The Man Who Wouldn't Get Up and Other Stories

by David Lodge

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Robin bitterly, after a few minutes’ perusal. ‘They find room for “I have blisters on the soles of my feet”, and “Please may I have a shampoo for a dry scalp”, but when there’s something you’re actually likely to need . . .’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Desmond. ‘We didn’t look at “Consulting the Doctor”. There’s a sort of all-purpose phrase here which says, “I have a pain in my…” You don’t think we could adapt that?’

  ‘No.’ Robin turned off the light and groped his way back to bed. Some time later he found himself staring into the light and the eyes of Desmond, who was shaking him urgently, hissing the words ‘New Statesman’.

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘Your New Statesman. It has Family Planning ads in the back.’

  Robin was suddenly wide awake. ‘Des, you’re a genius,’ he said. And then: ‘But there won’t be time.’

  ‘I worked it out. If we send off tomorrow, they should arrive in a week, or just over.’

  ‘That’s cutting it fine.’

  ‘Well, have you got a better idea?’

  Robin hadn’t. They found an advertisement in the New Statesman, but it offered only a free catalogue. Not knowing the price or specifications of their requirements, they had some difficulty composing an order. But at last it was finished. In enclosing the money they agreed to err on the side of generosity. ‘Let’s tell them to keep the change,’ said Robin. ‘That should hurry things up.’

  * * *

  Meanwhile, however, another conversation had been going on at the other end of the corridor which rendered these labours vain. The girls broke it to them the next morning on the beach.

  ‘Jo and I had a serious talk last night,’ said Sally. ‘And we agreed that it’s got to stop, before it’s too late.’

  ‘What’s got to stop?’ said Robin.

  ‘Why?’ said Desmond, who saw no point in pretending not to understand.

  ‘Because it isn’t right,’ said Joanna.

  ‘We all know it isn’t,’ said Sally.

  The two boys were sulky and taciturn over lunch. Afterwards they went grimly to their room for the siesta, and the girls to theirs.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Sally. ‘I do hope this is not going to spoil the holiday.’

  ‘What we need,’ said Joanna sensibly, ‘is a change of scenery. Let’s go into Ibiza tomorrow.’

  So the next day they took the bus into the town. There was a small crowd of people gathered on the quayside, watching a rather rakish-looking, black-painted yacht. Robin caught the name of a famous film star.

  ‘Ooh!’ said Sally. ‘Let’s wait and see if he comes ashore.’

  They hung around for a while, but the famous film star did not appear. Once a well-developed young woman in a two-piece swimsuit stared haughtily at them for a few moments from a hatchway and then withdrew.

  ‘No wonder he doesn’t want to come ashore,’ said Desmond.

  ‘Let’s go, I’m bored,’ said Joanna.

  They wandered round the old town, doing their best to avoid the gruesome cripples who begged on every street corner. They climbed up a succession of steep, smelly alleys festooned with washing, and found themselves on the parapet of a kind of fortress overlooking the harbour. Inside the fort was a little archaeological museum, with flints and shards and some coins and carvings. Joanna and Sally went to the Ladies. Sally emerged first, somewhat shaken by the experience, and found the boys poring over a glass display case.

  ‘What have you found?’

  Robin smirked. ‘Take a look.’

  The case contained a number of tiny, crudely fashioned clay figures, with grossly exaggerated sexual organs: huge phalluses, jutting breasts and grooved, distended bellies.

  ‘Oh,’ said Sally, after staring at them blankly for a while. ‘Fancy putting things like that in a museum.’

  ‘What is it?’ said Joanna, joining them.

  Desmond made room for her. ‘Fertility whatnots,’ he said.

  ‘We don’t seem to be able to get away from the subject, do we?’ Sally said to Joanna, as they left the museum. The two boys were sniggering together behind them as they walked arm in arm down the hill.

