Iris Murdoch - The Sea, the Sea

‘No.’

‘No. You still have the joie de vivre of a young man. In your case it is nothing to do with goodness. You are ungood. It is just a natural endowment, a gift of nature, like your figure and your girlish complexion. But remember and beware-there are those who live in hell.’

I said, ‘Do you ever hit Pamela? Did you ever hit Rosina?’ I must have been drunker than Perry thought.

This question seemed to cheer him up a little. ‘Funny you should ask that, Charles, I was thinking about it just today and wondering why I never do, I never did. No. Never raised my hand to anybody. It’s the inanimate world that gets it. Glasses, plates, anything I can kick and smash. I think-you know-that’s something to do with Ireland, something I do for Ireland, in a funny way. Doesn’t help the bitch of course. But-you know-as soon as-anybody hits anybody, instead of screaming or-or spitting or-there’s a barrier passed-perhaps it’s the last barrier of civilization-and after that-it’s machine guns and shooting people’s knee caps off. God, why did I agree to play in that bloody TV series, it’s muck. They hit me of course, Pam and Rosina, no inhibitions there-’

‘A scratched face?’

‘Scratch be damned, they punch. Well, I deserve it. I’m a skunk-a-skunk. Yes. Yes. Drink up.’

As Perry was again applying the tablecloth to his eyes the door opened and a tall thin boy with a crew cut and a black leather jacket clumped in, ignored us, went across to the cupboard, opened it, took out a bottle, and walked out again closing the door.

‘Who on earth was that boy?’

‘Ah that’s no boy, Charles dear, that’s my stepdaughter Angela, she’s sixteen.’

‘God. Last time I saw her she was a little thing with golden ringlets.’

‘She is no longer a little thing with golden ringlets. Do you know that she shaved her head last month? It’s just beginning to grow again. Her father has given her a motor bike. And when I say a motor bike I don’t mean a put-put-put on which you sit as on a chair, I mean a long thick brutal thing which you bestride like a charger and which makes a noise like AAAARRGRR. I remember when you were being sentimental about wanting a son I told you what hell it would be. I think a daughter is worse. Thank God I haven’t got any children of my own. Children-innocence-God! You should hear the language Angie uses, and she’s made herself so ugly, so grotesque-Pamela doesn’t care, she’s-well, you saw Pamela just now, didn’t you-she did come in, didn’t she or did I dream it? Angie, yes. She wears climbing boots and leather everything. And she drinks. They all do. Christ, Charles, you’re lucky. No family. The family, the seat of love. And to think that I not only persuaded myself I loved those two women, I really did love them-that is, if I’m capable of love. Am I? I don’t know. And I loved-oh-earlier-other women-other people-lost now, lost, gone forever-but it would have been no good-skunks and rotters and cads can’t be happy, so there’s some justice in the world after all.’

I had reached the stage where it was very difficult to leave, very difficult to do anything except go on and on drinking whisky; and I was beginning to be stupidly affected by Peregrine’s tears. ‘Perry, who was your first love?’

‘Don’t call me “Perry”, fuck you. Well, I’ll tell you-it’s not what you’d-it was my Uncle Peregrine-yes. Uncle Peregrine. God rest his dear soul, he was a good good man. And if there’s ever a Judgment Day all my fucking family will be kneeling down behind Uncle Peregrine and hoping that he’ll say the good word and save them from the fire. And I’ll be lying on the ground waiting for him to raise me up, and he will raise me up. He was a sweet man. I don’t know why I’m calling him good, what did I know about it, I was a child. He used to hold my hand and hold me on his knee. He loved me, the bugger. My parents never fondled me, they never hugged me and kissed me, I think honestly they didn’t like me much, they liked my bloody sister, not me. But Uncle Peregrine liked me. He used to hug me and kiss me. And do you know, I’ve never had better kisses from women, though it was only-it wasn’t like you think-it was so innocent and sweet-and he only did it when we were alone. That taught me something, I understood. And we talked about everything, as if we were the same age, and I longed for his company, as if he nourished me. Then one day-my parents must have seen, or maybe they decided there was something funny about Uncle Peregrine, and they just banished him. I never saw him again. Never.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘I don’t know. I heard much later on that he’d committed suicide. When I became an actor I took his name, partly out of piety, partly to spite my family. I was christened William. Well, that was my first love. What was yours?’

‘I forget. Thank you for telling me about your uncle. I liked hearing about him.’

‘I’m sorry I told you already. You’ll start making psychology. And psychology is bunk.’

‘I know psychology is bunk! I must go, Peregrine.’

‘Don’t go. I’ll tell you Freud’s favourite joke, if I can remember it. The king meets his double and says, “Did your mother work in the palace?” and the double says “No, but my father did.” Ha ha ha, that’s a good joke!’

‘I must go.’

‘Charles, you haven’t understood the joke. Listen, the king meets this chap who looks just like him and the king says-’

‘I have understood the joke.’

‘Charles, for Christ’s sake don’t go, there’s another bottle. “No, but my father did”!’

‘I really must go-’

‘That’s right, sod off just when consciousness is becoming bearable, and the light of understanding has dawned. I have got a great deal more to say to you. Oh all right, sod off then! I think I’ll come down to see you at your place by the sea, I’ll come at Whitsun if the weather’s decent, and we’ll get drunk again-’

‘Goodbye, Peregrine. I’m sorry about Ireland.’

‘You’re drunk after all. Fuck off.’ As I went out of the door I heard him murmuring, ‘So clean, so bloody clean’, as his head slowly drooped towards the wine-stained tablecloth.

When I had finished writing the above, which brought my novel-diary up to date, I packed my suitcase and left my muddled awful little London flat, where I had not had the heart to so much as move a chair or unpack a cup. I had had my lunch (I finished up the macaroni cheese) and imagined that a blank uneventful interval now divided me from my evening train home (I was wrong). I decided to spend some of the time at a picture gallery. I am not very knowledgeable about pictures, but they give me a certain calm pleasure, and I like the atmosphere of galleries, whereas I detest the atmosphere of concert halls. I must confess too that I derive a lot of sheer erotic satisfaction from pictures of women. The painters obviously did after all, so why not me?

After some indecision I decided to go to the Wallace Collection, where I had not been for some time. My father, who knew even less about pictures than I do, had taken me there once as a boy to see Frans Hals’s ‘Laughing Cavalier’ on one of our rare visits to London, and I associated the place with him. I think my father liked the gallery because it was so quiet and there was so much furniture as well as pictures, so it seemed like a palatial private house. He was particularly pleased by the many clocks (he liked clocks) which all, not quite at the same time and with varied chimes, struck the hour while we were there. The place, when I arrived, was almost empty, and I started wandering about in a sort of daze, looking at the pictures and thinking about Hartley. I was feeling a bit unreal as a result of the serious hangover which I had been fighting all the morning. The trouble with good wine is that it is very alcoholic but you cannot publicly pour water into it. In spite of aspirins with my lunch I still had a headache. A sort of brown fuzz and some very volatile darting black spots intermittently marred my field of vision. I felt unsteady and somewhat oddly related to the ground, as if I had suddenly become extremely tall.