The Good Apprentice

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘Never mind him, he’s all right. What about poor Edward — ’

  ‘Edward is Thomas’s business now.’

  ‘You’re jealous of Thomas.’

  ‘Amazing discovery!’

  ‘I mean about Edward. And you’re jealous of me about Edward. You always keep him away from me.’

  ‘Only for his good. You’re such a honey pot. I don’t want him to perish with his wings soaked in honey.’

  ‘Edward kissed me quite passionately once after a dance.’

  ‘So you’ve told me several times, so shut up. Are you going to say you were out to lunch with anyone? What were you doing all day, when Thomas asks?’

  ‘Thomas knows what I do all day, I dust the drawing room, I do the flowers, I paint my nails and shop.’

  ‘I like to think of you as idle and artificial, an idle woman in a harem, a bored prostitute yawning as she waits for custom.’

  ‘You want to think I have no real occupation except waiting for you.’

  ‘Isn’t it true?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wish we’d established earlier on that we sometimes lunch together.’

  ‘It’s not too late.’

  ‘It is, we’re getting past expedients of that sort, they’re out of date. You say you’re a rotten liar — ’

  ‘But I wouldn’t be lying if I just said I’d seen you — ’

  ‘You live a sort of permanent double life where everything is true except that it isn’t. When you’re with me Thomas doesn’t exist, when you’re with Thomas I don’t exist. If the deception succeeds perfectly you can dream that nothing’s happening, that you’re innocent.’

  ‘I am innocent.’

  ‘Oh, Midge — !’

  ‘I mean, I have no strategy.’

  ‘Exactly, no real plan, no future for us — do you realise how unhappy you make me?’

  ‘You could always go away — ’

  ‘You know I can’t and won’t — Oh don’t cry, for God’s sake!’

  ‘My knee hurts.’

  These magnetic unstoppable quarrels were a mode of being together, essential when other contacts were in abeyance, self-perpetuating because neither dared to leave any dangerous remark in the air lest it should seem to have some final awful significance, quarrels like physical contact, like wrestling, dealing wounds known not to be fatal, not like love-making, lacking in purpose and achieved repose, nerve-rending, destructive, yet appearing as necessary and unavoidable expressions of their love for each other.

  ‘It’s your double-think about Thomas that paralyses everything. You’ve told me you don’t communicate with him, that he doesn’t notice you, that he’s obsessed with his patients — must our lives depend on his forever being carefully fed with packs of lies?’

  ‘I’ve got to know more than Thomas, I couldn’t bear his knowing it all, I couldn’t manage it — ’

  ‘Midge, think. Are we to spend the rest of our lives being deceivers and fakers? We, with our love for each other? He’s got to know sometime!’

  ‘There’s a cold streak in Thomas, if he found out he might pretend not to mind, but then he’d plan a revenge — ’

  ‘And murder us! Your trouble is you want everyone to love and admire you, you want both of us, you want us all to go on loving you whatever you do, you can’t bear the idea of losing Thomas’s esteem. But try to think how much it’s worth. You married Thomas in a dream because you were impressed by his prestige, by his power, by his being grand and older. But Midge, you’ve grown up now, surely you can see through him. He sees through himself. That’s why he keeps talking about retiring. He plays at being the great healer, but in his heart he knows it’s all a charade. You said once he’d wanted to be a writer. People obsessed by power envy what artists know by instinct. Psychoanalysis attracts failed artists.’

  ‘Well, it hasn’t attracted you.’

  ‘Midge, don’t needle me.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I dreamt about that white horseman again.’

  ‘Besides, Thomas is probably a repressed homosexual. Think how fascinated he is by Mr Blinnet and now by Stuart and Edward. He likes those boys he can dominate. He’s got Edward hidden away somewhere. Why has he got so many male patients? If you left him he’d bless you, he’d heave a sigh of relief and start life again as a queer. That’s what he’s made for. You’ve both made a mistake.’

  ‘I don’t think this about Thomas. You’ve just made it up, it’s your latest idea.’

