Iris Murdoch - The Sea, the Sea

‘You mustn’t blame her.’ That was important.

‘I suppose he wasn’t a bad chap. But he couldn’t succeed at anything and that was depressing and maybe made him a bit spiteful, and he took it out on us. She couldn’t do a thing. Well, I do exaggerate. There were good times or goodish times, only the bad ones were so-crucial.’ Again the hesitation. Perhaps the tone of someone else’s voice? Whose?

‘I understand.’

‘You never knew when it was going to start again. You had to be careful what you said.’

The bruising and breaking of that child’s pride must have been something appalling, unspeakable. I recalled Hartley’s picture of the white-faced silent boy. Poor Hartley! She was the helpless witness of it all. ‘Your mother must have suffered very much, for you and with you.’

He gave me one of his quick suspicious frowning stares, but did not pursue the point. On closer inspection he seemed less handsome, or perhaps just more dirty and untidy. He had the pale complexion of a redhead, but his long unkempt hair was greasy and in need of a wash. His face was thin and a little wolfish, the cheeks almost sunken. The eyes had a bright cold blue-grey glint (they were a little spotted and mottled like one of my stones) but always narrowed. Perhaps he was short-sighted. He had a small pretty mouth, the lips scarcely disfigured, and a firm straight little nose, such as a girl might have envied. He was decently shaved, his beard showing in bright points of reddish gold, but the unusually dark stubble growing inaccessibly in the scar looked like a tiny lopsided moustache. He was obviously self-conscious about the scar and kept touching it. His hands were very dirty and the nails bitten.

‘And then there was this business about me.’ I did not speak portentously, but I wanted to keep him on the subject.

‘Oh well, yes, it came up now and then. But I don’t want you to get the idea-’

‘I expect you know that I loved your mother very much when we were young. I haven’t seen her since then, till we suddenly met here-’

‘She must have changed a bit!’

‘I still love her. But we never had a love affair.’

‘That’s nothing to me. Sorry, that’s not the phrase I want, I must be getting drunk. I mean, don’t tell me things like that, I’m not-I’m not interested. I believe you that you’re not my father, that’s finished. All the same, I can’t quite understand about your being here. Do you see them, or what?’

‘Oh, occasionally.’

‘If you don’t mind, I’d rather you didn’t tell them-’

‘About you? No, all right. As I say, I’m still very attached to your mother, very concerned about her. I’d like to help her. I don’t think she’s had much of a life.’

‘Well, a life is a life.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘One never knows. I daresay most lives are rotten. It’s only when one’s young one expects otherwise. She’s a bit of an imaginer, a fantasist, I suppose most women are. I must go now. Thanks for the grub.’

‘Oh I’m not going to let you go yet!’ I said, laughing. ‘I want to hear much more about you. You said your college closed down. But what would you like to do if you could choose?’

‘I used to think I’d like to work somehow with animals, I like animals.’

‘You don’t want to go back to electricity?’

‘Oh, that was just to get away from home, I got a grant and cleared out. No, I think if I could choose now I’d like to be an actor.’

Here was a stroke of luck. I could have shouted with joy. ‘An actor ? Why then I can help you.’

He said, quickly flushing and with an aggressive precision, ‘I did not come here for that. I did not come for your help or to cadge or anything. I just came to ask. It wasn’t easy. You’re a celebrity. I thought about it for a long time. I hoped I’d solve it the other way, by finding the adoption people, but that didn’t work out. I don’t want your help or to push my way into your life. I wouldn’t want that even if you were my dad.’

He got up with an air of departure and I rose too. I wanted to throw my arms around him. ‘All right. But don’t go yet. Wouldn’t you like to have a swim?’

‘A swim? Oh- yes. ’

‘Well, repose for a while, we can swim later, then have some tea-’

‘I’d like to swim now.’

We walked out onto the grass, ignoring Gilbert who rose respectfully as we passed through the kitchen, and then climbed the rocks towards the sea and came out on top of the little cliff. The tide had come in further and the water was now little more than ten feet below us. It was calmer than it had been in the morning and the semi-transparent water was a rich bottle-green in the bright sunlight.

‘Do you swim here? It looks marvellous. And one can dive. I hate not diving in.’

It was not a moment for dreary warnings. I was not going to admit to Titus any difficulties, any fear of the sea. ‘Yes, this is the best place.’

Titus was in a frenzy to get into the water. ‘I haven’t any swimming things.’

‘Oh, that doesn’t matter, no one can see us, I never wear anything. ’

Titus had already torn off the Leeds University tee shirt, revealing a lot of curly, red-golden hair. He was hopping, dragging off his trousers. Wanting suddenly to laugh with pleasure I began to undress with equal haste, but was still unbuttoning my shirt when the splash of his perfect dive blotted the glittering rock at my feet. In a moment I followed him, gasped at the coldness of the water, and seconds later began to feel warm and wildly elated.

My man Opian had come out bearing towels. He seemed to retire discreetly, but then I could see him peeping over a nearby rock, watching Titus perform. The boy, showing off of course, swam like a dolphin, graceful, playful, a white swift flashing curving form, giving glimpses of sudden hands and heels, active shoulders, pale buttocks, and a wet exuberant laughing face framed in clinging seaweed hair. His sea-darkened hair certainly changed his appearance, became dark and straight, adhering to his neck and shoulders, plastering his face, making him look like a girl. Aware of the effect, he charmingly tossed his head and drew the heavy sopping locks back out of his eyes and off his brow. He had the effortless crawl which I have never mastered, and in his marine joy kept diving vertically under, vanishing and reappearing somewhere else with a triumphant yell. Equal mad delight possessed me, and the sea was joyful and the taste of the salt water was the taste of hope and joy. I kept laughing, gurgling water, spouting, whirling. Meeting my sea-dervish companion I shouted, ‘ Now aren’t you glad you came to me?’

‘Yes, yes, yes!’

Of course he had no difficulty climbing up the little steep cliff. After all, had I not first seen him like a fly upon that tower? I had a slight difficulty myself and a bad moment, but concealed it from him. It was rather too early to start losing face and seeming old. I wanted him to accept me as a comrade. After that, in the shade of a rock, he slept. After that we had a substantial tea. And after that he agreed to stay the night, just the night and leave early the next day. I had meanwhile confiscated and hidden his two plastic bags in case he should suddenly take it into his head to slip away. I looked into the bags, there was precious little in them: shaving things, underwear, a decent striped shirt, a tie, shoes, a much creased and folded cotton jacket. Some expensive cuff links in a velvet box. The love poems of Dante, in Italian and English, in a de luxe edition with risqué engravings. The last two items made me think a bit.

Of course Gilbert, now fully aware of our visitor’s identity, was in a scarcely controllable state of excitement and curiosity. ‘What are you going to do with him?’ ‘Wait and see.’ ‘I know what I’d like to do!’ ‘For God’s sake just keep out of our way.’ ‘All right, I know my place!’