How Far Can You Go?

by David Lodge

  “Would you mind?” Tessa asked George.

  “Please! Enjoy yourselves.” He waved them away.

  When Tessa stood up, she felt the effect of the three vodka-and-tonics she had swallowed. It was a nice effect. She floated through the crowded bar to a darkened annexe where the music throbbed and boomed. Shadowy figures, luridly stained by shifting coloured lights, writhed, ducked and weaved. Occasionally a splash of light illuminated their features and Tessa recognized with surprise some shy fellow-student or awe-inspiring lecturer magically transformed into a creature of mindless sensual abandonment, twitching and shuddering under the invisible lash of the music. She began to twitch and shudder herself. Her limbs, oiled by the vodka, loosened, her head went back, her arms lifted, her torso undulated elastically to the rhythm.

  “Hey, you’re terrific!” said Roy, as one record faded and another began.

  She smiled dreamily. She had forgotten he was there. “I go to keep-fit classes,” she said. “We do modern dance sometimes.”

  After a while the music changed to a slow, languorous tempo, and the figures in the room began to glue themselves together in couples. Tessa felt Roy’s hands low on her hips, his belt buckle pressing into her midriff. Or was it his belt buckle?

  “I think we ought to go back to George,” she said. But when they returned to the bar, George had gone.

  “Another drink?” Roy suggested.

  “No thanks,” said Tessa. “I must be off to bed. Thanks for the dance.”

  “I’ll come with you to pick up that book,” said Roy.

  Tessa felt panic rising inside her as she led him up staircases and along corridors to her room. Was he going to make a pass at her, or was she being foolish to even think of it, being nearly old enough to be his mother? “I’ll just pop in and get the book,” she said, unlocking the door of her room.

  “Do you have any instant coffee in the kitchens on this floor?” he asked.

  “Yes, do you need some?”

  “Thanks,” he said, “black with sugar.”

  “Oh,” said Tessa, who had not meant that at all. “All right, just a minute.”

  Stupid of me, she thought, as she went to the kitchen at the end of the corridor. Still, coffee was a sobering drink. And if he tried anything funny, she would tip her cup over him. She returned to her room with a steaming cup in each hand, rehearsing the words of some firm but courteous dismissal to be delivered after the coffee had been consumed. Not being able to turn the door handle, she tapped with her foot for admission. The door opened, and closed behind her as she walked in. She turned. Roy smiled lazily. He was stark naked. Tessa screamed and threw coffee. Roy swore and hopped round the room, clutching himself. Tessa ran out of the room and hid in the Ladies. Half an hour later, she crept back to find the room empty, a coffee-stained bedspread in the middle of the floor the only trace of Roy’s visit.

  The next evening, she did not dance, but drank with George in the bar. Roy, steering a girl with dyed blonde hair through the crush by her denimed rump, studiously ignored Tessa. She and George discussed Anna Karenina, compared Tolstoy’s technique with George Eliot’s, agreed to differ about the heroine of Mansfield Park. It was a warm night, and the dancers emerged from the disco glazed with perspiration. George proposed a walk around the artificial lake. At the furthest and darkest part he put his arms round Tessa and started kissing her neck. “Stop it, George!” she said. “What are you doing? I thought you didn’t feel that way about women?”

  “You could cure me, Tessa,” he said breathlessly. “I have a feeling you could cure me. Come over there by the trees.”

  Tessa gave him a push and he staggered backwards, putting one foot into the artificial lake. She ran quickly back to the lights of the hall of residence, laughing, crying.

  The next evening, Tessa joined a group of married women of her own age in the bar. They drank shandy or bitter lemon and passed round snaps of their husbands and children. They compared, with affected indifference, the grades they were getting in their courses, and complained about the inconsistencies of the marking system. Tessa was reminded of the ladies who waited for the curtained showers after her keep-fit classes. She left them to make her daily call to Edward.

  There was always a queue in the evening for the two pay phones, and as she waited Tessa saw George and Roy weaving unsteadily towards her, their arms round each other shoulders. “Hello, Tessa darling,” said George. “We’re going for a stroll round the lake. Coming?” He leered at her over the tops of his glasses. Roy smiled lazily.

