Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

Gerard who had been walking up and down was now sitting beside Rose who had buried her mouth and nose in a handkerchief. Rose was angry with Gerard. Emerging, she chided him. 'Why did you let that happen, why did you let them shout at each other?'

'You shouted too,' said Gulliver.

'Crimond didn't shout,' said Gerard, 'he let us do that! Of course it won't do, but he won the match.'

'I don't think he won the match,' said Gulliver, 'I wish I’d kicked him down the road. But fancy the book being finished! I wonder if it really is?'

'Of course it is, if he says so. I must ring up and tell Duncan,'

'Why did he come here then?' said Rose. 'He must have come simply to attack us. What extraordinary spite! Not a word of gratitude.'

'I believe he really came to try to explain the book. We should have been less aggressive at the start. You're right, Rose, it's my fault, I should have taken charge, I should have thought out what to say, we ought to have discussed it beforehand.'

'Why the hell should we-' said Gull.

‘But, Gerard, you had that talk with him, you knew what kind of thing he was likely to say. Why did you get us all here so that he could throw mud at us?'

'What he said today was a caricature of what he said to me. The whole thing is funny in a way.'

'It's a joke I can't see.'

'He was putting on an act, he wanted to chill our blood, he wanted to frighten us.'

'Well, hedidn't frighten me, he just annoyed me very much,' said Rose, blowing her nose, 'And our side didn't exactly distinguish itself. I think he was in deadly earnest. I wonder if he's actually mad? There's something awfully creepy about him.'

'He's certainly a fanatic,' said Gerard. 'His ancestors were Calvinists. He believes in magic.'

'So Calvinists believe in magic?' said Gull.

'Yes. Instant salvation.'

'He's got some sort of awful death wish,' said Rose. 'I thinik he's murderous, he's callous, he doesn't think people are real.'

'He said to me that people are puppets or will be.'

'There you are.'

'What do you think, Jenkin?' said Gerard to Jenkin's back. Jenkin returned from the window and sat down beside Rose. 'Rose, dear, don't be distressed. Of course he's in earnest, but Gerard's right, he was play-acting to startl

'Well, what do you think?' said Rose crossly.

,I’m longing to see the book.'

'But if it's all tosh like that -'

'Oh, it won't be tosh, it'll be deep – but I wish I could have explained.'

,'Why didn't you then?' said Gerard. 'If you'd only condescended to enter the conversation a bit earlier -!'

'I couldn't think how to put it, and you were all being so talkative – I wish I could – see exactly how – all his stuff – is based on a mistake…'

'You said a lie,' said Gerard.

`Yes – well – a lie – that's what one hates – still he may be, right in a way that -'

`That what?'

`That one has to exaggerate.'

They left one by one, Jenkin first though Gerard tried to detain him, then Gulliver who was (only of course he didn't say so) going to have lunch with Lily and tell her everything that had happened, then Rose who wanted Gerard to haw lunch with her, only he declined. When he had given them a suitable start Gerard left the house himself. Patricia wid Gideon were in Paris at the Signorelli exhibition, so Gerard did not have to flee them, but he wanted to be outside and walk, sit in a pub and have a sandwich, think it all over.

He walked for some time in the chilly haze, panting out his moist breath, letting the cold air take him by the throat. He felt displeased with himself for not having controlled the meeting, but he felt too a curious exhilaration. So the book was finished; he longed to read it, but he dreaded it too. What did he fear-that it would be very bad, or that it would be very good? He found himself feeling sorry that the book was finished, as if it were the end of an era, the relaxing of a tension which had had some life-giving resonance. What nonsense. And, today, what a lot of rhetoric and demagoguery, and, when one reflected, rather childish panache! Yet what a curious being, was it after all so surprising that ,Jean Kowitz was this man's slave? It flashed on Gerard's mind that Crimond was a changeling, it mischievous destructive airy spirit, who visited the earth like Halley's comet every so many years, perhaps every hundred, perhaps every thousand, not a great spirit, no doubt a small one, one of many, but a daemon, who seized ruthlessly upon it woman suitable to be his mate, and (so Gerard's fantasy went on) upon his departure killed her, or by the withdrawal of his power simply brought about her death, then vanishing in a puff of smoke or a revolver shot. A daemon who could, who knows, actually mediate with other, higher, stronger powers.

Some children were singing Christmas carols in a doorway. The haze was merging into a heavier thicker yellow light which would now persist until dark. Gerard felt full of energy. Was it possible he had actually enjoyed being denounced by Crimond?

Violet searched the flat several times before she rang Gerard's number to say that her daughter had gone mad, and had now disappeared. The sequence of events was as follows. Violet had of course, as she told Gideon, been noticing for some time that Tamar was not eating, was in a state of anxiety, was perhaps heading for a depression. Her feelings about this state of affairs, though not by any means as callous as those she had expressed to Gideon, were certainly mixed. Part of her was actually pleased to see her daughter unhappy, the same part which would have been affronted to see her happy. There was, to this way of thinking, a sort of justice in a miserable Tamar, and of injustice in a joyful Tamar. Nor was Violet, in another part, indifferent to Gideon's suggestion that. she might be blamed for letting Tamar descend into depression, even perhaps into suicide. She did not want to be so blamed. She wanted to be the victim, not the killer. That Violet did not believe Tamar's sufferings to be all that serious was perhaps due to yet another part of Violet’s mind which cared for Tamar as her possession, her product, indeed her daughter. Someone who maintained (as Gideon did for instance) that in spite of all appearances Violet really, loved Tamar would have been telling a partial truth. Violet did have an affection for her daughter, and this helped het to believe that no serious trouble was involved, that Tamar was just going through a phase, or putting on an act.

Tamar's apparent affliction came to a sort of crisis when she announced to Violet that she was going away for several days. Where? She couldn't say. Why? Her employers wanted her to have some field experience with the travellers who visited the bookshops. She would, with others who made the arrangements, be staying at hotels, she did not know where. No, she would not have to pay for the hotels. After that she was absent for several days. Violet did not believe this story, which she tested, after Tamar's departure, by an anonymous telephone call to the publishers, who told her that Miss Hernshaw was unwell and at home. Violet, musing on this, decided that Tamar had gone off with a young man. This idea made Violet exceedingly uneasy, in fact she hardly dared to entertain it and comforted herself by feeling sure that Tamar would soon return, as glum and as passively docile as ever. It was the time after Tamar's reappearance that convinced Violet that her daughter had gone mad, and not quietly mad but raving mad.

Tamar, arriving in the afternoon, did not speak to her mother or answer her questions or even look at her. She went straight to her bedroom, took off her coat and her shoes, and lay onthe bed, ceaselessly weeping and moaning and mumbling to herself, and tossing to and fro, and uttering little hysterical screams. When Violet brought her some coffee and a sandwich she rejected them with such v iolence that everything fell on the floor. She tore at the sheets and stuffed them in her mouth. She lay thus crying and moaning from daylight into night, and was still wailing when Violet (who managed to sleep a little from exhaustion) woke the morn ing. The sheer strength and energy of Tamar's grief made it seem mad, surely a creature must be insane to utter such terrible sounds so continuously; there is something called insane strength and, as it seemed to Violet, this was it. She went out to telephone the doctor. When she came back Tamar had vanished.