Under the Net

by Iris Murdoch

  The thing was mysterious. There was no door in it, and no locks or bolts or screws, so far as we could see. The bars fitted closely into the roof and the floor.

  ‘Perhaps one side comes away,’ I said. But there was no sign of any special fastening. The whole thing was a smooth as a pebble.

  ‘It’s soldered in,’ said Finn.

  ‘It can’t be,’ I said. ‘Surely no one carried the thing upstairs like this.’

  ‘Well, it’s some trick modern fitting,’ said Finn. This didn’t help. ‘If we had a good hammer and knew where to tap it ...’ he said. But we hadn’t. I battered it for some time with my shoe, but nothing gave.

  ‘Can’t we break the bars?’ I suggested.

  ‘They’re as hard as the Divil’s forehead,’ said Finn.

  I went to the kitchen to look for a tool, but I couldn’t find a screw-driver, let alone a crowbar. We tried a poker on the bars, but bent it without their yielding a millimetre. I was frantic. I would have sent Finn out for a file, only it was getting late. He was looking at his watch. It was ten past four. I knew he was straining to be away, though I knew too that now we were embarked on a particular enterprise he would stand by me as long as I wanted him. He was squatting there by the cage, and both he and Mars were looking up at me, Finn with the gentle look which he reserves for moments of difficulty.

  ‘Every time I hear a noise on the stairs I have heart disease,’ said Finn.

  I was having it too. But I wasn’t going to go away without Mars. I took off my gloves; I felt that things were moving into a new phase.

  ‘Then we’ll take the cage as well,’ I said.

  ‘It won’t go through the door,’ said Finn, ‘and anyway someone’s sure to stop us on the way out.’

  ‘We’ll try,’ I said. ‘If it won’t go through the door I’ll promise to give up.’

  ‘You’ll have no choice,’ said Finn.

  I was certain it would go through the door. But to get it through we should have to stand it on its side. There was a bowl of water inside on the aluminium floor of the cage.

  ‘That proves it,’ said Finn; ‘they surely put it together up here. We’ll not get it away.’

  I took a flower vase and poured the water from the bowl into it, holding it close against the bars. Then very gently we began to tilt the cage. Mars, who had been watching us intently, now began to get very excited.

  ‘Be careful,’ said Finn, ‘or he’ll bite the hand off you.’ We tilted the cage until it lay entirely upon its side, and as we did so Mars slid down until he was standing on the bars which now rested on the floor. He began to bark nervously.

  ‘Be quiet,’ I told him. ‘Think of the fix you were in in Five in a Flood, and it all turned out all right!’

  ‘When we lift the cage,’ said Finn, ‘his feet will fall through the bars and he may break a leg by struggling.’

  This was a sensible thought. We stood and considered the problem. We were past troubling about the time. We were ready to go on now even if it meant another two hours.

  ‘We must stretch something across the bars,’ I said. I seized a tablecloth, and staffing it into the cage tried to spread it out under Mars’s feet. But he immediately started to paw it and worry it.

  ‘You’ll have to fix it somehow,’ said Finn, ‘or he’ll scruff it away with his feet.’

  ‘String,’ I said.

  ‘That would slip off,’ said Finn. ‘What you need is something long enough to double back and tie on to itself underneath.’

  He disappeared and came back a moment later with a sheet. We measured the sheet against the edge of the cage.

  ‘It’s not long enough to meet underneath,’ said Finn.

  I began trying to tie the comers of the sheet to the bars, but it was highly starched and the knots came undone at once. We looked round desperately.

  ‘What about those curtains?’ I suggested.

  ‘We’d need a step-ladder to get them down,’ said Finn.

  ‘No time,’ I said. I gave them a sharp tug, and the fitting came out of the wall and the curtains came down on top of us with a great clattering of rings. We detached one of them. It was extremely long. We stretched it along inside the cage, making Mars pick up his feet and stand on it. Then there was quite enough of it protruding at either end for it to meet itself if doubled back on the underside of the bars. But we had no means of getting at the underside.

  ‘We need a jack,’ said Finn.

