changing-places-david-lodge

by Unknown

  the O'Sheas as domestic slave labour, or 'Oh pear' as

  'That was before the war. Gordon was extraordinarily O'Shea preferred to phrase it. As a special treat the doctor young, of course, to get the Chair. But the Vice-Chancellor had brought her along this evening to watch the colour TV.

  in those days was a huntin', shootin', fishin' type. Took all

  ' If that's not inconveniencing you, Mr Zapp ?'

  the candidates down to his place in Yorkshire for a spot of

  'Sure. What is it you want to watch, Bernadette, "Top of grouse-shooting. Naturally Gordon made a great impression.

  the Pops"?'

  Story goes the most highly qualified candidate had a fatal

  'Er, no, not exactly, Mr Zapp,' said O'Shea. 'The accident with a gun. Or that Gordon shot him. Don't BBC 2 has a documentary on the Little Sisters of Misery, believe it myself.'

  and Bernadette has an aunt in the Order. We can't get BB C 2 on the set downstairs, you see.'

  Morris could keep up the pace no longer. 'You'll have to tell me more another time,' he called after the figure of This was not Morris's idea of an evening's entertainment, Busby as it receded into the gloom of the ill-lit car park.

  so having switched on the TV he retired to his bedroom with a copy of Playboy that had caught up with him in the

  'Yes, good night, good night.' To judge by the sound of his mail. Stretched out on the penultimate resting place of Mrs feet on the gravel, Busby had broken into a trot. Morris was O'Shea Sr., he ran an expert eye over Miss January's boobs left alone in the darkness. The flame of sociability lit by and settled down to read a photo-feature on the latest sports Masters' return seemed to have gone out as abruptly as it cars, including the Lotus Europa which he had just ordered.

  had flared up.

  One of the few satisfactions Morris had promised himself But the excitements of the day were not over. The very from his visit to England was the purchase of a new sports same evening he made the acquaintance of a member of the car to replace the Chevrolet Corvair which he had bought O'Shea menage hitherto concealed from his view. At the in 1965 just three days before Ralph Nader published customary hour the doctor knocked on his door and pushed Unsafe at Any Speed, thus reducing its value by approximately into the room a teenage girl of sluttish but not unsexy fifteen hundred dollars overnight and depriving Morris of appearance, raven-haired and hollow of cheek, who stood any further pleasure in owning it. He had left Desiree with meekly in the middle of the floor, twisting her hands and instructions to sell the Corvair for what she could get for it: peeping at Morris through long dark eyelashes.

  that wouldn't be much, but he would save a considerable

  'This is Bernadette, Mr Zapp,' said O'Shea gloomily.

  amount on the Lotus by taking delivery in England and

  'You've no doubt seen her about the house.'

  shipping it back to Euphoria himself. Playboy, he was glad to

  'No. Hi, Bernadette,' said Morris.

  note, approved of the Lotus.

  'Say good evening to the gentleman, Bernadette,' said Returning to the living-room to fetch a cigar, he found O'Shea, giving the girl a nudge which sent her staggering O'Shea asleep and Bernadette looking sullenly bored. On across the room.

  the screen a lot of nuns, photographed from behind, were

  'Good evening, sir,' said Bernadette, making a clumsy singing a hymn.

  little bob.

  ' Seen your aunt yet ?' he inquired.

  'Manners a little lacking in polish, Mr Zapp,' said O'Shea Bernadette shook her head. There was a knock on the in a loud whisper. ' But we must make allowances. A month door and one of the O'Shea children stuck his head round ago she was milking cows in Sligo. My wife's people, you the door.

  know. They have a farm there.'

