Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

During this ordeal Duncan had become mortally tired. He had enacted being blind, experienced being unable to read. He had felt the cold shadow of death, being determined if he did not regain the power to read, to kill himself. Now as he gradually recovered from one horror hewas seized by the other. His spirit regained, with its strength, its capacity for a different sufrering. He re-enacted again and again his walk to the tower, the bedroom scene, Crimond with his shirt, Jean looking over her shoulder, the blow, the fall. He dreamt about Crimond. He did not dream about Jean, except perhaps as a black muddy lump or black ball which figured in many dreams. Day and night he desired leer, longed for her presence, fancied her return, reconciliation, happiness. Remorse tor- mented him and he imagined innumerable ways in which it all need not have happened. He ought to have spoken frankly to Jean instead of spying on her, he ought to have admonished her and warned her, he ought to have protected and looked after his wife instead of becoming her enemy. He ought not to have resigned his job, he ought to have stayed in Dublin and faced it all out there, eyes and all. She had accused him of' running away. He had shirked an ordeal which might have won her sympathy, he had too hastily embraced defeat instead of standing out for victory. Now it was too late – or was it? H e was paralysed by hatred of Crimond – or was it fear?

Duncan had taken care not to announce his return to any of' his friends. At that time Gerard, Jenkin and Rose were all in London, Gerard in the Civil Service, Jenkin teaching in a polytechnic, Rose working for a magazine. The news of course got round quickly enough that Duncan had resigned from the service, then that his marriage was in trouble, then that the third party was David Crimond. Gerard, the first to hear from a friend in the Foreign Office, rang up Jenkin, then Rose, neither of whom knew anything. Rose said she had thought it odd that she had not had a reply to a letter she had written to Jean, for they kept up a frequent correspondence. Gerard, who kept up more intermittent communication with Duncan, also now noted that he had not heard. Jenkin hardl yever wrote to anyone. Gerard took it on himself to check the now more numerous sources of information and concluded that what was rumoured was true. It was obviously not a situation for telephone calls. They were in any case not used to chatting by telephone. Gerard said they must do something, make some gesture. After writing it out carefully in several different drafts he despatched an immensely tactful letter to Duncan in Dublin where he thought (not having imagined so prompt a departure) that his friend still was. Rose wrote a letter, also tactful, but very brief and quite unlike Gerard's to Jean. Both letters 'said nothing', only indicated they had heard something and were feeling upset and sympathetic. Jenkin sent a postcard to Duncan saying: Be well. LoveJenkin. He chose the card with care (it was a peaceful landscape by Samuel Palmer) Alld enclosed it in an envelope. These missives in due course lound their way back to Duncan's London club where he regularly picked up mail, wondering when he would hear again from Jean. Rose, Gerard and Jenkin were meanwhile constantly in touch, and met to discuss the situation at Gerard's house in Notting Hill. (By this period, Robin Top-glass was married and gone to Canada.) They were unanimous in being inclined to blame Crimond. They then started lo compare notes about him, repeating that they must not be iiilluenced by their distaste for his politics. They concluded that his extremist militant socialism must show something about his personality, that he was a 'fey', unpredictable person. They agreed that though they had liked and esteemed him at Oxford, they had never really got to know him. They were genuinely worried about Jean and Duncan, but speculation was inevitably interesting. These conversations (during which they constantly said, 'Of course we don't know the facts!') were inconclusive, but from them dated Rose's positive dislike of Crimond which became important later on. Meanwhile no one seemed to know where Duncan was.

Later, after the welcome verdict from Moorfields, when Duncan, who had heard nothing more from Jean and had not written to her either, was more positively attempting to put his life in order, he found himself bitterly regretting that he was now left without ajob. At this point, not because of this regret but because he felt that the time had come, he at last wrote a note to Gerard, simply giving his address and asking him round fora drink. By now Duncan had given up hotels and had rented a small flat in Chelsea where he had been leading a crazy solitary incognito existence. What passed at this meeting was never later on divulged by either of them. In a way, little passed, but the meeting itself was momentous. Duncan gave Gerard a brief general account of what had happened, omitting the drama at the tower. According to this account, Duncan, having gradually realised that Jean was in love with Crimond and that they were probably lovers, had come into possession of evidence (he did not say what evidence wid Gerard did not ask) that they actually were lovers, and had soon after been told by ,jean that she proposed to leave him, Since then, apart from a letter confirming that she was living with Crimond and had no intention of coming back, he haul heard nothing. Gerard naturally wanted to know a good deal more, but naturally did not press for it. The occasion was also important for Duncan because he was able to 'try out' his damaged eye upon an important witness. In fact Gerard failed to notice the odd eye, and had to have his attention drawn to it by Duncan's reference to 'some eye trouble'. They got a bit drunk together and remembered, though they did not mention, the time when they had been lovers after Sinclair died. Gerard, without audibly bemoaning Duncan's hasty resignation, which he could not see to be necessary, raised the question of ajob. Teaching? No. Politics? Certainly not. Why not the Home Civil Service? Duncan, after indicating that he was 'done for', 'fit for the dole queue' and so on, agreed that this was not a bad idea, transfers from the diplomatic field to Whitehall did occur, and although he had so abruptly 'cut the painter' a sympathetic view might be taken. A short time after this he entered the Civil Service, not in the department which he would have chosen, but in a quite sufficiently promising and interesting post.

The fight in the tower had taken place in June. After Duncan had acquired his new job he had sent a letter to jean saying that he loved her and hoped she would return. This was in August. He received no answer. He was still getting occasional letters from Dominic Moranty confirming that jean and Crimond were together and becoming accepted as an established couple. Duncan now had even more time and energy to be miserable. He was still attending the eye hospital but the original terrible fears for his eyesight were over, and he had also stopped imagining that he was 'done for'. He had dissaded Rose and Gerard from, admittedly vague, plans for hung something about it' (going to Dublin, remonstrating j1h .1can, denouncing Crimond and so on). He settled down to despair. For the time, friends and acquaintances thronged hood him, a deceived and abandoned man is always popular, satisfying to contemplate. He was grateful to Gerard and Rose Idjenkin, who genuinely cared. But he wanted, so much Orc than the diversions which they invented for him, to sit alone with his own misery, his grief, his loss, even his jealousy, his obsessional images of Crimond, his remorse and regret, his sick yearning for his dear wife. He wanted to make terms with his unhappiness, to go over and over the terrible past, running dirough every `if only…', until he had exhausted all these ihings and been exhausted by them.