A Fairly Honourable Defeat by Iris Murdoch
‘I’m sorry,’ said Tallis. ‘We had a bit of a flood with that thunderstorm. I left the window open and the rain came in.’
‘Why is it so sticky?’ said Julius.
‘It’s always sticky, I don’t quite know why. The rain just seems to have amalgamated with all the other stuff. Stay where you are and I’ll put some newspaper down.’
Tallis laid sheets of newspaper on the floor and Julius stepped gingerly as far as the table and sat down.
‘Shall I put the light on?’ said Tallis.
Since the thunderstorm the weather had been cold and overcast and rainy with a continuous slow bundling along of dumpy low-down grey clouds.
‘As you like.’
‘Then I think I won’t, if you don’t mind. Electric light’s always a bit depressing during the day.’
‘I entirely agree.’
‘I’m sorry it’s so cold in here. The window won’t shut properly. I might light the gas stove.’ Tallis opened the oven door and put a match to the row of gas burners at the back. They lit up with a small explosion. He left the door of the oven open.
‘Quite a change in the weather,’ said Julius.
‘Yes, it’s chilly, isn’t it.’
‘Such a damp cold. I’m not used to this degree of humidity combined with a low temperature.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘I hope I haven’t interrupted you? Were you working?’
‘No, no. I was just mending a string of beads.’ Tallis swept the dark brownish beads off the table top into the drawer. They pattered away. He closed the drawer and sat down opposite Julius.
‘At any rate it hasn’t rained this morning,’ said Julius. ‘Everything’s quiet. It takes me so long to roll my umbrella to satisfy English standards, it seems a pity to undo the masterpiece directly. ’ He leaned the slim rigorously rolled umbrella up against the table. Its black handle ended in a knob of ivory with a faint lotus design on it.
‘You don’t think my umbrella is too feminine, do you?’
‘No, very elegant.’
‘One can get away with such things in London. In New York it would be quite impossible.’
‘I dare say.’
Julius was neatly dressed in a rather old-fashioned way, with a dark suit, a white shirt, and a narrow tie with horizontal stripes. His colourless hair had recently been cut. He carried no hat.
‘Are you working on a book?’ Julius indicated the litter of papers, books and periodicals at the other end of the table.
‘No. Only lectures.’
‘I thought you were writing a book about Marx and de Tocqueville?’
‘I gave it up.’
‘A pity. A most interesting subject.’
There was a short silence during which Julius scrutinized the kitchen with a faint frown, noting the milk bottles, the dishes, the piles of newspapers, and the curious coagulated mess upon the dresser.
Tallis was looking at the window with big rather hazy eyes. He said, ‘My father is very ill.’
‘I’m extremely sorry to hear that.’
‘He’s dying—of cancer.’
‘I am so sorry. Is he likely to live long?’
‘Six months. A year.’
‘Perhaps that is just as well if the disease is incurable. I hope he is not in pain.’
‘Well, he is—in pain—’ said Tallis. He was still looking at the window. ‘You see, we thought it was arthritis. He’s had this pain in his hip for a long time and it’s been getting worse lately. The doctor says some ray treatment may help, just ease the pain that is, and some tablets, I forget what he said they were—’
‘Does your father know that he has cancer?’
‘No, he doesn’t,’ said Tallis. ‘And I haven’t told him. I’ve kept up the thing about the arthritis and how he may have to have an operation. It’s something one can talk about and his thinking it’s arthritis may somehow make the pain less dreadful, he’s used to the pain, thinking of it in that kind of way. But it seems so terrible to lie to him and to go to all sorts of details about things which just aren’t true.’
‘I can imagine how you feel,’ said Julius. It was beginning to rain a little. There was a murmur of wind, and rain swept in a long sigh across the window.
‘It seems especially wrong to lie to someone who’s dying. And yet this seems a silly abstract sort of an idea really. I’ve looked after him a long time now. I feel so hopelessly sort of protective. I want to spare him the misery and the fear.’
‘I quite understand.’
