Read The Good Apprentice Online
Authors: Iris Murdoch
The Good Apprentice (69 page)
The women rose and came forward, gazing at the ring.
‘Is that Jesse’s ring?’ said Bettina to Mother May.
Mother May turned away. She said, ‘It may not be your fault, but you have brought death into this house, you killed your friend, you came here with your stained hands, you brought death with you, Jesse saw him sitting beside you at the table — ’
‘Oh — !’ Edward ran out of the room and across the Atrium, pounding the slates and continuing to moan as he ran. He slithered and crashed against the door, got it open, and rushed out into the air. The avenue was dark but the sun was shining on the yellow fields beyond the ilexes. Edward ran across the terrace, and into the avenue. He wanted to find
someone to tell,
someone in authority who would believe him, anyone who would
do
something. Then he decided he must first go back and see if it was
still there.
He turned round and began to run back the way he had come, only now the country looked different and he was not sure which way to go. Tears came into his eyes and he howled out aloud, ‘Jesse, Jesse, Jesse!’ Perhaps he should simply go up to the tower and see if his father was sitting as usual upright in his bed and smiling? Perhaps that was why they did not believe him?
someone to tell,
someone in authority who would believe him, anyone who would
do
something. Then he decided he must first go back and see if it was
still there.
He turned round and began to run back the way he had come, only now the country looked different and he was not sure which way to go. Tears came into his eyes and he howled out aloud, ‘Jesse, Jesse, Jesse!’ Perhaps he should simply go up to the tower and see if his father was sitting as usual upright in his bed and smiling? Perhaps that was why they did not believe him?
Then he saw, coming across the grass from the direction of the river estuary, a man, then a group of men following, carrying something, carrying, he saw as they came nearer, a body upon a stretcher. They had covered the face with Edward’s coat. Mother May and Bettina had come out of the Atrium door, and they saw the funeral cortege. The tree men were bringing Jesse home. As they came nearer Mother May began to scream. Edward could see her struggling with Bettina, who wanted to lead her back into the house.
‘You’ve done nothing but cause trouble, pain and strife, that’s what your good intentions amount to. Why have you come back?’
‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ said Stuart. ‘I suppose you saw the evening papers?’
‘Yes, about Jesse Baltram being dead. So what?’
‘I was worried about Ed. But he’s not here?’
‘I don’t know where he is. What have you done to Midge? Did you summon her and accuse her?’
‘I didn’t summon her, she came.’
‘I don’t believe you. You bewitched her. And you did accuse her.’
‘I said something about not lying — I can’t remember what I said — ’
‘You can’t remember what you said! You casually wreck other people’s lives and you can’t remember how! And you’ve done permanent damage to Meredith by your sentimental tampering.’
‘Who says so?’
‘Midge does. He cries all day. Children of that age never recover.’
‘I haven’t harmed him. Perhaps he’s upset about other things.’
‘And now his crazy vindictive father has sent him off to boarding school so that he can cry somewhere else. Are you pleased to think that you make children cry?’
‘Don’t be angry with me, Dad. What is Midge going to do?’
‘So that’s what you came to find out, you’re after her.’
‘No, I’m not, I’m not going to see her again — ’
‘When you’ve made someone thoroughly wretched by your prodding you say you won’t see them again! You desire her.’
‘No — ’
‘You came here to discuss her.’
‘No — you mentioned her — ’
‘I didn’t, you asked what she was going to do. I’ll tell you. She’s going to be an anchoress.’
‘A what?’
‘A female hermit. She’s going to live alone in a bed-sitter and give up sex and do good to people.’
‘She won’t be able to,’ said Stuart.
‘She can try. Waiting for you to come. You’ve changed her, you’ve made her natural life cease to function, she’s become a pathetic automaton.’
‘That’s nonsense,’ said Stuart, ‘she’s in a state of shock, it’s the idea of Thomas knowing. It’s not me, it’s being found out. She’ll recover.’
‘You think everyone will recover, you’re wrong. Are you seeing her?’
‘No, I told you — Hasn’t she said?’
‘She says she can’t find you. I don’t know if that’s true. She lies, everyone lies.’
‘Dad — she isn’t
here
is she — ?’
here
is she — ?’
