by David Lodge
We had dinner that evening in the hotel restaurant: plain cuisine but excellent ingredients, mostly fish, beautifully cooked. I had baked turbot. Am I boring you, darling? Oh, good, I just thought I saw your eyes close for a moment. Well all through the meal I kept trying to turn the conversation on to the topic of The People Next Door and he kept dragging it back to Kierkegaard and Regine. I really began to get thoroughly sick of the subject. I was also hankering to see a bit of Copenhagen nightlife after dinner. I mean it has the reputation of being a very liberated city, with lots of sex shops and video parlours and live sex shows and suchlike. I hadn’t seen a trace of anything like that so far, but I presumed they must be somewhere. I wanted to do a little research of my own, for my Westenders project. But when I threw out some hints to this effect, Tubby seemed strangely slow on the uptake, almost as if he didn’t want to understand me. I thought perhaps he had plans for a private live sex show with just the two of us, but no. At about ten-fifteen he yawned and said it had been a long day and perhaps it was time to turn in. Well I was astonished – and, I have to admit, a little piqued. I mean it wasn’t that I positively fancied him, but I expected him to show a little more evidence of fancying me. I couldn’t believe that he had brought me all the way to Copenhagen just to talk about Kierkegaard.
The next morning was Sunday, and Tubby insisted we went to church, because that was what Kierkegaard would have done. He was very religious apparently, in an eccentric sort of way. So we went to this incredibly dreary Lutheran service, all in Danish of course, which made it even more boring than chapel at school, if you can believe that. And after lunch we went to see Kierkegaard’s tomb. He’s buried in a cemetery about two miles from the city centre. His name actually means “churchyard” in Danish, so as Tubby observed we were visiting Kierkegaard in the kierkegaard, which was about the only joke of the afternoon. It was quite a nice place, with flower beds and trees planted to make avenues, and according to the guidebook the Copenhagen people use it like a park in fine weather and have picnics there and everything, but the afternoon we were there it was raining. We had some trouble locating the grave, and when we did find it it was a bit of a let-down, like the room in the museum. It’s a little patch of ground enclosed by an iron railing, with a monument to Kierkegaard’s father in the middle and two stone tablets propped up against it with the names of his wife and children including Søren carved on them. That’s Kierkegaard’s first name, Søren, with one of those funny crossed-out Danish os. But you probably knew that already, didn’t you? Sorry, darling. We stood in the rain for a few minutes in respectful silence. Tubby took his hat off, and the rain ran off his bald pate and down his face and off the end of his nose and chin. We didn’t have an umbrella, and I soon began to feel rather damp and uncomfortable, but Tubby insisted on looking for Regine’s grave. He’d read somewhere that she was buried in the same churchyard. There was a kind of index to all the graves on a noticeboard near the entrance, but Tubby couldn’t remember Regine’s married name so he had to look through columns and columns until he came to a Regine Schlegel. “That’s her!” he cried, and charged off to look for the plot – 58D or whatever it was – only he couldn’t find it. The plots are not very well marked, and there was nobody around to ask because it was Sunday and pouring with rain, and I was getting more and more fed up squelching about in sopping wet clothes and shoes with water dripping off the trees and running down the back of my neck and I said I wanted to go back to the hotel, and he said rather crossly, all right, go, and gave me some money to take a taxi, so I did. I had a long hot bath and used two clean towels and threw them both on the floor and had tea from room service and a miniature bottle of cherry brandy from the minibar, and began to feel in a better humour. Tubby came back about two hours later, soaked to the skin. And despondent because he hadn’t managed to find Regine’s grave and there wouldn’t be time to go back the next morning and ask somebody because we had to catch an early plane.
The evening followed the same pattern as before: dinner in the hotel restaurant followed by a proposal from Tubby that we retire early – to our own rooms. I couldn’t believe it. I began to wonder if there was something wrong with me, like bad breath, but I checked as I was getting ready for bed and it was sweet and fresh. Then I took off all my clothes and looked at myself in the mirror and I couldn’t see anything wrong there either, in fact I thought to myself that if I were a man I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off me, if you follow. I was beginning to feel rather randy, to be honest, out of sheer frustration, and not a bit sleepy, so I decided to watch an adult movie on the hotel’s in-house video channel. I got a half-bottle of champagne out of the minibar and sat me down in front of the telly in my dressing-gown and tuned in. Well, my dear, what a surprise I got! I don’t know if you’ve ever watched one of those movies in a British hotel. No? Well, you haven’t missed anything, believe me. I used to watch them occasionally when I stayed at the Rummidge Post House on the chaperoning job, just for a giggle. One of my duties was to make sure the little Harrington brat couldn’t watch them. The hotel reception used to put a bar on the set in his room, much to his disgust. In fact, those films have nothing more explicit in them than many programmes you see on network television, indeed less so, the only difference being that the so-called adult movies consist entirely of sex scenes, and look incredibly cheap, and are incredibly badly acted and have incredibly silly story lines. And they’re extremely short and full of clumsy jump-cuts because all the really raunchy bits have been censored for hotel distribution. Well I was hoping that the Danish ones might be a bit more daring, but I wasn’t prepared for hard-core pornography, which was what I got. I switched on in the middle of the film and there were two men and a girl naked on a bed together. Both the men had absolutely enormous erections and one was being sucked off voraciously by the girl, as if her life depended on it, while the other one was doing her from behind, you know, doggy-fashion. I couldn’t believe my –
What? Oh. I’m sorry, but I wasn’t talking to you. Well, I can’t help it if your hearing is unusually good. If you don’t want to eavesdrop on other people’s private conversations, why don’t you put those earphones on and listen to the radio?
