by Iris Murdoch
‘You’re wrong about the others, they treasure you.’
‘Like a mascot.’
‘Rose adores you – but let’s not argue about that – I don’t even care about it – and maybe you’re right that such things are hopelessly mixed up between illusion and reality, perhaps all things are –’
‘What don’t you care about?’
‘Them, the others – well, I do care, yes, I do – and I deny what you said about being odd man out – but I could do without them.’
‘You know, Gerard,’ said Jenkin, staring at him at last, ‘I don’t think you could! You’ve been supported by them all your life. You’ve liked being chief among us, why not, the cleverest, the handsomest, the most successful, the most loved – and it’s true you have been these things, you still are – but you do depend on it or something like it, and I don’t. Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not thinking of going away because I’ve discovered that nobody loves me! I’m just chucking out your argument about I mustn’t go because I’m needed. I’m not needed. It’s you they all look to, it’s you they all depend on, and so –’
‘They –?’
‘Well, we, I’ve depended on you too, as you know. That’s another thing I’ve got to get away from. Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that. Everything I’m saying now can be misunderstood, I wish you hadn’t started this conversation, I hate this sort of conversation.’
‘You’ve got to get away from me?’
‘Yes, but it’s nothing personal, Gerard! It’s just part of wanting to be properly by myself. I’ve begun to feel I was kidnapped in my cradle, kidnapped by a group of the dearest best people in the world, but –’
‘I’m sorry it’s nothing personal! It isn’t – excuse this, but since we’re being so frank – it isn’t that you’re jealous of the others, or imagine that I’m closer to them than to you, because if that’s it you’ve got it very wrong –’
‘No, that’s not it! Really, Gerard!’
‘Sorry. I seem to be making rather a mess of some things I wanted to say to you.’
‘Well, I think you’ve said them and no harm’s done, so let’s leave it there.’
‘I haven’t said them, I’ve given the wrong impression –’
‘Let’s change the subject.’
‘Do you want me to go?’
‘No, not unless you want to. Please yourself.’
‘Jenkin!’
‘I don’t understand what all this is supposed to be about, and I suggest that we leave it! There are plenty of other things we can talk about, serious things and nice things – I didn’t mean to be short with you – I’m sorry –’
‘I’m sorry. May I start again?’
‘Oh Lord – if you must!’
‘I don’t want you to go away and I beg you not to go away. I need you, you, and not anybody else. I love you, I need you –’
‘Well, I love you too, old man, if it comes to that, but –’
‘Look, Jenkin, this is serious, it’s the most serious thing in the world, in my world. I want to get to know you better, much better, I want to come closer to you, I want us to share a house, I want us to live together, to travel together, to be together, I want to be able to see you all the time, to be with you – I want you to come home – you’ve never had a home – I want you to come home to me. I’m not saying this is possible, I’m telling you what I want, and very very much want – and if you consider what I say and understand it you’ll see why it is I don’t want you to go away.’
There was a moment’s silence. Jenkin stared at Gerard, not exactly with amazement, but with a bright, even radiant, open-mouthed open-eyed attention. ‘Gerard – is this a proposal of marriage?’
‘It’s a declaration of love,’ said Gerard in a testy irritated tone, ‘and well, yes, if you like it’s a proposal of marriage. I expect you find it all a bit quaint, but since you use the phrase –’
Jenkin began to laugh. He rocked. He put his glass down on the tiles of the fireplace and leaned forward, one hand on his ribs, the other pulling at the neck of his shirt, he wailed with laughter until his mouth and eyes were wet, several times he tried to check himself and say something, but the words were overtaken by another paroxysm of mirth.
Gerard watched him sternly, dismayed, but glad that he had managed at last to make something like the clear coherent speech which he had intended to utter. As soon as he had spoken he felt an immediate freedom, an open space, a connection with Jenkin which had been lacking before. That utterance gave him, in his increasing disarray as he watched the effect of his words, a feeling of warmth.
