Under the Net (38 page)

This letter absolutely delighted me. I didn't know which pleased me most, its gentleness or its cunning. I had no doubt that Sadie thought it quite possible that I would be fool enough to buy Mars, she probably wasn't sure whether I knew the secret of his age, she must think it unlikely that she would find a better buyer in her own well-informed milieu, she asked a sum of money which was about the maximum that I would be likely to be able or willing to cough up, she then hastened to indicate a way in which I might manage to recoup myself; and the final paragraph clearly came from the heart, or whatever cool yet sensitive organ Sadie kept in place of one.

I looked at the two enclosures. One was the card of Sadie's solicitor, which I stowed away in my pocket. The other was the letter from the dog-biscuit people. I glanced at this and then tore it up. ‘Your public career is over!' I caid to Mars. Then I took out of my coat the bundle of notes which I had taken from Hugo's safe. I began to count them. Mrs Tinckham watched with interest, but made no inquiry. The bundle contained exactly a hundred pounds. I tied them up again and put them away.

‘Could you sell me some writing-paper and envelopes?' I asked Mrs Tinckham.

She handed them over. ‘These are on the house,' she said. ‘I shall never manage to sell them.' They were yellow with dust and age. Inside the cover of the pad I made a short calculation. My winnings on Lyrebird amounted to six hundred pounds. This, with Hugo's hundred pounds, and what I had in the bank, brought my credit up to about seven hundred and sixty pounds. I looked at this figure for a while, but more in sorrow than in hesitation. Of course I had to buy Mars. I didn't need to pause to ask myself whether or even why. It was written in the heavens, and not to do it would be to prove myself an underling. Nor did it occur to me to try to beat Sadie down. The formal properties of the situation left me with no choice. I must pay up, and without argument or comment. This was no moment for haggling with destiny. I would only allow myself the luxury, when it had all been settled, of one brief note to Sadie: a note which she would
not
pretend to have mislaid among her fan mail. As I thought this I knew that Sadie concerned me. There was no doubt that we should meet again. But that was for the future. The future — it opened for a moment before me, a land of hills and far distances; and I closed my eyes. Sadie would
keep
. There is only one thing which will make a woman
keep,
and that is intelligence. Sadie had it. Hugo was right.

I wrote the cheque. I reckoned that this left me with just about as much cash to my name as I had had when I left Earls Court Road at the beginning of this story. I sighed a little over this, and for a moment the spectral fortunes which I had been so near to winning rose about me in a whirl till I was blinded in a snowstorm of five-pound notes. But the tempest subsided; and I knew that I had no deep regrets. Like a fish which swims calmly in deep water, I felt all about me the secure supporting pressure of my own life. Ragged, inglorious, and apparently purposeless, but my own. I completed the letter to Sadie's solicitor, and asked him to send the typescript to me care of Mrs Tinckham. I could raise money on that as soon as I wished. There would be no more translating. I began to undo the parcel of manuscripts.

I spread them out on the table; and as I touched them my hands were trembling like the hands of a water-diviner. I began to glance through them, looking with surprise on what I had done. There was a long poem, the fragment of a novel, a number of curious stories. It seemed to me that I had written them long ago. These things were mediocre, I saw it. But I saw too, as it were straight through them, the possibility of doing better — and this possibility was present to me as a strength which cast me lower and raised me higher than I had ever been before. I took out Hugo's copy of
The Silencer
, and the sight of it gave me joy. This too was only a beginning. It was the first day of the world. I was full of that strength which is better than happiness, better than the weak wish for happiness which women can awaken in a man to rot his fibres. It was the morning of the first day.

I stretched and yawned, and Mars stretched too, shaking each limb. I spread out my arms and smiled at Mrs Tinckham. She smiled back through the haze like a Cheshire cat. But as I stretched my body out, trying to embrace the world, there was a strange whisper going on in my head, as if someone I knew were murmuring into my ear, as if someone I loved were trying to tell me a secret; and I stiffened slowly as one who is listening.

‘There's a friend of yours on the wireless,' said Mrs Tinckham.

‘Who?' I asked.

‘Name of Quentin,' said Mrs Tinckham. She passed me the
Radio Times,
and as I fumbled with the pages she suddenly turned the wireless on full.

