by David Lodge
…
And “Why not?” thought Philip Swallow. “It’s something I’ve never seen and always wanted to and what’s the harm and who’s to know and anyway it’s a phenomenon of cultural and sociological interest. I wonder how much it would cost.” He walked up and down the length of the Avenue assessing the establishments that were open this early in the day and eventually selected a small bar calling itself the Pussycat Go-go, which promised topless and bottomless dancers with no cover charge or other extras. He took a deep breath and plunged into the darkness.
…
“Good evening, sir,” said the Indian, smiling brilliantly. “One pound, please sir. The performance is about to begin, sir.”
Morris paid his pound and pushed through a baize curtain and a swing door. He found himself in a small, dimly-lit room, with three rows of bentwood chairs drawn up before a small, low stage. A spotlight threw a pool of violet light on to the stage, and an ancient amplifier wheezed laboured pop music. The room was very cold and, except for Morris, entirely empty. He sat down in the middle of the front row of chairs and waited. After a few minutes, he went back to the entrance.
“Hey,” he said to the Indian.
“You like a drink, sir? Beer, sir?”
“I’d like to see some strip-tease.”
“Certainly, sir. One moment sir. If you would be a little patient. The girl arrives very soon, sir.”
“Is there only one?”
“One at a time, sir.”
“And it’s cold as hell in there.”
“I bring heat, sir.”
Morris returned to his place and the Indian followed, trailing a small electric heater on a long cord—but not quite long enough to reach Morris. The heater glowed feebly in the violet murk some yards from his seat. Morris put on his hat and gloves, buttoned up his topcoat, and grimly lit a fresh cigar, determined to stick it out. He had made a terrible mistake, but he wasn’t going to admit it. So he sat and smoked and stared at the empty stage, chafing his chilled limbs from time to time to keep the circulation going.
…
While Philip Swallow, having been prepared to be disappointed, cheated, frustrated and finally bored (for was that not the conventional wisdom concerning commercialized sex, that it was a fake and a bore?) found that on the contrary he was not at all bored, but quite entranced and delighted, sitting over a gin and tonic (dear at $1.50, but it was true there was no cover charge) while one of three beautiful young girls danced quite naked not three yards from his nose. And not only were they beautiful, but also unexpectedly wholesome and intelligent-looking, not at all the blowsy, blasé hoydens he had anticipated, so that one might almost suppose that they did it for love rather than money—as though liking, in any case, to shuffle their feet and wiggle their hips to the sound of pop music they thought they might as well take off their clothes while they were about it and give a little harmless pleasure to others at the same time. Three of them there were, and while one danced, another served drinks and the third rested. They wore briefs and little shifts like children’s vests and they slipped in and out of these simple garments modestly but quite unselfconsciously in full view of the bar’s clientele, for there was no changing-room in the cramped premises, striptease was quite the wrong term, there was no tease about it at all, and they gave each other little friendly pats on the shoulder as they changed over, with all the considerate camaraderie of a convent school relay team. Nothing could have been less sordid.
…
Morris’s cigar was about half smoked when he heard the voice of a girl raised—apologetically or protestingly, he couldn’t be sure, for she was suffering from a head cold—on the other side of the baize curtain. At length the Indian escorted her behind a rough-and-ready screen in one corner of the room. As she scuffed past in boots like Mrs. Swallow’s, wearing a headscarf and carrying a little plastic zipper-bag, she looked about as sexy as a Siberian Miss Five Year Plan. The Indian, however, plainly thought his reputation was saved. He was all smiles. Picking up a hand mike and fixing his gaze on Morris, who was still the only customer, he boomed out:
“GOOD EVENING LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! Our first performer this evening is Fifi the French Maid. Thank you.”
The music swelled as the Indian manipulated the knobs on his tape recorder, and a blonde wearing a minuscule lace apron over black underwear and stockings stepped into the spotlight and posed with a feather duster.
“Well I’m damned,” said Morris aloud.
Mary Makepeace (for that was who it was) took a step forward, shielding her eyes against the light. “Who’s that? I know that voice.”
“How was Stratford-upon-Avon?”
“Hey, Professor Zapp! What are you doing here?”
“I was going to ask you the same question.”
The Indian hurried forward. “Please! please! Customers are not permitted to converse with the artistes. Kindly continue the performance, Fifi.”
“Yeah, continue, Fifi,” said Morris.
“Listen, this is no customer, this is someone I know,” said Mary Makepeace. “I’m darned if I’m going to strip for him. With nobody else in the audience, too. It’s indecent.”
“It’s supposed to be indecent. That’s what strip-tease is for,” said Morris.
“Please Fifi!” the Indian pleaded. “If you begin, maybe other customers will come.”
“No,” said Mary.
“You’re fired,” said the Indian.
“OK,” said Mary.
“Come and have a drink,” said Morris.
“Where?”
“At the Hilton?”
“You talked me into it,” said Mary. “I’ll fetch my coat.”
Morris hurried off eagerly to get a cab. The evening had been suddenly redeemed. He looked forward to getting better acquainted with Mary Makepeace in his cosy room at the Hilton. As the cab drew away from the kerb, he put his arm round her shoulders.
