Nuns and Soldiers

by Iris Murdoch

  Really no one else matters, she thought. I do not have to give an account of myself to them. They are not my family, I have no family, I am alone, Tim has made me realize this. Well, Anne matters, in a special separated sort of way. And I care for the Count, I really do. But in the end this is a matter between Tim and me - and Guy. And she thought, oh my dear Guy, my dear heart, my love. How will it be? Oh the risk, the risk of it. She was not sure what this was, but there was moral frightfulness, deep awful possibilities of torment and confusion and crime.

  ‘Gertrude! Oh Gertrude!’

  Gertrude was startled out of her reverie by Tim’s voice.

  He was running towards her along the white road, waving his arms and raising the dust with his pounding feet. He was panting, and as he came closer she saw that his face was streaked with blood.

  ‘Oh Gertrude, help, something terrible has happened!’

  About the time when Gertrude was propping her bike against the bank and settling down on the grass tuffet to think, Tim was returning towards the house. He had gone out early to paint but could not concentrate and began to feel too hot. He had not been back to the Great Face, he was not sure why, but he had done some drawings of the moss fountain. It was not easy to draw. He decided now to come back and make himself a cool drink and wait for Gertrude to come home from the village for lunch. Lunch was now of course an important festival. He liked being away from Gertrude, by himself and yet thinking of her at every second; working on something else, looking at other things, yet aware of her as if she were distributed in the air like pollen. Gertrude said that she felt the same. She liked the ordinariness of his going out to work, her going to shop, their quiet thrilling knowledge that they would be together again soon. Life was amazingly simple and already had its reassuring patterns as if this life between them had already lasted for a long time.

  Of course Tim was anxious, but his anxiety was irrational and patchy, full of unconnected and incompatible ideas. He did not feel afraid that Gertrude would tire of him, though he knew that it was possible. About that he felt a kind of humble resignation which coexisted with his daily experience of being absolutely able to ‘get on’ with Gertrude, to amuse her, to delight her, to ‘lark about’ with her, to talk seriously with her about all sorts of different serious things, and of course to make love to her. That quiet ‘of course’ was important. There was nothing frenzied or wild about their love-making, no worry about ‘performance’ or ‘success’. They were gentle and clumsy and tender together, and Tim found himself easily and naturally assuming power as if he were a hereditary prince in a peaceful happy feudal state. This gentle power often made him laugh for joy, and Gertrude, understanding, laughed too. They laughed often together, but they were grave together too, and Tim often guessed that Gertrude was thinking about Guy. He valued her magnanimity in allowing herself to be pleased with him. If she felt guilt she kept it to herself and did not feel compelled to become suddenly cold because she felt, in such circumstances, glad he existed. He did not speculate about her thoughts. Gertrude’s mourning was her own affair, and so were any comparisons she might privately make between her husband and her lover. Of these matters he did not speak to Gertrude.

  The ‘serious things’ which they discussed were largely personal. Of course, feeling for the moment at any rate in safety, they ran through all sorts of reasons why their relationship might be judged to be, might even be, precarious. Gertrude said she was a mother figure and that Tim could perfectly well marry a younger woman. Tim said could he be sure he was not after Gertrude’s money? And did she not just love him because she could help him? Perhaps these discussions were not really so serious. They were pleasurable and reassuring. They both talked about their parents, their childhood, their education. Tim described the Slade and his early experiments in painting. Gertrude talked of her school-teaching days and how lonely she had felt when she was young. They did not speak of Guy. Tim avoided any discussion of Anne Cavidge. He did not like to recall those cold blue-green eyes and that accusing critical stare. And of course he said nothing about Daisy.

