The Good Apprentice by Iris Murdoch Page A

little and the terrible cold pale daylight of a grey afternoon came into the room. The last clients, transformed into ordinary people with coats and umbrellas and shopping bags and ordinary anxious faces and coughs, were leaving the room, shuffling the chairs and making way for each other as they shambled off. Edward was left alone with Mrs Quaid, who was standing at the window looking out at the street. He searched for his mackintosh, which had been displaced in the movement of the chairs, and put it on. It was still wet. Mrs Quaid said aloud to herself, ‘Double glazing makes all the difference.’ Then she turned and noticed Edward and made a gesture towards the door, inviting him to go. In the ungracious light she looked tired and much older.
    ‘Mrs Quaid,’ said Edward, ‘please may I ask you something. If someone — if some spirit voice — comes through with a message — like just now — does it mean that that person is dead?’
    ‘Does it mean what?’
    ‘That the person — that the voice that speaks has to be that of a dead person, I mean a dead person not a live person?’
    ‘How do I know?’ said Mrs Quaid in a petulant tone, ‘I am a medium, you understand what that means, I only convey what is sent to me by my guide.’ She added, ‘It’s very tiring you know.’ She carefully took off her turban and put it on a chair, and smoothed down her wispy grey hair.
    ‘But when you said “There’s someone here who has two fathers — ”’
    ‘I didn’t say anything. I don’t know what the spirits said.’
    ‘Someone said my name. You don’t know my name, do you ? ’
    ‘No, of course not, never seen you before in my life.’
    ‘But do living people ever speak like that — ’
    ‘I dare say anything may happen to those who are in tune with nature. Now I’ve got to have my tea.’
    ‘Perhaps I imagined it,’ said Edward.
    ‘Perhaps you did. Sorry, dear.’
    Edward went out of the room which seemed so dull and lifeless now, and passed out of the open door of the flat and down the stairs. Outside in the street the rain had stopped and the light had changed, become a bright rainy light with the sun shining momentarily through clouds, there was a fragment of rainbow and everything about him shone radiantly in vivid colours, the glittering pavement, the wet railings, the brick fronts of the houses, the clothes of the passersby, the Post Office Tower. Edward walked a few paces, then stood still. Whatever had happened? He felt a painful excitement, a sick ominous feeling of extreme fear, a desire to vomit. Surely he had heard that strange voice utter his name? He had certainly heard ‘Come to your father, come home.’ It must be for him, that message to the one who had two fathers. But suppose he were being summoned by a dead father?
     
     
     
     
    ‘Do you think we should stop Meredith from seeing Stuart?’ Midge McCaskerville asked her husband, as she sat on his desk dressed to go out in her smart black mac and blue and red silk scarf.
    ‘Why ? ’
    ‘He’s become so emotional and peculiar, he might preach his religious mania to Meredith — and — well — ’
    ‘You think he might spring upon the boy?’
    ‘No, of course not, but I don’t want Meredith involved in an emotional friendship with Stuart.’
    Thomas, who had laid down his pen, picked it up again. He said, ‘I don’t see any problem, we might just create one by interfering.’
    ‘I wish Edward would attend to Meredith more, he’s very fond of Edward, not much use at the moment of course. Stuart is so sort of unreal and inhuman. Of course it would be difficult, we don’t want to give offence. Are you writing about Mr Blinnet?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Does he still think he murdered his wife and buried her and she’s grown into a laburnum tree? What’s his latest, if it’s not secret?’
    ‘Oh, he tells everybody. An old schoolmaster of his in Manchester is sending out steel wires which enter into Mr Blinnet’s head and