Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

Tamar had taken the half-day off in order to visit Lily Boyne. In her lonely agony, Lily seemed to be the only person who could organise the practical assistance which Tamar now urgently needed at least to consider.

When, after her visit to the chemist's shop, Tamar, alone her little bedroom, had established without doubt that she was carrying Duncan's child, she thought that she would go mad, she thought she would have to kill herself, the idea of doing so was indeed the only barrier against madness. In her few timid amours Tamar had always had a dread of pregnancy, this dread had been a chief reason for her avoidance of, almost repugnance for, physical love. She had witnessed the sordid miserable dilemmas of her fellow students; and some instinctive puritanism, a part of her severance from her mother made her fastidious about anything at all approaching promiscuity, and gave her a deep and not just prudential horror of the idea of children out of wedlock. She had been happier without 'involvements', and was sure she had never been really in love. About the occasions when she had been got to bed she felt guilt and remorse. She had not in any way anticipated her sudden intense feelings about Duncan, protected against any such development by the fact that he was so much older. She was used to him as an elderly friend, an avuncular figure, remoter than Gerard and subsidiary to him. When Tamar found herself beginning to fall in love with Duncan she was surprised, unnerved as by something weird and uncanny, then pleased, even exalted. It, or something very like it had happened at last, but (and was this not, for her, the point?) in the most confined and fruitless way. Falling in love: to be so utterly in the power of someone else, all one's freedom, all one's reality, stolen away into another place and controlled another person. And precisely because it was a totally blocked path (Tamar saw this later) she, immured, enchanted, gave herself up to the new sensation as to a delightful purifying painful fate. This was what she felt, briefly enough, but with a careless intensity, before the love-making. He would, of course, never know. She would serve and help him, would somehow (she knew not how, but perhaps this too was fated) reunite him with his wife; then retire with her secret pain which would in time be transformed into a source of untainted pleasure.

After the love-making Tamar's state of mind, which had been clear and single, even a kind of peace of mind, became a dark battlefield of incompatible emotions. To have actually taken her big animal-beloved into bed, to have hugged him in her arms and consoled him thus, could not but produce a mad elation which fed and fed upon an increase in her love. But this terrible love was now doomed and wicked. At the same time she found herself trying to continue her dream of somehow ‘making it all good', for them, and for her. Was there not still a was there not still a way, to be innocent and unselfish? Apparently not, since by her wilful act she had done some irreparable spiritual damage, some huge damage which would have consequences for herself and others. She had lost that original and blameless Duncan whom she had held so tenderly within her reticent and silent power, giving him up forever, in return for the momentary pleasure of telling her love. And yet again, how could she have resisted, how denied him then when he begged her to love him? She would have seemed to him selfish and cowardly and cold, turning her very love into a lie, he would have felt himself rejected, he would never have forgiven her and she would never have forgiven herself. Sometimes she thought, or was tempted to think, since she regarded the idea as a consolation, that the vast 'damage’, with its awful consequences was something which applied only to herself, not touching Duncan or Jean at all. Was i tnot the damage to her self-esteem, was it not the result of that, the marring of her role, that so terrified her? Whatever those larger 'consequences' might turn out to be, there were immediate baneful and hateful ones which demanded her attention. She would have to imagine Duncan's feelings and behay accordingly. She guessed that he would now be regretting the episode, would be anxious to 'cool' it, to put an end to any absurd ideas which she might harbour about it. After all he had other troubles and could persuade himself not to take her `childish' avowals too seriously. He would rely upon her `common sense'. Later on the matter could seem trivial. There would be no portentous sequel, his feelings would remain kindly, even affectionate, even grateful; for the present, he would distance himself. One day, when Jean was home again, he would tell her and they would smile over it. Or would he tell Jean? Tamar hated wondering about this, and tried tostop herself from doing so. She fully intended to assist the painful distancing process. So it was after the act, and before the terrible discovery. Tamar had trusted Duncan entirely when he said he could not have children, there had been no question of 'precautions'. Not believing the evidence of nature, she had given herself a pregnancy test chiefly as an exercise of superstition.

Now the implications of her position unfolded around her. The child was an impossibility, an abhorrence; yet it was a child, a real creature with, if it lived, an infinitely extended future: Duncan Cambus's child, her child. She had often heard it said that 'they' had wanted children. She had also heart it said that Jean would certainly come home. She had seen the death-misery in Duncan's face. She had imagined his joy when his wife returned. Duncan had wanted a child. Well, now he had a child.

The terrible aliveness of the child absorbed her to a degree which almost swallowed thought, as if the child were already an authoritative presence, a prince (for Tamar felt sure it was male) claiming his territory and asserting his rights. This absortion, this sense of a miraculous other being, such a source of joy to a true mother, was here torture. How could Tamar let it be known that she had Duncan's child, a revelation which would almost certainly prevent Jean's return, and would, even if Jean did return, darken that marriage ever after? Yet how could Tamar bring herself to destroy the child, the miracle-child of Duncan Cambus and Tamar Hernshaw, her child? Did not the sheer existence of this being make everything else trivial by comparison? Was she doomed to curse her child, to hate it, because of Duncan, because of Jean, because she lacked the special courage that her situation demanded? Would it be possible to conceal the child, pretend he was someone else's, have him adopted? She knew that if he lived she could never bring herself to let him go. If only she could treat it simply as a matter of Duncan's rights, and run to him saying, 'Here is your son.' Would he be delighted, appalled? He may once have wanted a child, but not now, and not thi s one. She thought, I've done what my mother did, I've ruined my life, I've got me a child by an impossible man. Oh if only I could disappear, taking the child with me, become someone else and never be heard of again! I can't gamble with the future like that, I can't think about it, I need more time, but the clock is ticking.

Would it all have to come out anyway, and if so why not confess it now? She had already told one person, the priest, Father McAlister, who had told her to keep the child and trust in God. Tamar was sure that Father McAlister would not tell anybody. But the fact that she had told him showed that she could tell, and might again. Of course she had not told him any details and had, in the essence of the matter, misled him, so that his advice could have little meaning for her. She had said that she did not know what was the right thing to do, but had not out the problem. She had refused to discuss the father, just saying he was a student. The priest had realised, and had said as much, that she was concealing something essential, but had added that whatever the situation was, his advice was right. He wanted to see her again, and was ready to come to London, but Tamar, in a state of horror of herself, declined and fled. The unburdening did her no good, it was another thing to regret and to fear.