by David Lodge
Perhaps it’s true that nobody ever committed suicide on account of deafness. Beethoven came pretty close, but, as Alex said, he didn’t. You could say that the Heiligenstadt Testament was instead of a suicide note, designed to be found after he died by natural causes, but having just the same motives as a suicide note: to reveal the depth of his despair to his family and friends, to explain why he seemed outwardly such a grouchy unsociable bastard, and make them feel bad for not realising how wretched he had been. Maybe that’s why I started writing this journal; maybe that’s what it is, a testament. The Rectory Road Testament.
9th December. Dad phoned this morning, cock-a-hoop because he has won three £50 prizes in Premium Bonds, received this morning, only two weeks after sending off his letter of complaint about not winning anything for six months. ‘You see? I told you!’ he crowed.
‘Dad,’ I said, ‘you don’t seriously think your letter made them give you a prize?’
‘Three prizes! ’Course it did! I got ’em rattled.They said to themselves, this Harry Bates is no fool. He’s going to cause trouble if we’re not careful. Let’s bung him a few quid and keep him quiet.’
I was about to argue that it was just a coincidence, but then I thought: why deprive him of his moment of triumph? ‘Well, congratulations, Dad. You did well.’
‘I did, didn’t I? No thanks to you - you didn’t want me to write that letter, remember.’
‘I must admit I didn’t expect it would have such a magical effect,’ I said. ‘But I’m not sure it will work again.’
‘Well, we’ll see, won’t we? Maybe somebody up there in Blackpool will make it his business to keep me happy in future, so I don’t have to send them another letter.’
‘Well, I hope so, Dad,’ I said. ‘What are you going to spend the prize money on?’
‘What?’ I repeated the question. ‘Oh, well, I don’t know,’ he said, the euphoria quickly leaking away from his voice. ‘I don’t know that I want to spend it on anything. I’ll put it in the bank for a rainy day.’
‘Well, I won’t suggest you get a new mattress -’
‘Good.’
My reason was that if he moved into a care home in the near future a bed would probably be provided, or we might seize the opportunity to buy him a new one, but I didn’t think it would be politic to explain this.To change the subject, I told him I had started going to a lip-reading class.
‘A what class?’
After several repetitions and explanations of the term I got him to understand.
‘Oh. Well, I suppose that might be useful to someone with your problem, son,’ he said.
12th December. A disturbing encounter with Colin Butterworth in the University today. I had been in the Library, browsing in the periodical room, and he was ascending the steps of the building as I came out. He was actually bounding up them - he always gives the impression of being in a hurry - but came to a halt as he saw me, and waited for me to descend.There was a strong wind blowing, ruffling his dark curly locks, which in daylight are visibly flecked with grey. He wore a suede leather jacket and an open-necked shirt. ‘Hallo, Desmond,’ he said. ‘How are you?’
‘All right,’ I said, wondering what this was about. Usually we do no more than nod to each other when we meet.
‘Have you got a moment?’
I said I had, and he suggested we go to his office, postponing his visit to the Library. ‘It can wait,’ he said. On the way to his office he made conversation about the University’s position in a recently published league table of applications per student place, in which English had apparently done well, but that was obviously not what he wanted to talk to me about. I had an intuition that it would be about Alex, and I was not wrong. When he had closed the door of his office behind us, he gestured me to an upright armchair and sat down behind his desk in a hi-tech tilting swivel chair which is not standard University issue.
‘You know Alex Loom,’ he said.
‘I’ve met her, yes,’ I said. ‘As I mentioned the other day.’
‘More than once, I believe,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said, wondering if he knew about our meeting in Pam’s Pantry, for I could not imagine Alex telling him about our meetings in her flat. ‘Why do you ask?’
Although he was in the inquisitor’s seat, he seemed ill at ease, unconfident, and swung his chair to look away, out of the window, at the dark grey clouds scudding across the sky. ‘You may think it’s none of my business. I certainly don’t want to intrude . . .’
He lowered his voice and I didn’t catch what he was saying. ‘I’m afraid I’m rather hard of hearing,’ I said. ‘I didn’t quite -’
He swung his chair back to face me. ‘Sorry! I said . . . well, in a word, I would advise you not to get involved with her.’
‘I’ve only met her a few times,’ I said, ‘to discuss her research project, at her request. I made it quite clear that I could only help her very informally, in no way encroaching on your role as her supervisor.’>
‘You didn’t think of consulting me about that?’ he said, with a hint of complaint now.
It was a perfectly legitimate point, and I groped a little for a satisfactory reply. ‘Well, I didn’t think of it - I don’t think of it - as an ongoing arrangement. I thought it would be a one-off conversation. But she’s rather persistent.’
‘She’s a menace,’ he said. ‘Has she said anything to you about me?’
‘No,’ I said unhesitatingly.
‘Well, if she does, disregard it. She’s seriously disturbed in my opinion, a classic schizoid type.’