  I took two chairs and put them one at each end of the cage. ‘Lift it on to these,’ I said.

  We began to lift, but as we did so Mars’s paws, slipping through the bars as soon as the cage left the floor, pulled the curtain into a tangle. At the same time he began to bark loudly. We put the cage down again.

  I looked at Finn. He was sweating. He looked at me.

  ‘I’ve just thought of something else,’ he said quietly.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked him.

  ‘Even suppose we were to tie the two ends of the curtain together underneath,’ said Finn, ‘the knot would pull the curtain up into a rope on the inside of the bars, so it wouldn’t even then be spread out under his feet. Do you see what I mean?’

  I saw what he meant. We leaned pensively against the two ends of the cage.

  ‘Perhaps after all it would be better to try twine,’ said Finn. ‘If we were to thread two pieces into the curtain rings at each end, and then make two holes ...’

  ‘To hell with it!’ I cried. ‘We’ll try nothing more,’ and I began to drag the curtain out from under Mars’s feet. He forthwith seized the corner of it in his mouth and wouldn’t let go.

  ‘Get it away from him!’ I told Finn.

  ‘You do that,’ said Finn, ‘and I’ll pull.’

  With difficulty I forced Mars’s mouth open, and we rescued what remained of the curtain. After that I sat on the floor and leaning my head against the bars I began to laugh hysterically.

  ‘I’ve thought of something too,’ I told Finn.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Perhaps it won’t go through the door after all!’

  I was laughing so much I could hardly get this out. Then Finn began to laugh too, and we both lay on the floor and laughed like maniacs until we could do nothing more but groan.

  After that we started hunting for where Sammy kept his whisky, and when we had found it we had a couple of stiff ones. Finn showed signs of wanting to settle down to this, but I led him back to the cage.

  ‘Come on!’ I told Finn briskly, ‘and let him do what he likes with his feet!’

  We lifted the upended cage from the ground, holding it at each end by the bars. At first Mister Mars began to slip and slither; but it was soon evident that in our anxiety about his welfare we had reckoned without his own intelligence. As soon as he realized that he had nothing to stand on but the bars, he tucked up his legs and lay stretched out along the side of the cage, looking a little uncomfortable but perfectly calm. When we saw this we began to laugh again so much that we had to put the cage down.

  ‘For heaven’s sake!’ I said at last, and we marched towards the door.

  The cage itself was very light, and most of the weight was Mars. It wasn’t difficult to carry. I held my breath. The thing jarred against the doorway.

  ‘Steady!’ I said to Finn, who was going first. He was facing me and walking backwards and I could see his eyes growing as round as saucers. We jostled it and edged it in silence. Then Finn was stepping backwards into the hallway, and the cage was sliding through the door like a piston through a cylinder. There wasn’t half an inch to spare.

  ‘We’ve done it!’ cried Finn.

  ‘Wait,’ I said, ‘there’s the other door.’

  We opened the door into the corridor. The cage slid through it as if it were greased with vaseline. We put it down outside and shook hands. I stepped back into Sammy’s flat, and took a last look at the living-room; it looked rather like a battle scene, but I didn’t see that I could do anything about that.


  I was about to close Sammy’s front door, when Finn said, ‘Look, even if we can get out of the building, how are we going to get this thing away? The police will be asking us what we’re doing.’

  ‘We’ll get a taxi,’ I said.

  ‘This won’t go into an ordinary taxi,’ said Finn; ‘we’d have to find one with a hood that takes down.’

  ‘Then we’ll hire a lorry, I don’t care,’ I told him.

  ‘But where’ll we put it meanwhile?’ said Finn.

  I breathed deeply. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘you’re right of course. You go out and find a bloody taxi whose bloody hood takes down, or a lorry, or whatever you please, if you can do it in ten minutes. If you can’t, come back and we’ll carry it out and be damned. I’ll wait here.’

  ‘Hadn’t you better wait inside?’ said Finn.

  We looked deep into each other’s eyes. Then we picked up the cage and carried it back into Sammy’s flat.

  ‘I’ll wait in the corridor,’ I said, ‘and if Sammy appears I’ll just make off. If I’m not here when you come back you’ll know we’ve had it.’

