by Iris Murdoch
‘I am so sorry,’ said Harriet, ‘I am so sorry.’ She gazed at Emily with a look of intense apologetic pleading.
‘Get a dustpan for this mess,’ said Emily to Blaise. He went into the kitchen.
‘You see,’ said Harriet, her head moving to and fro like a tennis-watcher, speaking to both of them. ‘I just couldn’t wait in the car. I followed Blaise a little way and saw where he went in – I meant to wait in the garden but I couldn’t. I’ve only just this moment arrived,’ she added, thereby making it clear that she had not just this moment arrived.
Blaise came back with a dustpan and brush and awkwardly, leaning down from his waist, pushed some of the broken glass into the dustpan. ‘Oh leave it!’ said Emily. She took the dustpan from him. ‘Now fuck off,’ she said to Blaise. ‘Go and sit in the bloody car.’
‘Wouldn’t it be -’ Blaise began.
‘Fuck off. Leave her here. You go.’
Blaise hesitated. There was a moment of apparently in soluble tension and mute staring. Then Harriet stepped smartly aside and Blaise, as if thereby set in motion, left the room and the flat without looking at either of the two women, leaving them together.
Emily said quickly, ‘I think since you’re here, we should have a very short talk and then you must go. I didn’t want to see you, it wasn’t my idea, and it’s pretty pointless if you ask me.’ She set her trousered legs apart, looking at the taller woman, aware of the shame but now cool, a hen on her own dunghill. Emily was glad of the coolness. Her fists were clenched and she felt as if she were made of pliant steel, she felt hard and flexible and young. She was glad to be able to talk so calmly and firmly, but she could not imagine what was going to happen next.
‘I'm sorry,’ said Harriet ‘I feel I’m intruding. I hope you don’t think that I – I expect Blaise told you that he’s only just told me. It was a terrible shock.’
‘Poor old you,’ said Emily. She stared, very deliberately, balancing forward on to her toes and putting her still clenched hands behind her back She was glad she was wearing her oldest sweater. When Blaise had told her Harriet was outside she had had an impulse to change.
Harriet’s gaze had been straying round the room, looking at the cheap sideboard with the missing door, noting the torn chair covers and the stain on the carpet and the broken glass and Richardson sitting in an old cardboard box. ‘Have a good look,’ said Emily.
‘Don’t be angry with me,’ said Harriet, now studying Emily with the same look of sheer curiosity. Harriet too was calmer. "Naturally you know it isn’t my fault – but I can imagine how you feel. I’m sorry you’ve had such a bad time. Blaise has behaved badly to you, I know, he has told me everything.’
‘I doubt if he has told you everything,’ said Emily. At least I hope not! she thought ‘And I haven’t had a bad time, though I’m sure you’d like to think so. I’ve had the fun. You’re the one who’s been swindled. Poor old you.’
‘Don’t,’ said Harriet. Then she said. ‘Do you think we could have some tea?’
Emily suddenly laughed, a barking aggressive laugh, not mirthful and difficult to stop. ‘Oh God. Look, have some sherry.’ She took glasses from the sideboard and poured two drinks. She put Harriet’s on the table.
‘It’s not just curiosity,’ said Harriet. ‘Though of course I am curious, I suppose. But you can have no conception what it’s like suddenly learning something like this – and the little boy and all —’
Do I want her to cry? thought Emily. No. If she cries I cry. No tears. Just get through the scene, don’t let her win points. Keep cool and polite, get her out, then you can scream the place down. Harriet’s handsome well-bred face loomed large in the room, shimmering through a haze of controlled emotion. She is good-looking, thought Emily, and not ancient. He lied. No tears. She stared in resolute silence.
‘It was just essential to see you,’ said Harriet. ‘I had to make the thing absolutely real to myself by establishing some sort of relation with you.’
‘I don’t want any relation,’ said Emily. ‘As far as I’m concerned you don’t exist.’
‘Oh but I do exist,’ said Harriet. She said it in a quiet explanatory tone, her face very grave, her eyes huge.
