Deaf Sentence

by David Lodge

  She was silent for a moment.

  ‘I guess you’re upset about your daddy’s death,’ she said. ‘I can understand that. I’ll let you think about it for a while.’

  ‘I won’t change my mind,’ I said, and to change the subject I added: ‘By the way, Fred tells me you have an outstanding account with her, for some curtains. It would avoid embarrassment if you could settle it.’

  There followed another of Alex’s enigmatic telephonic pauses. ‘Yeah, I’m sorry about that. Fact is, I’m short of cash at the moment. You wouldn’t lend me the money, would you?’

  ‘You mean lend you the money to pay my wife?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s only four hundred and fifty pounds.’

  ‘Fred said it was four hundred.’

  ‘Oh yeah, right. I paid a deposit of fifty, I remember now.’

  It was my turn to pause for rapid thought. I was pretty sure her mistake had been deliberate, and pretty sure too that this loan would never be repaid. Her cool cheek amazed me, but for a moment I was tempted to pay her off, so to speak, with this favour. Then I thought of what mischief she might make with a cheque for £400 signed by me, unknown to Fred, and handing her a brown envelope full of used banknotes under the table at Pam’s Pantry might be equally compromising. ‘No, Alex,’ I said, for the third time, and rang off.

  Later today I got an email from Butterworth saying that, for reasons I was aware of, it had become impossible for him to continue supervising Alex, and that he had tried without success to find a colleague willing to take her on. She herself had suggested I might be approached, indeed urged it with great enthusiasm, since she had already received valuable informal advice from me. He could think of no one better qualified than myself to supervise her, and was sure that there would be no problem about appointing me as an external supervisor with an appropriate stipend. He himself, needless to say, would be extraordinarily grateful if I would act in this capacity.

  I replied that I was sorry, but, for several reasons which I didn’t want to go into, it was out of the question.

  26th February. The funeral today went off well. There was a decent number of people present in the crematorium chapel: Anne and Jim of course, with baby Desmond, and Richard; but I was grateful that so many of Fred’s family made the effort to come, not only Marcia and Peter and the children, who live near, but Ben and Maxine and Giles came up from London, and even Cecilia made the long journey from Cheltenham, which considering how little joy she got from Dad’s company was really very nice of her. There were also a few friends and neighbours who had met him when he stayed with us, and remembered him affectionately as a ‘character’, whom Fred thought of inviting. I was surprised and moved by the turn-out. The service was a success - it sounds rather flippant to say so, but a funeral is a form of theatre, it can be a flop or a hit, and frankly it’s an advantage to have a minister of religion running the show. I went to a humanist funeral once and I wouldn’t want to have one myself even though I’m a humanist. When Fr Michael asked me if Dad had been baptised, I said yes, though I couldn’t swear to it, on the assumption that everybody was christened in respectable working-class society in his day, so we began with the language of Christian prayer.The loop system in the chapel was about the best I have ever experienced, and I heard every word:

  The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all . . . In the waters of Baptism, Harry died with Christ and rose with him to new life . . . Confident that God always remembers the good we have done and forgives our sins, let us pray, asking God to gather Harry to Himself . . .

  There is something seemly about the language of transcendence, even if you don’t believe in it, at a funeral. They were, I suppose, petitionary, or rather intercessionary, prayers we were saying ‘Amen’ to, but what after all is a prayer but a wish - a wish, in this case, that there might be an afterlife in which the evil and suffering and mistakes and disappointments of this one will be redeemed - and wishing is only human. Do animals wish? Do computers wish? I think not. According to tradition, Beethoven’s last words were: ‘I will hear in heaven.’ I don’t suppose he actually said them, but they express our wish for him.

