The Good Apprentice (76 page)
Read The Good Apprentice Online
Authors: Iris Murdoch
As he made his way out he saw that something which had not been there before was lying on one of the two chairs by the door. It was his jacket, cleaned and folded, which he had last seen covering Jesse’s dead face. Edward picked it up and went out banging the door behind him. As he did so a piece of stone the size of his hand leapt out of the wall beside him. The enchanter’s palace was already beginning to fall to pieces.
I am on a golden chain, thought Midge. I have been taken back into history. I have allowed myself to be trapped by morality. Her captors were her husband and her son.
It was high summer at Quitterne. Midge was sitting upstairs at the bedroom window watching Thomas mowing the lawn. Head down, grey hair flopping forward, without his glasses, he appeared to be propelling the big yellow machine which in fact propelled itself, making great play with it when at the end of each journey it had to be turned. Neat stripes of darker and lighter green were appearing upon the already sleek turf which was now half covered by the shadow of the copper beech. Thomas, dressed in old corduroy trousers and a sloppy open-necked blue shirt, looked younger, altogether more impromptu. He paused at intervals to wipe the sweat off his glowing sun-reddened face. Beyond him red and white roses posed in the quiet sunny air against the tall shaggy box hedge where intensely blue delphiniums with black eyes were also in flower. Thomas, pausing in his toil, looked up and waved. Midge waved back. She had cooked a splendid lunch. She had washed up. She had rested. She had put on a different dress.
Midge had made her decision. She had made it, when it came, so quickly that looking back it sometimes seemed as if it must have been a matter of chance. Supposing that confident key in the door had been Harry’s and not Thomas’s? It was all chance or else the opposite, something arranged by God. Edward’s arrival for instance. The talk with Edward, so quiet, so
sensible,
had itself been a necessary event. Edward had been the new ingredient, the mediator. No one else could have done it. He was the closest person who was not horribly involved, a candid intelligent well-intentioned on-looker, an old friend, he was unique. Talking to him about Stuart she felt she was telling the story for the first time. Telling Harry, telling Thomas, had not been, could riot be, truthful narration, but a form of warfare. Taking it in, Edward had, quickly and intuitively, touched her state of mind, pressing its structure at vulnerable and unstable points. His cry ‘it’s mad, it’s daft, it must be false!’ about her love for Stuart had startled her like the war cry of a new force. It was possible to see ‘the event’ in a different light, not losing faith in it, but receiving in relation to it, more space, more play. Stuart had seemed so authoritative, so complete, something lethal making all her previous existence worthless, inspiring that terrible craving, that pain, which could only be alleviated by his presence and feared like death itself the possibility of banishment. Edward, who had been suffering so terribly himself (this fact only occurred to Midge later) appeared here on the side of the ordinary world where absolute choices between life and death did not take place, where reason, gentleness, compassion, compromise brought about viable ways of life. Of course she would see Stuart again, of course he would not reject her with loathing. From this point she could see her sudden passion not as false, not as a ‘psychological device’, but as an impersonal happening which was not quite what it had seemed, but something to be reflected on, worked on, compatible with other things. Of course she could never live with Stuart, work with him, do good with him as she had intended, all that was a dream, not an empty lying dream, but a pointer of some kind. Well, there was always plenty of good she could do if she wanted to. And when she was this far along Midge was already imagining how Stuart might be her friend, perhaps laugh at her, and by then — he wasn’t God after all. The intense relief of
not
facing death, as if Stuart by rejecting her could decree her end, filling her with gratitude to Edward, made the image of Stuart less huge, less final, more human. Edward had said Stuart was something external, something bumped into. It was all in her own mind, something she was doing to herself. So she could do things — even
make use
of what had happened?
