Iris Murdoch - Under the Net

'Now, where do we go?' asked Dave, his round face shining with glee, like a small boy before a picnic.

'We're going to look for Belfounder,' I said.

'You mean the film fellow,' said Finn. 'The fellow you used to know a long time ago?'

'Him,' I said, and refused to be pumped further, so that Dave had to entertain Finn for the rest of the journey with a wealth of more or less insulting conjecture.

I didn't listen to them. I was beginning to feel very nervous now that the prospect of an interview with Hugo was looming over me like an iceberg. I had really very little idea about what I wanted to say to Hugo. It wasn't exactly that I needed to see him to find out about his feelings for Anna. I felt as confident that I had diagnosed these correctly as I was that the simpleton on the stage at the Mime Theatre had been Hugo, and that it had been Hugo who had driven Anna away afterwards in the big black Alvis. I wanted of course much more to discover Hugo's state of mind towards myself. Not that I was in any real doubt about this either; it was certain that Hugo must regard me with a most comprehensible dislike and contempt. But this condition I might by my own efforts alter. Yet it was not even for this that I wanted to see Hugo. During the afternoon it had crossed my mind that Hugo might have a great deal more to teach me; the more so, as my own perspective had altered since the days of our earlier talks. I had seen this in a flash when I had re-read, after so long, a piece of the dialogue. My appetite for Hugo's conversation was not blunted. There might be more speech between us yet. Was it this then that made me seek him with such a feverish urgency? It seemed to me that after all I just wanted to see him because I wanted to see him. The bullfighter in the ring cannot explain why it is that he wants to touch the bull. Hugo was my destiny.

Seven

The taxi stopped and we got out. Dave paid. Hugo lived, it appeared, right up above Holborn Viaduct, in a flat perched on top of some office buildings. A door opened on a stone stairway, and a painted board showed us, together with the names of commercial and legal firms, his name, Belfounder. The taxi drove off and left us standing alone on the Viaduct. If you have ever visited the City of London in the evening you will know what an uncanny loneliness possesses these streets which during the day are so busy and noisy. The Viaduct is a dramatic viewpoint. But although we could see for a long way, not only towards Holborn and Newgate Street, but also along Farringdon Street, which swept below us like a dried-up river, we could see no living being. Not a cat, not a copper. It was a warm evening, cloudlessly and brilliantly blue, and the place was mute around us, walled in by a distant murmur which may have been the sound of traffic or else the summery sigh of the declining sun. We stood still. Even Finn and Dave were impressed.

'You wait here,' I told them, 'and if I don't come out in a few minutes you can go away.'

But they were not pleased with this. 'We'll just see you up the stairs,' said Dave. 'You can trust us to become scarce at the moment you will wish.' I think they hoped to catch a glimpse of Hugo.

I wasn't at all sure whether I could trust them, but I didn't argue, and we started in Indian file up the stone steps. I felt nothing now but a blank determination. We plodded on up the stairway, past the locked-up offices of gown-makers and oath-takers. When we had reached about the fourth floor a strange sound began to make itself heard. We stopped and looked at each other.

'What is it?' said Finn.

None of us could say. We walked up a little further on tiptoe. The sound came from the top of the building; it began to define itself as a continuous high-pitched chatter.

'He's giving a party!' I said with a sudden inspiration.

'It's women!' said Dave. 'Film stars, I expect. Come on!'

We proceeded with caution; only another bend of the stairs separated us from Hugo's door. I pushed the two of them back and went up alone. The door was ajar. The noise was now deafening. I threw my shoulders back and walked in.

I found myself in a completely empty room. There was another door opposite to me. I walked quickly across and opened it. The next room was empty too. As I stepped back through the doorway I banged into Finn and Dave.

'It's birdies,' said Finn. It was. Hugo's flat occupied a corner position, and was skirted on the outside by a high parapet. A sloping roof jutted out over the window so as almost to touch the parapet; and in the deep angle under the roof there were hundreds of starlings. We could see them fluttering at the windows and jumping up and down between the glass and the parapet as if they had been in a cage. Their noise must have been inaudible from the street or perhaps we confused it with the general hum of London. Here it was overwhelming. I felt enormous confusion and enormous relief. There was no sign of Hugo.

Dave was at the window making futile attempts to drive the birds away.

'Leave them alone,' I said. 'They live here.'

I looked about me with curiosity. The second room was Hugo's bedroom, and was furnished with the sparse simplicity characteristic of the Hugo I had known. It contained nothing but an iron bed, rush-bottomed chairs, a chest of drawers and a tin trunk with a glass of water on top of it. The first and larger room, however, revealed a new Hugo. A Turkey carnet covered the entire floor, and mirrors, settees and striped cushions made an idle and elegant scene. A number of original paintings hung on the walls. I identified two small Renoirs, a Minton, and a Mire,. I whistled slightly over these. I could not remember that Hugo had ever been particularly interested in painting. There were very few books. It struck me as charmingly typical of Hugo that he should go out and leave the door ajar upon this treasure house.

Finn was watching the birds. If one could have ignored their deafening chatter, they were a pretty sight, as they scrambled and fluttered and jostled each other, spreading their serrated wings, framed in each window as if they were part of the decoration of the room. As I looked at them I was wondering whether I should not just settle down here and wait for Hugo to come back.

But at that moment Dave, who had been prowling around on his own account, called out 'Look at this!' He was pointing to a note which was pinned on to the door and which we had failed to notice as we came in. It read simply: Gone to the pub.

Dave was already out on the landing. 'For what do we wait?' he asked. He looked like a man who wanted a drink. Once the idea had been put into his head, Finn began to look like one too.

I hesitated. 'We don't know which pub,' I said.

'It'll be the nearest one, obviously,' said Dave, 'or one of the nearest ones. We can make a tour.'

He and Finn were off down the stairs. I glanced quickly about the landing. Another door showed me a bathroom and a small kitchen. The kitchen window gave on to a flat roof, across which I could see the windows and sky-lights of other office buildings. This was all there was to Hugo's domain. I gave the starlings a farewell look, left the door of Hugo's sitting-room as I had found it, and followed Finn and Dave down the stairs.

We stood beside the iron lions on the Viaduct. The intense light of evening fell upon the spires and towers of St Bride to the south, St James to the north, St Andrew to the west, and St Sepulchre, and St Leonard Foster and St Mary-le-Bow to the east. The evening light quieted the houses and the abandoned white spires. Farringdon Street was still wide and empty.

'Which way?' asked Dave.

I know the City well. We could either go westward to the King Lud and the pubs of Fleet Street, or we could go eastward to the less frequented alley-twisted and church-dominated pubs of the City. I conjured up Hugo's character.