Authors: Iris Murdoch

A Fairly Honourable Defeat (50 page)

BOOK: A Fairly Honourable Defeat

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‘Where’s Tallis?’

‘He’s at his class at Greenford.’

‘I saw him half an hour ago at Piccadilly Circus.’

‘You can’t have done. Greenford’s the other way. He goes by bus. Morgan, how absolutely marvellous to see you! I thought you’d gone away.’

‘I went away. I’m going away—again.’

‘I’m so glad you’ve come. This light is so weird, isn’t it. Like the end of the world. I was feeling quite odd. Why, you’re out of breath and—what’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’ There was a flicker of lightning, electrical and sharp, felt rather than seen. Then after a moment or two a long drum roll of distant thunder.

‘Have you been running? You must rest a bit. I’ve got a hundred things to tell you! You will stay, won’t you? We could go to the pub and have sandwiches, if you wouldn’t mind paying.’

‘What time will Tallis be back?’ said Morgan.

‘He won’t be back tonight. He’s going on from the class to some place in Clapham where someone’s ill and he’s spending the night there. Oh Morgan, do let’s go out and celebrate! Do you know, I’ve actually been
working
, and—’

‘It’s so hot,’ said Morgan. The thunder came again like distant gunfire.

‘Would you like something to drink here? Tallis has a few cans of beer. Morgan, you’re looking so strange, what is it? Morgan, darling—’

‘I’ve lost my handbag.’

‘Oh I’m so sorry!’ Peter had pulled another chair up beside her.

‘And there was a pigeon—in Piccadilly Circus station—at the bottom of the escalator—I tried to catch it—’

The child, thought Morgan, the child might have existed. It would have been a few months old. It might have been the solution to everything. Why had she not understood what a terrible thing it was to deprive that child of life? She had killed it so casually and drunk half a bottle of Bourbon afterwards.

‘The child—’ The horror of the world.

‘Morgan, are you feeling all right?’

The thunder was nearer, more explosive, cracking down upon London. A few huge drops of rain fell, hitting the houses, clattering like pebbles onto roofs and windows. A sudden coolness began to sway through the heavy yellow air.

It was dark in the kitchen. Peter pulled his chair closer still and began to try to take Morgan in his arms. She pushed him roughly away and rose to her feet.

‘Don’t touch me!’

‘Don’t look at me like that, Morgan.’

‘Leave me alone.’

The rain was beginning to spill down like water from a tilted bucket. A huge flash lit up the kitchen for a moment with a cold pallid silvery light, showing Morgan’s staring eyes and Peter’s scared unhappy face. Then the rain itself darkened the scene falling like a dense curtain of grey clangorous metal.

Morgan’s figure merged into the darkness of the doorway and another flash of lightning showed the luminous lines of rain curtaining the street door. Then she was gone, running, fading, dissolving, instantly vanishing into the thick grey substance of the roaring downpour.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

‘OH, IT’S YOU,’ said Tallis.

‘Were you expecting me?’ said Julius.

‘I thought you’d turn up sometime. Come in.’

Julius followed Tallis into the kitchen. There was a dull quiet mid-morning light.

The floor of the kitchen was extremely wet and sticky as if covered with black oil.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Tallis. ‘We had a bit of a flood with that thunderstorm. I left the window open and the rain came in.’

‘Why is it so sticky?’ said Julius.

‘It’s always sticky, I don’t quite know why. The rain just seems to have amalgamated with all the other stuff. Stay where you are and I’ll put some newspaper down.’

Tallis laid sheets of newspaper on the floor and Julius stepped gingerly as far as the table and sat down.

‘Shall I put the light on?’ said Tallis.

Since the thunderstorm the weather had been cold and overcast and rainy with a continuous slow bundling along of dumpy low-down grey clouds.

‘As you like.’

‘Then I think I won’t, if you don’t mind. Electric light’s always a bit depressing during the day.’

‘I entirely agree.’

‘I’m sorry it’s so cold in here. The window won’t shut properly. I might light the gas stove.’ Tallis opened the oven door and put a match to the row of gas burners at the back. They lit up with a small explosion. He left the door of the oven open.

‘Quite a change in the weather,’ said Julius.

‘Yes, it’s chilly, isn’t it.’

‘Such a damp cold. I’m not used to this degree of humidity combined with a low temperature.’

‘I suppose not.’

‘I hope I haven’t interrupted you? Were you working?’

‘No, no. I was just mending a string of beads.’ Tallis swept the dark brownish beads off the table top into the drawer. They pattered away. He closed the drawer and sat down opposite Julius.

‘At any rate it hasn’t rained this morning,’ said Julius. ‘Everything’s quiet. It takes me so long to roll my umbrella to satisfy English standards, it seems a pity to undo the masterpiece directly. ’ He leaned the slim rigorously rolled umbrella up against the table. Its black handle ended in a knob of ivory with a faint lotus design on it.

‘You don’t think my umbrella is too feminine, do you?’

‘No, very elegant.’

‘One can get away with such things in London. In New York it would be quite impossible.’

‘I dare say.’

Julius was neatly dressed in a rather old-fashioned way, with a dark suit, a white shirt, and a narrow tie with horizontal stripes. His colourless hair had recently been cut. He carried no hat.

‘Are you working on a book?’ Julius indicated the litter of papers, books and periodicals at the other end of the table.

‘No. Only lectures.’

‘I thought you were writing a book about Marx and de Tocqueville?’

‘I gave it up.’

‘A pity. A most interesting subject.’

There was a short silence during which Julius scrutinized the kitchen with a faint frown, noting the milk bottles, the dishes, the piles of newspapers, and the curious coagulated mess upon the dresser.

Tallis was looking at the window with big rather hazy eyes. He said, ‘My father is very ill.’

