Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

Lily was pleased to have acquired Gulliver. She regarded him as a minor extension of Gerard and a link with 'that world'. She believed his 'penniless writer', `drop-out sal story, and was unaware that he no longer saw Rose and lie friends. She considered Gulliver a social asset or stepping stone, but she also enjoyed his company and found it nice to have just this kind of friend. They were, they both agreed, misfits, eccentrics, unusual people. She had enjoyed hearing about his rotten family, and telling him about her rotten family; how her father had vanished before she was born, how her mother, who had been converted to Catholicism, had handed her over to the paranormal grandmother, of whin' Lily (though now proud of her) was terrified. From school she escaped to the 'crummy polytechnic' where she learnt to type and messed about with painting and pots. The Catholic mother died of drink, the grandmother, who planned to live to be a hundred and twenty, died suddenly under mystcriolit circumstances, murdered (she claimed) by the spells of a rived witch. Lily had lost touch with both of them. 'I never loved them,' said Lily. 'They never loved me. It was all a dead loss. Ah well.'

They had been eating ham and tongue and salami ' and peperonata and artichoke hearts and lima beans. Both Gull and Lily liked eating but not cooking. They had drunk a lot of cheap white wine. (Lily was not fussy about wine I Cheese was to follow, and chocolate gateau with cream, ilicii Spanish brandy which Lily preferred to French. The flat was dusty, because Lil y, very suspicious and fearful of thieves, would employ no char, and did not like dusting, it was also untidy, but Lily was in other ways systematic, even ritualist The 'picnic' was slow and orderly, the pretty plates mid glasses carefully arranged upon a tablecloth made of' an Indian bedspread; Lily had never really learnt to paint at lipi polytechnic, but the instinct that took her there expressed, perhaps, an artistic temperament. She was also, Gulliver learnt by observation, exceedingly superstitious, worrying about ladders, bird omens, crossed knives, inauspicious date,, numbers, phases of the moon. She was afraid of black dogs and spiders. She believed in astrology, and had had her horoscope cast several times, undismayed by finding that the prognoses I not agree. She also had a number of mixed-up ideas about Yoga and Zen. Another of Lily's little mysteries was that she look remarkably old or remarkably young. When old, a Inched mask of anxiety descended on her face, stained Wrinkled skin obscured her light brown eyes, her long neck looked starved and stringy, and her skin sallow and pitted, as if drawn toward her mouth in a querulous pout. At other times her face was smooth and youthful and alert, its pallor glowing, her sweetmeat eyes shining with intelligence, her slim figure taut with energy. With this would go a fey liveliness sometimes suggestive of desperation. Lily's clothes also varied between a zany smartness and messy uncaring dowdiness. Today smartish, youngish, she was wearing tight black corduroy trousers, bare feet, a high-necked blue silk shirt and an amber necklace. Gulliver, who always dressed for Lily, was wearing his oatmeal jersey with red spots over a white shirt, his best jeans and boots, and his gorgeously brown soft leather (reinderr) jacket, which he had had to take off because Lily's flat was so warm.

Gulliver did not pick up, indeed had not noticed, Lily's hint ithout her relationship with Crimond. He had just bitten his Intigue. He often did this now. Was it a sign of something, loss of physical coordination perhaps, a symptom of some fell disease? How on earth, when he came to think of it, did his Morgue manage anyway, leading such a dangerous life between those powerful clashing monsters? He said, 'Have you seen Jean Cambus?'

'No, not lately.' Lily did not want to admit that her friendship with Jean belonged to the past.

'What a business,' said Gulliver. They had frequently thscussed it of course. Gulliver could not help feeling pleased that other people were in a mess too; fancing being cuckolded twice by the same man! 'If I were Duncan I'd be so sick with urge and shame and hate, I'd shoot myself!'

'Why ever should he?' said Lily. 'He ought to go and get Crimond, with a gang. My women's lib friends would kill someonelike Crimond, like I once saw in a judo demo, a woman was showing what to do if a man attacks you, was she tough! She had that man down, he was a great big chap I right onhis face, and she was twisting his arm, and all il women inthe audience were screaming "Kill him! Kill him. It was great.'

Gulliver shuddered. 'I don't see Gerard and that lot clan anything violent. They tend to sit and think.'

`That circle of cultured gents!' said Lily. 'They sit apart like little gods with no troubles. Even when their dear friend has trouble they do nothing.'

`There's nothing they can do,' said Gulliver. 'Gerard cares a lot really, he looks after people.'

`He's too bloody dignified,' said Lily.

Gulliver laughed sympathetically. He was in a mood demote Gerard a little. He felt he had been too impressed, I had copied out some of his poems for Gerard early last year. Gerard had been nice about them, but Gull noticed them in wastepaper basket later.

`And Jenkin Riderhood's a wet,' Lily went on, `he's a teddy bear man.'

`He's a complacent little chap,' said Gulliver, `but lip harmless.' He instantly blamed himself for this horrible utterance. He found himself gossiping in this loose spiteful wo with Lily and saying things which he didn't mean, which m seemed somehow to elicit. I'm degenerating, he thought, It because I'm demoralised. 'You side with the women.'

`Rose Curtland is nice,' Lily admitted. 'She can't help being a bit posh. She's timid though, and that exasperates me, I can’t stand timid women. The best of the bunch is little Tamar.'

`Tamar?' said Gulliver surprised. He had not heard Lily mention Tamar before.

`Yes,' said Lily. She added, 'She was kind to me once.’ Tamar had once made a point of talking to Lily and staying with her at a party, at the Cambuses house in the old days, where Lily was getting left out. Lily never forgot this.

Gull was touched. `She's a good kid, but not exactly precocious, she's a modest violet.'

`Thank heavens for a girl who can be like that these days! She's pure, she's innocent, she's sweet, she's unspoilt, fresh, she's everything that I'm not. I'm shop-soiled, I guess I horn shop-soiled. I adore that child.'

Gulliver was surprised by this little outburst. Perhaps he had underestimated Tamar, perhaps he ought to notice her more? But of course Lily's emotion was really concerned with herself not with young Tamar.

1She’ll be someone,' said Lily, 'the others are soft, they live ilic past, in a sort of Oxford dream world. Tamar was right get outof that, she's brave, she's a survivor type. You've got lie hard to understand what's happening today, let alone do anything about it.'

,Jean's hard,' said Gulliver, 'she's very fond of Tamar too, and Tamar had quite a crush on her.'

‘Really?' Lily wondered fora moment whether she could ' whow get Jean back, perhaps with Tamar's help. But it was no good. 'I'm out of it,' she said. ‘I can't get on with men, and I can't get on with women either.'

'You get on with me.'

‘Oh , you-!'

‘W hat do you mean, oh me?'

‘Actualy the idea that men and women are different is put about by men and by slave women. That Freud thing, penisvy, means nothing but Freud feels superior. We used-up liberated women are best placed to see and know all. I don't know why I say "we". I'm the only one who sees and knows all.’

‘That’s because you're a witch,' said Gull. 'I know you met Jean at that yoga class where you stood on your head, but where did you meet Crimond?'