changing-places-david-lodge

by Unknown

  MORRIS : Or you could take Desiree to Rummidge, and I'd

  Cut to:

  go back to Euphoria with Hilary.

  Interior: blue room - early morning.

  HILARY rises to her feet.

  PHILIP and HILARY asleep in each other's arms in one Where are you going ?

  of the beds.

  HILARY : I don't wish to listen to this childish conversation.

  Cut to:

  PHILIP : What's wrong? You started it.

  Interior: pink room - early morning.

  HILARY : This is not what I meant by a serious talk. You Pan slowly round room, which is in a mess - chairs sound like a couple of scriptwriters discussing how to wind overturned, lamps knocked over, bedclothes ripped up a play.

  from beds etc. There is no sign of MORRIS and DE-MORRIS : Hilary, honey! There are choices to be made. We SIREE until they are discovered on the floor between must be aware of all the possibilities.

  the two twin beds, naked, tangled together in a heap HILARY : (sitting down) All right, then. Have you considered of pillows and bedclothes. They are fast asleep.

  the possibility that D6siree and I might divorce you two

  Cut to:

  and not remarry ?

  Interior: coffee-shop in hotel - morning.

  DESIREE : Right on!

  MORRIS, DESIREE, PHILIP and HILARY are MORRIS : (thoughtfully) True. Another possibility is group finishing breakfast. They are sitting in a booth, men on marriage. You know? Two couples live together in one one side of the table, women on the other.

  house and pool their resources. Everything is common MORRIS: Well, what are we going to do this morning?

  property.

  Shall we show these two hicks the town, Dcsirce ?

  PHILIP : Including, e r . . .

  DESIREE : It's gonna be hot. In the nineties, the radio said.

  MORRIS : Including that, naturally.

  HILARY : Shouldn't we have a serious talk? I mean, that's HILARY : What about the children ?

  what we've come all this way for. What are we going to MORRIS : It's great for children. They amuse each other, do ? About the future.

  while the parents...

  MORRIS: Let's consider the options. Coolly, (prepares to

  DESIREE : Screw each other.

  light cigar) First: we could return to our respective homes HILARY : I never heard of anything so immoral in my with our respective spouses.

  life.

  MORRIS lights cigar, and examines the tip. HILARY

  MORRIS : Oh, come on Hilary! The four of us already hold looks at PHILIP, PHILIP looks at DESIREE, DESIRES

  the world record for long-distance wife-swapping. Why looks at MORRIS,

  not do it under one roof? That way you get domestic DESIREE : Next option.

  stability plus sexual variety. Isn't that what all of us MORRIS : We could all get divorced and remarry each other.

  want ? I don't know how you two made out last night, but If you follow me.

  D6siree and I really had a -

  PHILIP : Where would we live?

  DESIREE : OK, OK, that's enough of that MORRIS : I could take the Chair at Rummidge, settle down PHILIP : I must say it's an intriguing idea.

  there. I guess you could get a job in Euphoria . . .

  DESIREB : In theory I'm sympathetic— I mean as a first step PHILIP : I'm not so sure.

  towards getting rid of the nuclear family, it has possibili-844

  ties. But if Morris is in favour there must be a twist in it P H I L I P : It's still morning in Euphoria. Pacific time.

  somewhere.

  D £ S I R £ E : That's right! (to HILARY) Have you heard HILARY : {sardonically, to MORRIS) Asa matter of academic about the trouble at Plotinus? Over the People's interest: in this so-called group marriage, what happens if Garden?

  the two men both fancy the same woman at the same H I L A R Y : O h that. You missed a lot of excitement af time?

  Rummidge this term, you know, Philip. The sit-in and DESIREE : Or the two women want to sleep with the same everything.

  man?

  P H I L I P : Somehow I can't think of anything seriously

  {Pause) MORRIS rubs his chin thoughtfully.

  revolutionary happening at Rummidge.

  P H I L I P : {grins) I know. The one who's left out watches the HILARY : I hope you're not going to turn into one of these other three.

  violence snobs, who think that nothing's important unless MORRIS and D £ S I R £ E crack up laughing. HiLARYj'oins people are getting killed.

  in despite herself.

  DESIREE : ' Violence snobs', I like t h a t . . .

  HILARY : But can't we be serious for a moment? Where is P H I L I P : Well, as a matter of fact people eould be killed this all going to end?

  today in Plotinus, quite easily.

