The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch [213]
It was the following day and I had written my letter in the morning, but was still undecided about what to do with it. It remained now to get rid of James and Lizzie. I could simply ask James to go. Lizzie might have to be told some lie.
James was, rather surprisingly, still in bed. He had slept, on and off, for many hours. Whereas I, who had had the real ordeal, was now feeling better. I went up to see him.
‘James, you slug. Are you all right? Touch of the old malaria?’
James was lying back in my bed, propped up in a cunningly arranged nest of pillows, his arms stretched out straight over the blankets. He had not been reading. He looked alert, as if he had been thinking. Yet his body looked floppy with relaxation. He had some growth of beard which changed his face, making him look Spanish, an ecclesiastic, perhaps an ascetic warrior. Then he smiled cheerfully, and I remembered how much that inane smile used to irritate me, how it had seemed to betoken a facile superiority. There was quietness in the room and the sound of the sea was dulled.
‘I’m all right. Must have caught a chill. I’ll get up soon. How are you feeling?’
‘Fine. Can I get you anything?’
‘No, thanks, I don’t want to eat. Lizzie brought me some tea.’
I frowned.
‘Where’s Titus?’ said James.
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Keep an eye on him.’
‘He can look after himself.’
There was silence for a moment. ‘Sit down,’ said James, ‘don’t look as if you’re going.’
I sat down. James’s relaxation seemed to have affected me. I stretched out my legs and felt as if I might sleep myself, even though I was sitting in an upright chair. I felt my shoulders and arms become soft and heavy. Of course I was very exhausted.
‘You’re not still wanting Titus to go back to Ben, are you?’ I said.
‘Did I say that?’
‘You implied it.’
‘He does in a way belong with them.’
‘With them?’ Soon, very soon, there would be no more ‘them’.
James, following this, said, ‘Are you still dreaming of that rescue?’
‘Yes.’
There was another silence as if we were both going to sleep. Then James went on, ‘After all, he is in a real and deep sense their child. My impression was that that relationship was not beyond salvage.’
I was irritated by his ‘impression’. What could it be based on? The horrible answer occurred to me: conversations with Titus. I had come up to see James in order to hasten his departure, and I had decided not to say anything to him about Ben’s crime. This revelation would be too interesting. But now I felt tempted to shake his complacency. While I reflected on this I said, ‘I am going to adopt Titus.’
‘Adopt him, legally, can you?’
‘Yes.’ In fact I did not know. ‘I am going to make his career. And I shall leave him my money.’
‘It’s not so easy.’
‘What isn’t?’
‘To establish relationships, you can’t just elect people, it can’t be done by thinking and willing.’
I was tempted to reply, I daresay you don’t find it easy! Then I recalled Titus’s voice saying ‘Where does your cousin live?’ And I remembered what Toby Ellesmere had told me about the sherpa whom James was fond of who died on the mountain, and I felt a momentary nervous urge to ask him about this ‘attachment’. But it would have been a dangerous impertinence. I was never unaware that James retained the power to hurt me very much. How odd it was that even now my fear was an ingredient of our converse! Cousinage, dangereux voisinage. I felt annoyance with him all the same, he was making me feel awkward and incompetent, and I wanted to stir up his sleepy calm. I could not decide whether or not to tell him about Ben. If I told him would that delay his departure? Yet I very much wanted to