Jenkin at last became calmer, mopping his eyes, his lips, his brow with a large torn handkerchief liberally stained with ink. ‘Oh dear – oh dear –’ he kept saying, and then, ‘Oh Gerard – I’m so sorry – will you ever forgive me – I’m a monster – how can I have laughed like that – it’s disgraceful –’
‘Did you actually hear what I said?’
‘Yes – every word – I took it all in – “come live with me and be my love” – and I’m so grateful, I’m so touched – I feel really – humble, privileged – you quite overwhelm me!’
‘Cut that out.’
‘A proposal – and sex too? Oh Lord!’ He began to laugh helplessly again.
‘Why not,’ said Gerard, now cold and frowning, ‘but that’s not the point. It doesn’t matter. I’ve said what I mean. I don’t know you very well, Jenkin, I want to know you better, I want our friendship to become closer –’
‘To blossom like an old dry thorn tree?’
‘But since you find it so overpoweringly funny I’d better take that as an answer and take myself off. I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed you, and I shall be very sorry if later on, when you think about it, you find what I’ve said offensive. I daresay you’ll find it ridiculous enough. I hope this curious little episode will not in any way affect the friendship which we have enjoyed so long and which you just now described as an old dry thorn tree.’ As he said this Gerard got up and reached for his damp overcoat which he had draped over a chair.
Jenkin leapt to his feet. ‘Oh but I won’t, I don’t, I can’t find it offensive or ridiculous or – or – anything like that – of course I’m so flattered –’
‘I daresay you are,’ said Gerard putting on his coat.
‘But – and – you know – of course our friendship is affected, it’s deeply affected, it can never be the same again.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘Don’t be sorry, please understand, if you wanted us to become nearer together, well, we’ve come, don’t you see? Shock tactics do things, they break barriers, they open vistas – I’m very sorry I laughed –’
‘I liked your laughing,’ said Gerard, ‘but I don’t know what it meant and I doubt if it’s a good omen for me!’
‘Don’t go,’ said Jenkin, standing where he was by his chair, with his radiant attentive face on which the wrinkles and tears of laughter could still be seen. ‘Oh dear – how can I say it – something here is absolutely all right – Why is one so shy of using the word “love”?’
‘I’m not. Perhaps you won’t go away – leave us – leave me?’
‘I don’t know. But don’t worry. I’m very glad that you said all that. You won’t regret it, will you?’
‘I hope not. I expect we’ll talk again about all sorts of things, those serious and nice things you mentioned earlier.’
‘Oh yes – but about these things too – and please – don’t be – don’t feel – Look, Gerard, stay here for a bit, will you? Let’s just sit quietly and look at each other and calm down and have another drink and listen to the rain. My God, I think I need some whisky after this!’
At that moment, as they stood gazing at each other, there was an extraordinary banging sound. Someone, not finding the bell in the darkness, was pounding on the door with a fist, producing a loud echoing noise. Jenkin sprang across the room and out into the hall. Gerard follow
ed him, instinctively turning on the centre light. He saw, beyond Jenkin, in the now open doorway, a strange figure, which he remembered afterwards as like a tall thin utterly bedraggled blackbird.
It was Tamar, bare-headed, her hair, darkened by the rain and disordered by the wind, covering her brow and cheeks with a dark network, her long black mackintosh shining with water, her arms hanging empty-handed by her sides like broken wings. As she stepped or staggered in Jenkin gripped her and held her. Gerard moved past him to shut the door against the downpour.
Tamar, released by Jenkin, slipped off her coat which fell to the floor. She began slowly, as if every movement were exhausting her, to draw back her dripping wet hair from her face. Jenkin picked up her coat, then materialised with a towel. Tamar began mechanically to dry her face and hair.
Gerard said, ‘Tamar, Tamar! What is it? Were you looking for me?’
Tamar, not looking at either of them, said, ‘No, I want to talk to Jenkin.’