  Richard struck a more bracingly materialist note by reading a powerful passage from the journal of Bruce Cummings, an early twentieth century naturalist, which I photocopied before he went back to Cambridge:

  To me the honour is sufficient of belonging to the universe - such a great universe, and so great a scheme of things. Not even Death can rob me of that honour. For nothing can alter the fact that I have lived; I have been I, if for ever so short a time. And when I am dead, the matter which composes my body is indestructible - and eternal, so that come what may to my ‘Soul’, my dust will always be going on, each separate atom of me playing its separate part - I shall still have some sort of finger in the pie. When I am dead, you can boil me, burn me, drown me, scatter me - but you cannot destroy me: my little atoms would merely deride such heavy vengeance. Death can do no more than kill you.

  Fr Michael pursed his lips a little as he listened to these words, but I heard him say to Richard afterwards in his Irish brogue, ‘That was a very inter-resting passage you read. Who was the fella that wrote it, now?’ Anne spoke tenderly about her memories of Dad when she was young, and finished by reading a short poem she got off the Internet:

  Where do people go to when they die?

  Somewhere down below or in the sky?

  ‘I can’t be sure,’ said Granddad, ‘but it seems

  They simply set up home inside our dreams.’

  Not the greatest poetry, perhaps, but it expressed a truth: I have dreamed several times of Dad since he died. Then we sang that least dogmatic of hymns, ‘To Be a Pilgrim’, and it was time for my few words. I spoke of Dad’s indomitable spirit, the way he had adapted himself to changes and setbacks in his long career, and his determination to live his own life in his own house, which he almost achieved to the very end. I explained that I had chosen Delius’s ‘Walk to the Paradise Garden’ for the entrance to the chapel, the slow movement of Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 2 for the committal, and ‘Nimrod’ from Elgar’s Enigma Variations for the exit - because they were all favourites of his, which he liked to listen to on his music centre, reclining in an armchair with a handkerchief over his face to keep out the light and other visual distractions. It was a habit carried over from the time when he worked in nightclubs, and managed to sleep through the hours of daylight by having a pillow over his head as well as one under it.

  When we got back to the house and had had something to eat and drink, I played my tape recording of Dad’s scratchy old record of ‘The Night, the Stars and the Music’. Although it was only a demo recording, not commercially released, it was made with the full Arthur Roseberry band, perhaps supplemented for the occasion. After a long swooning, swooping introduction with harmonised saxophones, muted horns, a piano solo and even a few bars of what sounds like a mandolin, Dad’s voice breaks in, incredibly high, effortlessly sweet, his pitch perfect, his enunciation just a shade over-anxious.

  The night, the stars and the music,

  The magic of a tryst with you.

  Romance, a dance and the music,

  The loveliness of you,

  My dream of dreams come true . . .

  Something like that, anyway. It was impossible to make out all the words from this second-generation copy of a very imperfect original, but it didn’t really matter. What we heard, from beyond the grave, as it were, was a voice, the voice of a young man, eager, alive, and capable of simulating the rapture of romantic love. When the record came to an end, there were sighs and murmurs of appreciation from the listeners, and a patter of applause, which little Daniel instantly imitated, clapping his hands vigorously. I had been slightly surprised that Marcia and Peter brought him and Lena to the funeral, but very pleased. It was good to have these children, and the babe in Anne’s arms, to represent the beginning of the huma
n life cycle at an event focused on its end. They had been very well behaved in the chapel, attentive and not apparently disturbed by the proceedings. I asked Daniel what part of the service he liked best, and he said: ‘I liked it when he went down,’ referring to the slow descent and disappearance of the coffin at the committal, which I suppose must have seemed rather magical to his infant perception. I was interested to note that Daniel has begun to use the first-person pronoun.

  28th February. I opened my email at about ten this morning to find a message from Alex, with one word in the subject box: ‘Goodbye’.