  “Women don’t realise how many men are homosexual, it’s a closely guarded secret. Even that great sex idol Jesse Baltram had a homosexual phase, he was shacked up with some miserable painter who died of drink.‘

  ‘He’s had lots of women patients, there’s that politician’s wife — ’

  ‘I’ve told you, all you have to do is be with me all the time and we shall annihilate Thomas, we shall make him not to be and never to have been! I’ll invent a past for you which simply rubs him out. You know that’s possible. Christ, why can’t you just have some bloody courage? All you’ve got to do is walk through a short unpleasantness with Thomas and reach me. Just keep looking at me. You can’t be that much afraid of him. It’s not like walking through a fire. Oh I know, you lie to me about him like you lie to him about me, you can’t help it, it’s a law of nature. And we both want to believe you. I can’t measure what he means to you, I can’t see it, that’s the trouble. If you still want it to be secret there must be reasons. God, do you want to spare his feelings? If you love me that’s a nonsense. Can’t we be honest and truthful at last, you know how I hate deception. Once we start telling the truth we shall be gods. Love must be obeyed in the end, so why not now? The years are going by which we could spend together, why should we waste them in frustration and unhappiness and stupid endless quarrels? You love me, not Thomas. Thomas is just a habit. Of course you’re connected with him but you love me.’

  ‘If only we’d met earlier …’

  ‘Stop saying that, I forbid you to say it ever again, it’s an irrelevance, a mindless insult to our love now.’

  Midge, with her silky robe clutched round her, was sitting on the bed. Harry was standing near the open door, he avoided the window where the soft spring breeze breathing through a slit was gently stirring the curtains. He had now taken off his shirt and kicked off his shoes. He thought, what is she thinking? She thought, what is he thinking? She was thinking, of course I love Harry, I love him absolutely, but if only I could stop worrying and caring about Thomas. Oh why do I have to suffer so when I just want to be happy! If only I could care just a little less. I can’t see my feeling for Thomas any more, it’s become dark and in the dark it’s diminishing, like a little animal left somewhere to die and you come every day and hope that it’s dead and it’s still twitching and it’s still breathing, and oh I mustn’t think about it like that. I must untie myself from Thomas, undo myself, quietly patiently thoroughly untie every little bond, cut every little vein. I must make a great blank where he is, make him into a zombie in my mind, then it won’t hurt so. I must decide, I will decide, I have decided. Harry was thinking, a little more and a little more, and surely she is helping me, she is trying too. A little more irritation and mistrust and resentment and fear — she must learn to hate him. She must see him simply as a barrier to her happiness. Then she will come. But it’s time for a new move too. I’ll force her gradually along the road. Of course she has decided, and I want her to yield at her own moment. But I must force the pace — and she wants me to. I wonder would it be a good idea to send an anonymous letter to Thomas to stir things up?

  ‘Midge, don’t feel guilty, I don’t. There are things which are my business and no one else’s. There are things which are our business. I’m sick with love for you, pity me. We must be more together or I’ll die. I’ve found a little flat in Chelsea in one of those huge blocks where no one wants to know anyone, it’s much more secret than here, and it’ll be just ours alone, and I can cook for you, I so much want t
o — ’

  Midge raised her head, tossing back her mane and releasing the clutched robe; she disordered the bed, plucking at it with a distraught hand, and her face wrinkled in frightened evasive anxiety. ‘Harry, you mustn’t, I won’t have it. I won’t come — ’

  ‘Why ever not? You will come — all right, I haven’t even bought it yet! And I want that weekend, I must have it, just two nights, Christ how little I ask, and you won’t even give me!’

  ‘Darling, not the flat, I can’t yet — ’

  ‘Then the weekend.’

  ‘One night — ’

  ‘Midge, you are being senselessly mean. You said Thomas would be in Geneva from Friday to Monday, and Meredith’s going to Wales with his school chum — ’

  ‘One night — this time — you do understand — ’

  ‘I love you, my heart turns over and over for you, so I suppose I’ve got to understand even if I don’t! You belong to me, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Oh my sweetheart, I don’t want to upset you and torment you. You know I just say all the awful things so as to get rid of them, so that you can sweep them away and make them not be.’

  ‘Well, that’s one way of arguing I suppose!’ He knelt down, capturing her hands while the robe fell apart. ‘Oh — my queen — ’ He kissed the captive hands, turning them to and fro, while Midge gazed at his bent head, his glowing hair, with puckered fascination. She let out a wailing sigh. ‘What is it, my Cleopatra?’