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  'Please sir, will you tell me Dad Mr Reilly phoned and his car, a perfectly ordinary, rather underpowered Austin Mrs Reilly is having one of her turns.*

  that he had rented at London Airport. Morris tried with Such summonses were a common occurrence in the life of some difficulty to imagine the likely reaction of O'Shea when Dr O'Shea, who seemed to spend a fantastic amount of time he drove up in the burnt-orange Lotus, with its black on the road - compared, anyway, to American doctors, who leather bucket seats, remote-control spot lamp, visored in Morris's experience would only visit you at home if you headlights, streamlined wing-mirrors and eight-track stereo.

  were actually dead. Roused from his slumbers, O'Shea de-Mother of God, he'd have a coronary on the spot.

  parted, groaning and muttering under his breath. He

  'Down there, down there to your left,' said Dr O'Shea.

  offered to remove Bernadette, but Morris said she could stay

  'There's Mr Reilly at the door, looking out for us. God bless to watch out the programme. He returned to his bedroom you, Mr Zapp. It's terribly good of you to turn out on a and after a few minutes heard the sound of plainsong change night like this.'

  abruptly into the driving beat of a current hit by the Jackson

  'You're welcome,' said Morris, drawing up in front of the Five. There was still hope for Ireland, then.

  house, and fending off the attempts of the distracted Mr A few moments later he heard footsteps thundering up the Reilly, evidently under the impression that Morris was the stairs, and the sound of the TV reverted to sacred music.

  doctor, to drag him from behind the wheel.

  Morris went into the living-room just as O'Shea burst in But it was good of him, uncharacteristically good of Morris through the opposite door. Bernadette cowered in her Zapp. The truth of the sentiment struck him more and more seat, looking between the two men as if calculating which forcibly as he sat in the cold and cheerless parlour of the one was going to beat her first.

  Reilly house waiting for O'Shea to finish his ministrations,

  'Mr Zapp,' O'Shea panted, ' the devil take me if I can and as he drove him back through the shadowy streets, get my car to start. Would you be so good as to give me a listening with half an ear to lurid descriptions of Mrs Reilly's push down the road? Mrs O'Shea would do it, but she's symptoms. He cast his mind back over the day - helping feeding the baby at this minute.'

  Mrs Swallow look for her husband's book, letting the Irish

  'You want to use my car?' said Morris, producing the kid watch his TV, driving O'Shea around to his patients -

  keys.

  and wondered what had come over him. Some creeping O'Shea's jaw sagged. 'God bless you, Mr Zapp, you're a English disease of being nice, was it? He would have to generous man, but I'd hate to take the responsibility.*

  watch himself.

  ' Go ahead. It's only a rented car.'

  *Aye, but what about the insurance?' O'Shea went into Philip decided it was not too far to walk home from the the matter of insurance at such length that Morris began to Hogans' party, but wished he had phoned for a cab when it fear for the life of Mrs Reilly, so he cut the discussion short by began to rain. He would really have to set about getting offering to drive O'Shea himself. The doctor thanked him himself a car, a business he had postponed from fear of effusively and galloped down the stairs, shouting over his tangling with American second-hand car dealers, no doubt shoulder to Bernadette that she was to leave Morris's even more intimidating, venal and treacherous than theii room. 'Take your time,' said Morris to the girl, and fol-British counterparts. When he arrived at the house on lowed him out.

  Pythagoras Drive he discovered that he had forgotten his Between giving Morris directions through the badly-lit latch-key - the final aggravation of an evening already back streets, O'Shea complimented Morris extravagantly on thoroughly spoiled by Charles Boon and Mrs Zapp. Fortu-9*

  93

  nately someone was in the house, because he could hear promptly forgot, identifying them by the various kinds of music playing faintly; but he had to ring the bell several fancy dress they wore - one in Confederate Civil War
uni-times before the door, retained by a chain, opened a few form, one in cowboy boots and a tattered ankle-length suede inches and the face of Melanie Byrd peered apprehensively topcoat and the third in loose black judo garb - he was also through the aperture. Her face brightened.

  black himself and wore sunglasses with black frames, just in

  •Oh, hi! It's you.'

  case there was any doubt about where he stood on the racial

  ' Terribly sorry - forgot my key.'

  issue.