  Dear Desmond,

  You’re absolutely right of course. I am flaky, deceitful, and incapable of completing a doctoral dissertation. My life has been one long series of failures, frustrations, and follies, so I have decided to end it. I’ve read too many suicide notes to try to write one that wouldn’t seem another, final failure, but perhaps this is the first one to be delivered by email. On reflection it’s probably not, but I’m betting that you don’t get up in the middle of the night, as I have been known to do, to check your email, so that by the time you read this I will be gone and never bother you again. Don’t feel bad about it. I’ve taken the pills and cut my wrists and now I’m going to press the Send button while I still have the strength.

  Goodbye Desdond.

  Alex

  I looked at the time on the dateline of the message: 03.21. Nearly seven hours ago. I ran to my car without bothering to set the house burglar alarm, and drove to Wharfside Court as fast as the traffic permitted. I had no idea whether the message was genuine, or some kind of joke - whether I would find Alex unconscious, or dead, curled up on her blood-soaked bed, or lolling naked in a bath full of red-tinted water; or whether she would open the door with a smile, smart and svelte as usual in her black top and pants, saying with a flick of her glossy blonde hair,‘Hi! Come in. I thought that would bring you running.’ Was her use of the word ‘suicide’ - avoided, as she had told me, by most people who committed it - a hint that her note was a hoax, or on the contrary a guarantee of its authenticity? Was the uncorrected typo, ‘Desdond’, evidence that the pills or loss of blood were beginning to take their effect, or a cunning device to give just that impression?

  A speed camera flashed as I passed it on the way to Wharfside Court, and I wondered if I could avoid three penalty points by pleading an emergency. If the note was genuine, I might; if it was a hoax, probably not. I sent up a petitionary prayer that it was a hoax, not just for Alex’s sake, but for my own. I had a vivid premonition of the consequences if she were dead: an inquest, the contents of her hard disk submitted in evidence, her emails read out in court, the coroner’s questions (‘What exactly was your relationship to the deceased, Professor Bates?’). ‘Don’t feel bad about it,’ she had written, but the opening of that email had been designed to make me do just that: ‘You’re absolutely right, of course. I am flaky, deceitful, and incapable of completing a doctoral dissertation.’ (‘What remark of yours does this refer to, Professor Bates? Would you say it might have precipitated Miss Loom’s decision to take her own life?’)

  I squealed to a halt in the parking lot as near as possible to the building’s entrance, between a saloon car and a large van, and ran to the lift. It was evidently stuck on the third floor, so I strode up the stairs and arrived panting at the door to Alex’s flat. Two men in jeans and sweatshirts were manoeuvring her sofa through the doorway.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I gasped.

  One of the men said something. I realised that in my haste I had forgotten to put in my hearing aid before I left the house, and that it was now reposing on my desk, zipped cosily into its little purse.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  The man said something again, and when I didn’t appear to understand, jerked his head towards the interior of the flat. They moved off, carrying the sofa towards the open lift, and I entered the flat. A youngish man in a dark suit was standing at the window of the almost empty living room, looking out across the canal. He wheeled round as I entered and said something with a politely questioning air.

  It was fortunate that Jeremy Hall, as he told me in the course of our conversation, has an elderly father who is pretty deaf, so he is used to raising his voice and speaking clearly. Thanks to that, and with a tolerable amount of repetition, he was able to explain into my cupped ear what had happened. The bailiffs had arrived that morning to repossess Alex’s furniture, all of which had been bought from a single megastore on credit terms on which she had defaulted. They had arrived very early to be sure of finding Alex at home, but found the door of the flat on the latch and the place unoccupied. Most clothing and other personal possessions, apart from some books, had been removed, and a neighbour reported seeing Alex getting into a cab with two large suitcases three days ago. The bailiffs had contacted the estate agency which manages the letting of Alex’s flat, and asked them to send someone to witness the authorised removal of the furniture and secure the flat after they had left. Hall had been given this task. He told me Alex was three months in arrears with her rent and that they were in the process of taking legal action against her. ‘It seems she’s done a runner,’ he said phlegmatically.

