Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

Tamar had abandoned her brown and grey uniform and was wearing a midnight-blue dress with a jabot of frilly white silk at the neck. Her fine tree-brown tree-green hair had been cleverly cut into layers, she looked boyish and elfin and cool. Her face was slightly less thin, her complexion slightly less pale, she had lost her 'schoolgirl' look. She wore no make-up. Her large hazel eyes carried a wary self-consciously melancholy expression which was new. Conrad Lomas had, as he confided to Leonard, admired her for several seconds before recognising her. Tamar had let Gideon arrange her future, he typed letters for her and she signed them. What had seemed so impossible was fixed up easily and swiftly, what had seemed lost forever retrieved, no one seemed to be surprised, no one objected, her tutor, the college authorities, expressed calm pleasure at the prospect of' welcoming her back. A van, conjured up by Gideon, brought to her all her remaining clothes, all her possessions down to the tiniest trinkets from her room. The awful old flat seemed gone from the earth, as if it had indeed been burnt, an image which haunted her. She bought books, acquiring again the works which her mother had made her sell and which she had parted from with such bitter tears. Though riot without invitations, she remained solitary, as if, in a unique healing interim never to be repeated, she must fast.

The fervour of her religious conversion had, as the cynics predicted, worn off. It was amazing to her now to remember.how she had craved for the sacrament. Had she really swallowed all those wafers of bread and all those sips of rich wine, more intoxicating by far than Gideon's cocktail? At present, she did not want this food. But the cynics (of whom she was well aware) understood very little. Tamar was indeed puzzled about herself' Father McAlister had constantly talked of 'new being'. Well, she had new being, she had been permanently changed. But what had happened? Was it simply that she had broken free from her mother, was that what her cunning psyche had, under the guise of other things, always been after? She had been suddenly endowed with a supernatural strength. Like a trapped creature who, seeing a last, already vanishing, escape route, becomes savagely powerful, able to destroy anything which impedes its way. In that final scene, Tamar had felt ready to trample her mother into the ground, and had sensed with satisfaction her mother's apprehension (if all irreversible shift of the balance of power between them. Was one, as a Christian, and a new Christian, allowed to take dial much time off from the Gospel of Love? To say it was necessary, it is over, things will be better, there will be a fresh start seemed a shabby way of getting oneself'off. Tamar had no idea what she had done to her mother. Tamar had not discussed these more recent problems with her mentor. She was with his tacit consent, avoiding him. Later they would talk again – though never, perhaps, as they had talked once. Slit was sure of his concern, indeed, of his love. Only love, his or Christ's, his and Christ's, could have rescued her from dmi inferno of guilt and fear. She was also aware, with a hall amused irritation, of the way in which, when the prjctii apprehended her withdrawal, he 'transferred his affections' to her mother. Tamar and Father McAlister had ofcourse talked a great deal about Violet, and he had visited her first with Gideon, later (as he told Tamar) by himself, brief and, as she understood, fruitless visits. However it took more than snubs and indications of the door to deter this connoisseur of hope. less cases. Tamar's teacher had insisted to his now, in this matter sceptical, pupil that her mother depended on her, really loved her, and really was loved by her. Before her escape Tamar was not ready to reflect on these theories. Now, reflecting on them, she made little progress. She had been told of, indeed had experienced, the transforming power of love, the only miraculous power upon this earth. Was it possible now for her to love Violet, or discover that she had always loved her? Tamar's new state placed her further from her mother than she had ever been, her liberation having been made possible by an anger which made her former submission seem more like weakness than love. Could she see more clearly now or less clearly? Had she always assumed that she loved mother because that was what children did? The priest, who had seen and understood that sinful anger, had told her to banish it by thinking love, enacting love. Approach her! Do little things! She needs you! Tamar was not so sure. She had tried a little thing by bringing her flowers, accompanied by Pat, which had been a mistake. Violet had accepted them with it tigerish smile. Visible hatred terrifies. Tamar determined to try again soon.

Tamar had recovered from her obsessive gu ilt about the lost child. Magic against magic, she had been cured, relieved of evil pain, as her wizard put it, left with good pain. She had also stopped worrying about whether Jean had told Duncan or Oinican had told Jean. What did remain with her was a courious shudder which occurred whenever she saw a teapot. It was a strange feature of their recent tribulations which would have impressed her, and the priest even more, if they had known it, that Tamar, like the others, like Rose, like Gerard, like Jean, as well as of course like Duncan, felt that she had been responsible for Jenkin's death. Each one of his friends could enact responsibility. Tamar, the last of them to see him Alive, a fact known only to her confessor, could not forget that when she arrived Jenkin had been about to leave the house. If die had not come he would not have received that mysterious wlephone call. But what impressed her more was the idea that she had unloaded some sort of fatal evil onto Jenkin. She recalled anawful satisfaction it had given her to 'tell all' to ean, and spatter her with her own misery, and hatred, and then to run to 'tell all' again to Jenkin. But she had not been estined to receive the hoped-for absolution. It was as if she ad spread out all that evil filth before him and as he took it up and took it upon himself, she had made him vulnerable to some force, perhaps wicked, perhaps simply retributive, hick had struck him instead of her. Her priest of course ound the idea interesting, but condemned it as superstitious; and her persisting grief for Jenkin gradually ceased to terrify yas she recalled the long day during which she had waited for him to come back. Tamar did not believe in God or a supernatural world and Father McAlister, who did not b in them either, had not troubled her with these fictions. What he had, in his fierce enthusiasm, wrestling for her soul, intended to give her, was an indelible impression of Christ as Saviour. Tamar was, in her privileged interim, prepared to wait and see what later on this radiant presence might do for her. She prayed, not exactly to, but in this reality, which turned evil suffering into good suffering, and might in tillit even enable her to reach her mother.

Patricia was taking pleasure in telling Rose about how Gideon had rescued Violet and Tamar.

`You mean Violet is here, and Tamar is going back it ,Oxford?'

`Yes! Gideon and Father Angus together were irresistible!'

Rose, who had never heard her parish priest called 'Father Angus' before, could not help feeling at once that it was all a conspiracy against Gerard! But of course it was wonderful `It's wonderful!' she said. Her aching tooth, which had beco grumbling, suddenly set a sharp throbbing pain down into her lower jaw. Rose instinctively raised her hand, closing her fist two inches from her chin, as if to catch it. 'Pat, I think I must go, I've got a beastly toothache.'

`Can I give you an aspirin?'

Conrad Lomas was telling Tamar how awfully sorry he was that he had lost her at the dance, how he had searched and searched, now she owed him a dance, they must find one to go to, he would be in London till the fall.