by Lodge, David
Dear Philip,
I may as well come straight to the point. I’ve had what I believe is called a poison-pen letter from Euphoria, an anonymous letter. It says you are having an affair with Morris Zapp’s daughter. I know it’s not true but please write at once and tell me that it isn’t. I keep bursting into tears and can’t tell anybody why.
Love,
Hilary
XY42 Ab 151 INTL PLOTINUS EUPH 60 0
WESTERN UNION
MRS. HILARY SWALLOW
49 ST JOHNS RD
RUMMIDGE
ENGLAND
POTTY UPPERCOOK COCK COCK COCK
UTTER POPPYCOCK OF COURSE STOP ZAPPS
DAUGHTER ONLY NINE YEARS OLD STOP
LETTER FOLLOWS LOVE PHILIP
PHILIP SWALLOW
1037 PYTHAGORAS DR
PLOTINUS EUPH
Morris to Désirée
Will you do me a favour, Désirée, and move your ass over to 1037 Pythagoras Drive and find out what the hell is going on there? I had a letter this morning, no signature, saying that Philip Swallow is shacked up with Melanie at that address. You may laugh, but just check it out for me, will you? There is a kind of outrageous logic in the notion that makes me think it may just be true. It would fit my idea of Swallow and the role he seems destined to play in my life. Having assassinated my academic character in the TLS, he proceeds to screw my daughter. That figures. I tremble, Désirée, I tremble.
Morris
PS. The envelope is franked by the University, so it must be someone on the faculty or a secretary who sent the letter. Who?
Philip to Hilary
Darling Hilary,
This is the most difficult letter I have ever had to write.
Morris Zapp has got a daughter—apart from the nine-year-old. Her name is Melanie and I did sleep with her once. Just once. So the wire I sent you was not quite true. But it wasn’t a lie, either. I have only just discovered that Zapp is Melanie’s father and it’s been as much of a shock to me as it will have been to you. Let me try and explain.
Melanie is Zapp’s daughter by his first marriage. She calls herself Melanie Byrd, which is her mother’s maiden name, because she doesn’t want to be associated with her father at Euphoric State, for several good reasons. She came here as a student because as the child of a tenured faculty member she is entitled to free tuition, but she has stayed away from Zapp as much as possible and kept their relationship strictly secret. I got all this information from Mrs. Zapp and Melanie this afternoon. They were in the house together when I got home. I should explain that Melanie is one of the girls on the ground floor. Early on in my time here I quite by chance got drawn into a kind of impromptu party downstairs. I’d just come from cocktails at the Hogans’ and was a bit squiffy already. What with one thing and another I suppose I got quite “high,” but when they started making preparations for an orgy, I retired gracefully. So, however, did Melanie. She took it for granted that we should sleep together. So I’m afraid we did.
I’m not going to try and justify or excuse myself. I was wretched afterwards, thinking what I’d done to you. It wasn’t even particularly enjoyable at the time, because I was fuddled with drink and Melanie was half-asleep. I’m quite sure it meant absolutely nothing to her, and you must believe that it only happened on that one occasion. In fact since then—this would be funny in a less anguished context—she’s become Charles Boon’s steady girlfriend. In the circumstances, there seemed to be no point in upsetting you by saying anything about the episode, and it began to sink into oblivion. When I got your letter it revived my guilty conscience, though I didn’t connect Melanie with Morris Zapp for a moment. I presumed someone was playing a rather sick joke—who and for what reason I couldn’t, and still can’t—imagine. But it put me in a difficult moral dilemma.
Well, as you know, I took the easier way out, one which I persuaded myself would also be easier on you. But when I discovered the true state of affairs, I immediately sat down to put the record straight. It’s now about midnight, so you’ll realize how difficult I’ve found it. I’m sorry, very sorry, Hilary. Please forgive me.
