The Sandcastle by Iris Murdoch

a sort of rather
suspicious pondering.’

This was not bad, thought Mor. Accurate and not uncharitable. His opinion of
Evvy went up a point. He glanced at Bledyard. Bledyard was sitting abstracted
from the scene, as if he were a diner at a restaurant who had by accident to
share a table with three complete strangers. He got on with his meal. Mor
envied Bledyard’s total disregard of convention. He agreed with Demoyte that
Bledyard was undoubtedly a man. There was something exceedingly real about him.
He made Evvy seem flimsy by comparison, a sort of fiction. Miss Carter was very
real too. Am I real? Mor wondered with a strange pang.

Mr Everard was now touchingly anxious to make conversation. His forehead
wrinkled with the effort, and he turned a worried face towards Miss Carter
between every mouthful. ‘I believe you have lived abroad a great deal,’ he
said, ‘and that you are quite a stranger to this island, Miss Carter?’

‘Yes, I have lived mostly in France,’ said Miss Carter. ‘I was brought up in
the South of France.’

‘Ah, the shores of the Mediterranean!’ said Evvy, ‘that “grand object of
travel”, as Dr Johnson said. You were fortunate, Miss Carter.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Miss Carter, turning seriously towards him. ‘I am not sure
that the South of France is a good place for a child. It is so hot and dry. I
remember my childhood as a time of terrible dryness, as if it were a long
period of drought.’

‘Ah, but you were by the sea, were you not?’ said Evvy.

‘Yes,’ said Miss Carter, ‘but a melancholy sea as I remember it. A tideless
sea. I can recall, as a child, seeing pictures in English children’s books of
boys and girls playing on the sand and making sandcastles — and I tried to play
on my sand. But a Mediterranean beach is not a place for playing on. It is
dirty and very dry. The tides never wash the sand or make it firm. When I tried
to make a sandcastle, the sand would just run away between my fingers. It was
too dry to hold together. And even if I poured sea water over it, the sun would
dry it up at once.’

This speech caught Bledyard’s attention. He stopped eating and looked at Miss
Carter. For a moment he looked as if he might speak. Then he decided not to,
and went on eating. Mor looked at Miss Carter too. She seemed to be overcome
with confusion, either at the length of her speech or at Bledyard’s attention. Mor
was both touched and irritated.

Mr Everard pursued his conversational way relentlessly. ‘You are an only child,
I believe, Miss Carter?

‘Unfortunately, yes,’ said Miss Carter.

‘And did you always live with your father? You must have led quite a social
existence.’

‘No,’ said Miss Carter, ‘my father was rather a solitary. My mother died when I
was very young. I lived alone with my father, until early this year, that is,
when he died.’

There was a silence. Evvy toyed with the remains of his meal, trying to think
what to say next. Mor stole a glance at Miss Carter, and then sat petrified.
She had closed her eyes, and two tears had escaped from them and were coursing
down her cheeks.

Mor was pierced to the heart. How little imagination I have! he thought. I knew
she had just lost her father, but it didn’t even occur to me to wonder whether
she was grieving. He also tried to think, in vain, of something to say.

Bledyard saw the tears and threw down his knife and fork. ‘Miss Carter,’ said
Bledyard, leaning forward, ‘I am a great admirer admirer of your father’s
work.’

Mor’s heart warmed to Bledyard. Miss Carter dashed away the tears very quickly.
Evv hadn’t even noticed them. ‘I’m so glad,’ she said. She sounded glad.

‘Did your father teach you to paint?’ asked Bledyard.

‘Yes,’ said Miss Carter, ‘he was quite a tyrant. I feel as if I was born with a
paint brush in my hand. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t painting, with my
father standing beside me.

Evvy had taken advantage of this