The Nice and the Good by Iris Murdoch

Author:Iris Murdoch
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: England, Fiction in English, Fiction, Literary, Great Britain, General, Didactic fiction
ISBN: 9780140030341
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 1969-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

There was no one else present. 'Good evening, Mrs McGrath.'

'You must excuse my deshabille. It's so hot this evening, isn't it.'

'Exceptionally hot and stuffy,' said Ducane. He sat down in an armchair and stared at Judy. He said softly, 'Helen of Troy'.

'I knew you'd find me out, Mr Honeyman, you're so clever.

Have a cigarette? Or one of Richard's cigars? T 'No thanks.' Ducane felt, this is a moment outside my ordinary life, a moment given by a god, not perhaps by a great god, and not by a good one, but by a god certainly. It had never fallen to his lot to contemplate a naked woman in quite this way before.

Judy stood in front of him with a slight awkwardness. The human body, even that of a beautiful woman, cannot easily stand in complete repose. She stood half turned away from him, one knee bent, one shoulder hunched, her chin jutting as if to see him she had to peer over something. Her body lacked the authority of its beauty and wore a little shame, the shame of what is usually hidden from the air and which greets it a little self-consciously. However used Mrs McGrath was in her spirit to taking her clothes off, her body was yet a trifle less forward.

Half consciously Ducane noted this and it touched him. The sunlight dazzled in streaks along the shutters and filled the room with a thick powdery half-light, a warm golden-brown air, in the midst of which Judy McGrath's body rose up, moved slightly, a pillar of honey with a fleeting lemony radiance. The warm light caressed her, revealed her, blended with her. Her black hair, dusted over with a sheen of brown, seemed a slightly greenish bronze, and the shadow between her large round slightly dependent breasts was a blur of dark russet.

Judy's eyes, brooding slits now, were almost closed. She swung her body slightly, revealing the curve of the buttock, outlined in a thin are of fuzzy phosphorescent fire.

Ducane breathed deeply and swallowed his breath before it could become a sigh. He said, 'I came here to see Mr Biranne, but you will do just as well.'

'If you have a use for me, Mr Honeyman, I'm yours.'

'Why did Radeechy kill himself?'

'I don't know, Mr Honeyman. Mr Radeechy was a strange man with strange habits, who got strange ideas into his head.'

'Was it your notion or your husband's to blackmail him?'

'I have no idea, Mr Honeyman. I'm a woman. Look.'

Ducane was looking, but his head was perfectly clear now.

He noticed that the huge brown circles in the centre of her breasts were reminding him of Fivey.

'Tell me about Radeechy,' said Ducane.

'I could love you, Mr Honeyman. You could love me.'

'I doubt that, Judy. Tell me about Radeechy.'

'You mean what we did in the vaults at night?'

'In the vaults - 'said Ducane carefully.

'In the vaults of the office.'

'I see,' said Ducane slowly, thinking as fast as he could. 'Of course. You used to go with Radeechy into the vaults, into the old air-raid shelters underneath the office '

'That's right, Mr Honeyman.

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