by David Lodge
– Fast?
– Fantastic acceleration. But can you drive, Rudolf?
– I learned in the Army.
– I mean . . . Timothy glanced at Rudolf’s damaged arm.
– Oh yes. I can hold the wheel with this (he raised his stump) and change gear with my good hand.
Timothy must have looked dubious. Rudolf laughed.
– It is quite safe, I assure you.
– Kids, said Don, I want you to meet a friend of mine from England. Timothy Young.
The class, scattered around the room in various indolent postures – on desks, on chairs, on window ledges – regarded him with mild curiosity. A boy with thick glasses sitting at the front said, Hi! very loudly. Timothy smiled hesitantly from beside Don’s desk. The set-up was not quite what he had expected. The class was of mixed sexes and ages, ranging from about twelve to sixteen. There was no evidence of any organized work in progress. An atmosphere of relaxed indiscipline prevailed. The pupils addressed Don by his first name. Most disconcerting of all was the presence of Gloria Rose, lolling in a seat at the back of the class, filing her nails, a book open on her desk. She said nothing all the time he was in the classroom, only making expressions of impatience at the remarks and questions volunteered by others.
– Timothy has very kindly volunteered to tell us something about his country, said Don. Timothy, it’s all yours.
Don left him standing alone at the front of the class, and went to sit at one of the desks in the back row. Timothy straightened his tie (it was his school one, specially put on for the occasion) and cleared his throat.
– Well, er . . . I don’t know what they want to know, he said to Don.
– What d’you want to know, kids?
After a silence, a girl with metal braces on her teeth asked:
– Does the King of England wear his crown all the time?
– No, Timothy answered confidently.
The questions began to come thick and fast then:
– Do you have Democrats and Republicans?
– Do you play baseball?
– Do British kids pet?
A titter ran round the class at that one, and Timothy looked to Don, expecting a reproof, but none was forthcoming.
– I don’t know, he said. I go to a boys’ school myself.
The audience laughed, as if he had made a joke.
The real difficulties started when he rashly attempted to give a geographical description of the British Isles. He drew a stylized map on the blackboard: a rough triangle for England, a bulge on one side for Wales, and another inverted triangle on top for Scotland. A parallelogram over to the left for Ireland. He marked the position of London confidently, but after that he was at something of a loss. English geography had never been his strong point. He had dropped the subject in the Fourth Form, when O-Level choices were made, and he had never been north of London in his life. He hesitated over marking in Manchester, eventually putting it in just below Scotland, in the middle. Some members of the class called out the names of various cities, Birmingham, Oxford and York, and he dotted them in vaguely around Manchester. He shaded most of the northern half of England and explained that this was the Black Country.
– It’s where all the mines and factories are. There’s such a lot of smoke and soot that the fields are all black. That’s why it’s called the Black Country.
This was what he had always assumed. The name had evoked for him a vivid mental picture of flakes of soot falling like snow and setting on the fields, black corn waving in the wind under a pall of smoke. In his mind’s eye the whole of Northern England was like that. But as he uttered this description, it sounded rather improbable, and out of the corner of his eye he caught a suspicion of a grin on Don’s face.
Don thanked him warmly for talking to them, first on behalf of the class, and again privately in the corridor. He said it had been very interesting, and that the kids had obviously got a kick out of it. But, going out of the school, Timothy lost his way and retraced his steps, passing Don’s classroom again. He heard him saying, Manchester, for instance, isn’t quite as far north as this, and it’s further west . . . There was the scuffing of a blackboard rubber and the squeak of chalk. Timothy felt mortified but also resentful. It wasn’t fair of Don to have lured him into this situation, allowing him to make a fool of himself in front of Gloria and the rest. He felt ill-rewarded for his efforts to get Don invited to join the party going to Garmisch, and rather glad, now, that he hadn’t succeeded.
