by Iris Murdoch
Levquist stared at him, pouting his thick lips and drawing down the corners, his face become a sneering mask.
Gerard said, ‘All right.’
Levquist went on, ‘I am close to death. That is no scandal, old age is a well-known phenomenon. But now the difference is that everyone is close to death.’
Gerard said, ‘Yes.’ He thought, it consoles him to think so.
‘All thought which is not pessimistic is now false.’
‘But you would say it has always been?’
‘Yes. Only now it is forced upon all thinking people, it is the only possible conception. Courage, endurance, truthfulness, these are the virtues. And to recognise that of all things we are the most miserable that creep between the earth and the sky.’
‘But this cheers you up, sir!’ said Gerard.
Levquist smiled. His dark blue-brown eyes gleamed out moistly from between the dry saurian wrinkles and he shook his over-large cropped head and smiled his demon’s smile. ‘You are cheered up, you were always the optimist, you think always, at the last moment, they will send a trireme.’
Gerard assented. He liked the image.
‘But no. Man is ever mortal, he thinks by fit and start, and when he thinks, he fastens his hand upon his heart.’ As he spoke Levquist lifted his big wrinkled hand to the upper pocket of his shabby corduroy jacket. Living his life amid the greatest poetry in the world, he retained a touching affection for A. E. Housman.
Somebody knocked on the door.
‘There is another,’ said Levquist. ‘You must go. Salute your father from me. And salute the Honourable Rose. This was a short talk, come again, not just on such a day, to see the old man.’
Gerard stood up. He felt, as on other occasions, a strong impulse to move round the desk and seize Levquist’s hands, perhaps kiss them, perhaps even kneel down. Would the classical suppliant rite of embracing the knees enable him to carry off such a gesture, make it something formal, not to be rejected as a ‘soft’ rush of graceless emotion? As on other occasions he hesitated, then inhibited the impulse. Did Levquist know of his feelings, of their tenderness and strength? He was not sure. He contented himself with a bow.
Levquist growled permission to enter. Then he uttered a name.
Gerard passed a rosy-cheeked forty-year-old in the doorway. Aching with jealousy, and with remorse at not having managed a more affectionate farewell, he descended the stairs.
Tamar was looking for Conrad, Conrad was looking for Tamar. Rose and Jenkin were looking for Jean and Duncan and Conrad and Tamar. Gull was looking for a girl to dance with.
Tamar had wandered away from the tent, whither Conrad had rushed to see his idol, in a momentary fit of pique which she now bitterly regretted. She had come back almost at once and even approached a group of young worshippers, but could not see Conrad there. Conrad, unable to get near Crimond, had stood a while spellbound on the outside of the circle. Then, realising Tamar had not followed him, he searched the marquee, and, uncertain of the point at which he had entered, had set off on a circular track about what he thought was the place where they parted company. Tamar had then set off on a straight course toward the next marquee, the waltzing one, toward which they had been making their way when they met Gulliver. She stood for a while here staring about, saw Rose waltzing with Gerard and retired quickly. She was very fond of her uncle and of Rose, but shy with them, and anxious now not to be discovered without her partner, whom she blamed herself for having lost. Soon after Tamar had faded back into the darkness Conrad arrived, also saw Rose and Gerard, and with a similar motive made himself scarce. Tamar had meanwhile gone toward the cloisters, where there was a buttery which served sandwiches, and which Conrad had suggested they should locate just before they decided to dance first. Conrad hurried back toward the Waterbirds tent where the famous pop group were rumoured to be about to perform again. Tamar searched through a lot of people who were drinking and laughing beside the buttery and went into the chapel, another point mentioned by Conrad as to be visited later. She passed back through the cloisters and out toward the river just as Conrad entered from the other side.
