The Sacred and Profane Love Machine

by Iris Murdoch

  There was silence. Monty looked at Harriet with raised eyebrows. Then when she did not speak he said gently, ‘Talk to him Harriet. And talk as kindly as you can. And remember what I said too. Nothing here can be settled quickly. Be as kind and forgiving as possible because, if I may finish Blaise’s sentence for him, reconciliation is better than conflict, and mercy than justice.’

  Damn him, thought Blaise, damn him.

  Harriet looked at Monty and suddenly smiled.

  It was a new smile too and the sight of it caused Blaise pain.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ she said, her voice now trembling a little. ‘I can’t do it, Blaise, things have changed too much. I can’t and won’t put up with what Emily put up with. Perhaps it turns out that I’m prouder than she is after all, or less sort of good-natured. Or perhaps it’s just that having been your wife I can’t bear to be less. Or that I simply don’t trust you any more. My trust in you was absolute, was perfect – and now it’s completely broken.’

  Let her cry, thought Blaise, let her only cry and she will forgive me.

  Harriet steadied herself. ‘You sound to me so much like a liar – like the kind of liar I – oh God – now recognize you as, when you talk of dividing your time and so on as if this were the best possible solution of a bad problem. But you have made it clear, and you deliberately said that you had not gone back on that, that you have left me for Emily McHugh – she is now your wife – and your coming here occasionally to see me and David could have no value. I wouldn’t want that sort of you at all – and your timetable, your sort of programme, doesn’t concern me any more.’

  ‘Do you want a divorce?’ said Monty to Blaise. ‘Have you promised Emily you’ll get one?’

  Blaise was silent. He ignored Monty. Then he said, ‘I know it’s awful, awful, but I do just ask you to forgive me and not go away from me.’

  ‘You have gone away,’ said Harriet. ‘You have abandoned me.’

  ‘I haven’t,’ said Blaise. ‘I know now, now, that I can’t abandon you, it isn’t physically, logically possible, it isn’t a possible thing in the world at all. We are bound together. Oh help me, please, Harriet, help me —’

  ‘It’s no good,’ said Harriet, in a shakier and gentler tone than she had yet employed, ‘you are moved and upset to see me, of course you are. But if you don’t see me you will soon learn to settle down with Emily McHugh. That is what you have chosen to do.’

  ‘You are forcing me to choose?’ said Blaise.

  ‘Really!’ murmured Monty.

  ‘Emily forced you to choose,’ said Harriet, ‘and you chose her.’

  ‘But you are – asking me to choose again—’

  After a moment Harriet said, ‘No, I’m not. I’m not. I am just telling you that I can’t fit into your life in the way you suggest – or now that I don’t trust you any more, in any other way. I cannot be – any more – in your life – at all.’

  There was silence. Monty was staring down at the polished surface of the table and making rings in the dust.

  ‘It can’t be like that,’ said Blaise, ‘it can’t be. I could die of this. So could you. I’ve got to see you and be connected with you, I am connected—’

  ‘You could visit David, of course,’ said Harriet.

  ‘By the way,’ said Blaise, ‘I’m going to take Luca back with me. I believe he’s here.’

  ‘You are not going to,’ said Harriet, throwing her head back. ‘Luca stays here with me. I don’t regard your mistress as a suitable person to look after him and I will maintain this if necessary in a court of law. Luca wants to stay here with me. He disowns you. Luca stays here. Unless you both want a public legal fight.’

  ‘Oh Harriet, Harriet,’ said Blaise softly, ‘please see me alone. Send him away. I know you’ll forgive me in the end, you will, you must, you’ll have to. I know your gentle forgiving heart. This isn’t you, talking to me in this hard way. We must sort this out for the best. Oh pardon me, dear girl, you did - do it again and redeem me from hell.’

