Paradise News

by David Lodge

  “Don’t you think,” said Bernard, “that Hawaii is one of those places that was always better in the past? I expect the people who lived here before the jumbo jets, before you came yourself, Ursula, look back on those days as a golden age, and likewise the people who lived here when you could only get here by steamship, and so on, right the way back to the Hawaiians who lived here before Captain Cook discovered them.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” said Ursula. “But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t actually getting worse.”

  “No,” Bernard smiled. “You’re quite right, it doesn’t.”

  “I think you’ve enjoyed being here, haven’t you? I mean apart from Jack’s accident and everything. You look different than when you arrived.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yeah, brighter, less hangdog.”

  Bernard blushed. “It’s been satisfying, getting things organized for you.”

  “You’ve done wonders,” said Ursula, extending her good arm and squeezing his hand. “How’s Jack? When am I going to see him?”

  “The doctor is pleased with his progress. He should be out of bed soon.”

  “How are we going to get together? As soon as he’s able, he’ll want to get back home. Why can’t I hire an ambulance and just go see him at St Joseph’s?”

  “That’s what I was thinking myself. I’ve asked Enid to try and set it up.”

  Every resident at Makai Manor had a social worker allocated to them, and Ursula’s was a quietly efficient young woman called Enid da Silva. She demonstrated her efficiency once more by intercepting Bernard on his way out of the lobby to tell him that she had arranged for Ursula to be transported to St Joseph’s Hospital the following Wednesday afternoon. He thanked her and asked her to pass on the information to Ursula.

  He drove back along the scenic coast road to Waikiki. Out to sea, underneath Diamond Head, brightly coloured triangular sails flickered in the sun like butterfly wings. As he had plenty of time before his next appointment, he pulled into a parking place at the edge of the cliff and watched the windsurfers at their sport. Perhaps because it was a Sunday afternoon, there were scores of them, and they made a thrilling spectacle. Tensed and balanced, knees flexed, backs arched, hands grasping the curved steel bows that harnessed their bellying sails, they careered towards the shore under the curling crests of the rollers and then, to avoid being beached, with incredible dexterity they swivelled round, turned, and leaped like salmon through the spume of the oncoming waves. Some, miraculously, even turned somersaults, without being parted from their boards. Then they used their sails to tack back towards the open sea, to catch another wave. They seemed to have discovered the secret of perpetual motion. They seemed, to Bernard, like gods. He could not conceive of the skill, strength, and daring required to perform such feats. He wondered if Dr Gerson was among them, obliterating the grim realities of the cancer ward in the rush of foam, the sting of salt, the dazzle of sun and sea. No problem guessing what a windsurfer’s heaven would be like. If you could do that, Bernard thought, you would want to do it all the time, for ever.

  He drove to Kaolo Street, and parked the car in the basement parking lot, in the space allocated to Ursula’s apartment. Then he walked the three blocks to the Waikiki Surfrider. He was getting used to the landmarks on this route: the Towel Factory, the Wacko Gift Shop, the Hula Hut, 24-Hour Hot-Dogs, First Interstate Bank, ABC Store. Not that the ABC was much of a landmark. There was an ABC Store every fifty yards or so in Waikiki, all selling the identical range of groceries, drinks, and holiday gear – flip-flops, swimming costumes, straw mats, suntan products and postcards. Inside, bemused-looking tourists browsed through the merchandise as if hoping to discover something different from the stock in the last ABC Store they had patronized. There was always that sense of unspecified lack or longing in the warm humid air of Waikiki. The visitors strolled up and down Kalakaua and Kuhio Avenues, up and down, up and down, in their novelty tee-shirts and knee-length shorts and little marsupial pouches, and the sun shone and the palm trees waved in the trade winds and the steel guitar music twanged from the shop doorways, and the faces looked contented enough, but in the eyes there seemed to be a half formulated question: well, this is nice, but is this all there is? Is this it?

  The lobby of the Waikiki Surfrider was large, bare and functional. A heap of luggage was stacked near the door, waiting to be distributed or transported, and on a banquette nearby sat an elderly couple who themselves looked a little like unclaimed baggage. They glanced hopefully at Bernard as he came in, and the man rose to his feet and asked him if he was Paradise Island Tours. Bernard said he was sorry, he wasn’t. He went to the desk, presented his room card, and asked for the key to 1509. With the key the clerk handed him an envelope addressed to himself and his father. He opened it while he waited for the elevator, and discovered inside an invitation from the Travelwise company to a cocktail party on the following Wednesday.

  The hotel was quiet. It was mid-afternoon. Everybody was out – on the beach, or on the street, or driving round the island in buses and minivans and hire cars. His only companion in the elevator was a solemn little Japanese girl aged about seven, wearing a tee-shirt over her swimming-costume with the injunction SMILE written on it, who got out at the tenth floor. The corridor of the fifteenth floor was empty and silent, the uniform doors of the rooms closed and inscrutable. He opened the door of 1509, hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the outside, and went in.

