Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

'Don't worry, I've brought some drink,' said Gerard.

'Sorry.'

'This has happened before.'

'I believe so.'

'God, it's cold!'

'I'll turn on the fire.'

Gerard was, after an impromptu telephone call, visiting Jenkin at Jenkin's little terrace house off the Goldhawk Road prar the Arches. Jenkin had lived in this house for many years, purr since the polytechnic days before he returned to school – mastering. Jenkin's road was still very much as it had been full of what Jenkin called 'ordinary blokes'. Neighbouring areas were however becoming 'gentrified', to Jenkin's disgust. Gerard often came to this house. Today he came without warning, not because anything particular was, but because an awful lot of things were, on his mind.

The momentous Commem Ball was now months away in past. It was a foggy evening in late October. Jenkin's house, which had no central heating, was indeed cold, a house which let all weather come inside. Jenkin in fact welcomed the weather at all times of year, the sight of a closed window made him uneasy. Whatever the temperature he slept in an unled bedroom with a breeze blowing. He allowed himself a water bottle in winter however. He hastily now, to please fi lend, closed several windows and turned on the gas fire in little sitting room. Jenkin lived mainly in the kitchen and nut occupy this 'front room' or'parlour', which he kept for C The room was, like everything in Jenkin's house, very I and clean, and rather sparse and bare. It was not without some pretty objects, mostly donated by Gerard, but the spirit of the room resisted these, it failed to merge them into the calm homogeneous harmony which Gerard thought every room should possess, it remained raw and accidental. The faded wallpaper, light green with shadowy reddish flowers, was varied here and there by patches of yellow distempered wall beneath, where Jenkin had carefully removed areas of paper which had become torn. The eflect was not unpleasant. The very clean carpet was faded too, its blue and red flowers merged into a soft brown. The green tiles in front of the fire were shiny from regular washing. The wooden-armed chairs, ranged against the wall until company arrived, had beige folk-weave upholstery. The mantelpiece above the fire was adorned by a row of china cups, some ofthem gifts ot'Gerard's, and a stone, a grey sea pebble with a purple stripe, a present from Rose. To these Jenkin had just added, brought in from the kitchen together with two wine glasses, a green tumblci containing a few red-leaved twigs. The gas fire was purring, The thick dark velveteen curtains were pulled against the foggy dusk. A lamp, a long-ago present from Gerard, was alight in a corner. Gerard rearranged the cups, turned off thr centre light, and handed over the bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau to be opened by his host. Jenkin, when nervous, which he often was, had a habit of making little unconscious sounds. Now as, watched by Gerard, he manipulated the corkscrew, he uttered a series of throaty grunts, then as he poured the wine into the glasses and set the bottle down on the tiles, began to hum.

Jenkin, though so old a friend, remained for Gerard a source of fascinated, sometimes exasperated, puzzlement. Jenkin's house was excessively orderly, minimally and randomly furnished, and often felt to Gerard cheerless and somehow empty. The only real colour and multiplicity in the house was provided by Jenkin's books, which occupied two upstairs rooms, completely covering the walls and most of the floor, Yet Jenkin always knew where each book was. Gerard had always recognised his friend as being, in some radical such metaphysical sense, more solid than himself, more dense, more real, more contingently existent, more full of being. This ‘being' was what Levquist had referred to when he said of Jenkin, 'Where he is, he is .' It was also paradoxical (or was it not? )that Jenkin seemed to lack any strong sense of individuality and was generally unable to 'give an account of himself'. Whereas Gerard, who was so much more intellectually, collected and coherent, felt sparse, extended, abstract by contrast. This contrast sometimes made Gerard feel cleverer and more refined, sometimes simply weaker and lacking in weight. At Oxford Jenkin had, as Levquist approingly remarked, 'cut out' philosophy, and followed linguistic and literary studies throughout his degree. As a schoolmaster lic had at first taught Greek and Latin, later French and Spanish. At the polytechnic, and at school, he also taught history. He was learned, but without the will and ambitions of A scholar. He came from Birmingham and Birmingham Grammar School. His father, recently dead, had been a clerk in a factory and a Methodist lay preacher. His mother, also a Methodist, had died earlier. Gerard had used to accuse Jenkin believed in God, which Jenkin denied. Nevertheless, something remained from that childhood which Jenkin believed in and which made Gerard anxious. Jenkin was a serious man, possibly the most deeply serious man whom Gerard knew; bu t it was not at all easy to predict what forms that seriousness might take.

'Gerard, do sit down,' said Jenkin, 'stop walking round the mom and rearranging things.'

'I like walking.'

'It’s your form of meditation, but it should be done in the i iprn air, you're not in prison yet . Besides, I'm here and you're bothering me.'

'Sorry. Don't cook the wine, how many times must I tell you . '

Gerard removed the wine bottle from the tiles and sat down opposite to his friend beside the fire in one of the upright invagrely upholstered wooden-armed chairs, rumpling with Isis feet a small Chinese rug which he had given Jenkin several Christmases ago. Jenkin leaned down and straightened the rug.

`Have you decided what you're going to write?'

`No,' said Gerard frowning. 'Nothing perhaps.'

`Plato, Plotinus?'

`I don't know.'

`You once said you wanted to write on Dante.'

`No. Why don't you write on Dante?'

`You translated yards of Horace once. You could translate the whole of Horace into English verse.'

`Are you serious?'

'I love your translations. You don't want to write about your childhood?'

`Good God no!'

Or about us at Oxford?'

`Don't be silly, dear boy!'

`It could be a piece of social or political history. What about art? I remember that monograph you wrote on Wilson Steer. You could write about pictures.'

`Only frivolously.'

`A novel then, an intellectual philosophical novel!' `Novels are over, they're finished.'

`Why not just relax and enjoy life? Live in the present. Be happy. That's a good occupation.'

`Oh do shut up -'

`Seriously, happiness matters.'

‘I'm not a hedonist. Neither are you.'

‘I sometimes wonder- Well, it looks as ifyou'll have to write a philosophy book.'

`Let's leave this subject, shall we?'

Jenkin did not want, just now, to have an intense conversation with Gerard. There were just certain moves to be gone through, without, he hoped, raising certain subjects. Although he had known Gerard so well for so long he still attempted to manage or construct the conversations which he had with his awkward and sometimes sharp-tongued and touchy friend. Although he was, as they all were, very interested in 'what Gerard will do', he felt enough, for a sort of politeness, had been said. If he went on Gerard would become depressed or annoyed. It was obviously a painful topic. Jenkin mostly wed to tell Gerard about his plan for going on a package tour to Spain for Christmas. Of course Gerard would not want to come because he loved English Christmases. And Jenkin liked travelling alone. He began, 'I'm thinking of-'

‘Have you seen Crimond lately?'

Jenkin flushed. This was one of the subjects he wanted to keep off. Jenkin had no absolute objection to telling lies, but never told any to Gerard. He said truthfully, 'No, I haven't seen him again, not since -' But he felt guilty. He looked at Gerard, so sleek and collected in his bottle-green jacket, his sculptured face shadowed by the lamp, his eyes narrowed as lic looked down into the gas fire. Gerard was smoothing his thick dark curly hair, tucking it back behind his ears. He was wwring an almost inaudible sigh. What is he thinking? Jenkin wondered.