Under the Net by Iris Murdoch Page A

myself, and just wished most heartily that all could be as if the accursed book had never been. I stopped going to the cinema, and avoided looking at the more sensational dailies which tended to feature Hugo’s activities. It was about now that Finn turned up and attached himself to me, and gradually my life took on a new pattern and the powerful image of Hugo began to fade. Nothing had interrupted the fading process until the moment when Sadie so unexpectedly mentioned Hugo’s name in the hairdresser’s shop.

Five
    I WALKED down the street in a daze. I bought a packet of cigarettes and went into a milk bar to think things over. The mention of Hugo’s name was in itself quite enough to upset me considerably, and for a while I was in such pain that I couldn’t put the matter to myself clearly at all. What did seem to emerge, as far as my present situation was concerned, was that Hugo’s involvement in the affair made it quite out of the question for me to accept Sadie’s offer or to have anything more to do with Sadie at all. My immediate impulse was simply to run away. After a while, however, I began to feel calm enough to find the situation rather interesting; and then, as I reflected more and more upon it, it became clear to me that Sadie simply couldn’t be telling the truth. I knew from of old that Sadie was a notorious liar and would tell any falsehood to procure herself even a quite temporary advantage. Also the sheer improbability of Hugo being in love with Sadie was, when I considered it, overwhelming. Hugo was never very forward with women, and tended anyway to admire the quiet home-keeping types. I just couldn’t see him behaving in the way Sadie had described. That there was some stratagem going forward which involved Hugo was very possible; but a more likely explanation of it was that Sadie was up to some professional caper which Hugo was trying to circumvent. I knew nothing about the film world, but I imagined it to be in a continuous ferment of personal intrigue. Indeed it was even possible that it was Sadie who was in love with Hugo and was trying to entangle him in some way. This, when it occurred to me, seemed a very plausible hypothesis indeed. I knew, from Sadie’s conduct towards myself, how easily she was impressed by men whom she imagined to be intellectuals; and whereas Hugo was not at all the man to love Sadie, Sadie was just the woman to be in love with Hugo.
    When I had come to this conclusion I felt better. Somehow the idea of Hugo gone on Sadie had been extremely distasteful to me. This still, however, failed to illuminate a course of action for me. What was I to do? If I accepted Sadie’s offer I would seem to be enrolling myself on the wrong side in some sort of obscure battle with Hugo; and if I accepted the offer with the full intention of helping Hugo if possible and outwitting Sadie, this savoured of double-dealing. I still had besides a strong inclination to keep clear of the thing altogether, as I didn’t dare even to imagine with what sort of a head I could bring myself to face Hugo, should that dread necessity ever arise. On the other hand, I felt that by now I was somewhow involved myself, and I couldn’t help being fascinated by the way things had fallen out, and wondering what on earth would happen next. Some fate which I would not readily deny was leading me back to Hugo.
    I thought the matter to and fro and up and down, and the morning passed without my having made a decision. I was becoming quite exhausted by the suspense, so I decided that, since work was out of the question in view of my nervous and excited condition, I might as well pass the afternoon in a useful routine way by going and fetching the radiogram from Earls Court Road. At this I found myself ruefully reflecting that while I was likely to get my neck broken at Welbeck Street by Hugo I was likely to get it broken at Earls Court Road by Sacred Sammy. I went to the