Iris Murdoch - Under the Net

'What more do you want?' said Hugo. 'God is a task. God is detail. It all lies close to your hand.' He reached out and took hold of a tumbler which was standing on the table beside his bed. The light from the door glinted on the tumbler and seemed to find an answering flash in Hugo's eyes, as I tried in the darkness to see what they were saying.

'All right,' I said, 'all right, all right, all right.'

'You're always expecting something, Jake,' said Hugo.

'Maybe,' I said. I was beginning to find the conversation a burden. I decided to go away. I got up. 'How's your head now?' I asked Hugo.

'It's rather better,' he said. 'You made me forget about it. How long do you think they'll keep me in this place?'

'About five days, the Sister said.'

Good God!' said Hugo. 'I can't have that! I've got all sorts of things to do.'

'Perhaps they'll let you out sooner,' I said. I wasn't interested. I wanted to sit somewhere quietly and digest what Hugo had told me. 'I'm off,' I said.

'Not without me!' said Hugo, and he began to get out of bed.

I was scandalized. I seized him and began pushing him back. The hospital ethic was already deep in me. A patient must do what he is told and not presume to behave like a free agent. 'Get back at once!' I said in a loud whisper.

For a moment we struggled. Then Hugo relaxed and drew his feet back into bed. 'Have a heart, Jake,' he said. 'If you don't help me to get away now I may not be let out for days. You know what these places are. They take your clothes away and you're simply helpless. Where are my clothes, anyway?'

'In a locker at the end of this corridor,' I answered foolishly. 'Be a sport. Go and get them for me,' said Hugo, and show me the way out.'

You're not well enough to move,' I said. 'The Sister said it would be dangerous for you to move.'

'You've just invented that this moment,' said Hugo. 'In fact I'm perfectly fit, and I know it and you know it. I've got to get out of this place. These are very urgent things I have to do tomorrow, and I'm damned if I'm going to be imprisoned here. Now go and get my clothes.'

Hugo was speaking now with a sudden air of authority, and I noticed with distress a strong tendency in myself to obey him. Resisting it, I replied, 'I work here, Hugo. If I do this I'll lose my job.'

'Does anyone know that you're here?' asked Hugo. 'Of course not.'

'Then no one will know that it was you who helped me.'

'We shall be caught on the way out,' I told him.

'You needn't come with me,' said Hugo.

'I'd have to,' I said. 'You couldn't find the way alone.' I was cursing Hugo heartily. I didn't want to take this risk for him, and I could see now that I was going to.

'Do this thing for me, Jake,' said Hugo. 'I wouldn't ask if it wasn't urgent.'

'Damn you,' I said.

I went to the door and examined my watch. It was just after four. If I was to act I must act at once. I looked at Hugo's nocturnal face. I knew that I would do whatever he wished. I had to. 'Damn you,' I said again, and I took hold of the door handle. I swung the door open quietly and left it ajar. I stood for a moment in the corridor getting used to the light. Then I began to walk quietly. The Locker Room was next door but one to the Sister's Room, on the side nearest to me. It contained lockers in one-one correlation to the number of patients in Corelli III, each locker being assigned to a particular bed. The keys of the lockers were kept there too, in a drawer. Once I could get into the room there would be no difficulty in finding Hugo's clothes; but of course the room itself might be locked. I found myself hoping sincerely that it might. 'Oh, let it be locked!' I said to myself, as my hand touched the door of the Locker Room. It was not locked. The door opened for me noiselessly. As I stood inside in the semi-darkness I had a rapid debate as to whether I wouldn't go back and tell Hugo that the door had been locked. It might have been locked. It might easily have been locked. I struggled with this idea, not certain whether or not I ought to regard it as a temptation. I tried to conjure up some sense of obligation to the Hospital; but it was too late to call upon these reserves. If I had been going to be moved by any bond or contract with the Hospital the time for that was four minutes ago. I was now embarked upon helping Hugo. I was committed to Hugo. To lie to him would be an act of treachery. I put my hand on the keys.

I opened the locker and very quietly removed its contents piece by piece on to the table. Hugo's old check shirt, his even older corduroy trousers, a newish sports-coat that smelt of soap, a Jaeger vest and pants, socks with holes in, and dirty boots. Small objects jingled in Hugo's pockets. I held my breath and began to load myself, piling the garments up in my embrace and putting the boots on top, so that I could hardly see out over the armful. Then I found that I had left the locker door open and the bunch of keys hanging in the lock. One by one I replaced the things on the table, closed the locker, and returned the keys to the drawer. Not that it mattered, since the disappearance of Hugo could be noticed almost as soon as the theft from the locker; but I like to be neat. Then I loaded up again and shuffled towards the door. As I went I kept having auditory images of what it would sound like if one of Hugo's boots were to fall off on to the floor. But there was no mishap. I glided down the corridor with a feeling in my back as if someone were pointing a Sten gun at it. The door of Hugo's room was ajar and I sidled in and decanted the pile of clothes on to the bed with a soft bump.

Hugo had got up and was standing by the window, dressed in a shapeless white nightgown and biting his nails.

'That's colossal!' he said. He seized on his clothes with glee while I shut the door again soundlessly.

'Hurry up!' I told him. 'If we're getting out let's get out.' I had never felt less sympathy and consideration for Hugo than at that moment. I noticed that as he dressed he kept putting his hand to his head, and I wondered idly whether this escapade mightn't really do him some serious harm; but this possibility no longer interested me, either as a debating point, since the time for debate was over, or as a factor in Hugo's welfare, since any concern I might have had about the latter was thoroughly driven out by more poignant worries about myself. I felt extreme irritation with Hugo for having put me in the position of being disloyal to the Hospital, and great anxiety about our prospects of getting out unobserved. As to what would happen to me if we were caught I felt a terror which was augmented in proportion to the vagueness of my conceptions. I trembled.

Hugo was ready. He was tidying up his bed in a futile way. 'Leave that!' I told him with as much brutality as I could. 'Look,' I said to Hugo, 'we have to get past the Night Sister's room, which has glass in the door, so we shall have to crawl that bit. You'd better take those boots off. They look ready to make a noise all by themselves. Follow me and do what I do. Don't speak, and for heaven's sake see that there's nothing likely to fall out of your pockets. All right?' Hugo nodded, his eyes rounded and his face beaming with innocence. I looked at him with exasperation. Then I put my head out of the door.

There was no sign of life from the Night Sister and not a sound of any kind to be heard. I slid out and Hugo followed, making a noise like a bear, a mixture of grunting and lumbering. I turned back and frowned and put my finger to my lips. Hugo nodded enthusiastically. The light was still on in the Night Sister's room, and as we approached it I could hear her moving about inside. I crouched down and scudded past, keeping well below the level of the glass. Then I turned to watch Hugo. He was hesitating. He obviously didn't know what to do with his boots, which he was carrying one in each hand. We eyed each other across the gap and Hugo made an interrogatory movement. I replied with a gesture which indicated that I washed my hands of his predicament, and walked on to the door of the ward. Then I turned back again, and nearly laughed out loud. Hugo had got his two boots gripped by their tongues between his teeth, and was negotiating the passage on hands and feet, his posterior rising mountainously into the air. I watched anxiously, wondering whether the attention of the Night Sister might not be caught by the movement of this semicircular surface which must be jutting out well into her field of vision. But nothing happened, and Hugo joined me by the door with the saliva dripping into the inside of his boots. I shook my head at him, and together we left Corelli III.