Under the Net Read online

  ‘I suggest,’ I said, ‘that you tell me a winner in the three o’clock race, and that you phone the bet for me to your own firm or wherever you keep your betting account. If that goes down we’ll increase the stake for the three-thirty and so on for the rest of the afternoon. We’ll aim at making fifty pounds, and you agree to stand the loss if any.‘

  Sammy was overjoyed. ‘Done!’ he said. ‘What a sportsman! But we’ll make a sight more than fifty pounds. I know today’s card like my own daughter. It’s a poem.’

  We spread the paper out on the rug.

  ‘Little Grange will win the three o’clock at Salisbury,‘ said Sammy. ’A cert, but odds on. We’ll ginger it up by joining it with Queen’s Rook in the three-thirty.‘

  I was beginning to feel cautious; already I had the feeling that Sammy was gambling with my money.

  ‘But suppose Queen’s Rook doesn’t win!’ I said. ‘It’s not fun I want, it’s cash. Let’s put something on Little Grange alone.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Sammy. ‘What’s the use of caution when you know your onions? Hold on to your hat, my boy, while I just get the office on the blower. Hello, hello! Is that Andy? This is Sam.’

  ‘Keep the stake down, keep the stake down,’ I was saying to him.

  ‘My private account,’ Sammy was saying. ‘Sure, I don’t hold with gambling!’ in reply to some witticism of Andy’s. ‘This is for a friend who’s done me a good turn.’

  He winked a triangular eye at me, and in a moment he had placed forty pounds in a win double, Little Grange and Queen’s Rook. While that was cooking we turned our attention to the Nottingham card. The three o‘clock at Nottingham was a selling plate.

  ‘Not interesting,’ said Sammy. ‘That’s a race for horses with three legs, we’ll steer clear of it. But the rest of the day’s a wedding present. Let’s make it really exciting and have a treble. Saint Cross in the three-thirty, Hal Adair in the four o’clock, and Peter of Alex in the four-thirty. I don’t care for the four o‘clock at Salisbury. That leaves the four-thirty at Salisbury, and that’ll be won by either Dagenham or Elaine’s Choice.’

  ‘Well, put it on each way, for heaven’s sake,’ I said.

  I poured myself out another stiff glass. I am not a natural gambler.

  Sammy was on the phone staking twenty pounds at Nottingham. Then he was asking for the winner of the three o‘clock race at Salisbury. I sat down on the floor. Sammy stood to lose more money than I had in the bank. My nerves were vibrating like the strings of a harp. I wished I’d never suggested it.

  ‘Stop looking green,’ said Sammy. ‘It’s only money! And just guess who won the three o’clock. Little Grange at two to one on!‘

  This made it worse. ‘But it’s a double,’ I said. ‘Doubles never work. It’s just a way of losing more than one’s stake.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Sammy, ‘and leave the worrying to me. If you can’t stand it you can go and sit on the landing.’

  He was working out on a piece of paper how much we were going to win. ‘Queen’s Rook won’t lose,’ said Sammy, ‘but we’re covered anyway by the four-thirty. Twenty-fiive quid each way on the two of them just to please you. There’s security for you! You put it down and you pick it up!’

  I was working out how much we were going to lose. This was easier and could be done in the head. I made it a hundred and sixty pounds. I was tempted to go away and leave Sammy to it, but dignity forbade me to desert him in what was after all my own enterprise. Besides this, the question was academic, since too much whisky on an empty stomach had by now immobilized me completely. My legs felt as if they were stuffed with straw. I groaned. Sammy was ringing up about the next race. Queen’s Rook had been beaten by a head but Saint Cross had won at Nottingham.

  This was worse than anything. ‘Confound you,’ I said, ‘why didn’t you do what I told you about Little Grange? Now we’re forty pounds down and we haven’t even won anything on Saint Cross.’

  ‘That just makes it better sport,’ said Sammy. ‘Believe you me, today’s your lucky day. What’s today? Wednesday? Well, Wed nesday’s your lucky day. It’s years since I’ve really gambled,’ said Sammy, ‘I’d quite forgotten the feeling!’ He was rubbing his hands with hideous zest.

  ‘You know, boy,’ he said, ‘it does me good to meet someone like you now and then. Makes me realize the value of money!’

