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

said her name was Miriam Bowker. She gave me a photograph of a small boy.’
    â€˜Your boy?’
    â€˜Certainly not mine.’
    â€˜A boy you didn’t recognize?’
    Felix hesitated for a moment, remembering the picture of himself, and then opted for ‘Yes.’
    â€˜You don’t sound too sure about it.’
    â€˜I’m sure that extraordinary woman isn’t the mother of my child.’
    â€˜Extraordinary?’
    â€˜Dressed like a sort of clown.’
    â€˜All women are extraordinary if you want my opinion.’ Septimus was lapping up his brains with a spoon. Felix turned from this spectacle as firmly as he looked away from poverty.
    â€˜Anyway, this one has some sort of financial claim against you?’
    â€˜So she says.’
    â€˜What do you want me to do about it?’
    â€˜My publisher thought you might give me legal advice.’
    â€˜Legal advice? For a little scrap in the Magistrates’ Court? What did Tubal-Smith want me to do? Engage counsel at vast expense? Call experts on the medical side? Have the woman watched by some professional dickhead at two hundred pounds an hour to find out who the real father is? Use your common sense! It’d be cheaper to pay it. Cheaper still to hire a contract killer.’
    â€˜You mean’ – Felix froze, a forkful of dripping tagliatelle poised in the air – ‘kill the child?’
    â€˜Both. Mother and child. You could get a contract for two at around five hundred. Yes, what do you want, Charlie?’ The waiter, whose name was Aziz and not Charlie, had come up to tell Septimus that he was wanted on the telephone.
    â€˜If you don’t want to go to that expense’ – Septimus was laboriously pushing his way out of his chair – ‘take her out to a rattling good lunch and say, “Look here, darling. Tell me who’s the real father of the little bastard.” Poke her if you have to, or whatever you do to women. Distasteful business from all I’ve heard of it.’
    â€˜Extraordinary!’ Felix said aloud, his mouth full of pasta, to Septimus’s retreating back.
    â€˜What’s extraordinary?’ Sir Ernest Thessaley had arrived at the table and, rearranging his leg and walking-stick, folded himself like a lanky insect into a vacant chair.
    â€˜That you can arrange to kill two people for five hundred pounds.’
    â€˜Can you, by jove?’ Sir Ernest laughed, a sound like a dry gargle. ‘I might get that done to Pikestaff on the Indy. He gave a horrible notice to my memoir. Called me an old snob. Typical of someone who went to a minor place like Oundle. And who are you planning to do in?’ Felix, feeling inexplicably guilty, said, ‘No one, really. No one at all. . .’ He thought his voice lacked all conviction.
    â€˜Well, keep your nose out of trouble, my boy. I happen to be a fan.’
    â€˜A what?’
    â€˜A great admirer of your work.’
    â€˜Well, that is a compliment, coming from you. ’ In fact Felix had read as little of Ernest Thessaley as Sir Ernest had of Morsom but he felt that one kind word deserved another.
    â€˜So why don’t you order a bottle of the club’s champagne? To celebrate our mutual admiration.’
    â€˜I’m only a guest here.’
    â€˜Put it on Seppy’s bill. He can afford it.’
    â€˜You’re sure?’
    â€˜Absolutely sure.’
    â€˜All right then. Charlie, a bottle of the club’s champagne.’
    â€˜Bubbly coming up right away, sirs.’ The waiter was more relaxed with Septimus out of the way.
    â€˜I’ll tell you what,’ Sir Ernest said before the cork popped, ‘they don’t make enough fuss of you. I thought that was a pretty dire notice you got in the Guardian. ’
    â€˜Was it?’ Felix took a hurried gulp of champagne. ‘I didn’t read it.’
    â€˜Did you not? “Virginia Woolf and piss”, I