Iris Murdoch - The Sea, the Sea

A few drops of rain fell and long dark stains appeared on her dress. She touched her blazing checks, and then with a continuation of her motion swooped and picked up her bag.

‘Go now, Lizzie child, I don’t want us to have a messy conversation or an argument. Goodbye.’

She gave a little wailing cry, then turned and fled out of the doorway.

I waited a moment or two and when I came out she had almost reached the road. A yellow Volkswagen was now parked on the grass, pointing towards Raven Bay. I saw Gilbert jump out and open the passenger door. Lizzie plunged into the car. Both doors slammed and the car leapt away round the corner. A couple of minutes later it reappeared on the road to the hotel-I watched until it had passed the hotel and vanished where the road turned inland. Then I went back into the tower and picked up Lizzie’s broken sandal. She must have had a sore foot by the time she reached the road.

It is now two hours later and I am sitting in the little red room. I have just written out my account of Lizzie’s visit as a story and it has somehow excited and pleased me to put it down in this way. If one had time to write the whole of one’s life thus bit by bit as a novel how rewarding this would be. The pleasant parts would be doubly pleasant, the funny parts funnier, and sin and grief would be softened by a light of philosophic consolation.

I am moved by having seen Lizzie and am wondering whether I have been clever or foolish. Of course if I had taken poor Lizzie in my arms it would all have been over in a second. At the moment when she hurled her handbag away she was ready to give in, to make every concession, to utter every promise. And how much I wanted to seize her. This ghost embrace remains with me as a joy mislaid. (I must admit that, after having seen her, my ideas are a good deal less ‘abstract’!) Yet perhaps it was wise, and I feel satisfied with my firmness. If I had taken Lizzie then, accepted her acceptance, there would still have remained the problem of Gilbert, and I would have had the task of getting rid of him. Much better to let Lizzie do this, and do it promptly under pressure of the fear of losing me. I want that situation cleared up and cleared away, and meanwhile I prefer not to think about it. I cannot attach much importance to Lizzie’s other ‘objection’, expressed in her letter, her fear that I might break her heart! That risk will not deter her. And I think on reflection that this was just an excuse, an arguing point put in to gain time. She must have seen at once that she had to cashier Gilbert, and given his slimy tenacity this might have seemed a difficulty. Have I really been such a Don Juan? Compared with others, certainly not.

As for my stern policy with Lizzie, I really have nothing to lose. If she delays too long I shall go and fetch her. If she still tries to say no I shall not take it for an answer. My threats of ‘never again’ are empty of course, but she will not think so. If she really decides in the end not to come then that will prove she is not worthy of me. In spite of it all I can let Lizzie go. If she won’t, she won’t.

I think I shall now walk round the bay to the Raven Hotel and ask them about delivering some wine. If I like the menu I may even have dinner there. I am beginning to be hungry. I suddenly feel pleased as if all will be well.

Shortly after this something very disconcerting happened, and then… But first…

I walked to the Raven Hotel and asked for a delivery of wine and bought a bottle of some Spanish red stuff to take home. I looked at the rather unsatisfactory dinner menu, but was feeling so hungry that I attempted to enter the restaurant, only a waiter prevented me because I was not wearing a tie. I was tempted to tell them who I was, but did not; let them discover later. I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror: I had tucked in my shirt tails, but I did look rather a tramp in stained jeans with jagged uncombed hair and an old cardigan on inside out. I set off again for home.

The walk to the hotel had been pleasant, but now it was colder and darker, and by the time I was nearing Shruff End the sun had set, though there was still a lot of light in the sky, now a radiant occluded azure and clear of clouds. The evening star was huge and brilliant over the sea, near to a pale lustreless moon, and faint dots of other stars were appearing. Some rather large bats were flitting around over the rocks. I could hear the sea booming into Minn’s cauldron as I passed by. I approached the house by the causeway, carrying the bottle in one hand.

The house of course was dark within but stood out rather starkly in the brilliant twilight, its awkward tall thin shape appearing against the high horizon of the sea. When I was about half way across the causeway I thought I saw a movement at one of the downstairs windows. I stopped and stood perfectly still, staring at the house. It was difficult to look at it because of the vividness of the sky behind it, and my eyes kept jumping and refusing to focus. For a moment or two I could see nothing clearly, but I was now sure that I had seen that movement, something moving inside, in the book room. I moved very slowly forward, blinking and staring. Then I saw, momentarily but plainly, a dark figure standing inside the house, at the window, looking out. The figure dissolved into darkness and my eyes seemed blinded. I dropped the bottle and it slid down the steep side of the rock and quietly shattered below. I walked quickly back across the causeway to the road.

There was someone or something inside the house. What was I to do? I could now hear the soft grating sound of the waves, like a gentle scratching of fingers upon a soft surface. And I felt upon the empty darkening road a shuddering sense of my utter solitude, my vulnerability, among these silent rocks, beside this self-absorbed and alien sea. I thought of walking back to the Raven Hotel and staying the night. But this seemed absurd; and would they give me a room, with my wild appearance and no luggage? I then thought I might walk on to the village, to the Black Lion-but-and then? I had no friends in the village. A further more dreadful realization came to me. I would be afraid to walk anywhere now in this gathering dark along this awful empty road. There was nowhere else to go but into the house.

I began to walk slowly back across the causeway. I had left the back door open, but the front door was locked, so I would have to walk round to the kitchen. Then how quickly could I find matches, light a lamp? Supposing there was an intruder inside, he would hear me stumbling round to the back and would be waiting for me. How stupid it would be to be accidentally killed by a frightened burglar! I hesitated, but went on because by now my fear of the outside was as great as my fear of the inside, and most of all I feared my own fear and wanted desperately to end it or at least change it. Perhaps I had, in this funny light, imagined the whole thing, and would soon be laughing at myself and eating my supper.

I recalled where there was an electric torch on a shelf inside the kitchen door, and I pictured where the lamp was, and the matches near it. I got a last glimpse of the sky, full of subdued light, and then I began noisily fumbling with the handle of the door. I blundered in, leaving the door open, found the torch, then the lamp and the matches. I lit the lamp and turned it up. Silence. I called out ‘Hello there’. The foolish frightened cry echoed in the hollow house. Silence.

I walked to the door, holding up the lamp, and looked into the hall. Nothing. I walked quickly to the front room where I had seen the ‘figure’. It was empty. I searched the other downstairs rooms. Nothing. I tried the front door. Still locked. Then I began more slowly to mount the stairs. I had always somehow felt that if there was anything sinister in the house it was located on that long upper landing. As I was mounting the last few steps I heard a sudden and prolonged clicking sound. The bead curtain had been moved.