by David Lodge
Who is Carrie having an affair with?
HELEN freezes.
Pause.
HELEN
I don’t know.
RALPH
Why didn’t you tell me?
HELEN
She told me in confidence.
RALPH
So it’s not some fantasy of yours, some scenario for one of your novels?
HELEN
What d’you mean, scenario? How did you find out?
RALPH glances at the computer. HELEN follows his glance.
HELEN
You’ve been reading my journal!
RALPH
Yes.
HELEN
I can’t believe it.
RALPH
I’m sorry.
HELEN
It’s despicable.
RALPH
Yes, it is.
HELEN
It’s despicable and inexcusable and unforgivable. How could you do such a thing?
RALPH
I couldn’t stop myself. You have no idea who she’s fucking?
HELEN
No, and now I’d be grateful if you would go away and leave me alone.
RALPH
When I find out I’ll beat the shit out of him.
HELEN
Do you really think you have the right?
RALPH cannot think of a reply.
HELEN
If I were you I wouldn’t confront Carrie.
RALPH
Why not?
HELEN
She’s well aware of what you get up to, when you’re away from home.
RALPH
What d’you mean?
HELEN
She told me. She has plenty of evidence.
RALPH
What evidence?
HELEN
Letters, hotel bills, in your pockets. Lipstick.
RALPH
Lipstick?
HELEN
On a shirt – not Carrie’s shade. You’ve been very careless. Once she found a tape recording of you in bed with someone who was having a very noisy orgasm.
RALPH
Jesus. (He is racked with conflicting impulses – fight or flight? Defend himself or grovel? And to which woman?) I can explain that.
HELEN
I’m not interested.
RALPH
I mean to Carrie. It was just a one-night stand. It meant nothing.
HELEN
And our affair – did that mean nothing?
RALPH
No, of course not … (defeated) What a mess.
HELEN
Would you go now?
RALPH
Helen – I hope we can still be friends.
HELEN
I don’t think so.
RALPH
But Carrie will notice! She’ll wonder why.
HELEN
That’s your problem. Please go.
RALHP (goes to leave, then turns)
You will still do the Last Word, won’t you? It’s been announced.
HELEN (contemptuous)
Yes, I’ll do it.
RALPH
Thank you.
RALPH leaves. HELEN sits down and sobs.
Fade to black. Music.
Scene Fourteen
HELEN is standing at a lectern in a spotlight, against a dark background, with a screen or screens behind and above her, delivering her talk. Her open laptop is within reach.
HELEN
… and so, before I came to this university, and visited the Institute, I wasn’t even aware that scientists were concerned with consciousness. Now at least I understand their interest. In a way it’s the most fascinating subject of all, because it’s an investigation into what makes us human. Understanding consciousness, it occurred to me this weekend, is to modern science what the quest for the Philosopher’s Stone was to alchemy. The substance that would turn base metal into gold was never found, but the search for it led to many genuine discoveries in chemistry. Perhaps we shall never fully understand consciousness, but the effort to do so has already yielded many fascinating discoveries about the brain and the mind, some of which have been described to us over the past three days. No speaker, however, has made any reference to literature. This I find surprising, because literature is a written record of human consciousness, arguably the richest we have. Let me give you an example – a poem called the ‘The Garden’, by the seventeenth-century English poet, Andrew Marvell. One of its stanzas describes the sensuous pleasures of an ideal garden.
She touches her keyboard, checks that the stanza has appeared on the screen, and then recites the words which she knows by heart.
What wond’rous Life in this I lead!
Ripe Apples drop about my head;
The Luscious Clusters of the Vine
Upon my Mouth do crush their Wine;
The Nectaren, and curious Peach,
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on Melons, as I pass,
Insnar’d with Flow’rs, I fall on Grass.
We’ve heard a lot about qualia in the last three days. There is division of opinion, I understand, about whether or not they are first-person phenomena forever inaccessible to the third-person discourse of science. I am not competent to adjudicate on this issue. But let me point to a paradox about Marvell’s verse, which applies to lyric poetry in general. Although he speaks in the first person, Marvell does not speak for himself alone. In reading this stanza we enhance our own experience of the qualia of fruit and fruitfulness. We see the fruit, we taste it and smell it and savour it with what has been called ‘the thrill of recognition’ and yet it is not there, it is the virtual reality of fruit, conjured up by the qualia of the poem itself, its subtle and unique combination of sounds and rhythms and meanings which I could try to analyse if there were world enough and time, to quote another poem of Marvell’s, but there is not.
