Iris Murdoch - The Sea, the Sea

And Ben’s silence was getting me down. What did it mean? Had he decided on reflection that he did not want Hartley back? Was he settling down to a happy bachelor life with the dog? Or had he some secret girl friend to whom in relief he had now run away? Was he making complex plans either to rescue her or to take some terrible revenge on me? Had he summoned some roughs, old army friends perhaps, who would arrive any moment to beat me up? Had he gone to a lawyer? Or was he just playing a subtle game, waiting for my nerve to break, waiting for me to come to him ? Or perhaps he too had fallen into some kind of entranced nervous apathy, unsure of what he wanted, unsure of what to do? I myself felt at some moment that to be forced to act, even by the police, would be preferable to this empty echoing space of attentive possibilities.

I was now trying very hard to steel myself to take Hartley to London, to drag her to the car, to delude her by telling her she was going home. I felt the time had come to do this, although I was far from sure that it was the right move. Shruff End might have ‘bad vibes’ as Titus put it, but it was my home, I was used to it. And here I could communicate quietly with Hartley, there was a thin pure stream of communication, especially when we talked about the past. In an odd way we were at ease together. Surely there must soon be some break-through, some dialectical change. What on earth would I do in London with a distraught weeping Hartley in that awful little flat with the chairs piled on the table and the china not unpacked? To whom could we go in London? I did not want to exhibit Hartley to people who, however helpful, would secretly mock her. The fact was I wanted, perhaps we both wanted, someone to look after us, at least someone to be there as a sort of protection and guarantee of ordinariness. Titus and Gilbert might be of little use but simply their presence made the situation more bearable.

However, since Rosina’s visit, Titus and Gilbert had been in a state of subdued revolt, they were mutinous. I think Ben’s silence was upsetting them too, in different ways. They wanted a showdown, a dénouement. They wanted an end to the situation which would relieve their minds. Gilbert was simply frightened of Ben, afraid of fights and thuggery. What Titus felt I was unsure. Sometimes I felt terrified of what Titus might be thinking. Since Hartley’s arrival I had not talked to him properly. I ought to have done, I wanted to do so, but I had not. It was possible that Titus was in an agony of tension and indecision, wanting and yet not wanting to run to his father, to be reconciled, or even to suffer punishment, to escape from his mother, to escape from me. The possibility of anything so awful in the boy’s state of mind made me afraid to probe him when I had so much else to envisage and decide. Meanwhile he had withdrawn, a little sulky, wanting to be wooed. I would woo him, but at present had not the wit or the strength. And I was disappointed in him. I needed his help, his loving support, with Hartley, his ingenuity, his commitment. But he showed plainly that he had, at any rate in this weird context, given up the problem of his mother. He preferred not to reflect upon the obscene embarrassment of her incarceration. He did not want to associate himself with me as a fellow gaoler. This was understandable. But he annoyed me by seeming to enjoy himself. He swam, he sang, he sat on the rocks with Gilbert drinking white wine and blackcurrant juice (their latest drink). He behaved like the scrounger he had so proudly denied himself to be. As Gilbert now declared that he was afraid to go shopping by himself, Titus went with him and they bought quantities of expensive food and drink with my money. They did not run into Ben. Perhaps Ben had gone away? Where to? Whom to? These mysteries did me no good.

One form taken by the mutiny of Gilbert and Titus was that they began to suggest that I should do something about Ben. At least Gilbert made the suggestions, but Titus was certainly associated with them. What I was to do was not so clear, but they wanted an initiative. There was by now a little less singing, a little more sitting in the kitchen and plotting; and even in the midst of my other preoccupations and miseries I felt jealousy, stupid blank jealousy, when I saw those two heads together, and they fell nervously silent as I came in. They ran out all the time to look for letters. Gilbert even bought a large square basket which he mounted on stones inside the dog kennel to be sure that any letters which came would not get wet or blow away. I avoided discussion, since I so much feared to hear Titus announce that he would go over to Nibletts to spy out the land. What if Titus went to Nibletts and did not return? Of course I did not tell the others about Rosina’s crazy boast, which I decided on reflection was intended simply to annoy me. Nor had I stopped thinking about what else she had told me, although I was trying hard to dismiss her from my mind. I hoped she had gone back to London.

Towards the evening of that day I got as far as concluding that if Ben made no move I would do something on the next day: something clarificatory, something decisive; although I could not yet see quite what this liberating move would be. Most probably I would take Hartley and Titus to London. I had waited long enough upon Hartley’s will, and I was beginning to believe that she wanted me to force her. When I felt that I was nearly desperate enough to decide, I felt some relief. But the tomorrow upon which I was to make my decision never, in the form in which I had envisaged it, arrived.

Towards six thirty in the evening the thick blue air seemed to be getting darker and more stifling, although the sun was bravely shining and the sky was unflecked. It was as if the sun were shining through a mist, but a mist made out of the dark blue globules of the sky itself. I remember the lurid impression of that evening, the vivid dark light, the brilliant vibrating colours of the rocks, of the grass on the other side of the road, of Gilbert’s yellow car. There was no breath of wind, not the softest breeze. The sea was menacingly quiet, utterly smooth, glassy, glossy, oily, a uniform azure. Then there were silent flashes, extraordinary lightings up of the whole horizon, like vast distant fireworks or some weird atomic experiment. Not a cloud, not a sound of thunder, just these huge displays of quick silent yellowish-white light.

I had been talking to Hartley, talking about the past, enjoying that thin pure line of easy communication with her which I could persuade myself was becoming deeper and wider. It was true that, so far as we did communicate, the ease of it was exceptional, the flavour unique. Here I could post the banner of my love, hope gradually to convince. Loving her took at this time so intensely the form of pity, compassion, an absolute desire to cherish, to cure; to stir the desire for happiness and to make it grow where it had not been before. To this end I tried cunningly to exclude the idea of a return home, picturing it casually as something now impossible; and meanwhile let Hartley continue to calm herself by an illusion of a return which she would soon see as unthinkable and as something which she no longer wanted. Surreptitiously I increased the pressure and the emphasis. My policy of gradualism had been right and would shortly be confirmed as successful. Hartley went on saying that she must go back to her husband, but she said it fairly calmly and it seemed to me less often and the words sounded emptier.

I left her at last. I did not now bother to lock her door during the day. Her desire to hide, to hide from Gilbert and above all from Titus would keep her effectively enclosed by day. In any case, how far could she run undiscovered? The night despairs were another matter. The front door bell rang. As I came down into the hall I saw the wire quivering just before I heard the bland clangour of the bell in the kitchen. I thought: Ben. And I wondered: alone? I moved to the door quickly and incautiously to forestall my fear. I did not put the door on the chain but opened it wide at once. The man standing outside was my cousin James.