sensible,
had itself been a necessary event. Edward had been the new ingredient, the mediator. No one else could have done it. He was the closest person who was not horribly involved, a candid intelligent well-intentioned on-looker, an old friend, he was unique. Talking to him about Stuart she felt she was telling the story for the first time. Telling Harry, telling Thomas, had not been, could riot be, truthful narration, but a form of warfare. Taking it in, Edward had, quickly and intuitively, touched her state of mind, pressing its structure at vulnerable and unstable points. His cry ‘it’s mad, it’s daft, it must be false!’ about her love for Stuart had startled her like the war cry of a new force. It was possible to see ‘the event’ in a different light, not losing faith in it, but receiving in relation to it, more space, more play. Stuart had seemed so authoritative, so complete, something lethal making all her previous existence worthless, inspiring that terrible craving, that pain, which could only be alleviated by his presence and feared like death itself the possibility of banishment. Edward, who had been suffering so terribly himself (this fact only occurred to Midge later) appeared here on the side of the ordinary world where absolute choices between life and death did not take place, where reason, gentleness, compassion, compromise brought about viable ways of life. Of course she would see Stuart again, of course he would not reject her with loathing. From this point she could see her sudden passion not as false, not as a ‘psychological device’, but as an impersonal happening which was not quite what it had seemed, but something to be reflected on, worked on, compatible with other things. Of course she could never live with Stuart, work with him, do good with him as she had intended, all that was a dream, not an empty lying dream, but a pointer of some kind. Well, there was always plenty of good she could do if she wanted to. And when she was this far along Midge was already imagining how Stuart might be her friend, perhaps laugh at her, and by then — he wasn’t God after all. The intense relief of
not
facing death, as if Stuart by rejecting her could decree her end, filling her with gratitude to Edward, made the image of Stuart less huge, less final, more human. Edward had said Stuart was something external, something bumped into. It was all in her own mind, something she was doing to herself. So she could do things — even
make use
of what had happened?
What had happened had been in effect a means by which she had separated herself from Harry, a light in which she had been appalled by the last two years. But did this change in Stuart’s image which was also, was it not, a self-preserving flight from death, leave her as she was before, however for the moment separated and appalled, still Harry’s mistress? Could not the Stuart drama be regarded as a pointer to the truth and realism of — acknowledging Harry and marrying him,
thus
ending the evasions and the lies? Was the separation from Harry perhaps a cleansing period which would
return
her to him, truthful resolute and unashamed? Or was Harry over? Would she be taken back into history, rejecting as an episode the shocking, the revolutionary, the entirely new? So complex and so swift were the thoughts, condensed yet clear, which Edward had occasioned by his awkward intuitive words, by his very presence. After a paralysis of misery and fear Midge’s mind flew about like a bird seeking freedom. Am I calculating, she wondered, can I calculate? If I stay with Thomas I can be friends with Stuart, but not if I go to Harry. If I leave Thomas I might have to fight for Meredith. I’ve never really thought about … Meredith’s unhappiness … Harry always said it would be all right. Yes. Meredith is an absolute, Stuart is not. Edward had said, doesn’t that leave you with the real things? He meant Meredith and Thomas. Yes, they were real. Stuart was a dream. Harry was … Had Stuart permanently killed her love for Harry? Had not her delays and her falsehoods themselves been evidences that she did not love him
enough?
Could she make
that
sacrifice for Harry, to destroy her home, her marriage? Evidently not. And, evidently, the long affair had not unmade her home and her family. And Thomas … didn’t she love him? Yes. Oh how she was weighting the scales now, doing it deliberately, and seeing everything except the ultimate
why
she was suddenly seeing in this new light. When it came to it (but why was it now coming there?) Harry too, like Stuart, was a dream, something that couldn’t
be,
and had she not known this all along? Those two awful years, and they had been awful, had proved it so. But surely all that love and joy had been something real? Well, it was past. Then when Thomas arrived it was as if she had expected him: such a gentle quiet unfrightening loving Thomas. It was as if he too had been thinking and thinking, approaching her in his thought, and their two thoughts had brought them, at just the right moment, together. (This was something which Thomas said later on.) He had even begged her pardon and kissed her hand. That he kissed her hand somehow impressed Midge very much. After that they embraced and Midge cried a lot and Thomas cried a little. And after that they talked for hours. And Midge could see that her decision had been made.
thus
ending the evasions and the lies? Was the separation from Harry perhaps a cleansing period which would
return
her to him, truthful resolute and unashamed? Or was Harry over? Would she be taken back into history, rejecting as an episode the shocking, the revolutionary, the entirely new? So complex and so swift were the thoughts, condensed yet clear, which Edward had occasioned by his awkward intuitive words, by his very presence. After a paralysis of misery and fear Midge’s mind flew about like a bird seeking freedom. Am I calculating, she wondered, can I calculate? If I stay with Thomas I can be friends with Stuart, but not if I go to Harry. If I leave Thomas I might have to fight for Meredith. I’ve never really thought about … Meredith’s unhappiness … Harry always said it would be all right. Yes. Meredith is an absolute, Stuart is not. Edward had said, doesn’t that leave you with the real things? He meant Meredith and Thomas. Yes, they were real. Stuart was a dream. Harry was … Had Stuart permanently killed her love for Harry? Had not her delays and her falsehoods themselves been evidences that she did not love him
enough?
