The Sacred and Profane Love Machine

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘It isn’t a matter of Harriet saying "I forgive you", even if she did. It’s cosmic.’

  ‘Only for your consciousness.’

  ‘I live in my consciousness.’

  ‘Why be resigned to that? You imagine even now that you will sort out your life as an emperor sorts out his kingdom and that it all really depends on you. Don’t play it so tragically. Life is absurd and mostly comic. Where comedy fails what we have is misery, not tragedy. You don’t exist all that much, anyway. Your breaths are numbered. Of course you can’t solve it all now by a rational act of will. And of course there are deep automatic retributions for any wrong-doing. Because of what you have done things will happen later which can’t possibly be foreseen. But don’t look on yourself as a tragic hero. Think about right acts, right moves. You ought to tell Harriet. That has always been so. Now you have a chance to take the idea seriously. Let the value of truth help you, let it shed light. Would it not be a relief and a simple good thing to tell the truth?’

  ‘I can’t feel the value of truth here,’ said Blaise. ‘Perhaps that’s what corruption is. Anyway I’ve always felt that I must digest my own scandal.’

  ‘You’ve always known that it would come out sometime. You will act when the pain and the fear become too much. Perhaps that is now. Better move before you get used to the new pain and the new fear.’

  ‘You are right. I will tell Harriet tomorrow morning. Oh God help me —’

  ‘Better tell her in a letter,’ said Monty.

  ‘Why in a letter?’

  ‘Because in a letter you can use your intelligence. You speak as if there was just one huge fact to be revealed. But there are many lights in which you can present the situation to her and many lights in which it can be seen Of course you will he a bit to both women, that can hardly be avoided —’

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to compose the letter for me!’

  ‘I will if you like. Seriously. I mean, for instance you can tell her that you no longer love Emily, that she’s a burden to you, that you only stuck to her out of a sense of duty – if that’s true – and even if it isn’t.’

  ‘Mephistopheles, Mephistopheles—’

  ‘Well, intelligence does help in hell. It helped Milton’s characters. Once you can start thinking about the situation instead of being crushed by it you’ll immediately suffer less.’

  ‘What else should I say in the letter?’

  ‘Talk about the children and their rights and the importance of their happiness. Two children, two separate unavoidable problems.’

  ‘That makes sense, I suppose.’

  ‘Good. You’re thinking.’

  ‘No, I’m not. I couldn’t write this letter. You’ll have to write it.’

  ‘All right, I’ll make a draft. Make Harriet see it as a set of soluble problems, not just as one huge enormity. And tell her you rely on her love. Come, do cheer up. You may be the wickedest man in England, but even wicked men perk up occasionally.’

  ‘I do feel a little better.’

  ‘You may even find yourself closer to Harriet in the end.’

  ‘If I thought that I could bear anything. But – you know, I’d better see Emily first – it may not be necessary at all – you said yourself – I’ll see Emily tomorrow and decide after that.’

  ‘Let me go with you to Emily.’

  ‘Why? To satisfy your curiosity at last?’

  ‘That, yes. But I feel you need a witness, a second. You know what will happen if you see Emily and then decide. You’ll just fall back into the old double state of mind.’

  ‘If I tell Emily I am going to tell Harriet – then I suppose I shall have to tell Harriet. At any rate it —’

  ‘You know, I’ve never advised you at all and I’m not really advising you now.’

  ‘Oh, yes you are. Will you write that letter for me?’

  ‘Yes, yes —’

  ‘Why am I feeling better?’

  ‘Because you’ve set yourself some little tasks which still don’t commit you to anything. Because you’ve decided somewhere in your mind that it’s not necessary to tell Harriet after all.’

  ‘But it is necessary?’

  ‘It is necessary, I think.’

  ‘Maybe you had better come with me to Emily’s.’

  ‘By the way, please don’t ever tell Harriet that you told me about Emily. Let her think I only found out after.’

  ‘Why? You seem to be worrying about your reputation now.’

  ‘It would hurt her to think I’d known all along, and deceived her.’

  ‘Oh, Christ Magnus Bowles. What about him?’

  ‘Let him be. For the present anyway.’

  ‘You mean don’t tell Harriet he doesn’t exist?’

