by Iris Murdoch
‘A chair does a lot for a picture’ was one of Alex’s sayings. At this moment she was trying out this guidance in the Slipper House, as she moved a bamboo chair with a pink cushion on it and placed it underneath a contemporary print of the eighteenth-century ‘bath house of transcendent beauty’ which had been pulled down to make way for the Institute building. The effect was good. It was Sunday evening. The bells of St Olaf’s, distinctly audible in damp weather with a west wind blowing, were decorating the muzzy soft brown twilight. All the lights were on in the Slipper House, the central heating was on, the shutters were closed. Every window had inside shutters, all of which had been decorated by the young painter, Ned Larkin, Geoffrey Stillowen’s discovery. The most ambitious scene, representing the family in Belmont garden, was in the sitting-room downstairs, but each room had its window into the fantasy world of Mr Larkin. The main bedroom, where Alex now stood, revealed in the space of the shuttered window above the window seat, a blue sky traversed by a silver airship, and down below looking up a dog, a black-and-white terrier whom Alex dimly remembered, but not his name. The upstairs shutters and curtains had not been touched for some time and turned out to be full of dust and moths and spiders. With Ruby, she had cleaned the whole house thoroughly, and could now enjoy it by herself. Working silently with Ruby had been a strain. How easily her mother would have chatted all the time, encouraging the servant, cheering her on.
Alex looked at the bed, a plain strong single bed with handsome plain ball-headed posts at each corner made of a grainy gleaming nut-brown wood, a fine piece, a relic of its time. In the centre of the headboard an incised oval design was carved, representing perhaps a seed or the cosmos. This carving had excited Alex when she was a girl. Here John Robert Rozanov would sleep. In the little room next door, in a plain handsome nut-brown matching wardrobe, he would keep his clothes. In the sitting-room downstairs, or perhaps in the second bedroom which Alex had prepared as a study, with a light oak desk and a lamp with a leaded-glass shade, he would write his great book. In the evenings when he was tired he would talk to Alex, first of old times, then of other things. Further than this Alex did not allow her thoughts to wander, at least with any clarity. Indeed much was unclear. The kitchen was scrubbed and accoutred, but who would cook his meals? Ruby and Alex had worked hard. A few pieces of furniture had been brought in from Belmont, but the house still had the airy, empty, rather pale, faintly provisional look which somehow suited it. It had never really been occupied. It had been a place for summer parties and populous fêtes of Stillowens long gone and scattered. Had her father, after her mother’s death, ever slept in this room, with the silver airship and the little dog and another woman? Alex could not believe it. The house, which the Ennistonians believed to be such a strange ambiguous place, was somehow innocent and unstained and unused, like her golden-haired brother who had died in the war, blown to pieces by a shell near Monte Cassino. She had seen his neat clean white little gravestone among hundreds of others in a beautiful Italian cemetery.
Alex padded down the slippery shallow wooden stairs and stood in the sitting-room, near to the picture of her childish self holding the little bouquet of flowers upon the shutter. There was a smell of wood smoke from a fire which she had experimentally lit in the big open grate in the kitchen. She had brought in an oval folding table from Belmont in case John Robert should elect to work downstairs. The beautiful parquet floor, upon which Alex’s slippers now skated softly, was dotted with rugs, geometrical Persian rugs from Belmont, and curious woollen rugs and rugs made out of rags which the architect had inspired Alex’s mother to buy especially Tor the Slipper House. Upon the walls, painted egg-shell blue, some wood engravings of curvaceous willow trees were hanging. There was an intense silence, outside of which a motor car was passing on the road at the bottom of the garden along which Father Bernard and John Robert had walked on their way to the Common. With a discreet sidelong glance she observed her reflection in the cut-glass fountain mirror. She felt ageless, poised and young, ready to begin the world anew.
At that moment a fox barked with a sharp hoarse anguished sound very near to the house, and the front door opened abruptly and someone came in. Alex put a hand on her heart. It was Ruby. Ruby looked through the open door of the sitting-room, saw Alex and came quickly towards her with an arm outstretched. Alex shuddered and stepped back, then accepted the letter which Ruby was holding out. For a moment she had felt as if her old servant were about to strike her. The impression was so strong that she was not able to bring out the dismissive ‘thank you’. She said nothing. The big brown creature stared at her, then turned and marched out. She had failed to take her shoes off at the door. Alex, who had already recognized John Robert’s handwriting, sat down on the window seat below the painted shutter. The letter had evidently been delivered by hand. She tore it open.
