by David Lodge
‘Poor Clare.’
‘Poor Mark, to have a neurotic ex-nun for a girl-friend.’
‘I’m not complaining,’ he said, drawing her into his embrace.
Without warning, something gave inside her, like some part of a dam long under unsuspected strain. Emotion seemed to gush out of her eyes, nose, mouth, as she sighed, wept, mumbled between kisses, covering his face with spit, tears, lipstick and rain, clinging to him with the frantic strength of a drowning swimmer. But even in this tumult she felt that Mark was the sane, controlled life-guard, trying to calm her. She wanted to pull him down with her. She was seized with a desire to feel his hand on her breast again, as she had felt it for a fleeting second months ago. Seizing his hand, she kissed it, and thrust it under her raincoat and pressed it to her bosom. For a moment she felt his fingers cup her breast, then he snatched his hand away.
‘No, Clare.’
She was stunned by the rebuff. It wasn’t until they were inside the dark hall, and Mark had taken off her coat and carefully hung it up, that shame and humiliation began to return to her numbed consciousness like the blood to her face. Then she ran soundlessly to her room. She heard his low, troubled call, ‘Clare’, as she turned at the top of the stairs. But there was hesitation and doubt in his voice, and she did not turn back.
* * *
Damien writhed in anger as he stood penned in the bus shelter like an animal, with this herd of obnoxious Cockneys. The meeting at the Presbytery after Benediction had dragged on far too long, but he had caught his bus, and was congratulating himself on being out of the rain, when the conductor had bawled ‘All change!’ and he had been ejected, despite his protests, on to the streaming pavements, with less than half his journey completed. The ‘shelter’ was a ridiculously inadequate affair, consisting only of a tubular metal frame with a narrow roof, thus allowing one to be squashed by the crowd packed into its small area, and soaked by the rain that swept in through its open sides. Moreover, he was so near to the kerb that heavy vehicles passing close by spattered his shoes and trousers with filth. He had apparently had the misfortune to be dumped at the end of this bus-queue at the very moment when cinemas, dance-halls and public-houses were spewing forth their patrons on to the pavements. The indignity of the situation infuriated him: that he, straight from church, should be swamped by this ribald, vulgar, beer-reeking mob reeling out from their godless pleasures. Swearing, grumbling, joking in loud voices, they heaved in a damp, excited mass, struggling for a place on each bus, as it drew up, already full. A fat, smelly old harridan with a stick became quite offensive when Damien attempted to thrust his way to his rightful position at the front of the queue.
‘’Ere! Where d’you think you’re goin’? You orter be ashamed of yourself. Sum people can’t wait patient. There’s others was ’ere before you, yer know.’
She continued to mutter threateningly to herself and to anyone who might listen. ‘Sauce! Some people got no manners at all …’
Damien, sickened, and a little frightened, turned his back on the crowd, and stared sulkily across the street.
Suddenly he caught sight of Clare and Underwood walking arm in arm along the opposite pavement. They were half-hidden beneath an umbrella, and had evidently not seen him. A sudden rush of emotions—jealousy and envy, mingled with satisfaction at observing them unbeknown—made him forget his uncomfortable situation for a moment. Then, acting on an impulse, he drove his hip viciously into the side of the old woman, and taking advantage of the space momentarily gained by this manœuvre, ducked under the rail, and crossed the road. A stream of foul language issued from the old woman’s lips, but Damien ignored her.