  ‘She’ll have enough nightmares without that crazy little jape.’

  ‘I can never make out whether you are bottomlessly cynical or not. Actually Magnus is the only bit of style in the whole thing. The rest is low, vulgar and low. You’ve always seen me as a rather vulgar man, haven’t you, Monty?’

  ‘I would not use that terminology.’

  ‘Well, whatever bloody terminology. I am vulgar. Even my sins are in rotten taste.’

  ‘In the case of sin, it is ultimately the stuff and not the style that stupefies. I doubt if Harriet —’

  ‘I wonder if you see yourself as consoling Harriet?’

  ‘You know how I see myself at present .You are lucky that I know you exist and am able to talk to you.’

  ‘Sorry. Sorry. You’ve been damn good to me, Monty, throughout this ghastly business. You’ve been my therapist my tutor. I am grateful, you know. Have we decided anything or not?’

  ‘Yes. Go to bed. I’ll draft the letter. I’ll go with you to Emily.’

  ‘The blasted dogs are barking. Perhaps I’ll find Luca in my bed. That child always was a sort of practical joke. I wonder if I can really face it all? What will it do to my mind? How mysterious the psyche is, there’s no science of it really. Morality baffles sdence, chucks everything about. Christ, I’m drunk. I wonder if I shall ever be a doctor?’

  ‘Why not? Hold on to anything you know is good. That, Harriet’s love. Especially Harriet’s love.’

  ‘You know what Harriet said about Milo Fane? She said he was going soft and getting all sentimental and high-minded.’

  ‘She said that? Ah well. Milo is gone, there’s no more Milo any more. Go now, go. Don’t tell Harriet about me and Magnus. And don’t hate me for all this later, will you? Go, go, good night. No, wait. I will lend you an umbrella.’

  Pinn, whom Blaise had failed, as he now realized, to explain to Monty, opened the door. It was also at once evident that Monty thought Pinn was Emily, and found her rather attractive. Pinn flushed up and smiled. ‘This is Constance Pinn, Emily’s friend,’ said Blaise quickly.

  Ever since Pinn’s revelation Blaise had been living in a fantastic world. He could hardly recognize himself, his self-awareness had so much changed in quality. The easiest thing to think was that he was going to die. This, was not exactly an intent to commit suicide, though he did consider suicide, it was rather a sense of the impossibility of surviving much longer, whatever he did, whatever he chose. He felt rent apart by an unremitting mental, felt as physical, strain. When he was alone he groaned aloud. He did not, except in a very shadowy way, speculate about what Harriet would do when she knew; though when he did wonder about this he felt how little he really knew about his wife. He had never seen Harriet in any really awful situation. Theirs had been such a sunny marriage. Her character, which made this so, had also its enigmatic side. What would she do? This question however he soon sheered off whenever it occurred to him. What was unimaginably awful was not what Harriet would do when she knew, but simply her knowing. To know that Harriet knew would change the entire universe. What would Harriet’s face look like with that knowledge inside her head?

  Pinn was smartly dressed in a green linen coat and skirt with a white silk shirt. Emily, who now appeared
in the doorway of the sitting-room, had abandoned her usual slacks and jumper and was wearing a blue and black zigzag pattern dress with a low square neck which Blaise particularly disliked. She had fixed the Italian cameo brooch (which Pinn had borrowed and returned) on to one side of the neck, a little too far out towards the shoulder, where it had come undone and was hanging down. Pinn’s greater discretion, as Blaise suddenly saw the two women with Monty’s eyes, made her look much the handsomer of the two. They were both of course dressed, not for Blaise, but for an exciting meeting with a famous writer. He had telephoned to say that he was coming over with Montague Small, but had not said why. It was eleven o’clock the next morning. How little Emily looked, he thought, how tiny and insignificant, almost dwarfish. Thin lines of grey already soiled the blackness of her hair. This is Emily McHugh,’ he said. It did not sound like an introduction.

  Emily smiled, revealing a smear of pink lipstick upon her teeth. The Italian cameo brooch fell off on to the floor and she stooped quickly to pick it up, and laid it on the table. ‘Do please sit down. Get the sandwiches, please, Pinn.’