  What worried Tim during this period, upon which he looked back with such amazement later, was partly a sort of tactical or technical problem. He could not imagine how he and Gertrude were going to exist once they moved out of exactly this place and exactly this way of passing the time. His fantasies of married life, and his scrappy experiences of cohabiting, had suggested to him that allotment of time and occupation, a difficulty for a single person, was doubly difficult for two. He did not doubt that he and Gertrude loved each other, but he could not see how this love was going to function, to have a rational working daily timetable, once they came away from France. He could not see himself living in the flat in Ebury Street and turning Guy’s study into a studio. Would they give dinner parties? He could not see that future, and it was as if some angel had thereby revealed to him that it did not exist.

  Of course a ubiquitous embarrassment in his imagination of the future was the question of Daisy. This problem however, which might have seemed to be a major one, did not trouble Tim unduly. He had always been good at dealing with profound and awful difficulties by a method which was no doubt connected (although Tim was unaware of this) with something which made him an indifferent painter. This method might be described as a systematic lack of thoroughness. As has been explained, Tim’s work rushed blindly on from the stage where it was only a sketch to the stage where it was too late to bother. Similarly in moral matters, Tim felt it was not worthwhile to work out problems beforehand because after all one did not know what was going to happen and it might be that the threatened problem might not in fact materialize; then when events overtook him he was consoled by a fatalistic sense of helplessness.

  In relation to Daisy this arrangement worked as follows, and here his inability to imagine the future was of discreet assistance. If Gertrude abandoned him there would have been no need to tell her about Daisy. Indeed all sorts of things, such as his own death, might intervene to make the revelation superfluous. And how could he, cut off here in France for what might turn out to be a long or a short period, know what it was best to do? He was suspended in a provisional interim. Decisions must wait. Gertrude sometimes spoke wistfully of their staying on in France until September, but he suspected that Gertrude’s own anxiety would prevent that. In any case, there were too many unknown quantities about for it to be wise for him to confess about Daisy just yet. That Gertrude would immediately cashier him if he told her now he did not believe. Besides, there were all sorts of ways of telling which would render the information innocuous. He was more, and obscurely, troubled about how the revelation would affect his own state of mind. He was careful not to imagine what he would say if Gertrude eagerly pressed him. There would be psychological consequences and there was no point in starting up that train of consequences when he was so far away from London. Of course if all went well he would tell Gertrude something about Daisy later on, and when the time came he would know what to say.

  Tim was aware that he was thinking here in a double way, but this seemed unavoidable. He made no attempt, amid all that was so amazingly happening to him, to reassess his feeling for Daisy, nor did he try at all to diminish it. It remained where it was, separate, in parenthesis, not in play. And this indeed was useful in a tactical sense since it gave him the motive power to go on behaving to Daisy just as he would have behaved if the amazing things had not happened and if what he was telling her had been actually true. He wrote another letter to her saying that Gertrude and Manfred and Mrs Mount were still maddeningly in occupation, and that he would let Daisy know when they had gone, which he hoped would be soon; and meanwhile she was to wait for news. This lie was, he felt, simply necessary and did not trouble him beyond the immediate difficulty of composing the letter. What did cause him some anguish was the purely mechanical problem of posting the letter. He could not entrust it to Gertrude, and he was supposed to paint while she shopped. He walked along the road in both dir
ections without discovering a pillar box. He did not dare to walk to the village in his painting time in case he were to meet Gertrude there or be later given away by the villagers. He had been reduced, on the previous day, to saying that he felt like a bicycle ride, and would accompany her. Then, while she was in a shop, he slipped the letter into the box and experienced a liberating relief.

  The human mind is full of compartments, sealed areas and dark areas and boxes. Tim had not thought about marrying Gertrude until the moment when she herself uttered the word, though also he had not thought about not marrying her either. That moment had wrought a profound change in him. There was something quite new in his mind and his heart, something which coexisted with his delights and his anxieties and his mechanical evasions and habitual lies. This new thing might be described as a kind of moral hope, a hope which, when he felt pain, caused him the deepest pain. Or was it simply a desire for security, a desire for a house and a home, a desire for a mother? Tim was a child and children want order. No, it was more than that. The desire which he felt now, and which he had never felt so clearly before, was for a life of simplicity, an open honourable life where the expression of love was natural and truthful and direct and easy: as somehow in his own experience it had never been.

