by Iris Murdoch
‘He forced me to tell him. He talked about Jesus and how pure love made you penitent and your guilt was washed away and so on. But he didn’t know what it was all about, I can’t go back to him.
‘Look, who knows you’re here, beside Gerard? Does Lily?’
‘No, I ran out while she was shopping, then I walked about in the rain.’
‘Then I must ring Lily, and your mother must be told too –
‘No!’
‘People must simply know where you are. I won’t tell them anything else. I think I’ll ring Gerard, and he’ll tell them. Tamar, won’t you please eat something? No? Then you must go to bed when I’ve fixed the room. We can talk again tomorrow.’
Jenkin had made up the bed in the spare room and put in a hot water bottle and laid out a pair of his pyjamas. She crawled into bed in a state of complete exhaustion. Jenkin was about to take her hand and kiss her, but she had already fallen asleep. He watched her for a while, and then made a signal over her, a private signal of his own, for her protection.
As he went to the telephone to ring Gerard he suddenly recalled, which he had quite forgotten, the odd little scene with his friend which Tamar had interrupted. He paused with his hand upon the telephone. He could not remember exactly what he had said, he had the impression that he had been rather rude to Gerard in the earlier part of the conversation, and then he had laughed at what Gerard had said later. Well, there was nothing there that would need a miracle to mend. All the same he would have to think – He lifted the ’phone quickly and dialled Gerard’s number.
‘Hello.’
‘Gerard.’
‘I was hoping you’d ring. What’s the matter with Tamar?’
‘She’s all right. She’s asleep, I mustn’t wake her. I just thought, would you mind ringing Lily to say she’s here? And if Lily’s alarmed Violet –’
‘Yes, yes, I’ll sort all that out.’
There was a moment’s silence.’
‘Gerard –’
‘Don’t worry.’
‘I won’t.’
Jenkin sat down by the fireplace and poured himself out some more whisky. He felt upset, racked with pity, frightened, also excited. Inside a mix of disturbing sensations there was a cherishing gladness that there was in his house, safe and resting, a wounded creature who had run to him for protection. It was odd to feel he was not alone in the house.
He tried to be calm and quiet. His laughter had been partly shock-laughter, a protection from any more immediate response. Yet it had been funny too, absurdly funny. Come home. Was he tempted? Yes, he was. Throughout the years Jenkin had been conscious, more conscious than Gerard, of, with their closeness, the distance between them. He had reflected upon this distance, this steady secure space, as if it were perhaps asking for a hand to be stretched across it. His hand? As he thought this, sitting by the fire and remembering he made an embryonic gesture. He had inhibited the possible gesture out of a kind of timidity or chaste shame, a sense, life-long it seemed now, of Gerard’s superiority. Had he feared the, kindest possible of course, barely perceptible perhaps, rebuff? Nor had he ventured to imagine what that step closer would be like, what it would entail, what his life would be like without that clear void (he pictured it as a kind of trough of sky, pale blue and full of light) across which he looked at Gerard. Sometimes it seemed ridiculous, something too solemn, a conceptualising of the unconceptualisable, to think about his relation with Gerard in this way. If they were destined to come closer, to be more intimate, to meet oftener, or however one described it, would not this happen spontaneously, and if it did not happen was that not because there were good reasons, invisible perhaps but good, why it should not happen? Why all the fuss? Well, there was no fuss, only this awareness, sometimes manifested as jealousy, of which Jenkin, who concealed this carefully from Gerard, was certainly capable. And now, and unexpectedly, that so important structural space had suddenly been annihilated. The king had come to him, cap in hand – and Jenkin had laughed at him. Come home? I don’t think I can come home, thought Jenkin, it’s not in my nature to come home or have that sort of home. Even this home, this house, is a shell that must be broken. All right, so this is romanticism, it is sentimentality. But I must go away soon, sooner than I had planned, if I am not to run to Gerard.