Was this the point at which some sort of screaming slanging match was going to start? I’ve got to win, thought Emily, but not by violence, that would be too easy. I could frighten this poor lady out of her wits, I could reduce her to cringing tears in a second, but it would be too easy and I’d hate it afterwards. Only let the scene end soon and without any horrors. ‘You flatter yourself, dear,’ said Emily quietly. Then, unexpectedly to herself, she added with fearful sincerity, ‘I want Blaise. I want him to live with me properly in the future. I want the lot. Sorry and all that. This is what this is about.’
‘Of course he must see more of you,’ said Harriet quickly. She picked up the sherry and twisted the glass without drinking. ‘This is part of what I wanted to say. I know he’s been negligent. You may have thought that – when he told me I well, I don’t know what you thought —’
‘I didn’t imagine you’d want a divorce,’ said Emily. *No such bloody luck. But that isn’t going to make any difference!’
‘After all, we are women—’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
‘Please listen to me seriously and with forbearance. Of course it’s been a shock and I am very unhappy —’
‘Poor-’ began Emily.
Harriet raised her hand. She had set the glass down again. ‘Something very perfect, which seemed very perfect, very precious to me, is gone. Well, damaged. But I have to think now of Blaise and of our marriage, this is a problem in our marriage and I want to face it honestly, and that involves thinking of you. You said there could be no relation between us – maybe not in the ordinary sense – but we simply have to recognize each other. I just wanted to say that – I would never want to prevent Blaise from – seeing you and – carrying out his – and financially too – I wouldn’t want to —’
She is breaking down, thought Emily, and then felt she wanted to rescue her. ‘Drink your sherry, dear.’
‘Thank you, thank you. You see,’ said Harriet, desperately starting again, ‘we can’t now pretend, especially after we’ve seen each other, and it wouldn’t be right, and we’ve got both of us to help Blaise, and there’s your little boy to be looked after, and there are just a lot of duties -’
‘What are they?’ said Emily.
‘You see, I regard you as a victim and not as a criminal —’
‘Thanks a million.’
‘And as I see it, and please you must help me, the question is simply what can we all do for the best. I want to be reasonable, I want to help Blaise to help you, I must. I haven’t even any alternative.’
‘Oh this is rubbish,’ said Emily. ‘It’s soppy empty guff. I’ve told you what I want Now I suggest you go back to your husband and let him drive you away in his motor car.’
Enter Luca. The child came in quietly, carrying in his arms the woolly piglet, the strangulating ligature once more tied tightly about its neck. He came straight towards Harriet and stood looking at her. Harriet said ‘Oh ... ’
‘Go away,’ said Emily, ‘go away.’
‘Please don’t,’ said Harriet, to Luca, not to Emily. Luca continued to stare. Then he said to Harriet, ‘I’ve seen you.’
Harriet’s serious huge-eyed mask had changed. Tenderness, anguish, pain squeezed her features. Her eyebrows shot up in an effort of communication. ‘I’ve seen you too,’ she said, almost in a whisper. They gazed at each other.
‘Oh, stop it!’ cried Emily. ‘Clear off, damn you!’ she shouted at Luca.
Luca, still ignoring his mother, lifted one hand and waved rather formally, agitating his fingers beside his cheek. Then quietly he made for the door. Harriet gave a rudimentary wave after him. Tears began to stream down her face.
Emily looked for a moment at Harriet’s tears. Then, in a storm, her own tears came. She
sat down at the table and put her head in her hands. She said through her wet hands, ‘Go, if you’ve any decency, go —’
‘Sorry -’ The door closed. Emily put her head down on the table, she took the tablecloth between her teeth, she began to utter muted screams.
