A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch Read Free Book Online Page B

view and made Rembers enclosed and solitary.
    In the creamy white smock, self-consciously old fashioned, my brother seemed dressed to represent a miller in an opera. His big pale face in repose had an eighteenth-century appearance, heavy, intelligent, the slightest bit degenerate, speaking of a past of generals and gentlemen adventurers, profoundly English in the way in which only Anglo-Irish faces can now be. One might have called him ‘ noble ’ in the sense of the word which is usually reserved for animals.
    It was an odd thing about Alexander, and one which I noted ever anew, especially when I saw him at Rembers, that although the form of his face perfectly recalled my father, its spirit and animation perfectly recalled my mother. More than in Rosemary or me, here she lived on, as indeed we both profoundly apprehended in our relation to Alexander. We passed as being, and I suppose we were, a very united family; and though I ruled out financial fortunes and largely played my father ’ s role, Alexander in playing my mother ’ s was the real head of the family. Here in the house and here in the studio, whose whitewashed walls were still dotted with her water-colours and pastel-shaded lithographs, I recalled her clearly, with a sad shudder of memory, and with that particular painful guilty thrilling sense of being both stifled and protected with which a return to my old home always afflicted me; and now it was as if my pain for Antonia had become the same pain, so closely was it now blended in quality, though more intense, with the obscure malaise of my homecomings. Perhaps indeed it had always been the same pain, a mingled shadow cast forward and backward across my destiny.
    We had not yet put the lights on, and we sat together in the window-seat, not looking at each other but turned toward the silent movement of the snow and the now invisible ‘ view ’ to enjoy which Alexander had a few years ago had the big bay window built. Beyond the curtain which divided it from the annexe, the studio was almost in darkness. In summer it would be scented .with smells of wood, and flower smells from outside and the fresh wet clean smell of clay; but now it smelt only of paraffin from the four big oil-heaters whose equally familiar odour brought me recollections of ill-lit childhood winters.
    ‘ And so? ’
    ‘ Well, there it is. ’
    ‘ And Palmer didn ’ t tell you anything else? ’
    ‘ I didn ’ t ask him anything else. ’
    ‘ And you say you were charming to him? ’
    ‘ Charming. ’
    ‘ I don ’ t say, ’ said Alexander, ‘ that I would have sprung upon him like a wild animal. But I would have interrogated him. I should have wanted to understand. ’
    ‘ Oh, I understand, ’ I said. ‘ You must remember that I am very close to Palmer; which makes it impossible to ask, but also makes it unnecessary. ’
    ‘ And Antonia seems happy? ’
    ‘ It ’ s the beatific vision. ’
    Alexander sighed. He said, ‘ I ’ m tempted to say now that I never liked Palmer. He ’ s an imitation human being: beautifully finished, exquisitely coloured, but imitation. ’
    ‘ He ’ s a magician, ’ I said, ‘ and that can inspire dislike. But he ’ s warm-blooded. He needs love as much as anyone else does. I can ’ t help being touched by the way he has tried to hold me, as well as Antonia, in this situation. ’
    ‘ I say pish, Sir, I say bah! ’ said Alexander.
    ‘ Antonia wrote to you? ’ I turned to watch him, his big slow face illuminated by the sallow light of the snow.
    ‘ Yes, ’ he said. ‘ Yes. I wonder if I might have guessed. But no, any such thing would have seemed to me impossible. When it came to it I was stunned by her letter. ’
    ‘ Surely you didn ’ t get her letter before I telephoned? She would hardly have written to you before she told me! ’
    ‘ Oh, well, of course not, ’ said Alexander. ‘ But I didn ’ t take it in properly when you rang. She didn ’ t say anything in the letter,