It served him right, of course. He had always known that it was deeply, shamefully wrong to eavesdrop on the woman next door. Time and again he had resolved, in the daylight of good intentions, to stop, to break the habit, only to find himself at the end of the day drawn irresistibly back to the cupboard and its promise of whispered, forbidden secrets. And now he was punished. God was not mocked.
He prayed to God, now, promising that if he got out of the cupboard safely, he would never open it again. And he would say the whole Rosary every night and go to Mass every morning for a month when he got home. Having hopefully offered this bargain, he tried the door again, but it didn’t budge. He had never completely closed the door behind him before, always leaving it open a crack for air; but this evening he had pulled it a little too hard and the lock had clicked shut. There was no handle on the inside. How idiotic to make a cupboard like that! Anyone could easily lock themselves inside. People could suffocate. At the thought, his chest tightened and he began to gasp for air. He quelled his panic and tried to think calmly. In the darkness he explored the lock carefully with his fingers and confirmed that there was no way of dismantling it without a screwdriver.
He had two alternatives; or rather, three. He could call for help, which was out of the question – he couldn’t bear to even think of the humiliation of being released by a curious crowd of women in dressing-gowns, military police, firemen . . . He could break his way out by charging the door, for it was flimsy enough, but this would alarm his nextdoor neighbour, with consequent risk of exposure. Or he could spend the night in the cupboard and break out in the morning when everybody had left the building. This was obviously the most prudent plan, but he wondered whether he had the stamina to wait out the night on the floor of the cupboard. Then there was the problem of air supply. There was the hole in the party wall, and the cracks around the door, but already the interior of the cupboard felt stuffy.
In the end he compromised. He would wait until the woman nextdoor was asleep (he could hear her radio playing) and then he would break out, hoping that, even if the noise woke her, she wouldn’t know what it was or where it had come from.
Time passed very slowly. Hours seemed to pass before the radio was turned off and the light went out behind the chink in the wall. By an immense effort of will he restrained himself from moving for what he calculated was another three-quarters of an hour. At this point he was aching in every limb, soaked in perspiration and on the verge of hysteria. He couldn’t wait a moment longer.
It was essential to the success of his plan that he should break out in one clean smash. One loud noise, and then silence – that was his strategy. He took a deep breath and launched himself at the door.
The door did not budge, but the cupboard boomed like a drum and about a hundred wire hangers fell to the floor. Frantically, all discretion gone, he charged the door again. And again. A panel cracked and split, but the lock, the bloody, bloody, bloody, blasted lock wouldn’t give.
The light came on behind the chink in the wall, and a woman’s voice said sharply:
– What’s that? Who’s that?
Timothy, breathing heavily and nursing his bruised shoulder, said nothing.
– Dolores? Are you back already? Is that you, Dolores? Listen, I don’t know who the hell you are or what you’re doing in Dolores Grey’s room, but I’m going to report you right now.
– No, don’t do that, Timothy said.
There was a surprised silence. Then:
&
nbsp; – Who’s that? Who are you?
– Er . . . my name’s Timothy Young.
Oh God, oh God.
– Yeah? Keep talking.
– I’m locked in this cupboard.
There was a high, full-throated laugh from the next room.
– Well, I’m darned. Who locked you in there?
– I locked myself in, accidentally.
– What are you, a burglar, or something?
– No, I’m . . . I’m a friend of Dolores. She let me use her room while she was away.
– You’re not American, are you?
– I’m English.
– English! How long have you been in the closet?
– About three hours, I should think.
– Jesus! You must be suffocated. I’ll go get somebody to let you out.
– No, don’t do that.
– Why not?
– Well, I’m not really supposed to be here. I mean, Dolores let me, but it’s not official. She might get into trouble, because I’m not a woman.
– Yeah, I kind of figured that. But you can’t stay in the closet till Dolores gets back from her vacation.
After a pause for thought, Timothy ventured a suggestion:
– Could you let me out? It just needs someone to turn the handle from outside.