  We shook hands again and Finn went away. I stood in the corridor biting my knuckles and listening to every sound. The thought that even at this late moment Mars could slip through my fingers tormented me into a frenzy. I went and looked at him and talked to him through the bars. Then I went into Sammy’s kitchen and found a couple of pork chops which I presented to him. Then I went back to my post in the corridor.

  After about five minutes I heard feet on the stairs and was preparing to fly, but it was Finn. He looked amazingly cool.

  ‘I’ve got a taxi with a hood,’ he said.

  We lifted the cage and once more slid it out into the passage. I closed Sammy’s door. Then we set off towards the stairs.

  ‘We’ll go out the back way,’ I said, ‘and avoid the porter.’

  ‘The taxi’s at the front door,’ said Finn.

  ‘Well then, we’ll carry the damn thing round the outside of the building!’

  Then Mars dropped one of his chops and I trod on it and we nearly fell down the first flight of stairs. But I was beyond caring. When we got to the ground floor we turned sharply towards the tradesmen’s entrance, Finn leading the way.

  When we reached the tradesmen’s door we found it was locked. We had just made this discovery when a voice behind us said ‘Hey!’ and we jumped as if we’d been shot at. It was the porter. He was a burly slow-looking man with an obstinate expression.

  ‘Can’t go out that way, you know,’ he said.

  ‘Why not?’ I asked.

  ‘Because it’s shut at four-thirty,’ he said.

  ‘Well then, we’ll go out the other way,’ I told him. I would have broken his neck just then to get Mars out of the building. ‘Pick it up!’ I said to Finn. We picked it up.

  ‘Hey! Not so fast!’ said the porter and barred our way. He was chewing gum.

  ‘We’re in a hurry,’ I told him. ‘Forward march!’ I said to Finn, and we started making for the main entrance, brushing the porter aside. I could see now, through the glass doors, the taxi waiting, and the taxi-driver, and it was like the sight of the promised land.

  The porter went ahead of us and put his hand on the door. ‘Not so fast I said,’ he said.

  ‘I said we were in a hurry,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve got to know what you’re doing, you know,’ said the porter, ‘and what’s your authority.’

  ‘We’re removing this animal from the building,’ I said, ‘and our authority is Mr Starfield. Have you any objection?’

  The porter ruminated. Then at last he said, ‘Objection? I should just think not! Again and again I told Mr Starfield it’s against the rules, I told him, to have pet animals in these flats. It’s not a pet animal, he says to me, it’s a performing dog. Performing dog! I says to him, it’d better not perform here or I’ll have the trustees on you, I said. I’ve told you it’s against the rules, I said. If I liked I could have you turned out, I said. And it’s no good your offering me money neither. I don’t want to lose my job, do I? I got to do my job, ain’t I? It isn’t for myself I mind, I told him. What’s it to me if you bring a dog in, I told him. I don’t mind for a dog any more than for a woman, I told him. But it’s the rules ...’

  While this was going on we got Mars out into the street. The taxi-driver, who had lowered the hood of his taxi, began to help us to lift the cage on. It took up the whole of the back of the taxi, lying tilted with one end down almost on the floor and the other end jutting out over the hood at the back. Poor old Mars was now back on his aluminium floor, but as it was tilting at an angle of forty-five degrees he was slithered down against the bars, together with his water-bowl, which rattled madly as we adjusted the cage. He held grimly on to his remaining pork chop and this mercifully prevented him from barking.

  ‘Poor chap!’ said the taxi-driver, who was taking it all very philosophically. ‘He ain’t very comfy. Let’s try it this way.’ And he wanted to be at the cage again.

  ‘Leave it!’ I cried, ‘it’s very well!’

  ‘But now there ain’t no room for you two,’ said the taxi-driver.

  ‘There’s plenty of room,’ I told him. I gave the porter half a crown. Finn got up in front beside the driver, and I climbed on top of the cage and crouched in the angle between it and the back of the driving-seat.

  ‘That ain’t much good,’ said the driver. ‘Now, if you was to put yourself ...’

