by David Lodge
‘Then they deserve to die,’ she said flippantly. ‘No, I mean, I can’t believe anybody would read my Guide and actually follow its advice, can you?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘Literary history is full of examples of misunderstood irony.’
She frowned slightly. ‘I get the feeling that you disapprove.’
‘Well, to be frank,’ I said, ‘I don’t feel that suicide is a suitable subject for parody.’
‘Oh . . .’ She looked uncomfortable.
‘But then I’m an old man with old-fashioned views,’ I said to let her off the hook.
‘I wouldn’t describe you as old,’ she said with a shade of coquetry. ‘Mature, yes, but not old. Shall I make us some tea?’
I suggested we should discuss her chapter first. She fetched her own printout from the white filing cabinet, and pulled the sofa round so that she sat facing me, with pencil poised. It felt like a tutorial situation, and I believed she intended this effect, defining roles for us to play, master and pupil, creating the illusion that there was a contractual bond between us. I warned myself to be very careful, as I went through the chapter developing the notes I had scribbled in the margins of my copy and she listened attentively, making rapid notes of her own, nodding and murmuring, ‘Yes, absolutely, you’re right, that’s brilliant, etc. etc.’ I knew I was being groomed, but I didn’t enjoy the flattery any the less for that. I realised I had been missing for the last few years the gratification of impressing minds less well stocked than my own, and the pleasure was enhanced by the fact that I was doing most of the talking and Alex most of the listening, so that for twenty minutes or so I quite forgot my hearing disability. The perfect quiet of the flat, as noiseless as a recording studio, helped.
‘Well, that was really terrific, thanks so much,’ she said when I had finished. ‘What should I do next?’
I laughed at the transparency of this gambit. ‘I can’t tell you that! I’m not your supervisor.’
She pulled a face. ‘No, alas. I can tell you, Desmond - may I call you Desmond? “Professor Bates” sounds so stiff.’
‘If you like,’ I said, hesitantly.
‘Well, Desmond, I can tell you this discussion we’ve just had has been more useful than all my supervisions with Colin put together.’
‘It’s nice of you to say so,’ I said, noting the familiar ease with which she referred to ‘Colin’. ‘But the amount of help I can give you is strictly limited.’
‘What are the limits, then?’ she said, with a smile.
‘Well, I can’t keep coming here, for one thing.’
‘Why not?’
‘My wife might get suspicious,’ I said lightly.
‘Does she know you’re here?’ Alex asked.
‘Oh yes,’ I said, but I couldn’t meet her unblinking blue gaze as I said it, and I suspect she knew I was lying. ‘But if it became a habit she might reasonably wonder why I was giving so much unpaid assistance to a good-looking young postgraduate student.’
She looked troubled. ‘I’m afraid I can’t afford to pay you right now, but -’
‘No, no, I didn’t mean that,’ I protested.
‘But if I get a teaching job in the Department -’ she went on.
‘For heavens sake, I don’t want you to pay me for anything,’ I said in a fluster. ‘No. That’s not what I meant at all. It’s just that Fred . . .’ My sentence trailed away. She had a knack of wrong-footing me in conversation, and now I had forgotten precisely what I did mean.
‘Fred?’
‘My wife. It’s short for Winifred.’
She threw back her head and laughed. She almost chortled. ‘You call her Fred? And she doesn’t mind?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said feebly.
‘What does Fred do?’ she asked.
‘She doesn’t mind me calling her Fred, but she doesn’t like other people doing so,’ I said.
‘Sorry. What does Winifred - Mrs Bates - do? Or is she just a faculty wife?’
‘Far from it. She and a partner have a shop-cum-gallery in the city centre.’ I told her something about Décor.
‘It sounds fascinating, I must go there. I need some drapes for these windows.’ She gestured at the rain-smeared windows, which were fitted with venetian blinds but lacked curtains.
‘I wouldn’t bother,’ I said. ‘Their prices are very steep.’
‘You don’t have to worry,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t be indiscreet.’
I could think of nothing to say that wouldn’t say too much.
‘I’ll go make some tea,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘Assam, right?’
