by David Lodge
Not long afterwards he met Rebecca by chance one afternoon in Piccadilly. He was coming out of Hatchard’s as she was coming out of the Royal Academy and they saw each other at the same moment, as if some telepathic force had directed and focused their mutual gaze across the road, the cabs and vans and omnibuses passing between them like flickering shapes in the foreground of a cinematograph film. She stood still and waited as he weaved his way recklessly through the traffic to her side. ‘Rebecca!’ he said, grasping her hand and holding it. ‘You look wonderful.’ And she did – radiant, vital, beautiful. He had forgotten how lovely she was. ‘I’ve missed you. Why have you been avoiding me?’
‘I haven’t been,’ she said. ‘If you wanted to see me why didn’t you ask?’
‘Well, I’ve been very busy … but never mind. Let me give you tea somewhere – Fortnum’s – we’ve lots to talk about. Your review of The Passionate Friends was most interesting.’
‘You weren’t offended by it?’
‘Well, some comments stung, I admit, but I’m used to that by now. And you said some nice things. But look, will you have tea with me?’
‘I’d love to,’ she said, smiling.
He took her arm and steered her across the road and into Fortnum and Mason’s, where they had a sumptuous tea of crab and cucumber sandwiches, toasted teacakes with damson jam, and cream pastries, of which she partook with eager, healthy appetite. She told him about her work on the New Freewoman, writing and commissioning book reviews, and he told her about The World Set Free, his novel-in-progress about global war fought with atomic bombs. ‘Actually, you know, it was through talking to you about the arms race, that day you came to Easton, that I got the idea for this novel,’ he said, altering the actual sequence of events, and saw that she was flattered. ‘It’s one of several reasons why I’m very glad I thought of inviting you.’
‘Harold Rubinstein prophesied that you would,’ she said, biting into a cream puff.
‘Who is Harold Rubinstein?’ he asked, disconcerted by this information.
‘He’s a solicitor, a Young Fabian and a male feminist – he comes to the Freewoman Circle meetings.’
‘A friend of yours, obviously.’
‘Yes, we met at the Fabian Summer School. He takes me to concerts occasionally when I can find the time.’
‘And when did he prophesy that I would invite you to Easton Glebe?’
‘When he read my review of Marriage. He said you wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to meet me and put me in my place.’
‘Did he indeed?’ he said. He felt a familiar wave of unpleasant emotion pass through him like a spasm of nausea. It was jealousy: a sudden intuition that, if he should decide after all to respond to Rebecca’s desire, this uncannily percipient young man would turn out to be a rival, playing the same devious, disapproving role as Clifford Sharp and Rivers Blanco White in previous affairs. If ? There was no longer any ‘if’. The instant, visceral effect of this insight was a determination to cut out Mr Rubinstein by possessing Rebecca while he had the opportunity. He turned the conversation to her review of The Passionate Friends. ‘I was very interested in what you had to say about the necessity of treating sex lightly. It’s something I’ve always believed – not always practised, I admit.’
Rebecca grimaced. ‘I got into terrible trouble at home on account of that,’ she said. ‘Mama was very shocked. And Lettie said I was talking nonsense about something I knew nothing about.’
‘It’s not nonsense at all, but if you’re to extend your knowledge in that area, you will have to leave home.’
‘I long to. But I simply can’t afford it,’ she said.
The waitress came up with the bill, and when he had dealt with that he said, ‘My new flat is properly finished and furnished now. Would you like to see it?’ As she hesitated, he added: ‘I’m alone there at present.’
‘I’d love to,’ she said, and her eyes told him she knew exactly what he meant.
