Under the Net

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘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 comer 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 sterlings. 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 carpet 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 Miró. 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.

  ‘East,’ I said.

  ‘Which is east?’ Finn asked.

  ‘Come on!’ I said.

  We strode past St Sepulchre and straight into the Viaduct Tavern, which is a Meux’s house. A glance round the bars satisfied me that Hugo wasn’t there, and I was about to go when Finn and Dave started protesting.

  ‘I remember,’ said Dave, ‘you once before told me that it was bad form to drink in a pub you didn’t know the name of, or to enter a pub without drinking.’

  Finn said, ‘It brings bad luck.’

  ‘However that may be,’ said Dave, ‘I want a drink. What is yours, Finn?’

  If other things had been equal I would have wanted a drink too, and as it was a hot night I joined the others in a pint, drinking which I stood apart thinking about Hugo. We got the pint down fast and I gave them orders to march. Averting my eyes from the Old Bailey, I led them across the road.

  There was a sleek Charrington’s house called the Magpie and Stump. Running ahead of them I took in the scene at a glance and was out again before they could reach the door. ‘No good!’ I cried. ‘We’ll try the next.’ I could see that the alcohol would involve us in a rallentando and I wanted to get as far as possible while the going was good.

  Finn and Dave passed me at the double and dodged into the George. The George is an agreeable Watney’s house with peeling walls and an ancient counter with one of those cut-glass and mahogany superstructures through which the barman peers like an enclosed ecclesiastic. There was no Hugo.

  ‘This is no use,’ I said to Dave, as we raised our three tankards. ‘He may be anywhere.’

  ‘Don’t throw in,’ said Dave. ‘You can always go back to the flat.’

  This was true; and in any case an intolerable restlessness devoured me. If I had to kill the evening until Hugo’s return I might as well kill it searching for Hugo as any other way. I spread out in my mind the environs of the Cathedral. Then I concluded an agreement with Finn and Dave that we should only patronize every other pub. Finally I turned my attention to making them move. When we emerged I made towards Ludgate Hill, and turned up the hill towards St Paul’s. There was a Younger’s house on the hill, but Hugo wasn’t in it. The next stop was Short’s in St Paul’s Churchyard. We had a drink there, and I debated privately whether we shouldn’t turn back to Fleet Street; but having betted on the east side I didn’t now want to give up. Besides, I felt reluctant to risk meeting Hugo in a Fleet Street milieu, where our personal drama might be spoilt by drunken journalists. I led my company down Cheapside.

  The evening was by now well advanced. The darkness hung in the air but spread out in a suspended powder which only made the vanishing colours more vivid. The zenith was a strong blue, the horizon a radiant amethyst. From the darkness and shade of St Paul’s Churchyard we came into Cheapside as into a bright arena, and saw framed in the gap of a ruin the pale neat rectangles of St Nicholas Cole Abbey, standing alone away to the south of us on the other side of Cannon Street. In between the willow herb waved over what remained of streets. In this desolation the coloured shells of houses still raised up filled
and blank squares of wall and window. The declining sun struck on glowing bricks and flashing tiles and warmed the stone of an occasional fallen pillar. As we passed St Vedast the top of the sky was vibrating into a later blue, and turning into what used to be Freeman’s Court we entered a Henekey’s house.

  Here our agreement broke down, largely because of the operation of the rallentando referred to earlier. I was beginning to think by now that it was unlikely that we should meet Hugo, but that we might as well complete the circle. As we went back across Cheapside and turned down Bow Lane they were putting the street lights on. Yellow light from swinging lamps in alleyways fell upon the white walls, revealing ancient names, and darkened the upper air towards night. We noticed a few stars which looked as if they had been there a long time. We turned into the old Tavern in Watling Street. This was just the sort of pub Hugo liked; but he was not therein. As we drank I told the other two that we should visit the Skinners’ Arms and then double back to Ludgate Circus.

