by Iris Murdoch
‘How are we feeling?’
The questioner was Gabriel McCaffrey, Stella’s sister- In-law.
Stella continued to cry, saying nothing.
Gabriel herself often cried. Not that she had anything very terrible to cry about, since she was happily married and had a lovely son, but she cried often for the anguish of the world because of its little vulnerable places, or because of the frailty of everything she loved. Stella on the other hand had always plenty to cry about. However, Gabriel had never before seen her crying or even imagined her crying.
The two women were not intimate friends and not allies but they liked each other. Stella might well suppose that Gabriel pitied her because Gabriel was married to nice Brian while Stella was married to awful George. On the other hand, Gabriel might well imagine that Stella thought that George was interesting, whereas Brian was boring. The relations of Stella and George were a mystery to Gabriel and Brian. Of course, Stella had been to a university and was educated and clever. Yet she had made nothing of her cleverness, while Gabriel, who had not been to university, had a more successful ‘life’. Gabriel was happier. But was not battle-scarred Stella ‘more real’? There were, indeed, further complexities, of which they were both aware and above which, usually, they were able to look at each other calmly enough.
Gabriel did not feel calm now. She had always known and feared George’s capacity to introduce absolute disorder into all their lives. George could destroy us all, she sometimes felt, and sometimes, George wants to destroy us all. Of course this was irrational, though it was equally irrational to regard George as simply ‘accident prone’. How I hate bullies, Gabriel thought, thank heavens I’m not married to one.
Father Bernard Jacoby had telephoned Brian and Gabriel on the previous night to tell them about the accident, the car in the canal, Stella and George safe, Stella in hospital, George gone home. He suggested (to Brian’s relief and Gabriel’s disappointment) that it was too late for visits, both of the victims would be asleep. It was now nine o’clock in the morning. Stella, in a private room, was propped up in bed. She had a black eye and a cracked rib and what the nurse called ‘severe shock’. George had not answered telephone calls. Brian was going round to see him.
‘Please stop crying,’ said Gabriel, ‘you are tiring yourself and upsetting me.’ This firm calm manner, unnatural to Gabriel, was how her sister- In-law preferred to be addressed.
Stella had been crying into a handkerchief. She now laid this aside and revealed her wet swollen bruised face, shocking to Gabriel. Stella began rolling her head to and fro upon the pillow, visibly trying to control her respiration. Gabriel touched her arm lightly. Stella did not like hugging and kissing. Gabriel had never kissed her.
‘Shall I stay, shall I talk to you?’
‘Tell me something.’ The stream had abated, though Stella kept blinking tears out of her eyes.
Gabriel, who was good at decoding, knew that this meant: tell me anything. ‘It’s a sunny day. You can’t see from here, but the sun’s shining.’
‘Did you come by car?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where did you park?’
‘In the hospital car park, there’s plenty of room.’
‘You’ve got a new dress.’
‘I bought it in Bowcocks sale. Do you know, you can see the High Street from the window, and the Botanic Garden and the Institute — ’
‘I haven’t looked.’
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Terrible.’
‘What happened? Or would you rather —?’
‘George was drunk. He jumped out. Then he pulled me out.’
‘All’s well that ends well,’ said Gabriel, who hoped that this banality would irritate Stella into saying something more.
‘It was my fault,’ said Stella.
‘I know that’s not true.’
The family often discussed Stella’s situation, how she put up with George’s tantrums and his infidelity, how she persistently imagined that her love would cure him. She kept hoping, looking for little signs. Gabriel thought, it’s odd how stupid a clever person can be. She feels that not blaming George will somehow make him improve.
‘I argued,’ said Stella. ‘I said a particular thing that annoyed him. Then the car went out of control.’
‘He’s easily annoyed!’
‘George was crazy as a fox last night.’
‘Always was, always will be. One day he’ll go too far.’
‘If he ever does he’ll get better.’
‘You mean repentant?’
‘No.’
‘You always make excuses for him, he can get away with anything, he’s always forgiven and first of all by you!’
‘It’s my privilege to be first.’
