Iris Murdoch - The Sea, the Sea

‘Look, I’ll lend you my dressing gown, I’ve got such a nice one.’ I ran to my bedroom and brought her my best black silk dressing gown with the red rosettes. She stood at the door of her room staring at the bead curtain.

‘What’s that?’

‘Well may you ask. A bead curtain. Now put this on. There’s the bathroom, you remember.’

She let me help her into the dressing gown, then walked slowly down to the bathroom. I waited, sitting on the stairs. When she emerged she climbed back up towards her room, moving heavily like an old woman.

‘Wait then, I’ll get you a comb, or you can come and use the mirror in my room, would you like, it’s brighter in there.’

She went on back into her own room. I fetched the comb and a hand mirror. She combed her hair, not looking into the glass, then sat down again on the mattress. There was indeed no other furniture, since the table which Titus had retrieved from the rocks was still downstairs.

‘Won’t you come down?’

‘No, I’ll stay here.’

‘I’ll bring you something.’

‘I feel sick, the wine has made me sick.’

‘Would you like tea, coffee?’

‘I feel sick.’ She lay down again and pulled up the blanket.

I looked at her with despair, then went out. I closed and locked the door. I did not exclude the possibility that after this show of apathy she might suddenly run for it, rushing out of the house and disappearing among the rocks, hurling herself into the sea.

I went downstairs and found Gilbert sitting at the kitchen table. He rose respectfully as I entered. Titus was at the stove, which he had mastered, cooking eggs. He seemed now to be completely at home in the house. At this I felt both pleasure and displeasure.

‘Morning, guv’nor,’ said Gilbert.

‘Hello, dad.’

I did not care for this pleasantry from Titus.

‘If you must be familiar, my name is Charles.’

‘Sorry, Mr Arrowby. How is my mother this morning?’

‘Oh, Titus, Titus-’

‘Have a fried egg,’ said Gilbert.

‘I’ll take her up some tea. Does she take milk, sugar?’

‘I can’t remember.’

I made up a little tray with tea, milk and sugar, bread, butter, marmalade. I carried it up, balanced it, unlocked the door. Hartley was still lying under the blanket.

‘Lovely breakfast. Look.’

She stared at me with almost theatrical misery.

‘Wait. I’ll get a table and chair.’ I ran downstairs and came back with the little table and a chair. I unpacked the tray onto the table. ‘Come, darling, don’t let your tea get cold. And look, I’ve brought you such a lovely present, a stone, the most beautiful stone on the shore.’ I laid down beside her plate the elliptical stone, my very first one, the prize of my collection, hand-sized, a mottled pink, irregularly criss-crossed with white bars in a design before which Klee and Mondrian would have bowed to the ground.

Hartley came slowly, crawling then rising, and stood by the table, pulling the dressing gown round her. She did not look at the stone or touch it. I put my arms round her for a moment and kissed her wig-like hair. Then I kissed her warm silk-clad shoulder. Then I left her and locked the door. At any rate she had said no more about going back. No doubt she was afraid; and if she feared to think of returning now, then every hour which kept her here would help to gain my point. But her air of apathetic misery appalled me. Later I was not surprised to find that she had drunk a little tea but eaten nothing.

I looked at my watch. It was still not eight o’clock. I wondered when, and how, Ben would arrive. I remembered uneasily what Hartley had said about his having kept his army revolver. I went down to the kitchen to issue orders.

Gilbert was eating fried eggs, fried bread, grilled tomatoes.

‘Where’s the boy?’

‘He’s gone to swim. How’s Hartley?’

‘Oh-terrible. I mean, all right. Listen, Gilbert, could you go outside and keep watch? All right, finish your breakfast first, you’re doing well, aren’t you!’

‘What do you mean, keep watch?’ said Gilbert suspiciously.

‘Just stand, or if you like sit, on the road, at the end of the causeway, and come in and tell me when you see him coming.’

‘How am I to know him? By his horsewhip?’

‘He’s unmistakable.’ I described Ben minutely.

‘Suppose he creeps up on me or something? He can’t be feeling very pleased. You said he was a tough, a sort of thug. I love you, darling, but I’m not going to fight.’

‘Nobody is going to fight.’ I hope.

‘I don’t mind sitting in the car,’ said Gilbert. ‘I’ll sit in the car with the doors locked and watch the road. Then if I see him I’ll hoot the horn.’

This seemed a good idea. ‘All right, but make it snappy.’

I went out of the back and across the grass and climbed over the rocks as far as the little cliff in time to see Titus’s long pale legs elevated to heaven as he dived under the green water. He reminded me of Breughel’s Icarus. Absit omen.

I had not the heart to swim, and anyway I did not want Ben to find me trouserless; and there was enough of a swell on for me to see that I might have difficulty getting out. Titus would be all right of course. I must remember to fix another ‘rope’ at the steps.

The sun was already high and the sea was a lucid green nearer to the rocks, a glittering azure farther out, shifting and flashing as if large plates of white were floating on the surface. The horizon was a line of gold. A surge of rather large but very smooth slow waves was coming in towards me and silently frothing up among the rocks; there was a quiet menace in the graceful yet machine-like power of their strong regular motions.

I waited rather impatiently for young Titus to finish his swim. He had no business to be diverting himself at a moment of crisis. He saw me, waved, but was clearly in no hurry. He shouted to me to come in but I shook my head.

I urgently wanted Titus on the land, partly because I wanted to efface the rather raw impression of our stupid exchanges in the kitchen. Also I wanted Titus beside me, clothed and efficient and in his right mind, when the gentleman turned up. I did not really imagine that Ben would come round and murder us all, but unless there was some show of strength he might possibly wish to punch my head; and while I am athletic and fairly strong, the arts of aggression have never been among my accomplishments. I often wondered during the war how it was that men were able to face other men and kill them. Training helped and I suppose fear. I was glad that it had not been my lot.

It also then occurred to me, as I dourly watched Titus’s dolphin antics, that I did not really know how he would react. He had fairly indicated that he detested his adoptive father. But the young mind is mysterious. Confronted with him he might be cowed, or else moved by sudden sympathy. Or by old deep resistless filial emotions. Could Titus change sides? Did Titus himself know?

At last he swam back to the steep rock, and clinging with fingers and toes easily levered his naked body up out of the strong rising and falling surge. He crawled up, swung over the edge and lay panting.

‘Titus, dear boy, get dressed, quick, here’s your towel.’

He obeyed, eyeing me. ‘What’s the matter? Are we going somewhere?’

‘No, but I’m afraid your father may arrive any moment.’

‘Looking for my mother. Well, I suppose he may. What will you do?’

‘I don’t know. What will he do? Listen, Titus, and please forgive my clumsy haste, there’s so much I want to say to you. Titus, we must hold on to each other, you and me-’

‘Oh yes, I’m a very important property, I’m the decoy duck, I’m the hostage!’