by Iris Murdoch
Near the middle of the lake was a blue punt, and in the blue punt was a girl with long hair. The girl was motionless, standing on the slats at one end of the punt, her feet wide apart, her body braced, and both hands holding the punt pole. The punt was swinging very slowly round the pole. A few ripples came almost soundlessly to the shore. Then the girl said softly and distinctly, ‘Oh damn.’
‘Good evening,’ said Henry.
The girl let go of the pole and sat down on the end of the punt, which dipped abruptly. The punt began to move very slowly away from the pole which remained upright in the water. Recovering herself the girl lay full length at the end of the punt and just managed to grasp the pole with one hand before it passed out of reach. Still lying down she pulled the punt back towards the pole, then levering herself upon the pole stood up again. She worked the pole to and fro and then began to pull it out of the water. From the way she handled it Henry could see that she was an adept.
‘I said “Good evening”.’
‘I heard you,’ said the girl, who was now driving the pole in again. ‘But this punt’s sinking.’
‘Sinking?’
‘Yes, why do you think I’m stuck here, for fun? The water’s coming in and I can’t move it.’
Henry watched while the girl positioned the pole, then put her weight upon it. The punt, evidently waterlogged, moved slightly.
‘I see your problem,’ said Henry.
‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’
Henry considered the matter. ‘I don’t see there is anything really that I can do. Can you swim?’
‘Yes, but I’m not going to!’
‘Well, I can’t swim,’ said Henry, ‘or at any rate I can hardly swim, so I’m afraid I shall have to be a spectator.’
The girl pulled the pole out and dropped it in again. The punt, some thirty yards from the shore, scarcely moved.
‘The water’s over my ankles. It’ll sink under me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Henry. ‘But perhaps you should not have been in it in the first place.’
‘Can’t you do anything, can’t you get a rope?’
Henry reflected. ‘I don’t know of any rope near here. I suppose I could plait a rope out of reeds, but it would take a long time.’
‘Please don’t make jokes. Use your mind.’
‘Anyway, not being a cowboy I doubt if I could throw a rope that far. Now if we had a dog—’
‘Oh damn, I’m soaked.’
‘The punt won’t actually sink, you know. It’ll fill with water, but it won’t sink.’
‘Maybe not, but what about me, do I stand here all night?’
‘I suggest you abandon ship.’
‘Can’t you do anything?’
‘Well, I suppose I could go and get a rope and—’
‘Oh, hell, hell—’
There was a splash and a little shriek. The girl had dived from the end of the punt. The punt tipped, lurched and moved a little away from the erect pole, settling in the water. The lake foamed and boiled about the swimmer who now with a very vigorous and splashy crawl was making for the land.
‘How do I get in through these bloody reeds?’
The girl’s face, wet and rather red, appeared close to, her hands scrabbling at the outer fringe of the reeds, the lake water round about her bubbling and black with mud. A strong rotten smell of deep disturbed mud was released into the air.
‘I can’t get through, they’re grabbing my legs.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Henry, ‘just float yourself through, don’t thrash around like that.’
‘Help me, can’t you, I’m dying of cold.’
Henry took a step forward and felt the icy grip of the water take one foot at the ankle. He gasped, feeling his leg suddenly sinking into the mud. He stretched out one hand to steady himself, trying to draw his foot back again. At the same moment his outstretched hand was grasped violently and pulled. He plunged forward, his other foot now ankle deep in mud. Something large and wet and muddy fell against his leg and he collapsed backwards, sitting down in the water on the grassy verge of the lake. ‘Oh fuck!’ said Henry.
With vigorous movements, like a seal, the girl wriggled past him and got to hands and knees, and then stood up and shook herself like a dog. Henry got up, soaked to the waist.
‘Confound you!’
‘Sorry,’ said the girl. ‘It was just the last bit. Are you all right?’
‘No. What the hell are you doing anyway on my land and in my punt?’
