by Iris Murdoch
‘George,’ said John Robert, looking at him at last, ‘you are suffering from an illusion. There is no structure here to make sense of the language you are using, there is no context for any conversation between us. If I was kind to you now and encouraged you to come and see me I would be lying to you. I don’t want to discuss your soul and your imagined sins. I am not interested, I haven’t any wisdom or any help to give you. You have an entirely illusory view of our relationship. And do stop worrying about philosophy - in your case philosophy is just a nervous craving.’
‘You reject me!’
‘No. I’m sorry. I haven’t got that much concern about you. I haven’t any concern about you. I just don’t want to see you.’
‘That can’t be true! Why are you taking up this attitude? Why are you so angry with me? What have you been thinking about me?’
‘I am not angry with you. I have not been thinking about you. You are simply making a mistake. Just go away.’
At that moment the front door bell rang.
John Robert, looking exasperated at last, moved past George to get out into the hall. George stood in the doorway, conscious now of the violent beating of his heart, and gazed at his teacher’s bulky form in the dim illumination that came through the little fanlight above the door. The next moment the grey but clear light of the street revealed the apparition of Alex, in her best fur coat, with her long eyes aglow, and her long pale mouth smiling. As John Robert, saying nothing, stepped aside, and she stepped forward, she saw George. The expressions of mother and son were suddenly similar, brilliantly cat-like. Alex stopped smiling, then smiled again, a quite different smile. George intensified the frown he had been wearing for John Robert, adding an accompanying smile or sneer.
John Robert, turning, said to George, ‘Good-bye.’
Alex moved forward again, past John Robert, who was holding the door open, and stood at the foot of the staircase to get out of George’s way. George passed her with averted head. His hand touched the soft grey fur of the long coat which she wore pulled well in to her slim waist with a steel chain belt. He smelt her face powder. He passed John Robert with a shudder and the door closed.
Once outside George was consumed by hate, jealousy, misery, remorse, fear and rage. Emotions blackened the sky and tore his entrails like vultures. He imagined taking his shoe off and breaking the window. However, his face was impassive; even the frown had left it. He walked quietly away from the house, walked on about twenty yards, and then stopped and stood perfectly still for several minutes. Two students from Ennistone Polytechnic who were going to drop a notice about a political meeting in on Nesta Wiggins, recognized him and promptly crossed the road.
George knew himself. He knew what a terrible piece of work had been accomplished that morning, what a mass of material for his grief and chagrin he had heaped up during that short visit. Everything he had said to Rozanov had been wrong. He had behaved like a petulant child, not like his real self at all. He now saw clearly what he ought to have said, what tone he ought to have adopted. He had deliberately not decided on any policy beforehand, had prepared no speech. That was folly. He should have said … or else have written a letter explaining … He began to walk along, recalling with nausea the pleading accents with which he had begged for what he wanted. And then Alex arriving. What on earth did that mean, what unholy alliance, what threat to him? He had never connected Alex with John Robert; she had never spoken of him except for vaguely mentioning that she had met him. How sickening. Was Alex to be friends with John Robert excluding George? Would John Robert turn Alex against him? What were they talking about now, those dreadful two, they must be talking about him.
As he came up toward the Roman bridge he remembered the hammer. An elderly lady, a Miss Dunbury, retired from doing very fine work at the Glove Factory, who lived at number three Blanch Cottages, saw with excitement a man pause to pick a blunt instrument (as she perceived it, being a great reader of detective stories) out of her privet bush. She began to search for her glasses in order to scan the Ennistone Gazette for murders. Being short-sighted, she had not recognized George. If she had, she would have been even more excited.
Alex, who had arrived by taxi and combed her hair on the doorstep, recovered quickly from the shock of seeing George, upon which she had no time to speculate. For some reason, George had not figured at all in her imaginings, as if she had perfectly forgotten that he had been Rozanov’s pupil. She felt a quick physical tremor as he passed, which blended quickly into her general nervous agitation.
John Robert went past her into the back room and she followed him. The glimpse at the Baths had prepared her to see him older. Now, dressed in a big loose shabby corduroy jacket falling off one shoulder and wearing a grey pullover under his braces, he looked less old. Unbid, Alex pulled off her coat and threw it on a chair. She took in the room, so small, with a thin little black grate and a narrow little grimy mantelpiece and a couple of miserable sloppy armchairs and a shiny little sideboard with a crumpled lace cover on it. There was a small school desk, the top open, stuffed with papers and a general dotting of china ornaments, puppy dogs and ballet dancers and such, placed there long ago by John Robert’s mother. There was a hole in the carpet and dust everywhere and a damp smell.
John Robert seemed momentarily tongue-tied, which set Alex more at her ease. She smiled at him.
‘How kind of you to come.’
‘Not at all. I’m very glad to see you.’
‘Would you like some - some tea?’
Alex would have liked a whisky and soda but she remembered that John Robert had been a teetotaller. She said, ‘No, thank you.’
‘Or coffee - I think there’s some?’
‘No thanks.’
He said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m a non-drinker, there isn’t anything else in the house. Would you please sit down?’
Alex sat on the arm of one of the armchairs, raising a little puff of dust.