‘No. So you did come to look for her! She’s at Thomas’s place. Thomas is in the country.’
‘When she’s got over the shook she’ll probably leave Thomas and come to you.’
‘You’ll try to stop her.’
‘No — ’
‘Why did you come with us in the car then if you didn’t want to come between us? You’ve made a dead set at destroying our relationship. You disapprove!’
‘I disapprove of deceit, I haven’t otherwise tried to do anything -’
‘Yes, you have. You think you’ve got a hold on her, you’ll never let her alone now. You’re jealous. You were always jealous because she loved Edward and not you. You were jealous because I loved Edward and not you. Admit it.’
Stuart considered this. ‘Yes, a bit — ’
‘So you see — ’
‘But that was a long time ago when I was a child, and I never thought you didn’t love me, you did, you do.’
‘Is that an appeal?’
‘No.’
‘You need some lessons in psychology, the fact about human nature is that things are indelible, religion is a lie because it pretends you can start again, that’s what made Christianity so popular — ’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said Stuart. ‘I think religion is about good and evil and the distance between them.’
‘These extremes are fictions,’ said Harry, ‘false opposites which invent each other, decent people don’t know about either. Your good and evil are bad dogs better left to lie. Evil has a right to exist quietly, it won’t do much harm if you don’t stir it up. Everywhere you go you’re an intruder. You’ll go through life making trouble, you’re
dangerous
—
’
dangerous
—
’
‘Please stop — ’
‘You’ll come to grief in the end and the sooner the better. Midge’s simple life act is supposed to impress you, she thinks she’ll be worthy to help you in your work, then one day you’ll seize hold of her — ’
‘Oh Dad,’ said Stuart, ‘don’t keep talking like that, don’t keep trying to argue with me.’
‘I’m not trying to argue! We all have smutty thoughts, you have vile fantasies, don’t deny it, you’re repressed — ’
‘That’s a ridiculous word which I utterly reject.’
‘You’re getting angry.’
‘You’re trying to make me angry but you won’t succeed, listen — ’
‘Of course Midge will get over this rubbish and come to me, she’s mine — I just terribly resent your interference.’
‘Listen, I came to look for Edward — ’
‘What good have you ever done Edward? You never tried to communicate with him, you don’t know anything about him. You’re too self-satisfied and opinionated and bloody clumsy to communicate with anyone.’
‘But I wanted to say something else.’
‘What, for Christ’s sake?’
‘I want to come back here, to this house — may I?’
They were in the drawing room of the house in Bloomsbury. The evening sun was shining in upon the faded green panelling. Stuart was standing, still wearing his mackintosh, it had been raining earlier and he had been walking about for a long time before deciding to call on his father. Harry was sitting at his desk where, with the help of a bottle of whisky, he had been writing a letter to Midge. He had swivelled his chair round and was aware of looking, in the focus of Stuart’s cold stare, dishevelled, even drunk. He felt for a moment almost tearful with rage and unable to speak. He said, ‘It’s no accident that you’ve damaged me — ’
‘What?’
‘It’s no — Oh damn you, no, you can’t come back here, I hate the sight of you, that’s all, keep away! Hell is somewhere near here and you’re a devil — ’ Harry got up and stepped forward and steadied himself by moving his chair and holding onto the back of it. Stuart did not move. ‘Get away, don’t stand so near me — ’
‘Dad — please forgive me — I meant no harm — may I ask you — ’
‘Christ, have you understood nothing, don’t you know what hurts people — you’ve hurt me so much — you’ve hurt my life — deeply — get
back,
get
out
— ’
back,
get
out
— ’
Harry lunged forward, swinging both his hands. He was almost as tall as Stuart. One hand pummelled the wet mackintosh and slid downward, the other clawed across Stuart’s face. Harry lurched and almost fell and Stuart retreated.