  When the four o‘clock race at Nottingham was won by Hal Adair, cool channels of sweat ran down my back and sides. I didn’t feet it was my lucky day, and even Sammy was showing signs of strain. He drank what remained of the whisky and told me that the trouble with me was that I didn’t take a thing like this in the right spirit.

  ‘Getting cash is like taming a lion,’ said Sammy. ‘Never let it see that you care.’

  My head, after describing gentle circles, subsided on to the carpet, carrying the rest of my trunk with it. I turned my face under the sofa. ‘Filthy lucre! Filthy lucre!’ I could hear Sammy saying, with the voice of a man cursing the woman he has ruined. When 4.30 approached, the atmosphere was electric. Sammy was on the phone before the race was even started, but I hardly listened, I was too busy wondering how I would raise the money to pay him back. I decided that if I gave him the radiogram we’d be approximately quits.

  I could hear Sammy saying, ‘Come on, Andy, look sharp. I’ve got a friend here who’s biting the furniture.’

  Then I heard Sammy swearing. ‘What is it?’ I asked languidly.

  ‘Elaine’s Choice didn’t run,’ said Sammy, ‘and Dagenham was fourth.’

  ‘What about Nottingham?’ I asked without interest.

  ‘Wait,’ said Sammy, who was glued to the phone again. I began to roll gently under the sofa.

  Then I heard him shout, ‘By God, we’ve done it! I said you had a lucky face!’ I rolled out again and my torso regained the vertical.

  ‘Peter of Alex at nine to two!’ shouted Sammy. ‘Quick, open another bottle!’

  We both struggled with the bottle, broke a glass, and sat on the floor laughing like mad things and toasting each other. The room was beginning to undulate gently about me and I wasn’t sure that I knew what was happening. Sammy was shouting, ‘Well done the old firm!’ and ‘Can I pick them or can I pick them!’ and checking his sums.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘Saint Cross was at seven to two, that makes ninety pounds on Hal Adair at two to one on, that makes a hundred and thirty-five pounds on Peter of Alex at nine to two, that makes seven hundred and twenty-two pounds ten. Considering the meetings, it’s decent odds. What did I tell you? Better than scribbling, what?’ Sammy waved the bottle in the air.

  ‘Wait a moment,’ I said. ‘There’s the forty pounds that went down on Queen’s Rook and there’s the each way bet at Salisbury.’

  ‘Oh, forget it!’ said Sammy. ‘Remember the bookie wins every day. That’s why I’ve enjoyed this so much.’

  ‘No, you damn well stick to the agreement!’ I shouted. What was left of my honour was at stake.

  After some more shouting Sammy agreed to the deduction. ‘All right, Donaghue,’ he said. ‘That makes six hundred and thirty-three pounds ten. I’ll write the cheque now. The money’ll go into my account.’ He produced his cheque-book again.

  This sobered me up. I had a curious sense of being back at the beginning, only now Sammy was offering me three times as much. I couldn’t credit it, now that the excitement was over, that Sammy could really have won so much cash just by saying things into the telephone.

  I told Sammy this and he laughed at me. ‘Your trouble is,’ he said, ‘you’re too used to sweating blood for money. But that’s not the way to get it. Just lie on your back and whistle and it’ll come.’ Eventually we agreed that Sammy should wait to send me the cheque until he had received the account showing his winnings. That would convince me that the transaction was real. He exclaimed a lot about how decent it was of me to trust him, and I gave him Dave’s address and staggered up to go. Sammy ordered me a taxi. He was so far
from disputing my claim to the radiogram that I think he would have let me take away the whole flat and helped me to carry it down the stairs. We stowed the radiogram beside the taxi-driver and then took leave of each other with many exclamations of regard. ‘That was good sport!’ said Sammy. ‘We must do it another day!’

  The taxi took me to the Goldhawk Road, and the taxi-driver conveyed both me and the radiogram up the stairs. I burst in on Dave and Finn, laughing like a lunatic. When they asked me what was so funny I told them I was going to take a job as Sadie’s bodyguard — and this when I explained it certainly seemed funny enough. I said nothing about either Hugo or Sammy. Finn and Dave received my project, the latter with sarcasm, the former with expectant interest. I think I am a constant source of entertainment to Finn. After that I went to bed and fell into a drunken sleep.

