Paradise News

by David Lodge

  “Jesus Christ,” he said, as he examined the share certificate. “Where in hell did this come from?”

  I explained where I had found it.

  “Have you looked at it, Mr Walsh?”

  “Yes. It’s only one share, isn’t it?”

  “One share, but that was in 1952, and did you notice that the company is called International Business Machines?” He tapped the keyboard of his computer, peered at the green-and-white screen, where a new list of figures appeared. “There’s been a whole lot of stock splits and stock dividends since 1952, so your aunt’s single share has multiplied into two thousand four hundred and sixty-four shares, and the current price of IBM being one hundred and thirteen dollars, your aunt’s investment is worth approximately …” (he did a rapid calculation) “… two hundred and seventy-eight thousand dollars.”

  I gaped at him. “Did you say, two hundred and seventy-eight thousand?”

  “Not including the dividends and accumulated interest on the dividends, which IBM would have banked in your aunt’s name for a certain number of years, while they tried to trace her.”

  “My God,” I breathed in an awed whisper.

  “A thousand per cent profit on the original investment,” said Mr Weinburger. “Not bad. Not bad at all. What d’you want me to do with these shares?”

  “Sell them!” I cried. “Sell them now, before they lose their value.”

  “Not much risk of that,” said Mr Weinburger.

  Three-quarters of an hour later I walked, or rather floated, out of the building, with a cheque in my wallet for $301,096.35c., the total sale value of Ursula’s shares, less the commission of Simcock Yamaguchi. I jumped into a taxi and sped to the Geyser in a daze of incredulous delight. All Ursula’s problems were solved at a stroke. There was no need for her to worry about money ever again. Forget Belvedere House and its ilk. She would move into Makai Manor as soon as it could be arranged. What a pleasure it is to be the bearer of good news! What an irrational proprietory pride one feels. I ran into the lobby of the Geyser, and fretted as I waited for an elevator. I burst through the swing doors into Ursula’s wing, brushed past a nurse who protested that it wasn’t a visiting hour, and rushed up to Ursula’s bed. Curtains were drawn round it, and there was an appalling stench in the air. A pale-faced nurse appeared from behind the curtains with something under a towel in her hand and hurried away, followed by Dr Gerson, who swivelled me round with a hand on my shoulder and guided me to the door.

  “We finally fixed her bowel,” he said. “It took a real Molotov cocktail of an enema. I was beginning to think we’d have to operate.”

  “Is she all right?” I said.

  “She’s OK, but it wasn’t very pleasant. She’s resting. Come back in an hour or so.”

  I said I had important news to deliver, and that I would wait. Sitting on a mauve banquette in the ground-floor lobby, I calmed down and put the events of the morning in perspective. Ursula’s financial problems were solved, but she was still dying, in some discomfort and distress. Nothing could alter that fact. Rejoicing was hardly in order.

  But of course Ursula was delighted when I finally got to see her. She was scarcely able to believe in her suddenly acquired fortune, and I think it was only the sight of the cheque that convinced her. She had completely forgotten having purchased the share – it had been suppressed along with painful memories connected with the break-up of her marriage. “It’s a miracle,” she said. “If I’d known that I had that stock, I’d have sold it years ago, and probably frittered the money away. Now it’s turned up when I need it most, like buried treasure. God has been very good to me, Bernard – and so have you!”

  “Somebody was bound to find it, eventually,” I said.

  “Yes, but maybe not till after I was dead,” she replied. The word “dead” put a damper on our spirits momentarily. Ursula broke the silence. “Don’t tell Sophie Knoepflmacher about this, whatever you do. Don’t tell anybody.” When I asked her why, she muttered vaguely about burglars and spongers, but it hardly made sense. I put it down to the ingrained Walsh secretiveness and defensiveness about money. I asked her if I could tell Daddy, and she said, yes, of course. “And tell him to call his sister, will you? I still haven’t managed to talk to him.”

