The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch [22]
I think that in winter I shall live downstairs. How I look forward to it. The drawing room is still more of a lookout point than a room. It is dominated by a tall black-painted wooden chimney piece, with a lot of little shelves with little mirrors above them. A collector’s item, no doubt, but it looks a little too like the altar of some weird sect. (It has that oriental vegetable look.)
Before I lit the lamps tonight I spent some time simply gazing out at the moonlight, always an astonishment and a joy to the town-dweller. It is so bright now over the rocks that I could read by it. Only, oddly enough, I note that I have had no impulse to read since I have been here. A good sign. Writing seems to have replaced reading. Yet also, I seem to be constantly putting off the moment when I begin to give a formal account of myself. (‘I was born at the turn of the century in the town of———’ or whatever.) There will be time and motive enough to prose on about my life when I shall have generated as it were a sufficient cloud of reflection. I am still almost shy of my emotions, shy of the terrible strength of certain memories. Simply the tale of my years with Clement could fill a volume.
I am very conscious of the house existing quietly round about me. Parts of it I have colonised, other parts remain obstinately alien and dim. The entrance hall is dark and pointless, except for the presence of the large oval mirror aforementioned. (This handsome object seems to glow with its own light.) I do not altogether like the stairs. (Spirits from the past linger on stairs.) These lead half-way up, via a narrow branching stairway, to a surprisingly large bathroom which faces the road, and from which, behind an odd little door, more steps lead to the attics. The bathroom has some good original tiles representing swans and sinuous lilies. There is a huge much-stained bath on lions’ paws, with excellent enormous brass taps. (There is no system for heating the water however! A hip bath in a downstairs cupboard represents, I suspect, the reality of the situation.) There is also a notice in a continental hand giving useful instructions about how to make the lavatory work. The main staircase turns inward to reach the space of the upper landing. I call this a ‘space’ because it is a rather odd area with an atmosphere all its own. It has the expectant air of a stage set. Sometimes I feel as if I must have seen it long ago in a dream. It is a big windowless oblong, lit during the day through open doors, and adorned, just opposite the ‘inner room’, by a solid oak stand upon which there is a large remarkably hideous green vase, with a thick neck and a scalloped rim and pink roses blistering its bulging sides. I have become very attached to this gross object. Beyond it there is a shallow alcove which looks as if it should contain a statue, but empty resembles a door. After this comes the most fascinating feature of the landing: an archway containing a bead curtain. This curtain is not unlike those which exclude flies from shops in Mediterranean countries. The beads are of wood, painted yellow and black, and they click lightly together as one passes through. After the archway come the doors of my bedroom and drawing room.
It is time for bed. Behind me is the long horizontal window, several feet up in the wall, which gives onto the ‘inner room’. As I rise I am impelled to look towards it, seeing my face reflected in the black glass as in a mirror. I have never suffered from night fears. I was never, that I can recall, afraid of the dark as a child. My mother early impressed upon me