  ‘There is no "we" any more,’ said Harriet. ‘You destroyed us. Oh Blaise, if you only knew how utterly utterly miserable you have made me -’ The tears came now in a flood, but with them Harriet leapt up and ran out of the room before Blaise could prevent her. Monty immediately moved and closed the door, keeping his hand upon it. Blaise stood facing him across the table. He said to Monty, ‘You’ve bewitched her.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ said Monty. ‘Here, drink your whisky, you haven’t had any.’

  ‘You’ve made her fall in love with you.’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘I know you have, I’ve got evidence. You did it all on purpose, the whole thing, on purpose. You encouraged me to go on with Emily, you invented Magnus Bowles to make it easier, you led me on, further and further in, always so interested and helpful and watching as I got deeper! Then when you got bored with it you persuaded me to confess, and all because you had your eye on Harriet. By that time you wanted her to yourself. So you decided to ruin me in cold blood. And now you’ve been making declarations of love to her to persuade her to cut me out.’

  ‘I confess I’m easily bored,’ said Monty. ‘I am certainly bored by a silly vulgar rant. Use your intelligence, also try a Utile to remember why and how things happened. I persuaded you of nothing, I didn’t want to be involved at all. I still don’t. I’m not in love with Harriet, I have not, to use your horrible phrase, got my eye on her. You just don’t seem to realize that your own rotten conduct has consequences.’

  ‘You pretended to be my friend.’

  ‘Maybe I did. More fool you for being taken in. I am no one’s friend. I am incapable of friendship. Now please go away.’

  ‘And leave you and Harriet alone together.’

  ‘Not alone. David and Luca are here, and Edgar Demarnay who can’t keep away, and I’m clearing off myself pretty soon. There’s no bewitchment or any need of one. You offer Harriet a totally unacceptable deal, and she turns out to have more spirit than you gave her credit for, that’s all. Anyway, as I said to her, this squalid business will drag on, no doubt. This scene hasn’t settled anything. Only it will drag on without me, please at least believe that.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Blaise. ‘You’re a cold-blooded liar. You put all these words into Harriet’s mouth, you coached her, it wasn’t like her at all. You’ve been making advances to her, denigrating me —’

  ‘Oh go away,’ said Monty, ‘go away. I’m sorry. I’m even sorry for you. But you must just sort the two women out for yourself. My guess is that you’ve lost Harriet, whatever you do about Emily, but I may be wrong. Women are so volatile. If you go on begging her she may cave in. Anyway, I assure you her anti-you stand has nothing whatever to do with me. Now please get out, will you.’ He opened the French windows.

  ‘Oh damn you,’ said Blaise.

  ‘You can get round to the front by – but of course you’ve been here before, haven’t you. I’m very sorry, Blaise. I’ve just got troubles of my own.’

  ‘Damn you,’ said Blaise. He stepped out of the French windows and half ran, slithering on the now rain-wet concrete of the path, round the side of the house and, without looking back, out into the road.

  Here he began to walk along quickly. A little rain was falling and he was without coat or hat. He automatically registered how much he hated getting his hair wet. He felt so sorry for himself he could have wept, and now indeed, as he hurried along in the rain towards where, two roads away, he had left the Volkswagen, he actually did weep a little, the hot tears mingling with the cold rain upon his face. He pitied himself desperately. He knew he was not a bad man, not a wicked man really. He had got into this muddle in such a natural simple way. Lots and lots of men did what he had done and got away with it. He had just had dead rotten luck all the way along the line.

  Where had he gone wrong, what was his absolute crime? Perhaps marrying Harriet? He had loved Harriet but had he not (it was hard to remember) felt just a l
ittle that she was not the one? Yet at that time he had been rejecting the very idea of that sort of the one existing. He had married Harriet to rescue himself from his peculiarities, and that had seemed to be the formula for happiness. Was Emily the crime then? But how could he have resisted Emily? He could scarcely, at least, have resisted a love affair, and after all most husbands had love affairs for much less good reasons, under much less strong temptations. Then Luca had just been an unfortunate accident. And Emily taking it for all these years. Then when it had seemed right to tell the truth, Harriet had so wonderfully forgiven him. What had gone wrong? Of course he had to be just to Emily now and of course this meant tilting the balance a bit against Harriet and of course Harriet hated it. But she would come round, wouldn’t she? She couldn’t be in love with Monty, it was inconceivable, his Harriet in love with somebody else. Oh God, if only he could have held her in his arms for a moment and mingled his tears with hers! If she could only see how much he suffered she would forgive him surely. Should he go back, rush in, fall at her feet? He paused.