‘Why do you say that?’ I said.
‘Haven’t you noticed anything odd, not to say bizarre, in her behaviour?’
Remembering the panties in my coat pocket, the vandalised library book and the invitation to spank her, I could only produce an unconvincing, ‘Not particularly.’
‘You probably haven’t known her long enough,’ Butterworth said. ‘She has violent mood swings. She’ll do something quite outrageous and then beg for forgiveness.’
‘What kind of thing?’ I asked.
‘Oh . . . stupid things . . .’ He obviously didn’t want to specify them. ‘But potentially embarrassing.’
‘Perhaps she should get some help,’ I said. ‘The University Counselling Service . . .’
‘I’ve hinted that she might do that, but she laughs and denies that there’s anything wrong with her. Then she says she’s through with therapy, and you discover she’s had years of it in America . . .’
‘She seems quite bright,’ I said.
‘She’s clever, but not as clever as she thinks she is, or would like others to think. She has a chronic problem about producing anything for assessment, in case it doesn’t match her own self-estimate.’
I thought it would be tactless to mention that she had shown me a passable chapter of her thesis, so I said: ‘She posted something on the Internet which shows considerable wit and intelligence, whatever one thinks of the ethics of it.’
‘You mean that Writer’s Guide to suicide notes? Yes, I’ve seen that, she directed my attention to it. I very much doubt whether she wrote it.’
This suggestion surprised me, but I immediately saw how plausible it was. I felt a strange disappointment. ‘Why do you say that?’ I asked.
‘It’s an anonymous document - anybody could claim authorship.’
‘Why would she do so?’
‘To impress. You were impressed, obviously.’
I couldn’t deny it. I also remembered Alex frowning when I aired my doubts about the possible effects of the piece, and saying, ‘I get the feeling you disapprove.’ Perhaps she was wondering whether she would rise or fall in my estimation by confessing that she hadn’t written it. ‘Well, you may be right, I suppose,’ I said. ‘There’s no way of knowing.’
‘There’s internal evidence,’ he said. ‘The lexis of the piece is more English than American.’ He allowed himself a little moment of professional one-upman
ship. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t notice that.’
‘Well, she was educated for a time in England,’ I said, piqued into defending myself. ‘It can have a permanent effect on a person’s writing style.’
‘True,’ he conceded. ‘But she really is completely untrustworthy. The only piece of written work I’ve managed to get out of her turned out to be largely cribbed from another source.’
‘What was it about?’ I asked, with a sinking feeling.
‘Oh, paragraph breaks in suicide notes. Two types, related to the subjects’ motivation. There was a brief footnote acknowledging the other article, in a psychology journal, but when I chased it up and read it, I found that almost everything she said was derived from it. It turned out that the author of the article was a former boyfriend. She said he wouldn’t mind - seemed to think that put her in the clear as regards plagiarism.’
‘I see,’ I said. I felt like a foolish dupe, and I suppose I must have looked it.
There was a tap on the door. Butterworth glanced at his watch. ‘I’ve got a supervision,’ he said. ‘Look, Desmond . . .’ He leaned forward in his chair and spoke earnestly. ‘This girl is trouble, and I rue the day I ever took her on. I don’t need to tell you the pressure we’re under to take on eligible postgrads from abroad for their fees, and as you can probably imagine she gave a very plausible performance when I interviewed her, and her references looked OK. But it’s my belief that she’s not capable of completing a PhD, as much for psychological as intellectual reasons. My advice to you is not to get involved with her, or you’ll find yourself writing her thesis for her. And don’t trust a word she says.’
I thanked him for his advice and took my leave. Loitering in the corridor outside was the young man with the laptop who had been in the café.
I must find some way of severing relations with Alex without inviting retaliatory mischief. But how?
13th December. Something happened yesterday evening which in some ways made the Alex problem more manageable, and in other ways less so. Fred and I went to the press night for the Playhouse’s Christmas show, Peter Pan. It was nicely staged, with meticulous period detail, but had a black Peter Pan. The young actor playing the role was actually rather good, but I found his exotic appearance in the middle-class Edwardian milieu, which would certainly have excited comment from the Darling children, but which the text did not permit them to notice, a constant distraction. I might accept the socio-political case for colour-blind casting, as I believe they call it, if its proponents would admit that it often carries a certain aesthetic price, but they won’t. I was arguing about this with Fred in the foyer during the interval - she sits on the Friends of the Playhouse committee and was taking a contrary view - when to my dismay I saw Alex approaching us, with a smile of recognition on her face. She was wearing the same red silk blouse as when I first met her, but with a swift, almost imperceptible movement of her hand she did up the lower of the two buttons at her throat as she drew near.
‘Hallo, Professor Bates,’ she said.
I think I performed fairly well the part of an elderly, slightly absent-minded professor, mildly pleased to meet a presentable slight acquaintance in these circumstances and introduce her to his wife if he could only remember her name. ‘Oh, hallo!’ I said. ‘Fred, this is, er . . .’
