by David Lodge
MY FIRST LEAVE was inevitably a disappointment. Three short days in London could not fulfil the expectations that had been built on them in the preceding weeks. The more unfruitfully the priceless hours passed, the more exasperated I became, with myself and with others. It was, of course, foolish to have imagined that things would be different. The three days were not particularly important to my family or acquaintances. They did not realize that those three days constituted for me a precious parole, that I needed their co-operation to squeeze from that short time the essence of the free life, so that I could carry it back with me like a cordial, to warm myself with it in captivity. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had nourished the absurd expectation that everyone would greet me like a returned veteran, overflowing with sympathy and admiration, exerting themselves to give me a good time, and (girls) throwing themselves generously into my arms. Nothing of the sort happened of course. I knew no girls, and had few friends. I had left a dull, uneventful life to go into the Army, and I returned to find the same dull, uneventful life. It was not surprising that no one felt particularly sorry for me, because my pride prevented me from revealing how deeply miserable the Army had made me. Nevertheless, at the time, I was disappointed by what seemed to me the selfishness and callousness of other people.
The first evening, Thursday, was agreeable enough. I shed my uniform as soon as I got home, although it was late, The silky caress of my worsted trousers and poplin shirt, the savour of home cooking, and the resilience of my Dunlopillo mattress, made the evening and night pass in a trance of sensuous euphoria.
The next morning I visited my college: a mistake. Term was only a few weeks old. The anxious, excited faces of the freshers, the self-absorbed assurance of the older students, the atmosphere of easy, casual self-indulgence, excited a mixture of aggravating emotions in me: envy, regret, nostalgia, impatience, loneliness. Once again I felt keenly my lack of friends. I dearly wanted to meet someone who would know me, who would come up and clap me on the back, congratulate me on my degree, and take me off for a coffee. But my own generation had left with me, and I knew few people outside that group. I tried smiling at a few people I recognized, but their acknowledgements were faint or puzzled, and I gave it up in embarrassment. I went over to the English department: there were few people there as it was a Friday, when there weren’t many lectures. My professor, with whom I had hoped to discuss a research project, was away. I had a few desultory conversations with some members of the staff. They all thought I looked well, which infuriated me. The Senior Tutor, who had been asked for a testimonial by the War Office, asked me if I had got my commission yet, and seemed disgruntled when I told him I had withdrawn my application. I climbed the stairs to find Philip Meakin’s room.
Meakin had been, I suppose, my closest friend at college. Our mutual lack of personal charm, and exclusive interest in study, had drawn us into a lukewarm friendship of the kind that exists between ‘swots’ at school, in which the strongest element was one of jealous rivalry. I had been very pleased when he had obtained an Upper Second instead of his expected First in Finals. Since then, however, his fortunes had improved. He had been exempted from military service on medical grounds, and the Prof. had offered him a Research Assistantship. This meant that he earned a small salary by doing a little tutoring in the department, while working for a higher degree.
There were a couple of female freshers giggling nervously outside Meakin’s room. I gathered that he was their tutor, and that they were waiting to see him. The awe with which they appeared to regard him seemed absurd to me, and I was tempted to inform them of his total lack of qualifications to teach them anything useful. Instead I raised my fist to knock on the door.
‘Mr Meakin’s engaged,’ said one of the girls reprovingly. I believe she thought I was another of Meakin’s consultants. The idea of my consulting Meakin on anything made me smile. I knocked on the door, but at the same moment Meakin opened it to usher out another, very pretty girl.
‘Thank you, Mr Meakin,’ she said, fluttering her eyelashes.
‘That’s all right, Miss——’ He goggled through his spectacles at me. ‘Jonathan! What are you doing here? I thought you were in the Army.’
‘Even the Army gives one a few days off from time to time,’ I replied sourly. ‘Can I come in?’
‘Of course. No, just a minute. Would you mind if I saw these two students first? I’ve just got to give them a booklist.’
