Iris Murdoch - The Sea, the Sea

James could see me speculating and he made a hopeless gesture.

‘I’m no good at guessing games,’ I said. ‘I thought it was Ben and I still think so.’

‘Come inside then,’ said James, and he rose.

We came into the kitchen. Lizzie was standing at the stove. She had pinned her hair back and was wearing a very short check overall over a very short dress. She looked ridiculously young and had an anxious silly schoolgirl look which she sometimes wore. Perry was sitting at the table with his legs stretched beneath it and his elbows upon it. His big face was already greasy with sweat and his eyes were glazed. He might even have been drunk.

James just said, ‘Peregrine.’

Peregrine said, without moving, his glazed eyes still staring ahead, ‘If you’ve been discussing who killed Charles or failed to kill Charles, it was me.’

‘Perry-’

‘My name is Peregrine.’

‘But, Peregrine, why on earth-did you really-why?’

Lizzie moved, without surprise, sat down to watch. She evidently already knew.

‘You ask why?’ said Peregrine, without looking at me. ‘Just think why, just think.’

‘You mean-good heavens, you mean Rosina ?’

‘Yes, oddly enough, I do. You deliberately smashed my marriage, you took away my wife whom I adored, you did it carefully, cold-bloodedly, you worked at it. Then when you had got her away from me you dropped her. You didn’t even want her for yourself, you just wanted to steal her from me to satisfy the beastly impulses of your possessiveness and your jealousy! Then when they were satisfied, when my marriage was broken forever, you went jaunting off somewhere else. And what is more you expected me to tolerate this and to go on liking you! Why? Because you thought everybody always went on liking you whatever rotten things you did because you were wonderful wonderful Charles Arrowby.’

‘But, Peregrine, you yourself said to me, more than once, that you were glad to be rid of the bitch-’

‘OK, but why did you believe me? And don’t use that foul language please. Of course everyone knows you regard women as trash. But what bugged me was that you wrecked my life and my happiness and you just didn’t seem to care at all, you were so bloody perky.’

‘I don’t believe you were happy-you just say so now-’

‘Oh for Christ’s sake! You took her out of sheer spiteful jealousy. OK, I can be jealous too.’

‘But you yourself encouraged me to feel it was all right! Why did you bother to pretend, and mislead me? You can’t blame me now-If you had looked more stricken I would have felt more guilty. But you were so nice to me, so friendly-you always seemed so pleased to see me-’

‘I am an actor. And perhaps I was pleased to see you. We sometimes like to see people whom we hate and despise so that we can stir them up to further demonstrations of how odious they are.’

‘So you’ve been waiting all these years for revenge!’

‘No, not like that. I enjoyed leading you on and just looking at you and gloating and thinking how surprised you’d be if you knew what I really felt. You’ve been a bad dream to me all these years, you’ve been with me like a demon, like a cancer.’

‘Oh my God. I’m sorry-’

‘If you imagine I want to hear you apologizing now- ’

‘I may have behaved badly to you, but I didn’t deserve to die for it.’

‘No, all right, I admit it was an impulse and I was drunk. I just pushed you and walked on. I didn’t really see what happened and I didn’t care.’

‘But you said you were non-violent, you said you never-’

‘OK, you were a special case. The last straw was seeing bloody Rosina suddenly sitting on top of that rock like a black witch. I thought you must still be carrying on with her, well obviously you are-’

‘I’m not.’

‘I don’t care-’

‘I wondered why you stopped talking about her. You were planning to kill me.’

‘I don’t care, I don’t want to know, I don’t believe anything you say, I think you’re a worthless person. I just couldn’t stand seeing her there, and the windscreen getting broken, I couldn’t stand it, it was a shock, it made me feel mad, it made a sort of hole in me, and all the old stored-up hate came pouring out and all the green-eyed jealousy, as fresh as ever. I had to do something to you. I really just wanted to push you into the sea. I daresay I was pretty drunk. I didn’t choose that spot, I didn’t think it was that awful whirlpool or whatever you call it-’

‘Then you were lucky, weren’t you. I might be dead.’

‘Oh I don’t care,’ said Peregrine, ‘I wish you were dead. I thought of calling you out, only then I thought you might kill me instead, because you drink less than I do. I suppose honour is satisfied now anyway, and I won’t have to offer you any more drinks, thank God, and I won’t even want to tell you what a four-letter man you are. You’re an exploded myth. And you still think you’re Genghis Khan! Laissez-moi rire. I can’t think why I let you haunt me all these years, I suppose it was just your power and the endless spectacle of you doing well and flourishing like the green bay tree. Now you’re old and done for, you’ll wither away like Prospero did when he went back to Milan, you’ll get pathetic and senile, and kind girls like Lizzie will visit you to cheer you up. At least they will for a while. You never did anything for mankind, you never did a damn thing for anybody except yourself. If Clement hadn’t fancied you no one would ever have heard of you, your work wasn’t any bloody good, it was just a pack of pretentious tricks, as everyone can see now that they aren’t mesmerized any more, so the glitter’s fading fast and you’ll find yourself alone and you won’t even be a monster in anybody’s mind any more and they’ll all heave a sigh of relief and feel sorry for you and forget you.’

There was a moment’s silence.

I said, ‘But if you’re so pleased about it, why tell? You only had to keep quiet-or did you want me to know?’

‘I don’t care what you know or don’t know. Your cousin got it out of me by one of his interrogation techniques. He said you thought it was Ben and you were working yourself up.’

‘You pretend you always detested me, it isn’t true. You aren’t all that good an actor. You told me about your Uncle Peregrine.’

‘I have no Uncle Peregrine.’

I felt totally confused. I said, ‘But what about Titus?’

‘What do you mean?’ said James.

‘What happened to Titus? Who killed Titus? I mean-I thought-surely Ben killed him?’

Lizzie answered this after a moment. She said, ‘Charles, it was an accident, no one killed him.’

Peregrine got up. He said, ‘Well, that’s that, that’s sorted that out, and I hope the General is satisfied. I’m going back to London. Goodbye Lizzie, nice to have seen you.’ He marched out and I could hear him collecting his things. Then there was the sound of the Alfa Romeo backing violently onto the causeway, and then its diminishing roar.

James had got up and was looking out of the window. Lizzie, soundlessly crying, was filling the kettle at the tap. She put it on the stove and turned the gas up.

I said to James, ‘You said you didn’t want to leave me behind here with a false notion in my head. Well, now it’s gone, so there’s nothing to detain you.’

James turned round. ‘Won’t you come to London?’

‘No.’

‘But what are you going to do about them ?’

‘Nothing. It’s over. It’s over. ’

But of course that was not true.

That day and the next day passed in a sick trance, a period of time which seemed like the peace of resignation and hopeless quiet mourning, but was really full of fear and venom. I passionately wanted James to go, his appearance, his company, his obtrusive unseen presence irritated me into torments. Lizzie irritated me too, partly by her frequent tears, which she seemed unable to control, and partly by a silly beseeching sympathetic expression which she put on when I looked at her, and which made me suddenly see the picture which Peregrine had sketched of me as an ageing powerless ex-magician for whom people were sorry.