Paradise News

by David Lodge

  Between my appointment with Bellucci and the signing of the document, I fitted in visits to two more nursing homes on the list Dr Gerson gave me. The first was Makai Manor, which is in a posh residential district on the coast on the far side of Diamond Head. As soon as I drove through the gates I knew it was going to be wonderfully attractive and impossibly expensive. The building is colonial in style, painted pristine white, with a long verandah where the more mobile patients can sit in the shade and enjoy the sights and scents of the lush, immaculately landscaped gardens. The air smells just as sweet inside. Everything is sleek and comfortable and clean. All the residents have their own bright, comfortably furnished private rooms, with personal TV, bedside telephone, etc. The nursing staff are smiling, neatly dressed and well-groomed, dispensing meals and medicine to the patients with the studied poise of air hostesses. Ursula would love Makai Manor. Unfortunately it costs $6500 per month, not including charges for drugs, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, etc. Her pleasure in being there would be vitiated by anxiety about having to leave if her money ran out. As if reading my mind, the administrator who showed me round, a tall, statuesque blonde lady in a spotless linen suit, discreetly intimated that they required certain financial guarantees when a terminally ill resident was admitted, “to pre-empt any difficulties that might eventuate should the prognosis prove overly pessimistic,” as she periphrastically put it. She could tell from my wistful demeanour, and probably from my creased Penney’s Levis, that I was out of my class. So that was that.

  The second place I saw is called Belvedere House, a somewhat pretentious name for a plain, one-storey building made of pastel-coloured concrete, that looks rather like a small school from the road. The site is exposed and shadeless, just off a broad straight main road in a rather barren, anonymous suburb on the north-western outskirts of the city. After the luxury of Makai Manor, it was a bit of a come-down, but on reflection it was considerably better than either of the two institutions I saw yesterday. Only a faint pong of urine, which I hardly noticed by the time I concluded my visit, and a friendly, caring atmosphere among the staff. There are still some things about it that Ursula won’t like: she would have to share a room with another lady, and the beds are very close together (I suspect the rooms were originally designed for single occupancy); some of the residents are plainly gaga, and the communal recreational facilities are very limited. On the other hand it’s only $3000 per month. And they have a vacancy.

  Tomorrow I must go to Ursula’s bank in Waikiki and get her share certificates from her safe-deposit box, and then take them to her stockbroker in downtown Honolulu so that the shares can be sold. I must also close down the safe-deposit box to save the rental, and wind up a small deposit account, and cash a $3000 moneymarket bond administered by the bank. Then all this money must be consolidated into an interest-bearing checking account, as they call a current account here. At the last valuation, which was fairly recent, Ursula’s stock portfolio was worth about $25,000, and her other savings and assets amount to about $15,000, giving a total of $40,000, plus her pension. Suppose she sets aside the pension for out-of-pocket expenses and unforeseen contingencies, and pays her nursing-home fees out of the capital. If she went into Belvedere House, that would cover her for just over a year, that is to say, for twice as long as Gerson expects her to live, which leaves an acceptable margin for error in his estimate. A somewhat morbid calculation, but one must face facts.

  Ursula seems prepared to face them. I told her about my latest research into nursing homes, without lingering too much on the unattainable attractions of Makai Manor. She accepted my judgment that Belvedere House was probably the best place we could hope to find within her price range, and agreed that I should begin the procedure to get her admitted as soon as possible. Gerson still hasn’t sorted out her constipation, which is proving remarkably stubborn, but it’s only a matter of time and then she’ll have to leave the hospital. Ursula has taken a keen interest in the business of the power of attorney, and the calculation of her assets. Paradoxically all this activity seems to have given her back the will to live. She asked me to bring her some additional nightwear and underwear from the apartment, and tomorrow she is going to have her hair done. The time seems to fly when I visit her, there is so much to discuss.

  I wish I could say the same for Daddy. All he can do is to moan about the pain in his hip, and about the indignity of bedpans, and about me for having got him into this scrape in the first place. He longs to get home, and asked me again about Tess. I think perhaps I had better phone her this evening and get it over with, but it’s too early yet – they’re still asleep in England. I think I’ll go for a swim. I feel the need of some exercise after driving around Honolulu all day in my plastic-lined car, and sitting in offices and hospital rooms.