While she was in the kitchenette I stood up to stretch my legs and wandered over to look at the contents of the bookshelves. As I passed the table which served as her desk my glance fell on a turquoise felt-tip highlighter lying in a small tray with a number of pens and pencils.
As I sit at my desk, writing this in the Anglepoise lamp’s cone of light, I still feel the shock of that observation, and the mental turmoil into which it plunged me. I pretended to carry out my intention of examining the books on the bookshelves, but I did not take in the titles inscribed on their spines. I told myself it was just a coincidence, that turquoise highlighters were ubiquitous, and I must not jump to conclusions, but some instinct told me that this was the murder weapon, covered with fingerprints and dripping with blood. Then my eye was caught by a familiar paperback on one of the shelves, Analysing Discourse:An Introduction, by Desmond Bates. I took it down and opened it. Alex’s name was written inside the front cover in small, neat handwriting: ‘Alex Loom’. I flipped through the book. On many pages passages of the text had been highlighted in turquoise. Hearing the tinkle of tea things being placed on a tray I hastily replaced the book on the shelf, and returned to my seat.
Though I tried to remain calm, Alex obviously noticed some change in my demeanour when she came back into the room. ‘You’re looking very serious,’ she said, as she poured the tea. ‘Is there something about my chapter you’ve been holding back?’
‘Not about the chapter, no,’ I said. ‘I was wondering if you know a book called Document Analysis, by a chap called Liverwright.’
‘Read it!’ she said triumphantly.
‘Have you got it here?’
‘No, it was a library copy. Much too expensive to buy, and anyway I didn’t get a lot out of it.’
‘The University library?’ I asked.
At this point she picked up the inquisitorial tone of my questions and paused for a second before replying. ‘Yes. Why d’you ask?’
‘Well, I happened to borrow the library’s copy myself the other day, and I found that it had been defaced by some previous reader. It was covered in marks made with a turquoise highlighter.’
‘Really?’ She didn’t blush or show any other sign of guilt. Her bright blue eyes met mine without wavering.‘It was unmarked when I borrowed it.’
‘Then perhaps you marked it,’ I said.
She laughed, but it was a forced laugh.‘What makes you think that?’
‘I noticed a turquoise highlighter on your table.’
She laughed again. ‘They’re quite common, Mr Holmes,’ she said.
‘And I just had a look at your copy of my book on discourse analysis, which is marked in the same way.’ She dropped her eyes and said nothing. ‘Of course you’re perfectly entitled to mark your own books in any way you like,’ I went on. ‘But doing that to a library book is sheer vandalism.’
‘I forgot it was a library book,’ she said. ‘I was working late, very tired, going from one book to another, some mine, some library copies . . .’
‘You don’t expect me to believe that,’ I said.
‘It’s true. I didn’t do it maliciously. Anyway, is it such a big deal? It’s not as if I ripped the pages out of the book. It’s still readable.’
‘It’s the principle of the thing,’ I said, getting to my feet.
‘Oh, don’t go!’ she said urgently, getting up too, and
looking as if she might at any moment fall to her knees. ‘Don’t go while you’re angry with me.’
‘I’m not angry,’ I said. ‘I’m embarrassed.’
‘Tell me what to do. I’ll do anything you say. I’ll buy a new copy for the library.’
‘That would be a good idea, certainly. But how many other books have you vandalised?’
‘None!’ she said. ‘Trust me.’
‘I’m afraid I could never trust someone who would make irremovable marks in a library book,’ I said.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Desmond!’ she said with a pouting smile, trying a change of tack. ‘Just listen to yourself. “Irremovable marks in a library book . . .” Lighten up!’
But I was not to be teased out of my anger. ‘And after that foolishness with your underwear the other day . . . I’ve had enough,’ I said. ‘I’m leaving now, and I won’t be coming back. Or giving you any more advice about your research.’ I picked up my document case and closed it, leaving the copy of her chapter on the coffee table.
‘Oh no!’ she wailed.
‘Oh yes,’ I said, and walked out of the room. Behind my back I heard her say ‘Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!’ I think she was addressing herself. I grabbed my coat from the hook in the lobby, and left the flat. As I pulled the front door shut behind me I heard a sound as if she had flung the tea tray and its contents across the room. I took the stairs rather than wait for the lift. A fine drizzle was still falling outside, and I realised I had forgotten my umbrella, but I did not go back for it.