  He asked me, reasonably enough, why I had come to the flat, and I said I had received a disturbing email from Alex that morning, suggesting that she might do herself some harm. ‘But it can’t have been sent from here,’ I said looking round the now nearly empty room.

  ‘Probably sent from America,’ he said. ‘She was American wasn’t she? My bet is she’s gone back there.’

  ‘Will you pursue her there?’ I asked.

  ‘Not much point,’ he said with a shrug. ‘It would cost us more than it’s worth. Her name will go on a list, and if she tried to get back into this country she’d be in trouble, but I imagine she’s too smart to risk that.’

  The senior of the two bailiffs came into the room and said to him, ‘We’re finished here, then.’

  Hall looked around the room and nodded towards the window. ‘What about the curtains? A nice bit of material.’

  ‘They’re not on the inventory,’ the bailiff said. ‘They don’t belong to our client.’

  ‘No, they belong to my wife,’ I said.

  Hall laughed. ‘How’s that?’

  When I explained he said, ‘I know that shop, in the Rialto mall, isn’t it? Good-quality stuff. Why don’t you take them?’

  I thought: why not? The material, a rich velvet brocade in tones of red and black, could be used for cushion covers. Hall didn’t seem to want any proof or receipt - just my name and address - and he helped me to stand on the window ledge to unhook the curtains from the runners.

  I was putting the curtains into the boot of my car when a Volvo estate came into the parking lot at some speed and drew up in the space vacated by the bailiffs’ van. Colin Butterworth got out of the car and gave a start as he recognised me. He looked pale and tense, and he was unshaven, though he was dressed in one of his smart suits. He said something as he came up to me.

  ‘You’ll have to speak louder,’ I said. ‘I’m not wearing my hearing aid.’

  ‘Where’s Alex? Is she all right? I just got back from Paris this morning and found a message saying she was going to kill herself.’

  ‘Me too,’ I said.

  I related to him briefly what had happened. He almost crumpled to the ground with relief. ‘Thank God!’ he exclaimed. ‘Thank God.’ He fumbled in his jacket pocket for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, lit up, and inhaled deeply. ‘Is it possible that little bitch is out of my life for good?’ he wondered aloud. ‘It seems too good to be true.’ Then a dismaying thought struck him. ‘Suppose she’s written emails to other people?’

  ‘You mean, to the chairperson of the Staff-Student Relations Board, for instance?’

  ‘Exactly.’ He dragged on his cigarette.

  ‘Well, you’ll soon find out,’ I said unsympathetically. He shot me a resentful glance, but said nothing. I relented a li
ttle, and said: ‘Anyway, as I understand it, she can’t return to this country to give evidence against you without being arrested for debt.’

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I wonder what she’s going to do next? Talk her way into another university and fuck up some other poor bugger’s life I suppose.’

  ‘She might try writing fiction,’ I said. ‘She’s got the imagination for it. It wouldn’t surprise me if we both turn up lightly disguised in a campus novel one of these days.’

  I was joking, but he seemed to take the threat seriously. ‘Christ, I hope not,’ he said. If I had felt before that he got off lightly, with my help, from his involvement with Alex, I now saw that he would never be entirely free from the fear that one day she would pop up again to cause him trouble.

  I am of course, as relieved as Butterworth at Alex’s sudden removal of herself from my life, and my disapproval of his conduct is not as righteous as he thinks. If I turned down opportunities for kinky shenanigans with her, that was as much out of timidity as principle, and even so I wove a web of deceit around my dealings with her from which I have been lucky to escape unscathed, with my wife’s trust intact. When Fred comes home this evening, I shall be able to tell her the story of the morning’s events without compromising myself - or Butterworth, for that matter, since it’s entirely plausible that Alex should have sent a fake suicide note to him too. She will be shocked and astonished by Alex’s conduct, of course, but I think she was already beginning to have reservations about her character. And she will be amused by my resourcefulness in recovering the curtains. I am a lucky man.