The Green Knight by Iris Murdoch Page A

required food as pleasure and had not yet discovered it as a necessity, did not care for these lines of thought.
    The doorbell rang downstairs. Tessa locked the door at six and could ruthlessly refuse to answer. She proclaimed that the evening was hers and that she was often out: perhaps, rumour had it, in chic clothes at grand houses. She moved a little away from him and they looked at each other. The bell rang again. Then silence. She murmured, ‘If it was urgent they’d go on ringing. The telephone is switched off too.’
    â€˜It might be a friend.’
    â€˜No. Friends have codes.’
    â€˜Don’t tease me. Everything wounds me now except perfect kindness.’
    â€˜I can’t provide that at this time of day.’
    â€˜Sorry. I shouldn’t have hinted that I wanted to see you. It’s very kind of you to – ’
    â€˜Yes, yes. Do you want to talk about your mother?’
    â€˜You make people talk about other people.’
    â€˜Only if they want to. What people say about other people says a lot about the people themselves.’
    â€˜I’m afraid she’ll take to drugs, she talks about getting “hooked”. She pretends to be desperate and suicidal. Or is it pretence?’
    â€˜Yes, it’s pretence. Next question.’
    â€˜Please – ’
    â€˜She has tremendous energy and a tremendous will to live. I don’t think she is suicidal. Desperation is her mode of willing to live.’
    â€˜Oh well – you visited my grandmother.’
    â€˜Are you jealous?’
    â€˜Yes. That’s another wound. Tessa, don’t be cold and brisk with me. I don’t want to talk about my mother, I want to talk about myself. I feel so depressed. I have to be merry and bright while I just want to cry.’
    â€˜Cry then, cry here, everyone else does.’
    â€˜You must be tired of weeping persons.’
    â€˜Do those girls still cry? You said they cried a lot.’
    â€˜Yes. Don’t be nasty about them.’
    â€˜I’m not nasty, I’m just interested. I respect Sefton. But they are all sick with values, crammed with good behaviour. In a way I envy them. Perhaps they’ll get away with it. Is the dog still there?’
    â€˜Now you’re talking about the dog. Yes.’
    â€˜Bellamy ought not to have given the dog away. A dog is forever. The dog will run off and vanish. Then there’ll be tears.’
    â€˜I’m afraid so.’
    â€˜Bellamy is totally mistaken about himself. He is a fool.’
    â€˜Perhaps a holy fool.’
    â€˜Ridiculous phrase. Holiness requires intellect. The Jesuits understand that.’
    â€˜Don’t be cross with me.’
    â€˜Harvey, I’m not cross. I’m just very tired. I’m sorry I asked you to come, I have nothing for you.’
    â€˜Just being with you helps me, I feel you are in the truth.’
    â€˜Where do you pick up these bizarre phrases?’
    â€˜You regard my mother as a patient, as a case.’
    â€˜You like to see it that way. You want to feel that someone is looking after her. I love her, I calm her, she is so picturesque, she is a witch, a leprechaun, daft as a brush. What a tonic.’
    â€˜I have never understood why a brush is daft.’
    â€˜It is something to do with foxes.’
    â€˜Oh Tessa, I’m so miserable, I feel so unreal, so sick , as if my whole inside had been removed, I feel vacant , I’m a puppet, I feel I’ve died , I wish you’d take me on as a case.’
    â€˜It wouldn’t do, dear child.’
    â€˜Why not? You can’t imagine how unhappy I am.’
    â€˜I can. But your kind of unhappiness must cure itself. You have a healing substance in your own body and soul, it is called courage. Your mother has it too. Call upon it, let it flow. Besides you are young and have work and a place in life. Read, study, think.’
    â€˜I can’t. I’m an orphan. I realise it for