The sky had darkened during the few minutes of the punt drama, becoming a slatey blue. A granular obscurity of darkness was creeping out of the trees. Henry peered at his companion. Her dress, blackened with mud, was clinging to her and her hair was streaked about over the neck and shoulders. She was leaning over to wring the water out of the skirt. Even her face seemed to be blackened, or perhaps it was just the twilight.
‘Well?’
‘Don’t you know me?’
‘No,’ said Henry. He stared. ‘Oh—no—heavens—not Colette Forbes?’
‘Yes. I say, I’m freezing.’
‘But aren’t you a little girl of ten?’
‘No, I’m not. Oh dear—’ Her voice wavered to a wail.
‘Now, don’t start crying,’ said Henry. ‘You’ve caused enough bloody trouble without crying. You’d better go home and change. It’s only about twenty-five minutes walk.’
Colette turned abruptly away, and almost at once disappeared into the twilight among the bamboos, walking at a fast pace. Henry walked after her more slowly, and after about a minute met her coming back.
‘Hello. We meet again.’
Colette said nothing, but going down on her hands and knees began to search frantically about on the outskirts of the bamboo thicket.
‘What on earth are you doing now?’ said Henry.
‘I’m looking for my SUITCASE.’
‘Well, don’t shout. Naturally you have a suitcase and it is hidden among the bamboos—’
Colette pulled the suitcase out and set off again at a smart pace in the direction of the bridge.
Henry followed her. He began to laugh. His first laugh in England this time around.
Gerda, standing at the windows of the drawing-room and pulling off her gardening gloves, saw Henry clear the semicircular front steps at a leap and career off across the terrace and down towards the lawn. A little later she saw him walking across the grass in the direction of the bridge. She turned back into the room.
Kneeling by the fireplace, bird-headed Rhoda struck a match to light the wood fire. The paper caught with a yellow glare, illuminating Rhoda’s huge eyes.
Gerda, alone, sat down in an armchair looking at the flames racing through the dry wood. She wanted to put her head in her hands and wail, but she did not.
Lucius came in switching on the light.
‘Sorry, my dear, I didn’t know—’
‘I wish you wouldn’t always do that.’
‘I’m sorry—’
‘Listen,’ said Gerda, ‘I’ve been thinking.’
Lucius’s heart sank. He knew from experience that when Gerda had been thinking she usually had something rather unpleasant to announce.
The drawing-room had a slightly more cheerful air this evening, since Gerda and Rhoda had spent the earlier part of the afternoon carrying bits of furniture and ornaments down from the gallery; a sewing chair, an embroidered stool, a card table, a pair of Dresden vases, a long Kazak runner. The gallery, which was really just a long narrow room with no particular function, was used as a furniture store. It was sometimes called ‘the music room’, since Burke’s grandfather used to have chamber music there. And Gerda and Rhoda, working silently together as they often did, had also concocted, in a big rectangular glass fish tank, a huge arrangement of chestnut buds and hazel and white narcissus. The smell of the narcissus, lifted by the kindling warmth of the fire, circled the room.
Lucius had spent most of the afternoon
asleep. For some time he had concealed his afternoon naps from Gerda, who of course, never rested during the day; but she finally found out and now never failed to say, soon after lunch, ‘Time for your rest!’ Lucius had formerly felt guilty about this practice, only allowed himself a furtive twenty minutes nap. Now he felt older and more relaxed, although still vulnerable to Gerda’s taunt, and looked forward to pulling the curtains and closing his eyes. Unless his back was hurting very much he could soon doze off pleasantly, and now disposed in this way of considerable periods of surplus time. At night he took, in moderation, sleeping pills. Ever since childhood he had appreciated unconsciousness.
During the morning he had been busy with his writing. That is, he had spent nearly an hour looking at his politics book to see how it could be shortened into something publishable as a sort of spiritual autobiography. Or perhaps it might be easier to abandon this work and start again from scratch, crystallizing a lifetime’s experience into a hundred forceful pages? Lucius began to feel rather tired. He put on the Partita in B minor and returned to writing haiku. He was experimenting with the form now. Were rhyme’s admissible?