  The room was as functional, characterless and antiseptic as the Trauma Room at St Joseph’s hospital. There were two beds, some drawer units and a wardrobe veneered with marbled melamine, a minibar, two chairs and a coffee table, and a TV mounted on the wall. There was a small windowless bathroom with shower and WC. Bernard was fairly sure that every other room in the building was identical, down to the colour of the ribbed nylon carpet. The hotel was a factory for mass-producing package holidays. There were no frills, no pretensions to personal service, and therefore no personal inquisitiveness. Admittedly, some curiosity had been aroused when he turned up, a week late, to claim his room, but after he had spun some story about being delayed by an accident, and produced his reservation slip, the Assistant Manager had shrugged his shoulders and said he guessed he was entitled to the room for the unexpired portion of the holiday.

  At some time in the morning, anonymous and invisible hands serviced the room and re-stocked the minibar. What the chambermaid made of occupants who appeared to possess no clothes or other luggage, who used two bathtowels but only one bed, he couldn’t imagine, but no doubt she didn’t complain of the light workload. Whoever it was, she invariably left the air-conditioning on “Hi”. Bernard adjusted the control to a more comfortable temperature, and a quieter hum, and undressed, hanging his clothes in the empty wardrobe. He took a shower, and wrapped himself toga-style in one of the large bathtowels. Then he opened the minibar, took out a half-bottle of Napa Valley Chardonnay, and poured himself a glass. He recorked the bottle and put it back in the fridge to keep cool. He sat on the bed with his back against the headboard and sipped the wine, glancing at his watch from time to time, until there was a knock on the door.

  He let Yolande in, and quickly closed the door behind her. She was wearing the same red cotton dress that she had worn the first time he set eyes on her. She smiled and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Sorry I’m late, Roxy needed a ride someplace.”

  “Not to worry,” he said. “Glass of white wine?”

  “Sounds great,” said Yolande. “I’ll just take a quick shower.”

  While she was in the bathroom, Bernard took the bottle from the minibar and poured a second glass of wine, setting it down on the night table beside the bed. He went to the window, which looked onto the blank side wall of another hotel, and pulled the heavy, lined curtain across, leaving a narrow gap through which just enough daylight squeezed to diffuse a dim illumination inside the room. When Yolande came out of the bathroom he was surprised to see that she was still dressed
. “Haven’t you showered yet?” he asked, handing her her drink.

  “Sure,” she said, smiling at him with her eyes over the rim of her glass. “But today you get to undress me.”

  The day after he had delivered his journal to Yolande’s house in the middle of the night, she had appeared at the door of Ursula’s apartment, carrying it under her arm. She arrived unheralded by any phone call. “Oh,” he said, as he opened the door. “It’s you.”

  “Yeah. I brought your book back. Can I come in?”

  “Of course.”

  He glanced up and down the corridor as he admitted her, and glimpsed Mrs Knoepflmacher’s head withdrawing into the doorway of her flat like a tortoise into its shell. Yolande stood in the middle of the living-room and looked around. “This is nice,” she said. “It must be worth a fortune in this location.”

  He explained that Ursula didn’t own the apartment. “She could probably afford to buy it now, but there wouldn’t be any point. I’ve given notice that she’ll be leaving. Would you like a cup of tea?”

  She followed him into the kitchenette, and sat down at the little Formica-topped breakfast table. When he had put the kettle on to boil he sat down opposite her. The journal lay on the table between them like an agenda.

  It appeared that Yolande had been woken by the noise of his car driving up to her house. She had heard the flap of her mailbox bang shut and gone out to investigate. She had taken the journal back to her bed and read it straight through to the end. “And then this morning I read it again. It’s the saddest story I ever heard.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he demurred.

  “I mean the English part,” she said. “The stuff about Hawaii was more fun. I loved the story of the lost keys. And reading about myself …” She smiled. “That was the most interesting part of all, of course.”

  “I never intended you should read any of it when I wrote it.”

  “I know. That’s why it seems so truthful. It’s not written for effect. It’s completely honest. I always knew you were an honest man, Bernard. Well, I say so in the book, don’t I?” She tapped the stiff blue covers. “‘Somehow I could tell you were an honest man. There aren’t so many left.’” She laughed again. “It’s like reading about yourself as a character in a novel. Or seeing yourself in a home movie, when you didn’t know you were being filmed. Like the way you describe me coming into the Banyan Courtyard at the Moana, and looking around, and then walking towards you with, what was it, ‘A bounding athletic stride’. I never realized I bound when I walk, but I guess you’re right. And I’ll tell you another thing, that bit at the end, about when we were walking under the trees by the Zoo –”

  “That was stupid of me,” said Bernard. “I wanted you to read that so you could understand why I acted so strangely.”

  “No, you were right,” said Yolande. “I did want you to kiss me.”

  “Oh,” said Bernard. He dropped his eyes and examined his hands. “But the moon – you said you wanted me to look at the moon.”

  “That was just an excuse to touch you,” said Yolande, and stretching out her hand she placed it over one of Bernard’s.