Tamar’s skirt, stained with water, was clinging to her legs. She turned toward Jenkin and seemed about to fall stiffly into his arms. He supported her, then began to propel her into the sitting room.
Gerard said, ‘I’d better go.’ He waited another moment.
Jenkin, at the sitting room door, said, ‘Goodnight then, my dear, we’ll talk again, just don’t worry –’
Gerard went out into the rain, closing the door behind him. He had no umbrella and no hat. He was ridiculously annoyed at having uttered his silly assumption that Tamar must have been looking for him. He walked along with the rain soaking his hair and running down his neck. He was extremely disturbed by his talk with Jenkin and very sorry that he had not been able to stay longer and, as Jenkin had so wisely suggested, simply sit quietly together. He could not make out what had happened between him and Jenkin and whether it was a good move or a disaster. He felt a separate and sharp pain simply at having had to leave Jenkin’s presence. This was new. He felt a new kind of dread. He tried, as he walked along the pavements where the light of the lamps was reflected in streams of water, to drive away his sudden forebodings and hold onto Jenkin’s laughter as onto something good.
Tamar was sitting beside the little gas fire and gazing at it. She had wrung water out of her wet skirt. She had refused food, tea, coffee, but had accepted a glass of whisky and water, which she had held onto without drinking and now put down on the floor. Jenkin, in distress, was asking, ‘Tamar, dear child, what is it, tell me, please tell me?’
She lifted her head at last, not looking at Jenkin but sightlessly across the room, and said, ‘Yes, yes, I’ll tell you. I became pregnant with Duncan’s child, and now I have killed it.’
Jenkin, who had been standing, retained his shock, stepping back as if some great object had been propelled against his body. His face flushed and he gasped. He sat down opposite to her, pulling his chair near and leaning forward. ‘Tamar, dear, take it easy. Just tell me exactly what you mean.’
Tamar gave a very long deep shuddering sign and went on in a dead listless voice, ‘Oh I don’t mean I had the child and drowned it or anything like that. It was never born. I had an abortion.’
‘What a terrible experience,’ said Jenkin, stupid with pity and anguish. ‘But – but – you say it was – Duncan’s child?’
‘Yes, I went to bed with Duncan once – I mean on one occasion. I felt I loved him, I wanted to comfort him. He said he couldn’t have children. So perhaps it was a sort of miracle. Only I killed the child.’
‘Are you sure it was Duncan’s?’
‘Yes. Yes. Yes.’
‘Does he know?’
‘No, of course not. It must be a secret. You said he wanted a child, and there was a child, only now it isn’t alive any more.’
‘Why didn’t you – you didn’t think of telling him, or –?’
‘No!’ Tamar wailed the word, but her face was rigid, looking past Jenkin into the corner of the room. ‘How could I? You said Jean was coming back to him. I wasn’t going to stop that from happening by standing there and saying that I had his child. I thought the best thing to do was to get rid of it. Only I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know what would happen to me afterwards, that I’d be in hell for it with nothing to do but to die.’
‘Tamar, don’t look like that, I won’t let you be in hell.’
‘It’s murder, it’s the irrevocable crime for which one suffers death. I shall never have another child, that one would kill any other child. It wanted to live, it wanted to live, and I wouldn’t let it! I can’t tell anybody – but keeping it secret eats my inside away –’
‘But you’ve told me, and I’ll help you.’
‘You can’t help me. I only came here to say it was all your fault –’
‘Why –?’
‘That day down by the river you said Jean would come back and they’d be happy again, and you advised me –’
‘Tamar, I didn’t advise you –’
‘You couldn’t have known whether Jean would come back or not, she hasn’t come back, perhaps she won’t and I’ll have done it for nothing. When the child was alive I wanted to tell Duncan, I wanted to run to him and tell him and say I loved him, but now I hate him and I can never see him again because I killed his miracle child in a fit of madness. And only a few days ago it was alive, and it was mine –’ Tamar began to cry at last, still rigid, her mouth open now, her eyes pouring tears which fell from her chin onto her lap.