In fact, he scarcely heard her. His thoughts were with the two figures ahead, so tightly linked beneath the sheltering dome of the umbrella. Too tightly. It was quite unnecessary that Underwood should clasp her waist like that. For all his much-vaunted ‘conversion’, it seemed that he still lusted after the pleasures of the flesh, still itched to finger the curve of Clare’s side, to feel her thigh brush against his. Conversion! One had to admire his cunning. Clare was a gullible girl, and a show of religious fervour had been all that was needed to make her quite infatuated with Underwood. She probably believed that she had converted him. He had bewitched her. Not nine months out of the convent, and she was behaving like a trollop, encouraging him to hold her tightly round the waist, tossing back her head to laugh, looking into his face with a silly, fatuous smile. Yet when he himself had offered to kiss her …
He stiffened suddenly as if in sudden pain, as he recollected the incident. It was the dark hall of the Mallorys’ house on Christmas afternoon. Clare was in the bathroom, and he waited for her at the bottom of the stairs. He tried to suggest it was a casual encounter as he stepped from the shadows, but realized at once that his subterfuge was painfully obvious. Doggedly, however, he went through with his rehearsed speech: ‘Ah, well met, Clare! Won’t you salute your cousin in the spirit of the season?’ He was conscious that his words creaked and grated like machinery in the wrong hands, and that his smiling glance upwards at the bunch of mistletoe was more of a leer, a leer that stayed, unnaturally fixed by confusion and rage, as he observed Clare’s hesitation. Then she forced a smile, and said, ‘Of course, Damien,’ and proffered a cheek, averted as though she was expecting a blow. It was so insultingly different from the embrace he had seen her allow Underwood earlier in the day, that on a mad impulse he made a clumsy grab at her, and pulled her towards him, with a hollow imitation of a roguish laugh. And she had broken free with a scandalized exclamation: ‘Damien!’ And he had stood for several minutes in the passage, paralysed with embarrassment, and shame and chagrin. For the first time he had been unable to recover his self-possession, to escape from his humiliation.
He suddenly realized that the impact of this too-vivid memory had slowed him down and finally arrested him in the middle of the wet pavement. Two girls in a shop-doorway were staring at him and giggling. They could not have been more than fifteen, but their faces were heavily coated with cosmetics, and they were dressed with a tawdry precociousness which allowed no illusions as to their innocence. He glared at them, incensed by the immorality they carried so lightly, their ignorance of sin, and his own too exact awareness of it. He hurried on, sighting Clare and Underwood in the distance just turning off the main road up the hill.
They stopped at the top of the hill and sat down. Quite extraordinary behaviour—the rain was pouring down. It was awkward too, as he could hardly walk past them without being recognized. So he hung back for what seemed an interminable length of time, in the shadow of a dripping tree, waiting for them to move on. He thought about the two girls in the shop doorway, surprised by the detailed impression they had left on his memory. Immorality in a man was, regrettably, normal. Immorality, or even immodesty, in a woman, was far more disturbing. It was as if a woman who thus lowered herself disowned her right to be considered a person, a soul; as if it would be no sin to take advantage of her lust because one could not possibly soil her any further.
Another spectre of his too-vivid memory rose up to tempt him. One day he had taken a walk in the country, and had surprised two lovers in a wood. He had caught a glimpse of two bare legs, an exposed breast, a man with his trousers about his knees, before they had seen him, and he had run off, blundering panic-stricken through the undergrowth. Even now the recollection seized him in the abdomen, and a kind of sick longing made him tremble. Curiosity. That was the terrible thing about concupiscence. The Devil and the World were easily dealt with: one could appraise coolly what they offered, balance it against eternal damnation, and draw the obvious conclusion. But the temptations of the Flesh were different: they could not be dealt with in cold blood. You could not hear the voice of reason, only the terrible curiosity, insisting that it be satisfied.
Underwood had satisfied it of course. There was no doubt about that. Clare, if she had any sense (which seemed questionable), must realize that a person of his background and way of life woul
d scarcely have remained pure. Yet there had never been any reserve in her bearing towards him on that account. There was a kind of bias in Christianity in favour of the loose-liver who was converted. One accepted the parable of the Prodigal Son of course; salvation was possible for all. But the libertine who turned to religion in maturity seemed to get undue credit. There was nothing particularly creditable in giving up an immoral life when you had fully satisfied that nagging curiosity. Yet Augustine was more honoured than St Aloysius Gonzaga. The really heroic man was the one who practised chastity as a young man. But what was his reward? If the grace of repentance was so easily obtained, why worry about holy purity? He was not a fool; he knew what went on in the fields about his home in summer; he was not himself without desires, desires and curiosity. Yet he had kept himself apart, uncontaminated. To what end? Rejected by the priesthood, he found himself unfitted in some way for normal life. For whatever it was in Underwood that attracted Clare, and that he himself lacked, seemed to derive from what she would call Underwood’s ‘experience’, his ‘maturity’—which meant quite simply, his sin. In Ireland he was called ‘a shpiled priesht’. Was he not also a spoiled man?
