Iris Murdoch - The Sandcastle

‘I must go,’ said Mor. ‘You wait here for me. Do not go away. Wait here.’ He spoke with authority.

Then for the second time that morning he ran out of the door in pursuit. He looked up and down. There was no sign of Nan. He began to run towards the main road, looking down all the side roads as he passed them. She was not to be seen. The rain fell, blinding him, and making a grey curtain through which it was impossible to see where Nan had gone. He came up to the main road. Already a few cars were passing and a man on a bicycle was doggedly pedalling up the hill. Mor looked and looked. He could not see Nan. He turned back into the maze of suburban roads, and for a long time he ran to and fro searching for her. But he did not find her. She had disappeared into the rain and the whiteness of the morning.

Chapter Twelve

NAN had had her first shock of discovery when she overheard Felicity talking by long-distance telephone with her brother. The villa which the Mors rented every year near Swanage was equipped with two telephones, one in the drawing-room and one in the main bedroom. Donald had rung up; and imagining that her mother, who had not hastened to answer the call, was still out shopping, Felicity had spoken frankly with him. Nan, who did not think that children should have secrets from their parents, had lifted the receiver in the bedroom and was disquieted indeed at what she heard.

Nothing emerged very clearly from the conversation, but enough emerged to make Nan suspect that more must lie behind. She sat for some time in the bedroom, thinking hard. Nan’s first emotion was extreme surprise. What followed it was anger. This was mingled with what was almost a feeling of satisfaction at the prospect of being able to find her husband so palpably in the wrong. After the quarrel which preceded her departure Nan had had a small twinge of conscience. She was quite sure that she was right to oppose Bill’s foolish and unsuitable plan; but she felt that perhaps she had been unduly unpleasant in her manner of doing so. The information which she had gained from Felicity, vague as it was, was sufficient to dispel her sense of guilt, and also to put her in possession of a weapon which it was certainly at this time convenient to have. Not that Nan imagined that Bill would persist much longer with his Labour Party scheme. She had never in the past, in any major issue, failed to persuade him eventually to see things as she did. But deep in her heart she was pleased all the same to have this unexpected access of strength, although the source of it was so extremely disagreeable.

Very soon, however, the disagreeable aspect predominated. Nan found herself exceedingly disturbed. She was deeply certain both of her husband’s correctness and of his common sense, and it was a measure of this certainty that the matter had appeared to her at first sight in terms of a momentary lapse on his part which gave her, in her struggle with him, a momentary advantage. But now her mind began to dwell on Miss Carter. Running over every meeting she had had with the girl, she now saw her as the sly insinuating creature that she was. How could she have thought her naive? Yet in a way she was naive. That sort of girl was able to mature the most infamous plans behind a mask of naivety which deceived even herself, living in an atmosphere of hypocrisy so total that she was unable any more to distinguish the true from the false. Was it possible that Bill really liked her? Presumably this soft cat-like nature must appeal to some desire to be soothed and comforted which existed in all men, especially middle-aged ones.

Nan had never reflected on this sort of matter before. She had never in her life for a single second doubted of Bill’s absolute fidelity to her. She did not propose to start doubting it now. Surely the children must have exaggerated or misunderstood. At the very most, all that was involved was some moment of infatuation, something which even by now was over, dissolved into the air. There was almost certainly nothing to it.

Or was there? Nan continued to be extremely uneasy and restless. What ought she to do? She thought of writing a letter to Miss Carter, and even began in her mind to compose one whose venom amazed her. But that was foolish. She had no vestige of evidence, and with that sort of girl one never knew, she might have the insolence to invoke legal proceedings. Nan had extremely vague ideas about libel and slander, and a corresponding nervousness at the idea of putting anything down on paper. And in any case, as she kept telling herself, it was all probably a misunderstanding, there was surely nothing to it.

She wandered about the house and got through the afternoon somehow. She managed to conceal her distress from Felicity. By six o‘clock in the evening she had reduced herself to a condition of mental turmoil such as she never remembered having experienced before. She decided that the only thing to be done was to go home at once, explain the whole thing to Bill, and get it definitely once and for all cleared up. Then she would be able to enjoy her holiday in peace. She was surprised at her inability to behave with normal calmness. She decided to go on the following morning. Then she tried to settle down to a book. It was impossible. She told a story to Felicity about having to go to London to see someone who was ill; she packed a bag and boarded the night train.

What Nan beheld when she entered her house surprised her very much indeed. She had arrived home at this hour, not with any intention of discovering a guilty pair, but simply because of her own impatience and the working of the train timetable. It had never occurred to Nan to imagine Bill capable of bringing the girl into the house. In a second she saw that she had been wrong throughout. Things had certainly gone very far. She turned and ran, partly as an effect of sheer shock, and partly because she needed to think again before she confronted her husband.

As she ran away through the rain she could hear his steps pursuing her in the gloomy stillness of the early morning, and she ran down a side road and into an alley that led to some garages. There she stood quite still for some time after the sound of his footsteps had disappeared. She leaned back against the fence, clutching her small handbag, her feet deep in a dump of weeds which was growing out of the gravel. She stared fixedly at the side of the house opposite. The curtains were drawn. The people in the houses all about were still sleeping. By now the rain had soaked through the scarf which she was wearing about her head and was beginning to trickle down her neck inside the collar of her raincoat.

As she stood there Nan felt, for the first time since she had found out that something was wrong, overwhelmed with sheer misery. She had felt amazement, fury, and extreme disquiet, she had even experienced a curious exhilaration, something of the instinct of the hunter. But it had not occurred to her to feel exactly unhappy. She had never in her life allowed Bill to cause her real unhappiness. There had been, there could be, no occasion for this. In her situation, that of a successfully married woman, unhappiness of that sort would have been merely neurotic. Nan despised the neurotic. But now she felt real grief- which her husband had caused. Gradually the conception that he was interested in another woman began to reach not only her mind but her emotions. As she stood there, her back against the fence, chilled and soaked by the rain, she felt that she had suddenly been dragged into some awful nightmare: she had been driven out of her own house. Her hand went to her mouth. She shook with the grief and the horror of it. The hot tears warmed her cheek, mingling with the rain.

After a while Nan began to walk along the road. She walked through the housing estate and out at the other end, through the shopping centre. The shops were not open yet, but the day was beginning. People were passing on their way to work. The rain was abating a little. Nan went into a public lavatory and adjusted her appearance as best she could. Then she went out and boarded a bus that would take her to Marsington. She wanted to see Tim Burke.