Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

Gerard's thoughts about Jenkin, tending for some time in a certain direction, were now approaching crisis point. The reasons for this state of feeling were obscure. It might be to do with his father's death, with a sudden shortage of people who loved him absolutely, a premonition of loneliness, when there, would be no more places where everyone danced with joy when he arrived. A more rational prompting was Gerard's fear that Jenkin was planning to go away. At dinner Jenkin had announced with a casualness which Gerard saw to be assumed, that he planned to be out of England at Christmas. Did he not realise that, for the first time for many yrioto. Gerard would be spending Christmas in London? Gerard intuited, had for some time felt, a certain preoccupied restleness in his friend, as if Jenkin were looking over Gerard’s shoulder at something much farther off. Of course Jenkin had said nothing to Gerard about an ygeneral departure plans and Gerard, afraid, had not asked. But Gerard had not failed to make the interest in 'new theology', the stuff about'the poor', the Portuguese grammar. He thought in flashes things like: Jenkin will leave us, he'll go away, he'll go to South America or Africa, and he'll be murdered. Only he mustn't go away, thought Gerard, if he goes, I'll go with him. I can't do without Jenkin. This was his state. What was such a state called?

What's the matter with me, thought Gerard, I'm hot and cold, I'm shivering, my hands are trembling. I never really told my father how much I loved him. If Jenkin were to die I'd wish I'd told him. Perhaps it's all very simple. I've known Jenkin well for more than thirty years, why this sudden overflow of feeling now? I love this man, but is there anything special, anything new, which I'm supposed to do about it? I am realising that Jenkin could cause me the most terrible pain, if we quarrelled, if he went right away, if he died. Such is the the power he has over me. The idea crossed Gerard's mind, am actually falling inlove with my old friend, do such things happen? Perhaps after a death love runs wild, perhaps it will all pass. But I must secure him, I must keep him safe, I must keep him here, I must not let him go away. How am I to be sure he will not go away? I must simply tell him that I need him, I must make a pact with him, he must be made to promise to stay with me. I must be able to see him more, much more, now that I have this feeling about him, or realise that I've always had it, only now it's urgent. Is this growing old, is it knowing at last that time and death are real? I don't feel old, this strange emotion makes me feel young. Good heavens, thought Gerard, am I really in love?

I must be drunk, he thought, I am drunk. I don't think I'll feel different in the morning, but I'll have a bit more sense. Really, how can I say all this to dear old Jenkin? He'd think I'm daft, he'd be embarrassed, he might be disgusted. If he was he'd keep it to himself but I'd know all the same, I'd see he was upset or annoyed. It might harm our friendship, at least it might cast a shadow, and then I'd imagine he was avoiding me anf I'd be in hell. Supposing he were cold to me. The risk is terrible. I've lived alone now for years and years – and he has lived alone, perhaps always. The amazing thing is that I don't really know him all that well, we've never been that intimate, I just don't know how he'd react. Perhaps it's better to say nothing.

Everyone was going to church except for Gulliver and Lily and Duncan. Duncan in fact had already departed, he left after breakfasting very early. No one saw him go except Rose. At Sunday breakfast Rose had told her friends, as she always did, that of course there was no need for anyone to go to church. She would go with Annushka, because this was part of her country life, but no one else need come. Gerard and Jenkin said, as they always did, that they would come with her, and Tamar said that she would come. Gull and Lily said they would walk to the wood, and then to the village along the Roman Road to investigate the Pike. It was agreed that they would all meet later at the pub.

Gull and Lily were in rather a giggly mood. The previous night had not at all been what Gull had hoped and expected. No sooner were the two of them in bed, and after the most inconclusive of preliminaries, they had both fallen into a deep drunken slumber, awakening only in time not to be too late for breakfast. Lily had found this extremely funny. Gulliver, after feeling rather disconcerted and discredited, decided to find it funny too. He felt, at least, that he had done something decisive, and, as Lily was so relaxed, even casual, about the whole thing, that gave him time to discover what exactly it was that he had done.

Today the sun was shining, the sky was blue, almost cloudless .The rooms were filled with light. Everyone looked out of the windows and exclaimed with surprise, pointing out to each other the glittering snow crystals and the melting icicles. There was talk of building a snowman. The lawns were criss-crossed now with human tracks and Gulliver and Jenkin had been out just after breakfast to walk round the garden and throw snowballs at each other. Rose had already taken a conducted tour to the kitchen window where a mob of redwings could be seen, fat round birds bigger than thrushes, with red breasts and striped necks and little demonic faces and sharp probing beaks, frantically devouring the berries of the cotoneaster.

Everyone seemed to be in a vague wandering-about sort of mood. Tamar, wearing a dark brown velveteen dress for Sunday, was sitting on the window seat in the library, holding Genji on her knee, contemplating her slender legs in brown stockings, and getting up at intervals to stare at the rows of books. Gerard had wandered off to the billiard room, where the moth-eaten billiard table was hidden by a canvas cover, and had put on Mahler's first symphony on the record player. He liked the melancholy bereaved sound of the second movement. This sound, though he turned it down, penetrated faintly to the drawing room where Lily was sitting on the sofa with her shoes off playing patience. Gulliver, who had got his shoes wet in the garden, had gone up to his room to change his shoes and socks and look at himself in the mirror. He was wearing his loose cable-stitch dark grey cardigan and grey and dark blue striped shirt with the high collar and a dark mauve tie and grey and black very small-check trousers. The mauve tie was inconspicuously patterned in pink. He decided that, since he was not going to church, it was all right. He sleeked down his hair and put on his saturnine look. Jenkin, dressed for church in his best suit, had gone to sit in the library near Tamar in case she wanted to talk to him, which she did not. He opened his Oxford Book of Spanish Verse and read a sonnet addressed 'to Christ Crucified' which he liked. He watched Tamar who was irritably aware of his gaze. When she closed her book sharply, he made haste to retire. After that he went upstairs and put on his overcoat and boots. He very much wanted to walk in the snow by himself and had decided to slink off. Gerard was now listening to some Haydn. Jenkin told Rose, preoccupied with Annushka in the kitchen making treacle tart, that hewas going fora walk and would see them at church. He left by the front door. Gerard emerged and was annoyed to find that Jenkin was gone. Rose told him that they would be leaving for church in three-quarters ofan hour. Gull was in the drawing room reminding Lily that she wanted to go to the wood and look for Stones, but she said she had changed her mind and wanted to stay by the fire. Gerard went to look for Tamar, and took her to look at the redwings, which she had missed, but they had eaten all the berries and moved on.