‘Sorry. I’m going.’ Stuart went quickly to the door and paused a moment, Harry inhibited an impulse to call him back. Stuart went out and closed the door. Harry picked up a glass paperweight and hurled it at the door where it cracked one of the wooden panels. He sat down, blundering, almost missing the chair, seized his letter and crumpled it up. He had, for the moment, no language, did not know how to address Midge at all. Her incomprehensible withdrawal from him, combined with some continued need of him, her acceptance of his presence, her maddening repetitive exclamations about her state of mind, aroused in him a terrible inexpressible violence; he was tormented by anger, by desire, by hope, by visions of her sudden return, the door opening, her outstretched arms, her loving face. He slid from the chair, knelt on the floor and then stretched himself out face downward on the floor. He said aloud into the carpet, ‘She must come to me, she will come to me, she has nowhere else to go.’
Stuart, going down the stairs, heard the paperweight hit the door and interpreted the sound. It reminded him of something. Oh yes. Edward throwing the Bible after him. People were always doing that it seemed. Once outside the door he had covered his face with his handkerchief, his nose appeared to be bleeding. He went into the cloakroom off the front hall and soaked his handkerchief with cold water and mopped his face. His nose was painful and he wondered if it was broken. How did one know whether one’s nose was broken? He touched it gingerly. Blood continued to drip into the basin. He washed out his handkerchief and, holding it wet in his hand, stepped out of the front door into the sunshine. Holding the handkerchief away from his side and occasionally mopping his nose with it, he walked as far as Tottenham Court Road and started along Oxford Street. His nose stopped bleeding and felt better. He squeezed the wet reddened handkerchief over the kerb and rubbed it over his nose and mouth, and put it in his pocket.
He walked on, awkward, avoiding people who stared after him. His immediate objective was a certain church north of Oxford Street which he liked and where he could sit in quietness. He entered the high dark secret church with its musty spicy numinous smell and sat down, then knelt down. There was no one there. He breathed more slowly, more deeply, ceasing to hear the sound of the traffic, letting the intensity of the silence affect him. His heart, which had been racing after the distressing scene with his father, slowed down. The clouds of strong emotions began to disperse leaving a calmer sadness. Then this sadness was submerged in another deeper sad feeling.
There was no one there
. Of course he had never imagined there was, never in his life believed in God for a moment, it had never seemed to matter. There was no one to talk to, no one to give, in the last resort, perfect help, perfect love. Stuart had never especially expected people to love him, never depended on love. He had loved his father and known at the same time that his father loved Edward more. He had not minded that as much as they imagined, they, Harry, Thomas, Edward perhaps, anyone who bothered to think about it. Perhaps this separateness, this cutoffness, this determined notmindingness had to do with the absence of his mother, the earliest truth in his life, the absence of complete love together with the haunting idea of it not as a real possibility but as an abstract, an invisible sun giving light but no warmth. The notion of explaining himself, even of knowing himself, was alien to Stuart, and he had never framed any theory of the sort which was so natural to the mind of Thomas. Indeed he thoroughly disliked such theorising. He did not often think of his mother, he tended, not irritably but with a sad firm gesture, to banish her image. But now when it came to him in the empty church he somehow connected it, and knew then that he had done so before, with his conception of himself as a sort of ‘religious’ man with a dedicated destiny: that or nothing, that or smash, and since not smash or nothing, then that.
There was no one there
. Of course he had never imagined there was, never in his life believed in God for a moment, it had never seemed to matter. There was no one to talk to, no one to give, in the last resort, perfect help, perfect love. Stuart had never especially expected people to love him, never depended on love. He had loved his father and known at the same time that his father loved Edward more. He had not minded that as much as they imagined, they, Harry, Thomas, Edward perhaps, anyone who bothered to think about it. Perhaps this separateness, this cutoffness, this determined notmindingness had to do with the absence of his mother, the earliest truth in his life, the absence of complete love together with the haunting idea of it not as a real possibility but as an abstract, an invisible sun giving light but no warmth. The notion of explaining himself, even of knowing himself, was alien to Stuart, and he had never framed any theory of the sort which was so natural to the mind of Thomas. Indeed he thoroughly disliked such theorising. He did not often think of his mother, he tended, not irritably but with a sad firm gesture, to banish her image. But now when it came to him in the empty church he somehow connected it, and knew then that he had done so before, with his conception of himself as a sort of ‘religious’ man with a dedicated destiny: that or nothing, that or smash, and since not smash or nothing, then that.