  ‘Sometimes I feel we’re doomed lovers — ’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Sometimes it’s like acting in a play — a wonderful play — or as if life had become huge like a myth — ’

  ‘That’s what’s called heightened consciousness. All colours are brighter where we are. We are a king and queen when we’re together. How amazing sex is, how absolutely odd, this total attraction between two people, we’re so lucky. My little love, my sweet love, when we’re in bed there’s a moment when heaven tears us apart like the unrolling of a celestial scroll upon the last day on the angel’s trumpet. Well, it’s that moment in all of our life now, it’s our time, to change our being, to transmute it all into everlasting happiness and pure joy, our metamorphosis, like the substantial change of the bread and the wine. The bell will ring for us, my darling, the heavens will open for us — It’s all so close now, it’s just an inch away — ’

  ‘Harry, you do love me, don’t you, you will love me always, it’s not just an adventure — ?’

  ‘Christ, if I haven’t convinced you of that — ! I want you to be my wife, I want to be your husband, I want to be Meredith’s father, I’ll love you and cherish you both forever and ever — ’

  ‘Thomas used to say you just wanted to destroy yourself — ’

  ‘Don’t quote Thomas at me! He is the destroyer, find out your life-myth and I’ll destroy it for you, that’s his motto!’

  ‘Yes. Thomas could be a danger to us.’

  ‘No, no, it’s a charade. I remember Thomas saying his favourite literary heroes were Achilles and Mr Knightly! He may imagine he’s Achilles, but really he’s just a feeble version of Mr Knightly. A gentleman of course. That should stop you worrying! I’m Achilles!’

  ‘“Said Tweed to Till — ”’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That thing about the two rivers that Thomas used to recite. “Said Tweed to Till, ’What makes you run so still?‘ Said Till to Tweed, ’Though you run with speed, and I run slow, for each man you kill, I kill two.””

  ‘I remember, Thomas imagined he was Till, I suppose. But he’s not. Now stop arguing. Come on!’

  Midge got up reassembling her robe. ‘I’m just going to the bathroom.’

  Harry was unloosening his belt. The window curtains were blowing gently. He thought, I love her, she loves me, yet we’re in hell. It’s so unjust. We’re in a machine, it’s mechanical, it’s evil. Yet outside, beyond, there’s freedom, there’s happiness, there’s goodness. He felt wearied out with the strain of her argument and with his love-longing which had so much sadness in it. He saw again the empty boat receding, sailing away on its own.

  Midge emerged from the room and walked across the landing toward the bathroom. She stopped.

  There was something at the top of the stairs, a standing figure. It was Meredith, motionless, erect, stiff as a soldier, his eyes wide, his lips apart.

  Harry’s voice came clearly from the bedroom through the open door. ‘Hurry up, darling, I can’t wait!’

  Midge, her face blazing, stared at her son. Then she lifted one finger and put it to her lips.

  Bettina had mended the tractor, and now the car, an old Humber, had come out of its garage and was actually sitting on the pavement outside the house, crushing the cushions of sweet-smelling thyme under its wheels. The early afternoon sun was shining. Jesse had not come home.

  Today was a special day, Edward had been told. Not a festival day, but the day in the month when Mother May and Bettina went to the town (by bus in winter, by car in summer) to buy the few household necessaries which they could not provide themselves. Usually, as he understood, Ilona went too, but today she was to stay to keep him company. To keep an eye on him? What did they imagine he might get up to? The question of taking Edward to the town had not been raised. Did they think he’d run away?

  The pair left behind had plenty to occupy them. Edward was to weed the vegetable garden, then saw wood, then if there was time begin painting the outside of the greenhouses. Ilona was to ‘clean out’ Transition, after which there was a pile of mending waiting for her in the Interfec.

  ‘Don’t forget my new toothbrush,’ said Ilona, ‘I want a blue one.’

  ‘Right-oh. Come on, Mother May, get in.’

  ‘Be good, you two children,’ called Mother May, climbing in. ‘Look, look,’ cried Ilona, as the car began to move, ‘a swallow!’

  The Humber turned laboriously and set off down the track. Edward and Ilona waved, then turned back toward the house. Edward had a strange free yet uneasy feeling which he wondered if Ilona shared. They stood awkwardly at the door for a moment. Then Edward said, ‘Well, I suppose I must get on with that weeding.’ He had not told anyone of his girl-apparition of the previous day.

