Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

`Good child,' he said. 'Now are you eating enough? You’re awfully thin.'

`I eat. I'm always thin.'

`Have you heard anything from Conrad?'

`No. Not since just after the dance.' Conrad Lomas had written to her an apologetic letter to say he was just off to the States and would write from there. He said he'd spent the whole evening looking for her (he seemed to blame her really) I and that he'd left her coat with the Fairfaxes. She had not heard from him again.

Gerard thought he had better leave the subject of Conrad `How's the job, are you still enjoying it?'

`Yes, it's very interesting, they gave me a manuscript to read.' Tamar had of course not told Gerard of the screw that had been put upon her to give up Oxford. She vaguely, not explicitly, feigned assent to Violet's account that slit! hart `cleared out' because 'fed up'. Wanting to be spared the agony of being questioned, she had quickly made friends with resignation and despair. She did not want to betray her mother to their meddling good intentions, and to have theft fighting uselessly with Violet would merely prolong the pain.

`It's a good firm,' said Gerard, staring at her. He though I ought to have asked questions and made a fuss. I've been obsessed with Crimond and that other business. I must look all Tamar and not just send her on errands. I keep thinking she’s sixteen. Yet she's such a strong little person. She's quitecapable ofjudging me. He dropped his gaze.

Tamar, looking up, keeping her lucid eyes fixed upon Gerard, reached out and grasped the mantelpiece with one hand, her small fingernails aligned beside a black soapstone seal who lived there. Gerard, whose tastes though quiet were arctic, had collected a few pieces of Eskimo sculpture. She ked at the seal, which she was fond of, but did not touch it. was slouched in such an elegant way, its plump shoulder turning, its doggy head raised. So far from judging Gerard, amar was feeling pure love for him, the quiet gentle free ceful flow of communication which may be had with an old e friend in whom one knows there is no malice, only ughtful good will, and with whom one may stand in silence.

‘I want to give you something,' said Gerard, and for an instant he thought of giving her the black Eskimo seal. But he w he would regret the gift. He liked the seal too much himself.

Tamar, looking happy at last, said, 'Gerard, look, don't think I'm dotty – I'd like, I'd really like – something to wear – mediing of yours – something old you might be throwing -a glove or a scarf or -something you've worn, you know-like a favour, or-

'To carry on your lance?'

'Yes, yes -'

'That's brilliant, I know exactly!' Gerard went out into the all and returned at once with his college scarf. 'Here, my old to college scarf – you'll be wearing my colours!' He draped the scarf round her neck.

'Oh – can you spare it?'

'Ofcourse, I can always get another! You can see how ancient this one is.'

‘Oh, I'm delighted – now I won't be afraid – thank you so much!’

‘She drew the ends of the scarf down over her breasts to her waist pulling at them and laughing. Gerard, laughing too, lit how quaint of her to see herself as a young knight -into battle wearing my favour! How touching. She is an odd child.

The door opened and Patricia and Violet came in.

As soon as her mother entered the room Tamar went out, as lit goes out. She was extinguished. The sparkling mischavous look, a rare look for her, vanished in a second, her face closed up, and the quiet free connection with Gerard was instantly cut off. Tamar now, wearing, Gerard thought amask which was so habitual that it could scarcely be so called, looked aloof, composed, withdrawn. Not betraying anxiety she looked solemnly and attentively at her mother.

The cousins, seen together, had some slight resemblance. Gerard's father and Gerard's uncle Ben, especially as they appeared in some old photos which Gerard had discovred the house in Bristol when he was clearing it out before it sold, had looked alike when young. Patricia and Violet, it now seemed to him, carried the ghost or aura of this resemblance, in a certain intentness of stare, the firm neat assertive mouth and the resolute 'brave' look. Only in Gerard's father and i n Ben this alert look had been humorous and ironical, whereas in their offspring it was more opinionated and stern, in Violet’s case aggressive. Pat was taller and stouter, with a plump face and a large chin, Violet altogether leaner and more sharply. Both wore above the nose the vertical lines of a permanent frown. They were now looking accusingly at Gerard and Tamar, whom they suspected of plotting something. Gerard looking at them, felt his face twitch with pain. Among the old photos he had found some which he had taken of Grey.Of course he had destroyed them at once. Sad that one hastrill destroy, for fear of suffering, the mementoes of love. It had also occurred to Gerard as he looked at the photos of Ben, as a boy , as a youth, that his father had probably felt guilty about his younger brother, about not having tried to rescue him, sought him out and helped him more, about having accepted too easily and too soon the idea of him as a 'hopeless crazy fellow’ with which Gerard had grown up. Perhaps that too was something which he ought to have talked over with his father. Now however Gerard was thinking about Grey and how ho used to spread out one long wing in a kind of salute, flirting his scarlet tail, and gazing so consciously and so solemnly into Gerard's eyes.

Gerard, sensing Tamar's slight movement beside him knew that now she just wanted to get away. She did not like hearing her mother talk to other people, especially not to Pat and Gerard.

Violet, peering myop icallyunder her long fringe and holding her large round blue-rimmed spectacles in her hand, said to Tamar, 'What's that old thing you've got round your neck, is it a scarf'?'

‘Yes, it's Gerard's college scarf, he's just given it to me.'

‘You can't wear a man's scarf.'

‘Yes, I can! All college scarves are like this anyway.'

‘But you weren't at Gerard's college. It looks as if it needs a good wash.'

Tamar's face expressed dismay at the idea of this sacrilegious deGerardisation of' her trophy. Gerard thought, God knows what that scarf smells of by now, it's never been washed in its life!

‘I don’t think college scarves ever get washed,' said Gerard, It would destroy the patina. I don't think that scarf would like ashed.' I sound just like jenkin, he thought. The image akin, suddenly superimposed on that of Grey, cheered him up.

‘This college piety makes me shudder,' said Pat.

‘Did you like the new decorations?' Gerard asked Violet.

‘Must have cost a packet.'

IIt was Gideon's idea,' said Pat. 'He's so good with colours. There’s lots of space up there, when we bring in our furniture and some of the Bristol stuff it'll be quite civilised – and if'we recognise the whole house we can get everything in.'

1 1 don't want ever ything in,' said Gerard. 'And I wish Gideon would leave the rockery alone.'

Tamar was still fidgeting. Patricia and Violet were patting their hair into shape and smoothing down their clothes with identical gestures.

‘Pat says you're going to move up there and let them have the rest of the house,' said Violet.

‘That's news to me!'

‘I think it would be very sensible. "This place is far too big for one person. My flat would just about fit into this room. And I think you should sell the Bristol furniture, some of it's very table. Stop looking at your watch, Tamar, it's rude.'

`I think we should give some of the Bristol furninture, to Violet,' said Gerard to his sister, after his guests had departed. Violet had refused to let him pay for a taxi.