  Six

  IT was about 9.15, on the appointed morning, when I reached Welbeck Street, as I had to go first to Mrs Tinckham’s to collect my manuscripts. I found the door open and Sadie fretting and fuming about the hall.

  ‘My dear creature,’ she said, ‘thank heavens you’ve come. When I say dawn to dusk I mean dawn to dusk. You’ve made me madly late. Never mind, don’t look like that, come in. I see you’ve brought enough scribbling-paper to last a year. That’s just as well. Listen, I want you, just for today and tomorrow, to stay here all day. Do you mind? I’ll feel better if I know someone’s here all the time. There’s oceans to drink and the fridge is just full of salmon and raspberries and things. Don’t invite your friends in though, there’s an angel. If Belfounder or anybody telephones just say in a stern masculine voice that I’m out indefinitely. There’s an utter darling. Now I must absolutely run.’

  ‘When’ll you be back?’ I asked, rather overwhelmed by these instructions.

  ‘Oh, late tonight,’ said Sadie. ‘Don’t wait up. Just choose yourself one of the spare rooms. The beds are all made.’ Then she kissed me with considerable enthusiasm and went away.

  When the door had closed and there was silence in the large sunlit flat except for distant street noises, I stretched out my arms luxuriously and set out to survey the domain. Rugs from Kazakstan and Afghanistan and the Caucasus shifted softly underfoot on the parquet flooring. Rosewood and satinwood and mahogany curved and splayed and tapered in surfaces which glowered with care and quality. Tiny jade objects squatted on white mantel-shelves. Damask curtains stirred gently in the summer breeze. Sadie had come a long way since the days of the Quentin sisters. Here and there, under china animals or French paper-weights, were neat piles of letters or press cuttings or thousand-franc notes. I prowled quietly around, whistling to myself. Several Georgian cut-glass decanters, with enamel labels round their necks, stood on a low table; and in a cupboard I found a vast number of half-empty bottles of sherry, port, vermouth, pernod, gin, whisky and brandy. In the kitchen there was a good deal of hock and claret in one of the cupboards, and the larder was filled with various pâtés, small sausages, and crab and jellied chicken in tins. I found about twelve kinds of biscuits, but no sign of any bread. In the fridge was salmon, raspberries, and considerable quantities of butter, milk, and cheese.

  I went back to the sitting-room and poured myself out a long drink of Italian vermouth and soda water, to which I added some ice from the fridge. I took a cigarette from a little Sèvres casket that perched on gilded feet. Then I sank gently into a deep armchair and let my sense of time be stilled into a long regular undulation which seemed to pass through my body like a sigh. It was a hot day. The windows opened upon the distant intermittent murmur of London. My head was empty and my limbs were leaden with content. After a long time I reached out for some of my manuscripts and began to sort them. As I was looking at them all thought of Sadie and of the recent tumult was already far away. It diminished to a pinpoint and disappeared. I stretched out my legs, crumpling an exquisitely golden yellow and midnight blue striped Kazak rug into folds at my feet. If sleep could have come to me now it would have been one deep cascade of refreshment and peace. But I lay wakeful and soon ceased to turn over the typed and scribbled pages. I let them slide to the floor.

  It was some time later again, and my eye was wandering along a low white bookshelf on the other side of the room. On top of this at intervals were Worcester and Dresden figures. I surveyed these, and my glance came lazily back along the top row of books. Then suddenly I stiffened and leapt up as if I’d been stabbed, scattered foolscap and typing-paper to the right and left. I strode to the bookcase. There, right in the centre, was a copy of The Silencer. I hadn’t seen one for years. It even had its paper cover on. I looked at it with repulsion and fascination. Then I pulled it out, telling myself how foolish I was to be so moved at seeing the paltry work again; and as I held it in my hand I began to feel suddenly no longer repulsed but affectionate and protective towards it, and curious. I sat down cross-legged on the floor beside the bookshelves and opened it.

