Paradise News

by David Lodge

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by David Lodge

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Part Two

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Part Three

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Author’s Note

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Bernard Walsh, agnostic theologian, has a professional interest in heaven. But when he travels to Hawaii with his reluctant father Jack, to visit Jack’s dying, estranged sister it feels more like purgatory than paradise.

  Surrounded by quarrelling honeymooners, a freeloading anthropologist and assorted tourists in search of their own personal paradise, and with his father whisked off to hospital after an unfortunate accident, Bernard is beginning to regret ever coming to Haiwaii. Until, that is, he stumbles on something he had given up hope of finding: the astonishing possibility of love.

  About the Author

  David Lodge’s novels include Changing Places, Small World, Nice Work, Thinks …, Author, Author, Deaf Sentence and, most recently, A Man of Parts. He has also written stage plays and screenplays, and several books of literary criticism, including The Art of Fiction, Consciousness and the Novel and The Year of Henry James.

  ALSO BY DAVID LODGE

  Fiction

  The Picturegoers

  Ginger, You’re Barmy

  The British Museum is Falling

  Down

  Out of the Shelter

  Changing Places

  How Far Can You Go?

  Small World

  Nice Work

  Therapy

  Home Truths

  Thinks …

  Author, Author

  Deaf Sentence

  A Man of Parts

  Criticism

  Language of Fiction

  The Novelist at the Crossroads

  The Modes of Modern Writing

  Working with Structuralism

  After Bakhtin

  Essays

  Write On

  The Art of Fiction

  The Practice of Writing

  Consciousness and the Novel

  The Year of Henry James

  Drama

  The Writing Game

  Home Truths

  For Mike Shaw

  DAVID LODGE

  Paradise News

  “The earthly paradise! Don’t you want to go to it? Why of course!”

  Harry Whitney:

  The Hawaiian Guide Book (1875)

  PART ONE

  Nightly descending through the baroque cloud

  That decorates these hills, riding on air,

  Thousands arrive by dream at their desire.

  William Meredith:

  “An Account of a Visit to Hawaii”

  1

  “WHAT DO THEY see in it, eh? What do they see in it?”

  Leslie Pearson, Senior Representative (Airport Reception) of Travelwise Tours plc, surveys the passengers swarming in the Departures Concourse of Heathrow’s Terminal Four with an expression of mingled pity and contempt. It is mid-morning in the high summer season and, adding to the normal congestion, there is a security alert in operation, because of a recent plane crash thought to have been caused by sabotage. (Three different terrorist organizations have claimed responsibility, which means that at least two of them are trying to obtain a reputation for indiscriminate murder without exerting themselves. That’s the modern world for you: the more Leslie Pearson sees of it, the less he understands or likes it.) Passengers are being closely questioned at the check-in desks about the provenance of their luggage, this morning, and their persons and handbaggage scrutinized with more than usual zeal by the security staff. Long, slow-moving lines stretch from the check-in desks nearly to the opposite wall of the concourse, crosshatched by two longer lines converging upon the narrow gate that leads to Passport Control, the Security gates, and the Departures Lounge. The queueing passengers shift their weight from one foot to another, or lean on the handles of their heaped baggage trolleys, or squat on their suitcases. Their expressions are variously anxious, impatient, bored, stoical – but not yet weary. They are still relatively fresh: their bright casual clothes are clean and pressed, their cheeks smooth from the recent application of razor or make-up, their hair groomed and glossy. But if an additional cause of serious delay should occur – a work-to-rule by air traffic controllers, say, or a go-slow by baggage handlers – then, as Leslie Pearson knows from experience, it wouldn’t be long before the veneer of civilization began to show cracks. He has seen this concourse, and the Departures Lounge beyond, choked with delayed passengers sleeping under the fluorescent lights in their soiled, crumpled clothes, sprawled promiscuously all over the furniture and the floor, mouths agape and limbs askew, like the victims of a massacre or a neutron bomb, while the airport cleaners picked their way through the prone bodies like scavengers on a battlefield. Things aren’t nearly as bad as that today, but they are bad enough.

