by David Lodge
RALPH
I can see where this argument is going. You’re saying, there’s something it is like to be you, or to be me, some quality of experience that is unique to you or to me, that can’t be described objectively or explained in purely physical terms. So one might as well call it an immaterial self or soul.
HELEN
I suppose so, yes. But –
RALPH
And I’m saying it’s still a machine. A virtual machine in a biological machine.
HELEN
So everything’s a machine?
RALPH
Everything that processes information, yes.
HELEN
I think that’s a horrifying idea.
RALPH (smiles)
You’re a machine that’s been programmed by culture not to recognise that it’s a machine.
CARRIE’S VOICE (off)
Messenger!
LITTLE GIRL’S VOICE (off)
Come on, Daddy!
HELEN
We’d better get out.
RALPH
Hang on. I’ll get you a robe.
He gets out of the tub, puts on a towelling robe and holds one out for HELEN. She steps out and shrugs it on.
HELEN
Thank you.
RALPH
Helen …
As she turns to face him he embraces her and kisses her on the lips. She does not resist.
Blackout. Music.
Scene Thirteen
Late afternoon. HELEN’s flat and RALPH’s office. RALPH reclines in his swivel chair, reading a book. HELEN is sitting at the table, with a pile of folders beside her laptop. She types, then stops and speaks as before.
HELEN
I’ve spent all day yesterday and most of today reading the students’ novels-in-progress, and I feel rather jaded by the experience. It’s a very unnatural way to read, of course, jumping from one unfinished story to another, but it made me think about the prolific production of fiction in our culture. Are we in danger of accumulating a fiction mountain – an immense quantity of surplus novels, like the butter mountains and wine lakes of the EU? It’s frightening to think of how many novels I must have read in my lifetime, and how little I retain of the substance of most of them. Should I really be encouraging these bright young people to add their quotient to the dustheap of forgotten fiction? Will my own work end up there? (She resumes typing.)
RALPH closes his book and picks up the recorder.
RALPH
March the third. It’s four thirty in the afternoon and I’m killing time before I have to attend an inaugural lecture by the new professor of metallurgy. I’ve been reading Hoberman’s latest book on the brain. It’s not as good as his first one, but why should he worry? He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology three years ago … Hard to imagine anyone in AI getting a Nobel. Even if somebody cracked the problem of consciousness tomorrow, which prize would they give him? Physics? Chemistry? Physiology? It doesn’t fit any of the categories … Or rather, it embraces them all – all science takes place within consciousness. That’s why it’s so fascinating … I wonder what it’s like to win a Nobel … the quale of Nobelness. Well, I’ll never know … not even an FRS in realistic prospect …
HELEN
I must admit I’ve found it hard to concentrate on the students’ work because I keep thinking all the time about THAT KISS, last Sunday. I was taken totally by surprise – we’d been having such an intellectual argument … I felt his foot touch mine once or twice in the hot tub, but I thought it was just accidental, it never crossed my mind that he had any amorous intentions. Perhaps he finds it sexually stimulating, a woman standing up to him in debate. The kiss was firmly mouth on mouth – not passionate, not intrusive, but definitely sexual. And I accepted it. At least, I didn’t resist it. I didn’t slap his face or push him away, or ask him what he thought he was doing. I didn’t say a word. Perhaps I even responded a little … Perhaps? A little? My whole body seemed to melt inside. Of course, my life has been rather sparsely furnished with kisses lately …
RALPH
I know what they say about me behind my back: ‘a populariser, a media don, some flashy books to his name but no serious original research …’ Some truth in that. Perhaps I love the life of the body too much … Your true scientist thinks only of his science … I also think about women, food, wine … especially women … I kissed her, Helen … after the others had gone back into the house, we stayed in the tub chatting, or rather arguing … that’s what I like about her, she’s prepared to argue about serious subjects … until eventually Carrie called us in for lunch, and as I was helping her on with a robe I kissed her … I took a chance, but my instinct is usually right with these things … She seemed to enjoy it … She looked good in her swimming costume … They’re funny garments, though – how little they cover, and yet what a difference they make. It’s always a surprise when you see a woman completely naked for the first time … I’d very much like to see Helen Reed naked. I don’t think I’d be disappointed.
He switches off the recorder, pulls his chair up to the desk and checks his email on the PC.
