Under The Net - Iris Murdoch [44]
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 pate de foie Bras 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.
Seven
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.