Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

Rose had drunk some more whisky and eaten some more of Annushka's rich plum cake. She had begun to feel she would have to sit up all night in a state of'painful excitement going; over and over these pictures of the recent past and the ricai future. As, to encourage herself to go to bed at last, she kicked off her shoes and undid her stockings she began to think about Crimond. She had wanted the book to be over, to be an ending, something drifting away at last and taking its autlim with it. Now of course, if Gerard was right about it, thew would be reviews, discussions, controversies, photographs of Crimond in the papers, his voice on radio, his face on tide vision. Crimond would be famous. This was something they hail not imagined during that long time when the 'surly dog' had been wandering around somewhere outside in the dark. If only she could believe that there was something which would pass, pass away, like the publication date of the book itself. If only she could believe now, as she believed before, even hours ago, that they, she and Gerard, had really finished with Crimond, that he would become a name of someone who had published a book which no one read or noticed. What was now seeping into her troubled consciousness like a dark dye was the iliought that Crimond could not thus belong to the past. He belonged, perhaps hugely, like his book, to the future. Gerard had said he had no plans to see Crimond. But in the nature of diings, in the nature precisely of his own enterprise,, he would have to. They would be drawn together. At some point, surely, he would long to argue with Crimond, to question, to persuade, to try out his own ideas upon so strong an opponent. Perhaps it was even, half-consciously, the prospect of this combat face to face which was making Gerard so excited and so passionate. Or could she believe that Gerard would cool, see the book as ordinary and his own enthusiasm as a passing mania? Did she want to believe that Gerard would calm down and lose interest and that all that ardour, that great intent, would come to nothing after all?

Rose found that, as she continued slowly to undress, pulled off her brown corduroy dress and her white blouse, she was breathing deeply, almost sighing. She got into her long nightdress, settling it over her raised arms, seeking comfort in the familiar gesture. So there would be a future Crimond. If Gerard wrote, or even began to write, his book, if Rose was helping him, even if she were in any way, even as she had always been, close to him, she was bound to meet Crimond again. As she felt this she began, with the automatic swiftness of thought, to rewrite in her mind the letter of- what was it -apology, retrieval, reconciliation, which she had written to Crimond when he had just left the house on that amazing day after his proposal of marriage. My dear David, please forgive me for my graceless words. Your disclosure took me by surprise. Let me say now how grateful and how moved I am. I ran after you but you had gone. You said that we should meet again. Please let us do so, let us get to know each other. Perhaps I could love you after all. I am mad, thought Rose. Do I not remember how relieved I was, so soon after, that I had not sent that reckless compromising letter, a letter which, however little it said, would have brought Crimond back to me with every expectation? I would have had to send him away a second time, and how painful and significant that second parting would have been for both of us. Even the existence ttf that letter in Crimond's hands would have bound me to him III some sort of terrified servitude as if he were to blackmail me with it. How much I would have feared that Gerard might find out that, however briefly, even for seconds, I had felt like that: So, these are the rights over me which I give to Gerard. But supposing… I assumedyou to be unattainable, perhaps I was wrong Rose, don't be angry with me, please forgive me. Love has to ho awakened, I want to awaken yours. You are capable of loving me . If I had written at once, she thought, I could have got him bay. If I could at least have erased that dreadful impression. By now I it will have digested my arrogant words and decided to hate me. What treatment I gave to that proud man, and how I may yet be made by him to suffer for it.

Those thoughts, condensed into a moment of completi vision, flashed in Rose's mind like some terrifying aerial explosion. She said aloud, 'I don't really think this.' She begant to carry the remains of the supper into the kitchen, throwing away the fragments on the plates, wrapping up the cheese, putting the cake into one tin and the biscuits into another. Site-remembered, then felt, her toothache, but it was less acme She took two more aspirins. She was exhausted, her desire to sit and think all night had left her, she felt now, and was grateful for it, simply the need to become unconscious. Shr told herself, come back to reality. I did the only right thing, though I did it so ungraciously and badly. The hurt is to my vanity. We shall go on thinking about Jenkin and whether the impossible was possible. Gerard said that they would never be friends – but they are sure to meet, and one day I too shall see Crimond again, and we shall tremble with shock and then be cool and ordinary ever after; and fie will never tell, never, even under torture would he tell, not only for his own sake, but for mine. So there is a strange sad bond between us that will always hurt us both.

She thought, I wonder if Gerard meant it about our sharing a house, and if it could ever happen? Somewhere perhaps there really is a house where Gerard and I will live together ever after as brother and sister. Then as she got into bed she Megan to wonder to herself where that house m ight be. Perhaps beside the river. She had always wanted to live by the river. She turned out the light and feel asleep and dreamt she was in Venice with Marcus Field.

Gerard, feeling unusually drunk, had decided to walk all the way back from Rose's flat to the Goldhawk Road. The timid rain had ceased, and a fuzzy mad moon had risen. The east wind was moving steadily across London. He had brought no gloves and kept putting his hands into his pockets, finding this uncomfortable and taking them out again. The east wind was jerking his hair about and icily fingering his scalp.

What a state Rose had been in, so unusual, what language she had used, words like 'unbearable'. Had they managed later to sort that out, had they sorted anything out, or just created some sort of superfluous unintelligible confusion? Of' course they were friends, their friendship, their bond, was absolute, and she must know that as well as he. Had he somehow done wrong, been lacking in consideration, did she really need reassurance? Perhaps she did, she had less to think about than he had, more time to brood. He felt now that lie had given Rose less than she wanted, said less than he was tempted to say, been ungenerous and cautious. Perhaps she had been struck by a difference between the pressing attentions of the Curtland gang and the way in which he, Gerard, `took her for granted'? 'I've given you my life and you haven't even noticed.' That was a very extreme thing to say. But surely it expressed a mood and not any deep resentment? How could he not take her for granted, was not that in itself a proof of' something absolute? How strange, almost embarrassing, that she had actually spoken of needing a 'pact', something like a promise. It only then occurred to him that Rose had been demanding from him exactly what he had demanded from Jenkin! Poor human beings, he thought, always wanting security, but unwilling to provide lt!jenkin had laughed. Roar had laughed too but, as it were, in the wrong place. Why had she laughed so when he suggested sharing a house, and then later said that this was just what she wanted? Rose was usually so rational and calm. Of course she was annoyed about the book, even jealous of it, but that was another thing. Had the bloody Curtlands been getting at her? Gerard recalled the cunning look on Neville's face when he had said they were taking her to Yorkshire. Was that a thrust of some kind, a preliminary to a battle? There could be no battle. Rose belonged to him, she had always done. He was responsible to her and for her. Of course she could tend her Curtlands. But Gerard was her real family, there could be no doubt about that He thought, I'll reassure her, I'll look after her, perhaps I haven't tried enough to make her happy, but I will now.