  She opened the door, calling over her shoulder,' It's OK, Philip sat down on one of the mattresses, feeling the only Professor Swallow.' She explained with a giggle: 'We shoulders of his English suit ride up to nuzzle his ears as he thought you were the fuzz. We were smoking.'

  did so. He took off the jacket and loosened his tie in a feeble

  'Smoking?' Then his nostrils registered a sweetish, acrid effort to fit in with the general sartorial style of the company.

  odour on the air and the penny dropped. 'Oh, yes, of Melanie brought him a plate of pizza and Carol poured him course.' The 'of course' was an attempt to sound urbane, a glass of harsh red wine from a gallon bottle in a wicker bas-but succeeded only in sounding embarrassed, which indeed ket. While he ate, the others passed from hand to hand he was.

  what he knew must be a 'joint'. When he had finished the

  'Like to join us?'

  pizza he hastily lit his pipe, thus excusing himself from

  'Thank you, but I don't smoke. Not, that is . . . '

  partaking of the drug. Puffing clouds of smoke into the air, Philip floundered. Melanie laughed. ' Have some coffee, he gave a humorous account, which went down quite well, then. Pot is optional.'

  of how he had found himself left alone in the Hogans' house.

  'Thanks awfully, but I'd better get myself something to

  ' You were trying to make out with this woman ?' asked the eat.' Melanie, he couldn't help observing, looked remark-black wrestler.

  ably fetching this evening in a white peasant-style dress that

  'No, no, I got trapped. As a matter of fact, she's the wife reached to her bare feet, her long brown hair loose about of the man I'm replacing here. Professor Zapp.'

  her shoulders, her eyes bright and dilated.' First,' he added.

  Melanie looked startled.' I didn't know that.'

  ' There's some pizza left from dinner. If you like pizza.'

  ' D'you know him ?' Philip asked.

  Oh, yes, he assured her, he loved pizza. He followed

  'Slightly.'

  Melanie down the hall to the ground-floor living-room,

  'He's a fascist,' said the Confederate Soldier. 'He's a luridly lit by a large orange paper globe suspended about well-known campus fascist. Everybody knows Zapp.'

  two feet from the floor, and furnished with low tables,

  'I took a course with Zapp once,' said the Cowboy.

  mattresses, cushions, an inflatable armchair, brick-and-

  ' Gave me a lousy " C " for a paper that got an "A" the last plank bookshelves and an expensive-looking complex of time I used it. I told him, too.'

  stereo equipment emitting plaintive Indian music. The

  'What did he say.'

  walls were covered with psychedelic posters and the floor

  'Told me to fuck off.'

  was littered with ashtrays, plates, cups, glasses, magazines

  'Man!' The black wrestler dissolved into giggles.

  and record sleeves. There were three young men in the room

  'How about Kroop?' said the Confederate Soldier.

  and two young women. The latter, Melanie's flat-mates

  ' Kroop lets his students grade themselves.'

  Carol and Deirdre, Philip had already met. Melanie intro-

  'You're putting us on,' said Deirdre.

  duced him casually to the three young men, whose names he

  'It's true, I swear.'

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  1 [•

  'Don't everybody give themselves "A"s?' asked the party was what it appeared to be, or perhaps encounter black wrestler.

  group. This was a term new to Philip, which the young

  'It's funny, but no. As a matter of fact there was a chick people did their best to explain to him.

  who flunked herself.'

  ' It's like, to get rid of your inhibitions.'

  'Come on!'

  'Overcome loneliness. Overcome the fear of loving.'

  'No bullshit. Kroop tried to talk her out of it, said her

  ' Recover your own body.'

  paper was worth at least a " G " , but no, she insisted on

  'Understand what's really bugging you.'

  flunking.'

  They exchanged anecdotes.

  Philip asked Melanie if she was a student at Euphoric

  'The worst is the beginning,' said Carol. 'When you're State.

  feeling all cold and uptight and wishing you hadn't come.'

  ' I was. I sort of dropped out.*

  'And the one I went to,' said the Confederate Soldier,

  'we didn't know who was the group leader, and he didn't

  'Permanently?'

  identify himself, like deliberately, and we all sat there for an

  'No. I don't know. Maybe.'

  hour, a solid hour, in total silence.'

