Under The Net - Iris Murdoch [122]
Hugo had written his name in large letters. I turned over the pages. Here and there Hugo had underlined passages, put crosses and question-marks in the margin; and at one place there was a pencilled note, Ask J. This filled me with pain, and I closed the book and thrust it into my pocket. I glanced at the other contents of the drawers, and then I opened the top of the desk. It was crammed with letters and papers. I began very quickly to turn these over. As I delved further into boxes and pigeon-holes a flood of papers began to cascade on to the floor. I could not find what I wanted. Old letters and bills and blunt pencils and sealing-wax and boxes of matches and many kinds of paper clips and half-empty books of stamps and obsolete cheque-books streamed through my fingers. In a small drawer I came upon a collection of sinister-looking objects which I identified as Belfounder's Domestic Detonators, of a rather smaller variety than the one which had liberated us from the film studio. Another drawer contained a pearl necklace: perhaps a gift bought with tender care and destined for Sadie, which now would never reach her; or which she had returned, and it had arrived one morning in a registered packet and lain there for days because Hugo had not had the heart to undo it. But I could not find what I wanted. I sat down and took an empty sheet of paper. I wanted to write a letter to Hugo. I took one of Hugo's pens and Hugo's ink. A starling flew in at the window, saw me, and flew out again. There was a soft chattering on the balustrade. I looked up at the blue sky above it. Hugo, I wrote on the paper. Then I could think of nothing more to say. I thought of putting Send me your Nottingham address, but this sounded too weak and impersonal and I didn't write it down. In the end I just drew a curving line across the page, and signed my name at the bottom of it, adding the address of Mrs Tinckham's shop. I put the note in an envelope and balanced it on the bookcase and prepared to leave. As I turned, something caught my eye in the wall behind the bookcase. It was the green door of a safe. I paused, and then moved the bookcase out a little from the wall. I pulled at the safe door, but it was locked. I stood lookingat it pensively. Then it was clear to me what I must do. I wentback to the desk and took from the drawer one of Belfounder'sDomestic Detonators. I fingered this small explosive, wonderinghow powerful it was. I wondered this in a detached sort of way as I fumbled in my pocket for matches. The detonator was cone-shaped. I ran my finger over the door of the safe, trying to find some crack into which I could fit the point of the cone, but the whole thing was as smooth as a bishop's hand, even the hinges were stowed away inside. There were no crevices, neither were there any protuberances on which I might have tried to balance the detonator. Eventually I took a roll of stamp paper from Hugo's desk and with this I glued the object on at what seemed to be the point of maximum vulnerability on the lock side of the door. A small cotton fuse protruded from the blunt end, like the blue paper of a firework. I applied a lighted match to this and retired to the other end of the room. I watched thoughtfully. I think I would not have been either very surprised or very moved if the whole wall had suddenly disintegrated in a cloud of wood and plaster, revealing the open sky and a view of St Paul's. There was a bright flash and a crack. I shut my eyes. The room was filled with smoke, and a cloud of starlings flew up from under the balustrade. When I opened my eyes I saw through the sulphurous mist that the door of the safe had swung open and was dangling towards the floor on one hinge. No other damage had been done. I came forward and looked inside the safe. Its interior consisted of two deep shelves. On the lower shelf there was what appeared to be a great deal of money, done up in bundles of one-pound and five-pound notes. On the upper shelf I saw what I wanted. There were two packets of letters. I took them out. There was a small packet, in