At last Clare and Underwood moved on, but he was compelled to halt again, as they kissed, passionately, in the middle of the pavement.
For Damien it was the final condemnation of Clare. She had soiled herself to the point of revulsion by submitting to his pawing in the public street—as shameless as the casual coupling of two dogs. He would never be able to wipe out completely the pain of his hurt pride, but henceforward he would never be able to think of Clare in any honourable way. He looked back contemptuously at his dream of an ideal Christian marriage with this … this renegade nun on heat.
It afforded him a measure of satisfaction to insult her, and to document her improper behaviour with Underwood. He followed them home with something of the elation of a successful spy, and when he eagerly observed Clare’s final self-abandonment in the porch it seemed to him that he had obtained some immensely pleasurable secret. He hurried up to his room, and warmed himself with it. That night he prayed devoutly that he might be upheld in the purity which he had so far maintained, in spite of the temptations and evil example which encompassed him on all sides. And with great generosity, he prayed that Clare would not be led into mortal sin—if indeed she had not already fallen.
* * *
Harry shivered slightly in the shadow of the sagging wooden hut that had once been somebody’s garden shed—some poor bugger that was blown to bits by a buzz-bomb most likely. Beyond him was the blank, windowless side of the house, smooth and flat, as if the row of houses had been sliced with a cheese-cutter. He had played here as a kid just after the war, when it was a bomb-site, with tottering, gutted houses, uncovered cellars, bits of furniture, twisted pipes, water tanks. They’d had a good time. And tonight he was going to have a good time. A bloody good time.
The rubble had been cleared away long ago, and a line drawn between houses that were lived in, and blank space. Soon they would be filling in the space with houses again. And the curly-haired bint would not be walking across it on her way home from the pictures. But tonight she was walking towards the bomb-site, towards one hell of a surprise. She was going to find out shortly that she couldn’t get on the wrong side of Harry without paying for it. It was a long time since he had decided to have her. But he would have her, in the end. There was no escaping from Harry. In the end.
He had it all worked out: the hand over her mouth, the knife under her eyes, and drag her into the dark shed. Probably she would lap it up. They usually did. Underneath all the skirts and the modesty and the ‘Who me? The idea!’ was the same dirty pleasure.
He shivered again, and began to tremble violently. Cursing under his breath, he struggled to control his body. Then he heard the tip-tap of her high heels approaching, and something gripped him hard, and squeezed out all the shivers. Breathing in quick, noiseless gasps, he eased the knife from his pocket, and thumbed the press-button that released the blade.
* * *
The tip-tap of her own heels on the pavement was Bridget’s only company during the long walk through the bleak back-doubles. The vile weather had emptied the streets, and made them particularly frightening. She tried to forget her fears of the unknown in hearty cursing of the rain. There was a girl at work who said she loved the rain—she would dress up in a mac and goloshes and tramp around in the rain just for pleasure. She must be mad. Personally she hated the rain—spoiling shoes, spattering stockings, making her clothes look like rags, and her hair go frizzy. She would really have to get an umbrella, she decided, not for the first time. Her headscarf was already soaked through. She shivered as a gust of wind dashed the rain rudely in her face. How she longed to be indoors, snuggled up in bed, driving out of her system the damp cold, and the misery of parting from Len, with a hot-water bottle and impossible dreams of their future life together.