  “What do they see in it?” he says again. “What are they after?”

  “The free esses, innit?” says Trevor Connolly. He is a recent recruit to Travelwise, temporarily attached to Leslie to learn the ropes: how to recognize and greet the firm’s clients, inspect their travel documents to check that they’ve come on the right day (you’d be surprised) and that their passports are in order, with visas as required, then direct them to the appropriate check-in desk and give them a hand with their luggage if they need it, and answer their questions if they’ve got any. “Sun, sand and sex,” Trevor elaborates with a smirk.

  Leslie snorts dismissively. “You don’t have to go long-haul to get them,” he says. “You can get them in Majorca. You can get ’em in Bournemouth, come to that, this year – beautiful summer we’re having. Not that you’d know it, stuck in this hole.” He glowers up at the low, steel-grey ceiling, where all the building’s ducts and conduits are exposed in what is supposed to be an ultra-modern style, but which makes Leslie feel as if he is working in a hotel basement or the engine-room of a battleship. “I mean, take this little lot” – he glances at the list of the day’s passengers on his clipboard – “Where are they going? Honolulu. Honolulu! I ask you – it must take ’em all day to get there.”

  “Eighteen and a half hours,” says Trevor. “Including change of planes at Los Angeles.”

  “Eighteen and a half hours cooped up in one of those oversized sardine cans? Must be mad. They’re all mad, if you ask me,” Leslie says, sweeping his gaze like a lighthouse beam across the crowded concourse, a tall, straightbacked, rather military figure (he is in fact a retired policeman). “Look at ’em! Like lemmings. Lemmings” He smacks his lips on the word, though in truth he isn’t entirely sure what a lemming is. Some kind of small animal, isn’t it, that moves in a mindless pack and throws itself into the sea?

  “It’s the novelty, innit,” says Trevor. “I mean, Majorca, who’d go to Majorca anymore? It’s dead common, Blackpool by the Med. Same with Florida, even the Caribbean. You got to keep going further and further to get away from the Joneses.”

  “Here come two of ours,” says Leslie. He has picked out the purple and gold Travelwise labels on the luggage of a young couple who have just come through the automatic sliding doors and are looking hesitantly about them. “Honeymooners, I bet.” Something about the top-to-toe newness of their clothes, and the pristine state of their matching luggage, tell
s him they are newly-weds, though the space visible between them, the wife standing ahead and to one side of her husband, who is pushing a luggage trolley, suggests that the marriage has got off to a slightly dodgy start. They probably got married yesterday, passed the night in a hot and noisy London hotel room, and now they’re going to spend the first full day of their married life shot halfway round the world strapped into a pair of cramped dentist’s chairs. They’d have done a lot better going to Bournemouth.

  Leslie steps forward with a smile, introduces himself to the couple, and inspects their tickets and passports. “Hawaii – an inspired choice for a honeymoon, if I may say so, sir.”

  The young man grins sheepishly, but his wife looks displeased. “Is it so obvious?” she says. She has straight fair hair held back from her forehead by a tortoiseshell comb, and clear, ice-blue eyes.

  “Well, I couldn’t help noticing that you’re Mrs Harvey on my list, madam, but Miss Lake in your passport.”

  “Very observant,” she says drily.

  “Will it matter?” says the young man anxiously. “About the passport, I mean.”

  “Not a bit, sir. Nothing to worry about. Check your bags at desk twenty-one. You may have a bit of a wait, I’m afraid.”

  “Don’t you do that for us?” says Mrs Harvey.

  “Passengers are required to identify their luggage in person, madam. Security regulations. My colleague Mr Connolly will be glad to assist you with your bags.”

  “We can push our own trolley, thanks,” says Mrs Harvey, meaning evidently that her husband can, for she sets off in the direction of desk twenty-one without even a glance at him.