  They had no objection. ‘So long,’ Finn said, ‘as we don’t have to waste too much of the good time in walking.’ I pulled them out and we approached the Skinners’ Arms. This pub stands at the junction of Cannon Street and Queen Victoria Street, under the shadow of St Mary, Aldermary. We rolled in.

  When we were well inside the door and I had satisfied myself that Hugo wasn’t there, Dave gripped my arm and said, ‘There’s someone here I’d like you to meet.’

  At the end of the long bar, leaning against the counter, was a slim pale individual wearing a red bow-tie. He saluted Dave, and as we came up to him I was impressed by his enormous eyes, which looked at us sad and round and luminous as the eyes of a wombat or a Rouault Christ.

  ‘Meet Lefty Todd,’ said Dave, and uttered my name too.

  We shook hands. I had of course heard a great deal about the eccentric leader of the New Independent Socialists, but I had never met him before and I studied him now with considerable interest.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he said to Dave. His exhausted anaemic look contrasted with the vigour and abruptness of his speech, and as he spoke he waved vaguely to Finn as if he knew him. Finn is someone who never gets introduced.

  ‘Ask Donaghue,’ said Dave.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ said Lefty to me.

  I don’t like being asked direct questions, and on such occasions I usually lie. ‘We’ve been visiting a friend at the office of the Star,’ I said.

  ‘Who?’ said Lefty. ‘I know everyone at the Star.’

  ‘A man called Higgins,’ I said, ‘he’s new.’

  Lefty stared at me. ‘All right,’ he said, and turned back to Dave. ‘You don’t often come to these parts,’ he said.

  ‘I suppose you’ve been putting the Independent Socialist to bed,’ said Dave.

  ‘It’s not strictly in bed yet,’ said Lefty. ‘I’ve left it to the others!’

  He turned back to me. ‘I’ve heard of you.’

  I was still feeling annoyed. I didn’t make the gauche error of replying to this remark, when uttered by a famous person, with ‘I’ve heard of you too.’ Instead I replied, ‘What have you heard?’ This often disconcerts.

  Lefty was not disconcerted. He pondered for a moment and then said, ‘That you are a talented man who is too lazy to work and that you hold left-wing opinions but take no active part in politics.’

  This was plain enough. ‘You were not misinformed,’ I told him.

  ‘About the former,’ said Lefty, ‘I don’t care a damn, but I’d like to ask you a few questions about the latter. Have you got time?’ He showed me the dial of his watch.

  I felt a bit confused by the former and the latter, as well as by the brusqueness of his manner and the amount of beer I had drunk. ‘You mean you want to talk to me about politics?’

  ‘About your politics.’

  Dave and Finn had drifted away and were sitting in the far comer.

  ‘Why not?’ I said.

  Eight

  ‘WELL, now, let’s get clear about where we stand, shall we?’ said Lefty. ‘What political experience have you had in the past?’

  ‘I was in the Y.C.L. once,’ I said, ‘and now I’m in the Labour Party.’

  ‘Well, we know what that means, don’t we?’ said Lefty. ‘Practical experience nil. But do you at least keep up to date in a theoretical way? Do you study the political scene?’ He spoke with the brisk cheerfulness of a physician.

  ‘Scarcely,’ I said.

  ‘Could you say at all clearly why you’ve given up?’

  I spread out my hands. ‘It’s hopeless...’

  ‘Ah,’ said Lefty, ‘that’s the one thing you mustn’t say. That’s the sin against the Holy Ghost. Nothing’s ever hopeless. Is it, Dave?’ he said to Dave, who at that moment was at the counter buying another drink.

  ‘Nothing except trying to shut you up,’ said Dave.

  ‘Would you say that you cleared out because you didn’t care what happened or because you didn’t know what to do?’ Lefty asked me.

  ‘These two things connect,’ I said, and would have said more about this only Lefty cut me short.