25th November. I didn’t imagine Alex would accept the severance of relations between us without an attempt at reconciliation. I thought she might offer to return my umbrella, and make that the pretext for another meeting. Instead I got this email from her this morning:
Dear Desmond,
You’re right to be angry, it was a despicable thing to do, a stupid, lazy, selfish, moronic thing, and I deserve to be punished for it. I want you to punish me. Come to my apartment at the same time on the same day next week. If you can’t make it, email me your free afternoons and I’ll choose one. Come to Wharfside Court, and at exactly three o’clock ring my bell three times. I won’t answer on the intercom, but I’ll open the entrance door - you’ll hear the buzzer. You’ll find the door of my apartment unlatched: just push and it will open. Close it behind you and release the latch, so it locks. Don’t call out. Say nothing. Hang up your coat in the lobby. Go into the living room. The blinds will be down and it will be in semi-darkness. Don’t switch on the main light. There will be a table lamp with a red bulb switched on. You’ll see me bent over the table, with my head on a cushion. I’ll be naked from the waist down. Say nothing. Come up behind me and position yourself to spank my butt. Take off your jacket and roll up your shirtsleeve if you like. Don’t try to fuck me. This is NOT an invitation to fuck me, but to punish me. Use just the flat of your hand, no stick or other implement, but hit me as hard as you like, as many times as you like. If I cry out, if I sob into the cushion, don’t stop. Get the anger out of your system. When you’ve had enough, when you feel purged, just leave, silently, as you came. Pull the door of the apartment shut behind you, and leave the building.
The next time we meet we will say nothing about what has passed, or about the library book. The file will have been closed. We can carry on as if nothing had happened. This is good.
Alex
I must have read this through half a dozen times and every time I had an erection. I have no intention of keeping the proposed appointment, but I can’t get the Sadean scenario out of my mind. It is so easy to picture myself approaching the apartment building, as if in a film, checking my watch, pressing the bell push for flat 36 three times at precisely three o’clock, hearing the buzz and click as the lock on the entry door is released, ascending to the third floor, stealthily entering the apartment, closing the door behind me, taking off my coat in the almost dark hall, lit only by a dim red glow from the living room.When I enter the room it is exactly as she described: the blinds are down, the room illuminated by a red lamp in one corner, and there she is, bent across the table, her head turned sideways on a cushion, away from me so that I cannot see her face, wearing a black top on the upper half of her body, but naked from the waist down, except for a pair of shiny black high-heeled shoes (a detail my imagination added), her rosy buttocks exposed. I take off my jacket, roll up my right shirtsleeve, then with the fingers of two hands adjust the angle of her hips and lightly caress the curve of her buttocks, like a dog fancier steadying his trembling thorough-bred for display. I draw back my arm and then swing it forward, bringing my open palm smack into contact with her bottom. The sound and the sensation of my flesh against her flesh explodes in my head. I hear her gasp. I let my hand rest for a second where it landed before withdrawing it and smacking her again, and again, and again, pausing deliberately between each smack, favouring one cheek, then the other, in alternation, each time letting my stinging hand rest a little longer where it landed . . .
I have never had such a fantasy before. How did this woman intuit that somewhere in my psyche it was lurking, unsuspected, only waiting to be released?