Time passed, supper was over, and the dance had entered a new phase, the big expanse of grass between the glowing stripy marquees was covered with beautiful people, the handsome boys in their frilly shirts, now somewhat undone at the neck, the girls in their shimmering dresses, sleek and flouncy, now considerably less tidy, where here and there an errant shoulder strap, snapped when dancing the Gay Gordons, was being exploited by a laughing partner, and elaborately woven mounds of hair, so carefully constructed hours ago with innumerable pins, had come undone or been demolished by eager male fingers and streamed down backs and over shoulders. Some couples in darker corners were passionately kissing each other or locked in wordless embraces, the longed-for climax of the longed-for evening. Some dresses carried tell-tale stains of grass. The rival musics continued unabated, the Waterbirds raucously shouting into a maelstrom of flashing lights and electronic din. The dancing in the various tents was slightly less dense but wilder.
Tamar had started to cry, and, attempting to compose herself, had wandered away toward the river and was standing on the bridge. Lights upon the bank strewed the water with streamers or ribbons of brightness which frisked here and there upon the surface before being suddenly darkened and plucked under. As she leaned over she could hear, under the other more distant din, the faint river sound, self-absorbed and permanent. When other people moved onto the bridge she crossed it, but turned back when she saw in the darkness the discreet forms of bowler-hatted security guards, strategically set to keep the envious rabble who had not paid for the expensive tickets from sneaking in to the glittering celebration. She went across the lawn toward the ‘New Building’. A little earlier than this Conrad had run into Jenkin. Jenkin, who saw how upset the boy was, did not ‘tick him off’, but could not conceal his dismay that Conrad had, as he confessed, mislaid Tamar immediately on arrival and before they had even had a dance. After this encounter Conrad was even more upset, realising that his failure (for he entirely blamed himself) would now come to the ears of Gerard, even perhaps of Crimond. Mainly he felt wretched for having so deplorably, perhaps unforgivably, offended Tamar, whom he had so much looked forward to being with, dancing with, kissing, on what was to have been such a wonderful evening to which she too must have looked forward. He had not, like Tamar, framed beforehand the idea of falling in love. But now, running more frantically, randomly, from place to place, senselessly revisiting the same scenes and missing others altogether, charging across the grass and jostling young men with brimming glasses and stepping on girls’ dresses, tormented by continual hope and continual disappointment, he felt all the anguish of a frustrated lover. A little later he nerved himself to go up to Levquist’s rooms where Jenkin told him (information which Gerard had so unfortunately forgotten to impart to Tamar) that there was a ‘base’, but when he arrived there was no one there. He stood awhile in the empty room which was scattered with bottles and glasses, too unhappy even to give himself a drink, and then, as waiting was even more painful than searching, ran off again. Tamar, exhausted, was sitting in one of the tents, bowing her head to conceal her tears and trying to make up her face. She had put down her cashmere shawl somewhere, she could not recall where, and was feeling cold. Conrad, looking in hastily, failed to see her.
Meanwhile Rose had run into Lily Boyne. Lily and Rose liked each other, but there was caution and incomprehension on both sides. Lily thought that Rose regarded her as rather uneducated and ‘common’. Rose was afraid that Lily thought that Rose regarded her as uneducated (which Rose did think) and ‘common’ (which Rose did not). In fact Rose did not possess this concept, but vaguely posited something of the sort. She feared Lily might think she was ‘snooty’, which Lily did not think. Rose found Lily rather ‘bouncy’ and could not always get the ‘tone’ of her witticisms or answer them spontaneously. But Lily admired Rose for being calm and sensible and k
