Iris Murdoch - Under the Net

'No,' said Anna strangely. 'Unsatisfied love is concerned with understanding. Only if it is all, all understanding, can it remain love while being unsatisfied.'

I was not listening to this serious speech because my attention had been caught by the word 'silence'.

'What is this place, Anna?' I asked.

'That's one of the things that would be hard to explain, Jakie,' said Anna, and I could feel her hands seeking each other in the small of my back. She locked me to her, then she said, 'It's a little experiment.'

This phrase grated on me. It didn't sound like Anna at all. 'There was some other voice here. I thought I would pick my way round this.

'What about your singing?' I asked.

'Oh, I've given up singing,' said Anna. 'I shan't sing any more. 'Her glance fled away over my shoulder and she withdrew her hands.

'Why in heaven's name not, Anna?'

'Well,' said Anna, and I could still sense the curious artificiality in her tone, 'I don't care for that way of earning a living. The sort of singing I do is so'--she searched for the word--'ostentatious. There's no truth in it. One's just exploiting one's charm to seduce people.'

I took her by the shoulders and shook her. 'You don't believe what you're saying!' I cried.

'I do, Jake!' Anna looked up at me almost imploringly. How about the theatre?' I asked. 'How does that come in?'

'This is pure art,' said Anna. 'It's very simple and it's very 'Anna, who's been getting at you?' I asked her.

'Jake,' said Anna, 'you were always like that. As soon as I said Anything that surprised you, you said that someone had been getting at me!'

During the last part of our conversation she had laid her hand lip, in my shoulder so that her wrist watch was just in sight, and I could see her gaze passing lightly over it from time to time. I felt humus.

'Stop looking at your watch!' I said. 'You haven't seen me for wins. You can spare me a little time now!'

I guessed that Anna had it in mind that very soon our téte-a-téte would be interrupted. Our interview had a schedule of which Alum was continuously aware. All Anna's life worked to schedule, like a nun, she would have been lost without her watch. I took the wrist with the watch upon it, and twisted it until I heard gasp. She faced me now with an intensity and a bright silent defiance which I remembered and loved from long ago. We regarded each other so for a moment. We knew each other very well. I kept her pinioned, but released the tension enough for us to kiss. Her body was tense again, but now it was as if my grip had communicated to it some positive force, and it was like a rigid missile to which I clung as we hurtled through space. I kissed her stiffened neck and shoulder.

'Jake, you're hurting me,' said Anna.

I let her go and lay heavily upon her breasts, completely limp. She stroked my hair. We lay so in silence for a long time. The universe came to rest like a great bird.

'You're going to say that I must go,' I said.

'You must,' said Anna, 'or rather, I must. Now get up, please.'

I got up, and I felt as if I were rising from sleep. I looked down on Anna. She lay amid the coloured debris like a fairy-tale princess tumbled from her throne. The silks were at hip and breast. A long tress of hair had escaped. She lay still for a moment, receiving my gaze, her foot arching with consciousness of it.

'Where's your crown?' I asked.

Anna searched under the pile and produced a gilded coronet. We laughed. I helped her up and we dusted bits of tinsel, gold dust, and loose spangles off her dress.

While Anna did her hair I ranged about the room, examining everything. I suddenly felt quite at ease now. I knew that I should see Anna again.

'You must explain about this place,' I said. 'Who acts here?'

'Mainly amateurs,' said Anna. 'Some of my friends. But it's a quite special technique.'

'Yes, I could see that,' I said.

Anna turned on me. 'So you went into the theatre?'

'Yes, just for an instant. Did it matter? It looked very impressive,' I said. 'Is it something Indian?'

'There are connexions with India,' said Anna, 'but it's really something on its own.' I could see she was thinking of something else.

'Well, that's a prop you'll hardly need much!' I said, pointing to the thundersheet.

A thundersheet, in case you don't know, is a thin piece of metal, a couple of yards square, which when shaken produces a mysterious rumbling noise not unlike thunder. I went up to it.

'Don't touch it!' said Anna. 'Yes, we're going to sell that.'

'Anna, did you mean it about singing?' I asked.

'Yes,' said Anna, 'it's corrupt,' she said. I had again the curious feeling of seeing someone in the grip of a theory.

'Only very simple things can be said without falsehood,' she added.

'What I saw in that theatre wasn't simple,' I told her.

Anna spread her hands. 'What did you want me for?' she asked.

This question brought me back to reality. I said cautiously, 'I wanted to see you. You know that. But I've also got a problem about somewhere to live. Perhaps you can advise me. I suppose I couldn't live here,' I asked, 'in an attic or something?'

Anna shivered. 'No,' she said, 'that would be impossible.' We looked at each other, both thinking fast.

'When shall I see you again?' I asked.

Anna's face was rigid and withdrawn. 'Jake,' she said, 'you must leave me alone for a while. I have a lot of things to think about.'

'So have I,' I said. 'We might think together.'

She smiled a pale smile. 'If I need you I'll call for you,' she said. 'And I may need you.'

'I hope you will,' I said, and I wrote Dave's address for her on a piece of paper. 'I give you notice that if a long time passes without my being needed I shall appear whether I'm needed or not.'

Anna was looking at her watch again.

'May I write to you?' I asked. In my experience women who have any interest at all in keeping a hand on you will rarely refuse this. It binds without compromising. Anna, who knew my thoughts on this topic, as on most others, eyed me, and we both smiled.

'I don't mind,' she said. 'A letter to the theatre finds me.'

She was picking up her things now and frowning slightly. It occurred to me that the problem that preoccupied her was how to get me out of the building without being seen.

'I haven't anywhere to sleep tonight,' I told her: my first lie. 'May I stay here?'

Anna eyed me again, wondering how much I knew about what she was thinking. She considered it.

'All right,' she said. 'Stay here--and don't come down with me now. Only you must promise not to prowl around and to leave the place early tomorrow.' I promised.

'Suggest where I can live, Anna,' I said.

I thought that now that she'd come as far as letting me stay the night she might relent in the matter of an attic. Anna set her desk in order and locked the drawers.

'Look,' she said. 'You might try Sadie. She's going to the States and she wants a caretaker to look after her flat. You might just do.' She scribbled down an address.

I took it with reserve. 'Are you friends with Sadie now?' I asked.

Anna laughed a bit impatiently. 'She's my sister. We put up with each other. You could go and see her anyway--this idea might just work.' And she looked at me doubtfully.

'Well, let's meet tomorrow and discuss it some more,' I suggested.

This decided Anna. 'No,' she said. 'You go and see Sadie--and don't come back here unless I summon you.'

She turned to go. I took her hand, and then embraced her with immense tenderness. She returned the embrace. We parted.

I heard no sound after the door closed, and for some time I stood as one enchanted in the middle of the room. During my talk with Anna it had become quite dark in the room, but outside it was still a late blue summer evening that made the trees and the river vibrate with colour. Some little while later I heard the sound of a car starting. I went to the window, and by leaning out a little could command a piece of the roadway. As I looked out a luxurious black Alvis purred round the corner and up towards the main road. I wondered if Anna was inside. For the moment I hardly cared. As for her ambiguous dismissal of me, I was used to this. Most of the women I know behave in this way, and I have become accustomed to asking no questions, and even to thinking no questions. We all live in the interstices of each other's lives, and we would all get a surprise if we could see everything. I knew that there was a man in it somewhere; there always was where Anna was concerned. But that speculation could wait.