  All of them, it appeared, either were or had been students at the University, but like Melanie they were vague and

  'Sounds like one of my seminars,' said Philip. But they were too engrossed in the subject to respond to his little evasive about their backgrounds and plans. They seemed to jokes.

  live entirely in the present tense. To Philip, who was always squinting anxiously into his putative future and casting Carol said: 'Our leader had a neat idea to break the ice.

  worried glances over his shoulder at the past, they were Everybody had to empty their purses and wallets on to the scarcely comprehensible. But intriguing. And friendly.

  table. The idea was total self-exposure, you know, turning He taught them a game he had invented as a postgraduate yourself inside out, letting everybody see what you usually student, in which each person had to think of a well-known keep hidden. Like rubbers and tampax and old love letters book he hadn't read, and scored a point for every person and holy medals and dirty pictures and all. It was a revela-present who had read it. The Confederate Soldier and Carol tion, you've no idea. Like one guy had this picture of this were joint winners, scoring four points out of a possible five man on a beach, completely naked except for a gun in a with Steppenwolf and The Story of 0 respectively, Philip in holster. Turned out to be the guy's father. How about that?'

  each case accounting for the odd point. His own nomination,

  'Groovy,' said the Confederate Soldier.

  Oliver Twist — usually a certain winner - was nowhere.

  'Let's do it now,' said Philip, tossing his wallet into the ring.

  ' What d'you call that game ?' Melanie asked Philip.

  'Humiliation.'

  Carol spread the contents on the floor. 'This is no good,'

  she said. 'Just what you'd expect to find. All very boring and

  ' That's a great name. Humiliation...'

  moral.'

  'You have to humiliate yourself to win, you see. Or to

  'That's me,' sighed Philip. 'Who's next?' But no one else stop others from winning. It's rather like Mr Kroop's had a wallet or a purse to hand.

  grading system.'

  'That's a lot of crap anyway,' said the Cowboy. 'In my Another joint was circulating, and this time Philip took a group we're trying to learn body-language...'

  drag or two. Nothing special seemed to happen, but he had

  'Are these your children?' Melanie asked, going through been drinking the red wine steadily enough to keep up with his photographs.' They're cute, but they look kind of sad.'

  the developing and enveloping mood of the party - for a
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  'That's because I'm so uptight with them,' said Philip.

  room. 'What you have to do is communicate by rubbing

  'And is this your wife ?'

  against each other,' he explained, suiting actions to words.

  'She's uptight, too,' he said. He found the new word

  "Through your spine, your shoulder-blades -'

  expressive. 'We're a very uptight family.'

  'Your ass . . . '

  'She's lovely.'

  'Right, your ass. Most people's backs are dead, just dead, from not being used for anything, you dig?' The Cowboy

  'That was taken a long time ago,' said Philip.' Even I was made way for the Confederate Soldier, and began to super-lovely then.'

  vise Deirdre and the black wrestler.

  ' I think you're lovely now,' said Melanie. She leaned over

  'You want to try ?' Melanie said.

  and kissed him on the mouth.

  'All right.'

  Philip felt a physical sensation he hadn't felt for more than Her back felt straight and supple against his scholar's twenty years: a warm, melting sensation that began in some stoop, her bottom was pressed firmly and blissfully against deep vital centre of his body and spread outwards, gently his thin shanks, her hair was thrown back and cascaded fading, till it reached his extremities. He recaptured, in that down his chest. He was transported. She was giggling.

  one kiss, all the helpless rapture of adolescent eroticism -

  'Hey, Philip, what are you trying to tell me with the and all its embarrassment too. He couldn't bring himself to shoulder-blades ?'

  look at Melanie, but stared sheepishly at his shoes, dumb, Someone dimmed the lights and turned up the sitar his ears burning. Fool! Coward!

  music. They swayed and pressed and wriggled against each

  'Look, I'll show you,' said the Cowboy, stripping off his other in the twanging, orange, smoky twilight, it was a kind suede coat. He stood up and shoved aside with his foot some of dance, they were all dancing, he was dancing - at last: the of the dirty crockery littering the floor. Melanie stacked up free, improvised, Dionysian dancing he'd hankered after. He the plates and carried them out to the kitchen. Philip was doing it.