  I’ve just returned from my swim, having narrowly escaped a minor disaster, and so pleased with myself that I can’t stop grinning, even laughing out loud occasionally to vent my ridiculous sense of triumph. Mrs Knoepflmacher caught me chortling to myself as I came out of the lift and gave me a suspicious stare. She came so close to me as she enquired about Daddy and Ursula that I think she was trying to sniff my breath. But I’m quite sober.

  I had intended to swim in the pool here, but when I went to inspect it from the balcony it was in deep shadow, quite deserted and somehow uninviting. So I put on a pair of bathing trunks under my shorts and drove down to the beach that fronts Kapiolani Park, which begins where the hotels of Waikiki end. I found a place for my car under the trees of the park without difficulty, for the hour was late and the beach relatively empty. The holidaymakers who jostle for sunbathing space here during the day had rolled up their towels and straw mats and flip-flopped back to their tower-block hatcheries to feed. The scattering of people still on the beach mostly looked like locals who had come down at the end of a working day, with a few beers or Cokes, to take a swim, relax, and watch the sun go down.

  It was a perfect hour for a swim. The sun was low in the sky and had lost its fierce daytime heat, but the sea was warm and the air balmy. I swam vigorously for about a hundred yards in the general direction of Australia, then floated on my back and gazed up at the overarching sky. Long shreds of mauve-tinted cloud, edged with gold, streamed like banners from the west. A jet droned overhead, but could not disturb the peace and beauty of the evening. The hum of the city seemed muted and distant. I emptied my mind, and let the waves rock me as if I were a piece of flotsam. Occasionally a bigger wave surged past, swamping me or lifting me into the air like a matchstick, leaving me spluttering in its wake, laughing like a boy. I decided I would do this more often.

  Some keen surfers were taking advantage of the last light. At the distance I had swum from the beach, I was better placed than before to observe them, and to appreciate their grace and skill. When a big wave comes along they glide diagonally along its glassy surface, just under the overhanging crest, knees bent and arms extended, and by swivelling their hips they are able to change direction and even reverse, leaping through the spray to the trough on the other side of the wave. If they ride the wave till it spends itself, they gradually stand erect. Sometimes, from my angle of vision, their boards were invisible, and as they approached me they seemed to be walking on the water. Then, as they lose momentum, they sink to their knees, as if in thanksgiving, before turning and paddling back towards the open sea. Watching them, I half-recalled some lines from The Tempest, which I have just looked up in Ursula’s Book Club edition of Shakespeare’s plays. It’s Francisco on Ferdinand:

  Sir, he may live.

  I saw him beat the surges under him,

  And ride upon their backs.

  Is that, I wonder, the first description of surfing in English Literature?

  Back on the beach, I dried off and sat down to watch the sunset. The last surfers shouldered their boards and departed. Out to sea, the sails of catamarans and schooners on “Cocktail Cruises” leaned in silhouette against a backdrop of shimmering gold. S
omewhere under the trees in the park at the back of the beach an invisible solo saxophonist was improvising long jazz arpeggios. The instrument wailed and sobbed with a throaty timbre that seemed the very voice of the evening. For perhaps the first time I understood how Hawaii could cast a spell upon the visitor.

  Then, as I thought about returning home, my tranquil mood was shattered: I discovered that my keys were missing. Somehow they had fallen out of the pocket of my shorts, into the soft dry sand. I froze, conscious that any movement I made might bury them irretrievably, if they were not buried already. I rotated slowly, the spoke of my shadow lengthening and contracting on the sand, and scrutinized every ridge and hollow around me, without spotting the keys.

