A Fairly Honourable Defeat by Iris Murdoch
Rupert poured out the whisky. He said, ‘Look, Morgan, you must make a serious effort—’
She said, ‘Rupert, hold onto me, tie me down—’ Then she said, ‘Sorry.’ She moved, gave a short ‘Oh!’ and for a moment Rupert thought she was going to faint. But as he stretched out his hand to her she darted past. The study door flew open and he heard her running feet on the stairs. The front door opened.
Rupert hurried out onto the landing. He saw Morgan reach the gate, look both ways, and then run away along the road to the right.
Rupert returned to his study and put the tumbler on the desk. The piece of green malachite was lying where Morgan had laid it down. He put it away in a drawer. Then he sighed deeply and began to drink the whisky.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHEN MORGAN REACHED THE GATE she knew Julius must have turned to the right, otherwise he would still be in view. She ran to the corner of Gilston Road and looked both ways but could see no sign of him. The whole area suddenly seemed to be portentously empty, lines of parked motor cars, still trees, silent houses. The street lamps had come on but the twilit sky of luminous rich blue could still contain their light. The Boltons was nearer than the Fulham Road. She turned right again and the heels of her sandals clacked upon the warm pavement. She reached Tregunter Road and looked along it, crossed to the other side and looked again. There was no one to be seen, only the desolate road full of ominous empty cars and the globes of street lamps fuzzy and bright in the glowing darkening air. Now the uncertain light was baffling her eyes. Gasping already with breathlessness and fear she began to run along the left hand curve of the Boltons. When she had reached about halfway she had to stop and lean against a wall. She was sobbing for breath and choking with incoherent emotion. Then she began to walk quickly on, touching the creamy stucco balustrades for support. When she had nearly reached the end of the curve she saw a pale figure materializing ahead of her. It was Julius, who had walked up the other side of the oval and was now nearing the intersection with the Old Brompton Road.
‘Julius!’ But the sound she made was like a dream sound, a soft voiceless croak, and he continued to recede, walking rapidly.
Morgan began to run again. She caught him up on the corner of the Old Brompton Road where he had paused and was looking both ways, evidently hoping for a taxi.
‘Julius, it’s me.’
He turned towards her, not surprised, faintly irritated and preoccupied. Then looked again along the road in both directions.
‘Julius—’
‘You should not have run.’
‘What can I do but run,’ she said desperately, ‘run, run, run—’
Julius was still looking for his taxi. The lamplight was reflected on his glasses. He was wearing a yellowish linen jacket and an open-necked shirt. He said, ‘I am very sorry to be in a hurry but I have an appointment.’
‘Why did you come to Priory Grove?’ said Morgan. ‘You must have known you’d see me. You did it on purpose. Why, why?’
‘A not very felicitous impulse. I apologize. Now please excuse me.’ He began to walk away from her along the Old Brompton Road in the direction of South Kensington.
Morgan began to hurry along beside him. There were a number of people on the pavements now and she had to keep falling behind. She found herself gasping again. The sheer physical authority of his presence almost reft her of breath. If only he would be quiet with her, stop somewhere and be quiet and let her experience that presence. She cried, ‘Julius, don’t walk so fast, please, I must talk to you.’
‘What about? There is nothing more to say, is there?’
‘Oh, why did you come. Julius, I’m in despair, please help me, it’s all because of you, you’re the only person who can help me now.’
‘I do not like melodramatic speeches in public places. And what you say is hardly true. And I am in a hurry to be somewhere else. I am sorry.’
‘Please stop walking for a moment, only a moment, and then I promise I’ll go away.’
They stopped and faced each other at the corner of Drayton Gardens. There was a pub on the corner with golden windows and a friendly hubbub coming from within. The sky was almost dark now.
‘Please come into the pub for a moment,’ said Morgan. She felt that if she could only sit down she would be able to think.
‘You know I detest pubs.’
‘Julius, help me.’
‘You are a grown-up person and you must help yourself. Or if you must burden somebody with your troubles then burden your sister and her husband who will undoubtedly enjoy it. I am not a nurse.’
‘I know I went away from you, Julius. But you made me leave you. You know you did.’
‘This is a profitless and rather metaphysical discussion. I don’t want to seem hard-hearted, but you are merely upsetting us both and as far as I am concerned the episode you refer to is over.’
‘Perhaps you feel hurt and resentful—’
‘I feel neither. I merely wish you to recognize that you are a person endowed with free will and reason. And to go and exercise these faculties elsewhere.’
‘But I still love you.’
‘You must deal with that problem yourself. There are various well-known methods of extinguishing love.’
‘But I don’t want to extinguish it. Oh Julius, don’t you love me at all any more?’
‘Please keep your voice down. As you will recall, I never once promised you love or said that I loved you.’
‘Oh God, that’s true,’ said Morgan. She gave a raucous tearless sob.
‘I thought we understood each other.’
