Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

`She's been baptised and confirmed.'

`Good heavens! Well, if it's done her some good -'

`She's been stuffed full of a lot of consoling lies. Gideon's been looking after her too.'

`Gideon?'

`It seems so. I found her round at my – his – house twice lately. Of course I tried to see her, but she wouldn't see me.'

Rose thought, he's furious because Gideon is succeeding where he's failed. I must change the subject. 'Do you find you can work well in Jenkin's house? Are you writing something?'

`No. I'm not going to write – anything. I've decided not to.'

`Gerard!'

`I haven't anything to say. Why write half-baked rubbish just for the sake of writing?'

`But you -'

`Crimond's book is being published by the Oxford University Press. I may be able to get hold of a proof copy from somebody who works there.'

As soon as Crimond's name was spoken it seemed as if the whole conversation had been simply steering towards it. Gerard, who had been looking away, now looked directly at Rose, he flushed and his lips parted, his face expressing a kind of surprise.

`Have you seen Crimond?’

`Of course not.'

As Rose was trying to think of' something suitable to say Gerard got up. 'I must go. I've sold my car, that's another thing that's happened. I'll have to get a taxi. I can walk actually. Thanks for the coffee.'

`Wouldn't you like whisky, brandy?' Rose got up too.

`No, thanks. Rose, I'm sorry to be so – so – hideous.'

Rose wanted to embrace him, but he went away with a wave, without kissing her. The savour of that word hideous remained in the room. Rose could taste it upon her lips. She Ihought, he is sick, he is sick, he is poisoned by those thoughts, by those terrible thoughts.

Gerard, at home in Jerkin's parlour, was feeling wretched because he had not been able to communicate with Rose. He regretted what he had said to her. In conveying his news he had adopted a surly cynical tone, he had sneered at almost everyone he mentioned. He had behaved badly, he had lost his rational reticence, he had been deliberately hostile and hurtful to Rose. He thought, I am not myself, my soul is sick, I am under a curse.

Crimond was the name of the curse which Gerard was under. He could think of nothing and no one else and could not see how this degrading and tormenting condition could change. He thought every day of going to see Crimond, and every day saw how impossible this was. He dreaded seeing thr book in case it was very good, equally in case it was not .Of course he thought continuously about Jenkin, but his mourning had been somehow taken over by Crimond, everything to do with Jenkin was misted over and contaminated by Crimond; and how terrible that was, and how degraded and vile Gerard had become to allow it to happen. Gerard was not even sure by now whether he found it conceivable that Crimond could have murdered Jenkin. It couldn't be true. And yet..Why had Jenkin been there? He said he didn't go to Crimond's house. Crimond must have invited him or lured him. Maybe it was an accident, but had not Crimond somehow made air accident possible, unconsciously as it were? Could this make sense? Another rumour that circulated, and which was men tinned to Gerard by a malicious acquaintance who added that of course he did not believe it, was that Jenkin and Crimond had been lovers, and it was ajealousy killing. This simply could not be true. Jenkin had never been close to Crimond, and would never have concealed anything of such important, from Gerard. He could not believe anything of the sort. And yet, perhaps, might not Jenkin and Crimond, possibly very long ago, have been very close friends or lovers, and would not Jenkin have felt bound to keep this secret? Perhaps there hail been something – and such things can be timeless. Mid Gerard's 'proposal' to Jenkin somehow – not of course by Jenkin telling Crimond – but by some perceptible change in Jenkin's demeanour and plans, imparted to Crimond that `something had happened', even that Jenkin was thinking of leaving his celibate state? Had Jenkin suddenl ybecome, in some mysterious way, newly attractive? If' so then in some sense Gerard was responsible forJenkin's death. But this idea, awful as it was, was shadowy, and tortured him less than some very particular images of the hypothetical relationship, however long ago, between Jenkin and Crimond. And then he kept hearing Jenkin's voice, laughing, saying: 'Come live with me and be my love.'

