The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch [38]
Charles, I’ve been in hell and I’ve come out of it and I don’t want to go there again. Jealousy is hell and I’m not cured. Suppose I come to you, with all that old love—and you smile and stroll away? You’re free, your letter made that clear all right. Forgive me, but you know how people talk, everybody tells everybody everything, and I still keep meeting girls I didn’t even know you knew who say they’ve had romances with you, they may be lying of course. You know you can’t keep your hands off women, and I’m not young and beautiful any more, and you like chasing what isn’t easy to get, you don’t want to stay with anyone, in the end you drop everyone! You once said getting married was like buying a doll, which shows what you think of marriage. And I don’t believe you’ve really retired, Gilbert said it was like God retiring, you’re too restless. You made me act, you made everyone act, you’re like a very good dancer, you make other people dance but it’s got to be with you. You don’t respect people as people, you don’t see them, you’re not really a teacher, you’re a sort of rapacious magician. How can I imagine that all this could stop? Do you want me as a sort of patient friend, a chaperon with knitting, a calm wise older woman, a sort of retired senior wife to whom you can complain about the others? It wouldn’t work, Charles. I’m not calm and wise. I’d want everything. You could still have children. I remember you saying more than once how much you wanted a son. You could still have a son, only I couldn’t bear him. Oh Charles, Charles, why didn’t you marry me long ago, I loved you so much. I love you so much—only I can’t put my head into that noose. My love for you is quiet at last. I don’t want it to become a roaring furnace.
And there is something else I must tell you. I am living with Gilbert Opian. You obviously didn’t know or you’d have mentioned it in the letter. I know you made me promise to let you know if I ever settled down permanently with anyone. (I was so hurt when Rita Gibbons told me you’d made her promise that too. I didn’t tell her about my promise. She says she doesn’t regard hers as binding because it was given under duress.) I didn’t tell you about Gilbert because I’m not living like that with him, I mean we’re not lovers, of course not, Gilbert hasn’t suddenly become heterosexual. We just love each other and care for each other and we share a house and, Charles, I have been happy for the first time in my life. This is the most creative thing I’ve ever done, far more than acting. I was living like this when we met at Sidney’s lunch and I would have told you then if you’d shown any interest and really asked! And, Charles, I’ve left the theatre and I feel so much better. Honestly the theatre was always a torment for me. I only shone for you, and when you left me I faded! (I was never much good anyhow!) When I look back and see what a miserable stupid anxious messy existence I led over years and years I can’t think how I tolerated it. I was perfectly capable of being happy but somehow I always managed not to be! Men were always being beastly to me. Gilbert is so different. Don’t sneer at this. I’ve been bullied by bloody men all my life. Now I have a decent orderly cheerful existence. I’m even useful! I work part time in a hospital office. I’m learning to paint and I write children’s stories (none published yet). You may think this sounds pathetic, but for me it’s happiness and freedom. And Gilbert is happy too. He’s stopped fretting about being unsuccessful and not being a star. He can get some small parts and he works a bit on TV. We’re not rich, but we can earn money and look after each other. Tenderness and absolute trust and communication and truth: these things matter more and more as one grows