by Iris Murdoch
As Brian neared the top of the field he heard a car start. The others were catching up. Ruby stood waiting, surrounded by bags. Bill the Lizard’s big Rover began to bump up the track, reached the tarmac, roared round the corner and disappeared. George had disappeared too.
‘My God, the Rover’s gone. Where’s George?’
Ruby pointed toward the now empty road.
‘Alex, George has taken the Rover!’
Gabriel said, ‘I can understand his not wanting to go back with us after all that.’
‘Oh you can, can you! Alex, did you leave the key in the car?’
‘I always leave keys in cars.’
‘Typical you, typical George!’
Pearl drove Ruby and Alex with Hattie in the Volkswagen. As soon as the car started. Ruby handed Alex her watch. In the Austin, Gabriel sat in the front beside Brian, holding both Adam and Zed in her arms. She and Adam cried quietly all the way home. Brian kept gritting his teeth and murmuring, ‘Typical George!’ In the back, Emma fell asleep with his head on Tom’s shoulder.
‘Have they all gone?’ said Stella.
‘Yes.’ said May Blackett. ‘I watched the cars go.’
‘When is N arriving?’
‘He should be here in half an hour or so.’
Stella had moved downstairs to the big first-floor drawing-room at Maryville, with its wide bow windows overlooking the sea. One casement was open and a white curtain blew in and out. The sea was pale grey now, sheened over by a dimming pearly light. From the upstairs corner room, which was her bedroom, Stella had at intervals watched through long-distance glasses the various antics of the McCaffreys on the beach. Hidden, she had seen Ruby come and stand like a totem portent gazing at the house. And she had watched George coming walking along the road and pass by. After George disappeared she stopped looking out and came downstairs. May Blackett checked at intervals to see if the cars were still there.
‘He can’t have known?’
‘George? No.’
‘Ruby stared so at the house.’
‘Just curiosity.’
‘She has second sight.’
I should explain that I, N, the narrator, am about to intrude (though not for long) into the narrative, not to exhibit myself, but simply to offer an unavoidable explanation. People in Ennistone had been wondering whither Stella had fled, where she had so mysteriously gone to. Well, she had gone to me.
On the day, so much lamented by Gabriel, when Stella disappeared from Leafy Ridge, she had not set off for London or for Tokyo. She had taken one of Gabriel’s umbrellas (it was raining on that day), and thus concealing her conspicuous dark head ‘like that of an Egyptian queen’, had walked the distance, not great, to my house, not far from the Crescent, and there, one might say, gave herself up. When I use this phrase I simply mean that she came as one at the end of her tether and (let me emphasize) with no special thought in her head except to get safely away from the McCaffreys. I have had, and have, no ‘sentimental’ association with Stella, nothing of that sort is involved. I am considerably her senior. I am, as I said at the beginning, an Ennistonian, and I have known the McCaffreys, though not intimately, all my life, and Stella since her marriage. I think I may say that we are friends, and I do not use the word lightly. And we are both Jewish. Stella came to me as to the nearest ‘safe house’, a place ‘out of the world’, out of the pressure of time, where she could rest and think and decide. She fled from the kindness of Gabriel, and the smallness of her bedroom at ‘Como’, and from Adam, who made her think of Rufus, and from a place where George could find her. She came to me, not seeking for advice, or support in some ‘policy’, but just because she trusted me and knew I would hide her. (She is not the first person I have hidden.) Whether this particular flight was a good idea was something upon which doubt could be cast, and we did, in later discussions, cast it. At any rate, once the door of my house had closed upon Stella, a course of action was set and had to be followed. As Stella put it once, she was ‘in blood so stepped, returning were as tedious as go o’er’.
Stella’s removal from my house, Bath Lodge, to Maryville was my idea. I removed her simply because we had, for the moment, talked enough. Of course I gave her advice; it was impossible in conversations of such intensity not to. She did not take it; but indeed any view which I could form of the matter was tentative. And Stella was no sickly waif, she was a strong rational self-assertive woman who had, as she realized as time went on, put herself in an impossible position. She was paralysed between different courses of action and, with her pride at stake, unable to decide to move; and the longer the silence and the secrecy went on, the harder it was to see how it could be ended. Stella seemed to me in danger of settling down into an idea of being trapped, which the minute discussions she enjoyed with me tended to reinforce. I suggested an abrupt change of scene, and she agreed to go to Maryville, consigned to the care of a much longer-established friend of mine, May Blacken, the mother of Jeremy and Andrew. Stella was fond of May and respected her. The situation as it then was may best be clarified, at any rate exhibited, by a transcription of the conversation which took place that evening after dinner between Stella and me.
‘I see you’ve set out the netsuke, my old friends.’
‘Yes — ’
‘I especially like that demon hatching out of his egg.’
‘You would. You were the only person who really looked at them. I’m glad I rescued them from George, he would have enjoyed smashing them. The idea was certain to occur to him some time.’
‘Have you written to your father?’
‘Not like you said. I just sent a note to say I’d be away in France for a while.’