“What’s a nice girl like you doing in a joint like that?” he said. “To coin a phrase.”
“I hope it’s understood I’m just having a drink with you, Professor Zapp?”
“Of course,” he said blandly. “What else?”
“For one thing, I’m still pregnant. I didn’t go through with the abortion.”
“I’m very glad to hear it,” Morris said flatly, removing his arm.
“I thought you would be. But there was nothing ethical about my decision, you understand? I still believe in a woman’s right to determine her own biological destiny.”
“You do?”
“But I chickened out at the last moment. It was the nursing home. Girls wandering about in bedsocks with tears streaming down their cheeks. Toilet bowls full of blood…”
Morris shuddered. “Spare me the details,” he begged. “But what about the stripping bit? Isn’t that exploitation?”
“Sure, but I desperately need the bread. This is one job you can do without a work permit.”
“What d’you want to stay in this lousy country for?”
“To have the baby here. I want him to have dual nationality, so he can avoid the draft when he grows up.”
“How d’you know it’s going to be a boy?”
“Either way, I can’t lose. Having babies is free in this country.”
“But how much longer can you do this type of work? Or are you changing your act to Fifi the pregnant maid?”
“I see your sense of humour hasn’t changed, Professor Zapp.”
“I do my best,” he said.
…
While Philip, now nursing his fourth gin and tonic, and having studied the anatomies of the three Pussycat Go-go girls for some two hours, had reached, he felt, a profound insight into the nature of the generation gap: it was a difference of age. The young were younger. Hence more beautiful. Their skin had a bloom, they still had their back teeth, their bellies were flat, their breasts (ah!) were firm, their thighs (ah! ah!) were not veined like Danish Blue cheese. And how was the gap to
be bridged? By love, of course. By girls like Melanie generously giving their firm young flesh to withered old sticks like himself, restoring the circulation of the sap. Melanie! How simple and good her gesture seemed in the clear light of his new understanding. How needlessly he had complicated it with emotions and ethics.
He stood up to leave at last. His foot had gone to sleep again, but his heart was full of goodwill to all men. It seemed entirely natural that, coming out of the Pussycat Go-go, dazzled by the sunbeams slanting low over Cortez Avenue, and a trifle unsteady on his feet because of the liquor and the pins and needles, he should collide with Melanie Byrd herself, as if she had materialized on the pavement in obedience to his wishes.
“Why, Professor Swallow!”
“Melanie! My dear girl!” He grasped her fondly with both hands. “Where have you been? Why did you run away from me?”
“I didn’t run away from anybody, Professor Swallow.”
“‘Philip,’ please.”
“I’ve just been staying here in the city, with a friend.”
“A boy friend?” he asked anxiously.
“A girl friend. Her husband’s in jail—he’s one of the Euphoria Ninety-Nine, you know? She gets kind of lonely…”
“I’m lonely too. Come back to Plotinus with me, Melanie,” he said, the words sounding thrillingly passionate and poetic to his own ears.
“Well, I’m kind of tied up right now, Philip.”
“Come live with me and be my love. And we will all the pleasures prove.” He leered at her.
“Take it easy, Philip.” Melanie smiled apprehensively, and attempted to disengage her arms from his grip. “Those go-go girls have gotten you all excited. Tell me, I’ve always wondered, are they really quite naked?”
“Quite. But not as beautiful as you, Melanie.”
“That’s very sweet of you, Philip.” She managed to free herself. “I guess I must be going now. See you.” She began walking briskly towards the junction of Cortez Avenue and Main Street. Philip limped along beside her. The Avenue was getting busy. Cars honked and hummed in the road, pedestrians jostled them on the pavement.
“Melanie! You can’t disappear again. Have you forgotten what happened the other night?”
“Do you have to tell everybody in the street?”
Philip lowered his voice: “It was the first time it ever happened to me.”
She stopped and stared “You mean—you were a virgin?”
“I mean apart from my wife, of course.”
She put her hand sympathetically on his arm. “I’m sorry Philip. If I’d realized what a big deal it was for you, I wouldn’t have gotten involved.”
“I suppose it meant absolutely nothing to you?” he said bitterly, hanging his head. The sun had dropped behind the rooftops and he shivered in a sudden gust of chill wind off the Bay. The glory had gone from the afternoon.
“It was one of those things that happen when you get a little high. It was nice, but… you know.” She shrugged.
“I know it wasn’t very successful,” he mumbled. “But give me another chance.”
“Philip, please.”
“At least have dinner with me here. I must talk…”
She shook her head. “Sorry, Philip. I just can’t. I have a date.”
“A date? Who with?”
“Just a guy. I don’t know him all that well, actually, so I don’t want to keep him waiting.”
“What are you going to do with him?”
Melanie sighed. “If you must know, I’m going to help him look for an apartment. Seems his roommate freaked out on LSD and burned their place down last night. See you, Philip.”
“He can sleep in my spare room, if you like,” Philip bid desperately, clutching at her arm.
Melanie frowned, hesitated. “Your spare room?”
“Just for a few days, while he’s looking round. Phone him up and tell him. Then come and have dinner with me.”
