Iris Murdoch - The Sandcastle

‘Damn!’ said Mor. He tried again and was more successful. The Riley glided very slowly forward and Mor navigated her round a turning in the path. A tree brushed the roof. Almost silently they sailed on through the thickest part of the wood. Miss Carter was grave now, she was looking ahead. As he felt the big car purring quietly along under his control Mor felt like a king. He experienced a deep and intense joy. His body relaxed. He was continuous with the car, with the slowly moving woodland, with the thick green carpet of the unrolling bridle path. They drove for a minute without speaking.

Then Mor saw the woodlander. He was lying very close to the path in a little clearing where the trees receded and left a wide bare space which was covered with fallen leaves. All round the edge the flowers and brambles were festooned in a thick palisade, at the farthest point of which a triangular cleft led far back into the wood and was lost in darkness. The man lay on his side in the dry leaves and seemed to be playing a game with some brightly coloured cards. Most of the cards were in his hand, but some half-dozen were laid out upon the ground. He was a short broad man, dressed in shabby blue cotton trousers and a blue shirt. The clothes had something of the air of a uniform, without being of any identifiable kind. Near by, beneath the brambles, could be seen a bundle and what looked like the handle of some tool. The man’s face was half turned towards them, his eyes cast down, and the peculiarly dark bronze of his cheek suggested that he might be a gipsy. His hair was tangled and black.

Involuntarily Mor stopped the car. They were within a few feet of the man. A moment passed. The reclining figure did not look up. He continued to stare at the row of cards that lay upturned before him. He paid not the slightest attention to the watchers in the car. Mor felt Miss Carter touching his arm. He started the engine again and they drove on. The man was lost to view in the trees.

Mor turned to look at his companion. Miss Carter was pale and had covered her mouth with her hand. ‘Don’t be frightened,’ said Mor.

‘I am frightened,’ said Miss Carter. ‘I don’t know why.’

The car bumped quietly along. The path seemed endless. Mor was a bit frightened too, he didn’t know why. He said, ‘He was probably one of those nomadic woodcutters that work for the forestry commission. They live in shacks, or tents in the wood.’

‘He looked to me like a gipsy,’ said Miss Carter, ‘and I’m sure they never work for anyone. I wonder if we should have given him money? Do you think so?’

Mor cast a quick glance at her. He was unnerved by her agitation. ‘Much better not,’ he said. ‘Sometimes they are very proud, those people.’ He realized as he said this that he would have felt timid at having to address the man.

‘Did you notice that those weren’t ordinary playing cards?’ said Miss Carter.

At that moment they came round another bend in the bridle path and there before them was the river. The path turned along the bank, transforming itself into a wide lawn, and between waving banks of bulrushes, willow herb, and meadow sweet the river ran strongly, its surface glossy and brilliant. A few late forget-me-nots still lingered, their stems submerged, at the edge of the reed-bed. There was a smell of water.

Mor stopped the car and they both got out. They went forward to the edge and stood for some time in silence. The scene was so like a garden that Mor glanced about him, half expecting to see a house nearby. But there was nothing to be seen except the river, which disappeared again on both sides into the thick wood. He looked at Miss Carter. She was standing deep among the tangle of leaves and flowers on the river bank. She had a drugged entranced look upon her face. As if blindly, her hands reached out into the foliage. She plucked a leaf, and conveyed it to her mouth, and chewed it thoughtfully, her eyes upon the water.

Mor turned about and walked a little way along the grassy lawn. Here was the real country where the seasons’ change is marked by minute signs. Blackthorn gives way to hawthorn and hawthorn to elder. How rarely he came here. He drew the branches aside, and then saw that the river widened into a pool, hidden under a low roof of spreading leaves. The bank shelved gently here, and met the water in a pebbly beach. Beyond it the stream seemed to be deeper, striped upon one side with lines of white crows’ feet, which lay thickly beneath the far bank, but clear in the middle. A white swan’s feather scudded lightly upon the surface. Mor turned to convey this discovery to his companion, but found her there already beside him.

‘Oh,’ said Miss Carter, ‘I must swim! Do you mind? I must! I must!’

Mor felt a little alarmed and shocked at this suggestion; but he felt too that his permission was being asked and he could hardly say no. He was silent.

‘Oh, please I must swim,’ said Miss Carter again. Mor saw the wild light in her eye. He was reminded suddenly of the rose garden, of Bledyard’s room.

‘Of course, swim if you want to,’ said Mor. ‘I only hope nobody comes. I’ll stay well away here on the bank and watch for intruders.’

‘No one will come,’ said Miss Carter, ‘no one will find this place. Yes, you go down there. I’ll undress here, on the far side of these bushes. I won’t be a moment. But I must get into the river.’

Mor went out again into the sunlight and walked away, his feet dragging through meadow sweet at the river’s brim. He felt uneasy. The sun was intensely hot. The perspiration was running steadily like tears down the side of his face. The river was very inviting indeed. Mor turned his head the other way. He sat down where a gap in the reeds showed him a small section of water. Here the bank was high and steep and the river flowed past, three or four feet below him. Gorse bushes on the far side of the water emitted their strong coconut perfume. A large dragon-fly hovered for a moment and then whisked into invisibility. No birds sang. The heat had silenced them.

Mor kept his back turned to the place where the low spreading trees concealed from view the weedy pool and Miss Carter. In a moment or two he heard a vigorous splashing sound, and then a triumphant cry. ‘It’s wonderful!’ cried Miss Carter from behind him. ‘It’s marvellously warm. And the water is so clear. And do you know, there’s water-cress growing?’

‘Be careful,’ said Mor. ‘Don’t get caught in those weeds.’

The splashing continued.

Mor felt very uneasy indeed. He suddenly began to wish that he had not started on this silly expedition at all. He began to think about Nan, and his optimistic ideas of the earlier afternoon now seemed futile. He had thought that no great harm would be done. But how did he know this? He had no precedents for episodes of this kind. Mor had never deceived his wife, except for very occasional social lies, and one or two lies about his health. These were all of them occasions which Mor never forgot. Never before had he had to offer to Nan the sort of confession which he would have to present tonight. He had not the slightest idea how she would take it. Of course, nothing very terrible could happen. Once the truth was told, they would both just have to digest it somehow. But he did not know exactly, or even roughly, how it would be, and he felt a deep anguish.

He wondered if he should tell Nan about Miss Carter’s bathing. Probably he ought to have told Miss Carter not to bathe. Yet somehow that would have been cruel. He had better tell everything, Mor thought. If he was to take refuge in the truth, and indeed that was his only possible refuge, it had better be the whole truth. Of course, he would call on Tim Burke on the way home, and that would make at least part of his story true. Or would this be deceitful? Perhaps he had only decided to see Tim Burke as a sort of device to allow himself to spend a longer time with Miss Carter? He wasn’t sure. It occurred to him that after tonight he had better see to it that he did not meet Miss Carter again except in so far as this was inevitable. Not that it mattered specially. How foolish that lie had been. It had made something very simple and trivial into something that appeared important. Mor stared at the river. A water vole swam slowly across and vanished into the reeds on the far side. Mor did not see it. He felt a black veil of sadness falling between him and the warm late afternoon. He looked at his watch.