‘What a pretty garden, so small and - and easy to manage.’ As there was a little silence she added, ‘I’m sure George was very glad to see you.’
The mention of George was just a nervous urge, she did not want to talk about George.
‘Oh yes, yes.’
John Robert sat heavily into the other armchair, then finding himself almost on the floor pulled himself up again, grunting, with some difficulty and sat on a creaky upright chair which swayed alarmingly.
Alex said, ‘Are you glad to be back?’
John Robert considered the question seriously. ‘Yes, I am. I remember a lot of faces of people round here, in the shops and so on, changed of course. My parents liked living here, it was always a friendly neighbourhood.’
‘After America, Ennistone must seem so quiet and small.’
‘Nice and quiet, nice and small.’
Alex stared at John Robert who was not looking at her, and her heart moved within her. His big head sunk inside the collar of his jacket, he looked almost like a hunchback. She saw the coarse pitted texture of his skin and the strength of his nose of a bird of prey and the way his large wet mouth pouted and drooped. She felt an impulse to reach out and touch, not his knee but the shiny dirty material of his trouser leg.
‘Mrs McCaffrey — ’
‘I wish you’d call me Alex. We have known each other a long time.’
‘Indeed, I wanted to ask you something.’
‘Yes –?’ Alex’s eyes stared as if she would flatten him with them and pin him to the wall.
‘You must say frankly if you feel you don’t want to, or that you’d like to think it over — ’
‘Yes —?’
‘In any case it may be impossible After all — ’
‘Yes, yes —?’
‘I was wondering,’ said John Robert, ‘if you would be so kind as to let me rent the Slipper House.’
This was so much what Alex was not expecting (and yet what was she expecting?) that she could not answer at once, could not even immediately understand the wo
rds or collect her wits to consider whether or how she was displeased or disappointed or - yet what right had she? But what did it mean?
‘I’m sorry, I can see that this is not something you want to do.’
‘Oh, I do,’ said Alex decisively, ‘I do want to, I should be absolutely delighted to rent the Slipper House - to you — ’
‘You should perhaps reflect a little.’
‘I’ve reflected. I should be very pleased indeed.’
‘I thought perhaps it might be occupied by someone else.’
‘No, no, it’s empty. I have no one - it may be a bit damp - I’ll put all the heating on - and it needs more furniture - it’s got beds and chairs of course but — ’
‘I beg you not to go to any trouble. I can provide anything extra that is necessary.’
‘What a wonderful idea!’ said Alex, whose imagination had been in motion. The whole picture now seemed perfectly charming and full of possibilities. ‘Would you like to come round now and we can look at the place together?’
‘No, no thank you. I don’t need it just yet. I just wanted to know if it was available.’
‘Oh it is, oh yes, available.’
‘Thank you — ’
‘I expect you’re going to write your great book there?’ said Alex. ‘It’s very peaceful. I’ll see no one bothers you. I could cook for you — ’
‘I’ll let you know, if I may, when - And you’ll tell me about rent, and conditions —?’
Alex resisted a desire to cry out that no rent was required. She said, ‘Mr Osmore will fix all that, I’ll ask him to write to you.’
John Robert rose to his feet. The interview was evidently over. Alex wished she had accepted the cup of tea. She rose too and pulled on her big soft coat and drew in her metal belt by an extra link.
‘Well, we’ll be in touch.’
‘Yes, thank you for coming.’
In a moment Alex was out in the windy street, careless now of her tossing hair. She walked along briskly with her hands in her pockets, smiling to herself, then laughing.
‘Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of all things, Judge of all men, we acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we from time to time most grievously have committed, by thought word and deed, against thy Divine Majesty, provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us. We do earnestly repent and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings, the remembrance of them is grievous unto us, the burden of them is intolerable …’
Diane uttered these solemn and terrible words meekly kneeling upon her knees in the darkness of St Paul’s Church, Victoria Park, at chilly draughty 8 a.m. early service (poorly attended on weekdays). She had uttered those words innumerable times since her earliest childhood, had chumbled them with her tongue and her lips until they were very smooth but not quite weightless. She did not bother her head about God’s wrath and indignation, she knew unreflectively that there was no such thing. The burden of sin was another matter: there was a burden and a grievous remembrance, hurt and damage and remorse.
George had not been to see her for a week. She felt powerless as in dreams when the muscles will not tense and the limbs will not move. She felt as if she were in public view in a pillory, stared at, laughed at, whispered about. She needed to nerve herself to go to the Baths, to the shops, to the Church, her contacts with life, her last innocent occupations, swimming, shopping and praying. Yesterday in Bowcocks all the lights had gone out because of a power-cut. The big internal areas of the shop, scarcely penetrated by the afternoon light, were suddenly dim as if foggy. Diane, who had been fingering some cheap jewellery, which she had no intention of buying, put it down abruptly. As she stood in the middle of one of the aisles, watching the ghostly figures move, a gale of fear came up out of her soul as if she had been transported to hell. She loved Bowcocks, where she had worked once; it was a safe warm brightly coloured place where she was allowed to roam about unharmed. This sudden transformation seemed a premonitory omen. She hurried out in a panic, jostling people, tears starting into her eyes.