Dear Mrs McCaffrey,
I have received the details from Mr Osmore and am in agreement with the conditions of the tenancy of the Slipper House. I will pay the rent quarterly by banker’s order as suggested. I should perhaps have explained to you that I do not propose to occupy the Slipper House myself, but require it as a temporary residence for my granddaughter Harriet Meynell and her maid. The young women will of course look after themselves and not disturb you, and can come and go by the back gate. I am grateful to you for this convenience. I will give due notice of closure of tenancy in accordance with the agreement. I am shortly returning to the USA and take this opportunity to thank you and to bid you goodbye.
Yours sincerely,
J. R. Rozanov
Alex crumpled up the letter and stuffed it into her pocket. She stared across the room at one of the wood engravings and noticed how the willow branches had made a face, a rounded head, something like her son George. She felt instant ravening hatred for the ‘young women’ who would spoil and desecrate the beautiful innocent house. She wondered if she could now refuse the tenancy. No, it was too late. George’s head tangled into the willows looked as if it were drowning. She went out into the hall and shook off her slippers into the slipper box and put on her shoes. All the lights could be turned out by switches at the door, and she turned them out. She went out of the house and closed the door and locked it. The church bells were silent, the wet grass was soaking her shoes, she felt an old anguish which had perhaps been hanging somewhere in the garden in a thought-cloud from the past, her sudden piercing obsessive jealous remorse when she had heard that Linda Brent was going to marry John Robert Rozanov. Love she could give to no one expanded painfully in her heart.
‘Sing to me.’
‘No.’
‘Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel!’
‘No.’
‘Are you going to see your singing teacher?’
‘I put him off.’
‘Again?’
‘Again. Are you going to see your mother?’
‘Don’t nag me!’
‘What’s the stuff in that bottle?’
‘Ennistone water.’
‘Christ, I put it in my whisky. What’s that noise?’
‘Owls. The wind. The night mail approaching Ennistone station. Did you sing at evensong?’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘What was it like?’
‘High. I saw the “servant” in church.’
‘Who?’
‘Your mother’s servant.’
‘Oh Ruby - did anyone talk to you?’
‘The priest followed me, he said good evening.’
‘He’s an odd bird. He meditates to jazz music. He used to be a wrestler.’
‘Why didn’t you come?’
‘It would create a sensation. Did you like St Paul’s as well as Meeting?’
‘Yes.’
‘Better?’
‘No.’
‘Good. What was it Adam said to you after Meeting?’
‘He told me that a hoverfly has thirty thousand brain cells and we have billions.’
‘Got to keep our spirits u
p somehow. What did you like about Meeting?’
‘The silence. The little dog. What Mr Eastcote said.’
‘Yes - he makes one feel purified, washed clean, whiter than snow.’
‘Does he?’
‘Don’t you feel like that after communion?’
‘I haven’t taken communion for years. I haven’t been to church for years.’
‘Why did you go this evening?’
‘Because of Mr Eastcote.’
‘There you are!’
‘How long does your feeling go on?’
‘What feeling?’
‘Whiter than snow.’
‘Oh most of the time. I feel unfallen. How does wickedness start? And don’t pretend you know!’
‘Of course I know. Your ignorance is exceptional.’
‘Well, I always knew I was exceptional. I’ve nearly finished our song.’
‘Our song?’
‘The one you’re going to write music for and make our fortune.’
‘I can’t write music.’
‘You said you could.’
‘You misunderstood me.’
‘Will you swim tomorrow?’
‘No.’
‘But you’ll come?’
‘I want to stare at the philosopher.’
‘Wasn’t it delightful the way we rolled at his feet.’
‘It doesn’t delight me to appear a perfect fool to someone I respect.’
‘Of course you’ve read some of his books.’
‘If I’d had a hat I would have taken it off with a conspicuous gesture.’
‘Well, you certainly fell at his feet.’
‘My glasses got bent.’
‘We’ll hang around and have a retake.’
‘And I want to stare at your brother.’
‘George? I’ve still got a bruise where he savaged me.’
‘You think it was hate. Why shouldn’t it be love?’
‘I take a simpler view of love.’
‘If I had a brother like George I’d do something about him.’
‘If you had a brother like George you’d know you couldn’t.’
‘I’d bloody try.’
‘He fascinates you. He fascinates a lot of people. The unfascinated ones throw up their hands.’
‘And what do you do?’
‘Oh I care for George, but he’s impossible, he systematically destroys all the little links with life that most people depend on.’
‘Did he try to drown his wife?’
‘No, that was just something that Brian said! Brian hates him.’
‘Where is she?’
‘No one knows, probably gone to Japan.’
‘Japan?’
‘Her father lives there. He hates George too.’
‘Why don’t you drink? You annoy me sitting there with nothing to do.’
‘Why don’t you sing? Sing Phil the Fluter’s Ball.’