Stuart frowned. He did not care for this connection of ideas. What was the matter with him, was he becoming weak? It occurred to him to wonder if it mattered that there was no God. It had always seemed to him to be essential that there be none. He had never looked for a Him or a Thou, or tried to reconceptualise the old deity into some sort of nebulous quasi-personal spirit. ‘God’ was the proper name of a supernatural Person in whom Stuart did not believe. The quiet church, which he had often visited and from which, after the scene with his father, he had hoped for something, now seemed hollow, wrong, the wrong place. Am I giving way, thought Stuart, is it smash after all? Am I
deeply
troubled, daunted, by being told that I do nothing but harm? This place used to calm me and encourage me because it made everything that I wanted seem clean and innocent, as if it guaranteed the existence of holiness or goodness or something and connected me with it. But I don’t need that sort of connection, it’s a separation not a connection, it’s a romantic idea of myself, as if I imagined I was robed in white. It’s not that I thought I’d got anywhere or learnt anything or that people should notice me — but I did expect to be somehow immune from doing harm. I’ve lived with my own thing, with it, for a long time, longer than I’ve told anyone or really measured myself.
It
can’t have gone wrong, I know that,
it
can’t change or stain. Perhaps I’m just realising, now that I’ve
started,
that if I do anything at all I can do evil. If I can’t communicate with people this isn’t just an innocent awkwardness it’s a fault I must overcome, but overcome in my
own
way which I haven’t yet found out. Oh, if I could only have a sign. I know I can’t, but I keep coming to places like this and kneeling down as if I expected something, some pleasure perhaps. (At this he rose from his knees and resumed his seat.) I must do without all this. That’s the sense of my idea of
work,
my problem of it, which I haven’t solved yet and which
they
think I’m wantonly putting off and perhaps I am. I’m enjoying an interim when I can feel that I have, in some ideal secret sense, achieved everything when I’ve really achieved nothing. I haven’t let myself take in that I’ve got to do it alone — I’m alone and will always be alone, not in a romantic way, but in that
other
way, which perhaps for
me
is an illusion, I can’t even know that yet. Because it is certain doesn’t mean that
I
can travel. I may be condemned not to be able to help people. I must learn to try, but that sounds wrong too. Do the nearest thing, refrain from stupidity and drama, not just be small and quiet, be nothing, and let the actions come right of themselves. Then he thought, I can’t make sense of it — oh how unhappy I am suddenly — like I wasn’t before.
deeply
troubled, daunted, by being told that I do nothing but harm? This place used to calm me and encourage me because it made everything that I wanted seem clean and innocent, as if it guaranteed the existence of holiness or goodness or something and connected me with it. But I don’t need that sort of connection, it’s a separation not a connection, it’s a romantic idea of myself, as if I imagined I was robed in white. It’s not that I thought I’d got anywhere or learnt anything or that people should notice me — but I did expect to be somehow immune from doing harm. I’ve lived with my own thing, with it, for a long time, longer than I’ve told anyone or really measured myself.
It
can’t have gone wrong, I know that,
it
can’t change or stain. Perhaps I’m just realising, now that I’ve
started,
that if I do anything at all I can do evil. If I can’t communicate with people this isn’t just an innocent awkwardness it’s a fault I must overcome, but overcome in my
own
way which I haven’t yet found out. Oh, if I could only have a sign. I know I can’t, but I keep coming to places like this and kneeling down as if I expected something, some pleasure perhaps. (At this he rose from his knees and resumed his seat.) I must do without all this. That’s the sense of my idea of
work,
my problem of it, which I haven’t solved yet and which
they
think I’m wantonly putting off and perhaps I am. I’m enjoying an interim when I can feel that I have, in some ideal secret sense, achieved everything when I’ve really achieved nothing. I haven’t let myself take in that I’ve got to do it alone — I’m alone and will always be alone, not in a romantic way, but in that
other
way, which perhaps for
me
is an illusion, I can’t even know that yet. Because it is certain doesn’t mean that
I
can travel. I may be condemned not to be able to help people. I must learn to try, but that sounds wrong too. Do the nearest thing, refrain from stupidity and drama, not just be small and quiet, be nothing, and let the actions come right of themselves. Then he thought, I can’t make sense of it — oh how unhappy I am suddenly — like I wasn’t before.
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