Nuns and Soldiers

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘I like that,’ said Gertrude, pointing to a drawing of a boy pouring wine from a bottle. ‘And that.’ That was a rather messy Ernst-style bird with a pretty blue background of horizontal brush strokes. ‘And that.’ That was one of the cats which had got overlooked in the tidy-up.

  ‘Oh, that’s nothing.’ Tim hastily turned it to the wall.

  ‘No, I do like it. You’re a very good artist.’

  ‘Darling Gertrude, you know nothing about it!’

  ‘You will go on painting, won’t you, on and on?’

  ‘When I’m - Oh Gertrude, you are wrecking my life, you are destroying it. I don’t mind, I’m glad. It needed to be wrecked and destroyed. But I’ll have to start again from the beginning.’ Yes, that was what I felt about innocence, thought Tim. I am to be broken and made again, I will make myself again, with her. Oh let it be.

  Gertrude was undismayed by his language, and Tim loved her coolness. ‘But you will start again as a painter, that won’t be gone?’

  ‘That won’t be gone. Oh Gertrude, it’s so strange and wonderful seeing you here, like a miracle.’ He stared at her. It was amazing to see her against the background of his studio, like a piece of bold collage. There she was, sleek brown Gertrude, with her plain mouse-brown dress revealing a high-necked blue silk blouse and a round gold brooch. He looked at her smart quiet expensive shoes and her discreet leather handbag. Was this his girl?

  ‘Are you my girl?’

  ‘Yes, Tim.’

  ‘I hope you’re right. But I mean it, about everything being gone - all my habits, all my time - you’ve broken in like a tornado, it’s all flattened - everything is different, everything will be so different, when we’re - Look, let’s get out of here. It’s stopped raining. What’s the time? They’re open. Let’s go to a pub. You must get used to sitting in pubs when you’re -’ Would they sit in pubs? How would they pass their time? Marriage was indeed unimaginable.

  ‘To a pub? Now? It’s so early.’

  ‘Why not? What else is there to do? Come on, put your coat on.’

  Gertrude obeyed.

  So she does what I say, he thought, she does what I tell her. What were the limits of this power? The idea of dominating Gertrude was new to Tim. It seemed almost funny. A new thought came to him. ‘And afterwards - do you know what I want to do? I want to go to Ebury Street. I want to be there, in that flat, with you. I mean just be there, stand there. Do you mind? It’s important. ’

  ‘I know it’s important,’ said Gertrude, ‘and I understand about the destruction. I’m - my life is being destroyed too.’

  ‘Darling - I’m sorry-I -’

  ‘No, no, it must be. But we can’t go to Ebury Street, Anne’s there.’

  ‘Why is that a reason for not going?’

  ‘I thought you wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘I’m afraid of Anne. I feel she’ll persuade you to give me up. But I’ll have to meet her around the place. I mustn’t be too much of a surprise for them! They must begin to realize that we’re sort of friends now!’

  He’s right, thought Gertrude. He must appear somehow, sort of casually. But how will they not guess? And Anne-I can’t ask her to move out. And there’s Stanley and Janet tonight. And oh, my whole way of life doesn’t make sense any more, my time, my day, is all gone wild. Can this be right and good? What a destroyer love is.

  ‘Let’s go to Ebury Street,’ said Tim. ‘Let’s go now. We’ll have our drink there. With Anne.’

  ‘It’s Mary Magdalen in reverse!’ Gertrude had said to Anne, as she poured out her jewel box onto Anne’s bed; and they had both laughed crazily, laughing their old laugh, the memento of their youth, the symbol of their lives, bound together forever.

  ‘Darling, you can’t wear that black dress without jewellery,’ Gertrude had said, as she sorted the gew-gaws out into two piles. One pile, Anne guessed, were the pieces which Guy had given her. Among the others Gertrude rootled, picking out this and that which she thought might suit Anne. ‘You must keep them, no, no, you must, I’ve got such a lot, as you can see.’