Cruel the daffodil All springtimes tend to kill Ah well, ah well, his will! The young master.
‘What have you been thinking, my dear?’
‘I think you should go on holiday.’
Lucius reflected on this with puzzlement. ‘But I’m always on holiday. At least, I mean—’
‘You need a change. You might have finished your book long ago it you hadn’t been shut up in this ivory tower. You ought to be out in the world arguing with people, really living.’
This prospect did not seem to please Lucius very much. ‘But my dear—’
‘Now, don’t start—’
‘I thought you wanted me to argue with people!’
‘I don’t want you to argue with me. I want you to go away for a while. You could go to your sister.’
Lucius’s sister Audrey was married to an estate agent and lived in Esher. They had not quarrelled, but hardly ever met. ‘Audrey’s pretty busy—and the children—’
‘Surely they’ve grown up now?’
‘Not all of them, there’s Timmie and Robbie—’
‘Well, I don’t mind where you go.’
Lucius was silent. Bird-headed Rhoda came in soft-footed and pulled the curtains. When she had gone Lucius said, ‘Gerda, dear, you’ve been marvellous to me. When this began we didn’t think, well, I don’t know what we thought or what I thought anyway—it’s been a long time and I’ve been so happy here and it just sort of happened and we never ever really discussed it—and I’ve sometimes felt—I mean I’ve wondered if you felt—if you wanted the arrangement to—after all there’s no reason—’
Gerda was frowning. As he spoke Lucius had a sudden picture of himself living in a bed-sitter in north London on his now almost worthless savings and the old age pension, and spending the day in the local public library. It was a terribly possible possibility.
‘Do you want the arrangement to end?’ said Gerda.
‘No, of course not—’
‘I don’t want it to end. I recognize that I have an absolute obligation to you, just as I have to Rhoda and to Bellamy.’
This was not a very felicitous way of putting it, but Lucius felt relieved.
‘I mean, not that I regard you—’
‘Quite, my dear, quite. Mutatis mutandis.’
‘I just want to be alone for a bit with Henry.’
‘Ah, I see, yes, of course. I quite understand. I’ll go away, of course—’
Lucius was glad to receive this rational explanation, though the mention of the young master also made him feel: but supposing I go, perhaps Henry just won’t allow me to come back?
Gerda, still in her gardening trousers, was staring into the fire. She had not been following Lucius’s sensitive changes of mood. ‘I think if we’re alone—he’ll—it’ll be better—’
If we are alone he will pity me, she thought. I will make him and he will have to. The alternative, for me, is misery, madness, and I cannot go on like this, I must know my fate. I seem hard to him. Oh if only he could begin to understand me. The last few days of seeing Henry running free, of experiencing his polite alien unattached coldness, had wrought a change in Gerda. The strange shock of resentment which she had felt at first was over. Then, if Henry had wished to take her in his arms and talk to her of her loss, if he had sworn to look after her and to take Sandy’s place, she might have withdrawn from him in horror. Now, when no such thing was in question, she saw clearly her destitution, the desperateness of her situation, a desperateness that made her entirely oblivious of Lucius’s feelings, of his pathetic pride and of his fear of being sent off to Audrey. Gerda felt now that if Henry simply, as he might, gave her back her home and went away, if he simply left her here forever and went back to America, she would run mad. Henry was all that she had got and she could not and would not lose him.
There was a sudden loud noise outside in the hall, the front door was noisily thrust open and there was a sound of raised voices. Gerda and Lucius looked at each other, then jumped up. They emerged into the hall to see Henry with an extremely bedraggled-looking girl.
‘Oh Mother, here is Colette Forbes. She is soaking wet and so am I, we’ve been in the lake!’ Henry spoke with more animation than he had yet displayed to his mother since his arrival home.
