Iris Murdoch - The Sandcastle

Demoyte was the former headmaster of St Bride’s, now retired, but still living in his large house near to the school. The Mors had continued their custom of dining with him regularly. The sum of five hundred guineas, which had so much scandalized Nan, was to be paid for a portrait of him which the school Governors had recently commissioned.

‘Oh, damn, I had forgotten,’ said Nan. ‘Oh, what a blasted bore! I’ll ring up and say I’m ill.’

‘You won’t,’ said Mor. ‘You’ll enjoy it when you’re there.’

‘You always make that futile remark,’ said Nan, ‘and I never do. Will there be company?’ Nan hated company. Mor liked it.

‘There’ll be the portrait painter,’ said Mor. ‘I gather she arrived yesterday.’

‘I read about her in the local rag,’ said Nan. ‘She has some pathetically comic name.’

‘Rain Carter,’ said Mor.

‘Rain Carter!’ said Nan. ‘Cor Lumme! The daughter of Sidney Carter. At least he’s a good painter. Anyway, he’s famous. If you wanted to waste money, why didn’t you ask him?’

‘He’s dead,’ said Mor. ‘He died early this year. His daughter’s supposed to be good too.’

‘She’d better be, at that price,’ said Nan. ‘I suppose I’ll have to dress. She’s sure to be all flossied up. She lives in France. Oh dear! Where is she staying, by the way? The Saracen’s Head?’

‘No,’ said Mor, ‘Miss Carter is staying at Demoyte’s house. She wants to study his character and background before she starts the picture. She’s very academic about it.’

‘Demoyte will be delighted, the old goat!’ said Nan. ‘But what a line! I like “academic”!’

Mor hated Nan’s mockery, even when it was not directed against him. He had once imagined that she mocked others merely in order to protect herself. But as time went on he found it harder to believe that Nan was vulnerable. He decided that it was he who needed the consolation of thinking her so.

‘As you haven’t met the girl,’ he said, ‘why are you being so spiteful?’

‘What sort of question is that?’ said Nan. ‘Do you expect me to answer it?’

They looked at each other. Mor turned away his eyes. He suffered deeply from the discovery that his wife was the stronger. He told himself that her strength sprang only from obstinate and merciless unreason; but to think this did not save him either from suffering coercion or from feeling resentment. He could not now make his knowledge of her into love, he could not even make it into indifference. In the heart of him he was deeply compelled. He was forced. And he was continually offended. The early years of their marriage had been happy enough. At that time he and Nan had talked about nothing but themselves. When this subject failed, however, they had been unable to find another - and one day Mor made the discovery that he was tied for life to a being who could change, who could withdraw herself from him and become independent. On that day Mor had renewed his marriage vows.

‘Sorry,’ said Mor. He had made it a rule to apologize, whether or not he thought himself in the wrong. Nan was prepared to sulk for days. He was always the one who crawled back. Her strength was endless.

‘In fact,’ he said, ‘according to Mr Everard she’s a very shy, naive girl. She led quite a cloistered life with her father.’ The Reverend Giles Everard was the present headmaster of St Bride’s, generally known as the Revvy Evvy.

‘Quite cloistered!’ said Nan. ‘In France! As for Evvy’s judgement, he casts down his eyes like a milkmaid if he meets a member of the other sex. Still, if we have this girl at dinner we shall at least escape Miss Handforth, on whom you dote so!’ Miss Handforth was Mr Demoyte’s housekeeper, an old enemy of Nan.

‘I don’t dote on Handy,’ said Mor, ‘but at least she’s cheerful, and she’s good for Demoyte.’

‘She isn’t cheerful,’ said Nan. ‘She just has a loud voice - and she expects to be in the conversation even when she’s waiting at table. I can’t stand that. There’s no point in having servants if you abandon the conventions. There’s ice-cream to follow. Will you have some? No?’

‘She keeps Demoyte’s spirits up,’ said Mor. ‘He says it’s impossible to think about oneself when there’s so much noise going on.’

‘He’s a morbid old man,’ said Nan. ‘It’s pathetic.’

Mor loved Demoyte. ‘I wish Felicity would come,’ he said.

‘Don’t keep saying that, darling,’ said Nan. ‘Can I have your ice-cream spoon? I’ve used mine to take the gravy off the cloth.’

‘I think I ought to go into school,’ said Mor, looking at his watch.

‘Lunch isn’t over,’ said Nan, ‘just because you ’ve finished eating. And the two-fifteen bell hasn’t rung yet. Don’t forget we must talk to Felicity about her future.’

‘Must we?’ said Mor. This was the sort of provocative reply which he found it very hard to check, and by which Nan was unfailingly provoked. A recurring pattern. He was to blame.

‘Why do you say “must we?” in that peculiar tone of voice?’ said Nan. She had a knack of uttering such a question in a way which forced Mor to answer her.

‘Because I don’t know what I think about it,’ said Mor. He felt a cold sensation which generally preluded his becoming angry.

‘Well, I know what I think about it,’ said Nan. ‘Our finances and her talents don’t leave us much choice, do they?’ She looked directly at Mor. Again it was impossible not to reply.

‘I suggest we wait a while,’ said Mor. ‘Felicity doesn’t know her own mind yet.’ He knew that Nan could go on in this tone for hours and keep quite calm. Arguments would not help him. His only ultimate defence was anger.

‘You always pretend people don’t know what they want when they don’t want what you want,’ said Nan. ‘You are funny, Bill. Felicity certainly wants to leave school. And if she’s to start on that typing course next year we ought to put her name down now.’

‘I don’t want Felicity to be a typist,’ said Mor.

‘Why not?’ said Nan. ‘She could have a good career. She could be secretary to some interesting man.’

‘I don’t want her to be secretary to some interesting man,’ said Mor, ‘I want her to be an interesting woman and have someone else be her secretary.’

‘You live in a dream world, Bill,’ said Nan. ‘Neither of your children are clever, and you’ve already caused them both enough unhappiness by pretending that they are. You’ve bullied Don into taking the College exam and you ought to be satisfied with that. If you’d take our marriage more seriously you’d try to be a bit more of a realist. You must take some responsibility for the children. I know you have all sorts of fantasies about yourself. But at least try to be realistic about them .’

Mor winced. If there was one thing he hated to hear about, it was ‘our marriage’. This entity was always mentioned in connexion with some particularly dreary project which Nan was trying to persuade him to be unavoidably necessary. He made an effort. ‘You may be right,’ he said, ‘but I still think we ought to wait.’

‘I know I’m right,’ said Nan.

The phrase found an echo in Mor’s mind. He was perpetually aware of the danger of becoming too dogmatic himself in opposition to Nan’s dogmatism. He tried to change the subject. ‘I wonder if Felicity will mind your having changed her room round?’

Nan liked moving the furniture about. She kept the rooms in a continual state of upheaval in which nothing was respected, neither one’s belongings nor the way one chose to arrange them, and thereby satisfied, or so it seemed to Mor, her desire to feel that all the things in the house were her things. He had become accustomed, after many years, to the perpetual flux, but he hated the way in which it hurt the children.