Iris Murdoch - The Sandcastle

Mor walked very slowly back down the platform. He gave up his platform ticket. He came out into the sun and stood still in the dusty deserted station yard, which was quite silent now that the roar of the train had died away into the distance. Mor stood there, arrested by some obscure feeling of pleasure, and somehow in the quietness of the morning he apprehended that there were many many things to be glad about. He waited. Then from the very depths of his being the knowledge came to him, suddenly and with devastating certainty. He was in love with Miss Carter. He stood there looking at the dusty ground and the thought that had taken shape shook him so that he nearly fell. He took a step forward. He was in love. And if in love then not just a little in love, but terribly, desperately, needfully in love. With this there came an inexpressibly violent sense of joy. Mor still stood there quietly looking at the ground; but now he felt that the world had started to rotate about him with a gathering pace and he was at the centre of its movement.

Mor drew in a deep breath and smiled down at the dry earth below him, swaying slightly on his heels. I must be mad, he thought, smiling. The words formed, and were swept upward like leaves in a furnace. He walked slowly across the station yard to the wooden gate. He caressed the wood of the gate. It was dry flaky wood, warm in the sun, beautiful. Mor picked splinters off it. He could not stop smiling. I must be mad, he thought, whatever shall I do? Then he thought, I must see Miss Carter at once. When I see her I shall know what to do. Then I shall know what this state of mind is and what to do about it. I shall know then, when I see her. When I see her .

He left the station yard at a run and began to run along the road towards the school. It was a long way. The hot sun struck him on the brow with repeated blows, and the warm air refused to refresh his lungs. He ran on, painting and gasping. He must get to his bicycle, which was in the shed in the masters’ garden. His desire to see Miss Carter was now so violent it was become an extra quite physical agony, apart from the straining of his lungs and the aching of his muscles. He kept on running. The school was in sight now. An agonizing stitch made him slow down to walking pace. The pain of his anxiety shaped his face into a cry and his breath came in an audible whine. He turned into the drive and managed to run again as far as the bicycle-shed.

He dragged his bicycle out, manhandling it as if it were a savage animal. It had a flat tyre. Mor threw it on the ground and kicked it, swearing aloud. He looked about and chose another bicycle at random. It occurred to him that the Classical Sixth would be waiting for him at eleven-fifteen, to have a history lesson. But he had no hesitation now. He had recovered his breath, but the other agony continued, biting him in the stomach so that he almost could have cried out with the pain of wanting to see her. He set off on the borrowed machine, bounced badly over the gravel, on to the main road, and started up the hill towards the railway bridge.

The hill was merciless, and his pedalling grew slower and slower, until the bicycle was tacking crazily upon the fierce slope. He got off and pushed it at a run to the top of the hill. Then as he sailed down the other side, seeing for a moment in the distance the glowing walls of Brayling’s Close, he uttered to himself the word ‘Rain’. At a tremendous pace, pedalling madly now to catch up with the speed of the wheels, he plunged onward. He turned the bicycle, without dismounting, across the grassy strip in the middle of the dual carriageway, and launched it like a thunderbolt into Demoyte’s drive. The gravel flew to both sides like spray. He fell off the machine and threw it to the side of the house and then cannoned through the front door. The house was still and fragrant within. Mor crossed the hall and threw open the drawing-room door.

The easel was still in place and Demoyte was sitting in the sun near the window with his back turned towards the door, in an attitude of repose. There was no sign of Miss Carter.

‘Hello, sir,’ said Mor, swinging on the door, ‘where’s Miss Carter?’

‘Accustomed as I am,’ said Demoyte, without turning round, ‘to being treated like an old useless piece of outdated ante-diluvian junk, I -’

‘Sorry, sir,’ said Mor, and stepped into the room, ‘forgive me. But I did want to see Miss Carter rather urgently. You don’t happen to know where she is?’

‘Suppose you come round to the front,’ said Demoyte, ‘if you have the time to spare, that is, so that I can at least see your face during this conversation.’

Mor came round and faced the old man, who looked up at him sombrely and waited for Mor to make another remark.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Mor. ‘Do you know where she is?’

‘If you had come at practically any other hour of any other day,’ said Demoyte, ‘you would have found the young lady here at work. She has been toiling like the proverbial black. But just at this hour of this day she has, unfortunately for you, gone out for a walk.’ Demoyte spoke very slowly as if deliberately to torture his interlocutor.

Mor saw out of the corner of his eye that a great deal had happened to the canvas since he last saw it, but he did not turn to look. Making an effort to speak slowly too, he said, ‘You don’t happen to know, sir, in which direction she went or where I might have a chance of meeting her on the way?’ The pain within him was continuing to bite.

‘I don’t, as you put it, happen to know this, I’m afraid,’ said Demoyte. ‘I wonder if you realize that your collar has come undone and is sticking up at the back of your neck in a rather ludicrous manner? I have never liked those detachable collars. They make you look like a country schoolmaster. And you seem to have got some oil or tar or something on to your face. May I suggest that you set your appearance to rights before you continue your search?’

Mor jabbed back at his collar, settled it somehow into the protective custody of his coat, and ran his hand vaguely over his face. He turned to go. ‘I think I’ll be off,’ he said. ‘Thank you all the same.’

As he got to the door, Demoyte said, ‘She went by the path over the fields. Not that that will help you much.’

‘Thank you,’ said Mor. He ran out, seized his bicycle, and cycled out of the gate and sharply round on to the little footpath. The machine bucked wildly as he bounced over bumps and tufts of grass. He was riding now straight into the sun and had to keep one hand raised to shade his eyes. There was nobody to be seen on the path, and already the edge of the housing estate was well in view. Mor ran his bicycle through an alleyway and on to one of the roads of the estate. It was hopeless. He had much better go home now, put his face into some cold water, and think again about what he was supposed to be doing. But instead he rode past his house and up to the front gate of the school. It was just conceivable that Miss Carter might have gone into the school to call on Evvy.

At the front gate stood the tall white-clad figure of the games master, Hensman. He was lounging in an athletic way against one of the pillars of the gate.

‘The good weather’s keeping up,’ said Hensman. ‘Perhaps we shall have a fine day for the House Match for once.’

‘Yes, it looks like it,’ said Mor. He had got off his bicycle and was standing irresolutely at the gate.

‘Your son’s not shaping too badly,’ said Hensman. We’ll make a cricketer of him yet. He’s quite the white hope of Prewett’s team. Not that that’s saying much, I’m afraid.‘ Cricket was not, in Hensman’s view, taken quite seriously enough in Prewett’s house.

‘Yes, good,’ said Mor. ‘You haven’t seen Miss Carter go past here, by any chance?’