The Good Apprentice by Iris Murdoch

  Here again was the creepy accusing silence, in which Edward stood still a while, moving only his eyes. Then he began to open the various drawers, looking for something or other, oh yes a map of the region, and here indeed, well buried, there was one, an old one evidently as it showed the railway but not the motorway. He hid it again for future use and began to look about for other treasures. He took down the photo of Jesse which looked so uncannily like himself and studied it for a while. The aquiline nose, the straight lock of dark hair, the shape, even the expression of the thin face — only the eyes were different, Edward’s being long and narrow, Jesse’s larger and more, even surprisingly, round. Of course he won’t look like that now, Edward thought. The young Jesse looked at him mockingly — perhaps saying ‘Yes, young fellow, you were conceived last night. What a night it was! You’ll be lucky if you ever have such a night!’ Edward replaced the picture. Then he looked at the door which led into the tower. He had not, since the first day, worried about the tower. The women were clearly determined, doubtless on Jesse’s orders, not to let him in. For all Edward knew, perhaps they were not allowed in! Edward felt increasingly sure that Jesse did not want Edward to see the tower until he, its master, came back. But now. Edward listened again, then tried the door. It was locked. Well, locked doors have keys, and where do keys live? In pockets, in handbags, in drawers, on hooks, on shelves, swinging from someone’s waist — they had to be somewhere, somewhere perhaps near to the door they opened. Edward tried the drawers again, wriggling his hand in with outstretched fingers, but no key. He stood on a chair and tried the ample ledge above the door, dislodging a stack of dust. He looked about. The big dark oak chimney-piece seemed replete with hiding places. He reached up and thrust his hand in behind the carved message I am here. And here indeed there was a key. Shuddering with excitement he went to the door and, with some difficulty since his hand was trembling so, inserted the key in the lock. It entered smoothly. He turned it. The door opened.

  Edward felt almost faint with guilt and anxiety. He ran to look into the Atrium to be sure there was nobody thère. He ran back. He hesitated on the threshold. Suppose Mother May and Bettina were to come back early? Suppose Ilona found him? But Ilona wouldn’t tell. Anyway here he was, over the threshold, in the tower, standing in the big hexagonal lowest room. He wondered what to do about the door, whether to take the key with him. He dared not shut it. He decided to leave the key in the keyhole and prop the door open with a rush-bottomed stool which was to hand. The idea of being trapped inside was vaguely and alarmingly present. The unpartitioned space of the ground floor was clearly an art gallery, the ‘exhibition room’ Ilona had mentioned. But what immediately caught his attention was the unusual up-and-down design of the ceiling intended, as he soon realised, to accommodate windows at different levels, rising here and there in shafts and boxes to allow light in from above, and also descending presumably to accommodate windows which lighted the superior floor. Edward recalled the irregular apparently random spacing of the windows seen from outside. The ‘cubist’ or ‘coffered’ effect, painted grey blue and red, was startling and pleasant. The walls were white, the wooden floor painted grey. The place echoed, and though he walked cautiously, his footsteps made an uncomfortable noise. The room felt desolate and rather damp and the exhibits, to which he now attended, dusty and un-looked-at. There were some smallish pieces of sculpture in wood and stone, a few in bronze, which seemed to Edward’s untutored eye rather old-fashioned. Some of the female nudes might once have been thought daring, there were also entwined pairs, some human, some human and animal, including a quite interesting Leda and swan in a roundel; but if these were the erotica mentioned by Ilona, they were certainly not likely to astonish anyone now. The pictures were more rewarding. Edward inspected the abstracts, fiercely painted in the yellowest yellow and the blackest black he had ever seen, with occasional startling patches of blue and green. The heroic or ‘royal’ pictures attracted him more, particularly some large crowned heads, with round eyes and beards, richly and thickly painted, certainly self-portraits, and big grotesque heads of women, mournful, tearful or vindictive. Sometimes the bearded king was represented face to face with a large monstrous animal, ferocious or touchingly sad, which he seemed to be questioning. Sometimes the two were enlaced awkwardly falling or struggling together, fighting or embracing. In other versions a council of seated kings confronted a magnificent dragon, perhaps their captive, perhaps their captor. There were also large epic pictures, gorgeously and violently coloured, representing battle scenes, decorated by beautiful flags and heraldic clothing, wherein women and dog-headed men mingled, fighting bloodily with knives, battles elsewhere transmuted into erotic tangles, possibly murders, in luridly lit rooms. The ‘late-Titian’ style was distinguished by a larger sober light a sort of intensely luminous beige, flecked by squares of radiant cream and blue, depicting twilit halls or woodlands where quasi-classical scenes of violence were being enacted, women watching a man devoured by dogs, a girl watching a man caught by a snake, women pursued by humanoid animals, a youth watching a screaming girl becoming a tree; and here Edward also recognised much altered versions of early motifs, the snake emerging from the wheel, a frightening sphinx discovered in a stone recess, a winged head caught in a net, drowned animals, appalling adolescents, callous or terrified witnesses, deformed people sitting quietly together, stunned by hopelessness and fear, sometimes now watched through doors or windows by beautiful children, heartless, probably soulless, carrying emblems, flags or flowers, sometimes turning toward the spectator holding up, some ambiguous talisman between finger and thumb. The later ‘tantric’ pictures were distinguished by extremely luminous dark blues and golds, seas of colour in which oval eggs floated, grew, diminished, or exploded. No Christian themes were visible, nor any recognisable portraits of the inhabitants of Seegard, unless their features could be traced in the mourning heads of women. Edward was extremely impressed. The erotic force of the pictures made him feel weak at the knees.