There was another piece of the puzzle, old and faded but still there, which had been jolted by Gerard’s surprising declaration. That was the question of Rose. Jenkin was so used to being just the tiniest bit in love with Rose that it was scarcely to be called that any more, nor did he use such terminology to himself. Jenkin had loved women and had had, though not at all lately, more adventures than his friends imagined, or others who thought of him as hopelessly sexless. But Rose was a special case. He had never spoken of his odd not too uncomfortable feeling to anyone except once to a close Oxford friend, Marcus Field, who also loved Rose. Jenkin, sage even then, had kept his feelings on a lead. Rose’s love for Gerard went far back into the shades of history, almost as far back as Gerard’s love for Sinclair. Gerard had let her love him, what else could he do? Yet (Jenkin very occasionally allowed himself to think) was he not a trifle complacent about it, ought he not perhaps to have told her to go away and find someone else? However that might be, an element, not exactly a motive, in Jenkin’s decision to escape was his desire to get away, not only from Gerard, but from Rose.
Yet – how much of that delicately balanced picture of motive and decision, which he had been so long constructing and had now been completed, had been shifted, even seriously damaged, by Gerard’s extraordinary move? Jenkin had never had a homosexual relation or dreamt of considering his close friendship with Gerard in that light – nor did he now allow himself to wonder what exactly it was which now existed and previously had not. What he felt was a sudden increase of being. Gerard had called to him, and the echoing call stirred things in deep places. Come live with me and be my love. Perhaps, after all, this changed everything?
Gerard had telephoned Lily, and Rose, whom Lily had alarmed, and driven round to Violet’s to tell her Tamar was with Jenkin. He stayed a while with Violet. She told him, and seemed glad to be able to do so, about Tamar’s weeping and screaming fits which had preceded her flight. Violet did not know why Tamar was in such a state. Violet was certainly unnerved, upset, frightened, perhaps even shocked into genuine loving concern for her daughter. Gerard took the opportunity of saying to Violet with an air of authority that really she must allow Tamar to continue her education. Probably Tamar’s grief on this subject lay behind her breakdown. Some young people passionately wanted to go on learning and studying, and the really difficult things, which would be possessions forever, had to be learnt when still young. If Tamar were frustrated now (so Gerard painted the picture) she might fall into depression and lose her job, whereas if she could return to Oxford she would get a much better-paid job later on. Gerard would be very glad meanwhile to help financially, and so on and so on. Violet, quickly recovering from her softened mood, soon put on an expression, familiar to Gerard, of quiet amused cynicism. He left hoping that he might nevertheless have made an impression.
When he got back to his house the telephone was ringing. It was Rose. He told her about his visit to Violet. Rose was interested in this, but had rung up for another purpose. She just wanted to hear his voice, and to hear him say, as he duly said, ‘Good night, darling, sleep well.’
Gerard, in pyjamas and dressing gown, sat on his bed, upright as when he had seen and not seen the children feeding the ducks. Long after Rose was in bed and asleep he sat there motionless reviewing the events of the evening. He waited, allowing the stormy waves of his disturbed feelings to calm down. He breathed. He wished very much that he had been able to accept Jenkin’s invitation to stay and sit quietly and have another drink and listen to the rain. And they could have looked at each other and, without speech, composed a new understanding. Well, there would be other times; and perhaps Tamar’s coming, though it made impossible that quiet
different continuation of their talk, had been a sort of sign. They had been thinking about themselves and each other, when suddenly the urgent needs of someone, whom they were both concerned to cherish, had intruded upon them. This also was a bond, and would enable a natural and immediate continuation of their business together. With this thought, Gerard could even enjoy, transforming it into a wry humility, his annoyance that Tamar had preferred Jenkin to himself as the one to run to!
Gerard thought, gentling himself into calmness, at least I made my little speech, it did express exactly what I meant, it said enough and said it simply – and whatever happens, and I must be prepared for nothing to happen, I shall be glad I told him what I felt. Surely after this he won’t go away – he won’t want to, and he’ll see he can’t.
