Айрис Мердок - The Nice and the Good

'Oh God I was so bored when you arrived!' said Mrs McGrath.

'It's so boring just waiting.'

What does she wait for, Ducane wondered. Somehow it was plain that it was not her husband. 'No, thank you,' he said to the glass of wine she was holding out to him. He noticed that she was holding something in her other hand which turned out to be a hand mirror.

'Toffee nose, eh? I'm legally married to McGrath, you know, would you like to see my passport? Or do you think I'm going to put a spell on you? I'm not a nigger, I'm as good as you are. Or are you anti-Welsh? You'd be surprised how many people are. Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief, and all that, and they really believe it. I'm Welsh Australian actually, at least my parents were Welsh Australian only they came home and I was born in Rhyl where I won the beauty competition.

I could have been a model. You English?'

'Scottish.'

'Christ, like McGrath, except he isn't, he's a South London hyena, he was born in Croydon. My name's Judy, by the way.

Oh, beg pardon, I told you. Excuse me while I change.'

Mrs McGrath disappeared into the next room, scooping up the extended petticoat as she went by. She returned a moment later dressed in a very short green cotton dress and brushing out her blackish hair. Her hair, abundant and wiry, swept down on to her neck in a thick homogeneous bundle, rounded at the end, giving her a somewhat Egyptian look.

Ducane rose to his feet. He had become aware that what was remarkable about Mrs McGrath was simply that she was a very beautiful woman. He said, 'May I change my mind and have some wine.'

'That's matey of you. Christ, what ghastly plonk. Here's yours. Sit down, sit down. I'm going to sit beside you. There.

Mind if I go on brushing my hair? No, hard luck, I'm wearing tights, there's nothing to see.'

Mrs McGrath, now seated beside Ducane, had ostentatiously crossed her legs. He sipped the pink wine. If she was indeed putting a spell on him he felt now that he did not mind it. The room had begun to smell of alcohol, or perhaps it was Mrs McGrath who smelt of alcohol. Ducane realized that she was a little tipsy. He turned to look at her.

The low-cut green dress revealed the dusky line between two round docile tucked-in white breasts. Mrs McGrath's face, which seemed without make-up, now looked paler, transparently creamy under an even brown tan. The wiry black hair crackled and lifted under the even strokes of the brush. Dark Lady, thought Ducane. He thought, Circe.

The cold dark blue eyes regarded him with the calm vague look. Mrs McGrath, still brushing, reached her left hand for her own glass. 'Pip pip!' She clinked her glass gently against Ducane's and with a sinewy movement of her wrist caressed the side of his hand slowly with the back of hers. The movement of the brush stopped.

Mrs McGrath's hand was still in contact with Ducane's.

Ducane had an intense localized sensation of being burnt while at the same time a long warm spear pierced into the centre of his body. He did not remove his hand.

The brush fell to the floor. Mrs McGrath's right hand collected her glass and Ducane's, holding them rim to rim and set them down on one of the tables. Her left hand now began to curl snake-like round his, the fingers slowly crossing his palm and tightening.

Ducane stared into Mrs McGrath's now very drowsy blue eyes. She leaned gradually forward and laid her lips very gently upon his lips. For a second or two they stayed thus quietly lip to lip. Then Mrs McGrath slid her arms round his shoulders and crushed herself violently against him, forcing his lips apart. Ducane felt her tongue and her teeth. A moment later he had detached himself and stood up.

Mrs McGrath remained motionless, both hands raised in the attitude into which he had flung her on rising. Her North Sea eyes were narrow now, amused, predatory and shrewd.

She said softly, 'Mr Honeyman, Mr Honeyman, I like you, I like you.'

Ducane reflected a good deal afterwards about his conduct on this occasion and could not later acquit himself of having quite disgracefully 'let things happen'. But at the moment what he mainly felt was an intense irresponsible physical delight, a delight connected with the exact detail of this recent set of occurrences, as if all their movements from the moment at which their hands touched had composed themselves into a vibrating pattern suspended within his nervous system. He felt the outraged joy of someone round whose neck an absurdly bulky garland of flowers has quite unexpectedly been thrown.

With this he felt too the immediate need to be absolutely explicit with Mrs McGrath and let her know the worst.

He said very quickly, 'Mrs McGrath, it is true that I am not a police officer, but I am a representative of the government department in which your husband works. I'm afraid your husband is in trouble and I have come here to ask him some rather unpleasant questions.'

'What's your name?' said Judy McGrath, relaxing her pose.

'John Ducane.'

'You're sweet.'

Ducane sat down cautiously on one of the coffee tables, carefully pushing a clover-spotted china pig family out of the way.

'I'm afraid this may prove a serious matter'

'You're very sweet. Do you know that? Drink some more pink wine. What do you want McGrath to tell you? Maybe I can tell you?'

Ducane thought quickly. Shall I? he wondered. And some professional toughness in him, perhaps reinforced by his natural guilt, now ebbing back through his delighted nerves, said yes. He said, giving her every warning by the gravity of his look, 'Mrs McGrath, your husband was blackmailing Mr Radeechy.'

Judy McGrath no longer had the eyes of a priestess. She looked at Ducane shrewdly yet trustfully. She looked at him as she might have looked at an old friend who was conveying bad news. After a moment she said, 'He'll lose his job, I suppose?'

'How much did Radeechy give him to keep quiet?' asked Ducane. He held her in a cool almost cynical gaze, and yet it seemed to him afterwards that there was as much passion concealed in this questioning and answering as there had been in the flurry that preceded it.

'I don't know. Not much. Peter isn't a man with big ideas. He ate off newspapers all his childhood.'

Ducane gave a long sigh. He stood up again.

While he was framing his next question there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. They turned instantly to each other.

She said in a low voice, 'That's him now. We'll meet again Mr Honeyman, we'll meet again.'

The door opened and McGrath came in.

Ducane's plan of surprising McGrath had certainly succeeded.

McGrath stood still in the doorway with his pink mouth open staring at Ducane. Then his features crinkled into an alarmed furtive frown and he turned towards his wife with a lumbering violent movement.

'Good evening, McGrath,' said Ducane smoothly. He felt alert and cold.

'Well, I'm off to the pub,' said Judy McGrath. She picked up her handbag from the sofa and went to the door. As McGrath, now again looking at Ducane, did not move, she pushed him out of her way. He banged the door to after her with his foot.

'I'm sorry to intrude,' said Ducane. 'I find I have to ask some more questions.'

'Well?'

There was a dangerous sense of equality in the air. McGrath still contained the violence of the arrested gesture towards his wife. Ducane thought, I must rush him. He said, 'McGrath, you were blackmailing Radeechy.'

'Did my wife tell you that?'

'No. Radeechy's papers told us. As you know, the penalties for blackmail are very severe indeed.'

'It wasn't blackmail,' said McGrath. He leaned back against the door.

'Well, let us say that Radeechy rewarded you for keeping your mouth shut. Frankly, McGrath, I'm not interested in you, and if you will now tell me the whole truth I'll do my best to get you off. If not, the law will take its course with you.'