  I went straight to St Joseph’s to give Daddy the news, only to find a silver-haired Mrs Knoepflmacher stationed by his bedside in a white muu-muu with big blotchy flowers of pink and blue printed on it. A little posy of orchidaceous blossoms of the same hues lay on Daddy’s night table. “Your father’s been telling me about the Catholic religion,” she informed me. “Oh, really?” I said, trying to conceal my amusement. “What aspect of it?” “Oh, the difference between … what were those two things?” she said, turning to Daddy, who looked slightly sheepish. “Calumny and detraction,” he muttered. “That’s right,” said Mrs Knoepflmacher. “Apparently it’s worse to say something bad about a person that’s true than to say something bad that’s untrue.” “Because if it’s true you can’t retract it,” I said, “without telling a lie.” “That’s right,” said Mrs Knoepflmacher. “That’s exactly what Mr Walsh said. I’d never have thought of that. Mind you, I’m still not quite sure I understand it.” “I’m not sure I do, either, Mrs Knoepflmacher,” I said. “It’s the kind of thing moral theologians amuse themselves with on long winter evenings.”

  After a few minutes further chit-chat, Sophie Knoepflmacher left us alone. “You have to talk about something,” Daddy said, as if in self-defence, “if the bally woman insists on coming to see you. I don’t invite her.”

  “I think it’s very nice of her,” I said. “And if it takes your mind off your hip –”

  “Nothing takes my mind off that,” he said.

  “Ursula has had some news that should do the trick,” I said. “Why don’t you phone her now, and let her tell you herself. I’ll have a phone brought here to your bed.”

  “What news?”

  “If I tell you, it’ll spoil the surprise.”

  “I don’t like surprises. News about what?”

  “Money.”

  He considered for a moment. “Well, all right. But I don’t want you staring at me while I talk to her.”

  I said I would wait outside. The conversation didn’t last long, considering that they hadn’t spoken to each other for decades. When I put my head round the door after a few minutes, Daddy had already put the phone down.

  “Well?” I said with a smile.

  “It seems she’s a rich woman after all,” he said flatly. “Not that it will do her much good now, poor soul.”

  “It will buy her the best nursing care available,” I said.

  “Aye, there’s that, I suppose.” There was a thoughtful, faraway look in his eyes. I realized that Ursula’s news had revived the hope of inheriting her fortune. It’s a depressingly selfish response, but if it takes the edge off his resentment at having been brought to Hawaii, I shan’t complain.

  “I expect Ursula was glad to hear your voice at last,” I prompted.

  He shrugged. “So she said. She was threatening to hire an ambulance to bring her here to see me.”

  “Well, it may come to that,” I said. “You didn’t speak for long on the telephone.”

  “No,” he said. “A little of Ursula always went a long way with me.”

  Just before I left Ursula today she said wistfully, “It would have been great, wouldn’t it, if you and I and Jack could have gone out and painted the town red tonight? You’ll have to celebrate for us, Bernard. Have a slap-up dinner somewhere.”

  “What, all on my own?” I said.

  “Don’t you know anyone you could ask?”

  I immediately thought of Yolande Miller. It would have been an opportunity to return her hospitality, but since I hadn’t mentioned my Sunday-night supper to Ursula I couldn’t very well introduce her name now without provoking surprise and unwelcome curiosity. “I could always invite Sophie Knoepflmacher,” I said.

 
“Don’t you dare!” Ursula exclaimed. When she saw I was teasing, her features relaxed. “I tell you what you could do, Bernard – it’s what I would do this evening, if I was able. Go to the Moana for a champagne cocktail. It’s the oldest hotel in Waikiki – and the finest. You must have seen it on Kalakaua where it joins Kaiolani. They restored it recently, it was badly run down. It has a huge old banyan tree in the courtyard at the back, looking on to the ocean, where you can sit out and have drinks. They used to broadcast a famous radio programme from there, ‘Hawaii Calls’, to the mainland. I used to listen to it when I first came to America. Go there for me tonight. Tell me tomorrow what it was like.”

  I said I would. It is now 4.30 in the afternoon. If I’m going to invite Yolande Miller, I must do it now.

