Iris Murdoch - Under the Net

'You're quite a young fellow!' said Sammy. 'You know, I could never get much out of Madge about you.' He refilled my glass.

'I expect you're fed up about being fired out,' he added in a completely unprovocative tone.

'Look here, Starfield,' I said, 'there are some things a gentleman can't discuss coolly. If you want to fight, good. If not, shut up. I've come here to fetch some of my things, not to chat with you.' I was pleased not to be feeling afraid of him, and I hoped he was aware of it, but I knew that my speech would have sounded better if I hadn't been drinking the man's whisky. It also occurred to me at that moment that Sammy might dispute my ownership of the radiogram.

You're a touchy fellow,' said Sammy. 'Don't be in such a hurry. I want to look at you. It's not every day I meet a writer chap who talks on the radio.'

I suspected he was mocking, but the mere thought that Sammy might find me a romantic figure amused me so much that I laughed, and Sammy laughed too in sympathy. He seemed to want me to like him. I was drinking my second glass of whisky and beginning to think that perhaps after all Sammy was rather a peach.

'Where did you meet Madge?' I asked. I wasn't going to let him make all the running.

'Where did she tell you I met her?' Sammy countered. 'On a number eleven bus.'

Sammy let out his roar. 'Not likely!' he said. 'Catch me riding on a bus! No, we met at a party some film people were giving.'

I raised my eyebrows.

'Yes, boy, she was just beginning to get around.' Sammy wagged his finger at me. 'Never let them out of your sight, that's the only way!'

This mixture of triumph and solicitude nauseated me. 'Magdalen is a free agent,' I said coldly.

'Not any more she isn't!' said Sammy.

I looked at him with sudden loathing. 'Look here,' I said, 'are you really going to marry Madge?'

Sammy took this as an expression of friendly incredulity from a well-wisher. 'Why not?' he said. 'Isn't she a beautiful girl? Isn't she a turn up for the book? She hasn't got a wooden leg, has she?' and he dug me in the ribs so violently that the whisky splashed on to the carpet.

'I don't mean that,' I said. 'I mean do you intend to marry her?'

'Oh, you're asking about my intentions,' said Sammy. 'That's a body blow! You ought to have brought your shotgun!' He roared with laughter again. 'Here,' he said, 'let's finish the bottle.'

By now I had just sufficient whisky in me not to care much one way or the other.

'It's your affair,' I said.

'It is. Believe you me,' said Sammy, and we left it at that.

Sammy now began to rummage in his pockets. 'There's something I'd like to give you, young fellow,' he said. I watched suspiciously. He produced his cheque-book with an ostentatious flourish and opened his fountain pen.

'Well, now,' he said, 'shall we say a hundred pounds, shall we say two hundred?'

I was open-mouthed. 'Whatever for?' I asked.

'Well, let's say for removal expenses,' said Sammy, and winked.

For a moment I was completely baffled. Then it dawned on me that I was being bought off! How had such an idea got into Sammy's head? It took but another moment to conclude that Magdalen must have put it there. This further proof of the tortuousness of Madge's mind left me gasping. This must have been her strange notion of how to put a good thing in my way. I was both extremely affronted and extremely touched. I smiled at Sammy with a sort of gentleness.

'No,' I said, 'I couldn't possibly take money.'

'Why not?' said Sammy.

'First, because I really have no claims on Madge,' I said. I thought he might understand this point better, so I put it first. 'And secondly because I don't belong to a social class that takes money in a situation like this.'

Sammy eyed me as one eyes a clever debater.

'First you say there's no situation,' he said, 'and then you say it's not a situation where you take money. Let's be grown up about it. I know the conventions as well as you do. But what do chaps like you care about your social class? Chaps like you are always short of money. If you don't take the cash you'll regret it tomorrow.' And he began to write a cheque.

My awareness that his hypothetical statement was true added but the more passion to my cries of 'No! I won't take it! I don't want it!'

Sammy looked at me with an interested ad hominem look. 'But I've done you an injury,' he said in an explanatory tone. 'I wouldn't feel straight with my conscience if you didn't take something.'

He sounded really concerned for me, and I began to wonder what sort of picture Madge had given him.

'What makes you so damned sure you've injured me?' I asked.

'Well, your being so set on marrying Madge,' said Sammy.

I took a deep breath. This rather had me cornered. It seemed a disloyalty to Madge to declare that nothing was further from my mind than the idea of marrying her-especially as it now occurred to me that Madge might well have been using my alleged aspirations as a lever to make up Sammy's mind. In any case, I could see that Sammy was determined not to believe a denial.

'Well, maybe I am injured,' I said grudgingly.

'That's a generous fellow!' cried Sammy, delighted. 'And now let's say a couple of hundred quid!'

I wondered what to do. Sammy's curious ethical code did seem to demand a settlement. I needed the money. What prevented the closure of this mutually rewarding deal? My principles. Surely there must be some way round. In similar fixes I have rarely failed to find one.

'Don't interrupt, Starfield,' I said. 'I'm thinking.' Then I had an idea.

The mid-day edition of the Evening Standard was lying on the floor at our feet. I turned to the back page and looked at my watch. It was 2.35. Racing that day was at Salisbury and Nottingham.

'I suggest,' I said, 'that you tell me a winner in the three o'clock race, and that you phone the bet for me to your own firm or wherever you keep your betting account. If that goes down we'll increase the stake for the three-thirty and so on for the rest of the afternoon. We'll aim at making fifty pounds, and you agree to stand the loss if any.'

Sammy was overjoyed. 'Done!' he said. 'What a sportsman! But we'll make a sight more than fifty pounds. I know today's card like my own daughter. It's a poem.'

We spread the paper out on the rug.

'Little Grange will win the three o'clock at Salisbury,' said Sammy. 'A cert, but odds on. We'll ginger it up by joining it with Queen's Rook in the three-thirty.'

I was beginning to feel cautious; already I had the feeling that Sammy was gambling with my money.

'But suppose Queen's Rook doesn't win!' I said. 'It's not fun I want, it's cash. Let's put something on Little Grange alone.'

'Nonsense,' said Sammy. 'What's the use of caution when you know your onions? Hold on to your hat, my boy, while I just get the office on the blower. Hello, hello! Is that Andy? This is Sam.'

'Keep the stake down, keep the stake down,' I was saying to him.

'My private account,' Sammy was saying. 'Sure, I don't hold with gambling!' in reply to some witticism of Andy's. 'This is for a friend who's done me a good turn.'

He winked a triangular eye at me, and in a moment he had placed forty pounds in a win double, Little Grange and Queen's Rook. While that was cooking we turned our attention to the Nottingham card. The three o'clock at Nottingham was a selling plate.

'Not interesting,' said Sammy. 'That's a race for horses with three legs, we'll steer clear of it. But the rest of the day's a wedding present. Let's make it really exciting and have a treble. Saint Cross in the three-thirty, Hal Adair in the four o'clock, and Peter of Alex in the four-thirty. I don't care for the four o'clock at Salisbury. That leaves the four-thirty at Salisbury, and that'll be won by either Dagenham or Elaine's Choice.'