He kept me waiting for about ten minutes before the two girls emerged, their eyes lowered reverently as if they had just received an audience from T. S. Eliot. I barely restrained an urge to bawl ‘Pity about your Upper Second’ to Meakin while they were still in earshot.
‘Well,’ he said, when we had seated ourselves. ‘How’s life in the Army?’
‘The expense of spirit in a waste of time.’ I had been polishing this epigram for some time, but it was wasted on Meakin. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are,’ I added.
‘I expect you feel pretty peeved about chaps like me?’
‘Oh no,’ I lied. ‘I’ve every respect for anyone who manages to wangle out of National Service.’
‘I didn’t wangle,’ he protested. ‘I’ve always been asthmatic.’
If my words were malicious, they were nothing to my thoughts. Tarring and feathering was too good for Meakin as far as I was concerned. I was seized by an overwhelming self-pity. It was I who should be occupying this book-lined study, soaking up the admiration of pretty freshers, not Meakin. I looked past him, through the window. It was damp and foggy outside, but warm and snug in the room. Meakin would go on being warm and snug, physically and spiritually insulated against the cruel outside world by his books, his status, and the old-fashioned central-heating which bubbled and clanked in the pipes. While I saw ahead of me nothing but a bleak prospect of windswept barracks, cold water in the early morning, the harsh cries of stupid authority, the dreary monotony of the slow-moving days. I wept dry, invisible tears of chagrin.
The shadow of Catterick lay over the rest of my leave. On Friday evening I saw a play, and on Saturday a film. But in the middle of a dramatic scene my mind would wander off into a brooding anticipation of the return to camp. Without a companion to talk to I was defenceless against these gloomy thoughts. By Sunday I was longing to see Mike. So, callously ignoring my parents’ disappointment, I bolted down my roast beef, bade them a hurried farewell, and rushed, belching, out of the house at a quarter to two. Unfortunately I was obliged to wear my uniform, as I did not intend to return home again. I was hoping to hang on to Mike until we caught the 11.15 train from King’s Cross.
O’Connell’s was an Irish drinking club occupying a dingy basement in a narrow passage off the Tottenham Court Road. A man in shirt-sleeves and braces looked up from a newspaper called The United Irishman as I entered.
‘Michael Brady? Aye, he’s expecting you. Go on down.’
I descended the rickety staircase and peered into the saloon. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and the brogue. I saw Mike’s crew-cut glowing like a red coal at a table near the bar. I shuffled through the crowd, rather self-conscious in my uniform, boots and gaiters, which attracted many curious looks. Mike was wearing an expensive-looking suède jacket, and the cleanest shirt I had ever seen him in. He was sitting with a couple of young men, one plump, curly-haired, with twinkling eyes, the other tall, thin and saturnine, with a cows-lick of straight black hair across his forehead.
‘Jon! It’s good to see you,’ Mike greeted me, standing up. ‘Come and sit down. What will you have?’
‘Could I have a coffee?’ I asked.
‘Ssh. Coffee’s a dirty word round here,’ said the plump one. ‘Have a glass of porter.’
‘What’s porter?’ I asked.
‘What’s porter?’ He turned to Mike. ‘What kind of a barbarian is this man of yours then?’ Mike grinned, and the speaker continued: ‘What’s porter? What’s nectar? I’ll tell you what porter is. It’s a particularly glorious
form of Guinness, and it’s specially imported from Ireland by O’Connell himself, and if you ask me what Guinness is I’ll leave immediately.’
I laughed, and agreed to a porter, though I had never liked Guinness. Mike interrupted:
‘Jon, let me introduce you: Jonathan Browne, Brendan Mahoney, Peter Nolan. They know who you are.’
Mike pushed his way to the bar, and I noticed with surprise that his resplendent dress terminated in army boots. While he was away, Brendan Mahoney, the tubby one, treated me to a disquisition on the properties and ingredients of Guinness. He seemed to be an expert on the subject, and laid special emphasis on the fact that the water used to make the drink came from one special well. Mike returned with, to my dismay, a pint tankard of the black, unappetizing fluid. He seemed to be in good spirits.
