The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch [198]
‘Not exactly. But it’s as if something passed between us.’
‘Military telepathy.’
‘Sort of. I think—it’s hard to put—some vein of honour is touched—’
‘Oh rubbish,’ I said. ‘It’s funny, James, but whenever you start talking soldiery you seem to me to become utterly stupid. Military vanity, I suppose.’
We were silent for a bit longer. I found a few stones myself and dropped them in, after examining each one to see if it was worth keeping. I imagined Ben would soon throw away that pretty stone in the plastic bag. Perhaps he would throw it at the dog. I felt sorry for that dog.
James said, ‘I hope you don’t feel that I’ve influenced you in any way against your better judgment?’
‘No.’ I was not going to argue that point. Of course he had influenced me. But what was my judgment, let alone my better judgment?
‘What are you going to do about Titus?’
‘What?’
‘What are you going to do about Titus?’
‘I don’t know. He’ll probably clear off.’
‘He won’t if you hold on to him, but you’ll have to hold. He says he wants to be an actor.’
‘He told me that, oddly enough.’
‘Can you get him into an acting school?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Titus will be an occupation for you.’
‘Thanks for thinking about my occupations.’
‘I suppose you’ll leave this house now?’
‘Why the hell should I?’
‘Well, wouldn’t it be better—?’
‘This is my home. I like it here.’
‘Uh—huh—’
We threw a few more stones.
‘Can I go on talking, Charles?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve been thinking—Are you sure you don’t mind?’
‘Oh go on, what does it matter.’
‘Time can divorce us from the reality of people, it can separate us from people and turn them into ghosts. Or rather it is we who turn them into ghosts or demons. Some kinds of fruitless preoccupations with the past can create such simulacra, and they can exercise power, like those heroes at Troy fighting for a phantom Helen.’
‘You think I’m fighting for a phantom Helen?’
‘Yes.’
‘She is real to me. More real than you are. How can you insult an unhappy suffering person by calling her a ghost?’
‘I’m not calling her a ghost. She is real, as human creatures are, but what reality she has is elsewhere. She does not coincide with your dream figure. You were not able to transform her. You must admit you tried and failed.’
I said nothing to this. I had certainly tried and failed to do something. But what, and what did this failure prove?
‘So having tried, can you not now set your mind at rest? Don’t torment yourself any more with this business. All right, you had to try, but now it’s over and I’m sure you’ve done her no lasting harm. Think of other things now. There’s a crime in the Army called deliberately making oneself unfit for duty. Don’t do that. Think about Titus.’
‘Why keep dragging Titus in?’
‘Sorry. But seriously, look at it this way. Your love for this girl, when she was a girl, was put by shock into a state of suspended animation. Now the shock of meeting her again has led you to re-enact all your old feelings for her. It’s a mental charade, a necessary one perhaps, it has its own necessity, but not like what you think. Of course you can’t get over it at once. But in a few weeks or a few months you’ll have run through it all, looked at it all again and felt it all again and got rid of it. It’s not an eternal thing, nothing human is eternal. For us, eternity is an illusion. It’s like in a fairy tale. When the clock strikes twelve it will all crumble to pieces and vanish. And you’ll find you are free of her, free of her forever, and you can let the poor ghost go. What will remain will be ordinary obligations and ordinary interests. And you’ll feel relief, you’ll feel free. At present you’re just obsessed, hypnotized.’
While James was speaking he was leaning down over the water and skimming some of the flatter stones so that they leapt upon the surface; only there was too much of a swell for them to jump very far. Watching the skimming stones I was filled with anguish because I remembered playing just that game with Hartley on an old pond near our house. She did it better than I did.
I replied, ‘What you