Iris Murdoch - The Sandcastle

‘All right, don’t bite my head off!’ said Tim.

Donald was coming towards them through the crowd. Mor reflected that if Tim had not been there Donald would certainly have avoided him. The boy greeted them shyly and accepted their congratulations on his innings. He bent down to scrape ineffectually at the green patches upon his white flannel trousers where the grass had stained them. Mor noticed how his face was forming and hardening. But Donald always looked more grown-up in the context of something that he could do well. A little more confidence would do him a lot of good.

‘What can I show you now?’ said Tim. ‘Let me see what I have in my pockets.’ Tim had done this ever since Donald and Felicity were quite small children, and he did it now with exactly the same tone and gestures. He fiddled in his waistcoat pocket. Tim usually affected rather dandified velvet waist-coats, but today, in deference to the solemnity of the occasion, he had put on an ordinary grey suit, which he usually wore on his infrequent visits to church. What Tim drew out of his waistcoat pocket, and held between finger and thumb, was a gold cigarette lighter. It was made to resemble a ‘hunter’ watch case, and was marked in a complicated floral pattern on both sides. It came apart on a hinge in the middle, revealing itself to be a lighter. Tim flicked it and the flame appeared. Mor rapidly produced cigarettes for Tim and himself. Donald was under promise not to smoke until he was twenty-one.

Tim handed the lighter to Donald to look at. The boy turned it over admiringly. It was heavy, and the gold was warm and strangely soft-feeling to the touch. The work was intricate.

‘Where did-you get it?’ said Mor.

‘It’s a little thing I made myself,’ said Tim.

Mor never ceased to be surprised at what Tim Burke was able to do.

‘Do you like it?’ said Tim to Donald, who was flicking the flame into existence once more.

‘ Yes! ’ said Donald.

‘Well, you keep it,’ said Tim, ‘and let it be a reward for a fine cricket player.’

Donald closed his hand round the lighter and held it, wide-eyed, looking at his father.

‘Tim!’ said Mor, ‘you have no common sense at all. That thing’s very valuable, it’s gold. You can’t give an expensive thing like that to the boy!’

‘Just you tell me one sensible reason why I can’t!’ said Tim Burke.

‘He’ll only lose it,’ said Mor, ‘and anyway it’ll encourage him to smoke.’

‘Och, don’t talk through your hat,’ said Tim. ‘He can use it to light camp-fires or look at the names of roads at night. You keep it, me boy.’

Donald still stood looking at Mor.

‘Oh — ’ said Mor. He meant to say, ‘It’s all right,’ but instead he said, ‘What the hell does it matter?’ He gave a jerky gesture which was interpreted by Donald as a gesture of dismissal. The boy turned away and disappeared into the crowd.

‘You should be ashamed — ’ Tim Burke was beginning to say.

Mor became aware that Rain was standing two or three feet away from him. She must have witnessed the scene with Donald. Evvy was standing just beside his elbow and had evidently been waiting to get his word in.

‘I just wanted to say,’ said Evvy, ‘that we’re just going over now in Miss Carter’s car to Mr Demoyte’s house to look at the portrait. We won’t stay long - we’ll be back in time for start of play, or just after. Would you and Mr Burke care to come along, Bill?’

Mor had a second in which to decide his reply. ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘we’d love to come.’

Evvy led the way and they all trooped out of the marquee. Evvy went ahead with Rain, Prewett keeping up with them on the other side. Bledyard, who was also of the party, followed a pace or two behind. Mor and Tim Burke brought up the rear. Mor tried to remember where, on the edge of the wood, he had left his coat. There was not time to fetch it now. He rolled down the crumpled sleeves of his shirt. They reached the drive, where Rain’s Riley was to be seen standing not far from the entrance to the masters’ garden. When he saw the car, Mor’s heart turned over. It looked perfectly sound, indeed better than before, since it had been repainted. The question of the bill returned to him painfully.

Tim Burke said, ‘I’m afraid, after all, I must go. I didn’t realize it was that late. No, I won’t take a lift, thanks, I have my motor-bike just here.’

Evvy said, ‘By the way, Mr Burke, do you know Miss Carter? This is Miss Carter.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Tim, and with a wave of the hand to Mor he disappeared smiling. Mor felt both unnerved and relieved at his departure.

They crowded awkwardly round the car. Eventually, after a few minutes of polite muddle, they got in, Rain and Evvy sitting in the front, and Mor, Prewett, and Bledyard sitting in the back. Mor still felt dazed at the suddenness of this development. He felt a little as if he were being kidnapped. Then he began to blame himself for having come. Rain had not wanted him to come. It had just been impossible not to ask him. The misery which had been with him all the afternoon returned with doubled intensity. By now the car was climbing the hill. As they neared the summit Tim Burke passed them on his Velocette, saluted, and roared straight ahead in the direction of Marsington. The Riley was soon level with Demoyte’s gate, had run on to where a gap gave access to the other traffic lane, and had sped back and into the drive at full tilt. They began to unpack themselves from the car. Mor wondered whose idea the expedition was. He thought it must be Demoyte’s, as neither Rain nor Evvy would dare to descend on the old man uninvited. They went into the house.

Demoyte was standing at the door of the drawing-room, and behind him could be seen a table with cups upon it, and Miss Handforth who was holding a tea-pot as if it were a hand grenade. Evvy was putting on the chubby, jovial, conciliatory look which he always assumed when he saw Demoyte, and Demoyte had put on the grim, sarcastic, uncompromising look which he always assumed when he saw Evvy, and which made Evvy more nervous and chubby than before. They crowded into the drawing-room. During all this time Mor had contrived not to look directly at Rain. He now tried to occupy himself by talking in a distracted manner to Handy.

‘Well, come on,’ said Demoyte, ‘come and look at the masterpiece, that’s what you came for, then you can all have your tea and go.’

The picture was at the far end of the room. The easel had been turned round so that it faced the room. They all went forward towards it, leaving Rain and Demoyte standing behind them with Miss Handforth.

When Mor looked at the picture, everything else went out of his mind. He had thought about it very little earlier, and not at all of late, though he had known vaguely that it must exist. Now its presence assailed him with a shock that was almost physical. Mor had no idea whether it was a masterpiece; but it seemed to him at first sight a most impressive work. Its authority was indubitable. Mor scanned it. It looked as if it was finished. Fumbling he drew a chair close to him and sat down.

Rain had represented Demoyte sitting beside the window with one of the rugs behind him. Outside could be seen a piece of the garden and the tower of the school beyond, made slightly larger than life. On the table before him were some papers, held down by a glass paper-weight, and a book which the old man was holding with a characteristic gesture which the painter had observed very well. Demoyte had a way of holding a book with his fingers spread out across the two pages as if he were drawing the contents out of it with his hand. The other hand was clenched upon the table and the arm straightened above it. Demoyte was looking inwards across the room. It was the attitude of one who has been reading and who has now left the page to follow a thought of his own which the book has suggested. From the extremely decorative background Demoyte’s head emerged with enormous force. The face was in repose, the curve of the lips expressing a sort of fastidious thoughtfulness rather than the sarcasm which was his more customary expression. He must look like that when he is alone, thought Mor, it must be so. I would never have known that. The features were meticulously represented, the innumerable wrinkles, the bright slightly bleary eye of the old man, the tufts of hair in the cars and nostrils. Mor felt that he was really seeing Demoyte for the first time; and with this a sudden compassion came over him. It was indeed the face of an old man. In spite of the bright colours of the rug, the picture as a whole was sombre. The sky was pale, with a flat melancholy pallor, and the trees outside the window were bunched into a dark and slightly menacing mass.