What a hypocrite she is, thought Gabriel, and yet she’s sincere. Can there be sincere hypocrites? Yes, and they’re the most maddening of all. There was no doubt that Stella was an odd fish, an alien, a changeling. She was a handsome tall strong woman. She sees him as a challenge, thought Gabriel, she sees it as a fight, and she thinks that’s love. George ought to have married a gentle submissive girl, not this noble ridiculous person. And she thought, this is the most intimate conversation I’ve ever had with Stella.
‘You ought to go away for a while, have a holiday from George.’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘You should, you should go to some foreign city.’
‘He’ll lose his driving licence.’
‘Poor George!’
‘He wanted us to walk away.’
‘You mean last night? Just walk away, after that? Before the police came, I suppose!’
‘I would have walked if I could,’ said Stella.
‘Oh God, here he comes.’
Through the open door of the room Gabriel saw George approaching along the corridor.
‘Good-bye, Gabriel, thank you for coming to see me.’ With a little wave to Stella, Gabriel moved out of the room. George advanced, walking with a characteristic self-conscious deliberation as of someone fairly confidently walking on water. He leaned forwards as he walked, setting his feet down noiselessly on the thick, soft, spongy pale grey hospital linoleum. His arms swung in a light poised manner. He looked like an athlete, off duty, aware of being photographed. When he saw Gabriel he narrowed his eyes and smiled a faint amused smile. Gabriel, disturbed by mixed emotions, made an impatient gesture with her hand. She frowned, but her mouth could not help smiling in an involuntary nervous spasm.
George McCaffrey had been spared the visit of his brother Brian by having left the house before Brian arrived. Before leaving, George had telephoned the hospital and learnt that Stella was ‘comfortable’. He set off, but went first of all to the canal.
The canal was no longer in use. It ought to have been beautiful, as it curved into the town, with the cobbled road beside it and the huge square granite slabs at the edge of the quay and the great rings upon the walls where the painted barges used to tie up. The elliptical foot-bridge was reproduced (reflected in still water) upon postcards, and the small elegant container (still in use) of the nearby gas works, with its fretted cast- Iron coronet was a period piece prized by industrial archaeologists. But somehow the sluggish brown stream looked dirty and melancholy, and attempts to rejuvenate it for purposes of pleasure always failed. The canal remained in mourning for its useful past, expressing the grim puritanical character of local history rather than any desire to be reborn as charming. The area on the far side remained derelict, except for a scattering of poor post-war housing, mostly condemned, and was known as ‘the wasteland’. Against the rusty railings which fringed the road only the uglier weeds grew; the grass between the tilting cobbles was flabby and sad, and the glittering points in the square granite slabs looked like symptoms of a post- Industrial disease.
It was beginning to rain when George arrived. Several people were standing looking down at the car. (The drama had of course been reported in the Gazette.) Aware
of being recognized, George joined them. Several of the on-lookers walked hastily away. Those who remained removed themselves to a little distance.
The car was upright, its white roof just breaking the surface. It must have settled down in the mud since last night. The brown rain-pitted canal water, very slowly passing it by, possessed it as if it were a rock or a clump of reeds. It looked peaceful.
George had never had any fantasies about driving cars over quaysides, though he had had plenty about drowning, death by water, his own or another’s. He had fantasies, or were they dreams, of drowning someone, as it might be Stella, and burying the corpse in a wood and visiting the quiet grave regularly as the months passed and the years passed and the seasons changed and the wild flowers grew upon the place and no one ever suspected. Sometimes he dreamt that he had killed Stella and then suddenly met her again alive and then realized that it was not her, but a twin sister of whose existence he had never known.
How could I have done that, he thought, looking down. As on similar occasions in the past, he felt a cleavage between himself and the George who did things. Yet he was that person and felt easy with him, chiding him gently. What a damn stupid thing to do, he thought, now that he was in the land of consequences. I was fond of that car. What will the insurance people say, I wonder. God, if only we could have got away before the police came.
Stella had started crying again when George arrived. She was very anxious indeed to stop. She regarded crying as a kind of rather shameful and unusual disease. It gave her no relief. She rolled her head about, trying to breathe slowly, but could not stop her lower lip from shuddering convulsively and her heart from racing. She put her hand to her damaged side and panted, turning her wet mouth away from her husband.
‘How are you?’ said George.
‘OK.’
‘Are you feeling OK?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve got a black eye.’
‘Yes.’
