to the question of all those other letters.

  ‘No. You’re special. You’ve lived so long in my mind. It’s hard to explain. It’s as if you’ve always been necessary, always in some strange way a part of my marriage. I fell in love with Gunnar when he was telling me about you and Anne.’

  ‘Oh God!’

  ‘I felt so sorry for him. I felt so sorry for you. And I’ve lived with this. I’ve been lonely really. Not only because of Gunnar’s depressions. He and I come from very different worlds and I’ve lived with him in his world. Love, I don’t mean love affairs, I mean love, has been rare in my life. So you see — ’

  ‘I’ll do whatever you want.’

  ‘Don’t say that yet. You haven’t heard my second idea. The first one is just this, that we should all three of us be friends. There. It’s simple, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s sublime,’ I said, ‘but is it possible? Gunnar, of course, doesn’t know you’ve ever met me except at the Impiatts’ and on last Friday — ’

  ‘Of course. And I shall never tell him. I saw you only for his sake. There was nothing wrong in that. And equally I think there is nothing wrong in concealing it. This part of our friendship will soon belong to the past and it must remain a secret between you and me, a place where we meet in memory very privately — ’

  I pictured this place. Unfortunately Biscuit was there too, only that was doubtless immaterial.

  ‘I want us now to move forward very slowly and carefully and bring it all gradually out into the open — ’

  ‘All?’

  ‘Except for this — I mean you will come to see us as a friend, and then later if I see you alone Gunnar will know of it, and there will be nothing to hide, everything will be — ’

  ‘Innocent.’ I felt giddy. I pictured regular dinners at Cheyne Walk. They could have Wednesdays. Lunch têle-à-tête with Kitty at the Savoy. She would have to pay. It was, as she said, mad. But what was the alternative? ‘All right,’ I said.

  ‘Are you brave enough?’

  ‘Yes. But you’ll have to do everything, organize it all, control it all — ’ A large number of important questions occurred to me concerning this state of affairs, but a choking flow of hopes and fears kept me silent. If only I somehow need not lose Kitty after all. Better let her talk, let her imagine, let her lead.

  Kitty was reading my thoughts. ‘Don’t try to see too much of the future, I can’t see it either. Rest upon the simplicity of our needs. There is a love which I selfishly want to keep, which I don’t want to have to throw away — ’

  ‘I will rest upon your selfishness then.’

  ‘Good. Now let me tell you about my second idea. And hold your breath a little.’

  ‘I’m holding it. Oh you brave wonderful woman! You know I admired you so much on that first day when we met at Peter Pan, you were so — so statesmanlike — ’

  ‘That’s a wonderful compliment! Listen now. Gunnar and I are childless.’

  My heart grew cold. For a second I saw Anne’s face as I had seen it that evening in the car, frightened, pleading, begging me to stop so that she could get out and return to her husband.

  ‘We are childless and this has been a great cause of grief to us. The fact is — I am now telling you something which hardly anyone knows, not even Gunnar — Gunnar cannot have children.’

  ‘He —?’

  ‘He had an operation, oh some time ago now — and one result — was that. The doctor told me, and I decided not to tell Gunnar. He doesn’t know.’

  A sort of cold logical dew seemed to descend upon me as if suddenly everything had been made very orderly and very clear and very dreadful. I stiffened as if for that bullet in the chest.

  ‘We both desperately want children. And Gunnar doesn’t want to adopt, he wants my child. And I am over thirty.’

  I seemed to have heard this bit before.

  ‘Hilary, I want you to give me a child.’

  The logical dew was helping me. I felt, myself now, very orderly and very clear and very dreadful. I could even smile at her. I said, ‘We agreed that I was just an instrument, a tool, but this is taking the matter rather too literally! Dearest beloved darling Kitty, you are indeed mad, gloriously mad. You have laid before me the most wonderful beautiful mad idea with which I have ever been presented. I feel as if you have given me the Taj Mahal. All I can do is fold it up very small indeed and give it you back. Perhaps I can just tuck it into your handbag.’

  ‘Of course it would be in every way as if it was Gunnar’s child. Hilary, be serious — ’

  ‘I am, I am. Kitty, dear heart, oh I do love you so, use your sweet wonderful mind. How do you think Gunnar would react if — ’

  ‘He wouldn’t ever know. How could he ever guess at anything so strange? The very madness of the scheme protects it. It’s a terrible thing to ask of you, I realize that, and I couldn’t ask it of anybody else — you are the only one — I can ask it of you — ’

  ‘Because of the special relationship.’

  ‘Yes. Because of the past. You owe me — ’

  ‘I owe Gunnar a child.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to say that, but yes if you like — you said you’d do anything for me. You ought to do anything for him.’

  ‘But this is a rather particular thing, Kitty, which not every man likes another man to do for him.’

  ‘It would have to be done — ’

  ‘Perfectly. Oh yes. But some things by their nature can’t be done perfectly.’

  ‘I realize that the burden of silence upon you — ’

  ‘Oh I could manage the burden of silence. I just don’t want to be murdered.’

  ‘But — ’

  ‘Suppose your little baby turned out to bear a curious resemblance to me? Wouldn’t that give poor old Gunnar something new to brood about? Gunnar is as fair as a Viking, well he is a Viking — ’

  ‘I’m not.’
/>   ‘Suppose the little dear had hazel eyes?’

  ‘My father had hazel eyes. In fact, now I come to think of it, my father looked remarkably like you.’

  I began to laugh, throwing back my head and sticking out my legs and thrusting my hands deep into my pockets.

  ‘Hilary, what —?’

  ‘A terribly funny idea has just struck me,’ I said. ‘It’s divinely funny, in fact it’s just what’s needed to make your wonderful scheme quite perfect.’