“You can tell him yourself,” said Melanie. “He’s over there outside Modern Times.”
Philip stared across the gleaming, throbbing river of cars to the Modern Times Bookshop, once famous as the headquarters of the Beat Generation. Outside, hunched slightly against the wind, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his jeans, making a bulge like a codpiece, was Charles Boon.
3. Corresponding
Hilary to Philip
Dearest,
Many thanks for your airletter. We were all glad to hear that you had arrived safely, especially Matthew, who saw pictures of an air-crash in America on television and was convinced that it was your plane. Now he’s worried by your joke about living in a house that’s going to slide into the sea at any moment, so will you please put that right in your next letter.
I expect the girls underneath you will take pity on your wifeless state and offer to wash your shirts and sew buttons etc. I can’t see you coping with that washing-machine in the basement. Incidentally I’m afraid our own washing-machine is making a terrible grinding noise and the service man says the main bearing is going and it will cost £21 to repair. Is it worth it, or shall I trade it in for a new one while it’s still working?
Yes, the view, I do remember it so well, though from the other side of the Bay of course—you remember that funny little attic apartment we had in Esseph. When we were young and foolish… Ah well, no point in getting sentimental, with you 6000 miles away, and me with the washing up still to do.
Oh—before I forget—I’ve not been able to find Let’s Write a Novel, either here or at the University. Though I couldn’t make a really thorough search at the University because Mr. Zapp is already occupying your room. I can’t say I took to him. I asked Bob Busby how he was settling in, and he said that very few people had seen much of him—he seems to be a rather silent and standoffish person, who spends most of his time in his room.
Fancy your meeting that rogue Charles Boon on the plane, and his being such a success out there. Americans are rather gullible, aren’t they?
Love from all of us here,
Hilary
Désirée to Morris
Dear Morris,
Thank you for your letter. Really. I enjoyed it. Especially the bits about Dr. O’Shea and about the four different kinds of electric sockets in your rooms and the Department noticeboard. The kids enjoyed those bits too.
I guess it’s the first real letter I’ve ever received from you—I mean apart from scrawls on hotel notepaper about meeting you at the airport or sending on your lecture notes. Reading it made you seem almost human, somehow. Of course, I could see you were trying like hell to be witty and charming, but that’s all right, as long as I’m not taken in. And I’m not. Are you receiving me, Morris? I AM NOT TAKEN IN.
I’m not going to change my mind about the divorce, so please don’t waste typewriter ribbon trying to make me. And for that matter, don’t abstain from sexual intercourse on my account, either. There was a hint to that effect in your letter, and I’d hate you to feel, when you return, that you’d thrown away six months’ good screwing for nothing.
Apropos of that, isn’t the Lotus Europa you’ve ordered a somewhat young car for you? I saw one in downtown Esseph yesterday and, well, frankly it’s just a penis on wheels, isn’t it? As regards the Corvair, I didn’t forget to put a card in the Co-op last week, but there’s been only one inquiry so far and unfortunately I was out. Darcy took the call and God knows what he told the guy.
The Winter quarter begins this week and, surprise, surprise, there are signs of trouble on campus. A bomb exploded in the men’s john on the fourth floor of Dealer last week, presumably intended to go off while one of your colleagues was taking a crap, but the building was evacuated as the result of a tip-off. The Hogans invited me to a lousy cocktail party, but I didn’t talk to anyone much, it was the usual crowd of schmucks plus a new one, Charles Boon of the ditto radio show. Oh yes, I nearly forgot, and I met your opposite number, Philip Swallow. I was somewhat slewed by this time and kept calling h
im Sparrow, but he took it straight on the stiff upper lip. Jesus, if all the British are like him I don’t know how you’re going to survive. He hadn’t even
…
Coincidence: just as I was writing that last sentence, I looked out of the window and who should be walking up the drive but Mr. Swallow himself. Not so much walking, actually, as crawling up on his hands and knees. He’d climbed all the way up here on foot from the campus—said it didn’t look so far on the street map and he hadn’t realized that the road was practically vertical. Turned out he was the guy who had called about the Corvair and he’d come to look at it. So it was too bad I’d met him at the Hogans’ because of course I had to tell him all about Nader etc. And naturally enough he decided against it. Actually, I felt kind of sorry for him. Apparently he’s already been conned into renting a house built on a slide area so if he’d bought the Corvair he’d have been a pretty lousy actuarial risk whether he went out or stayed at home.
It is very quiet and pleasant here without you, Morris. I have turned the TV to the wall, and spend a lot of time reading and listening to classical music on the hi-fi—Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov and Sibelius, all that Slav romanticism you made me feel ashamed of liking when we first met.
The twins are fine. They spend a lot of time holed up together somewhere and I expect they are experimenting sexually but figure there’s nothing I can do about it. Biology is their great passion at the moment. They have even developed an interest in gardening, which I have encouraged, naturally, by donating a sunny corner of our precipitous yard. They send you their love. It would be hypocritical of me to do the same.
Désirée
PS. No, I haven’t seen Melanie around. Why don’t you write to her yourself?
Hilary to Philip