Luca, sitting in the sun in the middle of the lawn, surrounded by dogs, caused a variety of emotions in the breasts of his hidden human spectators, to whom, with the natural exhibitionism of a small child, he was displaying himself, seeming perhaps a provocation or perhaps some sort of moral sign or portent. He was wearing a grubby T-shirt with Micky Mouse upon it, a school blazer, very short shorts and sandals. His thin smudged legs, which appeared now daily longer, were extended. All the dogs were there of course. Luca was holding Seagull, paws upwards, in his arms and rocking him a little. Seagull’s bare pink and black spotted stomach heaved with heat and emotion, his eyes were closed with privilege and bliss, his lightly-fringed black lips parted to give a glimpse of fine white teeth. The other dogs, with the exception of Lawrence, watched with respect, humble envy and awe. Ajax, always dignified and responsible, was sitting neatly up in an Egyptian attitude, his black moist nose twitching, his dark rather dewy eyes with their fine lashes (which Harriet likened to the eyes of a handsome Jewess) fixed upon the privilege-bestowing boy. Babu and Panda, the inseparables, were consoling each other, lying just in front of Luca. Panda on his back in empathetic imitation of Seagull, his dirty brown scanty-haired tummy and sexual organs shamelessly exposed, while Babu, lying behind him and supporting him, shifted a shaggy black visage uncomfortably about on his friend’s ribs. Babu and Panda were well known to be the dirtiest of the dogs. They were mysteriously dirty. Little Ganymede (always somehow designated as the little one, though Seagull was equally small) was lying in his slug position, his head near to Luca’s richly fragrant sandalled foot, which he licked ecstatically from time to time, his eyes like glowing damsons swivelling upwards. Buffy, always conscious of inferiority, always the odd man out, with a dark tear in the corner of each amber eye, sat behind the enlaced inseparables, staring his soul out of his light brown rather stupid whiskery face (which had so instantly won Harriet’s heart at the Dogs’ Home) and whining occasionally for attention. Lawrence the collie, who thought he was a human being, leaned familiarly against Luca’s shoulder and looked with superior indulgence upon the canine congregation.
‘Who’s the boy?’ said Edgar to Monty. ‘Some little cousin, I suppose?’
A talk had led them several times round the circle of the clipped orchard path, between the tall flowering grasses. ‘Just like we used to walk round and round the cloisters at college,’ as Edgar said sentimentally. The sun shining powerfully once more, had dried and burnished the scene until it looked like a little paradise out of some medieval Book of Hours. Green and white were the predominant colours.
White foxgloves were growing in a row along the fence between the two gardens. Monty had picked one of the flowers and was examining the extraordinarily vivid scattering of purple spots on the lower side of the interior. Did Shakespeare mention these spots somewhere? Or was it some other flower? Should he ask Edgar? No. Edgar would certainly know. He put the white cap on to his little finger like a finger-stall. He had had to let Edgar in because of Harriet. Harriet had asked Monty to tell Edgar. Monty did not want to tell Edgar. These emotional revelations were binding. He did not want Edgar to be bound to himself or bound in any way to the weird and fascinating scene which was developing at Hood House. Something about the scene was home to Monty, such home as he now had. He did not want Edgar in it But he had to obey Harriet. Edgar had been talking of departing to Oxford, and this revelation would doubtless delay him. Thinking these thoughts and waggling the foxglove flower upon his finger, he turned back towards the house, saying nothing.
‘Who’s the little boy?’
‘Blaise’s other son,’ said Monty. He crushed the flower up and threw it away.
‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘Blaise has another establishment with a mistress and a son. Harriet has only just found out about it. That’s the son of Blaise’s mistress, Emily McHugh.’
Monty expected some sort of immediate exclamation, but Edgar remained silent so long that he turned to look at him. Edgar’s face was red, screwed up in an almost comical expression of incredulity and distress and outrage.
‘Really – it this really so?’
‘Yes,’ said Monty. ‘Harriet told me.’ He added, ‘She wanted you to know too. She’s being very good about it.’ Idiotic words. They entered the dim hall where the slim creamy pilasters grew up into trees and joined the pitted ceiling in a quick swirl.
‘You mean all this time – all these years – that boy must be – Blaise has been deceiving his wife – had this other place and never told Harriet?’
‘That’s it. Come and have a drink. Then you must go.’
They entered the Moorish drawing-room. Mr Lockett had had a fountain there, in a recess, between the saffron and grey lentils, but Monty had replaced it by a bookcase. The vivid de Morgan tiles sull peered out over the tops of the books.
‘I can’t bear it,’ said Edgar. He sat down heavily in one of the elaborate white basket chairs, making it scream a little.
‘You don’t have to.’
