Iris Murdoch: Under the Net

I hardened my face to make it expressionless. So it was Starfield, Samuel Starfield, Sacred Sammy, the diamond bookmaker. To describe him as a bookie had been a bit picturesque on Finn's part, although he still had his offices near Piccadilly and his name in lights. Starfield now did a bit of everything in those regions where his tastes and his money could take him: women's clothes, night clubs, the film business, the restaurant business.

'I see,' I said. I wasn't going to put on a show for Madge. 'Where did you meet him? I ask this question in a purely sociological spirit.'

'I don't know what that means,' said Madge. 'If you must know, I met him on a number eleven bus.' This was clearly a lie. I shook my head over it.

'You're enlisting for life as a mannequin,' I said. 'You'll have to spend all your time being a symbol of conspicuous wealth.' And it occurred to me as I said it that it mightn't be such a bad life at that.

'Jake, will you get out!' said Magdalen.

'Anyhow,' I said, 'you aren't going to live here with Sacred Sam, are you?'

'We shall need this flat,' said Magdalen, 'and I want you out of it now.'

I thought her answer was evasive. 'Did you say you were getting married?' I asked. I began to have the feeling of responsibility again. After all, she had no father, and I felt in loco parentis. It was about the only locus I had left. And it seemed to me, now that I came to think of it, somehow fantastically unlikely that Starfield would marry a girl like Magdalen. Madge would do to hang fur coats on as well as any other female clothes-horse. But she wasn't flashy, any more than she was rich or famous. She was a nice healthy English girl, as simple and sweet as May Day at Kew. But I imagined Starfield's tastes as being more exotic and far from matrimonial. Yes,' said Madge with emphasis, still as fresh as cream. 'And now will you start packing?' She had a bad conscience, though, I could see from the way she avoided my eye.

She started fiddling with the bookshelves, saying, 'I think there are some books of yours here,' and she took out Murphy and Pierrot Mon Ami.

'Making room for comrade Starfield,' I said. 'Can he read? And by the way, does he know I exist?'

'Well, yes,' said Magdalen evasively, 'but I don't want you to meet. That's why you must pack up at once. From tomorrow onward Sammy will be here a lot.'

'One thing's certain,' I said, 'I can't move everything in a day. I'll take some things now, but I'll have to come back tomorrow.' I hate being hurried. 'And don't forget,' I added fervently, that the radiogram is mine.' My thoughts kept reverting to Lloyds Bank Limited.

'Yes, dear,' said Madge, 'but if you come back after today, telephone first, and if it's a man, ring off.'

'This disgusts me,' I said.

'Yes, dear,' said Madge. 'Shall I order a taxi?'

'No!' I shouted, leaving the room.

'If you come back when Sammy's here,' Magdalen called after me up the stairs, 'he'll break your neck.'

I took the other suitcase, and packed up my manuscripts in a brown-paper parcel, and left on foot. I needed to think, and I can never think in a taxi for looking at the cash meter. I took a number seventy-three bus, and went to Mrs Tinckham's. Mrs Tinckham keeps a newspaper shop in the neighbourhood of Charlotte Street. It's a dusty, dirty, nasty-looking corner shop, with a cheap advertisement board outside it, and it sells papers in various languages, and women's magazines, and Westerns and Science fiction and Amazing Stories. At least these articles are displayed for sale in chaotic piles, though I have never seen anyone buy anything in Mrs Tinckham's shop except ice cream, which is also for sale, and the Evening News. Most of the literature lies there year after year, fading in the sun, and is only disturbed when Mrs Tinckham herself has a fit of reading, which she does from time to time, and picks out some Western, yellow with age, only to declare half-way through that she's read it before but had quite forgotten. She must by now have read the whole of her stock, which is limited and slow to increase. I've seen her sometimes looking at French newspapers, though she professes not to know French, but perhaps she is just looking at the pictures. Besides the ice-cream container there is a little iron table and two chairs, and on a shelf above there are red and green non-alcoholic drinks in bottles. Here I have spent many peaceful hours.

Another peculiarity of Mrs Tinckham's shop is that it is full of cats. An ever-increasing family of tabbies, sprung from one enormous matriarch, sit about upon the counter and on the empty shelves, somnolent and contemplative, their amber eyes narrowed and winking in the sun, a reluctant slit of liquid in an expanse of hot fur. When I come in, one often leaps down and on to my knee, where it sits for a while in a sedate objective way, before slinking into the street and along by the shop fronts. But I have never met one of these animals farther than ten yards away from the shop. In the midst sits Mrs Tinckham herself, smoking a cigarette. She is the only person I know who is literally a chain-smoker. She lights each one from the butt of the last; how she lights the first one of the day remains to me a mystery, for she never seems to have any matches in the house when I ask her for one. I once arrived to find her in great distress because her current cigarette had fallen into a cup of coffee and she had no fire to light another. Perhaps she smokes all night, or perhaps there is an undying cigarette which burns eternally in her bedroom. An enamel basin at her feet is filled, usually to overflowing, with cigarette ends; and beside her on the counter is a little wireless which is always on, very softly and inaudibly, so that a sort of murmurous music accompanies Mrs Tinckham as she sits, wreathed in cigarette smoke, among the cats.

I came in and sat down as usual at the iron table, and lifted a cat from the nearest shelf on to my knee. Like a machine set in motion it began to purr. I gave Mrs Tinckham my first spontaneous smile of the day. She is what Finn calls a funny old specimen, but she has been very kind to me, and I never forget kindness.

'Well, now, back again,' said Mrs Tinckham, laying aside Amazing Stories, and she turned the wireless down a bit more until it was just a mumble in the background.

'Yes, unfortunately,' I said. Mrs Tinck, what about a glass of something?'

For a long time I have kept a stock of whisky with Mrs Tinckham in case I ever need a medicinal drink, in quiet surroundings, in central London, out of hours. By now they were open, but I needed the soothing peace of Mrs Tinckham's shop, with the purring cat and the whispering wireless and Mrs Tinckham like an earth goddess surrounded by incense. When I first devised this plan I used to mark the bottle after every drink, but this was before I knew Mrs Tinckham well. She is equal to a law of nature in respect of her reliability. She can keep counsel too. I once overheard one of her odder-looking clients, who had been trying to pump her about something, shout out, 'You are pathologically discreet!' and this is how she is. I suspect indeed that this is the secret of Mrs Tinckham's success. Her shop serves as what is known as an 'accommodation address', and is a rendezvous for people who like to be very secretive about their affairs. I sometimes wonder how much Mrs Tinckham knows about the business of her customers. When I am away from her I feel sure that she cannot be so naive as not to have some sort of appreciation of what is going on under her nose. When I am with her, she looks so plump and vague, and blinks in a way so much like one of her cats, that I am filled with doubt. There are moments when, out of the corner of my eye, I seem to see a look of acute intelligence upon her face; but however fast I turn about I can never surprise any expression there except one of beaming and motherly solicitude and more or less vacant concern. Whatever may be the truth, one thing is certain, that no one will ever know it. The police have long ago given up questioning Mrs Tinckham. It was time lost. However much or little she knows, she has never, in my experience, displayed either for profit or for effect any detailed acquaintance with the little world that circulates round her shop. A woman who does not talk is a jewel in velvet. I am devoted to Mrs Tinckham.