Could she make
that
sacrifice for Harry, to destroy her home, her marriage? Evidently not. And, evidently, the long affair had not unmade her home and her family. And Thomas … didn’t she love him? Yes. Oh how she was weighting the scales now, doing it deliberately, and seeing everything except the ultimate
why
she was suddenly seeing in this new light. When it came to it (but why was it now coming there?) Harry too, like Stuart, was a dream, something that couldn’t
be,
and had she not known this all along? Those two awful years, and they had been awful, had proved it so. But surely all that love and joy had been something real? Well, it was past. Then when Thomas arrived it was as if she had expected him: such a gentle quiet unfrightening loving Thomas. It was as if he too had been thinking and thinking, approaching her in his thought, and their two thoughts had brought them, at just the right moment, together. (This was something which Thomas said later on.) He had even begged her pardon and kissed her hand. That he kissed her hand somehow impressed Midge very much. After that they embraced and Midge cried a lot and Thomas cried a little. And after that they talked for hours. And Midge could see that her decision had been made.
I deceived my husband, Midge thought, and now I have betrayed my lover. I handed him over to Thomas, tied hand and foot, gagged and helpless, I did not look at his beseeching eyes. I told it all to Thomas as if it were the story of a catastrophe, a bondage from which I had escaped (but I
did
feel I was escaping, I
did
feel free), something awful which had happened to me and which he was to sympathise with, and he did sympathise. He did more, he
protected
me so carefully at every point where I might have felt shame or resentment at having to tell such things to anybody. He
made
me tell them, yet at once they were turned into something else, as if as soon as they were told, as soon as they came out of my mouth, they were metamorphosed from black into white. And Midge had a picture of black pellets emerging from her mouth and being changed into white sweetmeats, white bread, white moths, doves. I suppose that’s what happens when people confess to a priest. And that was how I betrayed Harry. I sold him for gain. And yet I had to, I had proved to myself that there was no other way to move, it was what I wanted more than anything to do. And when I was talking to Thomas I knew that I loved him and had always loved him and my not-loving-him had been a necessary fake. Or perhaps too I was falling in love with him again in a new way. The not-lying made everything so completely different, and of course not as it once was. And if I had refused what was then possible I would have unmade myself and been taken to hell by a black serpent. Why do I think this, has Thomas put all these notions into my mind? There are such strange things there too. Are they out of his old Scottish-Jewish mind, full of monsters? Or are they my monsters? I must not be afraid now, but oh the pain, the pain of it all. Of course I didn’t tell all of it; and since the telling of it made it something different perhaps I didn’t tell any of it. And of course Thomas understands that too. He knows when to press, to hold on with a grip of iron, and when to relax, to make light and air, to withdraw to a great distance so that he is only a tiny figure the size of a matchbox. I suppose that is his kind of cleverness, or is it wisdom, I don’t know, the cleverness for which I love him. But he thinks he was a fool not to have guessed, and I hate to think of that. And there he is now, he has finished his mowing and is putting up a badminton net.
did
feel I was escaping, I
did
feel free), something awful which had happened to me and which he was to sympathise with, and he did sympathise. He did more, he
protected
me so carefully at every point where I might have felt shame or resentment at having to tell such things to anybody. He
made
me tell them, yet at once they were turned into something else, as if as soon as they were told, as soon as they came out of my mouth, they were metamorphosed from black into white. And Midge had a picture of black pellets emerging from her mouth and being changed into white sweetmeats, white bread, white moths, doves. I suppose that’s what happens when people confess to a priest. And that was how I betrayed Harry. I sold him for gain. And yet I had to, I had proved to myself that there was no other way to move, it was what I wanted more than anything to do. And when I was talking to Thomas I knew that I loved him and had always loved him and my not-loving-him had been a necessary fake. Or perhaps too I was falling in love with him again in a new way. The not-lying made everything so completely different, and of course not as it once was. And if I had refused what was then possible I would have unmade myself and been taken to hell by a black serpent. Why do I think this, has Thomas put all these notions into my mind? There are such strange things there too. Are they out of his old Scottish-Jewish mind, full of monsters? Or are they my monsters? I must not be afraid now, but oh the pain, the pain of it all. Of course I didn’t tell all of it; and since the telling of it made it something different perhaps I didn’t tell any of it. And of course Thomas understands that too. He knows when to press, to hold on with a grip of iron, and when to relax, to make light and air, to withdraw to a great distance so that he is only a tiny figure the size of a matchbox. I suppose that is his kind of cleverness, or is it wisdom, I don’t know, the cleverness for which I love him. But he thinks he was a fool not to have guessed, and I hate to think of that. And there he is now, he has finished his mowing and is putting up a badminton net.