‘It must have been odd to see the McCaffreys at play.’
‘A shock, yes. It made me feel such a traitor to them all.’
‘Because you’ve taken refuge with the enemy.’
‘Yes. Well, for George everyone is the enemy. But where have I been all this time, what on earth can I ever tell them?’
‘Lies. I’ll think of some.’
‘Don’t be facetious. How loathsome it all is. And I’ve involved you.’
‘Don’t worry about me. I’m stormproof.’
‘I’ve put myself in the wrong, and that paralyses my willpower. I feel I’m in a steel box or something.’
‘People get out of boxes, it’s often easier than they think.’
‘I can’t see how to get out of this one. Have you any new idea? God, as if you hadn’t other things to think of.’
‘What did you instantly feel when you saw George pass by this afternoon?’
‘So close, so close. Frightful fear, like an electric shock. Then when I saw he wasn’t coming here, an intense desire to run out after him and that was like fear too. He looked so lonely.’
‘You don’t feel you could just go back to Druidsdale, just turn up?’
‘No.’
‘Or write to him simply to say you’re OK?’
‘No. I’m not OK. And he doesn’t care.’
‘Just to have written the letter would be a step. Move one piece and you alter the board.’
‘Yes, yes, like you said.’
‘Any act might change the scene in ways you can’t now foresee, and I don’t see that this one would do harm. I’d post the letter in London. It would make for a kind of vagueness, less intensity, more space.’
‘I know what you mean. But anything I do would commit me and I’m terrified of making a mistake. I can’t do anything until I’ve cleared my mind. That makes sense, doesn’t it?’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘At least now I’m free — ’
‘I thought you were in a steel box.’
‘I mean I can think about it. I feel I’m poised - like a rocket that might go off different ways. Better to wait.’
‘You regard George as a problem to be solved. Maybe you should relax and give up.’
‘You mean go bobbing back to him like a piece of flots
am, like an ordinary person? All right, laugh!’
‘Why not go to Tokyo?’
‘And tell my father he was right?’
‘Or invite him here. You know how much I’ve always wanted to meet him.’
‘Oh, you two would get on terrifyingly well. Invite him into this shambles? No.’
‘You want to get everything right all at once. Why not fiddle around with the bits? What does May think now?’
‘She thinks I ought to plan carefully how to be happy for the rest of my life! You know, sometimes the thought of happiness torments me. This house reeks of happiness, it drives me mad. Sometimes I’m happy in my dreams. Then it’s as if George was blotted out, as if he’s never been.’
‘Well, why not blot George out?’
‘You said go on a journey, only the journey must be a pilgrimage. There isn’t any holy place for me to go to.’
‘Jerusalem?’
‘Don’t be silly. That means something to you. It means nothing to me. I used to think that if I went to Delphi I’d receive some sort of illumination, but I know now that Delphi is empty too. My holy place is George. And it is an abomination.’
‘I meant to blot him out effectively, write saying you want a divorce, and imagine how he’d curse, and then he’d smile and then he’d cheer. Conceive that he might be better off without you. That would be one way of taking the weight off yourself!’
‘All right, I am self-obsessed. But I couldn’t divorce George. It’s not possible. All that unfinished business.’
‘You want power over him. You want to save him your way. One can’t always finish business, put that picture out of your head. If you can’t decide to leave him, then go back, without waiting for the right time, without knowing what it’s all about and without the intention of fixing or finishing or clarifying anything. You can talk to George, that remains — ’
‘Yes, in a way, but — ’
‘He envies you, he fears you, give up your power.’
‘As if that was easy. You should know.’
‘You’re the particular principle of order he rejects. That’s as important as the particular religion one doesn’t believe in.’
‘You flatter me. That sounds like a rational link. There are links, but they are deep and awful.’
‘Yes, I know. Do you mind if we go over one or two things again?’
‘No. All right, you ask the questions.’
‘And you forgive me?’
‘One has to forgive the executioner. Not to would be fearfully bad form. You told me to keep off tranquillizers and endure it all, I am enduring it all, it hasn’t made me wise.’
‘About Rufus — ’
‘It isn’t Rufus, it isn’t Alan or Alex or Fiona or Tom - not those old theories - not really - it’s something aboriginal.’
‘I’m talking about you, not George.’
‘Oh, I know you’ve got a theory there too. All right. Rufus’s death was my fault, it happened in a second, due to my carelessness and stupidity - and then I couldn’t get in touch with George, he wasn’t at the Museum, I had to wait until he came home to tell him, I sometimes think I died during that wait and everything since has been a dream of life. Of course I feel the loss of Rufus every second, that death is the air I breathe, I relive that accident … But that it has got mixed up with … George and … that’s extra …’
‘Yes.’
‘It was impossible to talk about it afterwards, we didn’t talk about it to each other or to anyone else. George never asked for the details and I never told them, except for saying it was my fault and saying, oh - very vaguely - what happened. He never said anything. I’ve never looked, even glanced, into the depths of how George felt, how he blamed me in his heart — ’
‘Perhaps less than you imagine.’