Two opposite passions tormented her. She wanted to run, to get right away into the ‘newness of life’ promised by the prayer book. The idea of some total escape was attended by a vision of dazzling happiness: just to be by herself somewhere where there was no sex and no men, not to be doing any more of the things she was now doing, this would be enough. Unfortunately the vision contained no definite plan of removal and did not even compose a strong motive to find one. On the other hand, her love for George seemed to become more intense and more pure the more painful the situation became. Perhaps it was just that as she suffered she should be recompensed by some moral bonus. If only the love had a way, a space, a place, a mode of entry, some kind of blessed simplicity.
When Diane murmured that she had sinned in thought, word and deed and earnestly repented, she could not fix her thoughts upon George. She thought rather in a scrappy way about the old days, the ugly graceless nude photos, Mrs Belton’s awful place, drunk men at roadhouses looking at their watches and saying, ‘Come on!’ Had she not escaped from that? But where to? Ought she not to be thinking about Stella? No, she could not think about Stella, Stella was taboo, any thought she could think about George’s wife would be an abomination. Leave that to God. Oh what an awful mess and how terribly unlucky she had been. George had once said to her, ‘You’re no worse than the others, kid, only in you it shows. You’re like me. We’re more honest, we’re out in the open.’ But that wasn’t right either.
‘We do not presume to come to this thy table, O merciful God, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercy. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table …’ The spellbinding continuity of the magnificent words was sustained by Father Bernard’s fine sonorous slightly singsong voice. A sense of the mystery of this extraordinary proceeding had remained with Diane ever since her childhood days, before her confirmation at St Olaf’s, when the communion service figured as a secret as awful as that of sex and somehow connected. ‘They eat bread and drink wine.’ She got up in the dim cold church, as foggy as Bowcocks after the electricity went off, and moved with three or four other figures in the direction of the lighted chancel. Stepping cautiously upon the tiles in her high-heeled shoes, she passed through the thorny doorway of the ornate red and gold rood screen, first hanging back with humble consideration to let the others pass before her. (The others did the same.) As she approached the handsome altar, its tremendous marble attired in gorgeous embroideries, and knelt down, her heart beat faster. She bowed her head, then raised it, aware of the glorious rustling figure of Father Bernard towering above.
‘The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving. The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Drink this in remembrance that Christ’s blood was shed for thee, and be thankful.’ Father Bernard’s hand touched her lip as he gave her the wafer, and she was made happy by her sense of his sense of her presence. The heavy jewelled cup, gift of a long-dead Newbold, tilted and the sweet heady wine fed her hunger and warmed her body and pleasantly dazed her wits. She returned to her place with bowed head and a momentary sense of being a completely changed person.
‘Those things, which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask, vouchsafe to give us, for the worthiness of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord: and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be amongst you and remain with you always.’ There was a silence, then a faint scuffling as the congregation rose from their knees. The communicants, who had dotted themselves sparsely about the huge church, consisted of the foll
owing: an elderly Miss Larkin, somehow connected with the ‘famous’ painter; a Miss Amy Burdett, who played the organ, rather slowly, on Sundays; a Mrs Clun, a widow, who ran Anne Lapwing’s Boutique (Anne was an imaginary figure); a youth called Benning recently come to teach engineering at the Polytechnic; Hector Gaines who was a devout man and liked to have learned conversations with Father Bernard; and Miss Dunbury of Blanch Cottages. Miss Dunbury was especially concerned to bewail her manifold sins, which did not include reading detective stories (Father Bernard had assured her this was not a sin) but did include scanning the newspapers for murders and feeling disappointed when there were none.
Saint Paul’s Church, Victoria Park, built in 1860 by an admirer of William Butterfield, was a huge barn-like structure, without side aisles, dominated by the towering gilded reredos. (The rood screen, by Ninian Comper, has been added later.) The dwindling worshippers sat in some stocky modern pews near the east end, leaving the large space behind to be occupied by Victorian ghosts. There were four suitably bedizened side chapels, mere recesses however, not the encrusted caves which Father Bernard would have preferred. The walls of the church were decorated by a large solemn play of reddish and yellowish bricks and tiles, now revealed almost in its entirety since many of the Victorian funeral monuments had been shaken down by the wartime bomb which destroyed the tower and the Rectory. Post-war austerity had not restored these relics which languished in the crypt, ignored by Father Bernard who found the walls quite glorious enough as they were, assuming that they could not be covered by oriental hangings. The floor was paved by matching tiles, bearing many ingenious geometric devices and stylized flowers, from which Father Bernard had stripped away the senseless modern carpets installed by his predecessor. Persian rugs would have been acceptable, but the days of rich patrons were over. There was, one of the last donations, one lonely tapestry hanging under the west window, designed by Ned Larkin, representing Christ as a very pale clean-shaven young working man, holding with evident anxiety the tools of a carpenter. (The same donor had contributed a John the Baptist by a pupil of Eric Gill.) The exquisite rood screen had been miraculously undamaged by the bomb, as had the Victorian glass which a zealous rector had taken down and stored. It was without special merit but ensured darkness.
