Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

Gerard said, `I'd better go.' He waited another moment.

Jenkin, at the sitting room door, said, 'Goodnight then, my dear, we'll talk again, just don't worry -'

Gerard went out into the rain, closing the door behind him. He had no umbrella and no hat. He was ridiculously annoyed and having uttered his silly assumption that Tamar must have an looking for him. He walked along with the rain soaking o hair and running down his neck. He was extremely disturbed by his talk with Jenkin and very sorry that he had not been able to stay longer and, as Jenkin had so wisely suggested, simply sit quietly together. He could not make out what had happened between him and Jenkin and whether it was a good move or a disaster. He felt a separate and sharp pain simply at having had to leave Jenkin's presence. This was new. He felt a new kind of dread. He tried, as he walked along the pavements where the light of the lamps was reflected in streams of water, to drive away his sudden forebodings and hold onto Jenkin's laughter as onto something good.

Tamar was sitting beside the little gas fire and gazing at it. She had wrung water out of her wet skirt. She had refused food, tea, coffee, but had accepted a glass of whisky and water, which she had held onto without drinking and now put down on the floor. Jenkin, in distress, was asking, 'Tamar, dear child, what is it, tell me, please tell me?'

She lifted her head at last, not looking at Jenkin but sightlessly across the room, and said, 'Yes, yes, I'll tell you. I became pregnant with Duncan's child, and now I have killed it.'

Jenkin, who had been standing, retained his shock, stepping back as if some great object had been propelled against his body. His face flushed and he gasped. He sat down opposite to her, pulling his chair near and leaning forward. 'Tamar, dear, take it easy. Just tell me exactly what you mean.'

Tamar gave a very long deep shuddering sigh and went on in a dead listless voice, 'Oh I don't mean I had the child and drowned it or anything like that. It was never born. I had and abortion.'

'What a terrible experience,' said Jenkin, stupid with pity' and anguish. 'But – but – you say it was – Duncan's child?'

'Yes, I went to bed with Duncan once – I mean on one occasion. I felt I loved him, I wanted to comfort him. He said he couldn't have children. So perhaps it was a sort of miracle. Only I killed the child.'

'Are you sure it was Duncan's?'

'Yes. Yes. Yes.'

'Does he know?'

'No, of course not. It must be a secret. You said he wanted a child, and there was a child, only now it isn't alive any more.'

'Why didn't you – you didn't think of telling him, or -?'

'No!' Tamar wailed the word, but her face was rigid, looking past Jenkin into the corner of the room. 'How could I? You said Jean was coming back to him. I wasn't going to stop that from happening by standing there and saying that I had his child. I thought the best thing to do was to get rid of it. Only I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know what would happen to me afterwards, that I'd be in hell for it with nothing to do but to die.'

''Tamar, don't look like that, I won't let you be in hell.'

'It's murder, it's the irrevocable crime for which one suffers death.I shall never have another child, that one would kill any other child. It wanted to live, it wanted to live, and I wouldn't let it! I can't tell anybody – but keeping it secret eats my inside away -‘

'But you've told me, and I'll help you.'

'You can't help me. I only came here to say it was all your fault -'

'Why-?’

'That day down by the river you said .Jean would come back and they'd be happy again, and you advised me -'

'Tamar, I didn't advise you -'

,You couldn't have known whether Jean would come back or not, she hasn't come back, perhaps she won't and I'll have done, it for nothing. When the child was alive I wanted to tell Duncan, I wanted to run to him and tell him and say I loved him, but now I hate him and I can never see him again because I killed his miracle child in a fit of madness. And only a few days ago it was alive, and it was mine-' Tamar began to cry at last, still rigid, her mouth open now, her eyes pouring tears which fell from her chin onto her lap.

Jenkin had tried to take hold of her hand but she had pulled her away, jerking herself back. He was appalled by what he heard. In the few minutes she had been with him Jenkin had seen into the hell she spoke of, and although he spoke. helping her he did not see any way in which it would possible. He wished he could take away her consciousness so that all this pain would cease. 'Tamar, try to hold onto yourself, I'm going to help you, just hold on. Have you told anybody else about this?'

'I told Lily I was pregnant, she gave me the money, I didn’t say who it was, she said it happens to everyone. And I told that parson in the country, I just said I was pregnant and he said keep it. I wish I'd come to you, even last week, you'd have said keep it and I'd have kept it, I wish I'd told you then on that day by the river, if only you'd asked what was the matter, I'd have told you and everything would be all right, only you didn't ask me, you went on and on about Jean and Duncan and how they'd be all right, it was all about them, and I wanted to tell you about me – And now I hate you too, I hate everybody, and when one hates everybody one dies. I hate myself with such a hatred, I could kill myself by torture, I wish I could die tonight, I wish you could kill me and burn me.'

'Stop, Tamar, you're distraught, drink some of the whisky. Stop wailing, be quiet, here, drink some of this.'

Tamar drank a little, her hand trembling, slopping it onto her dress. She stopped crying.

'Let's sort this out, I can see it's something terrible, awful for you, but you're mixing it all up and blaming yourself for everything- we've got to be able to think about it, I'll help you, you don't hate me, you came to me, you must stay with me and trust me, you need people, you need love -' Jenkin found himself babbling, just to keep the conversation going, hardly knowing what he was saying, uttering random words to try to soothe the massive wound which had so suddenly been uncovered to him.

`Nobody loves me,' said Tamar, now in a dull matter-of-fact tone, 'nobody can love me. It's impossible. I'm a person outside love, and I have always been.'

'That's not true. But, look, I'm going to ask you questions. I'm sorry if it hurts, but I must try to understand, you know I won't tell anyone. This thing, this one occasion, with Dutican, was there anything before it or after it, had you realised he was ye with you?'

‘No, he wasn't, and there was nothing. I went to see him twice because – because Gerard asked me to.'

‘Gerard asked you?'

‘He thought I might be good for Duncan because I was so innocent and harmless. On the second time he'd just had a letter about divorce From the solicitor, and I felt so sorry for him, I said I loved him, and I did love him.'

'Do you still love him?'

'No. Then he put his arms round me and we went to bed.'

'And after?'

‘After, nothing. He may have decided Jean would come back after all, or that I was a nuisance, a nasty incident, something he wished hadn't happened. He ignored me at Boyars. I understood.'

‘And that weekend you knew you were pregnant?'

‘Yes. But I didn't come to see him, I just came to get over being with him and knowing he didn't love me and it was all over.’

‘You didn't think it might go on?'

‘No I saw it couldn't – and I'd ruined all the things that Gerard thought – and all that was over forever. I knew it even before I realised I was pregnant. The things I asked you down at the river, I really knew how it was, though I hadn't thought about Duncan so terribly wanting a child.'