The Good Apprentice (78 page)

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Authors: Iris Murdoch

BOOK: The Good Apprentice
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Harry had pretended to think that he was cold, uninterested in his wife, prepared to give her up. Midge was supposed to have said he was humourless, untender and boring, Prompted by Harry, Midge probably had said those things. He could imagine how instinctively they must have connived together to protect themselves by belittling him. Thomas was resolutely concerned not to imagine the details of those ‘two years’. There was no need for
that,
and here he could truthfully tell himself that there were mysteries which could not be fathomed and must be left alone, in the old parlance, ‘left to God’. His imaginings, when not vulgarly obvious, would be wild, and in either case falsities. It was a kindness to Midge not to pursue her in his thoughts into that place, so frightful to him, so painful to her. Surely he would meet Harry again. Their lives were bound together by other lives: Edward was Midge’s nephew, Meredith’s cousin. Besides, he did not want altogether to lose Harry. He allowed himself to imagine how agonisingly intolerable Harry must have found his mistress’s sudden ‘fancy’ for his son. Would Thomas one day, perhaps soon, be helping Midge to construct some easy, friendly relation with Stuart?
Could
they all meet, and let it not be seen in any of their brows … ? He hoped so. The future, that must be endured, and meanwhile left quiet in the dark.
Thomas was not afraid. He was allowing himself to feel happy, sometimes he wanted to shout with it. Such positive self-conscious happiness was rare in his life. Patiently, without pressure, largely without speech, he would rework his relationship with Midge, his love and her love, and feel at times her questing fingers seeking for his in the same dark. He had confidence in her return, and for a time would have to be the quiet tactful spectator of her unhappiness and slow recovery, letting his happiness teach and tend her. In this task Meredith would be his wordless telepathically close accomplice. Thus they would heal her, Meredith’s joy and relief, imaged in the crazy friskings of the puppy, was a constant source of reassurance, almost a proof. Meredith liked his school, he was growing up, he was clever and wise. This too was the future. Thomas felt that, through no merit of his own, he had escaped a terrible shipwreck, and was now able to sail on, more securely as every day passed with its interests and events which were not connected with the alarms of the recent past. So, other things could happen, ordinary life could go on. But something far from ordinary had taken place which would have totally obsessed Thomas had he not been otherwise concerned, and which even as it was caused him much anxiety. It concerned Mr Blinnet.
Mr Blinnet’s unscheduled arrival at Quitterne had been immediately prompted by Thomas’s unprecedentedly abrupt cancellation of their next session together. This shock to Mr Blinnet’s system occasioned changes in his state of mind which might have come about anyway or might perhaps never have come about at all. When Thomas had rushed forward to Mr Blinnet’s car he had at once tried to persuade his patient to return to London, promising to see him as usual in a few days. Mr Blinnet would have none of this. Thomas then asked him into the house and gave him a cup of tea, hoping that he would soon calm down and go away. For it was clear that Mr Blinnet was very upset, he even took his hat off. Thomas was very upset too, and had to go upstairs to comb his hair. Then Thomas, who wanted a drink, offered one to Mr Blinnet. Soon after this Mr Blinnet began to reminisce about his life in terms which he had never previously used. It emerged from these, and Thomas gradually became convinced, that Mr Blinnet had actually committed a serious crime, and that the more detailed part of his story of mental aberration was fictitious. Thomas could see, as in a film, the pale round face of his erstwhile patient changing before his eyes until he was confronted with an entirely different person: someone clever and determined enough to succeed, in a long relation with an experienced therapist, in simulating mental disorder. (When Thomas expressed surprise Mr Blinnet said impatiently, ‘It’s all in the books after all!’) In fact, and this rescued Thomas from complete dismay by interesting him a lot, Mr Blinnet’s sane fantasy had been so wholehearted that it had become a compulsive addiction; and in this sense, to some small extent, Mr Blinnet was ‘genuine’. This was worthy of study.
