Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

`Yes but – there wasn't a ring- I can't remember-' Lily had refused to wear a wedding ring. It seemed incredible now that she had once been married. Gulliver didn't want to hear about her shadowy husband, and she could not now remember his face – poor James, oh poor James. 'I do like a bit of ritual.'

`It'll all be over in four minutes.'

`My God. Then we'll be stuck for life!'

`I certainly hope so. Maybe we can arrange a match between Leonard and Angela?'

`I doubt it,' said Lily. 'Angela's older than me and she's got fat. Anyway Leonard seems to be getting off with Gillian Curtland. Now she's an eligible girl.'

`She's awfully pretty,' said Gulliver, quickly banishing the image of that eligible nineteen-year-old.

`I still can't decide what to wear.'

`I'm going to wear my pale grey check suit with the pale pink over-check. You won't wear trousers, will you, please?'

`Of course not. I think I'll wear that black and white dress with the velvet collar.'

`So we just invite Angela and Leonard back here afterwards? It's almost a clandestine wedding! I forgot to tell you I saw Tamar round at Leonard's place. Conrad Lomas was there and that trendy priest from Boyars.'

`All religion did for her was get rid of her mother.'

`I don't know,' said Gull, 'I think it was something deep. Anyway she and the priest were having a jolly good laugh together! And Violet's rumoured to be happy.'

`That's impossible, she can't be happy.'

`Well cheerful or gleeful or something. Pat and Gideon don't know what to do with her, Leonard says she's eating them!'

`They're not edible,' said Lily, 'not like Tamar was. Gideon will pension her off.'

`I say, look at us, we're gossiping about our friends just like in real life.'

‘Are they our friends, have we friends?'

`Yes, and we'll have lots of new ones too, and we'll invite them to dinner, just like ordinary real people do!'

`But do we want to be ordinary real people?'

`Are we capable of it?'

They both looked doubtful.

`I wonder if Gideon will invest in our Box Shop?' said Lily.

Lily and Angela Parke had decided to set up a shop, well to begin with a stall, selling matchboxes. It had been Angela's idea, though Lily had supplied the managerial enthusiasm and financial backing. It was, according to Lily, bound to succeed. Every tourist will buy a pretty matchbox, the cheapest and most picturesquely 'typical' of all gift souvenirs. From matchboxes the idea spread to other boxes, hand-painted wooden boxes in the Russian style, carved boxes with Celtic designs, boxes charmingly decorated with images and designs stolen from museums and art galleries all over London, attractive arty stuff not pretentious and not kitsch. Angela was sure she could collect together a lot of unemployed talents. 'Art students aren't all grand,' she said, 'they don't all think it's beneath their genius to make pretty things!'

`I hope so!' said Gulliver in answer to Lily's question. He had not yet met the formidable Angela Parke, and he feared that 'the project' would simply swallow up the rest of Lily's money. As soon as they were married he would see Lily's accountant, he would `go into the matter' and if neccssary 'put his foot down'. After all, he had to play the husband! 'I look forward to meeting Angela!' `Yes, and I'll meet your miracle-working Newcastle friend, MrJustin Byng!'

This was a young American stage-designer who had promised Gulliver a job in a stage design studio he was hoping to set up in London, where Gulliver was to be his secretary and guide to the London theatre. 'You still haven't told me how you met him,' said Lily, 'or what really happened in Newcastle. We've been in such a state since you came back.'

This was a moment which Gulliver had been putting off. He was suddenly full, choked, with all the fears which the excitement of his new relation with Lily, much of which had taken place in bed, had temporarily eclipsed. Lily would lose her money, Gulliver would lose his job, he was tomorrow to take on a wife whom he would have to provide for; and there was now the more immediate anxiety about how Lily would receive what he was about to tell her.

`Lily, I've got to tell you something. I never went to Newcastle.'

`What?'

`I didn't get farther than King's Cross station.'

`Then where wereyou all that time?'

`To begin with in a cheap hotel near King's Cross, and then – staying with Justin Byng.'

`Oh God,' said Lily, 'that's started already!' She got up from the table and marched to the mantelpiece where she picked up a jade tortoise, considered throwing it across the room and decided not to. Gull was looking so attractive tonight, recent events had improved, even beautified him. He was wearing his pale brown corduroy trousers, resplendently cleaned after the skating disaster, with a new aquamarine sweater from Simpson's, and new dark brown leather boots.

`Don't be so bloody,' said Gull, 'nothing's started! Justin lives with a beautiful girl from Michigan who's married to him! He took me in out of kindness and because he wanted to work with me. And I didn't tell you sooner because I wanted to be sure it was all real and I really had a job.'

`All right, go on, tell me, and tell me everything.'

`A most extraordinary thing – well, an odd thing – happened to me at King's Cross station. I know this is absurd, but this is how it is. I found a snail.'

`A snail?'

`Yes. Wasn't it peculiar? Well, I suppose snails are everywhere but one doesn't expect to find one in a London main-line station.'

`Good heavens! Go on.'

‘I was just checking the trains to Newcastle and I saw this thing on the ground, it was rolling about, someone must have kicked it, I didn't know what it was, I thought it was something quite peculiar, I picked it up. Of course the little fellow was well back inside his shell, but I assumed he was alive and I sat down with him on a seat, and sure enough after I'd been holding him inmy hand for a moment he came right out and unrolled his eyes and started waving his front part about and I put him on the back of my hand and he walked and – do you know – he looked at me.'

`Oh Lord!' said Lily.

`What's the matter? Anyway I didn't know what to do with him. I couldn't just leave him there, or keep him in my room at the hotel and take him with me to Newcastle, and as I'd developed this sort of personal relationship with him I felt I had to look after him properly. I'm sorry, this sounds daft -'

`It doesn't,' said Lily.

`So I set out with my snail, I felt by then he was my snail, to find somewhere safe to put him. But, honestly, round about King's Cross -'

`I can imagine.'

`I walked about a lot of streets looking for a decent park or garden but I couldn't find one. So I went back to the station and took the tube to Hyde Park Corner.'

`Well done.'

`I put the snail inside my handkerchief in my trouser pocket and I kept my hand over him all the time, fortunately the train wasn't crowded. Anyway I set off into the park – but you know, even there, at that end of the park it's all great vistas of trees and grass and I couldn't just put him down in the open where a blackbird might scoffhim, so – I was pretty obsessed by this time – I went on walking until I came into Kensington Gardens. I knew it was no good in the flower-beds where he'd be unpopular with gardeners. I thought of the Peter Pan area but of course lots of people come there to feed the ducks and there are a lot of birds about. So I fixed on a place beside the Serpentine, nearer the bridge, you know, where there's a low railing, and I got over the railing and started looking about to find a really bushy place to hide him. Well, while I was ferreting about among the shrubs, holding the dear old snail in my hand, a tall chap stopped on the path and started watching me, he couldn't think what on earth I was doing. Then he got over the railing and came down and asked me. And then, there was really no other way of explaining it, I told him the whole story. And do you know, he was so nice, he was so amused and quite delighted, he said he cared about little animals too. Then he helped me to find the absolutely ideal spot and we left the snail there with our best wishes and went back to the path and began to walk toward the bridge.