Under The Net - Iris Murdoch [109]
Eighteen
The first thing I did after that was to take a stiff drink. My heart was beating like an army on the march. I would never do to enroll in a conspiracy. Then I went back to the flat and fetched Mars. I took him on a bus to Barnes, had beer and sandwiches at the Red Lion, and then walked with him on the Common until the light was failing. By the time we got back to Goldhawk Road it was nearly dark. I left Mars at the flat; there was no sign of Dave. He was out at some meeting. Then I started walking at random in the direction of Hammersmith. I just wanted the hours to pass and be quick about it. The pubs were just closing, and I put down as much whisky as I could in the last ten minutes. I walked until I was nearly at the river. I wasn't thinking about anything in particular during this period, but my mind was simply dominated by Hugo. It was as if from his bed in the hospital Hugo were holding the end of a cord to which I was attached, and from time to time I could feel it twitching. Or else it was as if Hugo brooded over me like a great bird; and I took no pleasure in the prospect of our imminent encounter, save a sort of blind satisfaction at the down-rush of the inevitable. I looked at my watch. It was after midnight, and I was standing on Hammersmith Bridge, not far from the place where we had released Mars from his cage. I looked up stream and tried to make out where in the mass of buildings on the north bank the Mime Theatre lay. But it was too dark to see. Then a panic overtook me in case I should arrive back at the Hospital too late. I set off walking briskly and hailed a taxi at Hammersmith Broadway which took me back to the Goldhawk Road. But now it was still too early. I walked up and down the street several times, passing the Hospital. It was not yet one o'clock, and I had resolved not to try to enter before two. I kept walking away from the Hospital, but something kept drawing me back again. I had to set myself little tasks: this time I would walk as far as the Seven Stars before I came back again; this time I would stand under the railway bridge as long as it took me to smoke a cigarette. I was in anguish. At about twenty past one I could bear it no longer. I decided to go in. But this time, as I approached, the whole scene appeared to be most damnably exposed. The street lamps were blazing and the building seemed to be covered in lights. As I came near I could see people standing in the entrance hall, and there were lights in the windows of all the stairways, and lights too in some of the wards. I had not foreseen this degree of nocturnal illumination. The Transept gardens, it is true, were plunged in darkness, and as far as I could see there were no lights in Corelli, except for one glimmer which doubtless came from the room of the Night Sister. To reach the Transept gardens, however, meant crossing the wide gravel walk and the lawn which ran the whole length of the Hospital on either side of the courtyard, and all this area was lit up by the indefatigable street lamps. Low posts with chains swinging between them divided the gravel walk from the street. The darkness seemed a long way away. I chose a point as far from the main entrance as possible and I looked carefully both ways along the street. The scene was deserted. Then I took a quick run and sprang over the chains and darted straight across the gavel and diagonally across the main lawn. I ran very lightly, my toes hardly touching the ground; and in a moment I had reached the darkness of the Transept garden. I stopped running and stood still on the grass to get my breath. I looked back. No one. A great silence surrounded me. I looked up at Corelli. There was only that one light burning on the first floor. I began to walk along the grass, touching the cherry trees one by one as I passed. Now that