All my love,
Philip
Désirés to Morris
Dear Morris,
Much as I hate to do you a favour, my curiosity got the better of me, so I hied me over to 1037 Pythagoras in accordance with your brusque instructions. I had to take a detour through the downtown area as the traffic was snarled up due to riots on the Campus at the Cable Street entrance. I could hear gas grenades popping and a lot of yelling and a police helicopter circling overhead all the time: I tell you, it gets more like Viet Nam here every day.
1037 Pythagoras is a house that has been converted into two apartments. Nobody answered the bell on the first floor so I went upstairs and tried the second-floor apartment. Eventually Melanie answered the door, looking flushed and rumpled. Before you start grinding your teeth and fingering your horsewhip, let me finish. We were both surprised, Melanie more so, naturally. “Désirée! What are you doing here?” she exclaimed. “I might ask you the same question,” I snapped back in my best Perry Mason manner. “I thought Philip Swallow lived here.” “He does but he’s out.” “Who is it, Mel, the Gestapo?” said a voice from within. I looked over Melanie’s shoulder and there was Charles Boon, propped up against the wall dressed in a towelling bathrobe and smoking a cigarette. “Somebody for Philip,” she called back. “Philip’s out,” he said. “He’s at the University.” “Do you mind if I wait?” I asked. Melanie shrugged: “Please yourself.”
I eased myself over the threshold and penetrated into the apartment. Melanie closed the door and followed me. “This is Désirée, my father’s second wife,” she said to the gaping Boon. “And this is—” “I recognize Mr. Boon, dear,” I interrupted. “We were at the same party a few weeks ago. I didn’t have the opportunity, Mr. Boon,” I prattled on, “to tell you how much I hate your show.” He smiled and blew smoke through his teeth while he thought up a riposte; one of his eyes was levelled on me while the other one was shooting about the room as if in search of inspiration. “If someone your age liked the show,” he said at last, “I’d know I’d failed.” We fenced like this for a while, weighing each other up. It was apparent that Boon was living in Swallow’s apartment, which I must say surprised me because I always understood from Swallow that he couldn’t stand the guy. However, it certainly looked as though Boon and Melanie had been in the sack together that afternoon, and as neither of them showed any sign of panic when Swallow’s latchkey turned in the hall door I assumed that this was not a possibility they were anxious to conceal from him. He was startled of course to see me there, fussed around getting us all tea, but didn’t seem particularly defensive. I had just decided that his relationship to Melanie was purely avuncular when it came out that you were her father. He went white, Morris. I mean, if he’d just discovered that he’d screwed his own daughter, he couldn’t have looked more shocked. I suppose, on reflection, there is something kind of incestuous about sleeping with the daughter of the guy you’ve exchanged jobs with. Though if he’s having sex with Melanie presently, it must be something very kinky because Charles Boon is right in there too, for sure.
As to the author of the poison-pen letter, I will hazard a guess that the author is Howard Ringbaum, who has a motive and is cheap enough to use university mail facilities for the purpose—he’s the kind of guy who would make a heavy-breathing call collect if he could get away with it.
Désirée
Morris to Désirée
Many thanks for your quick reply, but why didn’t you ask Swallow straight out for Chrissake? I enclose a Xerox of the anonymous letter so that you can confront him with it. What a louse. Mrs. Swallow has been looking so miserable lately that I have a shrewd suspicion she’s had one of those letters too. She’s a kind-hearted person, I’ve found, and I feel sorry for her. She told me, by the way, that Boon was once a student of Swallow’s. Yes, they’re old buddies, so it�
�s all too probable they’ve got some very corrupt scene going there with Melanie. Poor little Melanie. I feel really bad about her. I mean I didn’t suppose she was still a virgin or anything, but that is no life for a young girl, being passed from one guy to another. Maybe if you and I could make a fresh start, Désirée, she would come and live with us.
Morris
Désirée to Morris
Dear Morris,
Will you stop putting on this concerned parent act before I die laughing? It’s a little late in the day to start talking about giving a stable home life to “little Melanie.” You should have thought about that before you walked out on her and her mother. Little Melanie, in case you’ve forgotten, hasn’t forgiven you for that; and since it was me you walked out on her for (leaving her a five-dollar bill to buy candy, if I remember rightly, the most sordid transaction in the history of conscience-money) she isn’t exactly spilling over with love for me either.
