Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

‘There is no logic in fearing death,' said Crimond, 'I just don’t want to make a terrible mistake.'

‘Please stop this sort of talk.'

‘It's not all that easy to shoot oneself, one could find oneself living on blinded or witless. It's a terrible risk. I could be sure of killing you, but not so sure of killing myself. The hand can tremble, the bullet can find some freakish path, leaving one paralysed, still alive. Oh the horror of that -' He spoke quite calmly, reflectively.

‘Fortunately you don't have to shoot either yourself or me! Here's your coffee.'

'I don't want to see you dead, my Jeanie, we must go together.'

'Let us go to France together, let us go anywhere away from here. Let me take you away for a while. You'll get over it all, this state of mind will pass.'

'I don't see how it can,' said Crimond, in a reasonable tone as if some quite ordinary project were being discussed.

'What about your father -'

'He's dead.'

'You didn't tell me.'

'He died at the end of October. I'm glad he's gone. He was no longer himself. His being was anguish to me. Now he is at peace.’

'I'm sorry.'

‘Don't be sorry.'

‘Oh my dear – you'll write another book.'

‘I think my life's work is over.'

'Don't you want to see this one published, to hear people, discussing it?’

'No. It will be misunderstood.'

'Then shouldn't you be there to explain it?'

'Explain it? The idea is loathsome.'

'Please try to get out of this awful mood. We must just go on, we'll go on together, we love each other, just be brave enough- I'll do everything you want. I'll make your happiness, I'll invent it, I'll go out shopping now and buy you a honeycomb, I know how much you like that -'

'Oh my sweet being! You'll get me a honeycomb! Ah, if it was only as simple as that -!'

'But, Crimond, it is.' Jean, leaning across the table, tried to take his hand, but he drew it back, still staring at her with his calm face.

'Jean, do you want to go back to your husband, back to Duncan, you love him, don't you?'

'Oh my God – you think I'll go back to Duncan one day and you want to kill me before it happens! Don't be crazy and drive me crazy! You know I don't love him, I love you. Look at me, I'm sane, I'm steady as a rock, I love you and I'll look after you forever.'

'You could go back to him and live.'

'And leave you to shoot yourself. Just stop romancing, you're just doing it to torment me, to say it's all my fault. If I wasn't here would you be talking about death?'

'No, but that's your gift to me – you are the motive, the blessing, the gift from heaven, the best the gods ever sent me. You make death possible.'

'I don't understand you. You are being perfectly hateful today.'

'You are my weakness. Now that the book is gone there is nothing left but our love, our vulnerability to each other, if we go on we shall destroy each other in some small unworthy way – I want it to be something glorious, worthy of our love, that is courage, that is eternal life.'

'This is sickening romantic nonsense,' she said, 'and you don't believe a word of it! If you just want to get rid of me, say so! Is it a sort of trial, if I pass the test I die, if I fail you leave me? Surely there are simpler solutions!'

'Why be the slaves of time? Jeanie, it's a short walk, this life. Why do people value it so? We have our great love, it is something timeless, let us die in our love, inside it, together, as if we were going to bed -'

`Stop, my darling,' said Jean, who felt the tears coming to her eyes. 'You are tiring me out. I've been trying – so hard – to be sane and strong for you -'

'It's best to choose one's exit.'

‘I'm not in a fit state to decide to die, and neither are you!’

‘Jeanie, I want us to die together.'

'Oh, fine – but how -?'

'On the Roman Road.'

'What?'

`You know, down at Boyars. Oh Jeanie, my love, don't fail me-‘

'What do you mean?'

'It's a long straight road – at a high speed – two cars could meet…’

Gerard, leaving the British Museum at lunch time, rang up Jenkin and learnt from him that Tamar was upset about something and was at present at Lily's place and said to be'all right'. Jenkin, just back from his visit to Violet, saw no point, since the situation seemed so obscure, in alarming Gerard. Gerard, with other things on his mind, was not alarmed. He ranged to come round to Jenkin's place about eight thirty that evening for a drink. He had lunch in a pub, and then went into St James's Park and sat down on a seat near the lake to think. He felt very strange, excited, frightened. He found himself trembling. He was not sure whether or not he liked this state of mind, or whether or not he approved of it. The two scenes with Crimond, his own private confrontation and Crimond's counter-attack on the Gesellschaft, had not yet exhausted their shock waves, and he found himself dwelling on remembered details in both scenes which inspired a disturbing mixture of emotions. Sitting bolt upright on the seat in the park he smiled, then frowned, then bit his lip, then shook, his head, then shuddered. An acquaintance, Peter Manson’s sister, passed by and recognised him but did not greet him because (as she explained when her brother rang up from Athens) 'he looked so peculiar'. The sun was shining. There had been a heavy frost and many of the more shaded places still carried a thick sugary crystalline sprinkling upon leaves and grass. The seat was wet and Gerard was sitting on his copy of The Times. The air was very cold. The sun was already declining and lights had come on in the pinnacled and turreted offices in Whitehall which looked in the glowing light like fairy palaces. The excitements, pleasant, unpleasant, interesting, stirred up in Gerard's mind by Crimond's ant were curiously mixing with his thoughts, or more evidently his feelings, about Jenkin. He had confronted Crimond and certainly not come off best. Now, in a very different way, he was proposing to confront Jenkin. He would clarify things, he would ask awkward questions, he would have it all out at last; and again the rather unnerving idea occurred to him that although he had known Jenkin long and knew him well, he did not really know him very well.

As Gerard sat so upright looking out across the water soma children were feeding the ducks. Some big Canada geese had come along too, lumbering out of the water and raising then great powerful beaks for bits of bread. The feet of the children and the feet of the birds left tracks in the thin frost which still coated the asphalt pathway. The forecast was rain but the weather was very quiet and relentlessly cold as if it could never change. Gerard felt frightened. He was afraid, when he saw Jenkin, of talking too much. In such a situation a few ill; chosen words, words which could never be recalled, could be remembered for a long time. I must be cool and clear-headed, thought Gerard, I must try to concentrate upon some central point,int which is incapable of being misunderstood. The idea of a sort of reassurance. Just not to go away. But really – what could be more ambiguous and indeed ridiculous? Jenkin Would be surprised and embarrassed, as he would be by anything resembling an affirmation of love; and then perhaps, later on, feel annoyed, disgusted, alienated. It might all seem to him weird, even creepy, certainly uncalled-for. Then Gerard would be biting his hands off with remorse, while Jenkin gallantly tried to pretend that 'nothing had happened'. The risks were terrible – but they were terrible either way. How dreadfully he might accuse himself later of having done nothing. Over a long time love-and-friendship love can be so taken for granted that it becomes almost invisible. Its substance thins and needs to be renewed, it must at intervals be reasserted. Suppose Jenkin were to go away (and, awful thought, find someone else, a woman, or a man) partly because he had never really understood how highly Gerard valued him? I wish I'd said something earlier, thought Gerard, something spontaneous and intuitive. Now it's all become so damned abstract and formal and solemn – I'll scare him stiff while I'm fumbling to begin.