  He had by now turned a corner and was within sight of his car, staring at it. He stared vaguely, wondering what to do. Then he noticed with a jerk that someone was sitting in the passenger seat of his car. Could it be Harriet, relenting after all? He went eagerly forward.

  It was Kiki St Loy, in a sky-blue jersey and surrounded by a great deal of wet hair. She smiled at him; and that pure sweet seventeen-year-old smile had even then for him a power to console. He said as calmly as he could, ‘Well, well, what new enchantment is this? Today is full of surprises.’

  ‘Blaise, I’m so sorry,’ said Kiki. ‘Don’t be furious with me, will you. It is a silly joke of Pinn’s.’ Kiki’s voice was faintly undecipherably foreign.

  ‘Pray explain!’ said Blaise. He walked round the car and got in. The rain began to pelt down isolating them inside a dark silvery grille.

  ‘You see, Blaise,’ said Kiki, ‘for a long time now I am at Pinn to get her to introduce me to Montague Small.’

  Blaise started the engine and the Volkswagen moved slowly away.

  ‘And she said today that she would take me to see him, then when we got here she saw your car and stopped and we both got out. She opened the door and said, yes it was your car, and then she opened the glove compartment, and we are looking in and laughing, when suddenly she ran back to my car and drove it away. I thought she will come back, and I do not know this Mr Small’s address, so I wait, and then it begins to rain, so I sit in here. And now you have come to drive me back to London! But what is it, my dear?’

  Kiki’s soft lilting voice had wrought upon Blaise’s torn nerves. He ground his teeth together in a sort of pant of agony – ‘Aaaah —’

  ‘What is it? Tell Kiki.’

  ‘You know what it is,’ said Blaise, ‘I daresay bloody Pinn has told you everything.’

  Kiki, leaning towards the wheel, brushed the back of his hand lightly with the back of hers. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You see, I love them both,’ said Blaise. ‘I’m crucified. I’m bloody crucified.’

  ‘Then you must keep them both,’ said Kiki, her voice deepening with sympathy.

  ‘I can’t. Oh Kiki, if you only knew what a mess I’m in, what a hole I’m in. I can’t get out, I just can’t get out. I hate myself for it all, I hate myself.’

  ‘Do not do so. I am sure you are not much to blame. Won’t you tell Kiki the whole story?’

  Blaise stopped the car. They were outside the little railway station from which he and Emily had fled together on that momentous night. He turned to Kiki and looked at her gently, at her tangle of long damp hair and at her huge dark pure-brown eyes and at the limpid transparent unsullied young girl’s skin of her eager face, brought by time and nature to perfect fruition and not yet by them marked in any way. And at how her breasts were kept inside her jersey. Kiki smiled again, so affectionately, so ruefully. She was an intelligent girl. ‘I go home by train, isn’t it. Good-bye then, Blaise. I do so hope it will all come right’

  ‘Don’t go just yet,’ he said, and retained her, holding the damp blue sleeve in a light grip. Then he put his arms round her and drew the beautiful dark head, so fragrant with youth and rain, up against him. He turned her head in his hands, crushing his shoulder against the wheel, and kissed her very carefully upon the lips. Then he pushed her away from him and she got out of the car. He did not see her enter the station.

  Blaise drove on a little and then turned into a side road and stopped. He laid his head down upon the steering wheel and groaned out another long agonized ‘Aaaah’. Was he doomed to go completely out of his mind?