I’ve no intention of confronting Philip Swallow with your dirty little piece of paper. Neither he nor Melanie owe me any explanation. Write and ask them yourself if you must. But before you work up too much righteous indignation, and as long as explanations are the order of the day, you might come clean about that blonde cookie you’ve parked on big-hearted Mrs. Swallow. Rumour has it that she’s pregnant. Don’t tell me that you’re going to pollute the planet with another little Zapp, Zapp? I’ve heard about the hypocrisy of the English, but I didn’t know it was contagious.
Désirée
Philip to Hilary
Darling Hilary,
It’s two weeks now since I wrote to you, and I am finding it a strain waiting for your reply. If you haven’t already written, please don’t keep me waiting any longer. I had hoped that by making a clean breast of everything I should make it possible for you to forgive and forget, and that we could put the whole thing behind us.
I hope you aren’t thinking of divorce, or anything silly like that?
It’s very difficult to discuss these things by letter. How can you make up a misunderstanding when you’re 6000 miles apart? We need to see each other, talk, kiss and make up. I’ve been thinking, why don’t you come out here at Easter on a 17-day excursion? I know the fare is expensive, but what the hell. I expect your mother would take the children in the holiday, wouldn’t she? Or perhaps you could even leave them with this Mary Makepeace girl. It would be a real holiday for both of us, away from the kids and everything. What is called a “second honeymoon,” I believe—a rather horribly coy phrase but not such a bad idea. D’you remember what fun we had in that scruffy little apartment in Esseph?
Do think about it seriously, darling, and don’t be put off by the student troubles. The signs are that with the end of the winter quarter things will quieten down and some kind of compromise will be worked out between the students and the Administration. Today there were no arrests for the first time in weeks. Perhaps the weather has something to do with it. Spring has really arrived, the hills are green, the sky is blue, and it’s eighty degrees in the shade. The bay is winking in the sun, and the cables of the Silver Span are shimmering like harpstrings on the horizon. I walked through the campus today at lunchtime and you could sense the change of mood. Girls in summer dresses and people playing guitars. You would enjoy it.
All my love,
Philip
Morris to Désirée
Désirée,
You’re not going to believe this, I know, but Mary Makepeace and I are just good friends. I have never made love to her. I admit the thought has crossed my mind, but she was pregnant when I first met her and I’m squeamish about laying girls who are already pregnant by other guys. Something not quite kosher about it, if you know what I mean. Especially in this case, since the father is a Catholic priest. Did I tell you the plane I flew over in was full of women going to England for abortions? Mary was one of them—she was sitting next to me and we got talking. A few weeks ago I came back from the University one afternoon to be ambushed by O’Shea in the lobby. He leaped out at me from behind the grandfather clock and dragged me into the front parlour, which at this time of year is like the North Pole, huge upholstered armchairs looming out of the fog like icebergs. O’Shea was very agitated. He said that a young woman who was obviously in “a certain condition,” but not wearing a ring, had called asking for me and had insisted on waiting in my rooms. It was Mary, of course—she’d decided to stay in England and have the baby, but she’d just lost her job and had some money stolen and turned for help to the only person in the country she knew—me. I tried to calm O’Shea down, but he had the fear of God and Mrs. O’Shea in him. It was obvious that nothing was going to persuade him I wasn’t responsible for Mary’s “condition.” He gave me an ultimatum: either Mary had to leave or me. I couldn’t very well abandon the girl, so I tried to find her a place to stay. But there was nothing doing in Rummidge that night. The landladies we talked to obviously regarded Mary as a whore and me as a small-time gangster. I couldn’t even find a hotel that admitted to having a vacant room. Then we happened to pass Mrs. Swallow’s house, and I thought, why not try her? Which we did, successfully. In fact the two of them have become great buddies and it looks like Mary is going to stay there until she has the baby. I didn’t see the point of boring you with all this, and I didn’t think Swallow would be so cheap as to run to you with the story.
