Iris Murdoch - The Sea, the Sea

‘Grateful! Oh good!’

‘But it’s all a nonsense, an accident, an incident-we can’t stay together, it doesn’t make sense.’

‘I love you. You love me.’

‘I do care for you-’

‘Don’t use that whimsy language. You love me.’

‘All right, but in an unreal way, in a dream, in a might-have-been. Really, all this was over long ago and we’re dreaming it.’

‘Hartley, have you no sense of the present tense, can’t you live in the present? Wake up and try it!’

‘I live in long-times, not in sudden present moments, don’t you see-I’m married, I’ve got to go back to where I am. If you took me to London like you just said I’d have to run away from you. You make everything worse and worse, you won’t understand-’

‘OK, you’re married, so what? You haven’t been happy.’

‘It doesn’t matter-’

‘I should say it matters a lot. I can’t think of anything that matters more.’

‘I can-’

‘You admit you love me.’

‘One can love a dream. You think that makes a sort of push to action-’

‘A motive, yes!’

‘No, because it is a dream. It’s made of lies.’

‘Hartley, we have futures. That means we can make things true.’

‘I have to go back.’

‘He’ll kill you.’

‘I have to go through that door, it’s the only way for me.’

‘I won’t let you.’

‘Please-’

‘What about Titus? He’ll be with me. Don’t you want to be with Titus?’

‘Charles, I must go home.’

‘Oh stop, can’t you just think of something better and want it?’

‘One can’t do that to one’s mind. You don’t understand people like me, like us, the other ones. You’re like a bird that flies in the air, a fish that swims in the sea. You move, you look about you, you want things. There are others who live on earth and move just a little and don’t look-’

‘Hartley, trust me, come with me, ride on my back. You too can move about and look at things-’

‘I want to go home.’

I left her and locked the door and rushed out of the house. I climbed over a rock or two and saw my cousin standing on the bridge over the cauldron. He waved and called to me and I went to join him.

‘Charles, just look at the force of that water, isn’t it fantastic, isn’t it terrifying?’ I could just hear his voice above the roar of the outgoing tide.

‘Yes.’

‘It’s sublime, yes, in the strict sense, sublime. Kant would love it. Leonardo would love it. Hokusai would love it.’

‘I daresay.’

‘And the birds-just look at those shags-’

‘I thought they were cormorants.’

‘They’re shags. And I saw some choughs, and oyster-catchers. And I heard a curlew round in the bay.’

‘When are you leaving?’

‘I say, I like your friends.’

‘They like you.’

‘The boy seems good.’

‘Yes-’

‘My hat, look at that water, what it’s doing now!’

We began to walk back towards the house. It was nearly time for lunch, if such conventions still existed.

James, who had evidently brought his seaside holiday outfit, had on some very old cotton khaki trousers, rolled up, and a clean but ancient blue shirt which he wore loose and unbuttoned, revealing the upper part of his thin scantily-haired pink body. He was also wearing sandals which exposed his skinny white feet with long prehensile bony toes which used to appal me when I was young. (‘James has feet like hands’ I told my mother, as if discovering a secret deformity.)

As we neared the house, he said, ‘What are you going to do?’

‘About what?’

‘About her.’

‘I don’t know. When are you leaving?’

‘May I stay till tomorrow?’

‘All right.’

We came into the kitchen and I automatically picked up the tray which Gilbert had put out for Hartley. I carried it upstairs, unlocked the door, and went in and put the tray on the table as usual.

She was crying and would say nothing to me.

‘Oh, Hartley, don’t destroy me with this grief, you don’t know what you’re doing to me.’

She said nothing and made no sign, just continued to cry, leaning back against the wall and gazing in front of her, mopping the slow tears occasionally with the back of her hand.

I sat with her for a little while in silence. I sat on the chair and looked about me as if so ordinary an occupation could bring her comfort. I noted a damp patch on the ceiling, a crack in one of the panes of the long window. Purple fluff on the floor, doubtless from Mrs Chorney’s furniture. At last I got up, touched her shoulder gently and went away. I never stayed to see her eat. I locked the door.

When I came back to the kitchen I found all four of them there, standing round the table where Gilbert had laid out a lunch of ham and tongue with green salad and new potatoes, and hard-boiled eggs for James. By now of course I took no interest in their food and very little in my own. Two open bottles of white wine were cooling in the sink. Peregrine, improved by being clothed, was drinking whisky and listening to the cricket on his transistor. They fell silent when I entered. Perry switched off the radio. There was an air of expectancy.

I poured myself out a glass of wine and picked up a slice of ham. ‘You carry on. I’m going to eat outside.’

‘Don’t rush away, we want to talk to you,’ said Peregrine.

‘Well, I don’t want to talk to you.’

‘We want to help you,’ said Gilbert.

‘Oh, fuck off.’

‘Please stay a minute,’ said James. ‘Titus has something to say to you. Haven’t you, Titus?’

Titus, red in the face, not looking at me, mumbled, ‘I think you ought to let my mother go home.’

‘This is her home.’

‘But seriously, old man-’ said Peregrine.

‘I don’t want your advice. I didn’t ask you to come here, any of you.’

James sat down, and the other three followed suit. I remained standing.

‘We don’t want to intrude-’ said James.

‘Don’t then.’

‘And we don’t in fact want to force any advice on you. We can’t see what this situation is, how could we? My impression is that you hardly understand it yourself. We don’t want to persuade you-’

‘Then why did you put Titus up to saying what he just said?’

‘Because it’s part of the evidence. It’s something that Titus thinks, but which he was afraid to tell you.’

‘Oh bosh.’

‘You have got a difficult and, as far as I can see, fairly urgent decision to make and if you would only consent to talk to us we could help you to make it in a rational way, and we could also help you to carry it out in a rational way. You must see that you need help, you need it.’

‘I need a chauffeur. Nothing else.’

‘You need support. I am your only relation. Gilbert and Peregrine are your close friends.’

‘They aren’t.’

‘Titus says he regards you as his father.’

‘You all seem to have had a jolly good talk about me.’

‘Don’t be angry, Charles,’ said Peregrine. ‘We didn’t expect to be landed in this soup. We came here for a holiday. But we see you in trouble and we want to back you up.’

‘There’s nothing you can do for me.’

‘There is,’ said James. ‘I think it would help you a great deal to discuss the whole business with us, not necessarily the details, but the sort of strategy of it. You could do this without disloyalty. Now roughly there are two possible courses of action: you keep her or you return her. OK? Well, let’s consider first what happens if you return her-’

‘I’m not going to return her, as you put it. She’s not a bottle.’