changing-places-david-lodge

by Unknown

  yourself.'

  Philip racked his brains, but couldn't think of any. 'I

  'You mean, Morris being in England? It's great, just really ought to go back inside,' he said. ' I've scarcely met great.'

  a n y o n e . . . '

  Philip politely pretended not to have heard this remark.

  'Relax, Mr Sparrow. You'll meet them all again. It's the

  'Just to be able to stretch out in my own bed' - she same people at all the parties in this place. Tell me more gestured appropriately, revealing a rusty stubble under her about Rubbish. No, on second thoughts, tell me more about armpit - 'without finding another human body in my way, your family.'

  breathing whisky fumes all over my face and pawing at my Philip preferred to answer the first question. 'Well, it's crotch...'

  not really as bad as people make out,' he said.

  ' I think I'd better be going back inside,' said Philip.

  'Your family?'

  'Do I embarrass you, Mr Sparrow - Swallow? I'm sorry.

  'Rummidge. I mean it has a decent art gallery, and a Let's talk about something else. The view. Don't you think symphony orchestra and a Rep and that sort of thing. And this is a great view? We have a view, too, you know. The you can get out into the country quite easily.' Mrs Zapp had same view. Everybody in Plotinus has the same view, except lapsed into silence, and he began to listen to himself again, for the blacks and the poor whites on the flats down there.

  registering his own insincerity. He hated concerts, rarely You've got to have a view if you live in Plotinus. That's the visited the art gallery and patronized the local repertory first thing people ask when you buy a house. Has it got a theatre perhaps once a year. As for 'getting out', what was view ? The same view, of course. There's only one view.

  that but the dire peregrinations of Sunday afternoons ? And Every time you go out to dinner or to a party, it's a different in any case, what kind of a recommendation for a place was house, and different drapes on the windows, but the same it that you could get out of it easily? 'The schools are pretty fucking view. I could scream sometimes.'

  good,' he said. 'Well, one or two -'

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  1 Schools ? You seem really hung up on schools.'

  outside the house, and hurried to the front door just in time

  'Well, don't you think education is terribly important?'

  to see Mrs Zapp driving away in a big white station wagon.

  'No. I think our culture's obsession with education is self-defeating.'

  Morris Zapp was standing at the window of his office at

  ' O h ? '

  Rummidge, smoking a cigar (one of the last of the stock he

  ' Each generation is educating itself to earn enough money had brought with him into the country) and listening to the to educate the next generation, and nobody is actually doing sound of footsteps hurrying past his door. The hour for tea anything with this education. You're knocking yourself out had arrived, and Morris debated whether to fetch a cup to educate your children so they can knock themselves out back to his office rather than drink it in the Senior Common educating their children. What's the point ?'

  Room, where the rest of the faculty would gather to gossip in

  'Well, you could say the same thing about the whole the opposite corner or peer at him over their newspapers business of getting married and raising a family.'

  from his flanks. He gazed moodily down at the central

  'Exactly!' cried Mrs Zapp. 'I do, I do!' She looked at her quadrangle of the campus, a grassed area now thinly watch suddenly, and said, ' My God, I must go,' somehow covered with snow. For some days, now, the temperature had managing to imply that Philip had been detaining her.

  wavered between freezing and thawing and it was difficult Unwilling to make a Noel-Coward-type entrance through to tell whether the sediment thickening the atmosphere was the French windows in the company of Mrs Zapp, Philip rain or sleet or smog. Through the murk the dull red eye of a bade her good evening and lingered alone on the terrace.

  sun that had scarcely been able to drag itself above roof level When he had allowed her enough time to get off the pre-all day was sinking blearily beneath the horizon, spreading a mises, he would plunge back into the throng and try to find rusty stain across the snow-covered surfaces. Real pathetic some congenial people who would offer him a lift home and fallacy weather, Morris thought. At which moment there perhaps invite him to share a meal. At that moment he be-was a knock on his door.