  Fleeing from these images he made his way to a fine very ornate spiral staircase which he climbed to the first floor. Here again the room occupied the whole of the hexagonal space, but was separated into different levels according to the position of the windows and the irregular formation of the ceiling below. Where he stepped off the staircase there was what appeared to be an old nursery, absolutely crammed with dusty toys, dolls, animals, puppets, miniature furniture, rather eccentric dolls’ houses, tiny pairs of scissors, little hands. As Edward hurried past these and up some steps into what was clearly an artist’s studio he thought how odd it was for Jesse to have children playing just where he was trying to work. Then he realised that of course the toys were Jesse’s toys, the ‘nursery’ his nursery, ancillary to his imagination and his art. Looking back he now noticed some Australasian and African masks propped against the wall, and little gaudily painted figures of Indian gods. The studio, where there was also a large desk, looked reassuringly ordinary since it looked just like an artist’s studio with an easel set up, canvases stacked, jars full of brushes, tubes of paint together with a palette lying on a chair. There was no picture on the easel, but a scattering of pen and pencil drawings on the floor. The ‘game’ played with the ceiling had been modified at this level, where only two steeply slanting shafts accommodated windows which exceeded the general height of the room. All the windows, six of them, were masked by a variety of shades and blinds to modify the light. Here it at once occurred to Edward that out of one of these windows he ought to be able to see the sea. He crossed the room, uncertain of his orientation. There was a fine view inland, along the track to the tarmac road and showing a church on the far side of the road which Edward had not discovered and upon which the sun was now shining. But when he went to the opposite window the mist again obscured the view and he could see only as far as he had already walked, scarcely beyond the line of willows.