Hmmph! What a cheek. I mean, I’m sorry about her hysterectomy and everything, but she didn’t have to be so stroppy. I wasn’t talking all that loud, was I? Oh, all right, Hetty, I’ll move my chair nearer to the bed and murmur in your ear, is that better? So there were these three people in the film sucking and fucking away like mad and after about ten minutes they all had the most tremendous orgasms – no really, they did, Hetty, honestly. At least the men did, because they pulled their willies out to show the semen squirting all over the place. The girl rubbed it into her cheeks as if it was skincare lotion. Are you feeling all right, darling? You’re looking a little pale. The time? It’s … good heavens, half past three. I must go soon, but I’ll just finish the story. Well the film went on in the same style. The next scene showed two naked girls, one black and one white, taking turns to lick each other, but they weren’t real lesbians because the two men from the previous scene peeped through the window at them and came in and it turned into another orgy. Well, I don’t mind telling you that by this time I was quite wet with excitement and one big hot flush from head to toe. I’ve never felt so randy in my entire life. I was beside myself. I would have fucked anybody at that moment, never mind the nice clean English scriptwriter in the next room who had, I thought, brought me to Copenhagen specifically for that purpose. It could only be shyness, I decided, that was holding him back. I should phone him up and tell him about the amazing video I had found on the hotel telly and invite him to come and watch it with me. I reckoned that a few minutes’ exposure to the movie, sitting next to me in my dressing-gown with not a stitch on underneath, would soon see off his shyness. I should perhaps explain that I had polished off the half-bottle of champers by this time and was feeling pretty reckless as well as randy. He took quite a time to answer the phone, so
I said I hoped I hadn’t woken him up. He said, no, he had been watching television and had just turned down the volume before picking up the phone. Only he hadn’t turned it down quite enough. I recognized the tinkly disco music and faint moaning and groaning in the background. There’s not very much dialogue in these films. Not much work for a script editor, I should think. I giggled and said, “I think you must be watching the same movie as me.” He mumbled something, sounding terribly embarrassed, and I said, “Wouldn’t it be more fun if we watched it together? Why don’t you come along to my room?” There was a silence and then he said, “I don’t think that would be a good idea,” and I said, “Why not?” and he said, “I just don’t.” Well, we sparred like that for a while, and then I got impatient and said, “For God’s sake, what’s the matter with you? Last week in that Italian restaurant you made it very obvious that you fancied me, and now that I’m practically throwing myself at you, you hang back. What did you bring me here for if you don’t want to sleep with me?” There was another pause and then he said, “You’re quite right, that was why I asked you to come, but when I got here I found I couldn’t do it.” I asked him why not. He said, “Because of Kierkegaard.” I thought this was terribly funny and said, “We won’t tell him.” He said, “No, I’m serious. Perhaps on Friday evening, if you hadn’t been so tired …” “You mean pissed,” I said, “Well, whatever,” he said. “But as I started to explore Copenhagen and think about Kierkegaard, and especially when we went to the room in the museum, it was as if I felt his presence, like a spirit or a good angel, saying, ‘Don’t exploit this young girl.’ He had a thing about young girls, you see.” “But I’m dying to be exploited,” I said. “Come and exploit me, in any position you like. Look at the screen, now. Would you like that? I’ll do it with you.” I won’t tell you what it was, darling, you might be shocked. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said. “You’d regret it in the morning.” “No I wouldn’t,” I said. “Anyway, why are you watching this filthy movie if you’re so virtuous? Would Kierkegaard approve of that?” “Probably not,” he said, “but I’m not doing any harm to anyone else.” “Tubby,” I said, putting on my most seductive voice, “I want you. I need you. Now. Come. Take me.” He gave a sort of groan and said, “I can’t. I’ve just taken a towel from the bathroom.” It was a second or two before the penny dropped. I said, “Well, I hope you leave it on the floor so the next guest doesn’t get it,” and slammed the phone down in a temper. I turned off the telly, swallowed a sleeping tablet and a miniature of scotch and passed out. When I woke up the next morning I saw the funny side of it, but Tubby couldn’t face me. He left a message at Reception with my air ticket, saying that he’d gone back to the cemetery to look for Regine’s grave and would be returning by a later plane. So what do you think of that for a story? Oh, I forgot, you can’t speak. Never mind, I’ve got to dash anyway. Oh, dear, I’ve eaten all your grapes. Listen, I’ll come back tomorrow and bring you some more. No? You think you’ll be out by then? Really? Well, I’ll give you a ring at home, then. Goodbye, darling. I have enjoyed our chat.