  Monty closed and bolted the door after Blaise. He sat down for a moment at the table. He felt disgusted with Blaise, disgusted with himself. He ought to have made Harriet see Blaise alone. Only because the scene had amused him he had consented so readily to be its chairman. What the hell was he up to? Had he ever been Blaise’s friend? Had he ever been anybody’s friend? Edgar’s once? The idea was fantastic. And now his house, which had been so pure and desolate, was full of people. Harriet, Edgar constantly, the two children. There were two children in his house. How endlessly, after the miscarriage and before it too, Sophie had vacillated about whether she wanted children. How much Monty had hoped at first – and feared later. Later he would not have been sure who the father was.

  Am I responsible for all these people? Monty wondered. David came and went like a ghost. Passing him in the hall, on the stairs, Monty usually took his hand as he passed, in a strange passers-by handshake. But he had shunned a long talk with the boy. He had felt annoyed one day hearing Edgar talking to him in the garden, but he had not attempted any contact himself. He did not want to see David’s tears and he feared to be involved in David’s affections. With Luca he had established no relationship at all. He felt a revulsion from the child on David’s behalf, and also because of some unnerving changeling quality which Luca possessed. Luca (doubtless sensing hostility) had evidently determined to be ‘difficult’ with Monty, and stared at him without smiling whenever they met Monty stared back. He knew that Harriet had been discussing Luca’s education with Edgar. Nobody had consulted Monty.

  The question is, what am I doing here, he thought. The strange menage had existed now for days. Monty, sitting at the table in the darkening and lamplit room, realized that he was feeling a little faint with hunger. He had never yet, though of course begged to by Harriet, sat down to a meal with her and the boys. In fact ‘the boys’ rarely sat down together (or met, if they could help it) since David had lunch at school and usually took a late supper with his mother after Luca’s bedtime. Monty left them the kitchen, only entering himself at odd moments to cook an egg or open a tin. It was a pretty peculiar way of life, but then everything was so peculiar and provisional at present, it was perhaps less than noteworthy. And soon, after so many threats and delays, Monty’s mother would arrive to join the throng! What a surprise for her to find the house thus occupied!

  I suppose I had better eat something he thought. He looked at the three drinks on the table, all untouched. Life was so intoxicating these days, they hardly needed alcohol. He drank a little whisky and began to feel very strange, unsteady, visionary. I have not eaten all day, he thought, I’ll craze myself. He drank some more whisky, then went out into the hall meaning to visit the kitchen, but as he emerged he heard a murmur of voices from his study. Edgar and Harriet He changed direction and threw open the study door.

  Edgar was sitting in the big armchair with the white fur rug and Harriet was sitting at his feet, one arm over his knee. The little wood fire was burning in the grate. Harriet was crying. She shifted slightly away, removing her arm, as the door opened. Monty felt blinding exasperation.

  ‘Sorry to intrude,’ he said.

  ‘Oh Monty, what am I to do!’ said Harriet.

  ‘Go back to Hood House and wait for your husband to come home, I suggest,’ said Monty.

  ‘Don’t be an idiot,’ sa
id Edgar. Harriet knelt, wiping her eyes. ‘Do you want us out of here, Monty?’

  ‘No, of course not. I’m going myself soon.’

  ‘Oh Monty, don’t go. It was terrible seeing Blaise, I couldn’t help feeling so sorry for him, and it seemed as if I could make everything all right, take him home again, and yet of course I couldn’t. If you hadn’t been there I’d have forgiven him.’

  ‘Then it’s just as well I was there,’ said Monty, ‘or is it?’

  ‘Think what you are being offered,’ said Edgar. ‘The man is shameless, you mustn’t pity him. He wants to make you into a passive victim.’

  ‘You’re quite right,’ said Harriet, rising wearily to her feet. ‘I mustn’t give in. I couldn’t live that situation – it would destroy me – yet he does need me – and now there’s Monty – and it’s all so—’