  He turned to look at the drawings lying about on the floor. These, looking rather ol
d and faded, were mainly of nudes, and he picked up one, representing a nude woman with longish tangled hair and large sad eyes. Edward wondered who the woman was, Mother May perhaps. He realised he had never thought of Mother May as Jesse’s model, the idea seemed quite improper. But it did not at all resemble her. It then flashed upon his mind that this might be, then he felt must be, a picture of his mother. He promptly dropped it. Looking more closely at the scatter of drawings, they all seemed to be of the same woman. He picked up another one, and looking at the sad face felt suddenly a unique and special feeling of guilt and sorrow. He had never known his mother, he had never worried about her, she never appeared in his dreams. Chloe had been Harry’s wife. He had never thought of her as Jesse’s mistress. With an instinctive desire not to be hurt and saddened he had early banished Chloe’s ghost. Harry had never wanted Edward to mope or feel deprived, but to be happy, as he, Harry, always contrived to be. How good Harry had been to him, how much Harry’s love had protected him, came to Edward in the same thought and he said to himself: Harry was my father, and my mother too. Who then was Chloe, and who was Jesse? Would he ever discuss Chloe with Jesse? Was it possible that Jesse had taken out these old drawings of Chloe when he knew that Edward was coming? Edward laid the faded piece of paper on the floor. He thought, Oh God, I’ve got enough troubles — and he turned away.

  He now looked at the big flat-topped desk. He felt uneasy as he did so, realising fully for the first time since his adventure began how improperly he was acting, doing exactly what Jesse had wanted him not to do, prying into Jesse’s own private place, looking perhaps at his letters, or possibly worse at his unfinished work. The desk was untidy, scattered with sheets of paper, pads, notebooks, ink bottles, trays full of pens, pencils, crayons. Edward then noticed that it was dusty, very dusty. The desk, like the loom, was covered in dust. The desk was dusty, so was the easel, and chair beside it, and the palette and the pile of sketches on the floor. The pictures propped against the wall had high crests of dust upon them. The paint on the palette was hard and discoloured by dust. The studio was desolate, unused, abandoned. Edward, wanting to sit down, found another chair beside the wall, removed a sketch-book from it, and sat. He felt sick with fear and amazement. So Jesse was not only not here, but had not been here for a very long time. So Jesse had left them and they dared not tell him? Jesse was not the longed-for father, the healer, the hero-priest, the benevolent all-powerful king — he was indeed the devil, as Edward had been taught as a child. In any case he was not here, Edward had been deceived and made a fool of, Seegard was no longer Jesse’s home, the palace was empty. Jesse had mocked them, and had now mocked him, Edward, coming so far on this vain pilgrimage from which he had hoped so much. Jesse was really elsewhere, in some quite other house, with other women, perhaps other children. Only his ghost was left at Seegard. But then why had they set up such a deception? It then occurred to Edward they were all three mad. Could that be? Or was he mad? He sat, holding the sketch-book in his hand. Looking down at it he saw a drawing, a beautiful calm not at all sinister drawing of a girl, fully clothed, standing beside an open window. She looked a bit like Ilona. It was then that it occurred to Edward that it was he who was mad. The deserted studio didn’t mean no Jesse. Jesse had simply gone to paint elsewhere, perhaps moved his studio higher up in the tower, into a room above where the light was better, or different, where he felt different, starting a new phase, making a change. He jumped up, put the sketch-book back on the chair and made for the spiral staircase.

  As his head emerged at the next level he saw at once that here everything was indeed different, the space had been partitioned, and what Edward could see had the air of the entrance hall of a flat. The floor was carpeted and an open door revealed a bathroom. There was a small table between two closed doors. The carpet was clean, the table dusted. Edward opened a door into a kitchen, and another into a sitting room. The next door which he tried refused to open. Edward pushed it and rattled it a little, then saw that there was a key in the keyhole. The door was evidently locked on the outside. He turned the key and opened the door. The room was a bedroom. The bed was opposite to the door, and lying upon the bed, propped up on pillows, was a bearded man, looking straight at Edward with dark round eyes.

