Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

But I must do something, thought Rose, who had risen now and was walking up and down, to still the pain. I must see him now, tonight, I must see him. I'll go down soon, and if he's in his room, even if he's gone to bed, I'll knock on his door, I'll talk to him properly, now I feel so extreme, I'll have the courage. I'lI be frank and honest, there's a way of saying it which won't appal him. What it comes to is that there must be a pay between us, I must be certain of him. Am I to spend the rest of my life watching Gerard in a state of terrified anxiety? Yet how, really, could she put it? Just be mine only and don't go away. Live with me, live near me, let me see you every day, let me be closest, let me be dearest. Promise never to marry, unless you marry me. Surely these were ludicrous, even immoral, demands. I just want an assurance from him, she thought, something to live on, to take away pains like these. I must go to him now, when I see him I'll find some words.

Rose went to the dressing table mirror and looked at her calm untroubled face and her wide open eyes which Marcus Field had called her 'fearless eyes'. She scrubbed a little powder onto her nose and combed her hair, her blond hair which was now turning to a pallid, gilded grey. She shook out the skirt of her long dress. Then she left the room and went swiftly and silently down the stairs. Lights were on. She listened in the hall. Silence. She went into the drawing room. All the lamps were on but the room was empty, the furniture all askew, glasses and coffee cups everywhere, the fire burning brilliantl y, an empty whisky bottle in the grate. Rose put the guard in front of the fire, put the bottle in a wastepaper basket, left the cups and glasses as they were, turned out the lights in the drawing room and the hall, glided up the stairs again and along the landing. She could see the light under Gerard's door. Site paused, she crept and listened. No sound. She tapped on the door and heard Gerard say 'Come in', and she opened the door.

Jenkin and Duncan were sitting on Gerard's bed, while Gerard, on one knee, was rummaging in his suitcase. They all leapt up. 'Rose darling,' cried Gerard, 'an angel to the rescue! I thought I'd brought some whisky but I can't find it! Be a sweet dear and bring us a bottle from somewhere, would you?'

Gulliver's Housman poem about 'the head that I shall dream of, and 'twill not dream of me' would have been suitable that night, for utterance by Rose, since Gerard, now alone, was certainly not thinking about her, he was thinking about Jenkin.

Jenkin and Duncan had gone and Gerard was sitting on hot bed. He was feeling rather, unusually, drunk. Duncan had been even drunker, but he was used to it and had been drinking hard all day. He had maintained, during an excited argument, a perfect clarity of speech, but had been unable to walk straight and had departed with one arm round Jenkin's neck. Jenkin, who had apparently drunk at least as much as Gerard, remained agile, fresh, his boyish tints unimpaired by the flush which reddened Duncan's face and to a less extend Gerard's. They had been arguing, not of'course about personal matters, but about the reasons for the astonishing success of Christianity in the fourth century A D. I hope we didn't make too much row, Gerard thought, touching his flushed cheek with a little shame.

Last night Gerard had dreamt of his father. His father seated at a desk before which Gerard was standing, was wearing on his right hand a large black leather glove such as falconers use for the hawk to perch upon. The word ‘jesses’, came into Gerard's mind and he thought, where are the jesses? Staring portentously at him, his father thrust his hand into the drawer of the desk and brought out something wrapped up in newspaper which he handed to Gerard with the words, 'It’s dead.' Gerard, horrified, thought, that means the bird is dead. He began to fumble with the newspaper and managed to undo it. Inside was not a dead bird but a small live rabbit. He put the rabbit inside his coat where it nestled, making him warm. When he looked up he saw that his father had extended his gloved hand meaningfully toward him. Gerard drew off the glove – and saw with horror that his father's hand was bleeding copiously, it was in fact a flayed hand. At that moment Gerard also realised, I was mistaken about the rabbit, it's not alive, it's dead. He woke up in a state of great distress. He thought about Grey opening his wings and looking at him with his wise gentle witty eyes, and all his childish imaginings tot `where is he now' came back with a timeless ache. He recalled his father shortly before he died with a sad pathetic frightened look which he occasionally wore for a second and then wiped away. His father was afraid of death. Gerard had enacted death when he was eleven years old. Now he felt something like death reaching out and touching him with a dark gloved finger. There were partings, there were endings, there were precious things which went away forever.

He had looked forward to feeling happy at Boyars. This 'looking forward' as to a 'treat' had made him realise how much lately he had not been happy. Was he then accustomed to bring happy, had he taken it for granted as being his usual state, even his right? Of course he was still in mourning for his father. There was a direction in which he constantly turned, to be confronted by an absence. He missed something in the world, his father's absolute love. His father was present to him now as blank pain, and he could not help attributing this pain ioo to the absent one. As Gerard lay in the dark morning (it was nearly seven but still pitch black) he began to think about Crimond as if Crimond too had been part of the dream. He could not remember having dreamt about Crimond and hoped he was not starting to do so now. He was certainly nervous about seeing him. He was afraid, though he did not admit this to the others, that Crimond might somehow 'turn nasty'. The prospect of the meeting made him realise how little, now, he really knew Crimond, it would be meeting a stranger. For years they had simply avoided each other, like the two polar bears. (This was a story of Sinclair's, which had become legendary, about someone in the Arctic who saw two polar bears walking slowly towards each other from either side of some enormous empty plain of ice. As they came near they turned, without haste, one to one side, one to the other, ignoring each other, and padded on their way.) However Gerard did not think there would be anything he could not handle, and he would see to it that the meeting was suitably short and inconclusive.

Sitting now alone upon his bed after the drunken evening, Gerard at first entertained an uncomfortable feeling about Duncan. He had perceived, at Boyars, at close quarters, Duncan's terrible state of mind, he had smelt the chaos and the grief. But he had not, since the limited and business-like discussion of the divorce letter, initiated or invited an intimate talk. Was Duncan, though showing no sign, waiting for him to do so? Most onlookers, including some of Duncan's colleagues and Gerard's ex-colleagues who knew the interesting story, seemed to expect Jean to return penitent and make Duncan happy again. Gerard, who was not given to gossiping, even with himself, had not indulged in detailed imaginings, either ghoulish or rosy, about the future of his unfortunate friend. He certainly did not take it for granted either that Jean would return or that Duncan would be better off if she did. Had Duncan ever been happy since the Irish business? I can't possibly advise him, thought Gerard, but perhaps it's time to talk again. I must make a point of it. Only now, damn it, he's leaving early tomorrow morning. I'll see him in London. In fact, looking back more soberly upon the evening it occurred to Gerard that perhaps Duncan had resented Jenkin's presence and tried to make it telepathically clear that he wanted to be alone with Gerard, while Jenkin, intercepting this message, had at once declared himself tired and ready to go, but had been prevented by Gerard who wanted Duncan to go so that he could talk to Jenkin.