  “I’m phoning my husband,” said Tessa, making it sound like a threat. They went off giggling uncontrollably.

  The man and the woman using the phones ahead of Tessa put down their receivers simultaneously, exchanged sly smiles, and walked off hand in hand. Tessa seized the nearest phone.

  “Hello,” said Edward. “How are you, darling? Enjoying it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Interesting people?”

  “Oh, yes. A real mixture. Housewives, teachers, sex-maniacs…”

  He chuckled. “I miss you,” he said.

  “I miss you, too. What are you doing with yourself in the evenings?”

  “Nothing much. I’ve been to the local once or twice. Michael’s invited me round tomorrow night. I thought I’d go. Ruth’s staying with them.”

  “Ruth?”

  “Oh, you never knew her, did you? She was at college with Michael and me. She became a nun.”

  “Oh yes. Didn’t she go to America?”

  “That’s right. And she’s come back full of this Pentecostal-charismatic caper, apparently. Prayer groups and speaking in tongues and that sort of thing.”

  “Doesn’t sound very Catholic.”

  “Sounds like a lot of tosh, to me. I’m surprised, Ruth was always a sensible sort of girl. But I haven’t seen her for donkey’s years. Tomorrow’s the Assumption, by the way. Will you be able to get to mass?”

  “I don’t know. I expect so.”

  Edward was always scrupulous about mass attendance on Sundays and holydays of obligation, the legacy of being taught as a child that “missing” was a mortal sin. Tessa, conditioned by the much more casual churchgoing of her Anglican childhood, still found the habits of Catholics in this respect a matter for wonder and occasional irritation. At any mass there would always be a score of people with streaming colds who should obviously have been at home in bed instead of coughing their germs over everybody else, and mothers with yowling babies who couldn’t possibly be getting anything spiritual out of the occasion. And if they ever went to a Unity service in one of the neighbouring churches or chapels on Sunday, they had to go to mass as well, because the Unity service, even in these supposedly ecumenical days, didn’t “count”. She was tempted to ignore Edward’s reminder, especially as there was no mass on the campus, but the next evening she felt like a change of scene from the bar and disco, so she took the bus into town and heard Mass in an ugly little church crowded with tired and bored office workers. Afterwards, she strolled round the city’s medieval cathedral, magnificent, peaceful and empty.

  As she walked back towards the bus terminus, a street name caught her eye. It was the address Edward had given her for Violet. She found the house, number 83, at the end of a terrace of Georgian town houses, and rang the bell. A slim, dark man with receding hair brushed back over his ears answered the door.

  “Mr Meadowes?”

  “Yes.”

  Tessa went through the rigmarole of introducing herself. He didn’t seem very welcoming, and she began to regret her impulse. “Perhaps I’ve called at an inconvenient time,” she said.

  “I’m afraid Violet’s in hospital.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Nothing serious, I hope?”

  “She’s in a psychiatric ward.”

  “Oh dear.”

  A little girl of about nine appeared at the door. “This is Felicity,” he said. “Won’t you come in?”

  “Oh, no, thank you but
–”

  “Robin! Coffee!” a youthful female voice called from the back of the house.

  “Please, come in and have a cup of coffee.” Robin seemed suddenly anxious that Tessa should stay. He led her down a dark hallway and a short flight of stairs into a large basement kitchen, pleasantly decorated and well-equipped, but in a state of squalid disorder. A plump girl of about twenty in a long cotton dress looked up from the stove and pushed a curtain of hair back from her face. She did not seem pleased to see Tessa.

  “This is Caroline,” said Robin. “She’s a student at the University, and she babysits Felicity when I’m out. I’ve just been out,” he said carefully, “to visit Violet.”

  “Hallo,” said Tessa.

  Caroline murmured something inaudible and let the curtain of hair fall back.

  “It’s such a fine evening, why don’t we take our coffee into the garden?” said Robin. “I think we still have one or two unbroken deckchairs.”

  “I really mustn’t stay long,” said Tessa, more and more convinced that she had made a bad mistake in calling. The garden was an uncultivated rectangle of weeds and long grass with curiously shaped chunks of masonry scattered about here and there. “Violet’s sculptures,” Robin explained, putting his feet up on one of them. Felicity wandered off to a swing at the bottom of the garden. Caroline had remained in the kitchen. “How well did you know Violet?” he asked.