‘It means I can’t go there any more.’
‘Really?’
Edgar in tweeds (it had not occurred to him to remove his jacket) was sweating freely. Monty was in white shirt and black trousers with the narrowest conceivable leather belt. The room was cool, as he had remembered to keep the shutters closed earlier in the day. He poured out drinks into tall glasses. Gin and freshly pressed lemon, and slices of a lime which Harriet had given him, and soda water and a little parsley floating about, like his mother used to make in the old days. Sophie never drank long drinks even in summer.
‘How can I, with that grief in the house. I can’t imagine anything more awful. Oh poor poor Harriet —’
‘Poor Harriet,’ echoed Monty. He felt extreme irritation against Edgar and his self-regarding reactions.
‘And I’d want to punch that swine. He has that wonderful wife and —’
‘It’s more complicated than that,’ said Monty. ‘Probably. Anyway we’ll never know.’
‘That’s just it,’ said Edgar, draining his glass and holding it out for more, ‘we’ll never know. We can never ask. Of course Harriet is blameless. You aren’t insinuating anything are you?’
‘I insinuate nothing.’
‘How did she find out?’
‘Blaise told her. His nerve broke.’
‘The swine. Oh dear, oh dear. I can’t talk to Harriet like I used to any more.’
‘You have known her for less than a week.’
‘I couldn’t expect her to confide in me about that, could I? How can I even offer her my sympathy? Oh God, what awful suffering.’
‘Yes, it is awful,’ said Monty, ‘but as you said, we can’t enter in. Better to keep clear. You’d better shove off to Oxford. Just drink up and go, will you?’
Edgar had drained another glass and was in possession of a generous third. ‘I suppose I could write her a letter. Could I write her a letter?’
‘That’s it, write her a letter. From Oxford. Now drink up and go.’
Harriet was coming to see Monty on the following morning for what she announced as a long talk. Monty looked forward to her visit with a mixture of alarm and excitement. He wanted Edgar to clear out. He wanted to think about Harriet.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ said David to his mother, in the vivid kitchen where the red and white cloth glowed in the indirect light of the hot sun. She, in a pale mauve dress with white smocking, was setting out the best tea service, thin bread and butter and honey and sugary fruit cakes. The Gavender household never had tea. The sugary cakes were for Harriet’s elevenses.
She turned her gaze towards the window.
David’s pale face flushed, but his featu
res did not flicker. ‘I suppose that’s him.’
‘Yes.’
‘Is she here?’
‘No.’
‘Are we going to have visits like this often?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did you invite him?’
‘No.’
David moved towards the door.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Out. Till he’s gone.’
‘Please,’ said Harriet. ‘To please me. Please go and talk to him. Say just a word to him. Go and talk to him and ask him to come in to have tea.’
David looked at his mother. Her neck above the high mauve collar was as red at that of some strange bird, her face was red and seemed swelled with emotion, though there was no sign of tears, rather a sort of tremulous uncertain excitement.
‘I know ifs difficult,’ said Harriet. ‘But it will be harder next time if you run away now. We’ve got to make this somehow ordinary or we won’t be able to bear it. Please. Please. Please.’
Blaise came in. He had a transformed look. He looked humbler and stupider, not unlike Buffy, his face patchily pink, his short gingery hair jagged, his big jaw unshaven and covered with gleaming points of red. ‘Look who’s outside,’ he said, smiling humbly and idiotically at Harriet. David turned his face away, as he had used to do as a child when his parents ate messily. ‘What shall we do?’ said Blaise diffidently.
Harriet said, ‘I’ve asked David to say hello to him and ask him in to tea.’
‘Is that – all right – darling?’
‘Of course it’s all right We can’t just leave the child sitting on the lawn.’
Blaise turned to David and was about to say something. David walked out of the garden door and went quickly across the grass. A primitive awful sense of sacrilege and sheer trespass swelled his chest and made him want to scream get out, get out! He strode up to Luca and stood in front of him. The recumbent dogs all jumped up. Seagull twisted round and plopped out of Luca’s embrace. There was a faint general growling. The small brown-eyed boy looked up at the tall blue-eyed boy.