‘So have I, at least it’s swollen, can’t think how I got it.’
‘Oh — yes — ’
‘The people here seem nice, the nurse was nice to me.’
‘Good.’
‘You’re not in pain?’
‘No.’
‘That’s good.’
‘I can’t stop crying.’
‘Not to worry.’
‘I suppose it’s hysterical. Not like me.’
‘No. Gabriel got here early.’
‘Yes.’
‘What did she say to you?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What did you say to her?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘I told her nothing.’
‘I can’t remember much about last night.’
‘I’m glad you can’t, neither can I.’
‘If you can’t remember, why are you glad I can’t?’
‘It was a horrid accident, better to forget it.’
‘We do a lot of forgetting. How long will you be in here?’
‘I don’t know. You could ask matron.’
‘Do you want anything, flowers or books or anything?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘I feel awfully tired.’
‘You’re suffering from shock.’
‘Yes, that’s it, I suppose I am.’
‘Better go home and rest.’
‘No, I think I’ll go swimming, that always does me good.’
‘Yes, go swimming, that’ll do you good.’
Pat-ball, thought George, pat-ball. It’s either this or rows. Stella can’t talk to me, that’s her trouble; she can’t make silly jokes or play about like other people, she can’t really talk to anyone, she’s cut off from the human race. She’s grand like royalty, I married a princess. I hate seeing her crying, it’s so unnatural, she looks like a wet pig. She hasn’t any soft warm being, no haven there, no safety. Oh God, how much fear I feel now, how much help I need, with him coming. Why must I always suffer so, this is hell. Familiar black resentment rose in his heart, in his gorge. I am poisoned, he thought.
‘Here’s Alex,’ said Stella, and checked her weeping.
George rose quickly and made for the door. His mother stood aside to let him pass. They exchanged a quick bright look but no words.
PRELUDE
ii Our Town
I am the narrator: a discreet and self-effacing narrator. This book is not about me. I knew, though not in most cases at all well, a number of the dramatis personae and I lived (and live) in the town where the events hereinafter recounted took place. For purposes of convenience, for instance so that my ‘characters’ may be able (very occasionally) to refer to me or address me, I shall call myself ‘N’. But as far as this drama is concerned I am a shadow, Nemo, not the masked presence or secret voice of one of the main characters. I am an observer, a student of human nature, a moralist, a man; and will allow myself here and there the discreet luxury of moralizing.
It will be necessary to talk a good deal about our town, and as I would prefer, for obvious reasons, not to use its real name, I shall call it after my own, ‘N’s Town’, or, let us say, ‘Ennistone’. Ennistone is situated in the south of England, not exceedingly far from London. A fairly frequent train service increasingly takes ‘commuters’ daily to their work in the metropolis and brings them home at evening to a green countryside. However, most of our people still work in and around Ennistone, and old-fashioned Ennistonians would certainly resent the idea of being considered a ‘dormitory town’. The place has a strong identity and, one may say, a strong social conscience. New housing estates have recently diluted our old community life, but strenuous efforts are made by ‘responsible citizens’ (it is characteristic of our town to have many of these) to draw the newcomers into our many ‘worthwhile activities’. There are church groups, women’s groups, drama groups, debates, evening classes, a Historical Society, a Fine Art Society, a Writers’ Circle. There is a lively museum and a Botanical Garden. There is plenty of musical activity, including an operatic society, a silver band and the ‘Ennistone Orchestra’. We were (and to some extent still are) thus well able to amuse ourselves. I should also mention here a passion for playing bridge, though this is not now so common among the young people and the newcomers.
This account may suggest that Ennistone is a rather self-satisfied little place, and perhaps this is true. It was as if we pulled back our skirts from the sins and vices of London, which from here was seen as an exotic and dangerous playground. At one time even television was frowned upon, and some of the ‘responsible citizens’ made a point of banning these corrupt machines from their homes. We have a strong and long-standing puritan and non-conformist tradition, one result of which is that there are even now very few public houses in Ennistone. An ‘Austrian Wine Bar’ recently opened in the High Street occasioned a long controversy in the Ennistone Gazette (our worthy local paper edited at the time of this tale by Gavin Oare, an ambitious youth with his eye on Fleet Street). Ennistone was, in a rural way, a manufacturing town (I am speaking of the nineteenth century) and the fine Tweed Mill ‘as big as a palace’ still remains as an abandoned remnant of commercial glory. Several old Quaker families (the McCaffreys are one of these) founded the fortunes of Ennistone at that time, and still (together with some Methodists) control various less prosperous commercial projects which now provide our main sources of employment. Many Ennistonians, I should add, work on the land, but big landowners have not figured in our recent history.