On that day when Jenkin had left Tamar so hurriedly `for an emergency' and had said, 'Stay and keep warm, I'd like to think you were here, stay here till I come back,' Tamar had waited, at first feeling a security in being alone in Jenkin's house, then after a while beginning to feel wretched and lonely and longing for his return. She went into the kitchen and looked into the refrigerator at bread, butter, cheese, she looked at tins of beans in the larder and apples on a dish. It was as if ibr her the food were contaminated, or seen in some future state mouldering away. She could not eat. She lay down on Jenkin's bed, but though she turned on the electric fire the room was cold. She shivered under a blanket, lacking the will to burrow deeper into the bed. The little infinitesimal spark of hope which she had gained simply from Jerkin's presence was extinguished. It was blackness again, ravaged, smashed, crushed, pulverised blackness, like the night after the earthquake, only the dark was silent, there were no voices, no one was there, only herself, her vast awful smashed up self. Tamar, in running to Jenkin, had wanted simply to be saved from some sort of imminent screaming insanity. The speech she had made to him about becoming a Christian and about magic and so on had been entirely impromptu, something wild, even cynical, said to startle Jenkin and perhaps herself. The words were hollow, another voice speaking through her. Of course she had listened, but with unabated despair, even with a kind of contemptuous anger to Father McAlister's talk about `accepting Christ as her Saviour,' which seemed to her like the gabble of a witch doctor. Now, waiting for Jenkin to conic back, she gave herself up to the old repetitive misery, and to waiting impatiently, then anxiously, for his return. After a while she started inventing excellent reasons why he had nol come back, he had said it was an emergency, someone was seriously ill, or even more miserable than she was, or bad attempted suicide, he was holding someone's hand, he was urgently needed, he was detained. During this time Tamar had nothing to do. She thought vaguely of cleaning the house, but the house was clean. She made herself a cup of tea, and washed up her cup and saucer, together with a mug which was beside the sink. After some time, after hours had passed, she could do nothing but feel very anxious, then very frightened, because Jenkin had not returned. She lay down and fell into a chilled coma, she got up, she cried for a while. About five o'clock she decided to go and started writing a letter to Jenkin which sh, then tore up. She put on her coat but could not make up her mind to return to Acton and to her mother. At last she rang upGerard and asked if he knew where Jenkin was. Gerard told her he was dead.

Gerard had been one of the first people to learn of the evcm for a curious reason. The police had asked Crimond if he knew Jenkin's next of kin, or closest connection, and Crimond haul given them Gerard's name and address. Gerard came back from the London Library to find the police on the doorstep. He was taken to a police station in South London where he was questioned about Jenkin, about Crimond, about the situation, about their relationship. It was partly, perhaps largelv, Gerard's testimony which saved Crimond from being treated as a 'suspect'. Gerard was saved from having to identify his friend's body by the fact that Marchmcnt had instantly, on Crimond's 'phone call, made contact with the local police and made his own appearance on the spot in the role of best friend. The whole matter remained, during that day, in a state of confusion and coming and going, during which Gerard might well have come face to face with Crimond but did not. He got back home in fact just in time to receive Tamar's telephone call. Gerard asked her where she was. Tamar said she was in a telephone box. Gerard told her to wait there and he would fetch her by car. Tamar said, no, thank you, she would go home, her mother was waiting, and rang off, leaving Gerard to reproach himself for having, in his own shocked state, told her,the news so bluntly. She went back to Acton, said nothing to Violet, listened to Violet's complaints, toyed with her supper and went to bed early. Her condition then, as she saw it fterwards, was the sort of suspended shock which enables a oldier whose arm has been blown off to walk, talk sensibly, ven crack jokes, before quite suddenly falling dead. Tamar ever told anyone, except Father McAlister, that she had been ith .jenkin on that day. The idea of being questioned about it as intolerable. Anyway, that meeting was a secret between her and Jenkin. Tamar had not waited to be told by Gerard how Jenkin had died, it was sufficient to know that he was dead. Then after she had gone to bed that night and was lying in the darkness choking with grief, it occurred to her that,,whatever might have happened to him, he had been killed by the dead child; and henceforth and forever anyone who ame near to her would be cursed and destroyed. So she was responsible for Jenkin's death.