How has it all happened, she wondered, because it
has
happened. Or am I still in danger? Do I have to know that ultimate
why
or
how
before I am not in danger? Is it all ultimately a matter of instinct? When Thomas kissed my hand I just knew. Perhaps it’s impossible after all to explain, really to tell the truth to anyone, or to see it all oneself. That’s what God is for, to make our lies truth by seeing into the heart. But that’s something we can’t know. I cheated Thomas really, I told him everything except one thing, not a particular thing, not like a fact, but I kept something back like a precious jewel, I stole one thing from the casket when I handed it over.
That’s
what Thomas knows, but he won’t say, he’ll just watch. And I misled Stuart because I said I no longer loved Harry and that Stuart had killed my love for Harry when what he had really killed or maimed was my desire for sex. And that comes back. How awfully strange it all is now, as if I can suddenly see everything in my life, it’s not quite in focus but it’s very vivid, and I can sit here with folded hands and look at my life. It’s as if I have nothing to do now, Thomas and Meredith will do it all. I still love Stuart, but it’s a quiet subjective sort of love, I don’t want to shoot myself and fall at his feet. I frightened him, poor boy. Thomas said Stuart was a ‘negative presence’, a catalyst. A handy thing to be, he said, a good catalyst. He said I’d put it all onto Stuart, like an ass’s head. He said in a little while I ought to write him a kind letter. Stuart will want everything to be all right, and I’ll help him and there will be a bond between us. Such things did Midge say to herself for consolation and to keep her mind calm and clear while she was suffering the terrible pain. For the secret which she still carried with her was that even now nothing in the world prevented her from going back to Harry. His love for her was still there waiting, like a great warm house, a spacious beautiful sunny landscape. Her love for him existed too, crushed into that tiny radioactive capsule, tumour, gem or speck of poison.
has
happened. Or am I still in danger? Do I have to know that ultimate
why
or
how
before I am not in danger? Is it all ultimately a matter of instinct? When Thomas kissed my hand I just knew. Perhaps it’s impossible after all to explain, really to tell the truth to anyone, or to see it all oneself. That’s what God is for, to make our lies truth by seeing into the heart. But that’s something we can’t know. I cheated Thomas really, I told him everything except one thing, not a particular thing, not like a fact, but I kept something back like a precious jewel, I stole one thing from the casket when I handed it over.
That’s
what Thomas knows, but he won’t say, he’ll just watch. And I misled Stuart because I said I no longer loved Harry and that Stuart had killed my love for Harry when what he had really killed or maimed was my desire for sex. And that comes back. How awfully strange it all is now, as if I can suddenly see everything in my life, it’s not quite in focus but it’s very vivid, and I can sit here with folded hands and look at my life. It’s as if I have nothing to do now, Thomas and Meredith will do it all. I still love Stuart, but it’s a quiet subjective sort of love, I don’t want to shoot myself and fall at his feet. I frightened him, poor boy. Thomas said Stuart was a ‘negative presence’, a catalyst. A handy thing to be, he said, a good catalyst. He said I’d put it all onto Stuart, like an ass’s head. He said in a little while I ought to write him a kind letter. Stuart will want everything to be all right, and I’ll help him and there will be a bond between us. Such things did Midge say to herself for consolation and to keep her mind calm and clear while she was suffering the terrible pain. For the secret which she still carried with her was that even now nothing in the world prevented her from going back to Harry. His love for her was still there waiting, like a great warm house, a spacious beautiful sunny landscape. Her love for him existed too, crushed into that tiny radioactive capsule, tumour, gem or speck of poison.