  Cut to:

  DESIREE : You have to make allowances, Hilary. Philip got Interior: blue hotel room — afternoon.

  very involved with the Garden and all that. He even The door opens and in come MORRIS, DESIREE, went to jail.

  HILARY and P H I L I P . They carry packages and carrier HILARY : Good God! You never told me, Philip.

  bags with Manhattan store names on them. They look P H I L I P : {crouching over set as it begins to warm up) I t was only hot and sweaty, but relaxed. They flop down on chairs, for a few hours. I was going to write to you about it b u t . . .

  beds.

  it was connected with other things.

  MORRIS : We made it.

  HILARY : Oh.

  DESIREE : Jesus, I'd forgotten what a New York heatwave A Western film comes up on the T V screen, P H I L I P

  was like.

  switches channels until he hits the transmission of the P H I L I P : Thank God for air conditioning.

  Plotinus March.

  MORRIS : I'll go get some ice.

  P H I L I P : A h ! {tunes TV. Sound: chanting, cheers, bands etc.) MORRIS goes out. P H I L I P sits up suddenly.

  MORRIS enters with ice and soft drinks.

  P H I L I P : Desiree.

  MORRIS : What's that?

  D £ S I R £ E : What?

  D £ S I R £ B : The big March at Plotinus.

  P H I L I P : D'you realize what day this is . . . The day of the MORRIS : No kidding?

  March!

  VOICE O F COMMENTATOR: And it certainly looks as DESIREE : The march ? Oh, yeah, the March.

  though the great March is going to pass off peacefully H I L A R Y : What's that?

  after a l l . . .

  P H I L I P : {excitedly) The educational network is carrying it.

  MORRIS watches with interest as he prepares the drinks.

  P H I L I P goes over to TV , turns it on.

  Close-up of TV screen. We see the column of marchers D £ S I R E E : It was this morning, wasn't it? It's all over by passing the fenced-in Garden. It is a warm sunny now.

  morning in Plotinus. The crowd is festive, good-246

  247

  humoured. The marchers carry banners, flags, flowers P H I L I P : And there's the Cowboy and the Confederate and sod. Inside the fence, National Guardsmen stand at Soldier 1 Everybody in Plotinus must be on this march.

  ease. The camera zooms in on various sections of the VOICE OF COMMENTATOR : I think these pictures say it crowd. We see trucks with rock bands and topless all.

  dancers performing on them, people dancing in the HILARY : (a little wistfully) You sound as if you wish you spray from hosepipes, marching arm-in-arm etc. We can were there yourself, Philip.

  recognize various familiar faces among the marchers.

  DESIREE : You bet he does.

  Over these pictures, the voice of the COMMENTATOR

  P H I L I P : No, not really.

  and the comments of MORRIS, P H I L I P , HILARY and P H I L I P turns down the volume of the T V but leaves DESIREE.

  the vision on. Draw back to reveal the four of them VOICE OF COMM
ENTATOR : A lot of people feared blood gathered round the T V , drinks in hand.

  would run in the streets of Plotinus today, but so far the P H I L I P : "That is no country for old m e n . . . '

  vibrations are good . . . The marchers are throwing MORRIS : Come now, Philip, let's have no defeatism.

  flowers instead of rocks . . . they're weaving flowers into P H I L I P : I'd be an imposter there.

  the mesh of the hurricane fence . . . they're planting sod DESIREE : Explain yourself.

  on the sidewalk outside the Garden . . . that's how they're P H I L I P : Those young people (gestures at TV screen) really making their p o i n t . . .

  care about the Garden. It's like a love affair for them.

  P H I L I P : I say, there's Charles Boon. And Melanie!

  Take Charles Boon and Melanie. I could never feel like MORRIS : Melanie? Where?

  that about any public issue. Sometimes I wish I could.

  DESIREE : Next to that guy with his arm in plaster.

  For me, if I'm honest, politics is background, news, al-HILARY : She's very pretty.

  most entertainment. Something you switch on and off, VOICE OF COMMENTATOR: SO far, nobody has tried to like the TV. What I really worry about, what I can't scale the fence. The guardsmen, as you can see, are switch off at will is, oh, sex, or dying or losing my hair.

  standing at ease. Some of them have been waving to the Private things. We're private people, aren't we, our marchers...

  generation? We make a clear distinction between private P H I L I P : And there's Wily Smith! D'you remember, Hilary, and public life; and the important things, the things that I told you about him. In the corner of the picture in the make us happy or unhappy are private. Love is private.

  baseball cap. He was in my writing class. Never wrote me Property is private. Parts are private. That's why the young a single word.

  radicals call for fucking in the streets. It's not just a cheap VOICE OF COMMENTATOR : Sheriff O'Keene and his men, shock-tactic. It's a serious revolutionary proposition. You the blue meanies as the students call them, are well out of know that Beatles' song,' Let's Do It In The R o a d ' . . . ?

  sight...