ind and nice, which not all of Lily’s acquaintances were, and Rose admired Lily for being tough, and imagined her to be brave and ‘worldly’ in ways which remained, for Rose, mysterious and obscure. They did not in fact know each other very well. Lily Boyne had come into the ken of Gerard and his friends through Jean Kowitz (Jean Cambus, that is, but her maiden name somehow lingered as some maiden names do), who had met Lily a few years ago in a context of ‘women’s lib’, and come to know her better in a yoga class where they both frequently stood on their heads. This was before Lily became, briefly, famous. Lily had been, as Gulliver once remarked, one of those numerous people who are simply famous for being famous. Lily was now, or rather was credited with being, a rich girl. She had emerged from a poor and chaotic home, started adult life at a polytechnic, played about with pottery and graphic design, imagined herself a painter, then earned her living as a typist. In due course, and in a moment of reckless despair, she married a frail penniless art student called James Farling. How often since had she blessed that pale unhappy boy for having actually persuaded her to marry him! She kept her maiden name of course. Soon after the marriage a series of unforeseen demises in the Farling family brought the family fortune, about which Lily had known nothing, to rest upon James. James was an unworldly boy who cared little for money and had in any case been, before the intervention of the fates, remote from inheritance. Rich, he still cared little, and was only just prevented by Lily, who cared much, from handing it all over to his indignant surviving relations. Then, urged by his wife to spend, he bought a motor bike, riding which, on the day he bought it, he was killed. After that the family fell upon Lily to destroy her. Lily fought back. Her case seemed clear, but clever lawyers had already been at work to find flaws in James’s claim. It became a cause célèbre. In the end the matter was settled out of court, after Lily had surrendered numerous goodies. Lily did not emerge without discredit since, in her rage, she had told some transparent lies. But she was, for a short time, a popular heroine, the ‘poor girl’, fighting against the avaricious rich, the lone woman fighting a cohort of men. It was in the latter role that she attracted the ardent attention of Jean Kowitz who was at that time very concerned with various women’s liberation causes. It was almost as if Jean had fallen in love with her, so angry and excited did she become on Lily’s behalf. Rose too was drawn in and saw quite a lot of Lily, who also, through Jean, became acquainted with Gerard and the rest. When the fighting was over and the publicity died down Jean rather ‘went off’ Lily; she took a high line about Lily’s telling lies. But Rose kept up with her, partly feeling sorry for her. For Lily’s wealth brought her little happiness, and was in any case being steadily eroded by a stream of plausible men. She had acquired expensive tastes and the idea that she deserved fame. She seemed to have few friends and little notion of how to conduct her life.
‘Rose!’ screamed Lily, ‘what a perfectly scrumptious dress! You always get it right! So simple, so absolutely you!’
They had met near to the Waterbirds marquee and had to raise their voices. The sound of shoes drumming upon the hollow wooden boarding made a continuous ground bass.
‘You look lovely,’ said Rose, ‘rather oriental. I adore those trousers.’
Lily, who was alone, was dressed in baggy orange silk trousers, drawn in at the ankle by spangled bands, and a floppy white silk blouse weighted by gold chains and anchored by a purple sash into which a transparent silvery scarf covering her shoulders was also tucked. This gear had by now begun to come adrift, the trousers escaping from the bands, the blouse from the sash, the silver scarf hanging down behind on one side. Lily was shorter and thinner than Rose, very thin in fact, and had a thin almost gaunt pale face and short dry weightless fair hair and a long neck. It is possible for a girl to have too long a neck, and Lily’s could be said to be on the border between the swan-like and the grotesque. She had a way of accentuating it by thrusting her head forward and staring out of her face as through a muslin mask; she experienced this as cat-like, as ‘putting on her cat face’. Her lips were exceedingly thin, a continued cause of distress. Her eyes, ‘melted sugar eyes’ one of the plausible men called them, were a disconcerting pale brown with a dark rim and blue and brown stripes leading in to the pupil, thus resembling some kind of sweetmeat. She was wearing a lot of make-up, also in need of attention, and had generously outlined her lips with silver paint. She spoke with a drawling north London voice which had become deracinated and sometimes sounded American.
‘I came with that shit Crimond,’ said Lily, ‘now he’s ditched me, the swine. Have you seen him anywhere?’
‘No, sorry,’ said Rose. ‘I wonder if you’ve seen Tamar?’
‘The little thing, is she here? No, I haven’t seen her. Christ, what a din. How are you these days?’
‘Fine –’
‘Let’s meet –’
‘Yes, let’s be in touch.’
They parted. Tamar, seeing Rose talking to Lily, retreated toward the archway which led through into the deer park.
As Gerard emerged from Levquist’s staircase he found Jenkin Riderhood waiting for him at the bottom.
