Iris Murdoch - The Sea, the Sea

I felt very hungry. I wondered if Rosina had spent the night in the house. I climbed over the rocks as far as the road and walked back towards Shruff End. I looked into the rocky recess where she had left her car. It was gone. I went on and across the causeway. Of course there were no letters yet. When I got inside I made a thorough search of the house. There were a lot of spent matches lying about, but my bed showed no signs of having been slept in. I was glad about that. She must have gone away late last night. She had opened a bottle of wine and a tin of olives and had eaten some bread. She left no note, but had left her mark by strewing the smashed remains of a rather pretty teacup in the middle of the kitchen table. It could have been worse. I breakfasted, since I was so hungry, on tea and toast and the remainder of the olives. Then I just waited, and waited, and while I did so I tried to remember what I had felt when I looked at the stars, but already it was fading. Then I started making sorties to the dog kennel. About half past nine there were some letters, but none from Hartley. About ten I was walking around the village. At half past ten I was outside Nibletts.

I resisted the temptation to peer anxiously at the house as I walked up the path. I wanted to seem to blunder in, and the best way to do that was actually to blunder in. Down in the village I had felt sick with an anxious yearning sense of Hartley’s proximity. Now the magnetism of her nearness produced a desperate audacity; I felt out of control, heavy, dangerous. I rang the sweet-sounding bell and its hollow angelic chime made a terrible vibration inside the house.

There was then a slight sound of scuffling, but no voices were audible. I realized that my head must be fuzzily visible through the frosted glass. Did they have many visitors?

Ben opened the door. He had by now become ‘Ben’ in my thoughts, so ardently had I been attempting to inhabit Hartley’s mind. He was wearing a white cotton tee shirt which made him appear rather stout, and he looked unshaven. The parts of his face which were not grubbily bristled were greasy, and there were shiny lumps on his brow. As he tossed his head back with an animal gesture I saw the black interior of his wide nostrils.

I said, ‘Good morning,’ and smiled.

He said, ‘What is it?’ with an expression of surprise, genuine or assumed, which let him off smiling.

‘Oh I was out for my morning constitutional and I thought I’d call. I felt it would be so nice to glimpse you and Hartley again, now we are neighbours. And I wanted to bring you something. May I come in for a moment?’ I had planned this beforehand. I put my foot onto the step.

Ben glanced behind him; then he opened the door wider with one hand, while with the other he opened the door of one of the front rooms. Then he stood back with his arms extended so that he and the two doors made a screen or barrier to shepherd me harmlessly into the front room.

This was obviously the spare bedroom. It was rather small, containing a divan, a chair, a chest of drawers. Sunlight illumined bright red flowers upon the unlined curtains. The room smelt of furnishing fabric and furniture polish and dust and of not being used. The divan bed beneath a blue and white gingham cover had clearly not been made up. There was a framed colour photograph of a tabby cat. Ben came inside and shut the door and just for a second I felt afraid of him.

There was little space. He did not ask me to sit down, so we stood facing each other beside the divan. I had decided that to begin with I would keep on gaily chattering, and I had settled on an order of discourse which I hoped that I would now remember. There was much to be discovered, and perhaps a very short time to discover it in.

‘How is Mary? I hope she is well?’ I remembered to call her Mary. ‘I hoped to catch a glimpse. I’ve got a little note here for you both.’

‘She isn’t here,’ said Ben.

I felt sure this was a lie. ‘Well, here it is, my little note.’ I handed over a sealed envelope addressed to Mr and Mrs Fitch.

Ben took the envelope, gazed at it frowning, then gave me a blank stare. He said, ‘Thank you,’ and opened the door.

I said, ‘Won’t you read it please? It’s just an invitation.’ I smiled again.

Ben gave a sort of sigh of irritation and tore open the envelope. As he did so I saw over his shoulder through the open door that the door of the kitchen, which had been closed when I entered, was now ajar. The heavy smell of roses, dustier, more appallingly sad inside the house than outside, came through from the hall. I could see the ‘altar’ with the brown questing knight above it. Ben looked up, and closed the bedroom door again.

I said, waving my arm in an explanatory way towards the invitation, and trying with gestures of a simulated bonhomie to fill and dominate the little room and simulate a flow of mutual conversation, ‘As you see, it’s just a formal invitation, and, look, I’ve written on the back that I do so hope you and Mary will drop in. I’ve got one or two friends down from London,’ this was untrue of course, but I thought it might sound less significantly alarming than a proposed à trois, ‘and I wondered if you and your wife would be so good as to toddle over to Shruff End and have a drink on Friday, it’s quite informal, no need to dress or anything, and you needn’t stay long.’ As this did not sound quite polite and as Ben was still frowning at the card, deciphering my kind message on the back, I added, ‘Or of course if you would prefer it you could come over just the two of you on Thursday or Saturday or any time really, I’m not tied up. I do hope you will. Your house is so charming, so well done, I’m sure you could advise me about mine-I so wanted to ask you about various things-the village and-the locality and-’

‘I don’t think we can come,’ said Ben. He added, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Ah well, if you can’t manage anything just now, I expect you’re busy and it’s not convenient, we could fix something a little later, perhaps, I could drop in next week, I often pass this way. I used to be such a busy person and now I have all the time in the world, do you find that now you’ve retired? Of course it’s marvellous and one’s so lucky, especially living in a place like this. Yes, I do like your house. Is that your pussy cat, isn’t he charming? ’ I gestured towards the colour photograph of the cat which was hanging over the bed.

Ben turned towards the photo and for a second his brow and his mouth relaxed and his eyes lightened and widened. ‘Yes. That’s Tamburlaine. We called him Tambi. He’s dead now.’

‘What a splendid name. It’s so important what you call a cat. Tabbies are top cats, don’t you think? I’ve always been such a rolling stone I’ve never been able to keep an animal, such a pity. Have you got a cat now?’

Ben threw the invitation card and the crumpled envelope onto the bed. The brusque movement put an end to my chatter. He stood for a moment opening his mouth and showing his uneven teeth in some kind of indecision. He ruffled up his short thick mousy hair. He said, ‘Listen.’ There was a pause, he gulped breathlessly and my own breath was suspended. We stood together bulkily in the little room, I leaning a little over him. ‘Listen, it’s not on, sorry, we don’t want to know you. Sorry to put it like that but you won’t seem to take a hint. I mean, there’s no point, is there. All right, you knew Mary a long time ago, but a long time ago is a long time ago. She doesn’t want to know you now, and I don’t want to start, see. You don’t have to see people now because you saw them once or went to school with them or what. Things change and people have their own worlds and their own places. We aren’t your sort, well, that’s obvious, isn’t it. We don’t want to come to your parties and meet your friends and drink your drinks, it’s not on. And we don’t want you barging in here at all hours of the day either, sorry if this sounds rude, but it’s better to get it understood once and for all. I don’t know how you live with your friends in your world, but we don’t live like that, we’re quiet folk and we keep ourselves to ourselves. See? So as far as this stuff about “old school friends” or whatever goes, forget it. Of course we’ll pass the time of day with you if we see you in the village, but we don’t want to be on visiting terms, that’s not our kind of thing. So-thank you for your invitation-but, well, there we are.’ Here he fumbled loudly with the door handle, presumably to warn Hartley to be out of the way.