Iris Murdoch - The Sandcastle

Mr Everard was now touchingly anxious to make conversation. His forehead wrinkled with the effort, and he turned a worried face towards Miss Carter between every mouthful. ‘I believe you have lived abroad a great deal,’ he said, ‘and that you are quite a stranger to this island, Miss Carter?’

‘Yes, I have lived mostly in France,’ said Miss Carter. ‘I was brought up in the South of France.’

‘Ah, the shores of the Mediterranean!’ said Evvy, ‘that “grand object of travel”, as Dr Johnson said. You were fortunate, Miss Carter.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Miss Carter, turning seriously towards him. ‘I am not sure that the South of France is a good place for a child. It is so hot and dry. I remember my childhood as a time of terrible dryness, as if it were a long period of drought.’

‘Ah, but you were by the sea, were you not?’ said Evvy.

‘Yes,’ said Miss Carter, ‘but a melancholy sea as I remember it. A tideless sea. I can recall, as a child, seeing pictures in English children’s books of boys and girls playing on the sand and making sandcastles — and I tried to play on my sand. But a Mediterranean beach is not a place for playing on. It is dirty and very dry. The tides never wash the sand or make it firm. When I tried to make a sandcastle, the sand would just run away between my fingers. It was too dry to hold together. And even if I poured sea water over it, the sun would dry it up at once.’

This speech caught Bledyard’s attention. He stopped eating and looked at Miss Carter. For a moment he looked as if he might speak. Then he decided not to, and went on eating. Mor looked at Miss Carter too. She seemed to be overcome with confusion, either at the length of her speech or at Bledyard’s attention. Mor was both touched and irritated.

Mr Everard pursued his conversational way relentlessly. ‘You are an only child, I believe, Miss Carter?

‘Unfortunately, yes,’ said Miss Carter.

‘And did you always live with your father? You must have led quite a social existence.’

‘No,’ said Miss Carter, ‘my father was rather a solitary. My mother died when I was very young. I lived alone with my father, until early this year, that is, when he died.’

There was a silence. Evvy toyed with the remains of his meal, trying to think what to say next. Mor stole a glance at Miss Carter, and then sat petrified. She had closed her eyes, and two tears had escaped from them and were coursing down her cheeks.

Mor was pierced to the heart. How little imagination I have! he thought. I knew she had just lost her father, but it didn’t even occur to me to wonder whether she was grieving. He also tried to think, in vain, of something to say.

Bledyard saw the tears and threw down his knife and fork. ‘Miss Carter,’ said Bledyard, leaning forward, ‘I am a great admirer admirer of your father’s work.’

Mor’s heart warmed to Bledyard. Miss Carter dashed away the tears very quickly. Evv hadn’t even noticed them. ‘I’m so glad,’ she said. She sounded glad.

‘Did your father teach you to paint?’ asked Bledyard.

‘Yes,’ said Miss Carter, ‘he was quite a tyrant. I feel as if I was born with a paint brush in my hand. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t painting, with my father standing beside me.

Evvy had taken advantage of this shift of the conversational burden to rise and remove the plates. Mor helped him. It was stewed fruit and ice-cream to follow. The ice-cream was rather melted.

‘In fact, you can’t teach teach children to paint,’ said Bledyard. ‘They already know how to paint. It is the only art that comes naturally to all human beings.’

‘What about music?’ said Mor. He wanted to get into the conversation.

‘I know,’ said Miss Carter simultaneously. ‘My father didn’t teach me in that sense till I was quite old. But then he was very severe. I can remember being made to paint the same thing again and again.’

‘But they forget it later,’ said Bledyard. It was characteristic of Bledyard s conversation that he did not always attend to remarks made by his interlocutor, but pursued his own train of thought aloud. This was sometimes confusing until one got used to it. ‘They forget how forget how to paint at about the time when they lose their innocence. They have to learn all over again after that. What does that prove? Painting is man’s most fundamental mode of apprehension. We are incarnate incarnate creatures, our mode of knowledge is sensible, and vision is sovereign over the other senses. Before man could speak he could draw.’ It was also characteristic of Bledyard that whereas he might sit completely silent for long periods at a social gathering, if once he did start to talk he would dominate the conversation.

Miss Carter was not embarrassed by Bledyard. She watched him with lips parted. She clearly found him fascinating. Mor set aside his plate. The ice-cream was tasteless. He hated ice-cream anyway.

‘If you will excuse me,’ said Mr Everard, ‘I will start making the coffee. It takes a little time to prepare in my special coffee-machine. No, no, stay where you are. You haven’t finished your fruit, I see. Cheese and biscuits are on the table, so do help yourselves if you want any. I shall just be getting the coffee quite quietly.’

Evvy escaped from the table. He had lately acquired a coffee-machine, from which Mor had had great hopes; however, since Evvy never put even half of the correct amount of coffee into the machine, the results were just as deplorable as before.

‘You think we give significance to the world by representing it?’ said Miss Carter to Bledyard. ‘No, thank you,’ she said to Mor, who was offering her a biscuit.

Mor gloomily undid the silver paper from a limp triangle of processed cheese.

‘Representation is an ambiguous word,’ said Bledyard. ‘To represent something something is a task which must be undertaken with humility. What is the first and most fundamental truth which an incarnate being must realize? That he is a thing, a material object in space and time, and that as such he will come to an end. What is the next next truth which he must realize? That he is related on the one hand to God, who is not a thing, and on the other hand to other things which surround him. Now these other things things,’ Bledyard raised his spoon to emphasize his words, ‘are some of them mere things, and others of them God-related things like himself.’

Over by the hearth, Mr Everard seemed to be having some trouble with the coffee-machine. Mor saw with foreboding that he seemed to be pouring in a lot of water at the last moment.

‘Shall we repair?’ said Evvy. ‘The coffee is almost ready.’ Bledyard, Mor, and Miss Carter rose from the table.

‘It is distinctly indicated indicated in the Bible,’ said Bledyard, ‘that the works of nature are placed upon this earth for the benefit of man. Is that not so, Mis-ter Ever-ard?’

Evvy jumped at being suddenly appealed to. ‘That is so, Mr Bledyard,’ he said. ‘Er, Miss Carter, pray sit here. Do you take milk in your coffee?’

‘Yes, please,’ said Miss Carter.

‘It is also the case,’ said Bledyard, ‘that the Bible commands commands us to abstain from the creation of graven images.’

‘I hope you don’t mind the milk being cold, Miss Carter,’ said Mr Everard. ‘This is rather a bachelor establishment, I’m afraid.’

‘Thank you,’ said Miss Carter, ‘I like it better like that. Only a little, please.’

‘So that we would expect,’ said Bledyard, ‘to find the early Church the early Church in two minds upon the matter of religious painting and sculpture. However, it seems to be the case that the fathers felt no special impediment impediment to representational art, and very soon in the history of the Church we find worship and praise naturally taking the form of representation, as in the noble mosaics at Ravenna.’