– Is the door to your room locked?
– Yes, I’m afraid it is, he said miserably.
– O.K., I’ll go get the master.
– Don’t tell him I’m here.
She chuckled.
– How do I know you won’t jump on me and rape me as soon as I open the door?
– I won’t, I promise.
Again the high, full-throated laugh.
– O.K. Timothy, I’ll trust you. I hope I don’t live to regret it. How old are you, anyway?
– Sixteen.
– Is that all? Hold on, kid, I’ll be back directly.
While she was gone he could think of nothing. His mind was as dark and vacant as the cupboard. He waited passively, like a casualty waiting for the ambulance to arrive, withdrawn into some deep centre of himself. Then he heard the sound of a key in the lock of the door to his room, and footsteps. The cupboard door opened. He blinked in the sudden light and stumbled out into the room, almost falling against the woman.
– Easy! she exclaimed, and steadied him with a firm hand. You’d better sit down for a minute.
– Thank you, he said, and sank into the armchair.
– Don’t mention it. Cigarette?
She took the pack from her dressing-gown pocket.
– No thanks.
She lit a cigarette and sat down opposite him on the divan bed.
– I’m awfully sorry about this, he said. Waking you up and everything.
– Don’t worry about it. I don’t sleep too good, anyway. She flashed him a sudden, generously curved smile. Tell me about yourself.
He told her, briefly. She knew Kate, by sight.
– But you won’t tell her about tonight, will you? he pleaded.
– I can keep a secret, she assured him. But so can you, obviously. How did you manage to live here for two weeks without anyone finding out? By the way, excuse my appearance, but I wasn’t expecting company.
She gestured towards the huge plastic curlers on her head, covered by a gauze scarf. She could never, he thought, be described as pretty, even if she were looking her best. There wasn’t a single feature or limb that wasn’t somehow odd or out of proportion. Her face was too small, or her mouth too wide; her chest was flat and her long arms and legs jutted out at odd angles, like a grasshopper’s. But there was something about her attitude, her expression, that refused to apologize for her body, and thus made it surprisingly attractive. As she crossed her legs, the skirt of her dressing-gown fell away, and she didn’t pull it back into position. She didn’t appear to be wearing a nightgown underneath. What he knew, or had imagined, about this woman flooded into his mind like a rush of blood. His flesh stiffened, and he folded his hands on his lap, striving to subdue and conceal it.
– You sure you feel O.K? Like some aspirin or something? I got enough pills in my room to dope an army.
– No thanks, I’ll be all right now.
He stood up to indicate that she could leave.
– Let me get you some aspirin. You look kind of pale. By the way, my name’s Jinx Dobell.
– Pleased to meet you, he said, feeling foolish, standing there in his pyjamas. Her green eyes were bright above a crescent smile.
– You’re a big boy for your age, Timothy.
He couldn’t think of anything to say to that, never having thought of himself as particularly big, especially compared with American boys of his age.
After she had gone, he discovered that the fly of his pyjama trousers was gaping open. He put on his dressing-gown and sat down in the chair again, waiting apprehensively for the woman’s return. The only good thing was that she didn’t seem to suspect he had been spying on her.
When she came back into the room, her face wasn’t so shiny and she had taken the curlers out of her hair, so that it hung down to her shoulders. She carried a tray on which there were two glasses, a bottle of brandy and a small bottle of aspirin.
– I thought maybe you would prefer a stiff drink.
– No thank you.
– Don’t smoke, don’t drink . . . What’s your vice? It must be girls.
– I will have a cigarette, actually, if you’ve got one to spare.
– Sure.
She gave him a cigarette that seemed as long as a flagpole, and he managed to puff at it without coughing. She poured herself a generous measure of brandy, and added some water from the tap. Then she perched on the bed, with her back against the wall, and her knees drawn up in front of her. She rested her sharp chin on her knees and looked at him.
– Well, she said, with a smile.