  Edward thought later on that in that second of utter shock he had understood everything. He certainly came, very soon after, to understand much. He moved into the room, closing the door behind him. The man on the bed kept staring at him intently and moving his lips. His face expressed an intense emotion which Edward thought of afterwards, perhaps at the time, as a kind of apologetic distress, a kind of frustrated politeness, which was also expressive of deep grief. Edward, shuddering with emotion, approached the bed and stopped. The red lips, a little frothy, moved, but no sound came. The large eyes besought Edward to hear, to respond. At last a sound came out which, heard together with the pleading expression, seemed like a question. Edward grasped the sound. It was an attempt at his own name. He said, ‘Edward. Yes, I am Edward. I am your son.’ The helpless lips moved, adumbrating a smile, and a shaking hand was outstretched. Edward took the weak white hand in his. Then he knelt down beside the bed and buried his face in the blanket. He felt the other hand touch his hair. He burst into tears.

  ‘Please try to understand, Edward.’

  ‘But why didn’t you tell me — ’

  ‘We wanted you to feel at home here, to be quiet, to be peaceful, to be with us, to see what Seegard was, what it stood for — ’

  ‘We wanted the house to make its impression,’ said Bettina, ‘we wanted to establish you here first of all.’

  ‘We wanted you to be ours,’ said Ilona. ‘We thought you might run away.’

  ‘Why ever — ?’

  ‘If we had confronted you with it at the start,’ said Mother May, ‘it might have been too much for you. We were afraid you’d leave at once, simply hate the place and never find out how good it could be for you.’

  ‘Is it true,’ said Bettina, ‘that you found the key yourself? Are you sure Ilona didn’t let you in?’

  ‘Of course I found it myself! Ilona has told you she didn’t let me in!’

  ‘Ilona doesn’t always tell the truth,’ said Bettina.

  They were sitting in the hall at one end of the long table, near to the forest of potted plants. Edward had not spent long with his father. Jesse had not spoken again. Edward was still kneeling beside him when Mother May burst into the room, gorgon-faced with anger, and ordered Edward to go.

  ‘And we didn’t want you to see him like that,’ Mother May went on. She was calm now, her face gentle and lucid. ‘We wanted him to be more presentable.’

  ‘You mean you’d have dolled him up like some sort of idol and let me catch a glimpse through the door — ’

  ‘No, no,’ said Bettina, ‘the point is he’s not always like what you saw — ’

  ‘What we so much wanted you not to see,’ said Mother May.

  ‘Sometimes he comes to himself.’

  ‘So it was true what we said,’ said Ilona, ‘when we told you he was away, but was coming back.’

  ‘He has had absences all his life,’ said Mother May, ‘as long as I have known him.’

  ‘You mean times when he’s deranged?’

  ‘No,’ said Bettina, ‘Mother May means — it’s hard to explain — ’

  ‘He knows how to rest from life,’ said Ilona, ‘so his life can go on and on.’

  ‘It’s simply this,’ said Bettina, ‘sometimes he can talk perfectly well, and walk too. He walks about outside by himself — ’

  ‘And you let him?’

  ‘He could go away, he could go anywhere.’

  ‘But he’s an ill man, he must be looked after — ’

  ‘He shams it now and then,’ said Bettina. ‘It’s hard to say how ill he is.’

  ‘Jesse was a conqueror of the world,’ said Mother May, ‘he was — ’

  ‘He is,’ said Bettina.

  ‘He is a gr
eat painter, a great sculptor, a great architect, a great lover of women, a supreme artist, a great human being. He cannot be as less than that either for himself or for us.’

  ‘But if he’s ill, and old — ’

  ‘He has his teeth,’ said Ilona, ‘and his hair, and his hair isn’t grey.’

  ‘You can’t accept that he’s old, that he’s not as he was,’ said Edward. ‘But surely — ’

  ‘He isn’t old,’ said Mother May. ‘At least he is, and he isn’t.’

  ‘You’ll see,’ said Ilona.

  ‘How did he become ill, what is it, did he have a stroke or what?’

  ‘Did he have a stroke?’ said Ilona to Mother May.

  ‘God, don’t you know?’

  ‘Illnesses have conventional names — ’ said Mother May.

  ‘But something happened, he became different, and helpless, when — ?’