Iris Murdoch - The Sea, the Sea

‘It wasn’t like that,’ said James, ‘but of course if one starts lying one deserves what one gets.’

‘And when you met here you pretended not to have met each other-that’s a scene I shall remember!’

‘We didn’t tell you because we knew you’d be determined to misunderstand,’ said Lizzie, ‘and you are determined to misunderstand. ’

‘So I suppose you both think it’s all my fault for being, as you put it, insanely jealous!’

‘The fault is mine,’ said James.

‘No, no, it’s my fault,’ said Lizzie. ‘I forced it on him, I knew he hated it-’

‘Perhaps I know James better than you do after all,’ I said to Lizzie. ‘He is a man on whom no one ever forced anything he hated.’

‘It isn’t his fault-’

‘This argument does not interest me,’ I said. ‘You can continue it elsewhere and I am sure you will both enjoy it very much.’

‘I told you he’d be like that,’ said Lizzie to James, ‘I told you he wouldn’t understand-’

‘Well,’ said James, ‘there it is. It’s not a very attractive confession, but I hope you can see, or will see when you calm down-’

‘What do you mean, calm down?’

‘That it’s not, from your point of view, a matter of world-shaking importance. Naturally it irritates you. But you will see on reflection that it does not damage your relation with Lizzie, nor, I hope, your relation with me. It’s obvious how and why it happened, OK, it shouldn’t have happened, and I’m sorry-’

‘Do you imagine that I believe you?’

‘Yes,’ said James. He looked at me frowning but his face expressed an almost absurd sort of distress at a loss of dignity, at a loss, for once, of the initiative.

‘Well, I don’t. Why should I? How can I? It’s mean, it’s horrible. You admit you only told me because Toby saw you secretly meeting Lizzie in a bar. Am I supposed to be pleased that you’ve been meeting for years-’

‘Very very infrequently.’

‘And talking about me?’

‘You don’t see what it was like, ’ said Lizzie, with tears in her eyes. ‘It wasn’t an all-the-time sort of thing at all, and it wasn’t like you think a relationship, it was just that we did happen to have met accidentally at that party-’

‘The moral is, never give parties.’

‘And we couldn’t undo that, and I did ask James sometimes how you were and where you were, because I loved you, and it was my only connection with you, all the time you were with Jeanne and-and that time when you were in Japan and in Australia and-I was thinking about you-and there wasn’t anyone but James I could-’

‘There wasn’t anyone but James, a very adequate substitute I daresay. Can’t you see how wickedly hurtful this is?’

‘She’s right,’ said James, ‘it isn’t like what you are thinking at all. However-’

‘I can just see you holding hands and talking about me!’

‘We never held hands!’ said Lizzie.

‘ Christ! Do I care whether you held hands or not? Or whatever else you did which you will never confess? You’ve been telephoning and meeting and looking into each other’s eyes-I expect you’ve known each other forever, I daresay you knew Lizzie before I ever met her, you were there first, you were there before me, as you were with-as you were with-with Aunt Estelle and-and with Titus-you’d met Titus before, he said he’d seen you in a dream. I expect you were the person he was living with for those two years, no wonder he wouldn’t say! And you made Lizzie sing that special song of Aunt Estelle’s. I’m sure Lizzie dreams about you every night, you’re everywhere, spoiling everything in my life, you’d spoil Hartley if you could, only you can’t get at her, she’s the only thing that’s absolutely mine!’

‘Charles!’

‘You’ve been everywhere before me and you’ll be everywhere after me, when I’m dead you and Lizzie will be sitting in a bar discussing me, only then it won’t matter who sees you.’

‘Charles, Charles-’

‘I’m disappointed in you,’ I said to James. ‘I didn’t ever think you’d do anything mean or treacherous, I didn’t ever believe you’d put yourself into this sort of squalid muddle. It’s a kind of ordinary sly human stupidity which I was foolish enough to imagine you didn’t suffer from. You’ve behaved like ordinary people do who can’t imagine consequences. And one of the consequences is that, I don’t believe you, I can’t believe you. There could be anything between you and Lizzie. Ordinary mediocre people think that if they confess one tenth of the truth they’re in the clear. You’ve made all your words into lies, you’ve devalued your speech and-and in a moment you’ve spoilt the past-and there’s nothing to rely on any more.’

‘Perhaps it was a mistake to tell you in this way,’ said James. He seemed to be getting annoyed though he was also very upset. ‘Of course you were bound to hate it whenever it emerged, we never underestimated that. I hope and believe that you will appreciate later that the thing concealed was trivial, though the fact of the concealment was not. I realize that all this has been an affront to your dignity-’

‘Dignity? My dignity?’

‘Well, an affront. I am heartily sorry for it. But given the mistake, the fault, you can hardly have wished it to continue. This truth-telling is something painful which we do for your sake. Lizzie felt that she could not be as she wished for you with the lie unconfessed. She wanted there to be, especially now, no barrier of untruth between you.’

‘Why “especially now”? What’s special about now?’

‘Please,’ began Lizzie, ‘ please- ’

‘Don’t worry, I’m not excited, I’m not even angry, this isn’t anger.’ I had not raised my voice at all.

‘Then it’s all right,’ she said. ‘It’s all all right?’

‘What you say in your devalued words may even be true, as true as such words can make it-’

‘Then it’s all right-Charles darling-?’

‘It’s just that it’s brought this to an end.’

‘Brought what to an end?’ said James.

‘I want you both to go now. I want you to take Lizzie back to London.’

‘I was proposing to go and leave Lizzie here,’ said James. ‘Now I’ve told you surely I can go and leave her. That was the point of telling you. That was what I waited for.’

‘You thought I might blame you and let her off because I needed her so much? I don’t need her all that much, I can tell you!’

‘Charles, don’t destroy yourself,’ said James. ‘Why are you always so intent on breaking everything that surrounds and supports you?’

‘Go please. Go together. ’

I suddenly seized Lizzie’s hand, and for a moment it clasped mine, then it became dead. I seized James’s hand and I forced their two hands together. The hands struggled in mine like small captive animals trying to escape.

James wrenched himself away and went into the book room. I could hear him throwing things into his suitcase.

I said to Lizzie, ‘Go and pack,’ and she reached out towards me, then turned away with a sob.

I went out onto the causeway and walked on until I reached James’s Bentley. It was big and black and expectant, a little dusty, in the lazy afternoon sunshine. I opened the door. The interior had an opulent quietness like the interior of a grand mansion or a rich silent shrine. The polished wood glowed, the brown leather gave off a fresh rare smell. The gear nestled in a soft crumpled skin. The carpet was thick, spotless. The silence, the intimacy of the car invited a privileged habitation. And in this sacred interior I was about to enclose James and Lizzie and despatch them forever, just as surely as if I were shutting them in a sealed casket and drowning them in the sea.