‘Alex,’ she said, helpfully, playing her part, and shaking Fred’s extended hand.
‘Yes, Alex Loom, she’s a postgraduate at the University, in the English Department, I think I told you about her research project -’
‘I’ve seen you before somewhere,’ Fred said to Alex. ‘I know - at the ARC - you were talking to Desmond at a party, their last opening.’>
‘Yes,’ I interposed. ‘You asked me afterwards who she was and I had no idea because I hadn’t heard a thing she said.’ I smiled ruefully to show this was a joke against myself. ‘But we met subsequently in quieter circumstances.’
‘Desmond is hard of hearing,’ Fred explained.
‘Oh dear,’ Alex said sympathetically. ‘How do you manage in the theatre? It must be difficult.’
‘It is. But I use this thing,’ I said, taking the wishbone-shaped headset out of my jacket pocket and brandishing it in the air. ‘I’ve discovered the optimum place to sit in this auditorium for using it. And I do know this play pretty well.’
‘So do I, I love it,’ Alex said.
‘What do you think of the Peter Pan?’ Fred asked her.
‘I think he’s brilliant. Such a bold bit of casting. It gives a whole new dimension to his outsider-character.’
How did she know that was the right answer to impress Fred? Or was she quite sincere? With Alex, how could one possibly know? The roar of conversation in the foyer had now reached a decibel level that ruled out any further part in the conversation for me, but I could see the two women were getting on well together. When the bell rang for us to return to our seats, Fred shook Alex’s hand again and I heard her say: ‘Drop in any time, we’re open from nine-thirty to six, seven on Thursdays.’
‘Thanks so much, I will,’ Alex said, with her most winsome smile.
‘What a nice young woman,’ Fred said, as we made our way back to our seats in the front stalls. ‘I told her about Décor, and she was very interested. She needs some curtains for her flat.’
‘She couldn’t possibly afford anything in your shop,’ I said, irritably and injudiciously.
‘How would you know?’ Fred retorted, but without any tone of suspicion. ‘She may have rich American parents.’
I was going to say that Alex was paying her own fees, but decided not to reveal this much knowledge of her circumstances.
‘You told me about her PhD topic, but I forget what it was,’ Fred said as we took our seats. ‘Something rather odd . . .’
‘A stylistic study of suicide notes.’
‘That’s right. What a depressing subject to choose. You would never have guessed to look at her. Do you think she has a personal interest in it?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, as the lights went down for the second half. ‘I don’t know much about her.’
I paid little attention to the rest of the play because I was thinking about the implications of this meeting. I was relieved to have established in Fred’s mind the idea of an entirely innocent acquaintance between myself and Alex. On the other hand the likelihood of their getting together again, without me, is full of alarming possibilities.
Dad has been on the phone a lot lately, asking about what Christmas presents to get for members of the family. I try to persuade him that nobody expects him to give presents, but he brushes this suggestion aside, claiming that he would feel embarrassed if people gave him presents and he didn’t give them any in return. It’s a reasonable point and highlights the unreasonableness of the whole present-giving ritual. I try to suggest some cheap, simple token presents for him to give, but he forgets what they were and rings me up to ask again. In the end I say with some exasperation, why don’t you give everybody the same thing - a small box of After Eights, say? ‘Don’t be daft,’ he says. ‘Imagine everybody opening my presents and finding the same thing inside. I’d be a laughing stock.’ ‘Well, buy them all different kinds of chocolates, then.’ To my relief he accepts this suggestion. ‘But not for Daniel and Lena,’ I remember to add.‘Marcia doesn’t like them eating sweets.’ ‘Who are they?’ he asks. ‘Marcia is Fred’s daughter. Daniel and Lena are her children.’ ‘Gawd,’ he said, ‘I hadn’t reckoned with them. I’d better write down their names.’ ‘No, no, don’t bother! You don’t have to give them anything,’ I say, but it is too late. ‘What about you, son? I can’t give you a box of After Eights.’ ‘Of course you can,’ I say. ‘I love them. I can’t get enough of them. When we have any, Fred eats them all.’ This of course is a total fiction, but it does the trick.
We discuss the logistics of his visit. I will drive down to London on the day before Christmas Eve to pick him up, and take him back to Lime Avenue two days after Boxing
Day. ‘It would help if you are all packed and ready when I arrive,’ I say. ‘I’ll have to drain the tank that morning,’ he says. ‘It takes time.’ ‘Why?’ I say. ‘Well if the weather turns cold the pipes might freeze,’ he says. ‘Leave the central heating on, then they won’t,’ I say. ‘What?’ he exclaims. ‘Leave it on when I’m not here?’ We have a long argument about this at the end of which I threaten not to come and fetch him if he won’t agree to leave the central heating on while he’s away. Reluctantly he agrees. Whether he’ll keep his word is another matter.