‘The Garden’ is a celebratory poem, it focuses on consciousness as a state of happiness. It is about bliss. But there is a tragic dimension to consciousness, which has also not been mentioned in this conference. There is depression, madness, guilt and dread. There is the fear of death – and strangest of all, the fear of life. If human beings are the only living creatures that know they are going to die, they are also the only ones who take their own lives. For some people, in some circumstances, consciousness becomes so unbearable that they commit suicide to bring it to an end. ‘To be or not to be?’ is a peculiarly human question. Literature can help us to understand the dark side of consciousness too.
Later in the poem, Marvell compares his soul to a bird, and imagines it leaving his body temporarily to perch on the branch of a tree, preening itself in anticipation of its final flight to heaven. I don’t expect to carry you with him there. But the Christian idea of the soul is continuous with the humanist idea of the self – that is to say, personal identity, the sense of one’s mental and emotional life having a unity and an ethical responsibility, sometimes called conscience.
That idea of the self is under attack today, not only in science but in the humanities too. We are told that it is a fiction, an illusion, a myth. That each of us is ‘just a pack of neurons’, or just a junction for converging discourses, or just a parallel processing computer running by itself without an operator. As a human being and as a writer, I find that view of consciousness abhorrent – and intuitively unconvincing. I want to hold on to the traditional idea of the autonomous individual self. A lot that we value in civilisation seems to depend on it.
Thank you.
Sound of applause, which HELEN acknowledges with a polite smile and a nod of the head, gradually changing to noise of an audience leaving an auditorium with a buzz of conversation. HELEN gathers up her papers, puts them in a document case and disappears into the darkness behind her.
Scene Fifteen
The campus. HELEN carrying her document case. RALPH enters, pursuing her.
RALPH
Helen!
HELEN stops and waits for him to approach her.
RALPH
Helen, congratulations. That was great. Exactly what I was hoping for.
HELEN
But you don’t believe a word of it.
RALPH
No. But you expressed the ideas so beautifully. They were spellbound.
HELEN
There was a man asleep in the front row.
RALPH
He probably spent too much time in the bar last night. You could tell from the applause how much it was appreciated.
HELEN
I’m glad you think so.
RALPH
I was really impressed by how well you’ve grasped the issues – and even the jargon.
HELEN
Well, you’re a good teacher, Ralph Messenger, whatever your failings in other respects. (She makes to go.)
RALPH
And I was very struck by what you said about the dark side of consciousness. About some people finding it unbearable.
HELEN
Yes.
RALPH (hesitantly)
Did you … have you ever … ?
HELEN
Oh, don’t worry – I’m not going to top myself on account of you.
RALPH
I didn’t mean that! But something about the way you spoke … it seemed very personal.
HELEN is silent for a moment, wondering whether to respond. RALPH waits.
HELEN
I am prone to depression – many writers are. It’s almost an occupational disease. And once, it was so bad that I really didn’t want to go on living. But I could never take my own life. It’s probably the last remnant of my Catholic faith – that despair is the unforgivable sin.
RALPH
I don’t have that problem. When I thought I might have cancer, I decided that if it was confirmed and the condition was incurable, I wouldn’t hang around and die by inches. I found making that decision was a great comfort.
HELEN
Well, that’s one of many differences between us. But at least I’ve finished grieving for Martin now. I suppose I owe that to you.
RALPH
I’m glad.
HELEN
Goodbye, Messenger. (She turns to leave.)
RALPH
You’re leaving soon?
HELEN
Tomorrow morning.
RALPH
Ah. So what are you going to do when you get back to London?
HELEN
Start a new novel.
RALPH
Excellent! You’ve got an idea?
HELEN
And a title. Crying is a Puzzler.
RALPH
Crying is a Puzzler. What’s it about?
HELEN
You’ll have to wait and see, won’t you? Goodbye.
She goes off, leaving RALPH gazing uncertainly after her.
RALPH
Goodbye, Helen.
Fade to black. Music.
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781446467602
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Published by Harvill Secker 2011
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Copyright © David Lodge 2011
David Lodge has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
First published in Great Britain in 2011 by
HARVILL SECKER
Random House
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road
London SW1V 2SA
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781846555534
All rights whatsoever in this play are strictly reserved. Requests to reproduce the text in whole or in part should be addressed to the publishers. Application for performance in any medium or for translation in any language should be addressed to the author’s agents: in respect of performance rights to The Agency Ltd, 24 Pottery Lane, London W11 4LZ; in respect of translation rights to Curtis Brown Group Ltd, 4th Floor, Haymarket House, 28/29 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4SP