Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

Gulliver had applied for job after job, gradually reducing his expectations and humbling his pride. He applied to the BBC, the British Council, the Labour Party, the local Town Hall, the University of London. He tried and failed to get a grant to continue his education. Of course he looked for acting jobs but soon realised this was hopeless when good and experienced actors were out of work. He applied wildly for jobs at an increasing variety of institutions and offered himself as numerous kinds of school teacher or social worker. He discovered he had many unsuspected talents and enthusiasms: he was very good with children, with old people, with lunatics, with animals, he was very young, very mature, very experienced, very versatile, very ready to learn. He had no success, aware that every job attracted hundreds of applicants. He had not yet applied to be a porter, waiter, unskilled factory hand, assuming he would be rejected, and regarding this anyway as a desperate perhaps fatal move. He had savings, he kept on hoping; but by now he had clearly envisaged the possibility that, although he was young and talented and had a university degree, he might never be emplowd again.

Gulliver had gone through the routines of pitying the unemployed and blaming the government. Now he was experiencing the thing itself. Often did he think resentfully, it’s not fair, I'm not the kind ofperson who is unemployed! Waking in the morning the misery of his situation quickly blackened his consciousness. He had not realised how solitary he was or had now become. He had been lonely as a child, but when he was a student imagined himself established, received into society, destined to be forever surrounded by friends. Now he was realising that if you are unemployed and have no money, you can cease to be a person. He realised how'subjective' this was, influenced even by the current language of do-gooders who were so ready to deplore and describe what they were not experiencing. It was absurd to feel so ashamed, so bedraggled, so useless. He just knew that he was being destroyed by an alien force, sinking into an abyss out of which he would never climb. He pictured himself in a few years, a shambling figure, begging from old friends. The bloom had departed, only for a brief moment is the flesh perfect, now he was becoming creased and stained. He hated the sight of younger men, a terrible symptom. Soon he would be unable to keep up appearances, which to get a job you must do. He had no family to turn to, he had hardly known his father, had suffered a hostile step-father and step-siblings, he was the outsider, the misfit, his mother turned against him. He had taken pleasure let in demonstrating his contempt for them all, communication dwindled. There was nowhere to go. He would soon have to leave the modest flat which he rented. He sold his car, gave up his telephone and shunned his literary friends with their expensive luncheons. He could not accept Gerard's help a second time, nor present himself in this abject state. Jenkin sent three postcards, but Gull had never been able to see the point of Jenkin. He felt a tiny bit romantic about Rose, who had rung up and, after his 'phone was disconnected, written aking him for a drink. He refused of course. He had sent her, anonymously, some flowers. That cheered him up a little.

'And there was a funny little thing that rolled about in her room, like a little ball. She said I must never touch it. Of course vied to, I wanted to pick it up, but it always rolled away somehow, underneath something. I was never sure whether it was alive or not.'

, Buut look, your grandmother wasn't a real witch, I mean there aren't real witches, just poor mad creatures, or cheats who pretend to be -'

'I think she was a mid-wife, or had been, perhaps not an official one, but she knew all about herbs, she used to collect them when the moon was full. If you wanted to hurt somebody you picked the herbs when the moon was getting smaller -'

'She must have been mad -' -

'She wasn't, nor a cheat either – you don't understand, witchcraft is an old religion, far older than Christianity, it's Lbout power. I think she hated her parents, they belonged to some awful strict Christian sect, she hated Christianity.'

'Well, there's a psychological explanation.'

'When you say explain you mean explain away! Sometimes she said she was a gipsy, sometimes she said she was Jewish. People were afraid of her, but they asked her for help too, she could do all sorts of things. She was a dowser, and she could get rid of poltergeists, and she could make it rain by urinating and she did abortions, of course -'

'Of course!'

`She had the evil eye, she had one strange eye, and -'

'Like Duncan! I don't imagine he's got the evil eye- he must wish he had, poor chap!'

`She had a lot of books, I think she thought she'd discover something amazing.'

'Mad people do.'

'All right, we're all a bit mad then. Why do you think do planted yew trees in churchyards? And it's like socialism.'

'Like socialism?'

'Yes, it's an anti-society society, it's a form of protest, it’s like what Crimond does, and -'

'Oh Lily,' said Gull, 'do stop mixing everything up together, first it's your awful grandmother and now we've onto Crimond again!'

'Well, he wants power too, he's writing a magic book.'

'You know him, don't you?'

'I used to know him,' said Lily in a cautious tone. 'We haven't seen much of each other lately.'

It had just occurred to Lily that it would be rather nice if Gulliver were to believe that she had been Crimond's mist She had never dared to hint this to anyone. Even now shy afraid that Gulliver might see what she was hinting and not believe her; or worse still believe her, and say something about it to Crimond. What exactly had she said? She had already forgotten. That was the wine.

They were having a picnic lunch at Lily's flat. Lily's flat, near Sloane Square, was well provided with big w indows with window seats and broad Edwardian doors made of teak. The bow window other drawing room, where they were-picnicking at an oval table, looked out onto a street where the wind wit removing large yellow leaves from the tall plane trees awl laying them carefully upon the pavements. A fire was burning in the grate. The room was multi-coloured, cluttered, almost garish; sensual and oriental, as Gulliver thought ofit, possibly something to do with the awful grandmother. Perhaps he was the ideal spectator of that room. Gulliver liked Lil y's crag mixed-up taste, the almost-black wallpaper, the modern grey" and ivory chequered carpet with trompe-Poeil recessions, which like a pavement in an exotic courtyard, the sofas on which Lily lolled, covered with tapestries and embroideries, the polished surfaces crowded with boxes and figurines, expensive little things which Lily had bought impulsively at expensive shops. He liked the way it smelt of new things, even the old go seemed new here.

Yes, they were friends. Gull had never had a woman friend before. This was the onl ything that had happened lately that was not ill-omened and awful, and even over this some -hir .tious cloud was hanging. He could not believe in anything which would not soon be spoilt. It had not been Gull's idea, it had been Lily's. This fact had already been discussed. In the late summer when Gerard was in Greece and Rose in Yorkshire, and Gulliver was just beginning to despair, he received a card from Lily asking him to lunch at a restaurant in Covent Garden. He decided to refuse, then went. They met again a few times, at restaurants, at Lily's expense. Gulliver had not expected to get on with this rather ridiculous person, but he did. He had first met her some time ago at a party of Rose’s and had scarcely given her a thought. Was he now attracted by her money? This was the first time they had, at Gull’s suggestion, lunched at her flat. He was tired of seeing her pay and feared this might be noticed. Gull felt at ease with Lily because he did not fear her judgment or indeed care much what she thought. There was a grain of some relaxing superiority which he had probably imbibed from the people I twhom he had first met her. At the same time he felt bound to keep up appearances with her, and that was good for him. With Lily he played the penniless writer, the garret genius, implied he was not reall yinterested in getting a job, that he has always wanted to be alone and live simply and write. He told her that drop-outs were the saints of the modern world. Lily admired his asceticism. Of course there was nothing romantic involved. Lily talked a bit about the plausible men, Gull a bit about the gay bars. It was all remarkably easy and casual.