And so the affair began. On that first occasion Rebecca was ardent but submissive: she was overjoyed simply to have his arms round her, glad to know that he found her desirable, willing to do anything he wanted, not taking the initiative herself, following his movements like someone learning the steps of a new dance. But she learned quickly, and the intensity of her desire was thrilling. One day early in their affair when she came to St James’s Court there was a servant in the flat – a woman Jane had recently hired to clean and cook when either or both of them were in residence. He received Rebecca in the drawing room and apologised for the woman’s presence. ‘I didn’t know she was coming,’ he said, ‘I thought it was her half-day off. But come here and let me kiss you.’ They sat down together on the sofa and began to kiss and fondle each other, getting more and more excited. Soon he had her blouse undone and his lips on an exposed breast, while his hand was under her skirt and between her thighs. Rebecca began to moan and heave her pelvis against the pressure of his forefinger. ‘Take me, have me!’ she whimpered. ‘You mean now? Here?’ ‘Yes, yes!’ It was impossible to carry her off to his bedroom, where he kept a supply of French letters, without the risk of encountering the servant, but he was too aroused to want to stop, as much by Rebecca’s shameless urgency as his own desire, so he hastily unbuttoned and did as she asked. He considered himself a skilled exponent of coitus interruptus, but on this occasion, sprawled on top of Rebecca, with one foot on the floor, he slipped on a rug and the sudden change of position caused him to ejaculate before he could withdraw. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said afterwards, but she seemed to think he was apologising for the indecorum of their situation rather than the risk of pregnancy. ‘It was my fault for leading you on,’ she said. ‘Imagine if the woman had come in while we were …’ She giggled. ‘I should be ashamed of myself, but I’m not.’ He kissed her and suggested she would probably like to visit the bathroom. ‘You’ll find a bidet in there,’ he said. ‘I should make very thorough use of it.’ She caught his meaning and looked suddenly serious. ‘Oh. Yes, I will. Thank you.’ But she came back smiling from the bathroom, evidently placing great confidence in the efficacy of a douche, and he did not worry her with his own misgivings. After that he was scrupulous about using a sheath whenever they made love, until in due course she acquired one of the new female devices.
After two years of playful, sometimes decadent sex with little E, who made him demonstrate his whole repertoire of postures, but never wholly abandoned herself, the fierce passion Rebecca brought to the act of love was transporting, reminding him of the ecstasy he had enjoyed with Amber, and yet with a distinctly different quality. Amber he always thought of as an athlete of sex, a kind of Atalanta, clean-limbed, agile, pagan, whereas there was something feral about Rebecca when she was stripped and hungry for love. Her body was less classically beautiful than Amber’s, but it was sensual, with a full bust, small waist, broad hips and a generously curved bottom. She had a luxuriant bush of pubic hair. ‘I was ashamed of it when it first grew,’ she said. ‘I thought it looked like an animal’s fur.’ ‘That’s what’s so nice about it,’ he said. ‘There’s something animal about you that is very exciting. Something feline, a kind of contained energy that might show itself at any moment, like the leap of a panther in the jungle. I shall call you “Panther.”’ ‘And what shall I call you?’ ‘Call me “Jaguar”. We will be two big cats, mating in the jungle.’ This childish fantasy pleased them both, and became an essential element of their relationship.
He confessed to Jane that he was seeing Rebecca and discovered that, as usual, she had already guessed something of the kind was going on. ‘Elizabeth won’t stand it, if she finds out,’ she said.
‘You don’t think so?’ he said.
‘You know she won’t. Are you going to tell her when you go to Randogne?’ His visit to the Chalet Soleil was now imminent.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’ll see.’
*
He went to Switzerland in a state of indecision. He didn’t really want to
break with Elizabeth if he could avoid it. Irritating as she had become of late, with her patronising little digs at Jane and himself, she was an ideal mistress: an interesting, intelligent companion, and a lover whose attitude to sex as a source of pleasure rather than an expression of deep emotional commitment was one he in principle approved. That she was well-off, and well-connected, and owned a fine house in his favourite part of Europe where he could stay for extended periods for both work and recreation, were also considerable assets which he would be sorry to sacrifice. On the other hand he was enraptured with young Rebecca: he had never met any woman who combined such exciting sensuality with the intelligence, eloquence and wit she possessed, both in speech and in writing. Elizabeth was an amusing conversationalist and a skilful writer, but within modest limits. She was basically an entertainer, skating elegantly on the surface of life, never plumbing the dark depths, never really challenging or disturbing her readers. Rebecca was only at the beginning of her career, but he was sure she would turn out to be the more considerable writer in the long run, and it would be rewarding to observe and guide her development. Must he choose between these two relationships? Or could he somehow contrive to enjoy both? Should he tell little E about Rebecca when he got to Randogne, and risk an irreversible break-up, or devote himself to smoothing over the bad feeling with which they had last parted, and continue to maintain the liaison with Rebecca in secrecy for as long as she was interested herself ?
