Iris Murdoch - Under the Net

I pocketed Lefty's letter and turned my attention to the package. I had already noticed out of the corner of my eye that it came from France. I began to tear it open. It was from Jean Pierre and it contained a copy of Nous Les Vainqueurs with an extremely Gallic superscription addressed to myself in Jean Pierre's flowing hand. I looked at the book with some emotion. Then I drew out my penknife and opened the first few pages. Before I knew what had happened I had read as far as page five. The impression was startling. Jean Pierre had always been a deft storyteller. But I felt at once that there was more here than deftness. The style had hardened, the manner was confident, the pace long and slow. Something had changed. Starting a novel is opening a door on a misty landscape; you can still see very little but you can smell the earth and feel the wind blowing. I could feel the wind blowing from the first pages of Nous Les Vainqueurs and it blew strongly and tasted fresh. 'So far,' I said to myself, 'so good.' Something had changed; it would be time enough later on to decide what it was. I looked at Jean Pierre's name on the cover--and felt for the first time that perhaps after all we were entered for the same competition. And as I found myself thinking this thought I shook my head and laid the book aside.

I selected next a letter in an unknown hand with an Irish stamp on it. I opened it. There was a brief and nearly illegible note inside. It took me a long time to realize that this letter was from Finn. When I did decipher the signature I felt distressed and shocked. It was an odd fact that I had never before received any communication in writing from Finn. We normally communicated by phone or telegram when we were not together; and indeed some of my friends had once had a theory that Finn couldn't write. What Finn's letter said was the following.

DEAR JAKE,

I am sorry I went off without seeing you. It was just when you were in Paris. I thought it was time to go back then because of the money. You know how I often thought of going back before. I'll be in Dublin now and the Pearl Bar will always find me. I think they forward letters, I haven't got a place to live yet. Hoping to see you when you come over to the Emerald Isle. Remember me to David. yrs P. O'FINNEY This letter upset me extremely and I exclaimed to Mrs Tinckham, 'Finn's gone back to Ireland!'

'I know,' said Mrs Tinck.

'You know?' I cried. 'How?'

'He told me,' said Mrs Tinck.

The notion that Finn had made a confidant of Mrs Tinckham came to me for the first time and rushed in an instant from possibility to probability. 'He told you just before he went?' I asked.

'Yes,' said Mrs Tinckham, 'and earlier too. But he must have told you he wanted to go back?'

'He did, now I come to think of it,' I said, 'but I didn't believe him.' And somehow this phrase had a familiar ring. 'I'm a fool,' I said. Mrs Tinckham didn't dispute this.

'Did he have any special reasons for going?' I asked her. I felt pain and indignation at having to ask Mrs Tinckham questions about Finn; but I needed to know. I looked at her old placid face. She was blowing smoke rings; and I knew that she would tell me nothing.

'He just wanted to go home, I suppose,' said Mrs Tinckham. 'I imagine there were people there he wanted to see. And there's always religion,' she added vaguely.

I looked down at the table, and I could feel on my brow a gentle pressure which was the gaze of Mrs Tinckham and half a dozen cats. I felt ashamed, ashamed of being parted from Finn, of having known so little about Finn, of having conceived things as I pleased and not as they were. 'Well, he's gone,' I said.

'You'll see him in Dublin,' said Mrs Tinckham.

I tried to imagine this; Finn at home and I a visitor. I shook my head. 'I couldn't,' I said. I knew that Mrs Tinckham understood.

'You never know what you won't want to do when the time comes,' said Mrs Tinckham in the vague tone in which she utters those remarks of hers which may be deep counsel or may be senseless. I looked up at her quickly. The wireless murmured on and the cigarette smoke drifted between us like a veil, shifting its layers very gently in the slow summer air from the doorway. She blinked at me and her pupils seemed narrowed to vertical slits.

'Well, we'll see,' I said to her.

'That always the best thing to say, isn't it, dear?' said Mrs Tinckham.

At last I took up Sadie's letter. I was extremely nervous of it. I felt sure that it would contain something unpleasant. Mars stirred at my feet and snuffed against my shoe. I opened the envelope. There were two enclosures which I set aside and unfolded a long perfumed sheet down which a narrow column of writing flowed in Sadie's elegant hand. Her letter read as follows.

DARLING JAKE,

About that wretched dog--you must think me awful not to have written sooner, but the truth is that your letter got mixed up with the most enormous pile of fan mail. (What a problem that is! One never knows whether to look at the stuff or not. Just to see it there is rather uplifting for the ego--though I suppose it does undermine the character a bit. Not that I'd ever dream of reading it even if I had time. My secretary just classifies it into cretins for, cretins against, cranks, professionals, intellectuals, religious, and offers of marriage!) I must say, I was just a little hurt by the tone of your letter--that is, until I realized that of course you didn't write it. (Did you, darling?)

Yes, now about the dog. The fact is, S. and I have so much on our hands at the moment we really can't cope with the brute. (You've no idea what a bother an animal picture is. The most impossible men in tweeds come in and wander about the set--and the next thing is the Dumb Friends' League are sending in spies disguised as continuity girls.) S. thought the easiest thing would be for you to keep him if you'd like to. That is, we'd expect you to buy him, of course. (Sorry to be a business girl, but one has to watch the cash, with the cost of living and partly living what it is, and the income tax people absolutely inventing ways to make one poor. Anyway, it's S.'s thing, you know, not mine. I'm just writing on his behalf.) I should say £700 and call it quits. That covers all film rights, book rights, ad. rights, and so on. (You've no idea how many rights there are in this business! Talk about the Rights of Dog!) Of course he's a bargain at the price. But S. got him cheap in fact, and we only want to cover our costs. If you'd like to buy, perhaps you'd get in touch with my solicitor--I enclose his card, if I've remembered to do so. If you don't want to buy perhaps you'd get in touch anyhow and make some arrangement about returning the animal. Sorry not to look after this in person; I'm madly busy getting ready to go to the States. By the way, if you do decide to buy the dog, don't forget to work the ads. I enclose (ditto) a letter from the dog-biscuit people, I forget their name. They want to use photos or something. Whatever they offer, ask for twice.

Forgive this fearful scribble. It was good to see you. Let's meet again, shall we, when the hurly burly's done. Tho' heaven only knows when that will be. Perhaps in a year or two. I have a long and tender memory.

Yours ever,

SADIE

P.S. S. seems to have a typescript of yours which some woman lent him. I'll get him to lodge it chez my solicitor, so you can pick it up when you call about the dog.

This letter absolutely delighted me. I didn't know which pleased me most, its gentleness or its cunning. I had no doubt that Sadie thought it quite possible that I would be fool enough to buy Mars, she probably wasn't sure whether I knew the secret of his age, she must think it unlikely that she would find a better buyer in her own well-informed milieu, she asked a sum of money which was about the maximum that I would be likely to be able or willing to cough up, she then hastened to indicate a way in which I might manage to recoup myself; and the final paragraph clearly came from the heart, or whatever cool yet sensitive organ Sadie kept in place of one.