‘Have a good leave?’ I asked.
‘Great,’ he replied. ‘And you?’
‘Not bad. Quiet. Don’t feel like going back to camp, do you?’
He grimaced, and swigged his drink. ‘Don’t talk about it.’
‘I don’t know how you stick it, Mike,’ said Nolan, the tall one, speaking for the first time. ‘They’d never get me in their bloody Army.’
‘Knowing you, Peter, I don’t think they would,’ Mike agreed with a grin. He turned to me: ‘You remember that Lane Bequest picture that was stolen from the Tate not so long ago?’
I did. An Irish student had coolly walked out of the Tate Gallery with the picture under his arm, in full view of the public and the gallery staff. His confederates had even tipped off a Press cameraman in advance, who photographed the student walking nonchalantly down the steps with the picture under his arm. The bare-faced cheek of the theft had caused a minor sensation in the Press, until the picture was traced to Ireland, and handed back.
‘Well, tell it not in Gath, but Peter here was one of the brains behind the operation,’ said Mike. Nolan permitted himself a thin smile.
‘I never really understood what it was all about,’ I admitted; and immediately Nolan and Mahoney launched into an involved explanation of the legal history of the Lane Bequest, and the perfidy of the English interpreting the law to their own advantage.
‘Why did you give the picture back then?’ I asked finally.
“It wasn’t my idea,’ said Nolan darkly. ‘I——’
‘It was no use to us,’ interposed Mahoney. ‘There’s only one place where it belongs: the Municipal Gallery in Dublin. It’s all ready for the pictures. There’s a room with “The Lane Bequest” written over the door. You go in, and there’s nothing there except for Lane’s portrait. The room is waiting for the pictures; and one day they’ll come. We made people think by pinching that picture from the Tate.’
I sipped my porter slowly, and with distaste. I was beginning to find the noise, the smoke, and the Celtic fanaticism of Mike’s companions rather wearing. I was glad when Mike got up to leave. We all shook hands. Nolan did not release Mike’s hand at once.
‘Remember, Mike, you can always count on us.’
‘Sure, Peter,’ said Mike. ‘See you.’
‘Where to now?’ I asked, as we emerged into the fresh air, deliberately assuming that we were going to stay together.
‘Would you like to come and have tea with a friend of mine?’
‘Delighted. But do they expect me?’
‘No, she doesn’t. But it’ll be all right.’
‘She! It wouldn’t be the one who’s been sending you all those long, mauve envelopes by any chance?’
‘The same.’
I looked forward to the meeting with interest.
‘I didn’t know you had a girl-friend, Mike,’ I observed, as we walked towards the tube station.
‘Why should you? I never told you. We’ve known each other for about a year.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Pauline Vickers. Ghastly, isn’t it?’
‘What is she,—a student?’
‘Was. She’s a librarian now. I met her at some hop. Have you got a girl-friend, Jon?’
‘No one specially,’ I said, unwilling for some reason to reveal my total lack of female acquaintance. ‘You look smart,’ I added, to change the subject.
‘All borrowed,’ he explained, ‘Except the boots. Couldn’t find a pair of shoes to fit me. I don’t like this suède much though. It creaks.’
‘I wish I weren’t wearing this uniform,’ I said. I was anxious to make a favourable impression on Mike’s girl,—otherwise she might resent my presence. And khaki did not become me.
We took the Piccadilly line from Holborn, northbound, and got out at Turnpike Lane. As we left the station a group of young children turned to follow us along the pavement, chanting:
Ginger, you’re barmy,
You’ll never join the Army.
They scattered, shrieking, as Mike rounded on them. ‘If only it were true,’ he observed with a rueful grin. As we walked on, the children began again, from a safe distance.
Ginger, you’re barmy,
You’ll never join the Army,
You’ll never be a scout,
With your shirt hanging out,
Ginger, you’re barmy.
