The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch [57]
Of course, and instinctively, we kept it all a secret. Our schoolfellows had got used to our playful friendship. Now we lay low, we were casual, we had secret meeting places. All this, as I say, was instinctive, never discussed or decided. We had to hide the precious thing in case it was hurt, derided, damaged or offended in some way. My parents vaguely knew Hartley of course, but she hardly ever came to the house, because of their almost morbid dislike of visitors, and also because I never suggested it. They did not suspect my special interest in her because they regarded me then as much too young to have special interests. Her parents, equally vaguely aware of me, were equally uninterested, except that I think they rather disliked me. She had an elder brother who despised us both. Our world was sealed and secret. Parents would be duly informed later on when we got married; for of course we were going to marry when we were eighteen. (We were the same age.) There were many caresses, but we did not make love. Remember, this was long ago.
I must try to describe Hartley. Oh, my darling, how clearly I can see you now. Surely this is perception, not imagination. The light in the cavern is daylight, not fire. Perhaps it is the only true light in my life, the light that reveals the truth. No wonder I feared to lose the light and to be left in the darkness forever. All a child’s blind fear was there, the fear that my mother so early inspired in me: the kiss withheld, the candle taken. Hartley, my Hartley. Yes, I see her clearly, jumping over a rope, higher and higher it was raised, Hartley still flew over, the watchers sighing each time with sympathetic relief; and I hugging my heart in secret pride. She was the champion jumper of the school, of many schools, the champion runner, Hartley always first, and I cheering with the rest and laughing with secret joy. Hartley, in a breathless stillness, crouched upon a parallel bar, her bare thighs gleaming. The games master spoke of the Olympics.
Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, and lighten with celestial fire . . . We went up for confirmation together, to receive the divine blessing upon our love. I remember Hartley singing in church, her bright innocent lovely face raised up to the light, to God, towards the joy which belonged to her and which she must have. We talked a lot about religion (we talked a lot about everything), and we felt that we were dedicated people who would be protected by love. We experienced our innocence and we did not think it would be difficult to be good. I can remember Hartley’s marvellous laugh, but not that we teased each other much or were always making jokes. Ours was a solemn holy happiness, and we shunned the coarser talk of our schoolfellows. I think we had little curiosity about sex. We were one, and only that mattered. We lived in paradise. We fled on bicycles to lie in buttercup fields, beside railway bridges, near canals, in waste land awaiting housing estates. Ours was already a suburban countryside, but it was as lovely and significant to us as the Garden of Eden. She was not an intellectual or bookish girl, she had the wisdom of the innocents and we conversed as angels. She was at home in time and space.
I can see her smiling at me now. She was beautiful but with a secret beauty. She was not one of the ‘pretty girls’ of the school. Sometimes her face looked heavy, almost dour, and when she cried she looked like the pig-baby in Alice. She was very pale, and people sometimes thought she looked ill, although she was so strong and so healthy. Her face was rather round and white and her eyes gazed out with such a fey puzzled look, like a young savage. She had dark blue eyes which seemed to be violet when you were not looking at them. Her pupils were often dilated so that her eyes became almost black. She had very fine straight fair hair in a long bob. Her lips were pale and always cold; and when, with my eyes closing, I touched them so childishly with mine, a cold force pierced me like a spear, such as a pilgrim might feel when he knelt and