  For the rest of the day, and all the next day, Desmond and Robin kept together, leaving the girls to each other’s company, implying that if that was how it was to be for the siesta, that was how it had better be all the time. The girls were well aware of this message, and it made them restive and unhappy. At dinner Robin and Desmond talked animatedly about the molecular structure of clay and its possible application to the dating of fertility whatnots, and in the bodega afterwards they pursued the same topic over Green Chartreuse. Two young Americans in violently checked Bermuda shorts asked politely if they might sit at the same table, for the bar was crowded, and were drawn into the discussion. Robin and Desmond described the treasures of the Ibiza museum in eloquent detail, while the two Americans grinned at the two girls.

  ‘We can’t go on like this,’ said Sally that night.

  ‘But we can’t change our minds,’ said Joanna. ‘Can we?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Sally, ‘it would be different if we were engaged.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Joanna thoughtfully, ‘it would, wouldn’t it.’

  So the next day they all got engaged. It was unofficial – they would wait till they got home to tell their parents – but it was quite properly done. Each girl chose a cheap ring, ‘to be going on with’, from a stall in the market, and wore it proudly on her third finger. In the evening they had a celebration dinner in a restaurant, and sentimentally held hands between courses. The two Americans, who happened to be in the same restaurant, noticed the rings and offered their congratulations.

  ‘I’m ever so glad we decided to get engaged,’ said Joanna to Desmond the following afternoon, ‘aren’t you, Des?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Not just so we can siesta together?’

  ‘Course not.’

  ‘It’s different, somehow, being definitely engaged. I mean, before, I was never quite sure whether we weren’t just doing it for pleasure. But now I know it’s for love.’

  ‘Pleasure too.’

  ‘Oh, yes, pleasure too. Oh Des!’

  ‘Oh, Jo!’

  ‘Goodness,’ Sally murmured, averting her eyes, ‘you look just like a fertility whatnot.’

  ‘I feel like one,’ said Robin.

  It was not long before they all realised that they had not solved their problem, but merely raised the price of its solution. One fateful question hung over their waking hours, and their waking hours were many, for they discussed it late into the hot nights.

  ‘Sal.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We nearly did it today.’

  ‘We nearly do it every day.’

  ‘No, I mean really. I told Des, “If you want to, I couldn’t stop you.”’

  ‘Gosh, what happened?’

  ‘Well, he was ever so sweet. He said, “I’ll give you ten to think it over,” and went and sat on the other bed.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘When he’d finished counting, I’d sort of come round.’

  ‘Didn’t you wish you’d counted faster?’ said Robin.

  ‘Not really,’ said Desmond. ‘I sobered up myself. I began to think, what if Jo got pregnant? I mean, we’re no nearer to getting married than we were last week.’

  ‘It’s about time those things came from the New Statesman place,’ said Robin. ‘There’s not much time left.’

  ‘Well, there aren’t many days left now, anyhow,’ said Joanna. ‘It will be easier when we get back to England.’

  ‘Yes, everything seems different abroad.’

  ‘What men call gallantry and gods adultery . . .’

  ‘It would be fornication, not adultery,’ said Sally, who was getting rather tired of this quotation.

  * * *

  The next day, Desmond received a plain brown envelope in the mail and took it to his room, followed eagerl
y by Robin.

  ‘There’s nothing in it,’ Desmond said grimly, ‘I can feel.’ He tore the envelope open and took out a letter and his cheque.

  ‘Blast!’

  ‘What do they say?’

  ‘We regret that regulations prohibit us from conveying our goods to the Spanish Republic.’

  ‘I told you,’ said Robin. ‘It’s a Catholic country.’

  ‘Fascist swine,’ said Desmond. ‘Inquisitors. Police state.’ He worked himself up into a frenzy of anti-Spanish sentiment. ‘Priest-mongers! Hypocrites!’ He leaned out of the window and cried, ‘Down with Franco! Up Sir Walter Raleigh!’

  ‘I say, steady on,’ said Robin.

  The two Americans, who were passing in the street below, looked up wonderingly. Desmond waved to them.

  ‘Rob,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘I wonder if those Yanks have any.’

  ‘They’ve got things,’ Sally said to Joanna that night.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We must stick together, Jo.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Robin. ‘It’s perfectly safe.’