  It’s always a strange experience to read one’s own writings again after an interval. They so rarely fail to impress. As I turned the pages of this curious journal I felt that the years which separated me from the moment of its creation had given it a strange independence. It was like meeting as an adult someone whom one knew long ago as a child. It wasn’t that I liked the thing any better, but that now it somehow stood alone; and the idea crossed my mind that now at last it might be possible to make peace with it. I started to read at random.

  TAMARUS: But ideas are like money. There must be an accepted coin which circulates. Concepts which are used for communication are justified by success.

  ANNANDINE: That’s near to saying that a story is true if enough people believe it.

  TAMARUS: Of course I don’t mean that. If I use an analogy or invent a concept part of what must be tested when the success is tested is whether by this means I can draw attention to real things in the world. Any concept can be misused. Any sentence can state a falsehood. But words themselves don’t tell lies. A concept may have limitations but these won’t mislead if I expose them in my use of it.

  ANNANDINE: Yes, that’s the grand style of lying. Put down your best half truth and call it a lie, but let it stand all the same. It will survive when your qualifications have been forgotten, even by yourself.

  TAMARUS: But life has to be lived, and to be lived it has to be understood. This process is called civilization. What you say goes against our very nature. We are national animals in the sense of theory-making animals.

  ANNANDINE: When you’ve been most warmly involved in life, when you’ve most felt yourself to be a man, has a theory ever helped you? Is it not then that you meet with things themselves naked? Has a theory helped you when you were in doubt about what to do? Are not these very simple moments when theories are shilly-shallying ? And don’t you realize this very clearly at such moments?

  TAMARUS: My answer is twofold. Firstly that I may not reflect upon theories, but I may be expressing one all the same. Secondly that there are theories abroad in the world, political ones for instance, and so we have to deal with them in our thoughts, and that at moments of decision too.

  ANNANDINE: If by expressing a theory you mean that someone else could make a theory about what you do, of course that is true and uninteresting. What I speak of is the real decision as we experience it; and here the movement away from theory and generality is the movement towards truth. All theorizing is flight. We must be ruled by the situation itself and this is unutterably particular. Indeed it is something to which we can never get close enough, however hard we may try as it were to crawl under the net.

  TAMARUS: That may be. But what about my other point?

  ANNANDINE: It is true that theories may often be a part of a situation that one has to contend with. But then all sorts of obvious lies and fantasies may be a part of such a situation; and you would say that one must be good at detecting and shunning lies, and not that one must be good at lying.

  TAMARUS: So you would cut all speech, except the very s
implest, out of human life altogether. To do this would be to take away our very means of understanding ourselves and making life endurable.

  ANNANDINE: Why should life be made endurable? I know that nothing consoles and nothing justifies except a story - but that doesn’t stop all stories from being lies. Only the greatest men can speak and still be truthful. Any artist knows this obscurely; he knows that a theory is death, and that all expression is weighted with theory. Only the strongest can rise against that weight. For most of us, for almost all of us, truth can be attained, if at all, only in silence. It is in silence that the human spirit touches the divine. This was something which the ancients understood. Psyche was told that if she spoke about her pregnancy her child would be a mortal; if she kept silent it would be a god.

  I read this thoughtfully. I had quite forgotten that I had managed to put up even as good a show as that against Hugo. I now found Hugo’s arguments very much less impressive, and there occurred to me instantly a variety of ways in which the position of Tamarus might be strengthened. When I had written the dialogue I had obviously been far too bemused by Hugo. I decided then and there that I would confiscate the book for my own use and read the whole of it with great care, and revise my views. The possibility even occurred to me of a sequel. But I shook my head over it at once. There remained the fact that Annandine was but a broken-down caricature of Hugo. Hugo would never even have used words such as ‘theory’ or ‘generality’. I had not achieved more than the most shadowy expression of Hugo’s point of view.

  While I was thinking these thoughts a little stream was running softly somewhere in my mind, a little stream of reminiscence. What was it? Something was asking to be remembered. I held the book gently in my hands, and followed without haste the course of my reverie, waiting for the memory to declare itself. wondered idly why Sadie should possess a copy of the book. It was not the sort of thing which could conceivably interest her. I turned to the beginning and looked inside the cover. The name written there was not Sadie’s but Anna’s. I looked at it for a moment, still holding the book very gently, and the memory that I had been seeking took hold of my whole consciousness with the force of a hurricane.