  came aware that the throng had fallen eerily silent. Alarmed, He swung round startled. A knock on his door! There must he hurried through the French windows and found that the be some mistake. Or his ears were playing him tricks. The living-room was quite deserted, except for a coloured, or darkness of the room - for he had not yet switched on the rather black, woman emptying ashtrays. They stared at each lights - made this seem more plausible. But no — the knock other for a few moments.

  was repeated. ' Come in,' he said in a thin, cracked voice,

  ' Er, where is everybody ?' Philip stammered.

  and cleared his throat. 'Come in!' He moved eagerly to-

  ' Everybody gone home,' said the woman.

  wards the door to welcome his visitor, and to turn the lights

  'Oh dear. Is Professor Hogan somewhere? Or Mrs on at the same time, but collided with a chair and dropped Hogan?'

  his cigar, which rolled under the table. He dived after it as

  ' Everybody gone home.'

  the door opened. A segment of light from the corridor fell

  'But this is their home,' Philip protested. 'I just wanted to across the floor, but did not reveal the hiding-place of the say good-bye.'

  cigar. A woman's voice said uncertainly,' Professor Zapp ?'

  'They gone somewhere to eat, I guess,' said the woman

  'Yeah, come in. Would you switch the light on, please?'

  with a shrug, and recommenced her leisurely tour of the The lights came on and he heard the woman gasp.

  ashtrays.

  ' Where are you ?'

  'Damn,' said Philip. He heard the sound of a car starting

  'Under here.' He found himself staring at a pair of thick 82

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  fur-lined boots and the hemline of a shaggy fur coat. To

  'What are you doing?' he said.

  these was added, a moment later, an inverted female face,

  'Looking for your cigar.'

  scarved, red-nosed and apprehensive. T i l be right with

  'Never mind the cigar.'

  you,' he said.' I dropped my cigar somewhere under here.'

  'That's all very well,' came the muffled reply. 'But it isn't

  ' Oh,' said the woman, staring.

  your carpet.'

  'It's not the cigar I'm worried about,' Morris explained,

  ' Well, it isn't yours either, if it comes to that.'

  crawling around under the table.' It's the r u g . . . CHRIST! '

  'It's my husband's.'

  A searing pain bored into his hand and shot up his arm.

  'Your husband's?'

  He scrambled out from under the table, cracking his head on The woman, looking rather like a brown bear emerging the underside in his haste. He stumbled round the room, from hibernation, backed slowly out from under the table cursing breathlessly, squeezing his right hand under his left and stood up. She held, between the thumb and forefinger armpit and clasping his right temple with his left hand.

  of one gloved hand, a squashed and soggy cigar-end. 'I With one eye he was vaguely aware of the fur-coated woman didn't get a chance to introduce myself,' she said. 'I'm backing away from him and asking what was the matter. He Hilary Swallow. Philip's wife.'

  collapsed into his archchair, moaning faintly.

  ' O h ! Morris Zapp.' He smiled and extended his hand.

  ' I'll come back another time,' said the woman.

  Mrs Swallow put th
e cigar butt into it.

  ' No, don't leave me,' said Morris urgently. ' I may need

  'I don't think it did any damage,' she said. 'Only it's medical attention.'

  rather a good carpet. Indian. It belonged to Philip's grand-The fur coat loomed over him, and his hand was firmly mother. How do you do ?' she added suddenly, stripping off removed from his forehead. 'You'll have a bump there,' she a glove and holding out her hand. Morris disposed of the said. 'But I can't see any skin broken. You should put some dead cigar just in time to grab it.

  witch-hazel on it.'

  ' Glad to meet you, Mr» Swallow. Won't you take off your coat?'

  ' You know a good witch ?'

  "Thanks, but I can't stop. I'm sorry to barge in on you The woman tittered. 'You can't be too bad,' she said.

  like this, but my husband wrote asking for one of his books.

  ' What's the matter with your hand ?'

  I've got to send it on to him. He said it was probably in here

  ' I burned it on my cigar.' He withdrew his injured hand somewhere. Would you mind if I . . .' She gestured towards from his armpit and tenderly unclasped it.

  the bookshelves.

  ' I can't see anything,' said the woman, peering.

