Iris Murdoch - The Sea, the Sea

I went into the theatre of course because of Shakespeare. Those who knew me in later years as a Shakespeare director often did not realize how absolutely this god had directed me from the very first. I had of course other motives. From the guileless simplicity of my parents’ life, from the immobility and quietness of my home, I fled to the trickery and magic of art. I craved glitter, movement, acrobatics, noise. I became an expert on flying machines, I arranged fights, I always took, as my critics said, an almost childish, almost excessive delight in the technical trickery of the theatre. I also took up acting, and was conscious of this too from the beginning, because I wanted to have fun myself and to procure some for my father. I doubt if he possessed the concept, or ever managed to acquire it later under my eager guidance. In having fun myself I have throughout my life been fairly consistently successful. I was much less successful in persuading my parents to enjoy themselves. Eventually I took them to Paris, to Venice, to Athens. They were always thoroughly uneasy and longing to get home, though I think it may later have given them some satisfaction to think that they had been to these places. They really wanted to remain always in their own house and their own garden. There are such people.

I was a docile quiet loving child; but I knew that a great fight was coming and I wanted to win it, and win it quickly. I did both. When I was seventeen my father wanted me to go to the university. My mother did too, though she feared the expense. Instead I went to an acting school in London. (I obtained a scholarship. Mr McDowell had not laboured in vain.) One of the saddest things in my life was crossing my dear father in this. But I could not wait. My mother was appalled. She thought that the theatre was an abode of sin. (She was right.) And she thought that I would never succeed and would return home starving. (She despised people who could not earn their living.) Here she was not right; and at least, as the years went by, she could not help respecting my ability to make money. The theatre then and thenceforth became my home ; I even spent the war acting, since a patch on the lung, which cleared up soon after, kept me out of the armed forces. I was rather sorry about this later on.

‘Mr Arkwright, do you ever see any very large eels in this vicinity? ’

Direct speech. I record what I said this morning in the Black Lion, where I was buying some of the local cider. The cider is unfortunately too sweet; and I shall before long have exhausted the modest supply of wine which I brought with me. The Black Lion has of course never heard of wine; but the intelligent shop lady tells me that the Raven Hotel sells ‘real wine’.

The Black Lion landlord’s name, Arkwright, disturbs me with memories of a chauffeur of that name whom I once had when I was a grandee, and who regarded me with rancorous hatred. The relation between the chauffeur and the chauffeured can be curiously intense. Black Lion Arkwright is in fact fairly disturbing in his own right. He is a big fellow with long black hair and black whiskers, like a sort of Victorian cad. He leads the bar in the game of embarrassing me. He now analyses my question. Eels? Large? Very large? Vicinity? ‘Do you mean on land?’ he asks. ‘He means worms’, says one of the clients. The clients are almost always the same, retired farm labourers I imagine. No women of course. ‘I mean eels in the sea.’ All shake their heads gloomily. ‘Wouldn’t see them in the sea, would you, they’d be under water,’ someone offers. Someone else adds darkly, ‘Eels is no good.’ The question drops. I return home carrying pointless cider purchased out of politeness.

I have had one success however. The little upstairs room facing the road (on the ‘inner room’ and drawing room side) sported a pair of stout cotton curtains. (I should add that the corresponding front window on the other side is that of the bathroom.) I have cut one of these curtains down the middle, knotted the two ends, and tied this ‘rope’ onto the iron banister at the steps, thereby enabling myself to have an excellent swim this morning at low tide, even though the sea was choppy. Lunch: frankfurters with scrambled eggs, grilled tomatoes and a slight touch of garlic, then shop treacle tart squeezed with lemon juice and covered with yoghurt and thick cream. I drank some of the cider just to spite it. After lunch I started to make a border round my lawn with the pretty stones which I have collected. I cannot decide whether or not it looks ridiculous. A rather cloudy day and a cool breeze, with a strange coffee-coloured light over the sea. Towards evening, the usual cloud-show. Great cliffs and headlands of light golden-brown cloud build up to majestic heights, with a froth of pure gold clinging to their huge sides. I tried to light a fire of driftwood in the little red room but the chimney smoked again.

I have been cleaning and tidying up the house. What an extraordinary satisfaction there is in cleaning things! (Does the satisfaction depend on ownership? I suspect so.) I swept the hall and stairs. I washed the big slate flagstones in the kitchen (very rewarding). I also washed the big ugly vase on the landing and polished the battered rosewood table (it was grateful). I started to dust the drawing room chimney piece but some spirit that dwelt therein resisted me. And I have now been polishing the big oval mirror in the hall (which I think I mentioned before). This fine thing (date eighteen ninety?) is perhaps the best ‘piece’ in the house. The glass is bevelled and somewhat spotted but remarkably luminous and silvery, so that the mirror seems like a source of light. The frame is made of a dullish grey metal (pewter?) and represents a sort of swirling garland of leaves and branches and berries. Metal polish brought a little more luminosity and detail into this metal vegetation. A lot of dirt certainly came off on the cloth. Since I have just spent a little while gazing at myself in this mirror it is perhaps time to attempt to describe my appearance.

This may seem superfluous. Yes, of course, I have been a much photographed man. But the camera has never been entirely my friend. (How fortunate that I never wanted to be a film star.) Let me describe the real me. I am slim and of medium build. I have an oval face with a short straight nose and thin lips and a uniformly fair fine complexion which is given to blushing. If annoyed or affronted I blush scarlet. This habit, which used to worry me, later became a kind of trade mark; and when I became known in my profession as a ‘tartar’ it was inadvertently useful in frightening people. My eyes are a rather pale chilly blue; I wear small oval rimless spectacles for reading. I have light rather colourless straight fair hair, not worn long. This, never brilliant, fades and dims, but does not go grey. I have decided not to dye it. (A few years ago when my hair began to recede I enlisted the aid of science, with entirely satisfactory results.) I should say that what the camera fails to catch is the fine almost girlish texture of my, of course clean shaven, face, and its somewhat ironical and wily expression. (Not to beat about the bush, it is a clever face.) Photographers can too easily make one look a fool. I often think I resemble my father, and yet he looked both gentle and simple, whereas I look neither.

To bed early with a hot water bottle. Very tired.

I think it is not going to be too easy to write about the theatre. Perhaps my reflections on that vast subject will make another book. I had better get straight on to Clement Makin. After all, it is for Clement that I am here. This was her country, she grew up on this lonely coast. We never visited it. Was I superstitious? Her Ultima Thule bided its hour.

Clement was my first mistress. When we met I was twenty, she was thirty-nine (or said she was). Partly because of someone I had loved and lost, and partly because of my puritan upbringing, I remained virgin until Clement swooped like an eagle. Was she a great actress? Yes, I think so. Of course women act all the time. It is easier to judge a man. (Wilfred for instance.) I shall have to talk a bit about the theatre simply to give Clement her context, to dress the scene for her to sweep upon. She was not like what people thought; neither her fans nor her foes did her justice and she had her lion’s share of both. She always fought mercilessly for those she loved, and then she became totally immoral; she lied and cheated for them, she trampled upon rights and upon hearts. She loved me and I am quite prepared to admit that as it happened she made me; though I would have made myself anyway. God rest her restless soul.