  D E S I R E E : Bullshit.

  DESIREE : Hey, look at the topless dancers!

  P H I L I P : Eh?

  P H I L I P : That's Carol and Deirdre, surely?

  D E S I R E E : Absolute bullshit, Philip. You've been brain-D E si RE E : I think you're right.

  washed by the Plotinus Underground. You've been VOICE OF COMMENTATOR: The column has been going reading too many copies of Euphoric Times. Who's going past for about thirty minutes now, and I still can't see the to get fucked in the streets when the revolution comes, tell end of it.

  me that?

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  349

  P H I L I P : Who?

  essentially the same whatever the medium. Words or DESIREE : Women, that's who, whether they like it or not.

  images, it makes no difference at the structural level.

  Listen, there are girls getting raped every night down at D E S I R E E : 'Th e structural level', 'paradigms'. How they the Garden, only Euphoric Times doesn't recognize the love those abstract words.' Historicism'!

  word rape, so you'd never know it. Any girl who goes P H I L I P : (TO MORRIS) I don't think that's entirely true. I down to help with the Garden is caught in a sexual trap.

  mean, take the question of endings.

  If she won't put out the men will accuse her of being DESIREE : Yeah, let's take it!

  bourgeois and uptight and if she complains to the cops P H I L I P : You remember that passage in Northanger Abbey they'll tell her she deserves everything she gets by simply where Jane Austen says she's afraid that her readers will being there. And if the girls aren't being screwed against have guessed that a happy ending is coming up at any their will, they're slaving over the stewpot or washing moment.

  dishes or looking after kids, while the men sit around M O R R I S : (nods) Quote, 'Seeing in the tell-tale compression rapping about politics. Call that a revolution? Don't of the pages before them that we are all hastening to-make me laugh.

  gether to perfect felicity.' Unquote.

  H I L A R Y : Hear, hear!

  P H I L I P : That's it. Well, that's something the novelist can't P H I L I P : Well, you may be right, Desiree. All I'm saying is help giving away, isn't it, that his book is shortly coming that there is a generation gap, and I think it revolves to an end ? It may not be a happy ending, nowadays, but around this public/private thing. Our generation - we he can't disguise the tell-tale compression of the pages.

  subscribe to the old liberal doctrine of the inviolate self.

  HILARY and DESIREE begin to listen to what P H I L I P

  It's the great tradition of realistic fiction, it's what novels is saying, and he becomes the focal point of attention.

  are all about. The private life in the foreground, history a I mean, mentally you brace yourself for the ending of a distant rumble of gunfire, somewhere offstage. In Jane novel. As you're reading, you're aware of the fact that Austen not even a rumble. Well, the novel is dying, and us there's only a page or two left in the book, and you get with it. No wonder I could never get anything out of my ready to close it. But with a film there's no way of telling, novel-writing class at Euphoric State. It's an unnatural especially nowadays, when films are much more loosely medium for their experience. Those kids {gestures at structured, much more ambivalent, than they used to be.

  screen) are living a film, not a novel.

  There's no way of telling which frame is going to be the M O R R I S : Oh, come on, Philip! You've been listening to last. The film is going along, just as life goes along, people Karl Kroop.

  are behaving, doing things, drinking, talking, and we're P H I L I P : Well, he makes a lot of sense.

  watching them, and at any point the director chooses, without warning, without anything being resolved, or MORRIS : It's a very crude kind of historicism he's peddling, surely ? And bad aesthetics.

  explained, or wound up, it can j u s t . . . end.

  H I L A R Y : This is all very fascinating, I'm sure, but could P H I L I P shrugs. The camera stops, freezing him in mid-we discuss something a little more practical ? Like what gesture.

  the four of us are going to do in the immediate future ?

  DESIREE : It's no use, Hilary. Don't you recognize the sound THE END

  of men talking?

  M O R R I S : (TO P H I L I P ) The paradigms of fiction are 250

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