Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

‘Books of new thoughts are published every week.'

'No they aren't, not pointed at just this spot.'

'The revolution, the greatest in human history. It's just sensationalism, all it will stir up is all our old ideas.'

'Then we must have some new ones.'

'We can't. Oh Gerard I'm so tired.'

'Darling, sorry, don't get sleepy again – I want to tell you -' 'I'm going on a cruise with Reeve and the children, a long ruise, a world cruise.'

'Oh.' This arrested Gerard. 'When?'

'At Easter. Well, not a world cruise, but longish, weeks – I can't remember.'

'Oh. That should be nice.'

'I'm going to see much more of them, I'm going to change my life, I'm going to sell this flat and go and live in Yorkshire.' 'Rose! You're not to!'

'Why ever not? Who's to stop me?'

'I am. Look, all right go on this damn cruise, see your family 11,you want to -'

'Thanks!'

'But just listen to what I'm going to say.

'All right, all right!'

'Wake up.'

'I am awake. I'm sorry to be so dismissive about Crimond's book, I'm sure it's no good, though it certainly seems to have done something to you, but you'll get over it, it's nothing to do with us.'

'We financed it.'

'That was an accident. You'll soon forget it. It hasn't changed your life.'

'It has, actually – this is what I want to explain. This book must be answered, and it can be answered, point by point.' each other, next door, even share a house – why not? I've thought-'

Rose began to laugh. 'Share a house?'

`Why ever not? I think it's a good idea. We needn't be in each other's pockets. But we could meet every day -'

Rose went on laughing helplessly. 'Oh – Gerard – you and I – share a house -'

`Well -?'

`No, no, it's out of the question.'

`All right,' said Gerard, picking up his coat, 'and you don't care for the research assistant idea?'.

`No, I don't!'

`Well, maybe it was a silly idea. I'll find someone. You're tired. What the hell are you laughing at?'

Rose, sitting at the table, was laughing hysterically, covering her wet mouth and eyes with Gerard's fine white handkerchief. 'Ohjust – you – or history – or – something!'

`I'll say goodnight then,' said Gerard rather stiffly, putting on his overcoat. 'Thank you for supper. I'm sorry I made those absurd, as you evidently think them, suggestions.'

`Wait a minute!' Dropping the handkerchief Rose darted to him, she seized the sleeves of'his coat, still damp from the rain and shook him, pulling him for a moment off his balance so that they both nearly fell to the floor. 'Don't be such afool, do you understand nothing? Of course I'll be your research assistant, and of course we'll share a house or live next door or whatever you want – but if this happens we've got to have a pact – it must be like getting married, I mean like getting married, I'm tired of having nothing, I want something at last, we must be really together, I must have some sort of security – I'll read the book, I'll do anything you want, but I must feel at last – or is it hopeless – oh that book – you're not going to marry Crimond, are you?'

`Rose, are you going mad?'

`You'll want to be with him, to discuss the book.'

`I don't want to see him yet, perhaps not for ages, he may not want to see me, I suppose we'll meet sometime, but we can't be friends – because -' `You're not going to go away – and marry someone c1sc we'll be together -'

`Yes, yes, and you can go on your cruise, but you're not to go and live in Yorkshire.'

`Because you need a research assistant.'

`Because I need you.'

`I'm making you say these things.'

`Rose, don't be so exasperating, you know I love you.'

`I don't know, I know nothing, I live on the edge of blackness if you follow this book idea I'll go with you – but I must havr some sort of security.'

`You have security! You're Sinclair's sister, you're my closest friend. I love you. What more can I say?'

Rose released him. 'Indeed. What more can you say. And you remember-well, why should you remember. So we'll lien together, or next door, or nearby, and see each other often

`Yes, if you want it.'

`You suggested it.'

`Because I want it.'

`All right then. Now go home. I really am tired.'

`Rose, don't be so -'

`Go now. I'm all right. I'll help you with your book.'

`Goodnight, darling. Don't be angry with me, dearest Rose, I really do love you. I'll make you believe it. We may even go to Venice.'

After he had gone Rose cried quietly, soaking the white handkerchief' and dropping her tears onto the stained rosewood of the table. She thrust the plates away and poured ow some more whisky. Oh the tears she had shed for that man, and they were certainly not yet at an end.

She felt exhausted, aware that something large had happened, but not sure what it was, whether it was something to her advantage, or a terrible mistake, the throwing away of her last card. How impeccably, she felt, she must have behaved all these years, so many of them now, to be thinking of her behaviour tonight as such an outrageous display of emotion! She felt remorseful and ashamed, she had shouted at him, she had said what she thought. She had said that she loved him and that she had got nothing in return, which was not only not true, but definitely not food form. She had seen Gerard wince at her tone and at the crudityof her reformulation. These were old gifts, often privately rehearsed, concerning which she had never, that she could remember, exclaimed so to their inocuous author. What she regretted most bitterly however about the recent scene, and what left her now so limp with apprehension, was that she had actually revealed to Gerard what she had so often thought, that what she wanted from him mwas a promise. What of all things was more likely to alienate him, to make him cau tious and aloof, than such a claim made upon him by a hysterical woman? It was just what he would dislike most that she had so thrust against him. Oh how imprudent, how perhaps fatally unwise.

It was true that what had occasioned her indiscretion was Gerard's own suggestion that they should share a house, his use of these words which evoked what, in her modest way, she had always hoped for! He had, more precisely, said live near each other, live next door or share a house, separate flats no doubt, not in each other's pockets. It was she who had then made conditions, demands for 'security', and in a turbulent manner most likely to make him tactfully withdraw. She pictured now the coolly grateful way in which she should have greeted his idea! In any case, the notion of proximity had come up as a matter of convenience, of having one's research assistant close at hand! What on earth would that collaboration, if it came to it, be like ?Would she be capable of such a demanding and such a protracted task? Would she be able to study and understand that difficut book whose 'wrong- headedness' she would hate and fear, settle down to hard and perhaps uncongenial work, living with the continual possibility of disappointing and displeasing Gerard? Suppose she tried it for six months and was then replaced by a competent young woman ?Oh the traps and miseries which dog all human desires for happiness, one ought not to desire it' Now Gerard was excited by the book, it filled him with new life and strength, but later perhaps, defeated by it, unable to write his great 'reply', it might bring him down into humiliation mil despair. She might have to witness that. The whole situadul was fraught with possibilities of new and awful pain, now that she was no longer young and wanted rest and peace. This wish for peace, she realised, had been wafted to her by Reeve an, his children, had come to her at Fettiston, moving towards her, over the moors, out of that quiet well-remembered land- scape. She was, she realised, very much looking forward to i h, cruise! Well, Gerard had given her leave to go. But as she became, if' she became, more involved in his work, more necessary, she would increasingly disappoint her newly discovered Wrilly, who were kind enough to need her, would k bound to neglect them and hurt their feelings by being seen i, be the property of Gerard. But had she not always wanted .just that, to be the property of Gerard? I am a wretch, she though', I am luckier than almost anyone in the world but I have always made myself discontented by an obsession which I ought long ago to have controlled or banished.