As he came out he was conscious that the night sky, which had never really darkened, had become very faintly lighter, and this touched him with a sad prophetic emotion. In the intense concentration of his encounter with Levquist Gerard had completely forgotten everything else, where he was, why he was there, even the references to his father, Sinclair, Rose, had appeared as part of Levquist’s thought rather than of his own. Now he suddenly remembered the news which Gulliver had brought to them. First of all however he said to Jenkin, ‘Have you found Tamar?’
‘No, but I met Conrad. He’d lost her and was still looking!’
‘I hope you gave him a wigging.’
‘It wasn’t necessary, he was in a terrible state, poor boy.’
‘We must – what’s the matter, Jenkin?’
‘Come with me. I want to show you something.’
Jenkin took hold of Gerard’s hand and began to pull him along a cross the trampled grass through the scattered strolling of bemused dancers, some still enchanted, some happy beyond their wildest dreams, some concealing grief, some simply drunk, the fading magic of the new light showing their faces more intensely. Near the end of the arcade a youth was being sick, his partner standing guard with her back to him.
Jenkin led Gerard to the ‘sentimental’ tent where he had danced with Rose, and where a wilder strain of music could now be heard. An eightsome reel was in progress; but the floor had emptied, and an audience, standing in a dense ring, was watching eight evidently expert dancers, the men wearing kilts, who were performing in the centre. One of these was Crimond. It was evident who, in the rotatory movement of the dance, his partner was. Jean Cambus had hitched much of her long red dress up over a belt round her waist, revealing her black-stockinged legs, and her flying skirt came little below her knees. Her narrow hawklike face, usually as pale as ivory, was flushed and dewy with sweat and her dark straight heavy shoulder-length hair, whirling about, had plastered some of its strands across her brow. Her fine Jewish head, usually so stately and so cold, had now, her dark eyes huge and staring, a fierce wild oriental look. She did not, in the weaving of the dance, turn her head, her small feet in low-heeled slippers seemed to dart upon the air, only when her gaze met her partner’s did her glaring eyes flame up, unsmiling. Her lips were parted, indeed her mouth was slightly open, not breathless but as if with a kind of rapacity. Crimond was not sweating. His face was, as usual in repose, pallid, expressionless, even stern, but his slightly freckled skin, which normally looked sallow so that he could have been called pasty-faced, was now gleaming and hard. His hair, narrowly wavy and longish, once a flaming red now a faded orange, adhered closely to his head, no flying locks. His light blue eyes did not follow his partner, nor did they, when he faced her, change their cold even grim expression. His thin lips, drawn inward, made of his mouth a straight hard line. With his conspicuously lo
ng thin nose he reminded Gerard, watching, of one of the tall Greek kouroi in the Acropolis museum, only without the mysterious smile. Crimond danced well, not with abandonment, but with a magisterial precision, his torso stiff, his shoulders held well back, as taut as a bow and yet as resilient and weightless as a leaping dog. His picturesque garb had also remained orderly, the elaborate white shirt, the close-fitting black velvet jacket with silver buttons, the sporran swinging at the knee, the silver-handled dirk in place in the sock, the neat buckled shoes. His male companions, all excellent dancers, were dandyish too, but only Crimond had not unbuttoned his shirt. The heavy kilts, their closely pleated backs rippling and swirling, emphasised their owners’ indifference to the force of gravity.
Jenkin watched Gerard for a few moments to see that his friend was suitably affected, then turned to watch himself. He murmured, ‘I’m glad I saw this. He’s like Shiva.’
Gerard said, ‘Don’t –’ The new image, intruding upon his own, was not inappropriate.
The music suddenly ended. The dancers became immobile, hands aloft; then gravely bowed to each other. The audience, released from enchantment, laughed, clapped, stamped their feet. The orchestra immediately began again, with the sugary strain of ‘Always’, and the floor was at once crowded with couples. Crimond and Jean, who had been standing with hanging arms staring at each other, took each a step forward, then glided away together, lost to sight among the dancers.
‘What tartan was that?’ said Jenkin to Gerard as they moved away.
‘Macpherson.’
‘How do you know?’
‘He told me once, it was the one he was entitled to.’
‘I thought it might be any old one.’
‘He’s meticulous. Where’s Duncan?’
