Under The Net - Iris Murdoch [100]
push his face away and ruffle up the fur of his back to satisfy myself that he was only a dog. I was worried that he was getting no exercise. Dave, it is true, took him out every morning and evening as far as Shepherd's Bush Green, and there, Dave would tell me, he would race about like a mad thing until it was time to come home again. But this could not be enough for such a big dog; and Dave, who was due to start teaching at a summer school in a day or two, would then have even less time to devote to him. I wondered if Mars was unhappy; and then I wondered whether, supposing that he could not be said to know that he was unhappy, he could properly be said to be unhappy. I decided to ask Dave about this some time. Dave was often in during the day, and I would hear the distant sound of his typewriter. Then there would be silence. He brought me a meal at midday and in the evening. We did not speak. Sometimes in the afternoon he would open the door and look at me for a while. I saw him as one sees someone through the wrong end of a telescope. Then much later I would remember that the door had shut and he was gone. Dave had seen me like this before. The bed creaked and shivered as I turned upon it restlessly. I was dressed in my shirt and pants, and although it was a sunny day I had two blankets drawn over me. I felt cold in the marrow of my bones. I retrieved my pillow and balanced it again upon the rucksack. I turned away from the window. No sun came into this room, but in the reflected light from the Hospital wall everything was revealed with an abnormal clarity, as if an extra dimension had been added to space, and objects projected and receded with a sharpness which made them almost unbearably present. I lay looking at my shoes and wondering what could have happened to Finn. I had come back from Paris on the morning of the fifteenth. I had found Dave and Mars at Goldhawk Road and heard from Dave the story of how he and Finn had spent the previous afternoon at Sandown Park where Lyrebird had obliged us all by winning at such fancy odds. They had placed the bet at the course, and as soon as Dave collected the money he had given Finn his share, which amounted to two hundred and ten pounds. Finn had stowed this sum, which was largely in five-pound notes, in odd pockets all over his person. This he had done in silence, somewhat with the air of a man donning a parachute for a dangerous jump. After that he had shaken Dave mutely by the hand for some time. Then he had turned and disappeared into the crowd. He had not returned to Goldhawk Road that night, and Dave had thought it possible that he had gone to join me, until I had arrived on the following morning and, after looking about for Finn, asked for news of him. Since then he had not reappeared. I was not yet seriously worried. Finn was probably on the drink. I had known him go off once before on a blind which lasted for three days and from which he was brought home in an ambulance. I didn't imagine that anything serious could have happened to him. All the same I wanted him very badly to come back. After my arrival I had written at once to someone at the Club des Fous asking him to try to find out where Anna was and to let me know. But I had not had any reply. I had also tried fruitlessly to contact Hugo. There was no answer from his flat, and the studio said that he had gone into the country. Dave had shown me a copy of the letter which he had sent to Sadie about Mars, which was a masterly compound of friendly argumentation and menace. But so far Sadie had shown no sign of life either. I had written to Jean Pierre congratulating him on his success. After that I had lain down on the camp-bed. The day of my appointment with Lefty had come and gone, and since then he had rung up twice and asked for me; and Dave had told him that I was ill, which I suppose was true. The Hospital wall was now almost entirely in shadow. There was only a triangle of gold at the top of the window where I could still see it touched by the evening sun. Dave opened the door and called to Mars, and I could