  Anne had put on the black dress again, at Gertrude’s insistence. Gertrude had now gone out to see her social worker, and Anne was sitting looking at herself in the mirror. She was wearing round the neck of the black dress a dark amber necklace with a long amber pendant which glowed with a magical reddish light. The dress had a high small collar which concealed within Anne’s tiny golden cross upon its chain. The glowing pendant hung down between her breasts. It did look nice.

  Anne looked at her thin face and at her narrow eyes. Looking in the mirror was becoming a kind of meditation. Gertrude had agreed that her smooth close-grained faintly shiny complexion required no make-up. Her shrewd pale mouth showed a very faint colour. Her dull faded blonde hair was clipped and shaped to her long head. This gave her a boyish look which did not displease her. Her brow was unmarked and smooth, and so was her thin elongated neck. The close-fitting well-cut black dress suited her; and Gertrude was right, it asked for a necklace.

  Anne sat calm, relaxed, her hands limps, her mouth at peace. Her mind was not calm, but as she gazed she felt her body lithe and still about her. It was as if her body had some secret ease of which her mind knew nothing. She looked at her head and imagined it as it had so long been, with the white wimple and the black veil which she had so deftly adjusted every day in her little bedroom, hurriedly dressing before the dawn. She looked at her watch. She knew exactly what they were all doing now back there in the precious holy repetition of their worship of God. ‘You have put on Christ like a garment.’ Garments can be taken off and laid aside. Had she thrown away the essential, kept the inessential, given herself over to an ineluctable corruption? It was very possible.

  She thought, Mary Magdalen in reverse! A very apt idea. Her vanity had awakened, she could feel it twist and turn and peer about. She could feel old appetites stirring. She had regained the concept of herself as a good-looking woman, still young. It was for her an unnecessary, even a bad concept.

  The retreat had been profitless. A routine was needful, some deep repetitive rhythm of the soul. Alone at the cottage she had invented and imposed routine, but it had seemed arbitrary and superficial and in the end startlingly irksome. Yet no novelty pleased her either. Old prayers that came to her unbidden seemed like demons. She gazed with horror upon the wet grey stones, and the solitude she had craved for served her not. When Easter came, the period between Good Friday and Easter Sunday seemed interminable. She had so often followed Christ’s journey, the suffering illuminated by the light of a cosmic triumph. Now, even to put it to herself that at last she felt that he had suffered hideously and simply died was a kind of hollow intellectual comfort. What she experienced was worse than that, something beyond words, a sickness with the whole of being intensified at this time by some old senseless spiritual chemistry. She felt for the first time in her life afraid of her mind, afraid of some independent cancerous life of its own which it seemed to be developing. Strong Anne had never conceived of herself as likely to have a ‘breakdown’. The Abbess had warned her, and she had warned herself, of a black time to come, a dark night, a night of fruitlessness. Of course I shall become depressed, she thought. She had not conceived of a dry despair wherein, as with a trick of vision, odd and awful things flickered at her. She began to have strange fears at night. She returned to London sooner than she had intended. Here she walked the streets daily until she was thoughtless with weariness. She went into a shop and bought the black dress. She began to feel a little better and found herself intensely looking forward to Gertrude’s return.

  The telephone rang. Anne jumped up and went into the drawing-room. She spoke the number, in Gertrude’s manner, which was Guy’s manner.

  ‘Oh - is that Anne?’

  ‘Yes. Hello, Count. Good morning.’

  ‘Anne - is - is Gertrude there?’

  ‘No. She’s gone to see some social work people. Can I give her a message?’

  ‘No.
It’s you I want to see. Look, I’m at Victoria. May I drop round for a moment? There’s something I want to tell you.’

  ‘Yes, come at once.’

  Anne put the receiver down and stood breathless in the room, her hand upon the amber pendant. The Count had sounded so agitated. Or had she mistaken his tone? Perhaps it was nothing, a triviality, some little present with which he wanted to surprise Gertrude or something of the sort.

  Within minutes the bell rang, she pressed the button to release the street door, then heard the Count’s feet upon the stairs. She opened the door of the flat. ‘Come in, what is it, you look bothered, tell me, what is it?’