Morris
Hilary to Philip
Dear Philip,
Many thanks for your last letter. I’m sorry I didn’t reply immediately to the previous one, but as it took you six or seven weeks to get round to telling me about Melanie Zapp (or Byrd) it seemed to me that I was entitled to take as many days thinking about my reply.
That doesn’t mean to say that I’m considering a divorce—a remarkably panicky reaction on your part, I thought. I take it that you’ve been quite candid with me, and that you’re no longer involved with the girl. I must say it was unfortunate that of all the girls in Euphoria, you had to pick on Mr. Zapp’s daughter. Also somewhat ironic, not to say hypocritical, that you should have been so exercised about his bad influence on your daughter. I showed Mary your letters and she says your obsessive concern to protect Amanda’s innocence indicates that you are really in love with her yourself, and that your affair with Melanie was a substitute gratification for the incestuous desire. An interesting theory, you must admit. Does Melanie look anything like Amanda?
As to your suggestion that I fly out to Euphoria for a holiday, it’s not on, I’m afraid. First of all I wouldn’t dream of asking either Mary or my mother to take on the responsibility of the children, and I don’t think we could afford to fly them out to Euphoria—or me on my own for that matter. You see, Philip, I decided not to wait any longer for the central heating, but to have it put in immediately on the HP. It was the first thing I did after receiving your letter about Melanie: I got out the telephone book and began ringing round to heating contractors for estimates. I suppose that sounds funny, but it was quite logical. I thought to myself, here I am, slaving away, running a house and family single-handed for the sake of my husband’s career and my children’s education, and I’m not even warm while I’m doing it. If he can’t wait for sex till he gets home, why should I wait for central heating? I suppose a more sensual woman would have taken a lover in revenge.
Mr. Zapp kindly helped me with the estimates, and managed to knock £100 off the lowest—wasn’t that clever of him? But of course the repayments are pretty heavy and the deposit has put our current account in the red, so please send some more money home soon.
But quite apart from the expense and the problem of the children, Philip, I don’t think I would want to fly out anyway. I’ve read through your letter very carefully and I’m afraid I can’t avoid the conclusion that you desire my presence mainly for the purpose of lawful sexual intercourse. I suppose you’ve been frightened off attempting any more extra-marital adventures, but the Euphoric spring has heated your blood to the extent that you’re pre
pared to fly me six thousand miles to obtain relief. I’m afraid I’d find it a strain coming over in that kind of context, Philip. Even the 17-day excursion fare costs £165–15–6, and nothing I can do in bed could possibly be worth that money.
Does this sound cutting? It’s not meant to be. Mary says that men always try to end a dispute with a woman by raping her, either literally or symbolically, so you’re only conforming to type. Mary is full of fascinating theories about men and women. She says there is a movement for the liberation of women starting in America. Have you come across any signs of it?
I was glad to hear that things are quietening down on the Euphoric campus at last. Believe it or not, we may be in for some student trouble here. There is talk of a sit-in next term. Apparently it’s thrown the older members of staff into a flat spin. According to Morris, Gordon Masters is quite unhinged—has taken to coming into the Department wearing his old Territorial Army uniform.
Love,
Hilary
Désirée to Morris
Dear Morris,
Oddly enough I do believe you about this Mary Makepeace, though the kosher reference was despicable as only you know how to be. But don’t blame Philip Swallow for the leak. It was your Irish colleen, the toothless Bernadette, if orthography is any clue, who betrayed you and your “yaller-hared whoor” in a smudged, greasy and tear-stained epistle which I received the other day, unsigned.
Have you ever heard of Women’s Liberation, Morris? I’ve just discovered it. I mean I read about the way they busted up the Miss America competition last November, but I thought they were just a bunch of screwballs. Not at all. They’ve just started up a discussion group in Plotinus, and I went along the other night. I was fascinated. Boy, have they got your number!
Désirée
4. Reading
COUPLE, mid-thirties, fat wife, would like to meet discreet couple.