The original idea had been the one which Thomas had long ago mooted and rejected: the refined elaboration of a legal defence to be used if the crime ever came to light. It would probably have worked too, thought Thomas. What, to the eye of a jury, could be madder than Mr Blinnet? He imagined his own ardent defence of his patient in the witness box. Yet had Mr Blinnet been quite clever enough, had he simulated just the right kind of madness for this particular crime? A psychiatrist acting for the other side might have caught him out in some crucial error, some revealing slip. Thomas was already conjecturing what such a slip might be. He was fascinated by his own credulity. What a pity, he recollected, that he would never be able to publish a paper on the subject. As it was, that afternoon’s work left them both in a serious quandary. It was not that Thomas felt a duty to telephone the police. His professional secrecy could remain unbleached. The nature of Mr Blinnet’s crime was such that it was not in the least likely to be repeated, in fact strictly speaking could not be repeated. Mr Blinnet was not a public menace, and Thomas did not believe in retributive justice. It was just that their relationship, whose intimacy had been sterilised and confined by the ethics and atmosphere of therapy, was now suddenly set up in the middle of ordinary life, engendering new obligations, new problems, new emotions. There could be no talk now of ‘transference’. Mr Blinnet was in love with Thomas. Thomas had acquired a new friend, a close friend, whom he could not abandon. Now that the mask of crazed obsession, originally simulated, later habitual, had been removed, Mr Blinnet’s face expressed a refined intelligence. What am I to
do
with him? Thomas wondered. Announce he is cured and introduce him to everybody? Mr Blinnet had no plans for reducing his dependence upon his healer. Whatever am I to do? thought Thomas. Well, that too was the future and another story.
It doesn’t add up, thought Edward. Ilona said it was telepathy, not that that explains anything. Mrs Quaid could have ‘read’ that I was worrying about Jesse — except that then I wasn’t. So it’s independent of time, is it? And of course she knew Seegard so it was in her mind too. But then the television? That could have been just a coincidence, there was an old programme about Jesse, perhaps Mrs Quaid had a tape of it, and I imagined the background, the sea, the estuary, places I’d thought about and wanted to get to, just as I was falling asleep? I did go to sleep, didn’t I? As for finding Jesse’s body, the mouth of the river was a pretty obvious place to look. There’s a funny feeling about all that business, he thought, it’s all very intense and brightly coloured, yet difficult to recall, like a dream, I mustn’t
worry
about it. I worry because I want to feel that Jesse arranged it all, and that’s a sort of nonsense.
‘By the way, Ed,’ said Stuart, ‘there are some letters for you upstairs, Harry put them in a drawer in your bedroom. Sorry, we forgot yesterday.’
Edward and Stuart were home again, back with Harry at the house in Bloomsbury. Edward had arrived the previous night, letting himself in quietly with his key, hearing Stuart and Harry talking in the kitchen. They had been glad to see him and had asked no questions. They fed him. He went to bed early and fell asleep at once, vaguely aware of Stuart looking at him and turning out the light. When he woke up in the morning he felt that he had never slept so long and so deeply. He recalled no dreams but seemed to experience his sleep in memory, as if he could remember having lain in a deep black warm pit. The sense of home-coming, which he had not expected, touched his heart. The kind surprised faces of his father and his brother made him, in his relief, realise that he had imagined that they would be angry with him. Why? Because he had run away, disappeared, refused their help, quarrelled with them, killed somebody. He had fled to Thomas, then to — But now all that was over. He was starting again, with nothing in the world left to do except to find Brownie and
be
with her — tell her everything and lay all his burdens down at her feet. So he had felt as he crawled up the stairs to his room and fell into the pit of sleep.
After his return from Seegard Edward had spent two more nights at his lodging, in
that
room, in case Brownie should come there. The passing hours and her not coming made him feel sick and mad, and when it grew dark he began to think about Jesse lying there alone underneath his stone between the yew trees. He imagined Jesse lying there with his eyes open, breathing quietly. Then he thought about Mark Wilsden’s mutilated body which had been burnt. He went to bed exhausted but could not sleep. Late the next day he went home. The familiar house, the old familiar sound of his father and his elder brother talking, downstairs, in another room, about other things, made him, with an instinct he constantly checked, feel secure as he had felt in childhood. The azalea which Midge had given him ‘to cheer him up’ so long ago was back in his bedroom, no longer in flower, a little green tree. He woke feeling stronger, able to decide things. He decided that he would go to Mrs Wilsden’s house and ask for Brownie. Nothing was left now except Brownie, that was all that remained of his task, his ordeal, his penitence, that was all and everything, for everything depended on that.
‘Where’s Harry?’ said Edward. He had made himself some coffee in the kitchen, then discovered Stuart sitting reading in the drawing room. The sun shone into the green room, paling the green panelling as if one could actually see it fading, sparkling upon the gilded cupids who were holding up Romula’s mirror. Stuart was sitting in the box-like armchair beside the piano reading a book. The atmosphere shot Edward straight back into the past. It was the first day of the summer holidays. Free, nothing to do.
‘He’s in his study,’ said Stuart, ‘telephoning his publisher.’
