Therapy

by David Lodge

  Well, it was lucky I was half-pissed, otherwise it would have been just too embarrassing for words. I mean, one either had to laugh or cry, and having a few drinks inside me, I laughed. I got the giggles as soon as I saw Laurence putting on his knee-support when we were preparing for our siesta. It’s made of some spongy stretch fabric, like they use to make wet-suits, and it’s bright red, with a hole in it for his kneecap to poke through. It looked particularly funny when he had nothing else on. He seemed rather surprised by my reaction. Apparently he always wears it when he and Sally have sex. When he put on an elasticated elbow bandage as well I nearly had hysterics. He explained that he’d had a recurrence of tennis elbow lately and didn’t want to take any chances. I wondered if he was going to put on anything else, a pair of shin-pads perhaps, or a cycling helmet. Actually that wouldn’t have been a bad idea, because the bed was so narrow he was in some danger of falling on the floor during foreplay. This involved a lot of licking and nuzzling on his part. I just closed my eyes and let him browse. It was quite nice, though ticklish, and I kept giggling when I think I was supposed to moan. Then it appeared he wanted me to straddle him while he lay on his back, because of his knee, and that he expected me to handle the trickiest bit of the proceedings myself, so to speak. I knew an actress once who told me that she had a recurrent dream of being on stage without knowing the play she was in, having to guess her lines and moves from what the other actors were saying and doing. I felt as if I was understudying Sally under a similar handicap. I don’t know what she makes of the part, but I felt like a cross between a hooker and an orthopaedic nurse. However, I went through with it gamely, and jigged up and down a bit on top of him until he gave a groan and I rolled off. But it turned out that he was groaning because he couldn’t come. “Perhaps you had a little too much to drink at lunch, darling,” I said. “Perhaps,” he said gloomily. “Was it all right for you?” Of course I said it was wonderful, though to be honest I’ve had more pleasure from a nice hot bath at the end of a long day, or a really top-class Belgian chocolate with a cup of freshly-ground Colombian coffee. Frankly.

  Well, we slept for an hour or so after that, and then we showered and had a cup of tea on our balcony, which was in the shade by now, and read our books until it was time to go down and have a drink in the bar before dinner. We weren’t talking to each other much because everything that came into our heads, my head anyway, was something we dared not say, about how awful the place was and what a disaster the whole trip was turning out to be, knowing there were three days still to go. We were on demi-pension terms at the hotel. They gave us little coupons when we checked in that you had to surrender as you went into the dining-room, a vast barrack of a place with about four hundred people shovelling food into themselves for all they were worth as if they were eating against the clock in some kind of TV gameshow. You helped yourself to hors d’oeuvres and desserts and they brought the main course to your table. There was a choice of chicken chasseur and fish fried in breadcrumbs. It was about BBC canteen standard, edible but dull. We had a bottle of red wine but I drank most of it because Laurence was girding himself to perform later. It didn’t make for a very relaxing evening. We went out for a stroll and walked down to the shore again to watch the waves churning the wet cinders. Then there seemed nothing else to do except go to bed. It was either that or go back into town and what the Veronicas was like at night was all too easy to imagine. So we made love again and the same thing happened. He had an erection, but he couldn’t, what’s the word, emit, no matter how hard I jigged up and down. He was frightfully upset about it, though I said it didn’t matter, in fact I was delighted, I never did like the sensation of slowly leaking into one’s nightie afterwards. He said, “There must be something wrong with me.” I said, “It’s not you, it’s this ghastly hotel and the dreadful place it’s in, it’s enough to make anyone impotent.”

  It was the first time I’d expressed my real feelings since we got there. He took it like a slap in the face. “I’m sorry,” he said stiffly. “I did my best.” “Of course you did, chéri,” I said. “I’m not blaming you, it was the stupid travel agent. But why don’t we move somewhere nicer?” “We can’t,” he said. “I paid in advance.” He seemed to think we were under a contractual obligation to stay the full four nights. It took me quite a while to get him to see that we could well afford – at least he could – to forfeit the cost of the remaining two. It was as if the ghosts of his parents had risen up to forbid such a scandalous waste of money. “Anyway,” he said, “there’s only one five-star hotel in Playa de las Americas, and it’s full. The travel agent tried it.” “I should think it is full,” I said. “Anybody who booked into a five-star hotel in Playa de las Americas would probably barricade themselves in their room and never come out. But I suppose there are five-star hotels in other places in Tenerife?” “How would we get there?” Laurence said. “Hire a car, my sweet,” I said, thinking to myself, this is like talking to a child.

