Iris Murdoch - An Unofficial rose

'Oh, my darling —’ said Hugh. He put his hands to his face.

'Now, now! she said. 'Don't be emotional. You make me soft, and that's bad for me. That's another thing I've got against you. Anyway, I've made the will, so if I die soon Penn will get the lot. Unless perhaps I get awfully fond of Jocelyn and give her some. But there's plenty. Poor old Lindsay!

'My darling one —’ Hugh had got hold of her hand which she gave him now with an air of relief and abandon. 'Oh, my dear —’ He felt a desperate scandalized pain. 'Lindsay didn't know?

'Certainly not. I wanted to be loved a little longer for myself alone and not my lovely dough.

'She would have — had it all?

'She would have had it all. If she'd stayed. Then she would have been free, and she needn't have taken Randall. I would have set her free. Like Prospero and Ariel. I often thought of it.

'You think she took Randall— for the money?

'Well — for the freedom. I'm not blaming her.

'But then — will they be all right, I wonder?

'You are still so romantic, Hugh! Why shouldn't they, whatever Lindsay's motives were? Doubtless we shall never know. But people survive. Still, it may not be next week that Lindsay will be kicking herself. I may live for ages! I'd like to live for ages to spite Mildred Finch. And if I die soon I'll spite Lindsay. So I'll be content either way.

'Don't, said Hugh. 'Oh don't, Emma! Why do you want to spite Mildred?

'Oh, for her heartless curiosity that time when I stayed with her after you left me. And — well, for that.

'I didn't know you stayed with her then.

'What a lot you don't know, my dear! She only asked me out of curiosity. I scarcely saw her after that. She interrogated me for ten days while I adored Felix. She didn't like that either. Of course I told her nothing. But I quite fell in love with Felix. He didn't know of course, he lived in a world of knives and ropes and things. Ah, he was enchanting at fourteen. That particular faun-like grace which fades later. Penn has it now. And some girls have it. Lindsay has it. She's very boy-like. And Jocelyn has it. Something slim and piratical. Yes, I think I'm really made to love boys of fourteen. It sounds awfully immoral, doesn't it? But then I am immoral. That's why I was so much at home with Randall and Lindsay. She squeezed his hand and withdrew from his clasp, smiling now and calm.

'Why did you love me, I wonder? I was never, particularly faun-like!

'Heaven knows. Perhaps I only really woke up to myself later. Perhaps Felix woke me. Yet I did love you; yes, you were the great thing. Wasn't I unlucky?

'Emma, said Hugh, 'let me look after you properly. I wouldn't bother you. You could have your Jocelyn. But please let me somehow take you over. I know I don't deserve it, but I do love you. Only I must have some sort of status and security. I can't go on like in these last weeks. Just say in principle yes and we'll find a way to be together. He leaned forward, touching her skirt.

'Ah, my dear, she said, 'wouldn't we be ridiculous, two old people shouting endearments at each other?

'Emma, let us be together, let us have some reality together at last.

'It is too late for reality, she said. 'It is better that you should dream about me. Why spoil your dream? Keep it intact till the end. I'm terribly ill-natured really and not to be lived with or even near. I gave poor Lindsay a bad time, words and blows. Yes, I used to beat her. Now she's beating Randall! Could I have some more tea, if it's not too cold?

'I don't understand. Do you — want me to remain as I am — in love? He still clawed her dress.

'Yes, if you can. I'd adore it! If we must ape something in the past let it not be the marriage you were too cowardly and I not clever enough to get. Let it be some innocent dream love, a courtly love, something never realized, all dreams. And Penn shall be our symbolic child. And you can telephone me and send me flowers. It will be quite like being seventeen again. Won't that be youth enough, restoration enough, redemption enough?

'You cheat me, he said in a voice of anguish, 'you deny me.

'Hugh, stop believing in magic. You are just like poor Randall after all, who thinks he can conjure up pleasure domes and caves of ice just by boarding a plane and sending off a few letters.

'But — how will you manage?

'I shall manage. I shall be happy. I shall be beating Jocelyn.

'But at least, he said, 'you will talk to me more. We shall have real speech, you will tell me about yourself?

Emma' laughed. 'I doubt if such tales would be suitable for young Jocelyn's ears.

'You mean, he took it in, 'that you won't see, me alone?

'Well, young Jocelyn will be here, won't she? said Emma. 'I shall keep her a prisoner as did Lindsay. Only more so! She gently extricated the fabric of her dress and drew it down about her knees.

Hugh leaned forward and took her chin in one hand and turned her face towards him. With his other hand he grasped her shoulder. The gesture had an effect of violence.

She let him hold her so for a minute, and then shrugged him off.

'You see how much I need a chaperone!

'So I'm to take Randall's place?

'How prettily you put it. You're to take Randall's place.

He let out a long sigh and stood up. 'I wonder if I shall be able to stand it.

', If you can stand it, come. And if not, not.

'But you look so sad —’

'Ah, I'm not sad for now, my sweet, I'm sad for then.

THE wind took one of the dust-bin lids and rolled it clattering across the yard. Ann pursued. The little paved area behind the kitchen, bright with dandelions, was damp from the recent shower. Some washing which Ann had hung out and forgotten jerked and dripped. She retrieved the lid and returned to the waste-paper bin out of which she was filling her bucket as usual to restart the soaked bonfire. She packed the paper firmly into the bottom of the bucket and held it there while she scrabbled with the other hand to pick up some fIat stones to weigh the paper down. Already several white fragments were dancing about the yard, joining some dead leaves which the trees, despairing already in their summer fullness, had surrendered to the confident wind. The sky was a thick grey suffused with points of gold from the hidden sun. There would be a rainbow somewhere. Ann crossed the road and started down the hill.

Miranda was away staying with a school friend. She seemed to have escaped the measles. Penn had behaved as Miranda predicted. He had waited till the last moment before the date of his plane, and had then written to ask Ann to send his things. He was very grateful and apologetic, but simply could not manage to get down to Grayhallock to say good-bye. Ann had packed his belongings with a heavy heart. She included the veteran car book, which was still in his room. He had himself, apparently, taken the box of soldiers back to Steve's room. She could not find the German dagger anywhere, though she spent a long time searching for it. Miranda said she had mislaid it.

The Swanns had departed on holiday with their caravan. She had waved them off, a boisterous business-like family party, organized and conducted laughingly away by the purposeful vigour of the Swann boys, who behaved like junior officers on a combined operation. She had been asked to join them but had refused, and not only because Clare's invitation had been less than irresistibly pressing. She feared to see, at present, too much of Douglas in case her own blank need for affection, for the most elementary' consolation, should make him positively fall in love. She had hoped that Hugh might come to keep her company, but though he often rather guiltily telephoned he still did not seem able to leave town. So she remained solitary at Grayhallock except for the now frequent company of Nancy Bowshott, with whom she picked and preserved the soft fruit and helped Bowshott with the endless spraying. Drawing close to, Nancy, she guessed one day, hardly now with surprise, that Nancy was grieving for Randall.