  ‘Will you please go!’ I shouted. It only remained for the taxi to fail to start. But it started. The porter waved us good-bye, and we were off towards the King’s Road.

  Finn turned round and looked at me and we laughed silently at each other, a long, long laugh of triumph and achievement.

  ‘You ain’t said where I’m to go to,’ said the driver, stopping the taxi at the King’s Road.

  ‘Go towards Fulham,’ I told him, ‘and we’ll tell you more in a minute!’ I didn’t want to run the risk of meeting Sammy coming back in his car from chez Sadie. We must have looked damned conspicuous. People turned and stared after us all the way along the road.

  ‘Look,’ I said to Finn, ‘the first thing is to buy a file and let this animal out.’

  ‘The shops are shut,’ said Finn.

  ‘Well, we’ll knock ’em up again,‘ I told him.

  ‘Stop at an ironmonger’s shop,’ I told the driver, who so far hadn’t flickered an eyelid. Nothing can astonish a London taxi-driver. He stopped outside an ironmonger’s in the Fulham Palace Road, and after some knocking and some argument we purchased a file.

  ‘Now,’ I said to the driver, ‘take us to some quiet place near here where we can work on this thing without being disturbed.’

  The driver, who knew his London, drove up to a disused timber yard near Hammersmith Bridge, and helped us to unload the cage. I should like to have dismissed him then and there, only I suspected we hadn’t enough money to pay him. Finn had about three and eightpence, as usual. What he thought we were up to heaven only knows. Whatever he thought, he made no comments. Perhaps he reckoned that the more dubious our proceedings were the larger his tip was likely to be.

  We settled down to work with the file, taking it in turns; but working as hard as we could it took us a good half-hour to free Mister Mars. The bars refused to bend even when they were severed at one extremity, so each of them had to be cut through twice over. Mars licked our hands while we worked, whining eagerly. He knew very well what was afoot. At last we had removed three bars, and as the file bit through the last piece of metal and the third one heeled over Mars was already struggling through the gap. I received the enormous sleek beast into my arms and then in a moment we were all tearing round and round the yard, dog barking and men shouting, as we celebrated his freedom.

  ‘Mind he doesn’t run away,’ said Finn.

  I didn’t believe that Mars would be so ungrateful as to want to leave us after all the trouble we had taken for him, but I was r
elieved all the same when he answered obediently to my ‘Come here, sir!’

  After that we discussed the problem of what to do with the cage. Finn suggested that we should heave it into the river, but I was against this. There is nothing the London police hate so much as seeing people drop things into the river. We decided eventually to leave it where it was. It wasn’t as if we really cared about covering our tracks, or as if this were possible anyway.

  As we talked, the taxi-driver was looking at the thing thoughtfully. ‘Unreliable,’ he said, ‘these fancy locks. Always getting jammed, ain’t they?’ He put his hand through the bars and pressed a spring on the underside of the roof. One of the sides of the cage immediately fell open with oily smoothness. That put an end to that discussion. Finn and I studied the face of the taxi-driver. He looked back at us guilelessly. We felt beyond making any comment.

  ‘I tell you something,’ said Finn, ‘I’m tired. Can we go somewhere and rest now?’

  I had no intention of resting; but I thought I had better let Finn off. Also I had a sudden desire to be alone with Mars. I gave Finn five bob, which was all I could spare, and told him to take the taxi to Goldhawk Road and get Dave to lend him the rest. He was reluctant to leave me and it took me some time to convince him that this was what I really wanted. At last the taxi drove away, and Mister Mars and I set off on foot towards Hammersmith Broadway.

  As I strode along with Mars beside me I felt like a king. We kept turning to look at each other, and I could not but feel that he approved of me as much as I approved of him. I was touched by his obedience. I am always astonished when any other creature does what I tell him. It seemed to me at that moment that pinching Mars was one of the most inspired acts of my life. It wasn’t that I was thinking that there was anything in particular that I could do with Mars. Nothing was further from my mind just then than Sadie and Sammy. I was just pleased to have got Mars after having worked so hard to get him. Our heads held high, we went together into the Devonshire Arms at Hammersmith Broadway.