Iris Murdoch - The Black Prince

Julian had retreated to the bottom of the bed. She stared at Priscilla with a look of agonized and still rather self-conscious pity. She opened her lips and put her hands together as if praying. It looked as if she were begging Priscilla's pardon for being young and good– looking and innocent and unspoilt and having a future, while Priscilla was old and ugly and sinful and wrecked and had none. The contrast between them went through the room like a spasm of pain.

Priscilla murmured, «I'm not a child. You needn't all be so-sorry for me. You needn't all stare at me-and treat me as if I were a-She fumbled for the water buffalo and for a moment it looked as if she were going to fondle it. Then she threw it from her across the room where it crashed against the wainscot. Her tears began again and she buried her face in the pillow. The irises fell to the floor. Francis, who had picked up the bronze, hid it within his hands and smiled. I motioned Rachel and Julian out of the room.

In the sitting-room Julian said, «I'm terribly sorry.»

«It wasn't your fault,» I told her.

«It must be so awful to be like that.»

«You can't imagine,» I said, «what it is to be like that. So don't bother to try.»

«I'm so awfully sorry for her.»

Rachel said, «You run along now.»

Julian said, «Oh I do wish-Ah well-« She went to the door. Then she said to me, «Bradley, could I have just a word with you? Could you just walk with me to the corner. I won't keep you more than a moment.»

I gave a complicit wave to Rachel and followed the child out of the house. She walked confidently down the court and into Charlotte Street without looking round. The cold sun was shining brightly and I felt a great sense of relief at being suddenly out in the open among busy indifferent anonymous people under a blue clean sky.

We walked a few steps along the street and stopped beside a red telephone box. Julian now wore a rather jaunty boyish air. She was clearly feeling relieved too. Above her, behind her, I saw the Post Office Tower, and it was as if I myself were as high as the tower, so closely and so clearly could I see all its glittering silver details. I was tall and erect: so good was it for that moment to be outside the house, away from Priscilla's red eyes and dulled hair, to be for a moment with someone who was young and good-looking and innocent and unspoilt and who had a future.

Julian said with a responsible air, «Bradley, I'm very sorry I got that all wrong.»

«Nobody could have got it right. Real misery cuts off all paths to itself.»

«How well you put it! But a saintly person could have comforted her.»

«There aren't any, Julian. Anyway you're too young to be a saint.»

«I know I'm stupidly young. Oh dear, old age is so awful, poor Priscilla. Look, Bradley, what I wanted to say was just thank you so much for that letter. I think it's the most wonderful letter that anybody ever wrote to me.»

«What letter?»

«That letter about art, about art and truth.»

«Oh that. Yes.»

«I regard you as my teacher.»

«Kind of you, but-«I want you to give me a reading list, a larger one.»

«Thank you for bringing the water buffalo back. I'll give you something else instead.»

«Oh will you, please? Anything will do, any little thing. I'd so like to have something from you, I think it would inspire me, something that's been with you a long time, something that you've handled a lot.»

I was rather touched by this. «I'll look out something. And now I'd better-«Bradley, don't go. We hardly ever talk. Well, I know we can't now, but do let's meet again soon, I want to talk to you about Hamlet.»

«Hamlet! Oh all right, but-«

«I have to do it in my exam. And Bradley, I say, I did agree with that review you wrote about my father's work.»

«How did you see that review?»

«I saw my mother putting it away, and she looked so secretive-«That was very sly of you.»

«I know. I'll never become a saint, not even if I live to be as old as your sister. I do think my father should be told the truth for once, everyone has got into a sort of mindless habit of flattering him, he's an accepted writer and a literary figure and all that, and no one really looks at the stuff critically as they would if he were unknown, it's like a conspiracy-«I know. All the same I'm not going to publish it.»

«And another thing, about Christian, my father says he's working Christian on your behalf-«What?»

«I don't know what he thinks he's at, but I'm sure you should go and see him and ask him. And if I were you I'd get away like you told them you were going to. Perhaps I could come and see you in Italy, I'd love that. Francis Marloe can look after Priscilla, I rather like him. I say, do you think Priscilla will go back to her husband? I'd rather die than do that if I was her.»

So much hard clarity all at once was a bit hard to react to. The young are so direct. I said, «To answer your last question, I don't know. Thank you for the observations which preceded it.»

«I do love the way you talk, you're so precise, not like my father. He lives in a sort of rosy haze with Jesus and Mary and Buddha and Shiva and the Fisher King all chasing round and round dressed up as people in Chelsea.»

This was such a good description of Arnold's work that I laughed. «I'm grateful for your advice, Julian.»

«I regard you as my philosopher.»

«Thank you for treating me as an equal.»

She looked up at me, not sure if this was a joke. «Bradley, we will be friends, won't we, real friends?»

«What was the meaning of the air balloon?» I said.

«Oh, that was just a bit of exhibitionism.»

«I pursued it.»

«How lovely!»

«It escaped me.»

«I'm glad it got lost. I was very attached to it.»

«It was a sacrifice to the gods?»

«Yes. How did you know?»

«Mr. Belling gave it to you.»

«Yes, how did-«I'm your philosopher.»

«I really loved that balloon. I did sometimes think of letting it go, it was a sort of nervous urge. But I didn't know I'd cut the string-«Until you saw your mother in the garden.»

«Until I saw you in the garden.»

«I'll ring up-«Don't forget you're my guru.»

I turned back into the court. When I got to the sitting-room Rachel moved towards me and enveloped me with a spontaneous yet planned movement. We swayed together, nearly falling over her piled macintosh upon the floor, and then slumped down onto Hart– bourne's armchair. She tried to nudge me back into the depths of the chair, her knee climbing over mine, but I kept her upright, holding her as if she were a large doll. «Oh Rachel, let us not get into a muddle.»

«You cheated me out of those minutes. Whatever it is, we're in it. Christian just rang up.»

«About Priscilla?»

«Yes. I said Priscilla was staying here. She said-«I don't want to know.»

«Bradley, I want to tell you something and I want you to think about it. It's something I've discovered since I wrote you that letter. I don't really mind all that much about Christian and Arnold. I suddenly feel that it's sort of set me free. Do you understand, Bradley? Do you know what that means?»

«Rachel, I don't want a muddle. I've got to work and I've got to be alone, I'm just going to write a book I've been waiting all my life to write-«You look so Bradleian at this moment I could cry over you. We're not young and we're not fools. There'll be no muddle except for the one that Arnold makes. But a new world has come into being which is yours and mine. There will always be a place where we can be together. I need love, I need more people to love, I need you to love. Of course I want you to love me back, but even that's less important, and what we do isn't important at all. Just holding your hand is marvellous and makes my blood move again. Things are happening at last, I'm developing, I'm changing, think of all that's happened since yesterday. I've been dead for years and unhappy and terribly secretive. I thought I'd be loyal to him till the end of time, and of course I will be and of course I love him, that's not in question. But loving him seemed like being in a box, and now I'm out of the box. Do you know, I think quite accidentally we may have happened upon the key to perfect happiness. I suspect one can't be happy anyway until one's over forty. You'll see how little drama there'll be. Nothing will change except the deep things.