  Well, by taking command of the arrangements, I got us out of that hellhole immediately after breakfast next morning. Laurence would have liked to sneak out of the hotel without telling them, but we had to check out to pay for some extras so I had the satisfaction of telling the reception staff why we were going, not that they cared. We hired an air-conditioned car from Avis and drove up the coast to the capital, Santa Cruz. You never saw such a barren, boring landscape in your life, like the surface of the moon in a heatwave. But Santa Cruz is quite a nice little town, slightly scruffy but civilized. There’s one really classy hotel, with a pool in a beautiful shady garden, and a decent restaurant. Robert Maxwell had his last meal there, actually, before he threw himself off his yacht. If he had been in Playa de las Americas there wouldn’t have been all that speculation about why he did it.

  Well, we had a very pleasant weekend in Santa Cruz. The hotel gave us a huge high-ceilinged suite, with a marble bathroom with a window that opened, and a vast double bed in which we cuddled and slept like babies. We didn’t do anything else in it. I said to Laurence, don’t let’s risk another débâcle, my dear, now that things are going so nicely, and he seemed happy to agree. The truth is that I had decided I wasn’t going to marry Laurence even if he asked me, and that I didn’t want a sexual relationship with him, or indeed anyone else. I decided I could do without sex, thankyou very much, for the rest of my life. I realized what a fool I’d been, going on and on analysing my relationship with Saul, wondering what went wrong, why I didn’t satisfy him, when it was what satisfied me that was important, and putting my body at the disposal of another man after all these years wasn’t going to do that. I hope Laurence and I can go back to our chaste, companionable relationship, but if we can’t, tant pis.

  So really, it wasn’t such a disaster after all, my dirty weekend. I really think I see things more clearly than ever before, as a result of it. I see that there’s nothing wrong with me. I can accept myself for what I am. I don’t need sex. I don’t need a man. And I don’t need you, Karl, not any more. Yes. This is the end of the analysis. You told me I’d know. And I do. This is our last session, Karl. Yes. This is the big goodbye. I’m cured.

  STELLA? … IT’S LOUISE … Hi! … Oh fine. How about you? … Oh. I thought you sounded depressed on the answerphone … Yeah, look I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you before, but I’ve been so busy you wouldn’t believe … Meetings meetings meetings … Yeah, it’s the same movie, only now it’s called Switchback. You know what they say about Hollywood, everything takes either five minutes or five years, and this baby looks like it’s gonna be a five-year pain in the ass. Anyway, why are you in the pits? … Uh huh … Uh huh … I kinda guessed … Listen, sweetheart, you won’t thank me for saying this right now, but honestly you’re better off without him … Sure I never liked him, but was I right or was I right? Didn’t I say, never trust a man who wears a gold cross round his neck? … He exploited you, honey … As soon as you’d like paid for his root-canal work, and the acting lessons, he dumped you
… Well, of course you feel that way now, but you’ll get over it, trust me, I’ve been there. Wait a minute, I got another call. Don’t go away …

  Hi. That was Nick, calling from New York, just to say hallo … Yeah, just for a few days. He’s got this client who’s opening a play off-Broadway. Say, Stella, you want me to take your mind off your troubles with this really weird thing that happened to me yesterday? … OK, kick off your shoes and put your feet up and lend me your ears …