Because he hadn’t made up his mind what to do before he arrived at the Chalet Soleil he succeeded in doing nothing satisfactorily. Elizabeth greeted him graciously but with something less than joy. He sensed she was expecting a humble apology for his behaviour when they were last together, but he felt he had already done that by letter, and that she had not reciprocated with any admission of being at fault herself. The first days passed quite agreeably in their accustomed way, both of them working in the mornings, he in the main house and she in the Little Chalet, then going for walks in the afternoon, followed by dinner and light reading in the evening with perhaps a little music from the piano, which Elizabeth played extremely well. But she did not come through the secret door between their rooms at night. He felt they were both performing parts, outwardly genial but inwardly watchful, circling each other mentally like wrestlers preparing to grapple but never actually doing so. He asked her what she was working on and she said, ‘a novel about adultery’. ‘The best sport in the world!’ he said, meaning to refer to their own civilised and light-hearted indulgence in it, but her answering smile was slightly forced, and he wondered whether she harboured suspicions that he had been unfaithful to her. She asked him if Rebecca West was still ‘pestering’ him, and he replied accurately but misleadingly that she was not. But when she made some slighting remarks about Rebecca’s contributions to the New Freewoman, he said that in his opinion, and that of several others, Fordie Hueffer and Violet for instance, she was the most brilliant young journalist in London. ‘Really?’ she said in a tone of bored scepticism, but she eyed him as if trying to assess the hidden significance of his words.
He had brought the proofs of The World Set Free to work on and one evening read some of it to her, but she didn’t care for it. ‘Why do you smash the world up like that?’ she asked. ‘To stop humanity from smashing it up in earnest,’ he said. ‘But there’s a kind of joy in destruction in your descriptions,’ she said, ‘like a naughty boy kicking over somebody else’s sand-castle, that they’ve spent hours building. How could you bring yourself to bomb Paris, beautiful Paris, to smithereens, even in imagination? After all, these bombs don’t actually exist, so nobody could really do it.’ ‘They will exist one day,’ he said. ‘So you say,’ she jeered. Again she did not come to his room that night – or the next. He sensed that she was waiting for him to beg her to do so, but he was not going to crawl to her. Why should he? It was a kind of silent duel between them – who was going to crack first? Who was going to provoke a confrontation and take responsibility for what followed?
In the end it was himself. After the sixth night spent lying fruitlessly awake in the dark, straining to hear the faint sound of the secret door being slid open, he had had enough, and told Elizabeth, when they stepped out on to the terrace after breakfast, that he would be leaving in the afternoon, two days earlier than planned. They were looking down the valley, which was covered at the bottom by a layer of early morning mist like cotton wool. ‘Why?’ she said, without taking her eyes off the view. ‘I don’t see that there’s any point in my staying any longer,’ he said. ‘Are you saying it’s all over between us?’ she said. ‘Every night since I arrived I have lain awake, waiting for you to come to my room,’ he said, ‘and you didn’t come. I take that to be a kind of statement.’ ‘I suppose it is,’ she said. ‘It’s because I’m common, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘No, it’s not,’ she said, turning to face him. ‘You are a little common in some ways, G, indeed it’s common just to say “It’s because I’m common, isn’t it?” But you’re also a genius, and one can forgive a genius for many imperfections. There’s someone else, though, isn’t there?’ ‘Suppose for the sake of argument there were,’ he said. ‘Why should that affect a relationship that has suited both of us very well for the last two years?’ ‘I know there is someone else,’ she said. ‘I feel it. I don’t like it. I won’t have it.’ ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and pack my bags.’