HELEN
Carrie didn’t see us kiss, and needless to say I didn’t tell her. So it’s there, now, a secret between us, something Ralph knows and I know, but Carrie doesn’t. When he handed me the mint sauce at lunch and our eyes met, the knowledge passed between us silently and invisibly – not just that we’d kissed, but also that we had tacitly agreed to conceal it. We didn’t betray to the others what had happened by so much as the flicker of an eyelid or slightest tremor of the voice. How adept at deception we human beings are, how easily it comes to us. Did it come with self-consciousness? Was that the real Fall of Man? There’s something horribly plausible about his arguments – I hate them but I find it hard to refute them. For instance, religion arising out of man’s unique awareness of his own mortality. I googled elephant graveyards, and he’s right, dammit, they’re a myth. But I have absolutely no intention of embarking on an affair with Ralph Messenger, let’s be quite clear about that. For one thing, I like Carrie a lot. And they have a lovely family, two boys and a sweet little girl. They all call him ‘Messenger’. I was invited to come again next Sunday.
RALPH dials a number on his desk telephone. The phone on HELEN’s desk rings. She picks it up.
HELEN
Hello?
RALPH
It’s Messenger.
HELEN
Oh, hello.
RALPH
Have you checked your email lately?
HELEN
Not today.
RALPH
Not for a whole day? Doesn’t your laptop ping when you have incoming email?
HELEN
I keep it muted when I’m working. Did you send me an email, then?
RALPH
Two.
HELEN
Oh, I’m sorry. What did they say?
RALPH
They said, is your email working all right?
HELEN
Well, it is, thanks.
RALPH
What about the Internet?
HELEN
Well, that is a bit of a problem. I get a message saying ‘Windows cannot open this page’.
RALPH
That’s not right. Why didn’t you tell me before?
HELEN
I didn’t like to bother you.
RALPH
I’ll come round and investigate.
HELEN
Well, that’s very kind. Are you sure you can spare the time?
RALPH
I’ll come tomorrow in my lunch hour.
HELEN
I wouldn’t want you to miss your lunch.
RALPH
You could give me lunch. Have you got a bit of bread and cheese in the house?
HELEN
Well, yes, but –
RALPH
That will do perfectly. I’ll be round at about twelve forty-five.
HELEN
>
All right.
RALPH
See you then. I’ll bring some wine.
RALPH puts down the phone, pleased with himself, and goes out.
HELEN puts down the phone, a little flustered but pleased, and goes into the kitchen.
Music.
Scene Fourteen
HELEN’s flat. HELEN and RALPH come in from the direction of the kitchen, with glasses half full of red wine in their hands. RALPH also holds the open bottle, two-thirds empty.
RALPH
That was a delicious lunch. I asked for simple bread and cheese, and I got soup and salad and a veritable cheeseboard.
HELEN
You were lucky. I needed to go food shopping this morning anyway. Thank you for sorting out the Internet connection.
RALPH
My pleasure. (He glances at the laptop.) Still writing your journal?
HELEN
Yes.
RALPH
I suppose you’re making notes on all of us?
HELEN
No.
RALPH
Really? You mean there’s nothing about me in there?
HELEN
Well, inevitably there are … references to people I’ve met, like you and Carrie.
RALPH
Good. I should feel quite humiliated otherwise. (Pause.) I started keeping a kind of journal, recently.
HELEN
Did you?
RALPH
It began as a bit of consciousness research. The idea was to generate some raw data. I just dictated my thoughts into a tape recorder as they occurred to me.
HELEN
‘Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall.’
RALPH
Who said that?
HELEN
Virginia Woolf.
RALPH
I bet she didn’t, though. I bet she jiggled the order about to suit herself. And rendered it all in beautiful, much-polished prose.
HELEN
Yes, she probably did. But she was trying to produce the illusion of a stream of consciousness –
RALPH
I wasn’t trying to produce an illusion, I was after the real thing. It’s difficult though – impossible really. The brain does a lot of ordering and editing before the first words come out of your mouth.
HELEN
So you abandoned the experiment?
RALPH
No, I still dictate something every now and again. It’s become a habit.
HELEN
Are you making notes on me?
RALPH (without hesitation)
Yes.
HELEN
Then we’re even. Would you like some coffee?
RALPH
Maybe in a minute. Let’s enjoy the last of the wine. Will you have some more?
HELEN
No thanks. I’m not going to be fit for anything this afternoon, as it is. I shall probably fall asleep.
RALPH
What a good idea. I wouldn’t mind a siesta myself.
HELEN
Haven’t you got work to do this afternoon?
RALPH
All I’ve got is a boring committee meeting which I should be very glad to skip.
Pause.
HELEN
I don’t want to have an affair with you, Ralph.
RALPH
Why not?
HELEN
I don’t approve of adultery.