  'Go ahead. Let me help you. What's the name of the

  'There!' He pointed to the fleshy cushion at the base of book?'

  his thumb.

  She coloured slightly. 'He said it's called Lei's Write a

  ' Oh, well, I think those little burns are best left alone.'

  Novel. I can't imagine what he wants it for.'

  Morris looked at her reproachfully and rose to his feet. He Morris grinned, then frowned. 'Perhaps he's going to went over to the desk to find a fresh cigar. Lighting it with write one,' he said, while he thought to himself, ' God help trembling fingers, he prepared a little quip about getting the students in English 305.'

  your nerve back after a smoking accident, but when he Mrs Swallow, peering at the bookshelves, gave a sceptical turned round to deliver it the woman had disappeared. He grunt. Morris, drawing on his cigar, examined her with shrugged and went to close the door, tripping, as he did so, curiosity. It was difficult to tell what manner of woman was over a pair of boots protruding from under the table.

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  hidden beneath the woollen headscarf, the huge shapeless used so much tobacco bought it in little tiny cans instead of fur coat, the thick zippered boots. All that could be seen was the huge one-pound canisters like the ones Luke Hogan a round, unremarkable face with rosy cheeks, a red-tipped kept on his desk, but he thought this would be too personal nose and the hint of a double chin. The red nose was for Mrs Swallow.

  evidently the result of a cold, for she kept sniffing discreetly

  'The book doesn't seem to be here,' she said with a sigh.

  and dabbing at it with a Kleenex. He went over to the

  'And I must be going, anyway.'

  bookshelves. 'So you didn't go to Euphoria with your

  'I'll look out for it.'

  husband ?'

  'Oh, please don't bother. I don't suppose it's all that

  'No.'

  important. I'm sorry to have been such a nuisance.'

  'Why was that?5

  'You're welcome. I don't have too many visitors, to tell The look she gave him couldn't have been more hostile if you the truth.'

  he had inquired what brand of sanitary towels she used.

  'Well, it's nice to have met you, Professor Zapp. I hope

  "There were a number of personal reasons,* she said.

  you'll enjoy your stay in Rummidge. If Philip were here I'd

  'Yeah, and I bet you were one of them, honey,' said like to ask you round for dinner one evening, but as it is . . .

  Zapp, but only to himself. Aloud he said: 'What's the name You understand.' She smiled regretfully.

  of the author?'

  'But if your husband was here, I wouldn't be,' Morris

  'He couldn't remember. It's a book he bought second-pointed out.

  hand, years ago, off a sixpenny stall. He thinks it has a Mrs Swallow looked nonplussed. She opened her mouth a green cover.'

  number of times, but no words came out. At last she said,

  'A green cover . . .' Morris ran his index finger over the

  'Well, I mustn't keep you any longer,' and abruptly de-rows of books. 'Mrs Swallow, may I ask you a personal parted, closing the door behind her.

  question about your husband ?'

  ' Uptight bitch,' Morris muttered. Little as he coveted her She looked at him in alarm. 'Well, I don't know. It company, he hungered for a home-cooked meal. He was depends...'

  tiring rapidly of TV dinners and Asian restaurants, which

  'You see that cupboard over your head? In that cup-was all Rummidge seemed to offer the single man.

  board there are one hundred and fifty-seven tobacco cans.

  He found Let's Write a Novel five minutes later. The cover All the same brand. I know how many there are because I had come away from the spine, which was why they hadn't counted them. They fell on my head one day.'

  spotted it earlier. It had been published in 1927, as part of a

  ' They fell on your head ? How ?'

  series that included Let's Weave a Rug, Let's Go Fishing and

  ' I just opened the cupboard and they fell on my head.'

  Let's Have Fun With Photography. 'Every novel must tell a A ghost of a smile hovered on Mrs Swallow's lips. 'I hope story,' it began. 'Oh, dear, yes,' Morris commented sar-you weren't hurt ?'

  donically.