Jenkin had tried to take hold of her hand but she had pulled it away, jerking herself back. He was appalled by what he heard. In the few minutes she had been with him Jenkin had seen into the hell she spoke of, and although he spoke of helping her he did not see any way in which it would be possible. He wished he could take away her consciousness so that all this pain would cease. ‘Tamar, try to hold onto yourself, I’m going to help you, just hold on. Have you told anybody else about this?’
‘I told Lily I was pregnant, she gave me the money, I didn’t say who it was, she said it happens to everyone. And I told that parson in the country, I just said I was pregnant and he said keep it. I wish I’d come to you, even last week, you’d have said keep it and I’d have kept it, I wish I’d told you then on that day by the river, if only you’d asked what was the matter, I’d have told you and everything would be all right, only you didn’t ask me, you went on and on about Jean and Duncan and how they’d be all right, it was all about them, and I wanted to tell you about me – And now I hate you too, I hate everybody, and when one hates everybody one dies. I hate myself with such a hatred, I could kill myself by torture, I wish I could die tonight, I wish you could kill me and burn me.’
‘Stop, Tamar, you’re distraught, drink some of the whisky. Stop wailing, be quiet, here, drink some of this.’
Tamar drank a little, her hand trembling, slopping it onto her dress. She stopped crying.
‘Let’s sort this out, I can see it’s something terrible, awful for you, but you’re mixing it all up and blaming yourself for everything – we’ve got to be able to think about it, I’ll help you, you don’t hate me, you came to me, you must stay with me and trust me, you need people, you need love –’ Jenkin found himself babbling, just to keep the conversation going, hardly knowing what he was saying, uttering random words to try to soothe the massive wound which had so suddenly been uncovered to him.
‘Nobody loves me,’ said Tamar, now in a dull matter-of-fact tone, ‘nobody can love me. It’s impossible. I’m a person outside love, and I have always been.’
‘That’s not true. But, look, I’m going to ask you questions. I’m sorry if it hurts, but I must try to understand, you know I won’t tell anyone. This thing, this one occasion, with Duncan, was there anything before it or after it, had you realised he was in love with you?’
‘No, he wasn’t, and there was nothing. I went to see him twice because – because Gerard asked me to.’
‘Gerard asked you?’
‘He thought I might be good fo
r Duncan because I was so innocent and harmless. On the second time he’d just had a letter about divorce from the solicitor, and I felt so sorry for him, I said I loved him, and I did love him.’
‘Do you still love him?’
‘No. Then he put his arms round me and we went to bed.’
‘And after?’
‘After, nothing. He may have decided Jean would come back after all, or that I was a nuisance, a nasty incident, something he wished hadn’t happened. He ignored me at Boyars. I understood.’
‘And that weekend you knew you were pregnant?’
‘Yes. But I didn’t come to see him, I just came to get over being with him and knowing he didn’t love me and it was all over.’
‘You didn’t think it might go on?’
‘No. I saw it couldn’t – and I’d ruined all the things that Gerard thought – and all that was over forever. I knew it even before I realised I was pregnant. The things I asked you down at the river, I really knew how it was, though I hadn’t thought about Duncan so terribly wanting a child.’
‘I was just talking,’ said Jenkin. ‘I don’t know whether Duncan wants a child. He said once that he did –’
‘Anyway he wouldn’t have wanted this one. But I wanted it.’ The tears began to flow again. She said, ‘Oh, I’m so tired – I want to sleep.’
‘You must live with this as people do live with terrible losses. It is possible, you will discover how.’ He thought, there’s so much here that can’t be mended, or only miraculously. I wish I could share this burden with someone else, but I don’t see how I can. ‘Is there anyone else you’d like to talk to? What about that parson, Father McAlister? You told him –’
