Under the Net Read Online Free PDF

natural human activity,’ said Dave with a slight frown. Then he looked at me amiably.
    â€˜I hear you are in a kettle of fish,’ he said, raising his voice somewhat above the din.
    â€˜Might call it so,’ I said cautiously, sipping my tea. I never overdo my troubles to Dave, for he is so often sarcastic and unsympathetic about them.
    â€˜If I would be you,’ said Dave, ‘I would take a proper job.’ He pointed to the white wall of the hospital which loomed very close outside the window.
    â€˜There they want always orderlies,’ he said. ‘You might even be a nurse. Or you could do something for part time.’
    Dave was constantly making this suggestion ; I can’t think why, as there were few pieces of advice which, on the face of it, I was less likely to follow. I think he did it partly to annoy me. At other times he would press upon me the desirability of being a probation officer or a factory inspector or a teacher in an elementary school.
    I looked at the wall of the hospital. ‘To save my soul,’ I said.
    â€˜Not therefore!’ said Dave scornfully. ‘Always you are thinking of your soul. Precisely it is not to think of your soul, but to think of other people.’
    I could see that there was something in this, though I didn’t need Dave to point it out, and I couldn’t see that there was anything to be done about it at the moment. Finn threw me a cigarette. In a mild way he always tried to protect me from Dave. The immediate problem was to find a sympathetic place to live, and until this was fixed nothing else mattered. I have to keep on writing if I’m to make ends meet, and when I am homeless I can settle down to nothing.
    When I’d finished my tea I set off on a quiet tour of Dave’s flat. Living-room, Dave’s bedroom, spare room, bathroom, and kitchen. I inspected the spare room with care. It also looked out on to the wall of the hospital, which at this point seemed to stand even closer. The room was painted a sickly golden brown and was spartan in its appointments. At the moment it was strewn with Finn’s belongings. It could be worse. As I was examining the wardrobe, Dave came in. He knew very well what was in my mind.
    â€˜No, Jake,’ he said. ‘Definitely not.’
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜We must not be two nervous wrecks living together.’
    â€˜You old python!’ I said. Dave is not a nervous wreck, but as tough as an old boot. I didn’t argue though, because I was a little off the idea myself because of Jehovah and the Trinity. ‘Since you’re turning me out,’ I said, ‘you are in duty bound to make a constructive suggestion.’
    â€˜You were never in, Jake,’ said Dave, ‘but I will try to think.’ Dave knows my requirements. We went back to the other room and the din broke over us again.
    â€˜You should try the ladies, not?’
    â€˜Not,’ I said. ‘I’ve had the ladies.’
    â€˜Sometimes you make me sick, Jake.’
    â€˜I can’t help my psychology. After all, freedom is only an idea.’
    â€˜It’s in the third Critique,’ Dave shouted to someone across the room.
    â€˜Which ladies, anyway?’ I asked.
    â€˜I don’t know your women,’ said Dave, ‘but if you paid a few visits someone might give you an idea.’
    I felt that Dave would be more pleased to see me when I had established myself elsewhere. Finn, who was lying with his head under the table, suddenly said, ‘Try Anna Quentin.’ Finn sometimes has the most extraordinary intuitions.
    This name stuck into me like a dart. ‘How can I?’ I said. ‘Nothing could be more impossible,’ I added.
    â€˜Ah, you are still so,’ said Dave.
    â€˜I am not so at all,’ I said. ‘Anyway I have no notion where she is.’ And I turned away from them towards the window. I don’t like people reading things in my