‘I could never accept it,’ she said. ‘Oh my dear—’
‘Come, come. Remember we are in the public street. I dislike scenes and I dislike excitable muddled women, as you know. You once seemed to me not to be one. You once seemed to me, in this respect, exceptional. That was my mistake and I apologize for it. I told you clearly that I could not offer love. I made it plain to you what I could offer. You seemed to agree. But you took the liberty of assuming that I felt exactly what you wanted me to feel all the same.’
‘I know I did,’ said Morgan. ‘But I couldn’t not. I loved you so much. And you were there. Oh Christ—’
‘Please. I am sorry, as I say, to sound so cold. Possibly I am as upset as you are. But I should be of very little service to you if I became sentimental. You are an intelligent woman. Try to see this.’
‘I see it,’ she said, ‘I see it. And it’s hell. Oh Julius, out of so much, can we not salvage a little? This was the greatest thing of my life. Even a little would help me now. I know you never deceived me, never, never, never. I deceived myself. But please, can you not give me something?’
‘What do you want?’
‘Friendship, support, understanding—’
‘Either that is a great deal or else it is nursemaid’s work. In any case I cannot give it. How can you so misconceive my character? I thought then that you knew me.’
‘I am stupid and emotional now, but please will you see me later? Just say you will and it will keep me going. I’ll be very calm and sensible.’
‘It is pointless. You admit to being sick. And I certainly cannot cure you since I am the cause of the sickness.’
‘You are responsible,’ she said. ‘It is your fault.’
‘You are becoming hysterical. I am in a hurry and I must leave you.’
‘Are you saying that you won’t see me?’
‘No. That sort of pronouncement belongs to a kind of drama which no longer exists here except in your mind. Mortal things finish and this has finished. I am saying that I no longer want to see you. And that if you will reflect when you are feeling less emotional you will realize that any further meetings would be likely to be just as fruitless and upsetting as this one. Now please let us separate. Good night to you.’
He began to walk quickly away, crossing Drayton Gardens and continuing along the road. It was quite dark now and Julius seemed at once to disappear,
‘Julius, let me just walk with you until you get your taxi.’
‘As you wish.’
‘Julius, what am I to do?’
‘Why not go back to your husband? He seemed to me to be quite a nice man.’
‘What?’ Morgan stopped and Julius paused a pace or two ahead of her looking back.
‘What’s the matter now?’
‘Wait a moment,’ said Morgan. ‘ “Seemed to you”—But you haven’t ever met Tallis.’
‘I met him a day or two ago at Axel’s. Didn’t anybody tell you?’
Morgan began to walk automatically and they walked on together, now more slowly.
‘At Axel’s,’ she said. ‘You met Tallis. Oh my God.’
‘Well, why not? He didn’t hit me. He even offered me his hand. Why are you so upset?’
‘He offered you his hand.’ Tears rose into Morgan’s eyes and she rubbed them away with her knuckles.
‘You should be pleased that we’ve met amicably. As I say, he seemed a decent chap.’
‘This is—somehow—the end. I’m sorry, I don’t know what I’m saying—’
‘I wonder why no one told you? Rupert must have known.’
‘I’m sorry. I think I’ll turn back now. Does Tallis know I’m here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who told him?’
‘Axel,’ said Julius, after a moment. ‘Don’t cry then. Well, good night.’
‘One moment,’ said Morgan. They were standing on the corner of Cranley Gardens.
‘What is it this time?’
‘Listen,’ she said. Her mouth seemed filled with bitterness and pain. ‘There’s something you don’t know. When I left you—when you made me leave you—in South Carolina I took away a little memento with me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I found I was pregnant.’
Julius drew in a shuddering breath. He moved stiffly away from her and took several paces down Cranley Gardens. She followed, trying to see his face.
‘And what happened?’
‘I had an abortion of course. It was very expensive. But I wasn’t going to ask you for money.’
The traffic rumbled on beyond the moving frieze of darkened people. After a moment Julius said, ‘You regard the destruction of a child as a financial transaction.’
‘It certainly seemed like one at the time.’ She felt an awful premonitory pang of grief.
‘And did it not occur to you to consult me about the continued existence of my own child?’
‘I didn’t think you’d care.’ She had not, not for a second, thought so.
Julius was silent. Then he murmured, ‘Again,’ and began to move back towards the main road. Then he said, ‘Was it a boy?’
‘I didn’t ask,’ said Morgan. ‘I didn’t think of it as having a sex. As far as I was concerned it was a disease.’
A lighted taxi appeared moving slowly up towards the traffic lights. Julius hailed it and it drew in towards the kerb. He said to the driver ‘Brook Street’ and to Morgan ‘Good night.’ The taxi door slammed. The lights changed and the taxi drew away.
Morgan stood there, brushed and jostled by passers-by. Then she took a few steps and leaned her head against a brick wall and began to sob hysterically.
CHAPTER NINE
‘WHAT ARE THEY FOR after all but to kiss the foot that kicks them in the teeth? And when they’ve had the boils and the cattle have died and the children have died and they’re scraping themselves with potsherds or whatever, though what that’s like and why I’ve never been able to make out, I suppose if one hadn’t any soap one might try to scrape the dirt off like when you scrape the mud off an old boot, not that there’s any point in talking about soap to you, or potsherds either if it comes to that, since you never wash and go around like an old sheep with a filthy tail, and after all that and the damned irrelevant rubbish about the elephants and the whales and the morning stars and so on, there they are still whining and grovelling and enjoying being booted in the face—My toes are itching like hell. What do you think that’s a symptom of?’