  I uttered a low whinny of despair, and literally wrung my hands in anguish; for it was not only the keys to the car and the apartment that were missing, but also the key to Ursula’s safe-deposit box, which she had entrusted to me that afternoon, and which I had attached to the car-hire firm’s key-ring on which I also kept the apartment key. No doubt all these keys would be replaceable, but at the cost of inordinate effort, inconvenience and consumption of precious time. I had, I thought, been doing so well in my management of Ursula’s affairs; now, by a stupid act of carelessness, I had jeopardized the expeditious conclusion of the business, and surrendered my newly-won self-esteem. For it was stupidly careless to bring a bunch of keys down to the beach in an open pocket. It is so easy to lose a small object in the sand – that’s why professional beachcombers go up and down the Waikiki beaches all day with their metal detectors. I squinted along the length of the beach in the hope of seeing such a person, and seriously contemplated standing stock still where I was, until next morning if necessary, until one came along, so that I could enlist his help.

  A couple of dark-haired, brown-skinned youths were sitting about ten yards from me, dressed in faded sawn-off jeans and singlets, sipping beer from the can. They had come down to the beach while I was in the water, and with forlorn hope I called across to them to ask if they had by any chance seen a bunch of keys in the sand. They shook their heads pityingly. I wondered whether to fall on my knees and risk raking through the sand with my fingers. In another phase of my life I might have fallen on my knees to say a prayer. My shadow on the sand was now grotesquely long and thin, like one of Giacometti’s anorexic statues, and seemed expressive of my impotent grief. I turned again to face the sea, towards which the golden disc of the sun was rapidly sinking. Soon there would not be light enough to search for the keys. That thought gave me an idea.

  It was a far-fetched idea, but it seemed to me that it was my only chance. I walked down to the water’s edge, about fifteen yards away, in a perfectly straight line. The sun was now almost touching the horizon and its beams were level with the surface of the ocean. I stopped, turned, and squatted on my heels. I looked back up the gently sloping beach to the spot where I had changed for my swim, and there, a yard or two to the right of my towel, something gleamed and glinted, something reflected back the light of the setting sun, like a tiny star in the immensity of space. When I straightened up, it vanished. When I bent my knees again, it reappeared. The two youths watched these exercises with mild curiosity. Keeping my eyes fixed on the spot where the spark of light had gleamed, I marched back up the beach, and there, sure enough, was the tip of Ursula’s safe-deposit key, protruding a mere half-inch out of the sand. With a “Ha!” of triumph, I swooped and plucked the key, with its attachments, from the sand and held it up for the admiration of the two youths, who grinned and applauded. At that moment the sun slipped beneath the horizon, and the beach darkened like a stage on which the lights are suddenly dimmed. Clutching the keys tightly – the indentations in my palms have not yet faded – I made my way back to my car in the purple gloaming, light-hearted and gleeful. Tomorrow I must get one of those little marsupial pouches.

  I’ve been looking over the “story of my life”, as far as I got with it last night, scribbling furiously into the small hours in a prolonged spasm of self-revelation, or self-examination. I began by imagining myself talking to Yolande Miller, but I was soon talking to myself. And I stopped when I did, not because I was tired, or not just because of that, but because I could hardly bear to go on. It is so painful to recall the sequel, to try and unravel the tangle of momentous spiritual decisions and absurd physical fumblings that followed. That, of course, was why I got up and left Yolande’s house so abruptly: because I feared a repetition of events. I had reached the same point, last night, in Yolande’s living-room, as I reached with Daphne, in her flat, that dark, drizzly February afternoon. That was why I panicked and ran away. I’ll finish the story as briefly as possible.

  I left our hero, as it were, pinned to the back of the sofa, his lips warmly pressed by those of a woman for the first time in … I do believe, my entire life, at least from adolescence onwards. There was a little girl in our road called Jennifer, whom I was rather sweet on when I was about seven, and I dimly remember kissing her on the lips in some game of forfeits at a children’s birthday party, with confused feelings of pleasure in the touch of her lips, soft and moist like a peeled grape, and of shame and embarrassment at having to exchange the kiss in public. But after the onset of puberty I never embraced a woman other than my mother and sisters, and those hugs and pecks on the cheek were, needless to say, entirely non-sexual. So it was for me an extraordinarily novel sensation to feel Daphne’s mouth against mine. I didn’t have a beard in those days, so there was no cushioning insulation at the point of contact. She kissed me firmly, carefully, I might almost say reverently, as some of my female parishioners, usually well-turned out, matronly women like Daphne, used to kiss the feet of the crucified Christ in the Good Friday liturgy, with a graceful genuflection and a confident, well-aimed inclination of the head, as if to demonstrate to others how it should be done. (As celebrant, standing beside the big cross held out by two acolytes on the altar steps, wiping the plaster feet with a white linen cloth after each veneration, I couldn’t help noting and mentally classifying the various styles in which different people performed this pious act – some shy and embarrassed, as if at a game of forfeits, some clumsy but fervent and unselfconscious, others cool and poised and self-regarding.)