BEFORE WE START, Dr Marples, I’d like to establish the agenda of this meeting, so there’s no misunderstanding. I agreed to see you because I want Tubby to accept that our marriage is over. I’d like to help you to help him to come to terms with that fact. I’m not interested in trying to negotiate a reconciliation. I hope that’s quite clear. That’s why I said in my letter that I would only meet you on my own. We’re beyond marriage counselling now, well beyond it. Quite sure. Yes, we tried it before – didn’t Tubby tell you? About four or five years ago. I can’t remember her name. It was somebody in Relate. After a few weeks with both of us, she recommended that Tubby should have psychotherapy for his depression. He told you about that, I presume? Yes, Dr Wilson. Well, he saw him for about six months, and he seemed better for a while. Our relationship improved, we didn’t bother to go back to Relate. But within a year he was worse than ever. I decided that he would never be any different, and that I’d better organize my life so that I was less affected by his moods. I threw myself into work. God knows there was no shortage of things to do. Teaching, research, administration – committees, working parties, syllabus design and suchlike. My colleagues complain about the paperwork in higher education these days, but I rather enjoy mastering it. I have to face the fact that I’m never going to do earth-shaking research, I started too late, but I’m good at admin. My field is psycholinguistics, language acquisition in young children. I have published the odd paper. Oh does he? Well, he doesn’t understand a word of it, so he’s easily impressed. He’s not really an intellectual, Tubby. I mean, he has a wonderful ear for speech, obviously, but he can’t think abstractly about it. It’s all intuitive with him.
So I threw myself into work. I didn’t consider divorce at that stage. I was brought up very conventionally, my father was a C of E vicar, and for me there’s always been a certain stigma attached to divorce. It’s an admission of failure in a way, and I don’t like to fail at anything I set out to do. I knew that to other people – friends, relatives, even our children – our marriage must have seemed very successful. It had lasted so long without any visible upsets, and our standard of living soared with Tubby’s success. We had the big house in Hollywell, the flat in London, the two cars, holidays in luxury hotels, and so on. The children were through university and happily settled in adult life. I think most people we knew envied us. It would have been galling – it has been galling these last few weeks – to admit that the outward appearance was an illusion. I suppose too I shrank from the bitterness and anger that seem inseparable from divorce. We’d seen a fair amount of it among our friends. I thought, if I occupied myself fully at work, I could put up with Tubby’s moodiness at home. I used to bring work home as well, as extra protection. It was a wall I could retreat behind. I thought that as long as we enjoyed doing some things together, like tennis, and golf, and were still having sex regularly, that would be enough to sustain the marriage. Yes, I read an article once that made a great impression on me, saying that marriage breakdown in the fifties – I mean between couples in their fifties, not the nineteen-fifties – was nearly always associated with one partner’s loss of interest in sex. So I worked hard at that. Well, if he didn’t initiate it, I did. After sport was always a good time, when we were both feeling good from the exercise. I thought that sport and sex and a comfortable lifestyle would be enough to get us through the Difficult Fifties – that’s what the article was called, it comes back to me now, “The Difficult Fifties.”
Well, I was wrong. It wasn’t enough. Tubby’s knee injury didn’t help, of course. It separated us as regards sport – he couldn’t compete with me any more – and it put a damper on sex. He wouldn’t risk it for weeks, months, after the operation, and even then he always seemed more concerned about protecting his knee than having a good time. Then when it became apparent that the operation hadn’t been a success, he fell into a deeper depression than ever. This past year he’s been impossible to live with, completely wrapped up in himself, not listening to a word anybody says to him. Well, I suppose he must listen to his agent and his producer and so on, he could hardly function otherwise, but he didn’t listen to what I was saying to him. You’ve no idea how infuriating it is when you’ve been talking to someone for minutes on end, and they’ve been nodding and making phatic noises, and then you realize they haven’t taken in a single word you’ve said. You feel such a fool. It’s as if you were teaching a class while writing on the blackboard and then you turn round to find that they’ve all quietly left the room and you’ve been talking to yourself for you don’t know how long. The last straw was when I told him Jane had rung up to tell us she was pregnant – Jane’s our daughter – and that she and her partner were going to get married, and he just grunted, “Oh yes? Good,” and went on reading bloody Kierkegaard. And, you’d hardly credit this, even when I keyed myself up to tell him that I’d had enough and wanted to separate he didn’t li
sten to what I was saying at first.