Ennistone is situated upon an attractive river (which I shall call ‘the Enn’). The Romans were here (there is a Roman bridge over the Enn) and some interesting remains attest earlier inhabitants. There are some megaliths upon the common which are known as ‘the Ennistone Ring’ although there are only nine of them and one a mere stump. Professor Thom visited our stones and made some calculations but could make nothing of them (we were rather proud of that). Of the medieval village little survives except St Olaf’s Church, situated i
n the poorer part of the town. There are some good eighteenth-century buildings, including the Quaker Meeting House, the Crescent, and the Hall, and an eighteenth-century bridge (alas much altered) still called the New Bridge. Although so ancient, we cannot alas claim to have produced any very famous sons. History knows of a bishop who got into trouble in the seventeenth century for being a Cambridge Platonist. And there was a poor non-conforming fellow in the eighteenth century who, after becoming a famous preacher, suddenly declared that he was Christ and occasioned some sort of little revolt. His name was Elias Ossmor, and the Osmore family of today claim descent from him. On these and other matters see Ennistone, Its History and Antiquities (published 1901) by Oscar Bowcock, forebear of our Percy Bowcock. Oscar’s younger brother James was the founder of our one big shop, Burdett and Bowcock, usually known as Bowcocks. I think the book is out of print, but a copy survives in the public library. There used to be two copies but one was stolen. At the time of this story I can mention only two Ennistonians who are at all well known outside our gates; the psychiatrist Ivor (now Sir Ivor) Sefton, and the philosopher (about whom more will be heard in these pages) John Robert Rozanov.
I have not yet mentioned the feature for which Ennistone is most famous. Ennistone is a spa. (The town was called Ennistone Spa in the nineteenth century, but the name is no longer in use.) There is a copious hot spring with alleged medical properties, which of course attracted the Romans and their predecessors to the site. Shadowy historical evidence suggests that the worship of a preRoman goddess (perhaps Freya) was associated with the spring; a rudimentary stone image in the Museum is supposed to represent this deity. A beautiful Roman inscription, also in the Museum, more solidly suggests a cult of Venus. The Romans honoured the spring with a handsome bathing establishment, of which unfortunately only foundations and a piece of wall remain. The idea that the waters had an aphrodisiac effect was periodically popular. Shakespeare’s sonnet 153 is said to refer to Ennistone, wherein the Bard’s lively fancy pictures the spring deriving from a prank of one of Diana’s nymphs who cooled the fiery penis of sleeping Cupid in a cool spring which thence became hot, and whose waters were said to cure the ‘sad distempers’ and ‘strange maladies’ which attend imprudent love. A seventeenth-century medical pamphlet makes an ambiguous reference to the Ennistone waters (see Bowcock’s book, the index under ‘venereal disease’). Our ancestors in their folly pulled down most of the fine architecture with which (as we see from prints) the spring was surrounded in the eighteenth century, including a Bath House of transcendent beauty. A minor eighteenth-century poet called Gideon Parke wrote a masque called The Triumph of Aphrodite which was to take place in the Bath House, and included a scene where the goddess emerges from the steam of the hot spring itself. This work survives and was performed in the nineteen-thirties with music written by the Rector of St Olaf’s. (There was some disagreeable fuss about it at the time.) Of the eighteenth-century buildings only the Pump Room remains, now no longer connected with the waters, used for assemblies and concerts and known as the ‘Ennistone Hall’. The spring has been the victim of a kind of periodical puritanism, and Ennistonians had, and to some extent still have, oddly mixed feelings about their chief municipal glory. Before the first war a Methodist minister even managed to have the establishment closed for a short period on an allegation, never proved, that it had become a secret centre of heathen worship. A vague feeling persists to this day that the spring is in some way a source of a kind of unholy restlessness which attacks the town at intervals like an epidemic.
