Iris Murdoch - The Sea, the Sea

I had lost Lizzie but when, how? Perhaps I should have grasped her at the start. Or perhaps she really did like Gilbert or life with Gilbert better. Or perhaps in some deep way when I sent her off with James I had frightened her too much. Lizzie was opting for ease and happiness and no more frights, I could not blame her. And I knew that James had made a barrier between us. Although with James there really had been ‘nothing there’, that ‘nothing’ was more than enough. That had always been the way with James. He could spoil anything for me by touching it with his little finger. Perhaps my childish idea was indelible, the idea that James must always be preferred. Of course James had intended no ill. But the lie itself was indeed a fatal flaw. I had probably not lost James but I had lost Lizzie, I had effectively ‘strayed’ her, as I had wanted to earlier on. And, I found myself almost laboriously remembering, I had wanted to stray Lizzie because of Hartley. And I had come running out of the house this morning finding it intolerable to stay there for a second longer, because of Hartley. My illness had marked the span of waiting time and it was now over. Lizzie’s telephone call had been an unwitting signal, a summons to action. For me and for Hartley the hour had come.

And meanwhile I sat there beaming at Lizzie; and smile as we might-and perhaps she smiled innocently, hopefully, not realizing what had happened and imagining that she could still hold me and not hold me, have me and not have me, and all manner of thing would be well-the bond was broken. I recalled what James had said about it being my destiny to live alone and be everybody’s uncle. I said, ‘So you’re glad to see your Uncle Charles?’

They laughed and I laughed and we all laughed and Lizzie squeezed my hand. I had given them the licence to be happy and I could see how pleased and grateful they were. Everyone seemed to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed except me.

The cider was too sweet and rather strong and it was beginning to have its effect. My air of joviality was becoming easier, when the thought of Titus came to me almost solemnly as if someone had brought in a severed head upon a dish. James had been saying something about Titus which I could not remember. Causality kills. The wheel is just. I remembered Lizzie’s scream on that day. Perhaps somehow after all I had lost Lizzie because of Titus, because she blamed me, because it was all too much. How tightly it was woven, the web of causes. Lizzie was screaming with pleasure now. Well, she had to survive, we all had to survive. Titus was a stranger who had not sojourned with us long.

We talked for a while, chatting easily as old friends do. Gilbert had a good part in a TV series which seemed likely to run forever. They were going to have the house redecorated. Lizzie had gone back to her part-time hospital job. I was to come to dinner. They said nothing about Hartley and the discreet omission seemed to set the seal upon my separation from them, although it was hard to imagine what they could have said.

I asked the time, took my wrist-watch from my pocket and set it right by Lizzie’s. They said they had to go and I walked them to the car. Lizzie wanted a little hugging scene but I hustled her in with a pat. I think Gilbert wanted to kiss me. I waved them off as if they were the end of something. Then I began to walk along the street in the direction of the church and the road that led up to the bungalows. I had nearly reached the corner when someone behind me touched my shoulder, and I turned, shocked. It was a woman who at first looked quite strange. Then I recognized the shop lady. She had run after me to tell me that she had fresh apricots in stock at last.

As I began to climb the hill I felt very tired and heavy. Perhaps I should have rested for another day after my illness. Perhaps I should not have drunk all that cider. Perhaps Lizzie and Gilbert had drained my strength away into their vitality, their ability to change the world and to survive. They had taken away a piece of me which they would now use for their own purposes. Perhaps I ought to feel glad that other people could thus feed upon my substance.

I felt unprepared and undressed but the hand of inevitability was upon me. This was the meeting from which I would not be put off, begging and pleading for another chance. I felt my heaviness as that of an irresistible crushing weight. Yet I had no clear idea of what I was going to do. There was no blunt instrument and no taxi. But I had come to where I had never been before, the blessed point of sufficient desperation.

I toiled up looking at the gardens and the flowers and the garden gates. I noticed how different each house was from the other. One had an oval of stained glass in the front door, another had a porch with geraniums, another had dormer windows in the attic. I reached the Nibletts blue gate with its irritatingly complicated little latch.

The curtains were partly drawn in the front bedrooms in an unusual way. I rang the ding-dong bell. The sound was different. How soon did I realize that the house was empty? Certainly before I confirmed the fact by peering in through the curtains into the larger bedroom and seeing that all the furniture was gone.

I went back to the front door and, for some reason, tried the bell again several times, listening to it echo in the deserted house.

‘Oh excuse me, were you wanting Mr and Mrs Fitch?’

‘Yes,’ I said to a woman in an apron who was leaning over the fence from the front garden next door.

‘Oh, they’ve gone, emigrated to Australia,’ she told me proudly.

‘I knew they were going, I hoped I’d catch them.’

‘They sold the house. They took their doggie with them. He’ll have to go in quarantine of course.’

‘When did they leave?’

She mentioned a date. The date was, I realized at once, very soon after I had seen them. So they had lied about the date of their departure.

‘I’ve had a postcard,’ said the proud woman. ‘It came this morning. Would you like to see it?’ She had brought it out with her to show me.

I saw, on one side, the Sydney Opera House. Upon the other in Hartley’s hand: Just arrived, I think Sydney is the most beautiful city I have ever seen, we are so happy. Ben and Hartley had both signed.

‘What a lovely card.’ I gave it back to her.

‘Yes, isn’t it, but England’s good enough for me. Are you a relative?’

‘A cousin.’

‘I thought you looked a bit like Mrs Fitch.’

‘Too bad I missed them.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know their address, but there it is, when people are gone they’re gone, isn’t it.’

‘Well, thank you so much.’

‘I expect they’ll write to you.’

‘I expect so. Well, good day.’

She returned to her house and I moved back to the path. The roses were already looking neglected, covered with dead flowers. I noticed an unusual stone lying half covered by the earth and I picked it up. It was the mottled pink stone with the white chequering which I had given to Hartley, and brought back in a plastic bag on that awful day. I put it in my pocket.

I walked round the side of the house into the back garden, and stood on the concrete terrace outside the picture window and peered in. The curtains had been left here too, and pulled across a little, but I could see between them into the empty room. The door was open into the hall and I could see the inside of the front door and a faded place on the wallpaper where the picture of the mediaeval knight had hung. I began to feel a frenzied desire to get into the house. Perhaps Hartley had left me a message, left at least some significant trace of her presence.

The back door was locked and the sitting room windows were securely closed, but a kitchen window moved a little. I fetched a wooden box from the otherwise empty garden shed and stood on it, as Titus had stood in order to look through the hole in the fence. ‘You stood on a box, didn’t you.’ ‘Yes, I stood on a box.’ I eased the window out and got my finger into the crack. Then the window came open, not having been properly latched on the inside, and I was able to swing my leg over. A moment later, panting with emotion, I was standing in the kitchen. A terrible quietness crept in the house.