Under The Net - Iris Murdoch [69]
publicity of the film which was apparently being made inside at that very moment. I remembered now having seen something about it in the papers. It was a film about the conspiracy of Catiline which was to be remarkable for its painstaking care in presenting this much-disputed and doubtless misrepresented episode. At Last! the posters announced to bewildered Londoners. The Truth About Catiline! No less than three eminent ancient historians were on the payroll. Sadie was playing the part of Orestilla, Catiline's wife, whom Sallust says no good man ever praised save for her beauty and whom Cicero professed to believe to be not only Catiline's wife but also his daughter. Of this latter insinuation the film makes no mention, but the former, whether prompted by research or by the necessities of the script, it repudiates by presenting Orestilla as a woman with a heart of gold and moderate reformist principles. The place seemed to be impregnable. There might have been a way of entering from the railway side. But I left this as a last resort; for although I am not frightened of motor cars I am rather nervous of trains. This I know is illogical since, except in moments of crisis, trains run on rails and cannot pursue you across pavements and into shops as cars can. On this occasion, however, my natural fears were augmented by the presence of Mars. I vividly pictured him being run over by a train, which to my fevered imagination seemed to be the unavoidable consequence of our venturing out on to the tracks. So I turned back towards the main gate. Here I noticed that the three men who had taken me for a felonious loiterer had gone, and that one man only sat framed in the window. I looked at the gate, and as I did so I saw inside it, standing in the studio yard, the big black Alvis which I had last seen gliding away from the Riverside Theatre. I was certain it was the same car. This decided me. Somewhere on the other side of these gates was Hugo. Without an idea in my head I approached the window. The man looked at me questioningly. I leaned towards him. 'I'm George's friend,' I hissed, and looked fixedly into his eyes. I mumbled the name a bit so that it might serve equally for John or Joe or James or Jack. One or other of these bolts evidently reached a target. The man nodded in a rather contemptuous way and touched a lever. The gates opened. 'Straight across the yard and on the left,' he said. I walked in. I didn't want to attract attention to Mars by calling him; I hoped he would have enough sense to follow me in at once. As I could hear the gates beginning to close behind me I couldn't help turning slightly to see what had happened to him. But all was well. He had not only followed discreetly at my heels, but had even lowered his tail as he passed under the office window. Without looking back again I hurried across the yard, past Hugo's car, and entered a labyrinth of buildings on the other side. On my left a large door said EXTRAS. This was doubtless the desired destination of Joe's friend, and I wondered for a moment whether it mightn't profit me to continue in this role. But I decided that really there was no reason why I should have to attire myself like an ancient Roman in order to find Hugo, especially as this would mean surrendering my trousers to another person, an act of which I have a primitive terror. So I went straight on and as I did so I took off my tie and knotted one end of it on to Mars's collar. I felt ready for anything. In the distance I could now hear a voice holding forth in a passionate rhetorical manner. The sound of it carried clearly through the sensitive evening air. It was this way that I went, for I did not doubt that if I could find the centre of operations I should discover Hugo. There was no one about and no other sound to be heard. The office people had evidently gone home. With Mars padding beside me I ran down a lane of concrete buildings and then down another one. Somewhere ahead there was a great deal of light. Then I turned a corner and there opened before me the most astonishing scene. In the