  Tim entered the house and dropped his kit in the sitting-room and went upstairs to cool his face and arms in the bathroom. He ran the cold water for some time, cooling his wrists luxuriously. He then went back to his bedroom and stood a while looking out of the side window towards the far-off rocky cleft wherein the more distant hillside made a segment of greeny-blue. He meditated for a time upon the colour while some of the thoughts recorded above jostled about uncomfortably inside his head. He longed now for Gertrude’s return, for the absolute safety of her presence and the indubitable experience of her precious love. In the cicada-hung silence nothing stirred. Then he moved quietly to the other window and gazed across the terrace, across the hillside and the valley to the rocks. It seemed to him that he had been looking at these rocks for years, that he had seen them long ago in his childhood. Their eternity irresistibly entered his eyes and his mind. The sun, which had risen behind them, was now striking them obliquely, filling them with holes and shadows, and making their exposed surfaces flicker with a dazzling grey. Tim gazed and his mouth relaxed and he forgot his troubles.

  Then as he began to turn away he looked directly down onto the terrace. He stood rigid, breathless with fright. A figure was standing just below him upon the steps leading to the flowery meadow. It was a man, who was gazing away across the valley, looking, as Tim had been looking, at the rocks. The man was Manfred.

  A hot ball of shame and terror rose up into Tim’s throat. Total confusion overcame him. He tiptoed a step or two away from the window and stood still again, holding onto his shuddering breast. Had Manfred seen him? Surely not. Would Manfred come up the stairs and find him? Should Tim go down and speak to him, greet him in a natural way? Gertrude had said no one knew that Tim was here. How could he now explain his presence, how not look guilty, confused, found out? What was he to say? What would Gertrude want him to say? And if Manfred kept him talking how could he let Gertrude know what he had said? They had not envisaged this, they had planned no fiction, they had invented no cover story. Ought he to hide, could he hide, simply not appear at all? He must ask Gertrude, consult with Gertrude, but how? If only Manfred would go away. He leaned towards the window and peered. Manfred showed no sign of going away. He seemed to be enjoying himself there, gazing around upon the countryside.

  If I could only get out, thought Tim, I could try to meet Gertrude and warn her, only I can’t get out with him there, there isn’t a back door. If only he’d go for a walk or something, but of course he won’t. He’s more likely to come into the house. He’s probably looked in already and decided there’s no one there. Should I just stay here till Gertrude arrives? No, I must know what to say, and besides if she isn’t warned she will give us away by sheer confusion. Then Tim thought, I could get out of the kitchen window, and I’d better try and do it now while he’s still outside. I may meet him coming in, but it’s worth trying. Then, even as he gazed, Manfred walked down the steps and into the meadow grass where he began to examine the flowers.

  Tim glided to the door and down the stairs, and in a moment he was in the kitchen, climbing up onto the sink. The kitchen window, which was not usually opened, had no mosquito netting. Fortunately it opened easily and silently. Tim sat down awkwardly on the sill, thrusting his feet out. He was confronted by a vast extensive sea of brambles. He hesitated, then he thought he heard a step upon the terrace, and he dropped down close to the wall. The ground behind the house was lower than he had expected. A roof of leaves closed over his head.

  He crouched against the wall, completely concealed, but also entirely unable to move, surrounded by a thick impenetrable enlacement of tough thorny branches. What a mindlessly idiotic thing he had done! His cheek had been torn in the fall, and he could feel several thorns quietly embedded in his arms and in his ankles, ready to tear him as soon as he stirred. His trousers, his shirt were gripped by scores of tiny brambly fingers. Oh fucking hell fire, why had he been so damnably stupid, what on earth was he to do! Even if he wanted to get back through the window now he could not, it was too high above him. It would have to end with his calling out ignominiously for help!