Pauline occupied a bedsitter on the first floor of a large Victorian house honeycombed with small apartments. The first feeling I registered as she opened the door was one of surprise. She seemed too conventionally pretty and normal to attract or be attracted by Mike. She seemed a little put out to see me, but recovered herself quickly and put me at my ease. She appeared pleased to discover that I had been at college with Mike.
‘It’s a pleasure to meet a friend of Michael’s who isn’t from that dreadful Irish drinking club,’ she said.
‘Another word from you against the Irish, and I’ll put you across my knee and spank you,’ he replied. I glanced involuntarily at Pauline’s neat round bottom. She stroked it as she sat down. It reminded me of the typist in the Orderly Room.
‘Can I take my boots off?’ demanded Mike.
‘If you wash your feet first.’
‘A good idea. I think I’ll have a bath while I’m about it.’
‘I’ll get you a towel,’ said Pauline. ‘And don’t make a mess in the bathroom, or Mrs Partridge will be after me. Do make yourself comfortable,’ she added to me. ‘Take your boots off, I’m sure your feet are clean.’ She giggled and blushed.
‘Oh it’s quite all right,’ I replied hurriedly.
While Mike was having his bath I had the chance to size up Pauline, and fill in her background with a few well-chosen questions. She is rather difficult to describe physically, for none of her features is particularly striking. She just makes a kind of blurred impression of well-distributed prettiness: softly-waved, light brown hair; a round, slightly asymmetrical face, unobtrusive nose and mouth; a modestly curved figure; unexceptional, unexceptionable legs, size five feet. Her dress that afternoon was attractive but not chic, the hem at least two inches below the fashionable length. She made a pleasant, eye-resting picture as she sat opposite me in one of the two armchairs that flanked the gas-fire. One thing I noticed, and liked, at once, was that she took full advantage of an armchair, instead of sitting perched on the edge like most women.
I learned that she had taken a Lower Second History degree at Westfield, a girl’s college of London University, and subsequently a diploma in librarianship. Her people lived in Essex, but she preferred to live on her own in London. Her parents hadn’t liked the idea at first, but she had talked them into accepting it.
The conversation turned to the Army.
‘Michael never tells me anything, so you must.’
The invitation could not have been more welcome. This was the audience I had been seeking all the week-end. I described the miseries and inanities of army life, affecting a humorous and detached tone, but drawing exquisite sighs of dismay, incredulity and sympathy from my listener.
‘Has Mike told you about Percy,—the young chap who was killed?’
Sh
e looked grave. ‘Yes. It was terrible, wasn’t it? But he didn’t tell me much.’
A muffled gurgle of water from across the landing indicated that Mike had almost finished his ablutions.
‘I think it would be best if we kept off the subject,’ I said quietly. ‘Mike is very upset about the whole thing. He was very attached to Percy. Percy was a Catholic, you see. Are you a Catholic?’
She frowned slightly. ‘No. Are you?’
‘No.’
Mike came into the room, red and glowing, with little beads of perspiration on his forehead. ‘Phew! I’m limp,’ he said, prostrating himself on Pauline’s divan bed.
‘You had it much too hot, Michael; you always do. Did you open the window?’
‘I think I did.’
Pauline clucked her tongue, and went out to inspect the bathroom. Mike grinned at me.
‘You look a bit more comfortable now.’
I was. Relaxing under Pauline’s easy friendliness I had taken off my battledress blouse and loosened my collar. I now put myself finally at ease by taking off my boots.
The evening passed lazily and agreeably. We had tea, washed up, and listened to gramophone records. Pauline collected mainly L.P.s of musicals and Spanish folk-music. She had been to Spain that summer with her parents.
‘I’d like to go again,’ she said, ‘But not on one of those ghastly coach tours.’
‘We’ll go together when I’m released from the Army,’ said Mike.
‘I don’t know what Mummy and Daddy will have to say about that.’
‘Oh you’ll talk them into it.’
‘Anyway, that won’t be for two years. What am I going to do until then? I feel like a nun already.’