‘How he accused me, what a process he set up - these words don’t fit - it’s ineffable. And then later on people began to say it was his fault, they even hinted it was deliberate, they believed terrible things - and I didn’t say a word. And now if I shouted “I did it” they would still think it was him. How can I leave him after that?’
‘Because he took the blame.’
‘No, no, those words are too feeble, I tell you it’s ineffable, it’s absolute, it’s like being damned together, tied together and thrown into the flames.’
‘Isn’t this what must be undone?’
‘Theories, theories, you keep looking for a key, even this isn’t fundamental. Yes, he “took the blame”. It has made him worse.’
‘I think it has made you worse.’
‘You think I should forgive myself.’
‘And him in the same movement. Guilt and resentment often get mixed up together. You deeply resent - whatever it was he did - to protect himself - from that terrible thing. You said the other day that he “lapped it up like a cat lapping cream”. I remember that curious phrase.’
‘Did I say that? Of course that doesn’t describe it. His heart was utterly smashed - Rufus was - well, you know - for both of us — ’
‘Yes.’
‘What I meant was that at once George began to make it all into something else, something awful, against me - oh, to protect himself, as you just said. But to mix up that awful pain with vile spite and malice and absolute misrepresentation and lies - that sort of deep determination to change what really is into a horrible machine to hurt somebody else - that’s the activity of the devil - it corrupts everything, everything.’
‘But you see it both ways round.’
‘Exactly. It was my fault and I kept silent about it - I kept silent first because it was too terrible to speak of, and later because - because it wasn’t anybody else’s business and I couldn’t — ’
‘You couldn’t stoop to counter the vile things people were casually saying about George — ’
‘Yes. It would simply have made them talk more, they would have said I was shielding him, they would have loved it. But because of - the thing itself - and the silence - I am to blame. So in a way George is right and can tell himself so. But the way he has made it into a weapon against me - sort of silently, malevolently - is so awful - it’s a caricature of any real condemnation, it’s the opposite, it’s the exact opposite of the response which love and pity would have made.’
‘So objectively you are guilty and George is right, only as he works it he’s absolutely wrong.’
‘Yes. And what you call seeing it both ways round is part of the torment. It’s warfare, it’s hell, hell is this sort of warfare.’
‘You spoke of George’s “determination”, but what about yours? You see him as acting silently and malevolently. This is the picture which you have worked upon. No doubt George moves instinctively, as we all do, to save himself. So he makes something of the matter. But so do you. He can’t afford love and pity. But it seems you can’t either.’
Stella was silent for a moment, reflecting. ‘If I believed that such springs could flow - but all my strength goes into not being destroyed. I don’t want to become a machine of misery and hate. I want to stay rational. Just trying to think clearly about George is the best I can do by way of love and pity and such. You don’t think he’s likely to kill himself?’
‘No.’
‘Suicide has always seemed to me so abstract. No one could wholeheartedly do it.’
‘We are abstract beings and rarely wholehearted.’
‘I know you respect suicide because of Masada.’
‘Oh don’t speak of that. Suicides are often acts of revenge, or proofs of omnipotence.’
‘That sounds like George. But no, I don’t see him as a suicide either. A lynch mob might kill him one day. Yet inner violence is a power, like magic, people fear it.’
‘He’d be protected, hedged!’
‘Yes. Like a king.’
‘Like a king, which he has to be since you’re a queen. You once said you felt like a princess who had married a commoner. “It tells in the end”, you said.’
; ‘Did I? The things I say, and you remember them all!’
‘Don’t be too busy with those pictures. It is good to declare a blankness now and then. We are not anything very much, not even machines. You imagine that your thoughts are rays of power. Simple actions may be a better way to just views.’
‘Simple actions — ’
‘Undertaken in a light shed from outside, some ordinary faith or hope, nothing clever.’
‘You are preaching humility again! Like going home. If I could see that as a duty - but I can’t. I can’t walk into the dark. I’ve got to have a picture, I’ve got to have a plan. You still don’t think Diane Sedleigh is important?’
‘A toy, a divertissement. You aren’t worried about her?’
‘Yes. But I understand what I feel about her, it’s plain and wholesome compared with the rest. I used to think he might kill her. I believe he was with her when Rufus died. You don’t think George is simply mad?’
‘No.’
‘Or epileptic?’
‘No.’
‘Electric shocks, all that?’
‘No.’
‘But you think it’s dangerous, this waiting, this letting time pass? I’ve become obsessed with “letting time pass”, I can’t arrest it, I can’t use it. I used to classify it all as “an unhappy marriage”, but it isn’t, it’s vast. Of course his having no job makes it worse, he can sit and have fantasies. He imagines awful things. He used to tell me, centuries ago.’
‘Were you together in that?’
‘You mean, was I fascinated? Yes, before I started to — ’
‘Fear him.’
‘Hate him, or whatever it is.’
‘And you are still fascinated.’
‘It’s closer than fascination. I am George. Suppose I went back, would I be safe?’