  I sat stock still as Daphne kissed me, astonished, but unresisting – indeed, I was enchanted. I discovered in an instant how deprived I had been of human physical contact, of the animal comfort of touch, during all the long years of my training and work as a priest – deprived, especially, of the mysterious physical otherness of women, their soft, yielding amplitude, their smooth satiny skin, their sweet-smelling breath and hair. It was a long kiss. I had time to notice that Daphne’s eyes were closed and, anxious to conform to the rubric of this unfamiliar proceeding, closed my own. Then she detached her lips from mine, withdrew her face and said archly, “I’ve been wanting to do that for ages. Have you?”

  It seemed unchivalrous to say no, so I said yes. She smiled, and lowered her eyelids and pursed her lips and tilted her chin, more or less obliging me to lean across and kiss her again, which I did. When I left the flat, hurrying (Oh, sacrilege!) to get back to the church in time to hear six o’clock Confessions, though no further intimacies had taken place and nothing had been explicitly declared, I was emotionally committed to a relationship with Daphne and morally committed to leaving the priesthood. It would not be fair to say that she had pressured me into this course of action. I was ready to make the break with the Church – indeed secretly longing to do so, to end the contradictions of my ministry, to be frank and open and honest at last about what I believed, or did not believe – but I lacked the courage to do it alone. I needed a provocation and I needed support. Daphne supplied both. A sceptical priest who concealed his doubts and went on doing his job out of timidity or a sense of duty was one thing (I believe there are many such); but a Catholic priest canoodling on a couch was another – a scandal, an anomaly, which couldn’t be allowed to continue. Daphne’s kiss and my recipr
ocation of it had set a seal on my loss of faith – or, I should say, had broken the seal on my concealed doubts. I felt no guilt, only relief and exhilaration as I drove away from the block of flats, glancing up at the window of Daphne’s living-room, where a curtain was pulled back, and a bulky shape, silhouetted against the light within, seemed to wave a hand. For only the second time in my life I had taken a decisive step to change it. The first had been a leap into the stern but reassuring embrace of Mother Church; the second had been into the arms of a woman and a life of unpredictable risk. I felt more alive than I had done for years. I was “high” on the experience, and I truly believe that I was never a more effective confessor than I was that evening – compassionate, caring, encouraging.

  Saying mass and preaching the next morning was a different matter. I was nervous and distraught. I stumbled uncharacteristically over the readings and avoided eye contact with individual members of the congregation when I distributed communion, as if I feared they could look into my eyes and see there, as in a peepshow, some scandalous tableau of myself and Daphne embracing. At lunch I could hardly sustain an intelligent conversation with Thomas, who looked curiously at me once or twice, and asked me if I was feeling all right. In the afternoon I drove round to Daphne’s flat, and we had another long talk, this time about the future.

  My main concern was to minimize as far as possible the shock and pain my change of life would inevitably cause my parents. So, instead of publicly renouncing the priesthood, the Catholic Faith, and celibacy, all in one stroke, I thought I would apply first for laicization, presenting my decision to Mummy and Daddy as a crisis over my vocation; then, when they had got used to that, I might be able to explain the theological doubts that lay behind it, and in due course prepare them to accept the idea of my marrying. I thought that in the meantime I would look for a teaching job somewhere in the north of England, and that Daphne might join me up there in due course, so that we could get to know each other better in calm and privacy before we took the decisive step of marrying. But it was a naive and ill-thought-out plan, which soon collapsed.