Of course the fierce little thing would slowly lose its potency, fade and dissolve away into nothing, or rather be changed into some identifiable but harmless piece of tissue. But now, a slight shift in the particles which determine events and she could be far away, with Harry, in the south of France, sitting in a café and looking at the sea, or on an island in Greece, or in an exquisite white Italian city perched on a hilltop. The banality of her imagining made her sigh. That was not the stuff of her great love which had now been almost entirely transformed into pain. Now that she had made her choice she had the fearful
leisure
to rediscover all her old attachment and experience it, alone. Thomas could not, in that secret place, help her, though he knew, he saw, her suffering and was humble and gentle in its presence. He saw where it was and regarded it with his cool blue eyes. Stuart had said stop lying and you will see where you are, if you stop lying and go home you will be happy. It was not as simple or as fast as that; though there was, she knew, a lightness in the future which had been absent from her life for two years. Be patient, Thomas had said to her, be quiet, do not be made unhappy by your unhappiness. Welcome it in. Welcome it! Sometimes it devoured her, her substance preying upon her substance, her own cells blackly infected and turned to burning ill. She had written to Harry. She had not told Thomas this, but he knew. She had written such a short letter, she couldn’t write letters, saying that it was over and they must part, they were already parted and she was sorry. It was no use trying to explain. But the little letter, when she read it through, was as she had wanted it to be, perfectly clear. What she had not told Thomas and he did not know was that she had at once had a reply from Harry which she was keeping hidden in her dressing table.
leisure
to rediscover all her old attachment and experience it, alone. Thomas could not, in that secret place, help her, though he knew, he saw, her suffering and was humble and gentle in its presence. He saw where it was and regarded it with his cool blue eyes. Stuart had said stop lying and you will see where you are, if you stop lying and go home you will be happy. It was not as simple or as fast as that; though there was, she knew, a lightness in the future which had been absent from her life for two years. Be patient, Thomas had said to her, be quiet, do not be made unhappy by your unhappiness. Welcome it in. Welcome it! Sometimes it devoured her, her substance preying upon her substance, her own cells blackly infected and turned to burning ill. She had written to Harry. She had not told Thomas this, but he knew. She had written such a short letter, she couldn’t write letters, saying that it was over and they must part, they were already parted and she was sorry. It was no use trying to explain. But the little letter, when she read it through, was as she had wanted it to be, perfectly clear. What she had not told Thomas and he did not know was that she had at once had a reply from Harry which she was keeping hidden in her dressing table.
Midge sat relaxed at the window, all her limbs limp. She was an invalid. She was waiting for the signs of health which would gradually appear, touching her whole body and her aching soul with little gentle caresses. She could wait and breathe and be patient as Thomas had told her to. She would cook and clean the house and bring in flowers, aware that all the good things she felt sure she was destined to do would perhaps after all turn out to be the dull old familiar things, the duties of her family and her home. She could not have survived that rupture, that desertion, that flight, that had seemed so beautiful in the unreal prospect of it, to leave Thomas behind and Meredith torn in two, and live a new free life with Harry, casting off the past. It had only seemed possible because it was really out of the question, something not really imagined, a fantasy coexisting with a reality which excluded it. How could she have done it to Meredith: the choices of which to hurt, the painful embarrassed visits, the car driven mutely from the door, each parent unable to talk about his life with the other; the silent loneliness and the terrible cultivation of indifference and withdrawal. Sometimes such fates could not be avoided, but here it would have been wanton. I wish he hadn’t known, she thought. But he would have found out later. And he is so grown-up now, with his clever conscious eyes, and how
intelligently
he and Thomas have worked together to
entangle
me in their love and, it seems incredible to think of it in that way, their
gratitude.
And Thomas says they haven’t discussed it, and I believe him,
they haven’t exchanged a word
. How alike they are! And she smiled, for of course it wasn’t just for Meredith that she had thrown away that of whose charm and beauty she dared not think, it was for Thomas. She had tried to learn to hate Thomas in order to have the strength to leave him. It was difficult to credit, even to remember, those states of mind. Now she was free to discover all her old feelings for Thomas, or rather to find out what had been happening to them, as if she had come back to find them grown, developed, refined, and most evidently powerful. Had she not always known that Thomas was better, stronger, more lovable, more interesting? Thomas had won the game.
intelligently
he and Thomas have worked together to
entangle
me in their love and, it seems incredible to think of it in that way, their
gratitude.
And Thomas says they haven’t discussed it, and I believe him,
they haven’t exchanged a word
. How alike they are! And she smiled, for of course it wasn’t just for Meredith that she had thrown away that of whose charm and beauty she dared not think, it was for Thomas. She had tried to learn to hate Thomas in order to have the strength to leave him. It was difficult to credit, even to remember, those states of mind. Now she was free to discover all her old feelings for Thomas, or rather to find out what had been happening to them, as if she had come back to find them grown, developed, refined, and most evidently powerful. Had she not always known that Thomas was better, stronger, more lovable, more interesting? Thomas had won the game.
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