  Ilona went inside without saying anything and Edward found a hoe in one of the sheds behind the ilex trees and went on to the vegetable garden where he started to make weak spiritless pokes at the weeds which were now growing lustily between the wispy rows of carrots and onions. He was conscious of a strong physical feeling of anxiety about the length of his stay at Seegard. Was not being here with these women beginning to have something ridiculous about it, like having too prolonged a holiday? In spite of his acute anxiety about his father he did feel rather ‘at home’; yet not as one being healed, taking it more as an interval which put off what it professed to effect. The Seegard magic was sedative, making him forget Mark’s death, unhappen it. This place, these sisters, this mother, were all a dreamwork he would have to undo. Time itself was becoming a burden, a kind of continuous moral pain. But of course he was waiting for Jesse, that was the point, and before Jesse came there could be no question of his leaving. But did not this unexplained absence indicate an indifference to Edward on Jesse’s part, for surely he must know that Edward had arrived? There were so many possible unpleasant explanations — the mistress in the South of France, the alternative menage, some addiction, gambling or drink. Or perhaps Jesse was in prison somewhere, there was some disgraceful secret. Edward paused; the sun was warm, and even his idle scrapings had made the perspiration run quietly down his temples and onto his cheeks. He smeared the sweat off with his hand, and surveyed the grove of poplar trees, now lightly covered with trembling young leaves the colour of vin rosé. Then he saw, beyond some bushes, the flicker of a brown dress. It was Ilona, who had just disappeared along the path which led to the river. So Ilona was playing truant; and there could be no doubt where she was going. Edward dropped his hoe and ran to a point, near the old tennis
court, where he could see along the path. Ilona was hurrying, almost out of sight. He did not call out, nor was he tempted to follow her. He feared to disturb her, and to disturb in himself the vivid memory of her dance in the sacred place.

  He now stood still for a while, thinking about the girl he had seen in the fen. Would he see her again? Should he go out to the same place to see if she were there? Who was she? No doubt she was some random tripper, people would be on holidays already. What was odd was that in all the time he had been at Seegard he had seen no one else, not even the tree men. Then he was struck by an even stronger emotion, a realisation which brought the blood to his cheeks in an almost guilty rush: it was that for the first time since his arrival there he was alone at Seegard!

  Edward turned promptly and began to walk back toward the house. He was not sure what he wanted to do, but he was sure that he very much wanted to profit by this remarkable piece of liberty to do something illicit, to find out something that was hidden. He thought, I’ll go to the Interfectory and try to find a map. They said there was no map of the area but I bet there is. Entering the Atrium Edward paused for a moment and listened. Of course there was nothing to hear, but he felt a shudder which seemed to come from the house itself enter his body. He took off his wellingtons and put on indoor shoes and padded across the slate floor in the direction of the Interfec. He opened the door cautiously and entered the silent room. I am here. Do not forget me. He tiptoed across and opened the door of Bettina’s workroom. He had never actually entered this room, though he had been as far as the doorway to receive Bettina’s instructions or be given things to carry. He admired the big wooden work-table, much bigger than Ilona’s, and the wooden boards upon the walls, looking like modern works of art, which supported sets of tools upon hooks. Another art exhibit was a large old dresser bearing rows of pots of paint of different colours, from which Edward that very morning had been given some white paint for the greenhouse. The windows were, by Seegard standards, remarkably clean and devoid of spiders. He sped across the room and opened the next door. The next room was darker because of the numerous cobwebs upon the window. It was empty except for a large loom. So here the stuff was woven from which the famous dresses were made! Edward knew nothing about looms. He approached it and tried to move a piece of the machinery, to tilt it up, then slide it along, but it would not budge, it appeared to be jammed. Then he became aware of the soft feel of thick dust, and of long trails left upon the wood by his questing fingers. He stepped quickly back and ineffectually dabbed with his fingertips to hide the marks, then rubbed his hands on his trousers. The loom was rigid and very dusty, it had clearly not been in use for a long time. Yet the women always spoke as if they still used it. And those dresses — he had already noticed how much they were darned and mended — their beautiful woven dresses were old. Edward hastily retreated, closing the doors carefully behind him, and fled back to the Interfectory.