  The crouching position became suddenly agonizing and he moved, half kneeling, tearing his clothes, tearing his flesh. He could feel the blood coursing upon his arms, his legs, his face. And then, as if a god or a fairy-tale magician had touched his eyes, he saw an entirely new scene, a possible path to liberation. Just beyond the layer of brambles in which he was now entangled there was, roofed by a higher dome of branches, an open space; and beyond the space, near to the ground, there was a sort of shadowy archway. Oblivious now of the tiny spears which were clinging to him, scraping and scratching, he leaned forward through the leafy thorny screen and fell upon his elbows into the space, then gingerly drew his legs after him and kneeled in the green twilight.

  Before him was a tunnel leading away through the bramble thicket, a clean clear tunnel with a floor of hard beaten earth. The tunnel resumed on the nearer side of the space, veering in towards the wall of the house. This was clearly a pathway made by some animals, foxes perhaps, and the domed space was perhaps their meeting hall, or playground, or dancing floor. Tim did not waste time in speculations about the fauna. He set off on his hands and knees along the arched pathway which led away from the house. It was, for a man, distinctly low and narrow, but Tim was slim and lithe and he crawled and wriggled his way rapidly along it. He was now so mauled by the brambles that he was indifferent to further scars.

  After what seemed a long way, but was probably no more than about five yards, Tim saw something white before him and guessed that this must be the whitewashed wall of the garage, and the exit from the bramble patch. He was right. Now he could see ahead of him the sun shining upon the peeling trunk of the eucalyptus tree. The brambles thinned and ended in a sort of ditch occupied by other plants which ran along the side of the garage wall. Tim slithered gratefully out into the ditch and was about to rise cautiously to his feet when he was aware in front of him of something unusual, something large and black. He peered out through the foliage. The large black phenomenon was Manfred’s big car, which was parked on the gravel outside the garage. And there, leaning back against the bonnet, not more now than twenty feet away from Tim, was Mrs Mount.

  Tim did not wonder if she had seen him. It was immediately evident that Mrs Mount thought that she was alone, she had the fussy, self-absorbed movements of a private animal. Frowning, she scratched the side of her nose, then examined her finger. Then she pulled up her skirt and began to hitch up her tights. She noticed a hole in the tights, upon the thigh, and she examined this, observing how the flesh rose very slightly in a little mound through the hole. She resumed hitching up her tights, then, still frowning, carefully pulled h
er white petticoat and the skirt of her dress. She was wearing a smart silkish red and white dress and was clearly feeling rather hot. She thrust her hand in through the neck of her dress, loosening the petticoat and feeling her perspiration. She wiped her hand upon her neck and picked up her handbag which was lying beside her on the dusty bonnet of the car. She saw the dust, shook the bag and then shook out her dress and resumed her pose, opening the bag and taking out a powder compact. She examined her face in the mirror of the compact and as she did so a remarkable change came over her expression. The frown vanished and was succeeded by a look of angelic calm. For a moment Mrs Mount blew out her cheeks like a zephyr, and then positively smiled into the mirror, not a grin but a calm sweet reflective smile. She touched her forehead lightly with her fingers, smoothing away lines, and gently stroked the skin around her eyes. Then she very lightly powdered her face. She examined the results, maintaining the calm plumped-out expression which perhaps she had adopted long ago as a routine protection against wrinkles. And indeed she had none. Bronzed by the southern sun she looked, for the moment at any rate, younger, almost handsome. The bright light showed the clear dark blue of her clever nervous eyes. Only a slightly seamed upper lip and her fairish-grey hair made her look like ‘an older woman’. She put her compact away, picked up her bag, shook out her skirt again, moved round the car and disappeared in the direction of the house. She seemed to be dragging one foot a little. Her footsteps on the gravel receded, then as she turned the corner to the terrace the sound ceased.