  ‘How right you are,’ he said. ‘I was just going to say it myself. So that you admit that you care?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, ‘but ...’

  ‘Well, it’s the chink in the dam,’ said he. ‘If you can care at all you can care absolutely. What other moral problem is there in this age?’

  ‘Being loyal to one’s friends and behaving properly to women,’ I answered quick as a flash.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ said Lefty. ‘It’s the whole framework that’s at stake. What’s the use of preventing a man from stumbling when he’s on a sinking ship?’

  ‘Because if he breaks his ankle he won’t be able to swim,’ I suggested.

  ‘But why try to save him from breaking his ankle if you can try to save him from losing his life?’

  ‘Because I know how to do the former but not the latter,’ I told him rather testily.

  ‘Well, let’s see, shall we?’ said Lefty, who had lost none of his eagerness.

  He opened a brief-case and-produced a pile of pamphlets which he flicked through rapidly.

  ‘This is the one for you,’ he said, and held it up in front of me as if it were a mirror. In large letters on the cover was the question: Why have you LEFT POLITICS? and underneath: LEFT POLITICS needs you! At the bottom it said: price 6d. I began to fumble in my pocket.

  ‘No, you take it away, it’s a present,’ said Lefty; ‘in fact, we never sell these things. But if there’s a price on it people feel they’ve made a good bargain, and they read it. You look it over when you’ve got a quiet time tomorrow.’ And he thrust it inside my coat.

  ‘Now, are you a socialist?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Certain?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Mind you, we don’t yet know what this means, but so far so good. Now, what features of the present situation make you feel that it’s hopeless to fight for socialism?’

  ‘It’s not exactly that I feel it’s hopeless ...’ I began.

  ‘Come, come,’ said Lefty, ‘we’ve confessed to the illness, haven’t we? Let’s get on towards the cure.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, ‘it’s this. English socialism is perfectly worthy, but it’s not socialism. It’s welfare capitalism. It doesn’t touch the real curse of capitalism, which is that work is deadly.’

  ‘Good, good!’ said Lefty. ‘Let’s take it slowly now. What was the most profound thing Marx ever said?’

  I was beginning to be annoyed by this question and answer method. He asked each question as if there was one precise answer to it. It was like the catechism. ‘Why should any one thing be the most profound?’ I asked.

  ‘You’re right, Marx said a lot of profound things,’ said Lefty, not deigning to notice my annoyance. ‘For instance, he said that consciousness doesn’t found being, but social being is the foundation of consciousness.’<
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  ‘Mind you, we don’t yet know what this means ...’ I said.

  ‘Oh, yes we do!’ said Lefty, ‘and it doesn’t mean what some mechanistically minded Marxists think it means. It doesn’t mean that society develops mechanically and ideologies just tag along. What’s crucial in a revolutionary era? Why, consciousness. And what is its chief characteristic? Why, precisely not just to reflect social conditions but to reflect on them — within limits, mind you, within limits. That’s why you intellectuals are important. Now what would you say was the future of a body like NISP?’

  ‘To get more votes than any other party and make you Prime Minister.’

  ‘Not a bit of it!’ said Lefty triumphantly.

  ‘Well, what is its future?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Lefty.

  I felt it was unfair of him suddenly to throw in a question to which he didn’t know the answer.

  ‘But that’s the essence of it!’ he went on. ‘People accuse us of being irresponsible. But those people just don’t understand our role. Our role is to explore the socialist consciousness of England. To increase its sense of responsibility. New social forms will be forced on us soon enough. But why should we sit waiting with nothing better to keep us company than social ideas drawn from the old ones?’

  ‘Wait a moment,’ I said. ‘What about the people meanwhile? I mean the masses. Ideas occur to individuals. That’s always been the trouble with the human race.’

  ‘You’ve put your finger on it,’ said Lefty. ‘What, you are going to say, about the famous unity of theory and practice?’