Gerda, who had not seen Colette for some years, shared Henry’s initial reaction. She recalled a little girl, but now the years seemed to have brought about a young woman. In spite of Henry’s childhood friendship with Cato, the Marshalsons and the Forbeses had never otherwise seen much of each other, even when Burke was alive. Gerda had never quite got on with clever Ruth Forbes. Later, there had been the quarrel about the right of way; and Gerda had somehow gained the impression that John Forbes despised her, regarded her as uneducated, a jumped-up grande dame. It was conceivable that, without intending to, Lucius had strengthened this impression. Lucius had met Gerda through John Forbes, and though of course John had never said anything about it, Lucius felt that John did not understand or appreciate his remarkable friendship with Gerda. He suspected that John regarded them both with derision. And, sensitively, Lucius had withdrawn. So it was that Gerda, though she had certainly seen her since, best remembered Colette as a little girl, toddling along after Henry and her brother.
‘But you’re both soaked,’ cried Gerda. ‘You must change at once, you must be perishing with cold—whatever happened?’
‘Mrs Marshalson, I’m so terribly sorry, I do apologize, I’m dripping mud all over the carpet—’
‘Henry, you’re wet through, you must go and change.’
‘I’m only half wet. Colette suffered total immersion. Fortunately she’s got a change of clothes here. I think I will go and change if you don’t mind, my teeth are chattering. Mother will look after you.’ Henry put Colette’s suitcase down on the floor, and sped away up the stairs with a maniac laugh.
‘Mrs Marshalson, I’m so sorry, it was all my fault—’
Lucius, noticing how attractively Colette’s clothes were clinging to her body, said, ‘Here, have some brandy, shouldn’t she?’
‘Come upstairs,’ said Gerda. ‘You must have a hot bath. Lucius, carry her suitcase.’
The procession went upstairs, Gerda exclaiming and Colette apologizing, and into Gerda’s bedroom, where Lucius was dismissed. Gerda turned on a hot bath and Colette disappeared with her case into the bathroom, while Gerda sat on the bed and talked to her through the door.
‘I was so stupid, I went out in the punt, and then it sank, Henry will tell you—’
‘What did Henry do?’
‘Oh nothing really, I mean, what could he do—’
‘How did he get so wet then?’
‘He was pulling me out—Oh, I feel such a fool—and I’m covering your bathroom with mud and the towels are black—’
During this time Henry, splashing in hi
s hot bath, could not help smiling. Emerged, he put on warm clothes, a woollen sweater. He vigorously towelled his wet hair, then stared at himself in the glass. He was a green acrobat high up on a trapeze, squatting huge-eyed and wary and calm in the yellow air. A minute later he was down in the drawing-room.
‘My poor Trundle, here have a drink, brandy, whisky, you must be half dead, I think I’ll have one myself, what a business—’
Gerda and Colette arrived. Colette’s long hair, hastily dried in front of Gerda’s fan heater, stood out about her head and shoulders in a vast glittering fluff, which the girl was selfconsciously trying to smooth down. She was now wearing a tweed skirt with shirt and woollen pullover.
‘Come near the fire, here, have this, it will warm you up—’ Lucius hastened forward with a tumbler of brandy.
‘No, I won’t, thank you. I must go home, I really must, I was just on the way there, you see I was hitch-hiking back from college and I got a lift on the other road as far as Dimmerstone, that’s why I was coming across the park, I’m terribly sorry, then it was such a lovely evening and I saw the punt—’
‘Of course, of course—’
‘I’m so sorry, I’ve been an awful nuisance to everybody—’
‘Not at all—’
‘I really must go, good night, and thank you all so much—’
‘Where do you think you’re off to?’ said Henry, who had been standing back looking at her.
‘I’m going home. Good-bye and thank you. Of course I know the way and it’s not really dark—’ Colette had got her suitcase and was making for the door.
‘Stop,’ said Henry. ‘Don’t compound your felony by being totally idiotic. I’ll take you back in the car. Just have the decency to wait for precisely one minute, will you, while I finish my drink.’