  The Count went on into the drawing-room. He took off his black mackintosh which was lightly spotted with rain, held it a moment, then dropped it on the floor. Anne did not pick it up. She looked intently at his troubled face. Then, looking down at her, he changed his expression, smiled in a gentle apologetic way. ‘Anne, I’m sorry. Forgive me for alarming you.’

  ‘You are alarming me. Whatever is it?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think,’ said the Count, ‘and perhaps I oughtn’t to worry you, but I must just ask you something. I have allowed myself to become-I ought to be at the office -’

  ‘Count, tell me. Let me help you.’

  ‘You are so good - and because you are somehow - I’ve always felt - as it were detached, so wise -’

  ‘Tell me!’

  ‘And you are so fond of Gertrude, and you know her so well. I think she relies on you more than on anyone.’

  ‘Is it about Gertrude?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Anne sat down. She thought, Gertrude has cancer and nobody told me. A blackness surrounded her. She said, ‘Is it that Gertrude’s ill, very ill?’

  ‘No, no, no, nothing like that.’

  ‘Sit down, please, Count, and explain.’

  The Count would not sit down. He walked to the window and looked out at the rain falling quietly onto Ebury Street. Then he walked back and looked down at Anne.

  ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t. Perhaps one should ignore such things. But I can’t ignore this, I can’t -’

  ‘What, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘I have received an anonymous letter - about Gertrude -’

  ‘But - what does it say?’

  ‘Look.’ He drew a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Anne.

  She unfolded it. The message, typewritten and unsigned, simply read: Gertrude is having a love affair with Tim Reede.

  Anne felt a shock like a blow, then a hot flame and flash of emotion. She put her hand to her face. She recovered herself. ‘It’s impossible. It’s a lie. A horrible joke. It can’t be true.’

  ‘I’m glad you say so,’ said the Count gravely. ‘I wanted to hear you say so. That was my immediate thought. But then - if it’s a lie, why this lie, if it’s a joke it’s an odd joke. You haven’t yourself - forgive me - Gertrude has said nothing to you?’

  ‘No, of course not! It’s inconceivable! When did you get this?’

  ‘This morning. It was posted last night in central London. There’s the envelope.’

  ‘How eerie,’ said Anne, ‘who ever would have sent it? How horrid.’

  ‘Yes, it’s - unclean. I felt I ought to tear it up and try to forget it, wash it right out of my mind - but I couldn’t, I became upset, then I felt I had to come and ask you if you knew -’

  Gertrude had been wrong in imagining that the Count had poured out the story of his love to Anne. He had said nothing to Anne of his love for Gertrude. But of course Anne had perceived this love some time ago, when the Count had been to see them, after they came back from the north, when he had stood and trembled and gazed helplessly at Gertrude. And she had seen it again just lately, more confident and stronger, after her own return and before Gertrude’s when the Count had rung up for news, then come round to join her in welcoming Gertrude home. He had been so happy then. Anne did not need to be told how deeply and how tenderly the Count loved her friend.

  ‘Oh my dear Anne,’ said the Count, ‘can it be true?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Anne, ‘but I’ll find out and let you know.’

  Her practical tone seemed to alarm the Count even more. Perhaps he felt it sounded crude, as if he had run round to recruit a spy. ‘No, I didn’t want-I just wanted to ask you in case you knew - much better not to say anything-I feel one ought simply to ignore anonymous letters, destroy them, obliterate them, I’ll tear it up -’

  ‘No, don’t do that, keep it.’

  ‘But if you think it’s sure not to be true - Gertrude would be so hurt to think that we seriously-I mean we can’t believe that she would - so soon after - do that - and with -’

  ‘Don’t worry, Count. Let me deal with this. You’re right, we can’t ignore it, it must be cleared up. Don’t worry. It’s probably some weird piece of pure spite, something we may never understand at all, or else -’

  ‘You feel certain it isn’t true?’

  ‘Yes. But I’ll find out for sure, and much better to do so at once.’

  ‘You won’t tell her about the letter or that I came round - ?’

  ‘Leave it to me. You’d better go back to the office. Off you go.’

  The Count was reluctant to go. He wanted to stay and be comforted, told that this horror was impossible. But Anne picked up his coat, opened the door of the room and the door of the flat.

