Free The Red And The Green by Iris Murdoch Page B

religion was a matter of choosing between one appalling vulgarity and another. Wondering which he would vote for if he had to choose, he concluded sadly that of course he would have to be with the young people in the marquee and their boisterous mentors. ‘Yes,’ he said absently.
    At the moment Andrew could think of nothing else but Pat Dumay. He regretted everything about yesterday’s scene. He felt he had cut a rotten figure. He had failed to protect Frances from a sort of grossness in the atmosphere. He had construed her rushing off with Uncle Barnabas as a reproach to himself. He had helplessly witnessed his uncle playing the buffoon. And worst of all he had allowed himself to be provoked into taunting Pat. He had scarcely troubled to formulate any intention or resolution about this beforehand, so impossible had it seemed that he should affront his cousin. It had been for Andrew an axiom that Pat was a little larger than life and far too dignified and authoritative to be in any way goaded or jeered at. Such behaviour would only belittle the jeerer; as he now felt himself belittled. More than this, he felt an acute regret, almost a sentimental pain, to think that he had probably ruined his chances of becoming Pat’s friend. He now realized, inordinately, surprisingly upset by the incident, that so far from being ‘liberated’ from his uncomfortable interest in his cousin, he had returned to Ireland with the ardent hope of being treated as his equal, of winning his respect and even his affection. Yesterday’s encounter had been very important to him and now that it had misfired he was left with an emotional problem. He had hardly been able to bring himself to leave the house, he could not remember whether he had said goodbye to Aunt Kathleen, and he would certainly have attempted some reconciliation scene then and there, had not the maddening Cathal been standing by.
    â€˜After all, Frances wants a formal proposal, any girl does,’ Hilda was going on. ‘It’s a great moment in one’s life. She’ll want to be able to remember it later on. It is really time there was an announcement. And you must do something about a ring. It isn’t fair to other young men, and now that Frances is going more into society you don’t want to land her in difficulties.’
    With an effort Andrew switched his attention to Frances. Yes, he really must get Frances fixed up. And of course, yes, a great moment. My dearest Frances, I have something of very great importance to ask you. I wonder if you can at all guess what it is? Indeed, dear Andrew, I cannot conjecture. You will have to tell me. I wish you to do me the honour of becoming my wife. ‘You are quite right, Mama,’ he said.
    â€˜I do hope Christopher will be on time. I saw him this morning at Bewley’s in Grafton Street and he swore he’d come. It’s such a job to get him round to Millie’s. I do find your aunt rather a strain and I know he does too. Thank heavens it’s stopped raining, so perhaps he’ll wait for us outside. You say everything looked just the same at Blessington Street? I really must get round there and see the boys, Kathleen keeps pestering me. I am surprised she does not re-do her drawing-room. She could easily afford it, and it must look so shabby and old-fashioned now.’
    â€˜It looked exactly as I always remember it.’
    It was a room that receded into his earliest childhood like a long dirty corridor, always twilit, stuffy, melancholy, vaguely menacing. And yet perhaps it was not quite the same, or rather he himself had changed. He recalled seeing yesterday, as he checked the massy drifts of furniture and the myriad objects still rooted in their old places, an oriental table with innumerable pieces of glass set into its gilded legs. He remembered this, which had once seemed to him an object of exotic beauty; it now looked as his mother would see it, tawdry, vulgar.