‘And in a way of course I’m protecting myself. It’s much easier to live with him in the lie than to live with him in the truth.’
‘And because you are considering yourself you are more ready to doubt that you are right?’
‘Yes.’
‘What kind of man is your father?’ said Julius.
Tallis was silent for a moment. ‘It’s hard to be objective about him. No one ever asked me to describe him before. He had no education. He was a porter in an abattoir. He used to carry the car-cases about. Somebody has to. Then he was unemployed for ages. Then he worked in a garage, only that was later. He came south from Derbyshire when we were kids. I had a twin sister only she died of polio. When we came to London my mother left us. She was posher of course. Daddy fed us on bread and butter and stew. We were a hell of a burden to him. God, he’s had a rotten life. We all have to go but I wish he hadn’t had such a bloody rotten life.’
‘Are you on good terms with him?’
‘Yes. We shout at each other.’
‘Perhaps the truth would embarrass you both. It might prove impossible to talk about.’
‘One couldn’t talk about it anyway,’ said Tallis. ‘We can’t talk about that. And when we think we do we don’t.’
‘What’s he like as a person, his character?’
‘Disappointed. Bitter. Proud.’
‘His life belongs to him? Not all men own their lives.’
‘He owns his.’
‘Then you ought to tell him.’
‘Yes. Maybe. Would you like some beer?’
‘No, thanks. How’s Peter?’
‘Unhappy. He was happy, now he’s unhappy. I don’t know why. I ought to have found out. I haven’t. Tell me something, by the way, you might know this.’
‘What?’
‘Why is stealing wrong?’
‘It’s just a matter of definition,’ said Julius.
‘How do you mean?’
‘It’s a tautology. “Steal” is a concept with a built-in pejorative significance. So to say that stealing is wrong is simply to say that what is wrong is wrong. It isn’t a meaningful statement. It’s empty.’
‘Oh. But does that mean that stealing isn’t wrong?’
‘You haven’t understood me,’ said Julius. ‘Remarks of that sort aren’t statements at all and can’t be true or false. They are more like cries or pleading. You can say “Please don’t steal” if you want to, so long as you realize that there’s nothing behind it. It’s all just conventions and feelings.’
‘Oh. I see,’ said Tallis. There was a pause. ‘Do you mind if I have some beer? Would you like some coffee? No?’
He rummaged in the cupboard and produced a can of beer which he put on the table. Then he began to search the heaped-up mass of oddments on the dresser for an opener. Various things fell off. The oddments seemed to have become rather sticky too. There was no sign of the opener. Tallis began to bash the top of the beer can with a screwdriver. ‘Oh damn.’
‘You’ve cut yourself,’ said Julius, rising.
‘It’s nothing.’
‘Hold your hand under the tap.’
Julius turned the tap on and Tallis washed off the blood which was flowing freely over his hand. When he took his wet hand away it reddened once more.
‘Keep it there, you fool,’ said Julius. ‘You’ll have to cover that. It seems quite a clean cut. I suppose you haven’t any disinfectant? I thought not. No, not on t
Julius ripped several sheets of looseleaf paper from a pad upon the table and dried Tallis’s hand. Then he took a clean white handkerchief from his pocket and tied up the cut, knotting the ends of the handkerchief round Tallis’s wrist.
‘You look quite shaken.’
‘Sorry,’ said Tallis. ‘I feel so rotten these days any damn thing makes me want to cry.’ He sat down.
‘You’d better have some beer. I suppose there’s nothing stronger in the house. You still haven’t managed to open that tin. Why, here’s the opener all the time.’ Julius poured out a glass of beer.
‘Thanks.’
Julius stood in front of him, looking down at him while he drank.
After a while he said, ‘I didn’t quite take you in when I first saw you. However I feel bound to say—you’re a disappointment to me.’
‘I know,’ said Tallis, ‘I just can’t—All I can think about at the moment is my father.’
There was a minute’s silence in the twilit kitchen. Tallis sipped the beer, gazing at the grey window down which the rain was noiselessly running.
