The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch [70]
‘Well, he may not have recognized you. You aren’t all that famous. I’m far more famous than you.’
This was true. ‘Stars are always more famous than those who create them. May I ask what you are doing at the Raven Hotel?’
‘Visiting you.’
‘How long have you been there?’
‘Oh ages, a week, I don’t know. I just wanted to keep an eye on you. I thought it might be rather fun to haunt you.’
‘To haunt me? You mean—’
‘Haven’t you felt haunted? Not that I’ve done very much, no turnip lanterns, no dressing up in sheets—’
I wanted to shout with exasperation and relief. ‘So it was you—you broke the vase and the mirror, and you’ve been creeping round at night and peering at me—’
‘I broke the vase and the mirror, but I haven’t been creeping round at night, I wouldn’t come in here in the pitch dark. This house is creepy.’
‘But you did, you looked at me through the glass of that inner room.’
‘No, I didn’t. I never did. That must have been some other ghost.’
‘You did, someone did. How did you get in?’
‘You leave your windows open downstairs. You shouldn’t, you know.’
I suddenly then, as I was staring at her, saw a vision: it was as if her face vanished, became a hole, and through the hole I saw the snake-like head and teeth and pink opening mouth of my sea monster. This lasted a second. I suppose it was not really a vision but just a thought. My nerves were still terribly on edge. I could hear the sea again, louder. But as I could hardly suppose that Rosina had arranged for me to be haunted by a sea monster I decided not to mention it.
‘But why did you persecute me in this way? And why did you decide to let me discover you now, if you did?’
‘I saw Lizzie Scherer in the village today.’
‘Yes, she was here, she’s gone. But what has that got to do with it? I can’t understand what this is all about.’
‘Can’t you, Charles? Have you forgotten? Let me remind you.’ Rosina leaned across the table, laying her hands flat and pointing her long fingernails at me like little spears. The nails were painted a dark purple. The bracelets grated on the wooden table. ‘Have you forgotten? You promised that if you ever married anybody you would marry me.’
Fear returned to me, a vista of cold dismay, the emergence in life of the unpredictable and dangerous. Rosina’s unnervingly blue eyes were sparkling, her rings were glistening. What she said was perfectly true.
I said lightly, ‘Did I? I can’t remember. I must have been drunk. Anyway I’m not proposing to get married.’
‘No? And you promised that if you ever settled permanently with anyone you would settle with me.’
This also was unfortunately true.
Rosina smiled. She has slightly irregular long, white teeth and a kind of ‘smile’ whereby she advances her lower teeth to meet her upper ones and draws back her lips. The effect is terrible. ‘You were not drunk. And you remember, Charles.’
I was trying to think what line I had better adopt with this dangerous woman. I had certainly not expected her to reappear in my life. But now that she had done so I recognized and respected her style. The broken vase, the smashed mirror were not idle portents. Why these reminders now, what had set it all off? The reference to Lizzie was the clue, though unfortunately I had no time to reflect upon it. If that was her drift, suppose I told her that Lizzie’s presence here meant nothing? This would only put off the crisis whose nature I was just beginning to grasp. Had I, in my recent thoughts, considered Lizzie in the hypothetical light of a permanent partner? Possibly. Had I thought seriously of marrying Lizzie? No. But Rosina’s terrorism was intolerable, an impertinence. I decided it was better to be aggressively firm and direct straightaway.
‘Look here, just stop this, will you. I forget what I said exactly but it was momentary emotional nonsense, as you perfectly well know. One can’t bind oneself like that and I’m not bound. Those were just words, not a promise.’
‘Promises are words. You are bound, Charles. Bound.’ She repeated the word softly with an intense emphasis.
‘Rosina, don’t talk