  It was about six o’clock yesterday evening. I’d just come in from a meeting at Global Artists, and showered and changed and was wondering whether to fix myself something to eat or call Sushi Express, when the phone rings and I hear this British voice saying, “Hallo, Louise, this is Laurence Passmore.” Laurence Passmore? Like the name means nothing to me, and I don’t recognize the voice. So I say, “Oh yes?” in a neutral kinda way, and the guy gives a nervous little giggle and says, “I suppose this is what disc-jockeys call a blast from the past.” “Do I know you?” I say, and there’s like a pained silence for about a minute and then he says, “The people next door? Four years ago?” and the penny drops. This is the guy who created the original British version of Who’s Next Door? Yeah. It’s called The People Next Door over there. When I was working for Mediamax they bought the rights, and he came over from England as like a consultant on the pilot, and I was assigned to look after him. But like the name “Laurence” hadn’t rung a bell. “Didn’t you have a different name, then?” I asked him. “Tubby,” he said. “Tubby Passmore, of course,” I said. He came into sharper focus at once: fiftyish, balding, stocky build. He was a nice guy. Kinda shy, but nice. “I never liked that nickname, to tell you the truth,” he said, “but I seem to be stuck with it.” “Hey,” I said, “Nice of you to call. What business brings you to L.A.?” “Well, I’m not here on business, actually,” he said. Brits say “actually” an awful lot, have you noticed? “Vacation?” I said, thinking he must be on his way to Hawaii or somewhere. “A sort of vacation,” he said, and then: “I was wondering whether you would be free for dinner this evening.”

  Well, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it would have been outta the question. Nick and I were out every night last week. Every night. But as it happened Nick was away and I had nothing planned and I thought, what the hell, why not? I knew there would be nothing below the line on this date … Because once, when he was here before, I made a play for him and he backed off … Yeah … Well, I’d just split up with Jed and I was kinda lonely. So was he. But he turned me down, in the nicest possible way, because he loved his wife … Yeah, there are such men, Stella. In England there are anyway … Well, when I said yes to dinner he was like ecstatic. He said he was staying at the Beverly Wilshire and I thought to myself, anybody who is paying for himself at the Beverly Wilshire is my kind of date, and I was just wondering whether I had enough pull with the maître d’ at Morton’s to get us a table at short notice when he said, “I’d like to go to that fish restaurant down by the beach at Venice where we went before.” Well, I couldn’t remember what restaurant he was talking about, and he couldn’t remember the name, but he said he would recognize it if he saw it, so I did the decent thing and offered to drive us down there. Venice isn’t my favourite place, but I figured maybe it was just as well I wasn’t seen at Morton’s with an obscure English TV writer – I mean it’s not like this guy is Tom Stoppard or Christopher Hampton or anything.

  So I put on something casual and drove down to Beverly Hills to pick up Tubby Passmore at the appointed time. He was hovering by the doors, so I didn’t get out of the car, just honked and waved. It took him about ten minutes to notice me. He looked just as I remembered him, perhaps a few pounds heavier, with a big potato-shaped face and a fringe of baby-fine hair hanging down over the collar of his jacket. Nice smile. But I couldn’t imagine why I’d ever wanted to get in the sack with him. He got into the car and I said “Welcome back to L.A.” and stuck out my hand just as he made a lunge at my cheek, so there was a little confusion but we laughed it off. He said, almost accusingly, “You’ve changed your car,” and I laughed and said, “I should think so. I must have had at least five cars since you were here …” No, it’s a Mercedes. I traded in the BMW for a white Mercedes with red leather interior. It looks great. Just a minute, I got another call …

  Fuckit fuckit fuckit … Sorry, just thinking aloud. That was Lou Ren wick at Global Artists. Our star won’t sign unless his buddy directs, and the buddy’s last picture was a crock of shit. These people are such assholes. Never mind, I’m gonna hang in there. I have points in this one … Yeah, I optioned the book … Where was I? Oh, yeah, well, we drive out to Venice, and walk up and down by the beach, weaving between the joggers and surfers and roller-skaters and frisbee-throwers and dog-walkers, looking for this restaurant, and eventually he thinks he’s found it, but it has the wrong name and it isn’t even a regular fish restaurant but a Thai place. However when we ask inside they say they’ve only been in business for about a year, so we figure it probably is the right one. In fact the look of it stirs a faint memory in me too.

