Айрис Мердок - The Nice and the Good

Kate could never be a burden and was not an obsession. While he had been Jessica's lover, and during the later time when he had been trying to detach himself from Jessica, he had become insensitive and unavailable and unaware. People who came to him for assistance were but absentmindedly served. He had ceased to be interested in anyone but himself. He had envisaged his world with Kate, not as a tete-a-tete, but as once more a populated country, only a happy one. The wonderful thing about Kate was that she was unattainable; and this was what was to set him free for ever. She would give ease to his too long wandering heart, and then he could live more fully in the world of other people, more able, because more happy, to give them his full attention.

But this was the distant landscape, the landscape beyond Jessica. Will I ever reach it, he wondered. Ought I not to withdraw from Kate, at any rate for a while? Is it even conceivably my duty to stay with Jessica? As things are at the moment I am no good to anyone. I can't think about anybody but myself.

I was no good to Willy this morning. Willy had alarmed Ducane that morning by the degree of his withdrawal, his refusal even to talk. Ducane thought, if I could have given Willy my full attention this morning I would have been able to force him to communicate with me. Perhaps Willy ought to have been left in London. He's far too much alone here. Perhaps I have made a terrible mistake. If Willy kills himself it will be my fault.

By some further twist or shift of the blackness these grim reflections put Ducane in mind of Radeechy. He had still not obtained the newspaper story and it seemed likely that he would have to act without it. He had decided to visit McGrath at his house unexpectedly on this next Monday evening, and really find out everything that the fellow knew. But how much would that amount to? With a kind of bitter weariness Ducane found his mind turning to the 'whips and daggers and things' which McGrath had seen at Radeechy's house. What had Radeechy done with those girls? As he now felt a curious alleviation of his pain, an ability once more to see Kate's brown shoulders and her plump back, turned to him as she looked forward over the bows of the boat, he thought, how natural it is to try to cure the pains of wickedness by positive devilry, vice itself is a rescue from the misery of guilt, and there are deeper pits into which it is a relief to fall. Then he thought, poor Radeechy.

Pierce was towing the boat quite fast now, the tow rope between his teeth. Mingo, who had swum out after him, was also accompanying the boat, his ridiculous primly lifted dry head contrasting with the sleek wet head of the boy, who was dipping and slipping through the water like a seal.

'Where's Barb?' Kate called to Pierce.

'Riding her pony,' he said, dropping the rope and retrieving it again spaniel-like.

'She's so mad on riding now,' said Kate, turning back to Ducane, 'and she's almost too fearless. I do hope we were wise to send her to that school in Switzerland.'

'She'll get her Oxford entrance all right,' said Ducane. 'She's a clever girl and her French should be perfect.'

'I do wish Willy would change his mind about reading German with her.' Willy had unaccountably refused to help Barbara with her German.

The boat slackened speed. Pierce had dropped the rope and was swimming on towards the cliff, the easternward end of the Red Tower, which here came down sheer into the water. Ducane felt relief, as at the removal of a small demoniac presence.

'Don't go in, will you, Pierce!' Kate was shouting after him.

'No, I won't.'

'That's Gunnar's Cave,' said Kate, pointing to a dark line at the base of the cliff. 'It must be low tide.'

'Yes, you told me,' said Ducane. 'The entrance is only uncovered at low tide.'

'It gives me the creeps,' said Kate. 'I have a fantasy that it's full of drowned men who went in after treasure and got caught by the sea.'

'Let's get back,' said Ducane. He shivered. He began to move the little coracle slowly upon the gluey gleaming surface with rhythmical sweeps of his hands. Kate shifted herself slightly so that her leg was in contact with his. They looked at each other searchingly, anxiously.

'Why did Shakespeare never write a play about Merlin?' said Henrietta.

'Because Shakespeare was Merlin,' said Uncle Theo.

'I've often wondered that too,' said Paula. 'Why did he never make use of the Arthur legends?'

'I think I know,' said Mary.

Everyone was silent. Mary hesitated. She was sure that she knew, only it was suddenly very difficult to put it into words.

'Why?' said John Ducane, smiling at her encouragingly.

'Shakespeare knew… that world of magic… the subject was dangerous… and those sort of relationships… not quite in the real world… it just wasn't his sort of thing… and it had such a definite atmosphere of its own… he just couldn't use it..

Mary stopped. It wasn't quite that, but she did know. Shakespeare's world was something different, larger.

'I think I understand you,' said Ducane, 'perfectly.' He smiled again.

After that the conversation scattered once more, each person chatting to his neighbour. Sunday lunch was taking place, was nearly over, at the round table in the hall. Casie was circling round the table, removing plates, talking aloud to herself as she usually did when waiting at table, and moving in and out of the kitchen, through whose open door Montrose, in his elongated not spherical manifestation, could be seen lounging in the animal basket beside which Mingo was standing in a state of evident agitation. Every now and then Mingo would put one paw into the basket and then nervously withdraw it again. Montrose lounged with the immobility of careless power.

'They treat women properly in Russia,' Casie was saying as she removed the pudding plates. 'In Russia I could have been an engine driver.'

'But you don't want to be an engine driver, do you?' said Mary.

'Women are real people in Russia. Here they're just dirt. It's no good being a woman.'

'I can imagine it's no good being you, but '

'Oh do shut up, Theo.'

'I think it's marvellous being a woman,' said Kate. 'I wouldn't change my sex for anything.'

'How you relieve my mind!' said Ducane.

'I'd rather be an engine-driver,' said Mary crazily.

Casie retired to the kitchen.

There was no special arrangement of places at Sunday luncheon. People just scrambled randomly to their seats as they happened to arrive. On that particular day the order was as follows. Mary was sitting next to Uncle Theo who was sitting next to Edward who was sitting next to Pierce who was sitting next to Kate who was sitting next to Henrietta who was sitting next to Octavian who was sitting next to Paula who was sitting next to Barbara who was sitting next to Ducane who was sitting next to Mary.

Edward was now explaining to Uncle Theo about some birds called 'honey guides' who lived in the Amazonian jungle and these birds had such a clever arrangement with the bears and things, they would lead them to where the wild bees had their nests and then the bears and things would break open the nests to eat the honey and so the birds could eat the honey too. Henrietta was explaining to Kate how there were loops and voids in the space-time continuum so that although it might take you only fifty years to reach the centre of the galaxy in your space craft, thousands of years would have passed here when you got back. ('I don't think I quite understand,' said Kate.)

Octavian, who had been discussing with Paula the prospects of reform in the trade union movement, was now anxiously asking her if she felt well, since she had eaten practically no lunch, Ducane and Barbara were flirting together in French, a language which Ducane spoke well and enjoyed any chance of showing off.