RALPH
Well, as long as it’s not because you don’t find me attractive … I find you very attractive, Helen. In fact I think I’m falling in love with you.
HELEN
You must fall in love very easily.
RALPH
Well, I do. And I flatter myself that I’m a good lover.
HELEN
I don’t think we should go on with this conversation.
RALPH
We could go into your bedroom and take off our clothes and lie down on the bed and make love very slowly and enjoyably, and fall asleep in each other’s arms, and wake refreshed and renewed. Nobody else would ever know about it.
HELEN
No. I won’t.
RALPH
You know we’re attracted to each other. It happened the first evening we met, at the VC’s dinner party, don’t deny it.
HELEN
We can’t just do what we want without regard to other people.
RALPH
If you mean Carrie …
HELEN
Yes, I do. I wouldn’t want to deceive her.
RALPH
We deceive each other all the time, Helen. There are a hundred things you wouldn’t tell Carrie in any circumstances. Why make a fetish of this one?
HELEN
That’s the way I am. It’s probably my Catholic upbringing.
RALPH
But you don’t believe all that nonsense any more. You don’t believe you’ll go to hell just because one afternoon, after a very pleasant meal, you went into your bedroom with me and very pleasantly fucked. Do you?
HELEN
No, but …
RALPH
It’s the supremely human act, freely to fuck, not because you’re on heat, or in oestrus, like an animal, but to give and receive pleasure with someone you like.
HELEN
I’ll make coffee and then you’d better go to your committee meeting.
RALPH (glances at wristwatch)
If I’m going to the committee meeting I’ll have to skip the coffee.
HELEN
All right.
RALPH
You’re sure you wouldn’t prefer me to skip the committee?
HELEN
Quite sure.
RALPH
Well, I’m sorry. I think it would have been … memorable. See you on Sunday, then?
HELEN
I don’t think I can come this weekend.
RALPH
But you’re expected!
HELEN
I’ll see.
RALPH
I’ll let myself out. Thanks for the lunch. (He goes towards the front door, stops and turns.) Do come on Sunday. (He goes out.)
HELEN is pensive. She sits at her desk and opens her laptop. She types and then speaks, as before.
HELEN
Ralph Messenger left just now, after trying and failing to get me to go to bed with him. It was a close call – closer, I suspect, than he realised. He’s the first man I’ve met since Martin died who I can imagine myself naked with, making love, without the image seeming absurd or repellent … He didn’t attempt to kiss me again, though I was half hoping he would. He behaved like a perfect gentleman. Except that after lunch he coolly proposed that we should go into my bedroom and, as he put it, ‘very pleasantly fuck’. Oh dear, just repeating those words makes me melt inside again.
Is he right? Have I pointlessly denied myself an experience from which I might have risen, as he said, ‘refreshed and renewed’? God knows I could do with some refreshment and renewal – my body craves to be held and stroked and comforted.
Sometimes I think I’m struggling with Ralph Messenger for my soul – literally, because according to him, it doesn’t exist. Not in the sense of an immortal, essential self, answerable to its creator for its actions. So why be good? Why deny oneself pleasure? One of the Karamazovs says, ‘If there is no God, everything is permitted.’ Is that true? Then why don’t we rob, rape and cheat each other all the time? Enlightened self-interest, the atheists say – because we increase our personal chances of survival by accepting social constraints. But not in sex, not any more, they say. There’s no need to pretend that sex for pleasure should be confined to monogamous marriage. True? Not if contemporary fiction is to be believed. There seems to be just as much anger, jealousy and bitterness caused by infidelity as there ever was.
If I could be a hundred per cent sure that Carrie would never find out, and therefore never be hurt, perhaps I would sleep with Ralph, but
there is no such thing as certainty in human relations. Unfortunately. (She continues to type.)
Fade to black.
ACT TWO
Scene One
RALPH’s office and HELEN’s flat. They are both seated at their desks, using their computers, exchanging emails, which are projected onto a screen or screens as they type, with amplified sound of the keystrokes. When the message is complete, the writer presses the ‘Send’ key and the message disappears. The other writer then composes a reply and sends it in the same way. The usual automatic email headings appear above the first two messages – only the word ‘cold’ in RALPH’s first email heading needs to be typed in by him. RALPH’s messages have uncorrected typos.
From: Ralph Messenger
To: Helen Reed
Subject: cold
Date: 10 March 9:08:31
Hi helen, we missed you at the cottage yesterday. i hope you’re getting over that cold. it must have come on quitesuddenly – you looked fine on friday. many thanks for the lunch.