It hadn’t been much of a picture for dreaming on. She didn’t see how she could fit Len and herself in anywhere. Or rather, they would fit in just too well … It was just the wretched sort of life that might so easily be theirs: the cramped lodgings, the worry, the sense of wearing yourself out against life … But it was fatal to think on those lines. Almost desperately she sought solace in her own private ‘pictures’, the programme she never tired of, which she had projected on to her drowsy mind countless times as she lay in bed before dropping off to sleep, or half-awake on Sunday mornings. Just a normal day of married life, nothing that thousands of other people didn’t take for granted—but what heaven if ever that was normality for herself and Len!
The basic pattern of her dream did not vary. It began with the morning sun shining through the curtains of their bedroom, dappling the wall over Len’s still, sleeping form. She thought she would probably always wake before him, and lie quiet for a while, just being happy. The rest of the day followed predictably—Len’s breakfast, seeing him off to work, cleaning the small, semi-detached house they were steadily paying for, looking after the baby, making Len’s evening meal, sitting by the fire in the evening watching the telly, before they went to bed … The basic pattern was always the same, but Bridget liked to make minute adjustments each time she reviewed it. She would change the furnishings of the bedroom, for instance. Tonight the sun shone through elegant Regency stripes of red and cream instead of through the chintz which had hung at the window for the past month. She was tiring of the steak and chips which she regularly served up for Len’s evening meal. Although he doted on steak, she decided she would study continental cooking, and produce something to surprise him. ‘What’s this queer stuff?’ he would say, as he sat down at the table; then: ‘Hum. Not bad, I must admit.’
She clutched the warm, glowing vision to herself like a hot-water bottle to keep out the cold and loneliness of the night. But it was easier to believe in the impossible when you were tucked up in bed and half-asleep, than when you were walking the wet, comfortless streets, and the bloke you loved was on a bus going in the opposite direction, staring hopelessly out of the window, and wondering how on earth he was ever going to marry you, with no savings and going into the Army next week and a widowed mother who imagined herself an invalid and hated you for taking away her son. She wished she hadn’t started to dream so early. Now each absurdly impossible picture returned to her with a sardonic caption attached: Oh, yeah? You’ll be lucky! You don’t say? wrecking one cherished wish after another, until she was reduced to longing desperately for just an end to the regular death of the street-corner parting, the fear and loneliness of the long walk home.
Tonight she was particularly nervous, after the encounter with that boy at the pictures. She hated the way boys looked at you, as if they were giving marks at a cattle show. Not only boys either, men too, married men, old enough to know better. Len was different; she had never seen him look at another girl like that. He wasn’t abnormal, just good. One evening in the park the previous summer he had mad
e a frank gesture that was like a question, and one side of her had wanted to say ‘Yes’, but she had said ‘No, Len,’ and he had taken his hand away, and kissed her, and quietly accepted her decision. And that was ever so good of him really, because he didn’t believe in religion or anything, and if ever two people were entitled to belong to each other before they were married, she and Len were those people. But they mustn’t. She wasn’t what you might call strict either, but she knew it wouldn’t be right, that their last chance was to hold on until they were married, so that however mean and poor it was, their marriage would have that at least to make it special.
She hesitated before the dark, muddy bomb-site, particularly reluctant that evening to cross it. But to avoid it meant a long detour to get into Barn Street, and she was shivering with wet and cold. She stepped on to the bomb-site, and began to pick her way along the slippery path worn between the piles of overgrown rabble. Soon she was in the shadows.
* * *
Having checked that all the doors were secure, Mr Berkley toiled wearily up the stairs to his office. Doreen had pulled out the studio couch, and was briskly undressing. She did not look up when he came in. Already their affair was like marriage, with its own dispiriting routine, this shabby coming together for a few hours in the shabby office. There was still pleasure in it somewhere, but it was choked by exasperating routine: waiting for the staff to go, getting undressed, making up the bed, before the fleeting moment of physical relief was attained. And then to lie there, the flesh warm and satisfied, but the mind calculating that soon one would have to get up, dress again, and drive Doreen home; worry and responsibility rapidly replacing the excitement of pursuit and conquest.
Doreen stepped out of her slip, and draped it over a chair. He stared.
‘Good God!’
Doreen glanced down, and blushed for the first time in a long while.
‘I know. Aren’t they awful.’