  The best white cloth with the lace edges had been put on to the little bamboo table. Monty, smiling, sat down on an upright chair. He scooped up Little Bilham off the floor and began stroking him hard, as one might stroke a dog. Little Bilham turned to regard Monty with his wicked eyes. Blaise sat down on another upright chair and Emily upon the arm of the armchair. Pinn brought in sandwiches and a jug of coffee and stood there like a servant, also smiling.

  ‘Or would you rather have a drink?’ said Emily to Monty. ‘I mean, there’s coffee, but would you rather have sherry?’

  ‘Coffee is fine.’

  ‘You don’t mind my puss? Are you a catty person?’

  ‘I’m very fond of cats.’

  ‘I’ve read all your books,’ said Pinn.

  ‘We’ve been watching the television series,’ said Emily, pouring out the coffee. ‘It’s so exciting. Did you write the script?’

  ‘Partly.’

  ‘I do think Richard Nailsworth absolutely is Milo Fane, don’t you?’ said Emily. ‘Did you choose him?’

  ‘No, I didn’t actually,’ Monty seemed unable to stop smiling. He was wearing a white shirt and one of his narrowest silkiest indigo ties and suit of speckless close-grained black. He looked like a rich discreedy foppish eighteenth-century curate.

  ‘Is Dickie Nailsworth queer?’ said Pinn, who had gone to stand opposite Monty, her hands on the back of Emily’s chair.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘He can’t be,’ said Emily. ‘He’s so virile. One can tell by the movements. Are you working on another Milo book?’

  ‘Not at present.’

  ‘How do you begin a book?’ said Pinn.

  ‘I’ve come to tell you something,’ said Blaise to Emily.

  ‘Shall I go away?’ said Pinn. Blaise’s tone had changed the atmosphere abrupdy.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I want a witness. Two witnesses.’

  Monty stopped smiling and stopped stroking the cat.

  Emily was rigid. Unconsciously she reached out and picked up the Italian cameo brooch and put it up against her cheek. Her vividly blue eyes shone like gems. She looked at her lover with a stern grim expression which made her suddenly beautiful.

  ‘Monty,’ said Blaise. He did not know why now he was suddenly addressing Monty. ‘I mean –’ He turned back to Emily. ‘I have decided to tell my wife everything.’ He had meant to say ‘Harriet’ but said ‘my wife’ instead at the last moment.

  Emily was magnificent. Her face did not change at all. She contrived to stare at Blaise with an almost intellectual sort of intentness, as if he were a chess problem. Then after a pause she said ‘Why?’

  The question, though it might have been anticipated, took Blaise by surprise. He said ‘Because it’s right – I mean, it’s time – I can’t go on any longer –’ He had not thought out whether he would say anything about Luca. He now decided not to. With things as terrible as this Luca was a side issue.

  ‘Then you will live with me?’ said Emily. They stared at each other.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Emily put the brooch down and began unsteadily to pour coffee into her cup, not looking at him. ‘What’s the point then?’

  ‘I want to tell the truth.’

  ‘Go on then.’

  ‘I want to make —’

  ‘I think you’re lying,’ said Emily. ‘This has nothing to do with the truth. You’ve thought of something, you’re up to something. I don’t care whether she knows or not. I want you to live with me properly. That’s what I’ve always wanted.’

  Pinn said, ‘When he’s told her, if he tells her, he’ll have to live with you.’ Pinn, half-smiling in a self-consciously subtle way, was watching, not Blaise or Emily, but Monty. Monty too could not help looking at Pinn.

  ‘I don’t see why,’ said Emily. ‘It could work the other way, couldn’t it? His telling her could be a way of getting rid of me. Suppose she orders him to stop seeing me? That would be reasonable after all. She’s his wife, as he pointed out just now. Then he’d have to choose either her or me, and he might choose her. As things are at the moment at least he doesn’t have to choose.’

  ‘If he tells her you win,’ said Pinn, still looking at Monty with a pensive smile as if her words were addressed to him.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it unties your hands. When you can fight her in the open you’re bound to win. You can break all that up, once you’re free.’

