Iris Murdoch - Under the Net

Sadie's flat was on the third floor, and I found the door open. A naive char appeared who told me that Miss Quentin was not at home. She then informed me that Miss Quentin was at the hairdresser, and she named an expensive Mayfair establishment. I had taken the precaution of mentioning that I was Miss Quentin's cousin. I thanked her and set off again towards Oxford Street. I have often visited women in hairdressing establishments and the idea held no terrors for me. Indeed I find that women are often especially charitable and receptive if one visits them at the hairdresser, perhaps because they like being able to show off some captive member of the male sex to so many other women when the latter are not so fortunate as to have their male retainers by them. To play this role, however, one must be presentable, and so I went straight away to a barber's and had a good shave. After that I bought myself a new tie in a shop in Oxford Street and threw away my other tie. As I mounted the heavily perfumed stairway of Sadie's hairdresser and caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror I thought that I looked a fine figure of a man.

Women's hairdressers obey some obscure law of nature which rules that, contrary to what is the case in other spheres, the more expensive the firm the less is the privacy given to the clients. Shop girls in Putney can have their hair done in the seclusion of a curtained cubic'e, but wealthy women in Mayfair have to sit exposed in rows and watch each other being metamorphosed. I found myself in a big room where elegant heads were in various stages of assembly. A row of well-dressed backs were presented to me, and as I looked up and down searching for Sadie, I felt myself under observation in a dozen rose-tinted mirrors. I couldn't see her anywhere. I started to glide along one of the rows, looking into each mirror, and seeing here a young face and there an old one looking at me from under crimped and plastered locks. Each pair of eyes met mine with a questioning look until I began to feel like a prince in a fairy tale. I was glad I had thought of investing in the new tie. At the end of the row there were several figures whose heads were covered by purring electric driers. Here at last I met in the mirror a pair of eyes which were unmistakably Sadie's.

I stopped and put my hands on the back of her chair. I stood a while and looked gravely into these eyes while their owner returned my glance first with casualness, then with hostility, and at last with dawning recognition.

Sadie gave a little scream. 'Jake!' she cried.

I could feel we were being looked at. I began to be pleased that I'd come.

'Hello, Sadie!' I said, and I didn't have to fake my delighted smile.

'My dear creature,' said Sadie. 'I haven't seen you for centuries! How lovely! Were you looking for me?'

I said that I was, and I fetched a chair and sat just behind her shoulder. We grinned at each other in the mirror. I thought we were a fine-looking pair. Sadie looked very handsome, even with her hair in a net, and if anything younger than ever. Even allowing for the rosy glass, her complexion was exquisite, and her brown eyes were absolutely blazing with vitality. I quite involuntarily put my hand on her arm.

'You charming fellow!' said Sadie. 'What sports do you devise these days? Tell me all!'

There was an affectation in her voice and manner which struck me as new. Also she spoke in a curiously loud and ringing tone so that what she said echoed audibly all the way down the room. The explanation of this occurred to me in a moment; she was partly deafened by the purr of the drier and didn't realize how loudly she was speaking.

I replied, also raising my voice, 'Oh, I'm still at the old writing game. Books, books, you know. I've got about three on hand at the moment. And publishers will keep pestering me.'

'You always were such a clever chap, Jake,' Sadie shouted admiringly.

Silence reigned throughout the rest of the shop except for the whispering voices of a few assistants, and I could feel every ear strained in our direction. I thought it impossible that there was anyone in the room who didn't know who Sadie was. I settled down to enjoy the conversation.

'How's life treating you?' I asked.

'Oh, it's too utterly boring,' said Sadie. 'I'm simply worn out with work. On the set from dawn to dusk. I've only just managed to escape to get my hair done here in peace. I've quarrelled with the hairdresser at the studio. I'm so tired, I quarrel with everyone these days.' She cast me an enticing smile.

'When are you going to have dinner with me, Sadie?' I asked.

'Oh, darling,' said Sadie, 'I'm tied up for days and days. Someone's even coming to fetch me away from this place. You must come round some time and have a drink at my flat.'

I calculated quickly. Sadie's days probably were heavily mortgaged and this might be my only opportunity of talking with her for some time. So if I was going to raise the ticklish subject it had better be done now.

'Listen, Sadie,' I said, lowering my voice.

'What's that, darling?' shouted Sadie from under the drier. 'Listen!' I shouted back. 'I gather that you want to let your flat while you're away.'

I couldn't bring myself, in front of such an audience, to put the matter less delicately. I hoped that Sadie would pick it up with tact.

Sadie's response was even more amiable than I had bargained for. My dear boy,' she said, 'don't speak of letting. I want a caretaker, in fact I want a bodyguard--and you can take on from now if you like.'

'Well, I'd be very glad,' I said. 'The lease of my present place has just expired and I'm pretty well on the streets.'

'Then, my dear, you must come at once,' roared Sadie. 'You'll be most enormously useful if you can just be around the place a little. You see, I'm being persecuted by the most frightful man.'

This sounded interesting. I could feel the ears being pricked up all round us. I laughed in a masculine way.

'Well, I suppose I'm fairly tough,' I said. 'I don't mind keeping an eye on things, provided I can get some work done too.' Already I had visions of something even better than Earls Court Road.

'My dear, it's an enormous flat,' said Sadie. 'You can have a suite of rooms. I'll just feel so much safer if you can come and stay there till I go away. This fellow is quite madly in love with me. He keeps calling and trying to get in at all hours, and when he doesn't call he rings up, and I'm just a nervous wreck.'

'You won't start being afraid of me, I suppose?' I said, leering at her in the glass. Sadie went off into peals of laughter. 'Jake, darling, no, you're just too utterly harmless!" she called out.

I didn't so much care for this turn in the conversation. Out of the corner of my eye I could see several elegantly dressed women craning their necks to get a look at me. I felt we should change the subject.

'Who is this intolerable person?' I asked.

'I'm afraid it's the big chief himself, it's Belfounder,' said Sadie. ' So you can just imagine how embarrassing it all is. I'm simply beside myself.'

At the utterance of this name I nearly fell off my chair. The room spun round and round, and I seemed to be seeing Sadie through a cloud. This altered everything. With an enormous effort I kept my face composed, but my stomach was rearing inside me like a wild cat. I wanted nothing now but to get away and think over this astonishing news.

'Are you sure?' I said to Sadie.

'My sweet boy, I know my own boss,' said Sadie.

'I mean, sure that he loves you,' I said.

'He's absolutely demented about me,' said Sadie. 'By the way,' she said, 'how did you know I wanted a caretaker?'

'Anna told me,' I said. I was beyond caution now.

Sadie's eye glittered in the mirror. 'So you're seeing Anna again,' said Sadie.

I hate that sort of remark. 'You know Anna and I are old friends,' I said.