Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

`I do listen, I do understand, you are wondering what you will do when you have finished the book, you imagine you’ll become dull and ordinary, the book has kept you in a state of excitement for so many years, I've seen you trembling with emotion as you write-‘

`You imagine that explains something, you imagine it explains something away. No, no, there is no away, it’s deeper than that, it's you and me, we are crushed by our impossibility -'

`Crimond, we make our possibility, we make it day by day-‘

`Do you want to kill me?'

`Only when I kill myself. Jeanie, I love you, you love me, that's what it's about. The perfection of our love is now we are absolutists, we are gods, later is only less.’

`Crimond, my darling, you know that I will you want, whatever you want, I am yours, I will go with you wherever you go. Here is my life, here is my death. But -'

`But you think we should have lunch!'

‘But the book is not finished, and after it is finished there will be another book- Besides -'

‘Besides?’

‘I want to dance with you again.'

‘Perhaps we shall dance together again, sometime, at the end of the world.’

‘And you will learn to weep then, at the end of the world. Please don’t frighten me by saying these mad things. I know you want eternity, but we can make eternity in time. That's what love is, after all. Come-‘

‘Come to bed.'

‘Oh, my Jeanie, my queen, if only there were only that -.’

‘That child is going to die,' said Violet Hernshaw to Gideon Fairfax. 'She is determined to die. She will die of a wasting sickness, of a mysterious virus, of tuberculosis, depression, starvation -'

`Well, can't we stop her?' said Gideon, leaning back in his chair.

`Who's we?'

`You and me. Let's team up. Eh?'

`No.'

`You don't want to stop her, you don't mind if she dies, you want her to die?'

`What you say means nothing, it's a vulgar psycholgical cliche, you don't know anything about real misery and living with death. You don't know death exists.'

`That may be true,' Gideon conceded, 'though objectively if I may use that familiar adverb, it looks as if you don't want Tamar to succeed, even as if you would prefer her not to exist. Would you really not care if she committed suicide? However, as you say, it's a cliche.'

`She won't commit suicide. She's a survivor. You all think she's a pure maid and a frail flower. But she's a tough little atom. Why didn't you let me know you were coming?'

`You no longer have a telephone.'

`I can't afford one. You did it on purpose. You could have written.'

`I couldn't plan that far ahead. A picture drama is in progress.'

`You thought a letter would be evidence.'

`Evidence of what? My interest in Tamar, ,my interest in you?'

`You came about her.'

`And about you, you as part of her, you as yourself,'

`You are sorry for me, you pity me, you des pise me-‘

`How you do leap from one idea to another! We used to see a lot of Tamar, now she refuses our invitations, I think that’s because of you. Do you mind if I have a serious talk with her quite soon?'

‘I would mind very much.'

‘I’m very fond of that child, so is Pat, so is Leonard -'

‘Pat was always dead scared Leonard would want to marry Tamar. Don't worry! My family isn't going to come anywhere near yours, ever!'

‘Actually I came to say that Patricia and I would like to adopt Tamar.’

‘You mean legally?'

‘ If possible. De facto anyway.'

‘You want power over her. That's Pat's idea, to keep her off Leonard.’

‘You always had a suspicious mind, but this is paranoia. That’s one point, about adoption, I'm just putting it on the map. More immediately, we want to put up the money to get Tamar back to Oxford. I know you've said 'no' to Rose and Gerard, but I want to persuade you that we're a special case, that I am anyway.'

‘Tamar is the only thing I've got, and you want to take it away.’

‘You had no education so you don't want Tamar to have hers.’

‘I don’t take money from other people.'

‘You prefer to live on Tamar's earnings.'

‘I’ve worked for years and years to support that girl! Why should I go on forever? She's young, she's got a good job, it’s right that she should earn. You sneer at me for being

uneducated. I'd earn too if I could get a job.'

‘I am about to offer you one.'

‘To “help out” as Patricia's "house-keeper". No, thanks!'

‘You could help me in the office. I think Pat said something about this to you at Guy Fawkes. Seriously, Violet, just look at this flat, look at yourself, look at the situation. You and Tamar are like two sick animals in a filthy box, one looks every day to see if they’re still alive .I don't want to stand by and watch you destroy yourself with envy and grief and chronic unhappiness and lack of love. You're intelligent, you're good-looking, if you'd comb your hair, you could do with some make-up too, you're still young. My business is expanding, I'm going to have a gallery in Cork Street, and a glossy office with rubber plants and a lot of smart machines, and I want someone there that I can trust. You could learn the business, one side of it anyway, it's not all that arcane. It's the sort of thing Patrcia couldn't possibly do and she'd hate it anyway. But you'd be capital at it, and it would interest you, instead of crouching here and dying of dullness and boredom. Don't you want to use your mind, use all that cleverness you're wasting now on endlessly documenting your resentment? You and Tamar could live with us too, make an extended family, for a while any rate, you could have the flat we're in now. This place is beyond help.'

`What do you propose doing with Gerard?'

`Oh we're going to get him out. I want that house. If we can't we'll buy another house, a larger one.'

`I thought Patricia wanted me to clean and cook like before.'

`That was just for an emergency. What I'm suggesting now is something entirely new. I want to transform Tamar and transform you . I want to shake you both and clean you up and dust you down and dress you in smart beautiful clothes and bright colours. You're dowdy, you've got no sense of colour. I might even go into the dress designing business myself, printing fabrics anyway. Violet, I'm serious.'

`No, you're not,' said Violet.

Gideon had appeared unexpectedly at about eleven in the morning, entering through the unlocked door, and found Violet sitting in her tiny kitchen over breakfast reading the newspaper. A pile of dishes tottered in the sink. The dresser was heaped with tins, bottles, string, mouldering bread, saucepans containing messes, unopened envelopes containing bills. Gideon, observing this conglomeration from the corner of his eye, thought it resembled an abstract expressionist picture which he had just bought. Violet had taken her glasses off when he came in. Taken unawares, she looked terrible. Her brown hair, unwashed and in need of trimming, hung in rats' tails, her face was greasy, her old floppy cardigan was inside out, her jersey was too tight and too short, and her skirt lop-sided and not properly done up. She was wearing bedshocks. She sat crouching and glaring, deepening the two lines above her nose, her eyes wet slits between dry wrinkles. The expensive contact lenses had proved a failure. She evidently felt that since she was taken unawares looking terrible she would make a feature of it.

Gideon, scented with aftershave, sat perched on a chair opposite to her upon which he had hastily placed a clean-looking plastic ba g,from the dresser. He tried to rock the chair a little. It came reluctantly away from the gluey deposit on the floor with a slight sucking noise. Gideon was wearing a dark suit with a reddish pink shirt and a pale yellow tie with blue shapes on it. His curly hair, darker and more closely curled than Gerard's, shone with health, his chubby red lips were moist, his plump cheeks glowed, they had enjoyed the cold air.