  “Phew,” says Trevor, when the couple are out of earshot. “Glad I’m not in his jockstrap. What a ballbreaker.”

  “Love’s young dream,” says Leslie, “ain’t what it used to be. It comes of all this living together before you get married. Takes all the romance out of it.”

  This is a pointed comment, aimed at Trevor, who however pretends to misunderstand. “Right,” he says. “That’s what I tell Michelle: marriage is fatal to romance.”

  Ignoring his impudent grin, Leslie ticks off the names of Mr and Mrs Harvey on the passenger list. “Keep your eyes peeled for a customer on his own, name of Sheldrake. See the star against his name?”

  “Yeah, what’s it mean?”

  “It means he’s on a freebie. Usually it means a journalist. Travel writer.”

  “I wouldn’t mind that for a job.”

  “First you’ve got to be able to write, Trevor. First you’ve got to be able to spell.”

  “Don’t need to, nowadays, do you? Computers do it all for you.”

  “Anyway, be on your toes when he turns up. Make a good impression, otherwise he might write something nasty about you.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, ‘I was greeted at the airport by a scruffy-looking courier with dandruff all over his uniform and a collar-button missing.’”

  “That’s Michelle’s fault,” says Trevor, looking slightly rattled. “She promised to sew it on for me.”

  “Appearance is very important in this job, Trevor,” says Leslie. “The customers are confused, anxious, when they arrive here. Your turn-out should inspire trust. We’re like guardian angels, wafting them over to the other side.”

  “Get off it,” says Trevor. But he tightens the knot of his tie and slaps at the shoulders and lapels of his jacket.

  Their next clients are a middle-aged couple from Croydon. The wife, her roly-poly figure stuffed into matching electric blue stretch-pants and jumper, looks flustered and anxious. “He has a heart,” she says, thumbing sideways at her husband, who shakes his head and grins reassuringly at Leslie. “He can’t be expected to queue like this.”

  The man certainly doesn’t look particularly healthy: he has a flushed, mottled face with a red drinker’s nose screwed into the middle like a light-bulb, and his white-shirted stomach droops doughily over his belt buckle.

  “I could try and get you a wheelchair, if you like, sir,” says Leslie.

  “No, no, don’t be daft, Lilian,” says the man. “Take no notice of her. I’m fine.”

  “He shouldn’t really be travelling all this way,” says Lilian, “but we didn’t want to disappoint Terry – that’s our son. He booked the holiday for us. Paid for everything. He’s coming from Sydney to Hawaii to meet us.”

  “Very nice,” says Leslie, as he checks their documents.

  “He’s done ever so well out there. He’s a fashion photographer, has his own studio. He phoned us up one day, six o’clock in the morning it was, well, they have a different time down under, don’t they? He said: ‘I want to give you and Dad a holiday to remember. Just get yourselves to Heathrow and I’ll take care of the rest.’”

  “It’s very pleasing to hear of a young man who appreciates his parents,” says Leslie. “Especially these days. Trevor: take Mr and Mrs Brooks to desk sixteen, explain that Mr Brooks has a medical condition. That’s Business Class,” he adds for their benefit. “A shorter queue.”

  “Will we have to pay extra?” says Mr Brooks anxiously.

  “No, no, same seats, but we have an arrangement with the airline for checking in handicapped passengers through Business Class.”

  “Handicapped – I’m not handicapped. You see what you’ve done, Lilian?”

  “Shut up, Sidney, you don’t know when you’re well off. Thanks very much,” says Mrs Brooks to Leslie.

  Trevor leads them away with some reluctance, for two youngish women in pastel-coloured jogging suits are hovering in the background, clasping the purple and gold plastic document wallets referred to in the company’s brochure as their Travelpaks. Neither of them is outstandingly good-looking, nor in the first bloom of youth, but they are the kind of customers Trevor enjoys flirting with, or, in his own idiom, considers good for a giggle.