‘His publisher?’
‘Yes, isn’t it splendid? He’s written a novel and it’s to be published! He’s ringing up Italy, the publisher’s got a villa on the bay of Naples with a view of Vesuvius.’
‘I shall write a novel one day,’ said Edward, ‘and I shall have a villa in Italy, or at least know someone who has.’
‘How are you, Ed, better?’
‘I don’t know yet. I’ve been at Seegard.’
‘I’m sorry about Jesse.’
‘Yes. What’s happened about Midge?’
‘She’s down at Quitterne with Thomas. She seems to have chucked Harry.’
‘Oh. I never understood that business. So we’re all back home here. What are you going to do?’
‘I’ve decided, I’m going to be a schoolmaster.’
‘Just like that?’
‘I’ve got to go to a training college first, I’ve got a grant, and — ’
‘Oh. Well done. I’ll just go and look at those letters.’
Edward legged it up the stairs. He found the letters in a drawer and sat down on the bed and spread them out. He looked for Brownie’s writing but it was not there. There was an unsigned postcard of the Eiffel tower from Ilona saying,
Back soon, hope see, your loving sister
. There were several typed envelopes, two letters from Mrs Wilsden, and one in a vaguely familiar hand. He opened this one first.
My dear Edward,
I just thought I’d write to say how pleased we all are with you because of what you did for Midge. She told me all about the whole thing on the telephone. You were exactly right, you were calm and wise, you gave her ‘room to turn round’, those were her words, what a gift to be able to give to someone who’s ‘up against it’! She’s
so
fond of you and you were really the only person who was close to her that she could talk to! You made her understand her ‘real feelings’. You ought to be a psychiatrist, you’d be a jolly sight better than Thomas! You simply said, ‘Look, let’s sort it out together’ and you did. Then when you said ‘Stay with Thomas’, it was clear that this was right! Well done little Edward! Come and see us soon, won’t you? We were sorry to hear about Jesse Baltram. Not that you knew him, but it must have been sad. I hope and believe that you are better. Time heals, dear Edward, youth heals. You must be ready now to see that it wasn’t your fault and to forgive yourself. Everyone else has forgiven you long ago, or rather never blamed you at all. I expect you’ve heard our wonderful news about Giles. We’ll tell you all about it when we meet. Willy sends his best love and hopes you’re reading Proust! With very loving love to you, dearest Edward,
Yours Ursula.
 
 
Edward threw the letter onto the floor. He did not remember saying ‘Stay with Thomas’. Perhaps Midge imagined it afterwards. He opened two of the typewritten envelopes. One contained an invitation to a party from someone called Victoria Gunn, the other an invitation to a dance from someone called Julia Carson-Smith. Edward could not think who these people were and threw their letters on the floor too. The next letter was from Sarah Plowmain.
Dear Edward,
I’m sorry you got that awful letter from me hinting at dire things. I thought I was pregnant and I decided I must have an abortion and I was going to write to you and say it was all your fault and you had now killed someone else, our first child. However it turned out to be a false alarm and that child which caused me such frightful worry never existed at all! Even after this time interval I’m still suffering from shock. The imagining of that child was so intense (I even thought I ought to be finding out how nappies work!) and I told nobody and I couldn’t bring myself to dream of ‘consulting’ you, I felt it was all my own affair, my future, my university degree, my life. And I felt angry with you because you’d rushed into my room and started it all and rushed out again and dropped me. And you didn’t answer my other letter and I felt abandoned and I’d said how unhappy I was and you didn’t even reply! Of course I’m relieved about the ‘child’ but I feel sad too because of course in the end I probably wouldn’t have destroyed it. I miss it, and feel now almost as if it had died! Everything has been a mess lately and what hasn’t been has just made me envious! Ma is in a permanent state of excitement and indignation about May Baltram’s memoirs (I expect you are too! I refrain from further comment!). She is going to write her own memoirs and a big book on feminism. (Of course I didn’t tell
her
what I thought was going on inside me!) I feel so depressed. I’ve given up smoking. You know, I think my father’s death is just catching up on me. I wish I’d cared more about him. I might have given him something to live for and made him love life after all. Edward, I’d like to see you. Nothing to do with sex, I’m fed up with sex, I think I need friends. It’s only lately occurred to me that sex prevents friends — it does for women anyway. I hope you’ll be decent enough to reply to
this
letter. I’ve never done you any harm. I hope you’ve got over the Mark business. Of course I know one never gets over etc. etc. etc., but in a way one does and should.
Love from Sarah.
 

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