Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

'She said she and Duncan would have adopted the child.' 'Oh -'

'That put me ina rage. It was as if they would have pushed past me and left me in the gutter and gone on together into the sunlight carrying my child away.'

'I understand.'

'I told Jean she had been horribly cruel to Duncan, and that I loved Duncan, and that I hated her.'

'But you don't hate her.'

'It doesn't matter. I shall never see her again. We shall br unable to bear each other. And Duncan will detest me. Everybody will detest me. But perhaps even that doesn't matter. I shall tell everyone now, I think.'

'Better wait a while,' said Jenkin. 'Absolute frankness sounds good, but it's not always the right policy.' `Jean will tell some version of it to someone. I'd rather tell.my version straightaway.'

`Tamar, wait,' said Jenkin. 'We'll see. I feel rather confused about this and your head isn't exactly clear. Would you like me to go round to Lily and see her – and perhaps jean too -would that help? I'm not sure -'

'I don't care. Perhaps I won't tell anyone. Let them hear anything they like and believe anything they like. I'm done for.'

'That's not true and it's wrong to say it. It's a way of trying to get out of trouble by pretending to give up, when you're dealing with trouble which you can't give up. You must endure this thing and know that it will pass and you will outlive it in a good way. There are all sorts of things, wise and unwise things, which you might do now and you've got to think about these -and they affect other people too.'

'Oh – other people! Actually there is something I can do, but it may be awful – wicked-'

'Tamar -'

'I just need help, extreme help -'

'What -?'

'I've decided to become a Christian.'

Jenkin was very surprised. 'Good heavens – do you really think -?'

'You, even you,' said Tamar in her quiet explanatory voice, 'do not at all understand how black and how destroyed my whole mind has become. That's what I meant when I said I wasn't concerned about Jean or Duncan or anybody, only about myself. I've got to be saved from destruction – I can't even say that I want to be, but somehow I must be, and I can't do it myself, and you can't do it either. I need supernatural help. Not that I really believe it's supernatural or there is any supernatural. But perhaps there is help somewhere, some force, some power -'

'But, do you believe -?' don't care whether God exists or who Christ was. Perhaps I just believe in magic. Who cares? It's up to me, it's my salvation.'

`But, Tamar, who put all this -'

`All this nonsense into my head? Father McAlister. I’ve seen him several times. He wants me to be baptised and confirmed.'

The telephone rang in the hall and Jenkin got up to answer it.

Jean had not, on the previous evening, told Duncan about Tamar's visit or her revelation. The evening passed as usual except that Jean was more full of gaiety, jesting and laughing' wildly. Duncan seemed in good spirits too. They had thou customary pleasurable argument about Provence versus the Dordogne, and whether it might not be a good idea after all to live in north Italy. The following morning, Friday, Duncan went away at his usual time.

After he had gone Jean returned to the abominable task a thinking through in detail everything which Tamar had revealed. Jean could not comfort herself by imagining that Tamar was deluded or lying, or that the child was no Duncan's, or that the child was still alive. She felt sure that Tamar had told the truth. How was such an enormity to be thought about at all, how was it to be survived, what was the worst of it? Was there anything which could be in any way mended? Jean did not believe that this new horror could' destroy her new relation, obscure as it still was, with Duncan. But it would wound it, perhaps change it in ways which were hard to foresee. There was the sheer surprise, the sense of the miraculous, that Duncan could after all produce a child; and there was the agony that it was not her child. And the separate and strange agony that the child was dead. There was also the particular shock of discovering that Duncan could go destroy her new relation, obscure as it still was, with Duncan. But it would wound it, perhaps change it in ways which were hard to foresee. There was the sheer surprise, the sense of the miraculous, that Duncan could after all produce a child; and there was the agony that it was not her child. And the separate and strange agony that the child was dead. There was also the particular shock of discovering that Duncan could go to bed (yet why ever not?) in her absence and do it so casually, will' young and vulnerable a creature. Wild peripheral considerations also tormented Jean. Told early that children were impossible, Jean and Duncan had not distressed each other by perpetual moaning about this. Jean had kept her own desire for a child as a secret sorrow. Perhaps Duncan had done the same. Together they were philosophical about it, even professing relief at being spared the horrors of parenthood. But now, since it appeared that Duncan could do it, would it not be possible to find a woman, any woman, who would bear his child and hand it over? Would Jean love such a child? Was it not, for both of them, too late? Then there was the awful question of whether she should tell Duncan at all? Was it true that the news was likely to `get round'? The weird relation she ad felt at first at having 'found him out' and `knowing what he did not know' now appeared as a small nasty psychological oddity.

Tormented, walking up and down the room, Jean felt a piercing growing need to do something, anything, to relieve the pain of continuous reflection. Another form of distress came to her aid, a new hurtful hypothesis: perhaps during her absence Duncan had had many love affairs. Why should the escapade

With Tamar be the only one? And perhaps it had not been by ny means as brief, and on his side carnal, as she had suggested? Duncan had told Jean that he had not been near ny woman during her absence and she had believed him. Evidently she had been naive.

Jean suddenly decided that there was one thing she could do, even if it were only to pass the time, she could search Duncan's desk. She went into his study and began carefully qwning the small drawers and examining the papers. Almost of once she came upon Crimond's note. There is. unfinished usiness between us. She looked at the date upon the note and at lie time of the rendezvous. Today. She looked at her watch. It was ten thirty.

She put the note back in the desk and ran to the telephone nd rang Duncan's office. He was not there. Was he at a meeting? No one knew. Then she thought. There could be no doubt about the meaning of the note, that it meant confrontation, not reconciliation or discussion. She at once thought of games of Russian roulette which she had always taken to be charades. Could this be a charade, some sort of frightening or humiliating force – or the real thing? There had been the Roman Road… It could simply be a lethal trap. Whatever it was, there was no doubt inher mind that Duncan would go. He would never let Crimond vaunt, even in his mind, that Duncan was afraid.

Jean seized the telephone again and dialled Crimond's number. Of course this was crazy. On this morning Crimond would never answer. Besides what could she say to him? The number was unobtainable. Suppose she were to get out the car and drive there at once? Might not her presence enflame both men and make what might have been some harmless display into a murderous fight? Jean rang Gerard's number. There was no answer. Then she rang Jenkin.

`Hello.'

`Hello, Jenkin, it's Jean. Look, this sounds mad, but I think Duncan may have gone round to Crimond's place to fight some sort of duel -'