  ‘I’m sure it is,’ said Sally. ‘But . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Well, I think we should keep one thing for when we get married.’

  ‘But we can’t get married for years.’

  ‘All the more reason.’

  ‘I suppose you think I wouldn’t respect you,’ said Desmond. ‘Afterwards.’

  ‘Oh, no, Des, it’s not that.’

  ‘I’d respect you more. For having the courage of your convictions.’

  ‘But I don’t have any convictions. Just a feeling. That we’d regret it.’

  Desmond sighed and rolled away from her. ‘You disappoint me, Jo,’ he said.

  ‘D’you think we’re being unreasonable?’ said Joanna that night.

  ‘I think they’re being unreasonable,’ said Sally. ‘After all, we’ve given in and given in.’

  ‘You’ve got to draw the line somewhere.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I suppose it’s different for a boy, though,’ said Joanna.

  ‘Rob’, said Sally, ‘says it’s like holding your thumb against a running tap.’

  Lying in the darkness, the two girls silently pondered this eloquent image. Joanna flapped her sheet to make a breeze. ‘It seems hotter than ever,’ she said.

  * * *

  And so, as the holiday drew towards its close, tension increased and found relief in a debauch of talk. They no longer bothered to maintain the convention that each couple conducted its intimate life in private: they brought their common problem out into the open and discussed it – on the beach, at meals, over drinks – with a freedom and sophistication that amazed themselves. ‘I think we’re all agreed that there’s no special virtue in virginity qua virginity,’ Robin would say, with the air of a chairman who sensed that he had the feeling of the meeting, and they would all nod sagely in agreement. ‘In fact, I think one could safely say that some sexual experience before marriage is positively desirable.’

  ‘Yes, I agree,’ said Sally, ‘in principle. I mean the first time could be an awful shambles if neither of you knew what you were supposed to be doing, and why should the girl always be the innocent one? That’s old hat.’

  ‘But don’t you think,’ said Joanna, ‘that it’s a shame if there’s nothing to look forward to when you get married? I mean, if it’s just legalising what’s already happened?’

  ‘The trouble is,’ said Desmond, ‘that we got attached to the people we want to marry before we had a chance to get sexual experience with anyone else.’

  ‘You know, Des, that’s rather neatly put,’ said Sally.

  It was like old times again: the relaxed camaraderie of their undergraduate days was restored. There was again a lively four-pointed discussion over coffee late at night. But it was not until the penultimate night of their holiday that they faced the fact that there was only one solution to their dilemma.

  They were sitting on the beds in the girls’ room, flushed and bright-eyed from the drinks they had consumed in the course of the evening (rather more than usual, for they were getting reckless with their pesetas), when Desmond put it to them.

  ‘It seems to me,’ he said, swirling the coffee dregs in his tooth mug, ‘that if we all want to have the experience, but we don’t want to anticipate marriage, and we don’t want to go with tarts or gigolos—’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Sally.

  ‘What a revolting idea,’ said Joanna.

  ‘Then there’s only one possibility left.’

  ‘Swap, you mean?’ said Robin.

  ‘Mmm,’ said Desmond. To his surprise, nobody laughed. He glanced swiftly round the group. Their eyes did not meet his, but beneath lowered lids they gleamed with the sly wantonness of children who have been left alone together, for too long, in an empty house, on a wet afternoon.

  Some two hours later, Sally knocked at the door of the room she shared with Joanna. Robin opened it almost immediately, pale-faced and staring wildly.

  ‘Have you finished?’ Sally whispered.

  He nodded jerkily, and stood aside to admit her. She avoided his eyes. ‘Goodnight,’ she said, and almost pushed him into the corridor. He was still standing there, staring at her, as she closed the door. Inside the room, Joanna was sobbing quietly into her pillow.

  ‘Oh God,’ said Sally, ‘don’t tell me you did it?’

  Joanna sat up. ‘Didn’t you, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, thank heavens!’ Joanna collapsed into renewed tears. ‘Neither did we.’

  ‘What are you crying about, then?’

  ‘I thought you and Des . . . You were such a long time.’

  ‘We were waiting for you. Des was frantic.’

