The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch [189]
‘Don’t rush away, we want to talk to you,’ said Peregrine.
‘Well, I don’t want to talk to you.’
‘We want to help you,’ said Gilbert.
‘Oh, fuck off.’
‘Please stay a minute,’ said James. ‘Titus has something to say to you. Haven’t you, Titus?’
Titus, red in the face, not looking at me, mumbled, ‘I think you ought to let my mother go home.’
‘This is her home.’
‘But seriously, old man—’ said Peregrine.
‘I don’t want your advice. I didn’t ask you to come here, any of you.’
James sat down, and the other three followed suit. I remained standing.
‘We don’t want to intrude—’ said James.
‘Don’t then.’
‘And we don’t in fact want to force any advice on you. We can’t see what this situation is, how could we? My impression is that you hardly understand it yourself. We don’t want to persuade you—’
‘Then why did you put Titus up to saying what he just said?’
‘Because it’s part of the evidence. It’s something that Titus thinks, but which he was afraid to tell you.’
‘Oh bosh.’
‘You have got a difficult and, as far as I can see, fairly urgent decision to make and if you would only consent to talk to us we could help you to make it in a rational way, and we could also help you to carry it out in a rational way. You must see that you need help, you need it.’
‘I need a chauffeur. Nothing else.’
‘You need support. I am your only relation. Gilbert and Peregrine are your close friends.’
‘They aren’t.’
‘Titus says he regards you as his father.’
‘You all seem to have had a jolly good talk about me.’
‘Don’t be angry, Charles,’ said Peregrine. ‘We didn’t expect to be landed in this soup. We came here for a holiday. But we see you in trouble and we want to back you up.’
‘There’s nothing you can do for me.’
‘There is,’ said James. ‘I think it would help you a great deal to discuss the whole business with us, not necessarily the details, but the sort of strategy of it. You could do this without disloyalty. Now roughly there are two possible courses of action: you keep her or you return her. OK? Well, let’s consider first what happens if you return her—’
‘I’m not going to return her, as you put it. She’s not a bottle.’
‘I gather from Titus that one of your reasons for not taking her back, even if she wants to go—’
‘She doesn’t.’
‘Is that you fear that her husband may be violent to her.’
‘That’s one reason, there are about a hundred others.’
‘But supposing his violence depended on a misunderstanding, and supposing that that misunderstanding could be removed—’
‘James, don’t be a fool, you know perfectly well that there isn’t any explanation or any excuse for what I have done, whatever it may be. And I advise you to be careful what you say to me.’
‘Look,’ said James, ‘I’m saying two things. First, that if you are going to take her back it must be done intelligently. We should all go with you, as a show of force, but also to back up your statement. ’
‘My statement?!’
‘And secondly, that if fear of violence is one of your reasons for not returning her, and if that fear can be reduced, this could be relevant to what you decide to do.’
‘Do you see what he means?’ said Peregrine.
‘Yes! But as James admits, you cannot understand the situation! You speak of explaining or making statements—you might as well try to explain to a bison. In any case this whole argument is beside the point since there are not two possibilities. I do not admit her return to her husband as possible.’
‘Well, then let us consider the other course—’ said James.
‘We will consider nothing! I don’t want you lot tramping around over this problem. You are being impertinent, and I resent it extremely! But since the matter has come up I should like to ask Titus why he thinks I ought to let his mother go home.’
Titus, who had been staring at the ham (perhaps he was hungry) all this time, seemed reluctant to answer, blushed and would not look up. He said, ‘Well—you see—I feel I may be to blame—’
‘Why on earth?’
‘It’s so difficult, one has so many sort of—emotions, and sort of—prejudices,