  Wednesday 16th

  Today was slightly less frantic than the preceding ones. I have arranged for Ursula to move into Makai Manor on Friday, “subject to satisfactory financial guarantees,” which shouldn’t be a problem. I drove over there to fill out the necessary forms (“fill out” – I am learning American English fast) and brought back a brochure to show Ursula. I also took into the hospital the fresh supply of lingerie she had requested. I must say that I found it an odd and slightly uncomfortable task to rifle her bedroom drawers for these intimate articles of feminine attire, holding them up to determine their function, fingering the delicate fabrics to discriminate between silk and nylon; but then this whole expedition to Hawaii has plunged me into unfamiliar experiences from the very beginning.

  At the bottom of one of the drawers I found an unsealed, unmarked manila envelope, and thinking that it might contain another forgotten share certificate or similar treasure, I looked inside. All it contained however was an old photograph, a sepia snapshot that had been torn nearly in half at some time and then repaired with Sellotape. It showed three young children, a girl aged about seven or eight, and two older boys aged about thirteen and fifteen. The girl and the younger boy were sitting on a fallen tree-trunk in the middle of a field, squinting up at the camera, and the older boy lounged behind them, with his hands in his pockets, and a cocky grin on his face. Their clothes were drab and old-fashioned, and they all wore clumsy laced boots, though the season seemed to be summer. I immediately recognized Daddy as the younger boy. The little girl with the mass of ringlets and the shy smile was Ursula, and the older boy must be another sibling – Sean, perhaps: I thought I recognized the jaunty pose from the photo of the drowned hero on Daddy’s dresser.

  I took the photo with me to the hospital, thinking that it might provoke some interesting memories of Ursula’s childhood. She glanced at it and gave me an odd look. “Where did you find that?” I told her. “It got torn once and I tried to mend it. It’s not worth keeping.” She gave it back to me. “Throw it away.” I said that if she didn’t want it, I would have it. She confirmed my identification of the children in the picture, but seemed uninterested in discussing it further. “It was taken in Ireland,” she said, “when we lived in Cork, before we moved to England. A long time ago. Did you go to the Moana last night?”

  I told Ursula all about the Moana – everything except that I had been accompanied by Yolande.

  I finally summoned up the courage to ring her at five o’clock yesterday afternoon. Roxy answered the phone. I heard her calling to her mother, who was evidently outside the house: “Mom! Call for you, I think it’s that guy who was here the other night.” Then Yolande came on the phone, sounding rather cool and guarded, as well she might after my abrupt departure on Sunday evening. Gabbling breathlessly from embarrassment and self-consciousness, I summarized the exciting events of the day, and explained Ursula’s wish to celebrate vicariously with cocktails at the Moana. I asked Yolande if she knew the hotel.

  “Of course I know it, everybody knows it. I’m told they’ve done a beautiful job on the restoration.”

  “You’ll come, then?”

  “When?”

  “This evening.”

  “This evening? You mean, like now?”

  “It has to be this evening,” I said. “I promised my aunt.”

  “I’m out in the yard,” she said, “cutting back the jungle. I’m covered in dirt and sweating like a pig.”

  “Please come.”

  “Well, I don’t know …” she said hesitatingly.

  “I’ll be there in half an hour,” I said. “I hope you’ll join me.”

  I don’t know where I got this nonchalant, almost rakish “line” from, for it isn’t at all my style; but it worked. Forty minutes later, I was sitting in a cane armchair and a clean white shirt at a table for two on the verandah that runs round the Moana’s Banyan Courtyard, and saw Yolande come through the rear doors of the hotel’s lobby and look around, shading her eyes against the evening sun. I waved, and she strode towards me with a bounding, athletic gait. Her black hair bounced about her shoulders, still damp from the shower. She was wearing a full-skirted cotton dress that looked cool and comfortable. As I rose from the table and shook her hand, she regarded me quizzically.

  “Surprised to see me?”

  “No,” I said. Then, thinking that this sounded rather arrogant, amended it to “Yes,” and finally to, “Well, let’s say, relieved. Thank you very much for coming.”

  She sat down. “You must think my social life is pretty arid if I can drop everything and rush out for a drink at a moment’s notice.”

  “No, I –”

  “Well, you’d be absolutely right, as it happens. Besides, I can’t resist a date with a man who knows how to use the word ‘vicariously’.”

  I laughed, feeling a slight thrill of danger, not disagreeable, at the word “date.”

