Iris Murdoch - The Sandcastle

‘What is it?’ said Mor. He was surprised at her emotion. ‘Don’t be afraid. I can see from here that there’s no one in the studio.’

They came down the grassy path, stepping on the withered leaves of ferns, and crossed a cobbled yard towards the door. Mor stepped inside first. A strong smell of paint greeted him, the clean self-assertive smell of art, after the woodland perfumes of nature which had drifted with them down the hill. There was no one within.

‘Come on, the coast’s clear!’ he called to Miss Carter, who was still standing on the cobblestones and looking as if she was ready to run. She entered slowly, leaning warily round the side of the door.

Once she was well inside her attention was caught by the paintings which were pinned on to tall boards which leaned against the walls all round the room. She began to look at them. Through the high windows the golden light of the afternoon came benevolently down, and gave to the studio something of the air of a modern church. For the first time that day Mor felt himself at leisure to observe his companion. He sat down on one of the stools and watched her as she moved from picture to picture. She looked like a child’s picture herself, extremely gay and simple. Her dark hair, which was jaggedly cut, arched at the crown and crowded on her brow. Mor observed the youthful fullness of her face, pouting with concentration — and as he watched her he reflected to himself how rarely it was now that he met a woman.

‘How wonderfully children observe!’ said Miss Carter in an excited tone. ‘Look at this scene — it’s so dramatic. A grown-up artist would not dare to be so dramatic. Indeed he could hardly do it without being sentimental.’

Mor looked at the picture. It represented a young girl stepping on to a train, while a young man offered her a rose with a gesture of despair. Before Mor could think of a comment, Miss Carter had moved on to another picture, and another, making enthusiastic exclamations. At the end of the row lay a pile of white paper and some poster paint ready mixed. When she reached the last picture Miss Carter twirled on her heel, seized one of the brushes, and drew in paint an almost perfect circle on one of the sheets. She did this so quickly that Mor had to laugh.

‘You know the story about Giotto,’ she said, ‘that when some grand people came to commission a picture, and wanted a specimen of his work, he just drew a perfect circle for them with his brush? He got the job. That impressed me somehow as a child. I used to practise it, as if it were a guarantee of success.’

‘Is it hard?’ said Mor.

‘Try’, said Miss Carter, handing him the brush, still full of paint.

Mor balanced the unfamiliar object in his hand, and drew a very shaky oval shape upon the paper. ‘Hopeless!’ he said, laughing. The two figures intersected. ‘I think we ought to go, said Mor. He had promised to deliver Miss Carter back for a late tea at Brayling’s Close, and he began suddenly to be uneasy about the time.

‘Oh dear,’ said Miss Carter. ‘Now I don’t want to go. The smell of paint makes me feel quite strange.’ She began to wander between the rows of stools and easels, sniffing the air and spreading out her arms. ‘Where does that lead to?’ she asked, pointing to a wooden ladder which led upward to a trap-door in the ceiling of the studio.

This is an old barn, you know,‘ said Mor. ’That leads to the loft. It’s quite well lighted. The near part of it is a pottery room, and the far part has been made into a sort of flat for Mr Bledyard.‘

‘He lives up there?’ said Miss Carter.

‘Yes,’ said Mor.

‘I want to see!’ she said, and before Mor could stop her she was running up the ladder and pushing at the trap-door.

‘Wait a moment!’ cried Mor, and began to climb after her. The trap-door yielded and he saw the canvas shoes flapping to reveal the soles of her feet as she pulled herself up into the loft above him. When he reached the top Miss Carter was running about between the potter’s wheels which stood at intervals about the floor. Mor was reminded of the scene in the rose garden. He began to feel nervous.

‘I think we’d better go,’ he said. ‘Mr Bledyard might come back and find us here.’

‘I should like to see his room,’ said Miss Carter. ‘Is it in here?’ She went to the far end of the loft and opened a door. Mor followed her.

The big space, stretching the width of the loft, with the roof sloping on both sides, and well lit by sky-lights, was Bledyard’s bed-sittingroom. His kitchen and bathroom were in an outhouse below, which was reached by a wooden stair. Mor, who had only once before beheld this room, looked at it with a little awe. It was extremely bare and colourless. The floor was scrubbed and the walls whitewashed. No picture, no coloured object adorned it. The furniture was of pale wood, and even the bed had a white cover.

Miss Carter stared about her. ‘No colours,’ she murmured. ‘Interesting.’

‘Well, now you’ve seen it, let’s go down,’ said Mor.

‘I must just try the bed,’ said Miss Carter, ‘to see how hard it is!’ She skipped across to Bledyard’s bed and subsided on to it, reclining there with her head propped on her arm and her black trousered legs outstretched on the counterpane. In the chaste scene she looked as dusky as a chimney-sweeper’s boy. She peered up at Mor.

Mor was irritated and slightly shocked. He checked a comment, and deliberately withdrew his attention from her as from a child that shows off. It was not clear to him just how spontaneous these antics were. He went back to the trap-door, meaning to descend again into the studio, but as he looked down through the square hole into the well-lighted room below, he saw with a slight thrill of alarm that the studio door was opening. The foreshortened figure of Bledyard, his chin sunk upon his breast as usual, appeared slowly round the door. He seemed to be alone. He began to poke around, looking for something. As he was so intent upon his search, and as his lank and longish hair fell well forward on either side of his cheeks like blinkers, it was unlikely that his gaze should be attracted to the trap-door. He continued to potter. Mor watched him, feeling the curious guilt which attaches to seeing someone unseen from above: and the moment somehow passed at which he could call out to him in a natural way. He hesitated, trying to think of something to say to Bledyard which would at the same time warn Miss Carter to rise from her ridiculous pose and set the bed to rights. However, before he could speak, Bledyard had turned about and left the studio, and his footsteps were to be heard pounding across the cobbles and into the wood.

‘What is it?’ asked Miss Carter. She was still stretched out on the bed, watching Mor intently through the bedroom door.

He came back and stood over her. He did not want to raise his voice. ‘Bledyard!’ he said. ‘But he’s gone now.’

Miss Carter sprang up and began to smooth down the counterpane. She was extremely flurried and apologetic. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘He didn’t see us, did he? I am so sorry.’

Mor told her it didn’t matter, and then led her away quickly down the back stairs. He felt annoyance with himself for not having spoken at once to Bledyard and with the girl for the thoroughly silly way in which their afternoon had ended. Here, it seemed, was another foolish small secret between them. Mor disapproved of secrets.

Chapter Four

NAN never managed to look like anything in her outdoor clothes. She could look handsome and well got-up at an evening party - but her coats and hats never looked quite right. Mor could see her now, as he gazed over the heads of his audience, sitting near the back with a slightly superior smile on her face. She wore a rather characterless felt hat, and although it was a warm evening, a coat with fur on the collar.