  ‘Will you telephone me at the office? I’ll write down the number.’

  ‘I don’t promise to,’ said Anne. ‘Oh well yes I will. Just stop worrying, go and do your work. Go, go.’

  The Count departed.

  Anne went back into the drawing-room. What an amazing possibility. She thought of Tim Reede as she had seen him with one hand inside Gertrude’s fridge, the other holding the bag with the stolen goodies. Their eyes had met. He had stopped with his mouth open, the picture of guilt. She had frowned and turned away. Her majestic Gertrude and that petty man? No.

  Anne went to her bedroom. She took off the amber necklace and put it on the dressing-table with the other things which Gertrude had wanted to give her. Then she took off the black dress and put on her dove-grey dress with the white collar. She put her hand to her face, realizing that she had toothache. She must make an appointment with Samuel Orpen. She recalled the gloomy convent dentist who had told her, while doing intricate bridge-work, that he had lost his faith. She looked at her books which were piled against the wall. There were not many, devotional works, Latin authors. She had left most of them behind. The convent had been vague about ownership of books. Gertrude had offered her a bookcase but she preferred to keep the books in an unordered pile. She picked up her Greek grammar and laid it down again. She was no longer in love with novel reading. She had never finished The Heart of Midlothian. During her brief retreat she had read nothing. The absence of organized work from her life was bad. Many things were, now, bad. She seemed to be living in a fever of subdued excitement and fear, perhaps in expectation of the darkness which was monstrously playing with her. The devil was alive in her life and seemed to have taken over some of the functions of God. She thought about the horrible letter. This too was part of the excitement and the badness.

  Anne left her bedroom and began to walk about the flat. She went into the room where Guy had lain when he was ill and where he had died. Gertrude had sent the bed away, sold it no doubt. The small room was characterless now, a clean neat room with oddments of furniture, including the empty bookcase which Gertrude wanted to move into Anne’s room. Gertrude had dispersed Guy’s books, given some of them to the Count. She had removed, for it caused her too much pain, Guy’s ‘look’ from the flat. Anne recalled her conversation with Guy, his hawk-face and glittering eyes, and how he had wanted the precision of judgement and purgatory. Vice is natural and general, virtue is particular, original, unnatural, hard. Guy would have understood about her devil, her monster. Guy too had wanted to keep out of the mess of life. His virtue was accu
racy. That was his kind of truth. His desire for justice was his very private substitute for holiness. He worked for other men, he served his family, he was kind and generous and decent, but would have given himself no credit for that. His need for things to be precise and clean was a part of his secret judgement upon himself. Her idea that he had wanted to confess something to her now seemed like a piece of romanticism. Perhaps he had simply wanted to say certain words aloud to somebody: justice, purgatory, suffering, death. He had wanted to feel that their precise meaning was there somewhere, kept safe by someone, even just at one moment existent in thought. He lay there in the small last light of his mind, calculating, trying to get something clear, to get something right. Then one day it was over, the feverish humming electricity had ceased, the spark was gone, the room was empty, and Gertrude was crying out like a wild beast.

  Anne heard a step on the stair, the sound of the key touching the flat door, and she came quickly and guiltily out of the room. Gertrude came in, but she was not alone, a man was with her. It was Tim Reede.

  Tim and Gertrude were both rather red, nervously smiling. ‘I met Tim. I’ve brought him for a drink.’

  ‘Is it still raining?’ said Anne.

  ‘No, it’s stopped.’

  ‘You go in. I’ll bring the drinks.’

  They left their mackintoshes in the hall. Anne fetched glasses and sherry, vermouth and gin.

  ‘I think we might leave the bottles on the marquetry table like we used to,’ said Gertrude. ‘There’s no need to take them away every time.’

  ‘I’ll try to remember. And whisky too. Would you like some now?’

  ‘No, sherry’s fine. Sherry, Tim? Won’t you have anything, Anne?’

  ‘No I don’t feel like it.’

  ‘You don’t drink much?’ said Tim, smiling.

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘Anne mopped up the local cider when we were in the north.’