The Philosopher's Pupil by Iris Murdoch Page B

back her hair.
    â€˜Where do you think?’ said Alex. ‘Home.’
    Gabriel looked at Brian who would not catch her eye. Gabriel thought Stella should come and stay with them when she came out of hospital. Not uttering this thought, she said vaguely to Alex, ‘Oughtn’t she to rest, to convalesce?’
    â€˜Go to the sea,’ said Brian, deliberately confusing matters.
    â€˜That makes no sense,’ said Alex. ‘There isn’t anywhere to go to at the sea.’ The seaside house had been sold; Alex had sold it without consulting the children.
    â€˜I suppose we’ll go on our excursion as usual,’ said Brian. The annual seaside family picnic was an old custom. They had observed it last year, even though the house was sold, going to the same place, only a little farther along the coast. Brian and Gabriel had loved that house, that place, that precious access to the sea.
    â€˜That’s the future,’ said Alex, narrowing her eyes. ‘I never know the future.’
    â€˜The doctor says we mustn’t swim in the Enn any more,’ said Gabriel, ‘because of the rat-borne jaundice.’
    â€˜I never understood why you bothered with that muddy river when you have the Baths,’ said Alex.
    â€˜Oh well, Adam likes the river - it’s more natural and - sort of private and secret - and there are animals and birds and plants and - things — ’
    â€˜Did he bring Zed today?’ said Alex. Zed was Adam’s dog. Adam and Zed had run straight out into the garden.
    â€˜Yes. I do hope he won’t root anything up like when — ’ I always wonder why Adam wanted such a little pretty-pretty dog,’ said Alex. ‘Most boys like a big dog.’
    â€˜We wonder too,’ said Brian, aware that Gabriel was hurt and would be deliberately silent. Gabriel knew Brian knew she was hurt, and tried to think of something to say. Alex understood them both and was sorry for her remark but annoyed with them for being so absurdly sensitive.
    Adam’s dog was a papillon, one of the smallest of all dogs, a little dainty long-haired black and white thing with floppy plumy ears and a jaunty plumy tail, and the very darkest of blue-brown shining amused clever eyes. Adam had named him. Asked why, he had replied, ‘Because we are Alpha and Omega.’
    Gabriel had thought of something to say, not very felicitous perhaps, but she had determined against Brian’s advice to say it this time. ‘I wonder if you’ve thought again about letting Brian and me have the Slipper House? It needs living in, and we’d look after it very carefully.’
    Alex said at once with a casual air, ‘Oh no, I don’t think so, it’s too small and not a place for children and dogs, and I do use it, you know, it’s my studio.’
    Alex had used to mess around with paints and clay and papier mâché. Brian and Gabriel doubted whether she still did. It was an excuse.
    The Slipper House was a sort of folly in the form of a house built at the farther end of the garden in the nineteen-twenties by Alex’s father, Geoffrey Stillowen. It was not all that small.
    Alex added, ‘You can live there when I’m underground, which will be any day now, I daresay.’
    â€˜Nonsense, Alex!’ Brian said, and he thought: with George in Belmont? Not bloody likely! The unknown and unmentionable provisions of Alex’s will were of course of interest to the brothers.
    Gabriel said, ‘When’s Tom coming?’
    â€˜In April.’
    â€˜Will he be in the Slipper House?’
    â€˜No, here of course.’
    â€˜He did stay there once.’
    â€˜That was in summer, it’s far too cold now and I couldn’t afford the heating.’
    â€˜Is he bringing a friend?’ asked Brian.
    â€˜He mumbled something on the phone about “bringing Emma,” but you know how vague Tom is.’
    â€˜Who’s this