But later on, after Gerard had lain himself down to sleep and had slept and wakened in the dark, he felt such a strangeness because he had, for the first time ever, been with Jenkin and been the weaker man. He had come to him as a beggar, standing before him without authority. He had exchanged his power for an infinite vulnerability, and forced Jenkin to be his executioner. And as he now thought of Jenkin and of the necessity of Jenkin all sorts of hitherto unimaginable pictures rose up in his mind, and he thought, I must not begin to want what I cannot have. Why did I see it before as something simple? I was so set on saying my little piece, as if that in itself could secure some morsel of my heart’s desire, so that something at least would be safe. I thought I might make a fool of myself – but now, what have I done to his imagination and to mine? I never dreamed that things could go badly wrong and that between his good will and mine we might be put in hell. Perhaps I have brought about something terrible, for him, and for me.
‘Let me see you turn the headlights up,’ said Crimond.
Jean turned them up.
‘Now dip them and turn them full up again several times.’
She did so. She was sitting in her car with the door open, Crimond was standing beside her in the dark. His car, with its lights on, was just in front of hers. It was three o’clock in the morning and they were on the Roman Road.
The rain had gone away, the colder stiller weather had returned, the moon had risen, the stars were visible. Jean was trembling violently.
‘You can drive?’ said Crimond.
‘Yes, of course.’
They were on the crest of a hill from which a long view of the road, undulating straight onward, was visible by daylight. There was, from the point at which they had stopped, a dip, then a rise, then a mild descent followed by a steady gentle rise to another crest nearly two miles ahead.
‘When I get there I’ll signal by putting my headlights up slowly three times, and you reply in the same way. If there’s any snag, I can’t think what snag there could be, we haven’t seen another car since we left the main road, but if there is anything I’ll flick the lights quickly a number of times to mean wait. And of course you do the same. Then after the first signals, meaning that I’m there and you’ve seen me, a pause, then the same thing again, both of us together, slowly headlights up three times. You remember all this, we’ve repeated it over and over.
‘Of course I remember.’
‘After the second lot of slow threes, set off at once. Drive with dipped headlights of course, we don’t want to dazzle each other. All you have to do is keep on the left, the road isn’t very broad so I don’t think anything can go wrong. Leave the rest to me. Don’t forget to fasten your seat belt, freakish things can happen, you must be in the car. Don’t muff it, well you won’t, we don’t want to end up in a couple of wheelchairs, there mustn’t be any accidents here. Remember we’ll lose sight of each other when you’re in the dip, after you come over the hump it’s just a little down, then the long rise. If I’d thought, we might have done it the other way round, but it doesn’t matter now, and your car is more powerful than mine – it’ll be simple, it’ll be easy, only for heaven’s sake put your foot down, we want to be doing at least eighty when we meet. You won’t lose control of the car?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Don’t risk that – but you won’t, you’re a perfect driver – get up a great pace, you needn’t look at the speedometer, you can entrust the velocity to me, just get up a pace and keep going and stay on the left. That’s all I think. Now, I’ll get in my car. We agreed we’d said our goodbyes – only they’re not goodbyes, we’ll be together now, always.’
As he turned quickly to go Jean got out of the car and followed him a step or two, putting her hand on his shoulder. She felt him shudder and start away and as he stepped back their hands touched. She stood still, watched him get into his car and close the door, heard him start the engine, then watched the rear lights of the car and the flying headlights rush down into the dip, surmount the rise, become invisible for a moment, then appear again on the long rise toward the distant crest. She got back into the car and closed the door and fastened her seat belt.