  ‘I wish I shared your optimism,’ said Emily. ‘What am I supposed to fight with, bottles? Mr Small, won’t you have a sandwich? I can’t think why Blaise has brought you here to listen to this rather squalid conversation.’

  ‘Have a cucumber sandwich,’ said Pinn. ‘They slip down like oysters.’

  ‘You don’t seem very interested in what I’ve just told you,’ said Blaise. ‘Perhaps I won’t tell her after all.’

  ‘Please yourself. Pinn, could you bring a wet rag, dear? I’ve just spilt some coffee.’

  Pinn brought a rag and together they manoeuvred it under the cloth where the spot of coffee was. Emily then began to pin the Italian brooch back on to her dress, in the middle this time.

  ‘Why have you never written a Milo Fane play?’ said Pinn to Monty.

  ‘I tried once, but it didn’t work.’

  ‘I’ve written a play,’ said Pinn. ‘About a girls’ school. It’s a bit saucy. I suppose one has to have an agent?’

  ‘For a play, yes.’

  ‘Perhaps you could recommend one?’

  ‘Emily,’ said Blaise.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’ve been asking me to tell Harriet for years.’

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ said Emily. ‘What I’ve been asking for for years is you. Her state of mind doesn’t interest me. I ask you if you’re going to live with me now, and you say you don’t know, which means no, I presume.’

  ‘I can only do one thing at a time. If you only knew how difficult this thing is—’

  ‘Well, don’t do it then. Do you want our sympathy or what? Could you get some more hot milk, Pinn?’

  ‘In fact,’ said Monty to Emily, putting Little Bilham down on the floor, ‘he is right to point out that he can only do one thing at a time. He probably can’t foresee what will happen later. But I think I agree with your friend that this change could augur well for you. And at least it will be a change.’

  ‘Oh thank you very much!’ said Emily.

  ‘Mr Small is right,’ said Pinn, returning with the milk.

  ‘I wanted you to tell her,’ said Emily, ‘because I thought this meant honesty and truth and a square deal for me. Christ, I started out wanting everything and I’ve been content, well I haven’t been content for a second, I’ve put up with having very little, the least mean little little that you dared to have the face to offer me in return for my whole life. I still want everything and I still hope for everyth
ing. I daresay I am very stupid indeed. I’m a stupid woman and a millstone round your neck and so on. But the fact remains that I love you (yes, I must be stupid) and I want you to be my husband, my real husband, and live with me in a real house and look after me and your son, and Christ we need looking after, look at us. Talk about deprived, we didn’t drop out, we were pushed. The sheer cruelty of it all just beats description. It’s like famine and pestilence and war. You’re cruel, you’re like Hitler, you deserve to be assassinated for what you’ve done to me and Luca. You come here today with your bloody "witness" to tell me grandly you’ve decided to tell your wife I exist What am I supposed to do, cheer? I don’t want to chat to you about her. You can’t chat with people who are starving, people who are perishing. I don’t care any more whether you tell her or not. I want justice. If I decide to tell her she’ll know anyway. I could tell her now this minute by telephone if I wanted to. It doesn’t just depend on you. Oh God, why did you have to spring it all on me like this, with your blasted witnesses! Oh get out, get out, get out.’

  Emily, whose face had been first pale, then red, burst into sudden loud sobs. Tears covered her face as with a veil. She sobbed angrily, wailing an ‘ow! ow! ow!’ like an animal which is aggressive because terrified. She put one hand over her mouth, biting her palm.

  ‘Oh, stop it!’ said Blaise.

  ‘Take it easy, Em,’ said Pinn.

  Emily rose, and still biting her hand left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

  Monty put the damp limp cucumber sandwich which he had been holding down on to the tablecloth. He said, ‘I’d better go,’ and rose.

  Blaise got up too. ‘I’ll walk down the road with you,’ he said to Monty.

  They left the flat and walked down the tiled path to the road in silence. They began to walk slowly along the road. It was a grey warm morning, threatening more rain.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Monty. ‘My coming was a bad idea. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I thought she’d be delighted,’ said Blaise. They halted at the corner.

  ‘You’d better go to her,’ said Monty.

  Pinn came up, her heels clicking a good deal on the pavement ‘Aren’t you coining back to talk to her?’ she said to Blaise.