‘Itching toes,’ said Tallis.
He was sitting at the kitchen table. He had been trying to write a lecture entitled ‘The Trade Union Movement and the Russian Revolution’. He had started a sentence During these years Lloyd George played an ambiguous role, he when Leonard had entered the kitchen. That was half an hour ago.
Although it was late in the evening it was still hot in the kitchen. The window was wide open and the electric light revealed a square segment of caked and crumbling brick wall just outside. The kitchen smelt of old frying fat and the general bitter smell of the house. The sink smelt of urine. Tallis had pushed some dirty plates into a pile to make room on the table for his notebooks. Leonard was sitting in the wickerwork chair, swaying himself to and fro so that the chair emitted a squealing sound. The Pakistanis were playing jazz music upstairs. Somewhere out in the street a woman was screaming. Tallis fidgeted, half got up, and then as the sound receded fell back on his chair. He found it difficult to focus his eyes on the page. Leonard talking had the effect of emptying his mind of thoughts.
‘Furthermore,’ said Leonard. He leaned forward, brushing the loose pendant strands of his chin to and fro across the top of the stick which he was holding between his legs, ‘Furthermore, it’s no good their talking about progress. If they get hold of one thing they lose another. It’s automatic. They can’t win. Now they are prating of happiness. But what is it? They don’t even know. If they had it they’d keep their coal in it. And there’s another thing. They crave for change, at any price, and they’ll always crave for it, at any price, and that’s why they’ll always have wars, wars upon wars upon wars, until this globe’s got nothing on it but old bones and plastic bags and a seething mass of spiders. Spiders will survive longest. And plastic is indestructible. That’s what this place is like. What a planet.’
‘Oh go to bed, Daddy,’ said Tallis.
‘Of course it all went wrong from the start.’
‘Oh fuck off, Daddy, I’m trying to work.’
‘What did you have for supper?’
‘Baked beans.’
‘What did I have?’
‘Chicken something or other.’
‘I’m hungry.’
‘Well, make yourself some toast.’
‘Will you poach me an egg?’
‘No.’
‘Where’s Peter?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘The spiders will eat each other.’
‘I expect they will. Look, Daddy—’
‘So they’ll be all right.’
‘It’s nearly midnight—’
‘They can live in the plastic bags.’
‘I’ve got to finish this lecture—’
‘Did you know that your wife was in England?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you going to see her?’
‘No.’
‘What did I do to have a wet as a son?’
‘The point is—’
‘I wonder if you know what your mouth looks like when you talk? You ought to look in a mirror sometime. Only I doubt if you’d survive the shock.’
‘How did you know she was?’
‘Peter told me. He told me not to tell you.’
‘You and Peter are a jolly discreet pair.’
‘Why aren’t you?’
‘If she doesn’t want to see me I don’t want to bother her. Not yet anyway.’
‘So you’ve got a plan?’
‘No. I just know I’m unstable. I don’t know what I’ll do. I mean, I can’t predict it.’
‘The only real and beautiful thing you ever did in your life was to marry that girl.’
‘We can agree about that.’
‘You could have knocked me down with a feather.’
‘Me too.’
‘Agreed, agreed—’
‘And then you let a bloody Jew take her away from you.’
‘She’s free—’
‘ “Free”! That’s gibberish. You haven’t mentioned her name for a year. I thought you’d forgotten her.’
‘Well, I haven’t forgotten her.’
‘If I had my way all the bloody Jews would be deported to Palestine and all the bloody nig nogs would be sent back to wherever they came from and all the Welfare State scroungers would be sent to Australia. Do them good to do a little work for a change. They could clear the bush.’
‘The bush is desert. There’s nothing to clear.’
‘Let them die of thirst then. And all Americans would be shot on sight.’
‘Do stop squeaking the chair, Daddy, it’s getting on my nerves.’
‘You never gave her any fun. You’ve got to give a woman fun.’
‘Did you give my mother fun?’
‘Don’t you dare to speak to me of your mother!’
‘Well, did you?’
‘No. But that’s because I never had any blasted money.’
‘Fun—’ said Tallis. He pushed his notebooks away from him and several plates went over the side with a crash. ‘Oh hell—’
‘Are you daring to insinuate that I behaved badly to your mother?’
‘I’ve no idea. We were—I was only five when she cleared off.’
‘I wish you were five again, I’d give you something. Not that beating ever did you any good. But my God I enjoyed it.’
‘Do go to bed, Daddy.’
‘Couldn’t get a woman all those years. Had to have some erotic satisfaction. Whacking your bottom was something.’
‘Do go to bed, I’m tired—’
‘You’re always tired. You make me sick with your bloody tiredness. You had every bloody advantage and look what you’ve done with your life. Just look at you.’
‘Another time, if you don’t mind.’
‘I’ve had a bloody awful life and what’s more it’s nearly over.’