Iris Murdoch - The Sandcastle

Nan’s relations with Tim Burke were curious. She had known Tim for more than ten years, ever since her husband, who was teaching at that time in a Grammar School in south London, had first made his acquaintance through the Labour Party. She had always liked him. He had, it seemed to her, a sort of absurd grace and elegance of character which had occasionally, on particular evenings which she still remembered, shown her husband to her by contrast as a rather dour, rather dull and clumsy man. Nan had not, however, made much of these thoughts, and would not even have kept them in her mind had it not been that, at a certain moment, she noticed that Tim Burke’s attentions to her were becoming very marked.

Tim had always treated her with a slightly ludicrous sort of gallantry which Nan had put down to his racial origin, and which she had often laughed at with Bill, but which had pleased her very much all the same. Her husband was never gallant. But now she began to feel, with a mixture of distress and pleasure, that it was possible that Tim Burke was the tiniest bit in love with her. She had said nothing to Bill about it, had made no effort either to see or to avoid Tim, but had watched him closely. One evening about nine o‘clock she had been alone with him in the shop. Bill had gone down the street to make a phone call, since Tim kept no telephone. Tim had been putting a necklace round Nan’s neck, something which he often did when Bill was there. He was facing her and his hands met behind her head to fasten the clasp. The clasp was fastened. But Tim did not withdraw his hands. Then he kissed her on the lips.

Nan had been shocked and upset; yet in the very same instant she had been delighted. She had pushed him away from her. Bill came back almost at once and cut off any possible discussion between them of what had taken place. Nor did either of them ever refer to it again. For some time after this Nan avoided Tim, and saw him, if it were inevitable, only in the company of Bill. Tim behaved in what seemed to Nan a very transparent manner, trying by his whole bearing to indicate to her his regret for what had passed, combined with his continued respect and affection. But Bill noticed nothing, and Nan said nothing. That was four years ago. Gradually relations between them became more natural, and Nan began to remember the incident not with any pain but with a sort of sad gratification. She could not help hoping that Tim Burke remembered it in this way too. It was packed away forever. But the distant thought of it gave a special fragrance to the infrequent occasions on which, always in the company of her husband, Nan permitted herself to see the Irishman.

As Nan sat on the bus, her tearful face turned towards the glass of the window, she did not experience any doubts or hesitations concerning the propriety of visiting Tim in this crisis. She was in extremis . She must have help. She did not know what to do. The idea of confiding in one of her women friends, such as Mrs Prewett, was inconceivable. Her need to see Tim, once the notion had occurred to her, was extreme. She sat there and suffered — and more and more the feeling that bit into her, appearing as a physical pang, was something which she began to recognize as pure jealousy. She breathed in quickly through her mouth and found that she had uttered an audible sob. She buried her mouth in her handkerchief.

Nan got off the bus and hurried down the street towards Tim’s shop. She saw him far off, outside on the pavement. He was taking down the wooden shutters, although it was not yet nine o‘clock. Nan ran up to him, touched him on the shoulder, and went at once into the shop. Tim followed her in. He had seen her face. He shut the shop door and locked it. The room was darkened, as half the shutters were still up.

‘What is it?’ said Tim Burke.

Nan said, ‘I’m sorry, Tim, to come like this. Something awful has happened.’ She kept her handkerchief pressed to her mouth.

‘Is Mor all right?’ he said. ‘Or is it the boy?’

‘No, not an accident,’ said Nan. ‘I’ve found out that Bill is having a love affair with that girl Miss Carter. I came back and found them in our house embracing at six o’clock in the morning!‘ Her voice trailed away into a wail, and she sobbed without restraint into the handkerchief.

‘Oh God!’ said Tim. He led her back through the shop and into his workshop. The rain had stopped, and the sun was shining into the tiny whitewashed yard where the small sycamore tree was growing. Nan went through into the yard. Here they were in private. The yard was not overlooked. She put her hand on the slim trunk of the tree.

‘Let me take away your coat,’ said Tim; ‘it’s drenched you are.’

Nan gave up her coat and accepted a towel to rub her hair with. She sat down on a little bench beside the tree, her back against the wet white wall. She felt the dampness through her dress, but it didn’t matter now. The world had exploded into a lot of little senseless pieces. Sensations of the body and small pictures of her surroundings moved around by themselves, now blurred and now extremely clear. She saw with immense clarity the leaves of the sycamore tree, still drooping with water. She reached out and plucked one off. She had almost forgotten Tim Burke by the time he came to sit beside her.

‘When did this happen,’ he said, ‘that you found the pair of them?’

‘What? Oh, this morning about six,’ said Nan. As she saw again in her mind the scene with Bill sitting beside the girl on the floor, his head resting on her knee, her tears were renewed, and she reached out and plucked another leaf from the tree.

‘I tell you what,’ said Tim Burke, ‘I’ll give you a sup of whiskey, it’ll stave off the shock from you.’ He came back with two glasses. Nan took hers automatically and began to sip the golden stuff. At first she coughed, but then she felt it warm and violent inside. She felt a little better.

Tim had swallowed his at a gulp. He sat down again. Someone was knocking at the door of the shop. He paid no attention. Through her grief Nan became aware that Tim was at a loss. He did not know what to do. Nan hated it when other people did not know how to conduct themselves. She was used to taking control of situations. She would have preferred not to have to control this one.

‘Did you know what was happening?’ said Nan, drying her eyes. The effort made her feel better. ‘Did you ever see them together?’

No,‘ said Tim, ’I didn’t. I’m sorry. But you know it’s likely not anything important at all. Whatever it is, it’ll soon be done. Don’t be too angry with Mor.‘

‘Oh, don’t !’ said Nan. Somehow to talk of being or not being angry with Bill had nothing to do with it. That was not what it was like.

‘What did you do?’ said Tim.

‘I ran straight out of the house,’ said Nan, ‘and came here.’ She drank some more whiskey and Tim filled up her glass. She reached out again to the tree.

‘You’d better go back again,’ said Tim. ‘Mor will be waiting, and he’ll be in an agony.’

Go back, yes, thought Nan. The real pain after all was not that the world had fallen into little pieces. That was a relief from pain. It was rather that the world remained, whole, ordinary, and relentlessly to be lived in.

‘Don’t be too hard on Mor,’ said Tim again. ‘He’ll have a bad time of it. And anyway you are the stronger one. Yes,’ he said, ‘you are the strong one, you know.’

Nan knew. She would have to hold this situation as she had held all other situations, controlling Bill, easing the effects of his clumsiness, guiding them both through. She would have to cope with this. The thought was melancholy but there was a little comfort in it.

‘I’ll go out in a minute,’ said Tim, ‘and order you a taxi. But just now relax yourself and don’t be thinking what you’ll say. Let him do the talking.’