  Tubby wanted to eat outside, though it was kinda cool and I was underdressed for al fresco dining … Oh, a sleeveless top, and that black cotton skirt I bought in your shop last year. With the gold buttons? That’s the one. Tubby said there’d been a wonderful sunset when we ate in Venice before, but yesterday was overcast you remember, so there was no particular reason to sit outside, but he more or less insisted. The waiter asked if we’d like anything to drink and Tubby looked at me and said, “Whiskey sour, yes?” and I laughed and said I didn’t drink cocktails any more, I’d just have a mineral water, and he looked strangely put out. “You will drink some wine?” he said anxiously, and I said maybe a glass. He ordered a bottle of Napa Valley Chardonnay, which struck me as a tad economical for a guy who was shacked up at the Beverly Wilshire, but I didn’t say anything.

  All the way out to Venice I’d been jabbering away about Switchback because my head was full of it and I guess I was like showing off a bit, letting him know I’m a pukka movie producer now, not just a TV executive. So when we’d ordered our food I figured it was time to let him have his turn. “So what’s been happening to you, lately?” I said. Well, it was like the moment in a disaster movie when somebody casually opens a door in a ship and a million tons of seawater knocks them off their feet. He gave a sigh that was like almost a groan, and proceeded to pour out a tale of unrelieved woe. He said his wife wanted to divorce him and his TV company wanted to take his show away from him and he had a chronic knee injury that wouldn’t heal. Seems his wife walked out without warning, and then walked right back in again two weeks later to share the house under some special arrangement called “separate lives”. Like they not only have separate bedrooms but they have to take turns to use the kitchen and the washing machine. Apparently the British divorce courts are very strict on laundry. Yeah. If she knowingly washed his socks it could screw up her petition, he says. Not that there’s any risk of that. They don’t even speak to each other when they meet on the stairs. They send each other notes, like North and South Korea. No. He suspects there’s somebody, but she says not, she just doesn’t want to be married to him any more. Their kids are grown up … She’s some kind of college professor. He said it just blew him away when she told him … Nearly thirty years – can you believe it? I didn’t know there was anybody left in the entire world, outside of a Sunset Home, who’d been married to the same person for thirty years. What seemed to bug him more than anything was that all that time he’d never cheated on her once. “Not that I haven’t been tempted,” he said. “Well, you know that, Louise.” And then he gave me this long, soulful look out of his pale blue, bloodshot eyes.

  I tell you, I broke out in goosebumps all over, and it wasn’t because of the breeze coming off the ocean. I suddenly realized what this date was all about. I realized that it was in this very restaurant that I had tried to seduce him all those years ago … Yeah! The whole
thing came flooding back into my head, like a flashback sequence in an old film noir. We’d had a nice dinner and a bottle of wine and I’d snuck out to the Ladies’ room between courses to do some blow … Yeah, I was doing drugs in those days … Always carried a stash in my handbag, Colombia’s favourite cash crop … But Tubby wasn’t into that sorta stuff. He thought when people offered him coke at a party they meant a drink. He thought being loaded meant having a lotta money. Even the idea of smoking pot freaked him out, so I never let on I was snorting the hard stuff. I wonder he never guessed, the way I used to laugh at his little English quips. Anyway, there I was, feeling high and horny, and there was this nice clean Englishman sitting opposite who obviously fancied me but was too decent or too timid to take the initiative, so I took it myself. Apparently I said I’d like to take him home and fuck his brains out … Yeah. He quoted the exact words to me. They were engraved on his memory. You see what I mean? This whole date was like a reprise of the one all those years ago. The Venice restaurant, the table outside, the Napa Valley Chardonnay … That was why he was so upset that I’d changed my car and the fish restaurant had turned into a Thai restaurant and I didn’t drink whiskey sours any more. That was why he made us sit outside. He was trying to recreate the exact circumstances of that evening four years ago as far as possible in every detail. Every detail except one … Exactly! Now that his wife had walked out on him he wanted to take me up on my offer to fuck him. He’d flown all the way from England specifically for that purpose. It didn’t seem to have occurred to him that my circumstances might have changed in the meantime, not to mention my mood. I guess in his head I was forever sitting at that table beside the ocean, gazing wistfully out to sea and waiting for him to reappear, released from his matrimonial vows, to sweep me into his arms. Wait a minute, I got another call …