Felix in the Underworld by John Mortimer Read Free Book Online Page A

brains exactly. I mean, as I’m sure you’ll know, you’ve got to find a theme. Something you can get a feeling about and then, well, just hope a story can sort of grow out of it.’
    â€˜No, I meant brains. I hope you’re going to eat them?’
    Felix looked round the room as though searching for a way of escape. Was eating brains a rule of this mysterious club, like not standing on the carpet? Several elderly men were crouched over a white mess on their plates. The voice of Septimus boomed in his ear. ‘At last, I’ve persuaded chef to do offal. Or would you prefer liver, sweetbreads, black pudding? Next month we’re going to introduce members and guests to chitterlings dressed up as andouillettes. Charlie!’
    An alarmed Indian waiter, whose short white jacket revealed the ends of his braces, stepped forward and smiled nervously. ‘Yes, Mr Ross?’
    â€˜ Roache. Septimus Roache. Try and get it right, Charlie. I will have the brains, please.’
    â€˜Brains?’
    â€˜Yes, brains!’ Septimus roared. And my guest will take . . .What will you take, Morsom?’
    â€˜Perhaps,’ Felix hesitated, in search of the least disgusting parts of the menu, ‘pasta.’
    â€˜Pasta!’ Septimus spat out the word as though it were a shameful disease. ‘With meat sauce?’
    â€˜Perhaps tomato.’
    â€˜I suppose you can drink a carafe of the club’s burgundy without going green about the gills?’ Septimus Roache opened one eye wide to allow the monocle to drop to the end of its string, put away the menu and said, ‘Now what particular skylarking have you been up to, my lad? I understand you’re in a bit of a scrape?’ At which Felix started to pull the letter from PROD from his pocket and was greeted by the horrified look an unreconstructed bishop might give to a couple of choirboys he found comparing sizes behind the high altar. ‘Put that away at once!’ was exactly what Septimus said.
    â€˜Really? Why?’
    â€˜Because you can’t give me papers in this club.’
    â€˜Oh, I see. Why is that?’
    â€˜Because we’re not allowed to conduct business in this club.’
    Felix wondered what they were going to talk about for the next hour. ‘I thought you wanted to know what sort of trouble . . .’
    â€˜We can talk about that, of course. We can talk about anything. Charlie’s knowledge of the English language is strictly limited and, if we can keep our voices down, I can make a date to bugger you on the snooker table and no one’ll be any the wiser. But pull out papers and we’ll be drummed out of this club and that’s all there is to it. Now then. Who did you prod?’
    â€˜Nobody. I had a letter.’
    â€˜Shut up about the letter!’
    â€˜I heard from the Parental Rights and Obligations Department. They want me to pay twenty thousand pounds for a child.’
    â€˜Seems steep! There must be parts of the world where you can pick up a child for a fraction of that money.’ Felix had a horrible suspicion that this appalling lawyer, who was now leaning too close to him for comfort, one hand cupped round a hairy ear so that he might miss none of Felix’s secrets, was not joking.
    â€˜It’s meant to be my maintenance for a child.’
    â€˜The child’s a big spender?’
    â€˜Over ten years.’
    â€˜Whose child is it?’
    â€˜They say it’s mine.’
    Septimus let out a loud and unexpected laugh. ‘Your little bastard, your by-blow, your wrong side of the blanket?’
    Felix’s nature was such that he felt immediately protective of this unseen child who seemed likely to cause him so much trouble. ‘I know nothing of the child,’ he said. ‘And I only met the mother last week.’
    â€˜Hardly time to produce a ten-year-old child.’
    â€˜Hardly.’
    â€˜But who was this mother?’
    â€˜She