‘Yah.’
‘Where’s all that wild gaiety and smiling eyes and warm humorous charm?’
‘Shut up.’
‘You’re just pretend Irish.’
‘All Irish are pretend Irish.’
You don’t know what to say, I know,
In a way you want to stay,
In a way you want to go.
You can’t make up your mind.
You want to go away
But not leave me behind.
Let’s sit together and see,
In the same room just quietly,
Don’t be in pain, don’t talk of doom,
Don’t catch that train just yet.
While you play out your game
I’ll always be the same,
Let’s wait and see. Just don’t forget,
It’s only me.
I want you but only forever,
I can’t settle for less you.
I want you but only forever,
I won’t press you,
I won’t distress you
If I can’t possess you.
Don’t feel it a sin
You can pack it in at any time,
It’s not a crime,
I’ll bear it and I’ll grin!
I’ll be a hero most of all in this,
I’ll let you go with a loving kiss,
My heart is full of fear,
But you are free,
Don’t go away, my dear -
But if you do, I’ll smile and say
Good-bye, don’t cry, for you are you,
And I am only me.
Don’t tear yourself apart, darling,
How much I love you, you know, that’s not in doubt,
I don’t want to bruise your heart, darling,
You’re always free to go - out.
I won’t scream and shout.
Why should you love me after all,
There’s no good reason.
Any time can be the fall,
You can leave in any season.
I want you for my wife,
I want you all my life,
But if you fly away, and we can’t be together,
I won’t die, I’ll say
Good-bye, good flying weather, from only me.
I want you but only forever
Nothing else will do,
I want you but only forever,
That is my only you.
If you take flight
I won’t die out of spite,
I won’t cry out of spite,
I won’t be unkind
If you change your mind,
I won’t torment you,
Hide the pain in my heart,
Make it easy to part,
I won’t prevent you.
I want your happiness,
I won’t be bad,
I’ll say good-bye, God bless you,
And don’t be sad, darling -
It’s only me.
Tom was pleased with his pop song which had developed so quickly out of Adam’s germinal idea about the two snails. Later in the evening, after the conversation recorded above, he and Emma had got rather drunk together, and Tom had then retired to his bedroom to polish up his ode. Now it was after midnight. Tom occupied the back room with the view over the garden, and beyond over the town where the floodlight upon the cupola of Ennistone Hall had just been switched off. The town, beneath dark night clouds, composed a pattern of yellow dotted lines, a few pale window squares still visible here and there. The Ennistonians went early to bed. Tom had given himself over to the song, imagining in touching detail the situation which it portrayed: he, the hero, in love, but restraining his fierce possessive desire, the girl shy, gentle, timid, (a virgin?) unable to decide. He respects her indecision, even loves the vagueness which torments him, the fuzzy shadowy helpless non-logical uncertainty and lack of definition which Tom somehow associated with the girl whom he would one day love. (That very evening he and Emma had decided that neither of them had ever really been in love.) Tom, the hero, stands back, gives to the girl freedom, space and time, pressing down in his heart the fear of failure together with the painful need which would attempt to cage her. He wants her, but only forever, and must therefore envisage her loss, though this now seems like death. Tranquillizing his anguish of suspense, he is gentle with her, making her feel how simple, how friendly and kind, how very undangerous he is, just her old familiar admirer. But do girls like that sort of chap, Tom wondered suddenly. Well, in this song they do. Perhaps he would now write another song with a different sort of hero, not a gentleman. But in fact Tom did himself aspire to be a gentleman and believed that he was one. He could, he felt, never descend to the base level where sex is coarsely spoken of and women are deemed to be cattle. Of course Tom’s imagination occupied itself with women. He imagined protected girls who snuggle down in virgin cots at night. He thought too about rather wicked wild girls, who had run away from home, but he did not associate them with his mother. Perhaps Tom’s thoughts about women were influenced more than he ever realized by the
shade of Feckless Fiona, eternally young Fiona, waif and victim, whom it was somehow his task to save and keep unmarked by the world. And for her perhaps he had remained a little childish, and still thought of himself as innocent. As he had said to Emma, he felt unfallen and did not yet understand how wickedness began.
Emma was in bed in the larger front bedroom where the budding green plane trees filled the window, their speckled branches swaying in the wind, visible in the light of the street lamps of Travancore Avenue until Emma had drawn the curtains. He had spent some time earlier on trying to straighten out the frame of his glasses which had become twisted in the tumble down the slope in the railway cutting. He fiddled for a while, screwing up his eyes and occasionally rubbing the red mark which the wire bridge made upon his nose. Desisting at last, he had got into bed and resumed his reading of The Origins of Military Power in Spain 1800-1854.