‘Has Morgan asked you for a divorce?’ said Julius.
‘Yes.’
‘You know why?’
‘No. Well, why shouldn’t she?’
‘She’s got herself involved with Rupert.’
Tallis went on staring at the window. He said, ‘That simply cannot be true.’
‘Oh well,’ said Julius, picking up his umbrella, ‘it’s no good talking to you. I dare say it’s all on the highest plane. I don’t suppose she means to appropriate Rupert. He’s just sorting her out. And tidying you away is the obvious first step.’
‘Oh go to hell, will you,’ said Tallis. He reached out and poured himself some more beer.
‘You need looking after,’ said Julius. ‘There’s a most peculiar smell in here. The place must be crawling with germs. You ought to have it thoroughly cleaned up. Or better still move somewhere else and start again. Look, I’ve got plenty of money. I never lend money on principle, it only causes trouble. Let me give you some.’
‘Don’t be idiotic.’
Julius sighed. ‘I won’t say I’m misunderstood. I’m sure you understand me very well. But I am, as I say, disappointed, in more ways than one. Well, good-bye. It looks as if I am going to have to unroll my umbrella after all.’
After Julius had gone Tallis sat for a long time watching the slow quick quick slow of the raindrops coming down the window pane. They glittered very faintly gold, like white sapphires. The rain was noisier now, hissing, beating. The Sikh was out driving his bus and wearing his contentious turban. The Pakistanis upstairs had taken in a flood of new relations from Lahore, including several children. There was a faint continuous distant din. A policeman had called that morning and asked for someone with a name which sounded like one of the upstairs names. Tallis had said he knew nothing. Usually he helped the police. Sometimes suddenly on instinct he didn’t.
He thought, Daddy must be still asleep or he’d be yelling his head off. Those new tranquillizer tablets must be very soporific. Tallis gave a long sigh. He finished the beer. Things which had scuttled away in terror on Julius’s arrival had begun to come out from under the sink and the dresser. They watched him. He thought about Morgan and Rupert. Any serious involvement there was inconceivable. Hilda and Rupert were so married. And Rupert was an honest conscientious man. And Morgan loved her sister. That Rupert was trying to sort Morgan out, that he could believe, and also that Rupert might have advised her to get a divorce. Rupert was impatient with muddles.
I won’t agree to a divorce, thought Tallis, I’ll fight that. If there is no divorce she’ll come back. Or am I just deceiving myself? I must do something, I must see her. But it’s always such a rotten failure when I do. I’m so clumsy and stupid with her. I’ll write to her today. Perhaps I should see Rupert too. If only I had some energy and could think. His heart lurched with the now familiar pain of remembering his father. Other thoughts came and went, they had to, but this deep thought hung like a leaden weight upon his heart, pulling his consciousness steadily back in the direction of pain. How soon would his father begin to suspect something? In these days he was accomplishing the tragic and final passage from being an ailing person to being a seriously ill person. Tallis had said, ‘You’ll be up and about in a week or so.’ Had he been believed? He ought to tell his father. Julius was right. Leonard owned his life. He owned it down to its last miserable fragment. This terrible thing belonged to him too. And if he wanted to think his own final thoughts he should be allowed to think them. He should not be deceived. I ought to tell him, thought Tallis, yes I ought to tell him. Only not today.
Every night now Tallis dreamed of his sister. Every night a lurid radiance hung like a canopy about his bed and a tall white-robed figure regarded him, formidably quietly, in silence. He could not see her eyes but he could feel their scrutiny, while he lay sweating with excitement and a sort of fear. The apparition never failed to amaze him. And he sometimes felt afterwards that it wearied him. Something was spent. Had his nocturnal visitor changed in some way? Or was it that he had at last come to realize what had always been so? It was not a protective or a benign presence. It was not exactly hostile either, but ambiguous. Here something much greater and more august was watching him, but watching with a curiosity which was not totally unlike that of the creatures with claws and tails which had for so long inhabited the holes and corners of his world.