‘I’m extremely sorry to hear that.’

‘He’s dying—of cancer.’

‘I am so sorry. Is he likely to live long?’

‘Six months. A year.’

‘Perhaps that is just as well if the disease is incurable. I hope he is not in pain.’

‘Well, he is—in pain—’ said Tallis. He was still looking at the window. ‘You see, we thought it was arthritis. He’s had this pain in his hip for a long time and it’s been getting worse lately. The doctor says some ray treatment may help, just ease the pain that is, and some tablets, I forget what he said they were—’

‘Does your father know that he has cancer?’

‘No, he doesn’t,’ said Tallis. ‘And I haven’t told him. I’ve kept up the thing about the arthritis and how he may have to have an operation. It’s something one can talk about and his thinking it’s arthritis may somehow make the pain less dreadful, he’s used to the pain, thinking of it in that kind of way. But it seems so terrible to lie to him and to go to all sorts of details about things which just aren’t true.’

‘I can imagine how you feel,’ said Julius. It was beginning to rain a little. There was a murmur of wind, and rain swept in a long sigh across the window.

‘It seems especially wrong to lie to someone who’s dying. And yet this seems a silly abstract sort of an idea really. I’ve looked after him a long time now. I feel so hopelessly sort of protective. I want to spare him the misery and the fear.’

‘I quite understand.’

‘And in a way of course I’m protecting myself. It’s much easier to live with him in the lie than to live with him in the truth.’

‘And because you are considering yourself you are more ready to doubt that you are right?’

‘Yes.’

‘What kind of man is your father?’ said Julius.

Tallis was silent for a moment. ‘It’s hard to be objective about him. No one ever asked me to describe him before. He had no education. He was a porter in an abattoir. He used to carry the car-cases about. Somebody has to. Then he was unemployed for ages. Then he worked in a garage, only that was later. He came south from Derbyshire when we were kids. I had a twin sister only she died of polio. When we came to London my mother left us. She was posher of course. Daddy fed us on bread and butter and stew. We were a hell of a burden to him. God, he’s had a rotten life. We all have to go but I wish he hadn’t had such a bloody rotten life.’

‘Are you on good terms with him?’

‘Yes. We shout at each other.’

‘Perhaps the truth would embarrass you both. It might prove impossible to talk about.’

‘One couldn’t talk about it anyway,’ said Tallis. ‘We can’t talk about
that.
And when we think we do we don’t.’

‘What’s he like as a person, his character?’

‘Disappointed. Bitter. Proud.’

‘His life belongs to him? Not all men own their lives.’

‘He owns his.’

‘Then you ought to tell him.’

‘Yes. Maybe. Would you like some beer?’

‘No, thanks. How’s Peter?’

‘Unhappy. He was happy, now he’s unhappy. I don’t know why. I ought to have found out. I haven’t. Tell me something, by the way, you might know this.’

‘What?’

‘Why is stealing wrong?’

‘It’s just a matter of definition,’ said Julius.

‘How do you mean?’

‘It’s a tautology. “Steal” is a concept with a built-in pejorative significance. So to say that stealing is wrong is simply to say that what is wrong is wrong. It isn’t a meaningful statement. It’s empty.’

‘Oh. But does that mean that stealing isn’t wrong?’

‘You haven’t understood me,’ said Julius. ‘Remarks of that sort aren’t statements at all and can’t be true or false. They are more like cries or pleading. You can say “Please don’t steal” if you want to, so long as you realize that there’s nothing behind it. It’s all just conventions and feelings.’

‘Oh. I see,’ said Tallis. There was a pause. ‘Do you mind if I have some beer? Would you like some coffee? No?’

He rummaged in the cupboard and produced a can of beer which he put on the table. Then he began to search the heaped-up mass of oddments on the dresser for an opener. Various things fell off. The oddments seemed to have become rather sticky too. There was no sign of the opener. Tallis began to bash the top of the beer can with a screwdriver. ‘Oh
damn.
’

‘You’ve cut yourself,’ said Julius, rising.

‘It’s nothing.’

‘Hold your hand under the tap.’

Julius turned the tap on and Tallis washed off the blood which was flowing freely over his hand. When he took his wet hand away it reddened once more.

‘Keep it there, you fool,’ said Julius. ‘You’ll have to cover that. It seems quite a clean cut. I suppose you haven’t any disinfectant? I thought not. No,
not
on that filthy towel. Is there nothing clean in this house? I’ll dry it on looseleaf paper and tie it up in my handkerchief. You’d better get something at the chemist’s.’

Julius ripped several sheets of looseleaf paper from a pad upon the table and dried Tallis’s hand. Then he took a clean white handkerchief from his pocket and tied up the cut, knotting the ends of the handkerchief round Tallis’s wrist.

‘You look quite shaken.’

‘Sorry,’ said Tallis. ‘I feel so rotten these days any damn thing makes me want to cry.’ He sat down.

‘You’d better have some beer. I suppose there’s nothing stronger in the house. You still haven’t managed to open that tin. Why, here’s the opener all the time.’ Julius poured out a glass of beer.

‘Thanks.’

Julius stood in front of him, looking down at him while he drank.

After a while he said, ‘I didn’t quite take you in when I first saw you. However I feel bound to say—you’re a disappointment to me.’

‘I know,’ said Tallis, ‘I just can’t—All I can think about at the moment is my father.’

There was a minute’s silence in the twilit kitchen. Tallis sipped the beer, gazing at the grey window down which the rain was noiselessly running.

‘Has Morgan asked you for a divorce?’ said Julius.

‘Yes.’

‘You know why?’

‘No. Well, why shouldn’t she?’

BOOK: A Fairly Honourable Defeat

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