26th November. Yesterday evening Fred came home from the shop a little late but in a good mood, having had a Happy Hour drink with Jakki to celebrate the sale of a quite expensive painting that afternoon. Over the chicken casserole I had prepared for us, and another glass of wine, she told me, with giggles, Jakki’s confidential account of her sex life with Lionel. Apparently they have erotic theme nights from time to time, dreamed up by him. For instance an Indian Night with incense burning in the bedroom, a raga on the tape-recorder, and the illustrated Kama Sutra open for reference on the bedside table. Or a Japanese Night: sexual congress on a floor mat with cushions, dressed in yukatas, with little cups of sake to hand for refreshment. Or Italian sex, with Amoretti sweetmeats to nibble, Asti Spumante to drink, and Puccini arias as background music. We amused ourselves with thinking up additional themes that would test their imagination and/or stamina: Eskimo Night, Roman Orgy Night, D.H. Lawrence Night . . . Though we mocked them it was not without a tinge of envy on my part, and, I sensed, on Fred’s too. ‘Oh well, good luck to them,’ she said, pouring herself another glass of wine. ‘They obviously enjoy it, and why not?’ ‘Would you like to try something of the sort?’ I ventured. ‘We’re too old for high jinks of that kind, darling,’ she said, generously including herself in the same age bracket as myself. ‘Besides, to enjoy that type of thing you have to take it absolutely seriously, and I’m afraid I would burst out laughing at the absurdity of it.’ ‘True, laughter is the enemy of the erotic,’ I said, a little sadly. ‘But we could have a little old-fashioned sex tonight, if you feel like it,’ she said. ‘OK,’ I said, corking the wine bottle.
Later, in the bedroom, as we came naked from our respective bathrooms and embraced, she said: ‘If you did have a theme night what would it be?’ I said: ‘Spanking Night.’ She drew back her head and stared. ‘Darling! What an idea! Who would spank whom?’ ‘I would like to spank you,’ I said, ‘but I suppose we could take turns, if you fancy it.’ She laughed almost hysterically. ‘You want to take me over your knee? Wouldn’t I be a bit heavy?’ I looked round the room. ‘You could clear the top of your dressing table and bend over that.’ She gave me quite a hard slap on the bottom, and I yelped, ‘Ow!’ ‘You see?’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t really like it.’ ‘You took me by surprise,’ I said, ‘but the effect is actually quite stimulating. Look.’ Grinning, she gave me another, harder slap. I retaliated. Struggling and laughing, we collapsed on to the bed. Later, not laughing, I did to Fred what Alex had forbidden me to do to her, closing my eyes and imagining myself in that red-lit room. It was the best sex we have had for a long time.
11
28th November. I went to London yesterday to see Dad. Those last three words are redundant. Why else do I go to London now? Gone are the days when I would travel down on business, expenses paid, to attend a committee
meeting or examine a PhD, or to meet a publisher, paying my own fare but getting a bibulous free lunch, with time to spare afterwards to catch a film, see an exhibition, or browse in the Charing Cross Road bookshops before taking the train back home. Nowadays, burrowing underground at King’s Cross, hurtling through the dark wormholes of the Tube, and surfacing again beneath the girdered vault of London Bridge station, I don’t even see the West End. The last time I saw it in fact was on July 7th last year when I arrived in London in mid-morning to find the terminus seething with bewildered travellers and the whole city paralysed by what was at first reported as a massive power failure of the Underground, and later as four coordinated bomb attacks. All public transport was suspended. There was no way of either getting across London to see Dad or returning home. I queued for half an hour for a public phone - for once I wished I possessed a mobile, though people who had them were complaining bitterly to each other that the system was overloaded and that they couldn’t get a connection - and having called both Dad and Fred to assure them I was safe, I went for a long walk in an eerily quiet central London.
There were plenty of pedestrians about, especially in the afternoon as offices and shops closed and their employees began their long treks home on foot to far-flung suburbs, but the roads were empty of traffic, apart from the occasional police car or ambulance racing by with lights flashing and sirens redundantly wailing. At that stage nobody knew the extent or nature of the explosions, but there was a general assumption that they were the work of Al Qaeda or some similar group and that the long-awaited sequel to New York’s 9/11 had finally come to London.There was no panic but a stoical, phlegmatic, Blitz-like mood on the streets. An angry, red-faced drunk in a filthy raincoat shouted ‘Fucking Arabs!’ in Leicester Square, but nobody took much notice of him. In John Lewis, the last department store to stay open on Oxford Street, I bought a silver rollerball pen for Fred’s birthday on the almost deserted ground floor with the exclusive assistance of three sales staff. One mentioned that she had been up to the sports department and bought a pair of trainers in which to walk home to her flat in Chiswick. It stuck in my mind as an eminently sensible, pragmatic reaction to the emergency.