  “Hardly at all. I think I only met her once. It was Edward who knew her really. What is her… problem, exactly?”

  Robin emitted a harsh, abrupt laugh. “There have been many theories. Personally, I blame her religious upbringing – you’re not a Catholic, are you?”

  “I am, actually. A convert.”

  “Ah, well, that’s different. It’s the conditioning in childhood that does the damage.”

  “But not all cradle Catholics are …”

  “Neurotic? No, but it encourages neuroticism. The kind of Catholicism Violet was brought up in, anyway. A convent boarding school in Ireland. Hell-fire sermons, obsession with sin, purity, all that sort of thing.”

  “It isn’t like that now.”

  “Isn’t it? I’m glad to hear it, but the change has come too late for poor Violet.” He rocked the sculpture back and forth with his foot. “She hates herself, you see. I mean, most of us are dissatisfied with ourselves from time to time, but she really hates herself, her body, her mind. She thinks she’s no good, so she does something awful to prove to herself that she’s no good, then she feels guilty. She isn’t happy unless she’s feeling guilty. But then she’s unhappy because she’s feeling guilty. Because she’s terrified of going to hell.”

  “Telephone!” Caroline called from the kitchen window.

  “Excuse me,” said Robin. Tessa sipped the dregs of her coffee and wondered how to make her escape. Felicity came up to her, twirling a skipping rope.

  “Do you know when my Mummy is coming home?” she said.

  “No, I’m sorry, I don’t dear,” said Tessa compassionately.

  “Is she in a loony bin?”

  “No, she’s in a hospital, with doctors and nurses taking care of her.”

  “Mummy said it was a loony bin,” said Felicity.

  “Oh,” said Tessa, nonplussed. “Well, I expect that was just for a joke.”

  With a little smirk, Felicity changed the subject. “Do you know, Caroline has hair between her legs?”

  “So do all women,” said Tessa briskly. “So will you when you’re grown up, Felicity.”

  “Do you, then?”

  “Of course. Tell me about the school you go to, dear.”

  Robin came out of the house. Felicity skipped off to the bottom of the garden, humming a little tune under her breath. Tessa got to her feet. “I must be going,” she said.

  “Oh, really?” said Robin, gazing thoughtfully after his daughter. “I’ll run you back to the University.”

  “Oh, please don’t bother.”

  In the end, she allowed him to drive her back to the bus terminus. “I hope Violet gets better soon,” she said in the car.

  “Yes, I hope so. I’m afraid the whole business is having a bad effect on Felicity. She’s getting to the stage where she’s curious about sex and so on, and I really can’t handle it. On the other hand, God knows what Violet would tell her.”

  “I know an awfully good book,” said Tessa. “Called Where Do I Come From Anyway? or something like that. I’ll send you the details, if you like.”

  “That would be very kind,” said Robin. “Well, here we are, there’s your bus. If you’re coming into town again, give me a call. We could continue that interesting conversation about Catholicism. Listen to a little music on my hi-fi, if you like that sort of thing.”

  “I’m afraid I’m going home tomorrow,” said Tessa, glad to have this cast-iron excuse.

  Back at the University, the bar and disco had reached new heights, or depths, of frenzied hedonism on the last night of the course. Oppressed, and slightly haunted, by the visit she had just paid, Tessa plunged into the throng with a kind of relief. Someone pushed a double vodka and tonic into her fist and she quickly became tipsy. Even the housewives’ circle had switched from shandy and bitter lemon to gin for the evening and were tipsy too. They sat, bright-eyed and red-faced, near the entrance to the disco, tapping their feet wistfully to the music. “Why aren’t you dancing?” said Tessa. “Nobody’s asked us,” they said. “You don’t need partners for this kind of dancing,” said Tessa, and chivvied them into the disco room where they flung themselves about with joyous abandon. The bar closed and more people poured into the room. The heavy chords of a record turned up to maximum amplification were greeted with ecstatic cries of “Stones!” and a wild gyration of limbs. Tessa thought she saw George and Roy dancing in a corner with the dyed blonde in jeans, but, ravished by the brutal power of the music, she no longer cared very much. Her body said: this is almost as good as sex, and without complications.