  There was a longish silence, broken by the preliminary wheeze of the kettle’s whistle. Bernard looked appealingly at Yolande, and she smiled and released him. As he turned off the gas, he was aware that she had got to her feet also, and when he turned she was standing erect facing him, as he remembered seeing her from the back of the ambulance on that first morning in Waikiki, except that she wasn’t frowning this time, and her arms were not at her sides but extended towards him. “Come over here, Bernard,” she said, “and give me that kiss.”

  He took a hesitant step or two, and she took his hand and drew him close. He felt her arms around his shoulders, and her fingers caressing his neck. Timidly he clasped her round the waist and she fitted her body snugly against his. He felt the heat of her bosom through his thin shirt and her cotton dress. He felt his penis stiffen. They kissed.

  “There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Yolande murmured.

  “No,” he said hoarsely, “it was very nice.”

  “Would you like to make love?”

  He shook his head.

  “Why not?”

  “You know why.”

  “I could teach you. I could show you how. I could heal you, Bernard, I know I could.” She took his hands in hers and squeezed them.

  “Why do you want to?”

  “Because I like you. Because I’m sorry for you. Showing me your diary was a cry for help.”

  “I didn’t think of it like that. I thought of it as a kind of … explanation.”

  “It was a cry for help, and I can help you. Trust me.”

  There was another long silence. He looked down at their linked hands, conscious that she was gazing intently into his face.

  “And I need some loving too,” she said, in a softer voice.

  “All right,” he said at last.

  It was as if all his life he had been holding his breath, or clenching his fist, and now at last he had decided to exhale, to relax, to let go, not caring about the consequences, and it was such a relief, such a violent metabolic change, that he felt momentarily dizzy. He swayed on his feet and staggered slightly as Yolande hugged him.

  “But not here,” he said.

  “Well we can’t go to my place, Roxy’ll be home soon. What’s wrong with here?”

  “Not in Ursula’s apartment. I wouldn’t feel comfortable. It wouldn’t seem right.”

  Yolande seemed to understand this scruple. “Then we’ll have to take a hotel room,” she said. “Shouldn’t be difficult to find in Waikiki, but it might be expensive.”

  “I’ve already got a hotel room,” said Bernard, remembering the reservation slip in his Travelwise Travelpak.

  They went straight round to the Waikiki Surfrider, and Yolande waited in the basement coffeeshop while he negotiated with the Reception Desk. “I hope you don’t think we’re going to have sex this afternoon,” was the first thing she said to him when they were alone together in room 1509, and she laughed at the expression on his face, halfway, she said, between disappointment and relief, “like the Frenchman’s wisecrack in your diary.”

  “If we don’t,” he said, “I’m not sure that we ever shall. The awful daring of a moment’s surrender is not something you can turn on at will.”

  “The awful what?”

  “It’s a line from a poem.”

  “Forget poetry for a while, Bernard. Poets are romantics. Let’s be practical. The reason you and Daphne didn’t make it together, well, one reason anyway, is that you rushed at it. You tried to go from total chastity to hands-on fucking in one move. Sorry, does that word bother you?”

  “It does a bit.”

  “OK, I won’t use it. Standard practice in sex therapy is to advise the person, or the couple, who are having problems, to build up to full intercourse in easy stages, one step at at time. Even if they’ve been having sex for years, they’re told to go back to the beginning and start again, as if they’ve never had sex before. First non-erotic kissing and touching, then sensuous massage, then heavy petting and so on. Ideally it should be spread over several weeks, but as we don’t have that sort of time we’re going to have to do it day by day. OK?”

  “I think so,” Bernard said.

  So that afternoon they just lay on the bed, fully clothed apart from shoes and socks, and stroked each others faces, and hair, and ears, and kissed gently, and fingered each other’s palms and massaged each other’s feet. He felt very silly at first, but Yolande made it not disablingly embarrassing by not betraying the slightest hint of embarrassment herself.

  The second afternoon, after they had both showered, she pulled the heavy blackout curtain across the window and then, as they stood on opposite sides of the bed, wrapped in towels, turned off the lights from the bedside console so that the room was totally dark. “I think maybe you’re a little bit afraid of women’s bodies, Bernard,”
she said. “I think maybe you should learn your way around by touch first.” He heard the faint sound of her towel dropping to the floor, and then felt her hand reaching for him. So he first learned the composition of her body as if he were a blind man; the firm, muscular arms, the smooth wings of her shoulder blades, the supple, notched rod of her backbone, the soft, elastic roundness of her buttocks, and the smooth tender skin on the inside of her thighs. When she turned over on her back he felt the weight of her breasts slide to each side of her rib-cage, and the steady beating of her heart and the sudden hardening of her nipples, and traced the ridge of an old appendectomy scar across her belly down to the soft, springy nest of pubic hair, where she gently stayed his hand. She seemed like a tree to him: her bones were the trunk and branches, and the rounded shapes of her flesh were like ripe fruit to his hands. When she asked him how he was feeling, he could only quote more poetry to her:

  “I cannot see what flowers are at my feet

  Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs

  But in embalmed darkness guess each sweet

  Wherewith the seasonable month endows

  The grass, the thicket, and the fruit tree wild …”