  The waiter arrived. I asked him what a champagne cocktail was, and when he told me I suggested to Yolande that we drank straight champagne, to which she readily assented. I ordered a bottle of Bollinger, the only name I recognized on the list the waiter rattled off.

  “Have you any idea how much that’s going to cost in a place like this?” Yolande said, when the waiter had departed.

  “I’m under orders to be extravagant this evening.”

  “Well,” she said, looking round, “this is elegant.”

  And indeed it was. The Moana is quite unlike any other building I have seen in Waikiki – not kitsch, not a three-quarter scale reproduction like the strange little Victorian shopping precinct I stumbled upon the other day (Burger King housed behind sash windows, a mock English pub called the Rose and Crown) – but the real thing, a Beaux Arts building in wood of real grandeur and distinction, now beautifully restored, with polished hardwood floors and William Morris textiles. The pale grey frontage is imposing, with Ionic columns and an arcaded porch. The courtyard at the back, overlooking the beach, is dominated by an immense and ancient banyan tree, tethered to the ground by its curious aerial roots. In the shade of the banyan a string trio played Haydn – Haydn in Waikiki! – as the sun slid down the sky towards the sea in an apricot haze. I cannot remember when I felt so happy, so carefree, when life seemed so enjoyable. I was drinking vintage champagne, listening to classical music, watching the sun set over the Pacific, and conversing with an intelligent, amusing and personable companion. “‘How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho, how pleasant it is to have money!’” I chanted.

  “Is that a song?”

  “It’s from a poem by Arthur Hugh Clough. One of those Victorian honest doubters with whom I feel a kind of kinship.”

  “Honest doubters,” said Yolande. “I like it.”

  “‘There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.’ Tennyson. In Memoriam.” Why was I showing off in this ridiculous fashion? It dawned on me that I must be a little drunk. Yolande didn’t seem to mind, or even notice. Perhaps she was a little drunk too. She came to that conclusion herself when she knocked over her last half-glass of champagne.

  “How am I going to drive myself home in this state?”

  “You’d better have something to
eat,” I said. We had eaten nothing with the champagne except a small dish of potato crisps, a speciality from the island of Maui, thick and gnarled like tree bark.

  “OK. But not here. It’ll be far too grand and I might disgrace us by knocking over another glass. D’you like sushi?”

  I confessed that I didn’t know what it was. Yolande said it was time I found out, and that there was a good Japanese restaurant in a hotel across the road.

  The restaurant was crowded, so we sat up at a bar on high stools. A smiling Japanese chef put before us exquisitely fashioned morsels of raw fish which one dipped into various delicious sauces. Yolande said the fish had to be absolutely fresh. The chef, who overheard us, said it was so fresh it was swimming a few minutes ago, gesturing with his knife at the glass tank behind him. Well, I thought, this is living. I felt worldly and sophisticated.

  Most of the diners in the restaurant were Japanese tourists, and when the chef was out of earshot, Yolande claimed that she could pick out at least two honeymoon couples among them. “They come here for a Western-style wedding, after they’ve been married in a traditional ceremony at home; they come for the long white dress, the stretch limo, the wedding cake, all recorded on video to show the folks back home. This is Fantasyville, you know? Nothing is real. I wandered into the Kawaiahao mission church the other day – it’s one of the oldest buildings in Honolulu, which isn’t saying very much, but it’s kind of nice – and there was a Japanese couple getting married. It gradually dawned on me that not only the minister, the organist, the usher, the photographer and the chauffeur were hired, so were the best man and the bridesmaids. I was the only person present who wasn’t being paid to be there, except the bride and groom – and I had my doubts about them.” I asked her how she could tell the couples in the restaurant were honeymooners. “You can tell because they’re not speaking to each other, they’re shy. They don’t know each other too well – they still have arranged marriages in Japan. With us it’s the other way round; it’s the middle-aged couples who eat in silence.” She was silent herself for a moment, perhaps reminded of the doldrums of her own marriage. I said I had met an English honeymoon couple on the plane who weren’t speaking to each other, and told her the story of the young man in braces and his Cecily. She said she didn’t know whether it was terribly funny or terribly sad. I said it was terribly British.