Iris Murdoch - The Sandcastle

Nan stepped out of the taxi. Tim had already paid the fare. The taxi-man helped her out. He was wearing an odd expression on his face which made Nan realize that her breath must be smelling strongly of alcohol. When she thought this she staggered, and the gatepost came rushing to meet her at an unexpected angle. She was beginning to feel a slight nausea which was just distinguishable from the rest of her distress. As the taxi drove away she began to search through her handbag for her latchkey. It didn’t seem to be there. She must have left it in the door when she arrived in the early morning. She looked to see if it was still there. It had gone. She stood in the front garden wondering what to do.

She was very anxious that Bill should not know that she had been drinking whiskey. So in what was to come she must keep him at a distance from her. She decided not to ring the bell, but to go in through the drawing-room doors at the back of the house, which were normally unlatched, and interview Bill in the drawing-room with the doors open. These thoughts came rather slowly. In the picture as she now saw it there was only Bill; it was a matter of managing him. It was something between herself and Bill.

Nan began to walk round the side of the house, supporting herself against the wall. She felt mortally tired. But when she reached the drawing-room doors she found that they were closed and evidently bolted on the inside. This was unusual. She pulled at them helplessly for a while. Then she decided that she would get in instead by the low window which was beside the doors. It seemed to be undone. She stepped on to the flower-bed. The earth was soft and muddy after the rain. She pulled the window open and managed to put one foot through the opening.

‘Nan, what in heaven’s name are you doing?’ said Bill’s voice from behind her. He had just come into the garden by the side gate. Nan could see him out of the corner of her eye.

She said nothing, but made desperate efforts to get through the window. She had now got half-way, and was straddled across the sill, her skirt drawn tight, with one leg well into the drawing-room and the other one still outside. She could see the mud falling off her shoe on to the cushions of the sofa. Her other shoe had come off, embedded somewhere in the earth behind her.

‘Nan!’ said Bill’s voice again. He was coming towards her.

‘Keep away!’ said Nan. She was pulling furiously on the frame of the window. She could hear Bill stepping on to the flower-bed. He put one hand on her shoulder and one underneath her and propelled her forward into the drawing-room. Nan collapsed on to the sofa. She had to restrain a strong desire just to lie there and whimper at the idiocy of everything.

She sat up. Bill was still standing at the window looking in. He was holding her shoe in one hand and was feebly trying to brush the mud off it.

‘Bill,’ said Nan loudly and clearly, ‘how long has this business been going on?’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Bill. ‘I’ll come round the front way.’

As soon as he disappeared, Nan jumped up and opened the doors wide. Then she drew the sofa a little nearer to them and lay down upon it, propping herself up with cushions and facing into the room. She found a rug and drew it over her feet. Behind her lay the garden, drenched with rain and dazzling now with pearls of light as the strong sun shone upon it, and the plants gradually lifted themselves up, murmuring as they did so. The fresh air blew into the room, dissipating, so Nan hoped, the remaining smell of the whiskey. Bill entered by the drawing-room door.

‘Sit down, Bill,’ said Nan. She indicated a chair near the door.

Bill did not sit down, but stood by the wall kicking his feet. He looked very like Donald.

‘Let me explain,’ began Bill, ‘about last night. Miss Carter stayed here all night because of the storm, and because she’d made an excuse to Demoyte and couldn’t go back there. It was the first time she was in this house. I’d only seen her alone twice before that - or three times, if you count the first night. And I’ve never made love to her.’ He hated saying these things. He stood, pawing with his foot and looking down.

Nan believed him. ‘All right, Bill,’ she said. ‘You are obviously what they call a fast worker. How little I knew you! Anyhow, I’m not interested in this sentimental catalogue. You talk as if you were confessing the secrets of your heart to someone who wanted to hear them.’

At this moment Nan realized with dismay that she was developing hiccups. The only hope was to check them at once by holding her breath. She breathed in very deeply.

Bill waited for her to go on, and as she continued to be silent he said after a moment or two, ‘I should not like you to think that I regard this as anything trivial.’

Nan was still holding her breath.

After another moment of waiting Bill began to say, ‘I realize that I have acted -’

Nan gasped and drew in another breath. It felt as if she had defeated the hiccups. She interrupted him. ‘Listen, Bill,’ she said, ‘I’m not going to make a scene about this. I believe all you say. I’ve trusted you all my life, and I trust you now not to act in a way that will make us both ludicrous.’

‘You don’t quite understand -’ said Bill. He was leaning back against the wall and looking with a frown at a particular place in the carpet as if he were trying to decipher the pattern. He beat the wall lightly as he spoke with the heel of Nan’s shoe.

‘Don’t do that,’ said Nan. ‘You’re making marks on the wallpaper. I think I do understand. You’ve got yourself into a sentimental state about this girl. All right. There’s nothing very terrible about that. But whatever there is to it, now you must just stop. Your own good sense must tell you what to do here and how to do it.’ Nan found to her surprise that the words were not new after all. The pattern of her former conversations with her husband was not lost. This thing could be dealt with as she had dealt with all crises in the past. She felt with a sense of relief her protective power over him. The nightmare was at an end.

I can’t stop,‘ said Bill in a dull voice, still looking at the carpet.

‘None of that, please,’ said Nan. ‘You made this mess and you must get out of it. Be rational, Bill! Wake up and see the real world again. Even if you have no consideration for me or for that wretched girl who’s scarcely older than Felicity, think a little about your reputation, your position as a schoolmaster. Think about the precious Labour Party. This flirtation is bound to end pretty soon. If you let it drag on you’ll merely do yourself a lot of harm.’

‘I love this girl, Nan,’ said Bill. He tried to look at her, but could not face her stare.

‘If you only knew,’ said Nan, ‘how pathetic you are! Just see yourself, Bill, for a moment. Just look at yourself in a mirror. Do you seriously imagine that you could make anything out of a love affair with an attractive, flighty little gipsy with a French upbringing who might be your daughter? Don’t make yourself more ridiculous than you already are! If the silly child seems attached to you at the moment, and isn’t just being kind so as not to hurt your feelings, it’s probably because she’s just lost her father.’

‘I’ve thought of that too,’ said Bill.

‘Well, I’m glad you see the point,’ said Nan. She hiccuped violently and disguised it as a cough. ‘Now you get yourself sorted out and stop seeing this girl - and we’ll say no more about it. You know I don’t want to make a fuss.’

‘I can’t stop seeing her,’ said Bill. He was still leaning against the wall with a sort of exhausted lassitude.

‘Oh, don’t be so unutterably spineless and dreary!’ said Nan. ‘You know perfectly well you’ve got no choice.