by David Lodge
Sally looked dismayed. That’s the only word to describe her face: dismayed. “No, Tubby,” she said.
“I don’t mean straight away. We could go on with separate living arrangements in the house for a while. Separate bedrooms, anyway. See how it goes.”
“I’m afraid it’s impossible, Tubby.”
“Why?” I said, though I knew the answer before she spoke.
“There’s someone else.”
“You said there wasn’t.”
“Well, there wasn’t, then. But now there is.”
“Who is he?”
“Somebody at work. You don’t know him.”
“So you’ve known him for some time, then?”
“Yes. But we didn’t … we weren’t …”
Sally for once seemed at a loss for words. “We haven’t been lovers till – till quite recently,” she said at last. “Before that it was just a friendship.”
“You didn’t tell me about it, though,” I said.
“You didn’t tell me about Amy,” she said.
“How did you know about Amy?” I said. My head was spinning.
“Oh, Tubby, everybody knows about you and Amy!”
“It was platonic,” I said. “At least it was until you walked out.”
“I know,” she said. “When I met her I knew it must be.”
“This chap at work,” I said. “Is he married?”
“Divorced.”
“I see.”
“We’ll probably get married. I expect that will make a difference to the divorce settlement. You probably won’t have to give me so much money.” She gave me a wan smile.
“Oh, fuck the money,” I said, and walked out of the house for ever.
It was a nasty shock, of course – to have my carefully prepared offer of reconciliation brushed aside, rendered redundant, cut off at the knees, shoved back down my throat almost before I’d uttered it. But driving back down the M1 through dwarf forests of cones, I began to see a positive side to the reversal. It was obvious that Sally had begun to lean towards this other bloke years ago, whatever the exact nature of their relationship. It wasn’t, as I had thought ever since Brett Sutton turned out to be innocent, that she’d left me simply because she would rather be lonely than married to me. I found that curiously reassuring. It restored my self-esteem.
The day’s shocks weren’t over though. When I got back to London and let myself into the flat, I found it completely empty. It had been stripped bare. There was nothing movable left in it, down to the light bulbs and the curtain rails. The chairs, tables, bed, carpets, crockery and cutlery, clothes and household linen – all gone. The only thing that was left, very neatly placed in the middle of the bare concrete floor, was my computer. It was a thoughtful touch on Grahame’s part: I had explained to him once how precious the contents of my hard disk were, and he didn’t know that I had deposited a box of back-up files with my bank before I left for Spain. I don’t know how he and his friends got in, because they hadn’t damaged the door and had carefully locked it behind them when they left. Perhaps Grahame had taken an impression of my keys one day when he was in the flat and I was in the loo – I used to keep a spare set hanging in the kitchen. Or perhaps he just borrowed them once without my noticing. Apparently they arrived one morning in a removal van and had the cheek to ask the police for special permission to park outside the building while they moved the contents of my flat to some spurious new address.
When I stepped into the flat and looked round, after half a minute of mouth-open astonishment, I laughed. I laughed till the tears rolled down my cheeks and I had to lean against the wall and finally sit down on the floor. The laughter was a touch hysterical, no doubt, but it was genuine.
If this was a television script, I would probably end it there, with the final credits scrolling over the empty flat, and yours truly sprawled in one corner, his back against the wall, weeping with laughter. But that happened several weeks ago, and I want to bring this story up to date, up to the moment of writing, so that I can carry on with my journal. I’ve been very busy working on The People Next Door. Ollie and Hal really loved my rewrite of Samantha’s script for the final episode of the last series. It went down a treat with the studio audience too, apparently. (I wasn’t there, it was recorded on 25th July, the feast of St James.) And Debbie was so taken with playing Priscilla as a ghost that she changed her mind and signed up for a whole new series based on the idea. I’m writing the scripts, but Samantha will get a prominent credit, which is only fair. She’s become Heartland’s number one script-doctor in a very short time. I had a bet with Jake at lunch today that she’ll have Ollie’s job before two years are out.
Jake wasn’t very sympathetic about my burglary. He said I was insane to have ever trusted Grahame, and pointed out that if I’d let him use the flat as his love-nest while I was away, Grahame and his mates wouldn’t have dared to loot it. But I was able to refurnish the flat quite quickly – the insurance company were very fair – and I never liked the original furnishings much anyway. Sally chose them. It’s been like starting a new life from scratch, replacing everything in the flat. It’s too small to live in permanently, though. I’m thinking of moving out to the suburbs, Wimbledon to be precise. I see quite a lot of Maureen and Bede these days. It would be nice to be near them, and I thought I might try to join the local tennis club – I always did fancy wearing that dark green blazer. I went up to Hollywell the other day to empty my locker at the old Club. A slightly melancholy occasion, brightened by the circumstance that I ran into Joe Wellington and challenged him to a game of singles for a tenner. I beat the shit out of him, 6–0, 6–0, rushing the net after every serve and scampering back to the baseline when he tried to lob me. “What about your knee?” he gasped afterwards. “Just pay up with a smile, Joe,” I said. “Reason not the knee.” I don’t think he recognized the quote.
I have my eye on a nice little house up the hill from the All England Club. I shan’t give up the flat, though. It’s useful for business to have a base in the West End; and every now and then Maureen and I have a siesta here. I don’t ask her how she squares it with her conscience – I’ve got more sense. My own conscience is quite clear. The three of us are the best of friends. We’re going off together for a little autumn break, actually. To Copenhagen. It was my idea. You could call it a pilgrimage.
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 9781446496671
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Published by Vintage 2011
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Copyright © David Lodge, 1995
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
‘Mr Bleaney’, from Philip Larkin’s The Whitsun Weddings, is quoted by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd. ‘Too Young’ (Lippman/Dee) is quoted by permission; copyright © Jefferson Music Inc., USA, 1951; copyright renewed 1979 by Aria Music Company, USA, Campbell Connolly & Co. Ltd, 8–9 Frith Street, London W1
First published in Great Britain by Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd 1995
Vintage
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London
SW1V 2SA
www.vintage-books.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 9780099554196
www.vintage-books.co.uk