Like a sea wave curling over me came Anna's voice. She was singing an old French love song. The words came slowly, gilded by her utterance. They turned over in the air slowly and then fell ; and the splendour of the husky gold filled the shop, transforming the cats into leopards and Mrs Tinckham into an aged Circe. I sat quite still and held Mrs Tinck's eyes, as she leaned there with her hand frozen upon the knob of the wireless. It was very long since I had heard Anna sing; and as I listened I saw her, and saw the little streak of grey in the coronet of her hair. The song ended. ‘Turn it off!' I said, for I could bear no more.

The shop was suddenly silent. Mrs Tinckham had turned the wireless off completely, and for the first time since I had ever come to Mrs Tinckham's shop I could hear the animals breathing.

Anxiously I turned the pages of the
Radio Times
until I found the place. ‘Anna Quentin,' it said, ‘relayed from the Club des Fous in Paris, in the first of a series of ten broadcasts entitled
Qu'est-ce que la Chanson?‘
I smiled with a smile which penetrated my whole being like the sun.

‘You see,' said Mrs Tinckham.

‘I see,' I said. I wondered what she meant. We looked at each other.

‘Mrs Tinck,' I said, ‘I'll tell you something.'

‘What?' said Mrs Tinckham.

‘I'm going to get a job,' I said.

I didn't expect her to look surprised, and she didn't. ‘What can you do?' asked Mrs Tinckham.

‘I shall find a part-time job in a hospital,' I said. ‘I can do that.' I am very conservative by temperament.

‘But first I must find somewhere to live,' I said.

‘You could look at the board outside,' said Mrs Tinck. ‘There may be a room advertised, I forget.'

I got up and went outside. Mars ambled after me and stood leaning lazily against my legs, scanning the street for mobile and chaseable cats. I examined the board. It was covered with more or less ill-written postcards, which were pinned there for a weekly fee. One, neater than the rest, caught my eye, advertising a ground-floor room near Hampstead Heath, with
no petty restrictions
. This obviously referred to women; I wondered if it might be extended to cover dogs.

‘Who put that one up?' I asked Mrs Tinck.

‘An odd kind of man,' said Mrs Tinckham. ‘I don't know him particularly.'

‘What's he like?' I asked.

‘He's rather tall,' said Mrs Tinckham.

I knew that I should have to go to Hampstead to find out what was odd about him. ‘You've nothing against him?' I said.

‘Oh, nothing at all,' said Mrs Tinck. ‘Why don't you go and look at the room?'

‘I'll do it tonight,' I said.

‘If you're stuck for a bed you can come back and sleep here,' said Mrs Tinck.

This was an extraordinary concession. ‘Thank you, Mrs Tinckham,' I said, ‘but where shall I sleep?'

‘I'll make you a bed behind the counter,' said Mrs Tinckham. ‘I'll move Maggie and her kittens into the back room.'

‘How are Maggie and her kittens?' I asked politely.

‘Come and see,' she said.

Feeling that I was stepping on to sacred ground, I came round behind the counter. In the corner at Mrs Tinckham's feet, in a cardboard stationery box, lay Maggie with four kittens curled against her striped belly. Maggie was blinking and yawning and looking the other way while the kittens struggled into her fur. I looked, I looked closer, and then I exclaimed.

‘Yes, you see,' said Mrs Tinckham. I knelt down and began to lift the kittens one by one. Their bodies were as round as balls and they squeaked almost inaudibly. One of them was tabby, one was tabby and white, and two of them appeared to be completely Siamese. I studied their markings and their crooked tails and their fierce squinting blue eyes. Already they seemed to be squeaking more huskily than the others.

‘So Maggie's done it at last!' I said. Mars thrust his head under my arm and sniffed at the little beasts with condescension. I put them back in the box.

‘What puzzles me,' said Mrs Tinckham, ‘is why those two should be pure Siamese and the other ones quite different, instead of their all being half tabby and half Siamese.'

‘Oh, but that's how it always is. It's quite simple,' I said.

‘Why is it then?' said Mrs Tinck.

‘Well,' I said, ‘it's just a matter of ...' I stopped. I had no idea what it was a matter of. I laughed and Mrs Tinckham laughed.

‘I don't know why it is,' I said. ‘It's just one of the wonders of the world.'

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