  The mood on campus the next day was melancholy, as the students nursed their hangovers, prepared to terminate their brief love affairs, and braced themselves to return to the bosoms of their families. Tessa, looking in the campus bookshop for something to take home to her children, came across the facts-of-life book she had mentioned to Robin and, on impulse, bought it. She asked the taxi taking her to the station that afternoon to stop at Robin’s house and wait. She rang the bell without effect. She scribbled a note of explanation on the wrapping paper and tried to push the book through the letter-box, but it was too big. She went down the side alley to the back of the house, but there was no one in the garden. She peered into the kitchen, but that was empty too, the doors and windows shut. A flight of steps led up from the garden to a small verandah with French windows which seemed to be ajar, though the curtains within were drawn. Pulling these aside just enough to insert the copy of How Did I Get Here Anyway? Tessa found herself staring at two naked bodies sprawled on floor cushions in a rosy light. She had time to notice before she fled back to the taxi that Caroline was wearing headphones and that Robin’s head was clenched between her fat thighs. On her way to the station she stripped the wrapping paper from the book. “Here,” she said to the driver, “have you got any children, or d’you know anybody who could use this?”

  The man read the title aloud. “A good question,” he said, “I’ve often wondered myself.”

  Had the whole world gone sex-mad? Tessa silently posed the question to herself, settling back in the corner seat of her train compartment. She had a sense, exhilarated yet relieved, of having escaped unscathed from a region of danger. The week’s experiences had quite appeased her body’s hunger for sexual adventure, and she felt happy to be returning to her chaste and blameless married life. She resolved, however, to give Edward a carefully edited account of the summer school, in case he tried to stop her going on another one next year.

  When she returned home that evening, Edward was incurious about her experiences, and seemed to have
preoccupations of his own. He kissed her warmly and murmured, “Bed.”

  “Goodness, give me a moment to get my breath,” Tessa said, laughing, but pleasantly aroused. She visited the children in their various parts of the house and then went back to the kitchen for a snack. Edward perched on a kitchen stool, with his long legs bent like a grasshopper, sipping whisky while she ate. “I went over to Michael and Miriam’s last night,” he said. “Ruth was there.”

  “Oh yes. What was it like?”

  “Well, it turned into a kind of charismatic meeting,” he said. “Ruth insisted on praying over me.”

  “Good heavens! Whatever for?”

  “For my back. They go in for healing, you know.”

  “And did you let her?”

  “Well, I couldn’t very well stop her.”

  “How very embarrassing.”

  “The funny thing is,” said Edward. “I haven’t felt a twinge since. And I did two hours in the garden this morning.”

  Tessa stared. “You’re not serious?”

  “Well, there’s often a psychosomatic dimension to these back troubles you know. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”

  “You mean, your back’s cured?”

  “I don’t know,” said Edward. “But if you’ll come to bed, I’ll give it a work-out.” He grinned lustfully at her, his big ears glowing.

  Edward’s lovemaking was more passionate than it had been for a long time. “I must go away more often,” Tessa purred. She lay back luxuriously and let herself be possessed by his strong male force. But the next day, when Edward woke, his back was paining him again.

  “Oh, well,” he said. “I thought it was too good to be true.”

  “Poor darling,” said Tessa, nuzzling against him. Guiltily, she realized that she was relieved as well as sorry. The idea that Ruth might have cured Edward’s back had offended her commonsense notion of what the world was like. I shall never be a real Catholic, she thought. I don’t really believe in the power of prayer.

  When Tessa reported to Edward that Violet was in a psychiatric hospital he was sorry but not really surprised. Half the patients he saw nowadays seemed to be suffering from mental or psychosomatic illnesses, and a large proportion of the prescriptions he wrote were for tranquillizers. Michael and Miriam, who had read R.D. Laing and Ivan Illich, sometimes rallied him about this. “I can’t prescribe happiness, which is what most of my patients want,” he said, “so I prescribe Valium instead.”