  “Your first trip to Hawaii, ladies?” Leslie enquires.

  “Oh yes, the first time. We’ve never been further than Florida before, have we, Dee?” says the one in the pink and powder-blue tracksuit. She has a broad, chubby face with big round eyes and a halo of fine light curls like baby’s hair.

  “How long is the flight?” says Dee, whose tracksuit is mauve and green, and whose features are sharper and less trusting.

  “It’s better not to know,” says Leslie, a witticism that convulses pink-and-blue with merriment.

  “Oh, go on, tell,” she says.

  “You’ll be in Honolulu by eight o’clock this evening.”

  “But that’s not allowing for the time change,” says Dee.

  “She teaches Science,” her companion volunteers, as if to explain the acuteness of this observation.

  “Ah. Then you’ve got to add on eleven hours,” says Leslie.

  “Oh, God!”

  “Never mind, Dee, it’ll be worth it when we get there.” The girl in pink and blue appeals to Leslie: “They say it’s like Paradise, don’t they?”

  “Absolutely,” says Leslie. “And allow me to congratulate you, ladies, on your choice of attire for the journey. Both practical and becoming, if I may say so.”

  Pink-and-blue blushes and giggles, and even Dee smiles a queenly smile of pleasure. They go off to join the long line in front of desk twenty-one. Trevor comes back just too late to offer to help with their luggage, of which they had rather a lot.

  “What happened to the birds, then?” he says.

  “I dealt with them, Trevor,” says Leslie. “I guided them on their way with my inimitable old-world courtesy.”

  “Garn!” says Trevor.

  The morning wears on. The queues lengthen. The atmosphere under the steel-grey pipes and girders becomes stuffier and more charged with frustration and anxiety, as passengers shuffling forward in the long, slow-moving line waiting to go through Passport Control check their watches and wonder whether they will miss their flights. Passenger R. J. Sheldrake, wearing a beige safari suit, and towing a practical hard-shell su
itcase with built-in wheels, presents his complimentary ticket, and comments gloomily on the queues. He has a large, domed head, going prematurely bald, and a big, bulging jaw, the rest of his features looking rather squeezed between these two protuberances.

  “Don’t worry, sir,” says Leslie, with a conspiratorial wink. “Just come with me and I’ll get you checked in through Business Class.”

  “No, no, I’ve got to be treated like everyone else,” says Dr Sheldrake (for such is his title according to the ticket). “It’s all part of the fieldwork,” he adds enigmatically. Declining Trevor’s assistance, he disappears, with his wheeled suitcase, into the throng.

  “Was that the journalist?” Trevor enquires.

  “I don’t know,” Leslie replies. “It said he was a doctor on his ticket.”

  “He had worse dandruff than me,” says Trevor. “And ’ardly any ’air.”

  “Don’t look now,” says Leslie, “but you’re being filmed.” A burly man with luxuriant sideburns, wearing a two-tone blouson and keenly pressed trousers, is aiming a hand-held video camera at them from about ten yards’ range. A woman wearing a yellow cotton frock with a pattern of red beach umbrellas, and a great deal of costume jewellery, loiters beside him, looking absently around her, in the attitude of a dog-owner whose pet has stopped to lift its leg against a tree.

  “Bloomin’ cheek,” says Trevor.

  “Hush,” says Leslie. “It’s another one of ours.”

  Mr and Mrs Everthorpe have just arrived on a feeder flight from East Midlands. “Don’t mind being in our home movie, do you?” says Mr Everthorpe, as he comes up. “I spotted the uniform soon as we came through the door.”

  “Not at all, sir,” says Leslie. “May I see your tickets?”

  “Hawaii here we come, eh? Can’t wait to get those hula-hula girls in my viewfinder.”

  “Not if I have anything to do with it,” says Mrs Everthorpe, slapping her husband on one of his thick wrists. “I thought this was supposed to be our second honeymoon?”