Tallis felt suddenly giddy. The giddiness came with a sense of large empty space, encircling him but not supporting him, as if he were spinning, spinning, spinning, but just about to tilt and fall. He held on tightly to the edge of the table, staring at his hand and at the bright red stain upon Julius’s handkerchief. He could recognize but not understand these great moments of temptation. The formless light which he had once known had withdrawn from him, and he was now capable for the first time in his life of believing it to be illusory. Perhaps she was the queen of the other world after all and that glory had been just an empty reflection from the passing splendour of her robe?
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘SO YOU DON’T FEEL that my visits are intrusive?’ said Julius softly.
Hilda released his hand, which she had been holding. ‘No. You have been a tremendous comfort. I really don’t know how I could have got through this time without someone to talk to. Without you to talk to. You are so wise.’
‘Not wise, alas, but your very devoted servant.’
It had been raining, but now there was an obscure golden greenish light in the garden. It was afternoon. Hilda and Julius sat beside a tea table in the drawing room. Tea had been drunk but no one had tried the walnut cake.
‘I am sure you are right. You have convinced me,’ said Hilda, ‘that it is better just to wait and let them unravel it all.’ She stared out at the dripping roses.
‘You see, they are so proud,’ said Julius. ‘Let us be tender to their pride.’
‘It goes against my instincts in a way—’
‘I know. But remember, you are sacrificing yourself to them. You suffer. And you spare them suffering.’
‘You put it so clearly. Yes, I know Rupert will tell me about it. He will tell me, won’t he?’
‘Yes, of course. He may be in a tiny bit of a muddle at the moment. But it will all pass and he’ll tell you. You must be patient, Hilda. After all, we don’t suppose, do we, that anything much is actually happening?’
‘Something is happening to me,’ said Hilda. ‘Something is—perhaps—irrevocably spoilt.’
‘I am glad that you say “perhaps”. You simply must not give houseroom to that thought. It is your duty, Hilda, to keep un-spoilt the thing of which you are the guardian.’
‘It isn’t just Rupert, it’s Morgan—Oh God—Sorry, Julius, we’ve been ove
‘I know, I know, my dear. You’re hurt two ways. But one simply must not exaggerate. I blame myself in a way. We’ve so talked it over that it seems larger than it is. It isn’t as if they were having a love affair or planning to run away or anything. It’s just a momentary emotional patch in a brother-in-law sister-in-law relationship. This isn’t at all unusual. Morgan needs help and Rupert can give it. It’s as simple as that.’
‘You seemed to think more seriously of it when we had that first conversation.’
‘No, indeed, I never thought it serious. And you don’t really either, do you, Hilda? Come now.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It’s the deceptions—Sometimes it all becomes huge, like a nightmare, as if they were living in an epic world.’
‘Come, come. You must satisfy yourself. You must have been watching Rupert. You must see it’s not all that important to him. What’s a little prevarication about an evening’s outing? I daresay it’s happened before now! And I can just imagine him and Morgan sitting and discussing the economic situation or post-Christian ethics or something and forgetting to hold hands. They’re such an intense pair.’
‘But then why—I can’t get it into focus. I don’t want to imagine anything. I’m sure Rupert’s never deceived me before, even about the tiniest things.’
‘Your faith is touching, Hilda. Of course we know that Rupert is an exceptional person.’
Hilda sat very still, looking out at the garden where the light was growing pinker and the rose bushes were becoming plumper as the air became warm and the raindrops were drying upon their leaves. She sat carefully on her chair, very upright, her hands lightly resting on the arms, as if she had suddenly realized that she was made of very thin china. She had assumed that Rupert could not lie to her. Looked at from the outside it might seem a naive assumption. But she was not on the outside. She had extra proofs, the proofs provided by a sense of connection, a loving communication which carried its own marks of truth. Just lately this communication had failed. But how well did she remember the past? Perhaps it had failed before? Had Rupert really been satisfied with his marriage? And would she, unless driven to it, ever have come to ask herself this question? Her own motives for self-deception were strong and for the first time visible to her.