The Chalet Soleil was reached from Randogne by a little mountain railway that terminated a mile below the house. As he walked down the steep path that led to the station, preceded by a servant with a handcart containing his luggage, he felt sure that Elizabeth was watching him from a window, or the terrace, but he did not look back. The further he left the chalet behind him, the more his spirits rose, and they continued to rise as he travelled across Europe towards London, where Rebecca awaited him. If, as it had turned out, he could not have both women, he had no doubt that he had made the right choice between them. Little E had nothing new to give him. Rebecca was youth, life, and infinite potential.
As soon as he got back to Easton Glebe he told Jane what had happened: Elizabeth was history, Rebecca was the future. ‘As you wish, H.G.,’ she said, with a sigh. ‘But I don’t want to meet Rebecca again, and I certainly don’t want her staying here.’ He agreed without demur to these conditions, and thought he understood the feelings from which they arose. Jane wouldn’t be able to relate to Rebecca as she had to Elizabeth, a woman of her own age, or to Amber, a girl she had known from adolescence, who had been almost a surrogate daughter to her. Rebecca – not only young, but assertive and ambitious – would be more of a challenge, even a threat to Jane, if allowed into the ambit of their domestic and social life.
So he had to pursue his affair with Rebecca in a separate zone, and it remained clandestine. He did not meet her in St James’s Court any more – there was always the risk of the housekeeper noticing and gossiping, not to mention the embarrassing possibility of running into Elizabeth going in or out of the building when he had Rebecca on his arm. Rebecca had now moved out of her family home into a bed-sitting room in Maida Vale, but he could not visit her there with propriety. For a while they met regularly at the house of a married friend of Rebecca’s, Carrie Townshend, and he would take her off afterwards for a few hours to rooms he rented in Warwick Street, Pimlico, whose owner, Mrs Strange, was sympathetic to lovers. There they could act out their Panther–Jaguar fantasy without restraint. She would crouch on the bed, naked, like a panther couchant, with her head up, following him with her eyes as he, naked too, prowled round the room, emitting low-pitched growls, and then he would suddenly pounce, and locked together they would roll about on the bed, or on the floor, licking, biting and digging their claws into each other before he mated with her and they came to a noisy climax. Then she would purr in his arms until they both fell into a delicious sleep. He had never known such liberating sex, sex which acknowledged the animal nature of lust but turned it into a kind of erotic theatre. It provid
ed a private language for their frequent exchange of love letters. ‘There is NO Panfer but Panfer, and she is the Prophet of the most High Jaguar which is bliss and perfect being,’ he wrote to her, and drew a picshua at the end of the two of them as big cats. He wrote of wanting to nuzzle her ‘dear fur’ and of coming up to Town for ‘a snatch at your ears and a whisk of your tail’. But he also wrote more seriously, ‘I’ve been home two hours and twice I’ve turned round to say something to you – and you weren’t there. My dear Panther it’s like the feeling of suddenly missing a limb.’ This was no passade: to his wonderment he was genuinely, helplessly in love – and for the first time in his life with a woman who if not yet his intellectual equal, might very well turn out to be. She did not flatter him or defer to him or abase herself before his genius, but challenged him and stimulated him by her shrewd insights into his work and that of others. And she could be very funny. She had been taken up lately by Fordie and Violet Hueffer, who were living together as man and wife in spite of rumours that he was not legally divorced, and Rebecca’s description of being kissed by Fordie, ‘like being the toast under a poached egg’, had kept him chuckling intermittently for a whole day. When a group of people were discussing Cecil Chesterton’s dirty-looking complexion and someone said it was natural, because she had seen him bathing in the sea at Le Touquet and he came out looking just the same as when he went in, Rebecca instantly asked, ‘But did you look at the Channel?’