Under the Net (14 page)

‘Finn,' I said, ‘will you help me out of this place?'

‘I will surely,' said Finn, ‘but I've nothing with me.'

‘Well, go and find something!' I shouted.

By now our somewhat bizarre conversation had attracted a good deal of attention in the street and I didn't want to prolong it. Eventually it was agreed that Finn should walk round the neighbouring streets until he found a hairpin, and then come back to deal with the door. Even in these days one doesn't have to walk far in the streets of London before coming on a hairpin, if one happens to be looking for one. My only fear was that Finn would forget what he was supposed to be doing and go into a pub. I know myself that nothing is so hypnotic as walking along with one's eyes on the pavement.

When this had been settled I closed the window firmly. I felt that further conversation with Dave would be unprofitable at that moment. In a few minutes, however, I could hear him banging on the kitchen door, and I had to go and converse with him out of the kitchen window simply to keep him quiet. He then kept up for some quarter of an hour a stream of irritating
badinage,
full of more or less fantastic suggestions to the effect that if I'd had an ounce of spirit I might have escaped by crawling along ledges, climbing on to the roof, tying the sheets together, and other things of a similar kind, to which I answered somewhat curtly. At last I heard Finn coming bounding up the fire escape. He had found a beautiful hairpin, and it didn't take him more than half a minute to deal with the lock. Dave and I watched him with admiration. When the door was open Dave and Finn wanted to come in and look round, but I hustled them quickly down the steps. I was not sorry to be spared the interview with Sadie, and had no wish to have her arriving back on us just at this stage. Before I left I stuffed my pockets with biscuits. I asked myself if I belonged to a social class that would pinch two tins
of pâté de foie gras
from a woman guilty of making an illegal detention, and decided that I did. I took a last sad look at the Afghans and Kazaks, and seized my belongings and went.

When we were in the street I hailed a taxi at once. Finn and Dave were both in the highest spirits, and had clearly no intention of being parted from me. I think they felt that if they hung on to me they'd be in for an entertaining evening, of which they were loath to be cheated. I on my side wasn't yet entirely certain what I was going to do, and felt my usual need of moral support, so I let them pile into the taxi after me. We went first to Mrs Tinckham's shop, where I left my suitcase and the manuscripts.

‘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.

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 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.