Jean’s car was a Rover, the more powerful of the two, Crimond’s was a Fiat. Jean found herself thinking about the cars. She liked her car, and now she was going to crash it, to smash it to pieces. She thought of Duncan for a moment, as if she were asking herself whether he would mind about the car. Then she thought, leaning back in her seat and feeling almost sleepy, am I dreaming? Is this a dream? It must be. I’ve thought about this all the time since Crimond started talking about it, now I’m dreaming it. Her head jerked and it was like waking up. It was not a dream, she had come to the place they had talked of, at the time they had talked of, the time had come and Crimond was gone. The sense of her solitude struck her first. Then she thought about what was going to happen and she felt cold and black with terror. She began to tremble again and her jaw was shaking. She felt very sick, ready to vomit but unable to do so. Automatically she started the engine. As she did so she thought, there’s time yet. I could run into the wood and be sick, I could go mad and wander away among the trees and sit down somewhere. Why need this concern me any more? Did we not do it just by talking about it? Why do I have to do anything more, is it not already over? She had not noticed the cold air. Now she wound up the window and thought, it’s warmer in the car. She was wearing a short coat. Her handbag lay on the seat beside her. Why had she brought that with her? The intense sick feeling appeared as a sense of time. The condensed mass of all her recent thoughts and feelings was exploding inside her head. She was beyond logic and contradictory things could be true.
She had tried, over the last days, to fathom her lover, to try, as she always tried, to find out what he wanted and to be as he wanted. She had believed, for some of the time, indeed, and perhaps now, that it was a test of courage. It was the sort of thing Crimond did, it was Russian roulette again, the gun which he pretended was loaded when it was not. He had, he said, wanted to see her courage. She said, to see my love? Yes, your love, it’s the same. This was it again now, he needed like a drug the regular evidence, to see she was his; and she was his, she had come to the Roman Road, to this horrible charade, this scene of torture, because she could not gainsay him, she had to obey. She had not to fail – either then – or now. If she failed he would leave her. But – if she passed she would die? She thought, he’ll save us at the last moment, that will be like him. I’ll stay on the left and he will simply pass me by, or he’ll come at me and then swerve away. He said, leave the rest to me. Well, that is all I can do, that is all of my life now. We’ll meet again after and embrace and shed tears and dance. That is how it will be; and then our love will be reinforced, increased a thousand fold, deified. This is the experience of death after which one becomes immortal. But, she thought, supposing it is death, supposing it is really death he wants, and that we shall mingle with each other in death and become a legend? Well, if he chooses that, as the final consummation of our love, that too is what I will; she gave a little cry like a bird and a kind of ecstasy of fear so possessed her body that it was as if it were emitting light. I have surrendered my life to him
and if he takes it, well, and if he spares it, well. This is the climax that my life was for, the time which is worth all the rest, which redeems the rest of time. I can no other, and in that I must be at peace. Yet still she thought, it is impossible that we shall not meet again, it is impossible that we shall not be together again and talk of this. If the gods are to reward us we must be there to be rewarded – unless this is now our reward to live the last moments of our lives in this way.
She was trembling with excitement and terror. Her head felt huge and full of points of electricity, little shocks of intense pain. And all the time she was sitting perfectly still with the engine running, watching the road ahead which seemed to be shuddering and heaving and boiling up in atoms of dark. She was aware of the moon, even of the stars, of the frosty moonlit tarmac just in front of hers, and of the lights of Crimond’s car, the pale glow of headlights, the rear lights, briefly lost to view, now well up upon the further slope, slowly climbing up on the waves of the dark. She saw the lights diminish, seem to vanish, the red lights disappearing, there seemed to be an interval, a gulf into which she could fall; then the headlights came slowly out of the dark, first dim then rising to a full flash, three times repeated. Her mouth open now, gasping, finding her hand ready on the switch, she flashed her own lights in reply. The distant signal was repeated, and almost simultaneously she repeated her answer. The far off lights were dipped and she dipped her own. She put the car into gear and released the clutch. The car began to move down the hill and in a few moments the headlights upon the opposite hill disappeared from view. As she began to accelerate Jean felt a sudden surge of energy, something very intense, perhaps fear, perhaps joy, perhaps, in the depths of her body, a prolonged sexual thrill. She pressed her foot down. Faster, faster. At the same time she found herself thinking, after this we’ll drive across France. I’ll do the driving, he doesn’t really like driving. She had so often imagined that going away with Crimond, which would come after the book was finished. When the book was finished they would drive about, as they had done in Ireland, and be perfectly happy. But the book was finished, and were they not already perfectly happy, was not this, what she was doing now as an instrument of Crimond’s will, perfect happiness?