  ' No, they were empty. But I'm curious to know why your And there are three types of story, the story that ends happily, the husband collects them.'

  story that ends unhappily, and the story that ends neither happily

  ' Oh, I don't suppose he collects them. I expect he just nor unhappily, or, in other words, doesn't really end at all.

  can't bear to throw them away. He's like that with things. Is that all you wanted to know ?'

  Aristotle lives! Morris was intrigued in spite of himself. He

  'Yeah, that's about all.' He was puzzled why a man who turned back to the title page to check out the author. 'A. J.

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  Beamish, author of A Fair But Frozen Maid, Wild Mystery, invited to partake of refreshment in the Senior Common Glynis of the Glen, etc., etc' He read on.

  Room.

  Evidently the return of Professor Masters was the signal The best kind of story is the one with a happy ending; the next for which the rest of the faculty had been waiting. It was as best is the one with an unhappy ending, and the worst kind is the if some obscure taboo had restrained them from introducing story that has no ending at all. The novice is advised to begin with the first kind of story. Indeed, unless you have Genius, you should themselves before their chief had formally received him into never attempt any other kind.

  the tribe. Now, in the Senior Common Room, they hurried forward and clustered around Morris's chair, smiling and

  'You've got something there, Beamish,' Morris mur-chattering, pressing upon him cups of tea and chocolate mured. Maybe such straight talking wouldn't hurt the stu-cookies, asking him about his journey, his health, his work in dents in English 305 after all, lazy, pretentious bastards, progress, offering him belated advice about accommoda-most of them, who thought they could write the Great tion and discreetly interpreting the strangled utterances of American Novel by just typing out their confessions and Gordon Masters for his benefit.

  changing the names. He put the book aside for further

  'How d'you know what the old guy is saying?' Morris reading. Then he would take it round to Mrs Swallow one asked Bob Busby, a brisk, bearded man in a double-breasted suppertime and stand on her stoop, salivating ostentatiously.

  blazer with whom he found himself walking to the car park -

  Morris had a hunch she was a good
cook, and he prided him-or rather running, for Busby maintained a cracking pace self he could pick out a good cook in a crowd as fast as he that Morris's short legs could hardly match.

  could spot an easy lay (they were seldom the same person).

  ' I suppose we've got used to it.'

  Good plain food, he would predict; nothing fancy, but the

  'Has he got a cleft palate or something? Or is it that portions would be lavish.

  moustache getting between his teeth when he talks?'

  There was a knock at his door. ' Come in,' he called, ex-Busby stepped out faster. ' He's a great man, really, you pectantly, hoping that Mrs Swallow had repented and know,' he said, with faint reproach.

  returned to invite him to share a chicken dinner. But it was a

  ' He is ?' Morris panted.

  man who bustled in, a small, energetic, elderly man with a

  'Well, he was. So I'm told. A brilliant young scholar be-heavy moustache and bright beady eyes. He wore a tweed fore the war. Captured at Dunkirk, you know. One has to jacket, curiously stained, and advanced into the room with make allowances . . . '

  both hands extended. 'Mmmmmmmmner, mmmmmmmm-

  ' What has he published ?»

  mmmmmmner, mmrnmmmmminmmmnimmmner,' he

  'Nothing.'

  bleated. 'Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmner mmmmmmmmm-

  'Nothing?'

  mninunmmmmner Masters.' He pumped Morris's hands up

  'Nothing anybody's been able to discover. We had a and down in a double handshake. 'Mmmmmmmmmner student once, name of Boon, organized a bibliographical Zapp? Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmner all right? Mmmm-competition to find something Gordon had published. Had mmmmmmmmmmner cup of tea? Mmmmmmmmmner

  students crawling all over the Library, but they drew a jolly good.' He stopped bleating, cocked his head to one side complete blank. Boon kept the prize.' He gave a short, and closed one eye. Morris deducted that he was in the barking laugh. 'Terrific cheek he had, that chap Boon. I presence of the Head of the Rummidge English Depart-wonder what became of him.'

  ment, home from his Hungarian pig-shoot, and was being Morris was pooped, but curiosity kept him moving along 88

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  beside Busby. 'How come,' he gasped, 'Masters is Head of Morris gathered that Bernadette had come to live with your Department ?'