  ‘Poor Des!’

  ‘I wonder how you can stand him.’

  ‘Rob was beastly.’

  ‘Was he?’ Sally sounded pleased.

  ‘Oh Sal, what happened to us? How could we ever dream of doing anything so awful?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Sally, getting into bed. ‘Perhaps it’s this place. Sultry and adultery and all that.’

  ‘You said it wasn’t adultery,’ Joanne sniffed.

  ‘It would have been jolly near it this time,’ said Sally.

  * * *

  When Robin returned to his room, Desmond was smoking in the darkness. Robin silently took off his robe and got into bed.

  ‘All right?’ said Desmond, clearing his throat.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Robin. ‘And you?’

  ‘Oh, fine.’ He added after a pause, ‘I meant, you got on all right?’

  ‘Yes. That’s what I thought you meant.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Is that what you thought I meant when you said, “Fine”?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. What I meant.’

  ‘Ah.’ Desmond stubbed out his cigarette. ‘’Night then.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  They turned and faced their respective walls, wide awake and racked with jealousy and hatred.

  Next morning they rose, dressed and shaved in a hostile silence. Each surreptitiously disposed of an unopened packet of contraceptives before going down to breakfast.

  The meal was strained. Joanna and Sally, secure in the knowledge that nothing irreparable had happened the previous night, were inclined to make light of the whole affair. It never occurred to them that Robin and Desmond had not been taken into each other’s confidence. To them the boys’ behaviour seemed merely boorish and unsporting; but to the boys the levity of Joanna and Sally seemed heartless and depraved. When, at length, Joanna indulged in her favourite quotation, Desmond leaned across the table and slapped her face, hard and resoundingly. A sudden hush fell over the dining room. A young waiter fled, rattling crockery, to the kitchen. Joanna whimpered, nursing her flushed cheek, her incredulous eyes swamped with tears.

  ‘Des!’
Sally exclaimed. ‘What a foul thing to do!’

  ‘You encouraged her,’ Robin accused.

  Joanna rose unsteadily to her feet. Sally scrambled to assist her. ‘You make me sick,’ she hissed at Robin and Desmond. ‘You know what’s the matter with you? You’re both impotent, so you try to prove your virility by hitting.’ Impotent? Both impotent? Desmond and Robin looked at each other and illumination flashed between them.

  ‘Jo!’

  ‘Sal! Wait!’

  They rose to pursue the girls, but a little Spaniard with a moustache interposed himself and inflated his chest. The proprietress bustled in with the young waiter in tow, grasping a saucepan, like a weapon, in her hand. The girls disappeared upstairs. Desmond and Robin decided to leave the premises. As they emerged into the street, the two Americans passed in a hired pony and trap. They winked and raised their eyebrows interrogatively. One grasped his bicep and flexed his forearm; the other formed a circle with his finger and thumb.

  ‘Oh, go to hell,’ said Robin.

  The quarrel was soon made up, and the misunderstanding erased. That afternoon, the last of their holiday, they took their siestas as before, Desmond with Joanna and Sally with Robin. Three months later, Desmond and Joanna got married rather suddenly, Sally being the bridesmaid and Robin the best man. A few weeks later the roles were reversed.

  The two couples continued to take their summer holidays together. Having three children apiece, of approximately the same ages, they found the arrangement worked well. Now these children are themselves grown up, and fly off on package holidays for the under-30s whose advertising copy is a positive incitement to sexual promiscuity. As for Des and Rob and Jo and Sal, they have all become enthusiastic golfers in middle age, and spend their summer holidays exploring the links on the east coast of Scotland, where the climate is generally described as ‘bracing’.

  Hotel des Boobs

  ‘Hotel des Pins!’ said Harry. ‘More like Hotel des Boobs.’

  ‘Come away from that window,’ said Brenda. ‘Stop behaving like a Peeping Tom.’

  ‘What d’you mean, a Peeping Tom?’ said Harry, continuing to squint down at the pool area through the slats of their bedroom shutters. ‘A Peeping Tom is someone who interferes with someone else’s privacy.’