He shifted uncomfortably under her gaze.
– Pardon my asking, she said, but how d’you manage about the john?
– John who?
– I mean, the bathroom, the toilet, the . . .
– Oh, I, er, wait till no one’s around.
– I can’t get over it. It’s like Don Juan in the harem. Ever read that poem? By Lord Byron?
– No, we haven’t done Byron at school.
– You should, it’s fantastic. I read it in a course I took in my Junior year, the Romantic poets.
She began telling him a story about a boy in the olden days who got into a Turkish harem, disguised as a young girl. He didn’t attend very closely because he was distracted by the fact that the skirt of her dressing-gown had slipped away from her knees. Her knees were together and all he could see were two long shins and the white underpart of one thigh. But if she should open her knees . . . Even as he formed the thought, her knees parted perhaps half an inch. He felt his flesh stiffen again, and looked away hastily, at the wall, at the floor. His eyes strayed back almost at once, but all was dark shadow between the legs. Unaware of her immodest posture, she was still talking about poetry.
– I just adore the English Romantics, don’t you?
– Yes, he croaked, his mouth dry.
– Who’s your favourite?
– We’re doing Wordsworth at school, he said. Was it his imagination, or had her knees moved another half inch further apart?
– Oh, I used to be crazy about Wordsworth!
She threw back her head and began to recite:
And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused . . .
Her limbs loosened with every line, the white thighs parting like sticks of celery, and he realized, his heart pounding, that there was nothing accidental about it, that she was purposely letting him see.
– I can’t remember how it goes on, but it’s beautiful, she murmured, her eyes half-closed, legs half-open.
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills . . .
– Oh yes! She picked it up:
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils . . .
And now, in shameless abandon, her legs fell slackly apart, and he saw. But what did he see? Not the smooth, pearl-pink little dimpled cleft of his mind’s eye, but hair, a beard of vivid ginger hair, dense and wiry as a fox’s tail, shadowing vertical lips of loose, brownish skin. He lowered his eyes.
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
She ended, and said, conversationally:
– Ever screwed a girl, Timothy?
He shook his head, not meeting her eyes.
– I figured you hadn’t. Want to?
He shook his head a second time. There was a long silence. Then the bed springs creaked as she stood up.
– Well, never let it be said that I forced a virgin against his will. I enjoyed the poetry, anyway. Another time we might try Whitman. Do you know any Walt Whitman?
Who goes there? Hankering, gross, mystical, nude:
How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat?
– No, he whispered, shaking his head.
– No, she said, I guess you wouldn’t. Goodnight, Timothy.
He sat in the chair, quite still, a long time after she had gone.
3
HE WOKE TO an unfamiliar sensation of rocking movement, and the muffled clatter and rattle of the train. In the bunk beneath him, Mel snored. Vince and Greg slept quietly in the two berths opposite, their faces eerily tinted by the blue nightlight that dimly illuminated the compartment. He turned and drew up the blind over a small window at his side. A prospect of extraordinary beauty dazzled him.
The train was winding through a fir forest overhung by huge mountains. Proper mountains – not the tree-covered humps of the Neckar valley and the Black Forest, but great soaring masses of grey rock, peaked and fissured, some still capped with snow, mountains such as he had only seen in pictures till now. The dawn cast upon their flanks a rosy reflected glow that slowly faded as he leaned on his elbow and gazed entranced. It was the fulfilment of a persistent dream of his childhood, a dream of effortless travel or exploration conducted under ideal conditions. How often, before dropping off to sleep, he had transformed his bed, in his imagination, into some fantastic and as yet uninvented vehicle – low, streamlined, caterpillar-tracked, indestructible, unstoppable, impervious to extremes of climate – and set it moving across vast deserts and icy steppes, lolling at the controls and gazing through the windscreen at the hostile but impotent landscape, devouring mile after mile, an endless journey at once heroic and luxuriously comfortable.
