by David Lodge
Philip read Charles Boon’s note reminding him of the time and place of the broadcast. He recalled their meeting on the plane, it seemed years ago. “Hey, you must come on the programme one night…” Many things had changed since then, including his attitude to Charles Boon, which had swung through a whole spectrum of feelings—amusement, annoyance, envy, anger, raging sexual jealousy and now, all that passion spent, a kind of grudging respect. You saw Boon everywhere these days, on the streets and on television, wherever there was a march, or a demonstration, conspicuous by a white plaster cast on one arm, as though he were daring the police to break the other. His nerve, his cheek, his self-confidence, knew no bounds; it turned into a kind of courage. Melanie’s infatuation, which showed no signs of slackening, had become a little more explicable.
He crumpled the note and tossed it into the wastepaper basket. The package from England he would open in the privacy of his office. On his way there he visited the men’s room on the fourth floor that had been bombed on his first day—now repaired and repainted. It was said that the view through the open window above the urinal, straight across the Bay to the Silver Span, was the finest obtainable from such a position anywhere in the world, but today Philip kept his eyes down. Foreshortened, yes, definitely.
You must believe me, Hilary, that there was absolutely nothing sexual in the arrangement at all. On the few occasions we’d met up to that time we hadn’t particularly taken to each other, and in any case Désirée was in the first flush of her conversion to this Women’s Liberation business and extremely hostile to men in general. In fact, that was what appealed to her about our arrangement…
“Oh, dear!” Désirée sighed after they made love for the first time.
“What’s the matter?”
“It was nice while it lasted.”
“It was tremendous,” he said. “Did I come too soon?”
“I don’t mean that, stupid. I mean our chastity was nice while it lasted.”
“Chastity?”
“I’ve always wanted to be chaste. It’s been so nice these last few weeks, don’t you think, living like brother and sister? Now we’re having an affair, like everybody else. How banal.”
“You don’t have to go on with it if you don’t want to,” he said.
“You can’t go back, once you’ve started. You can only go forwards.”
“Good,” he said, and to make quite sure of the principle, woke her up early the next morning to make love again. It took a long time to rouse her, but she came in the end in a series of backarching undulations that lifted him clean off the bed.
“If I didn’t know the vaginal orgasm was a myth,” she said afterwards, “you could have fooled me. It was never so good with Morris.”
“I find that hard to believe,” he said. “But nice of you to say so.”
“It’s true. His technique was terrific, in the old days anyway, but I always felt like an engine on a test-bed. Being, what do they call it, tested to destruction?”
He went into his office, opened the window and sat down at the desk. The package from Hilary evidently contained a book, and was marked DAMAGED BY SEA WATER which explained its strange, almost sinister shape. He peeled the wrapping paper off to reveal a warped, faded, wrinkled volume which he could not immediately identify. The spine was missing and the pages were stuck together. He managed to prise it open in the middle, however, and read: “Flashbacks should be used sparingly, if at all. They slow down the progress of the story and confuse the reader. Life, after all, goes forwards, not backwards.”
…
They assembled self-consciously on the steps of Dealer Hall, the professors, instructors and teaching assistants of the English Department. Karl Kroop bustled round handing out black armbands. There were a few home-made placards in evidence, which declared TROOPS OFF CAMPUS and END THE OCCUPATION NOW. Philip nodded and smiled to friends and acquaintances in the shirtsleeved, summerfrocked throng. It was a nice day for a demonstration. Indeed, the atmosphere was more like a picnic than a vigil. Karl Kroop seemed to think so, too, for he called the company to order with a clap of his hands.
“This is supposed to be a silent demonstration, folks,” he said. “And I think it would add dignity to our protest if you didn’t smoke during the vigil.”
“Or drink or have sex,” a wag in the back row added. Sy Gootblatt, standing beside Philip, groaned and threw down his cigarette. “It’s all right for you,” he said, “you’ve quit. How d’ya do it?”
“I compensate with more drink and sex,” Philip replied, smiling. Telling the truth with a jesting air was, he had discovered, the safest way of protecting your secrets in Euphoria.
“Yeah, but what about the post-coital cigarette? Doncha miss it?”
“I smoked a pipe myself.”
“And remember,” said Karl Kroop gravely, “if the cops, or the troopers try to break this up, just go limp, but don’t resist. Any pig roughs you up, make sure you get his number, not that the motherfuckers wear their numbers these days. Any questions?”
“Suppose they use gas?” someone asked.
“Then we’re screwed. Just retreat with as much dignity as you can. Walk, don’t run.”
Sobriety at last settled on the group. The English Faculty contained very few genuine radicals, and no would-be martyrs. Karl Kroop’s words had reminded them that, in the present volatile atmosphere, they were all, just the tiniest bit, sticking their necks out. Technically they were in violation of Governor Duck’s ban on public assemblies on campus.
It all started with my arrest. If it hadn’t been for that, I think nothing would have happened. It was Désirée, you see, who bailed me out…
“Hallo, is that you Désirée?”
“About time! Have you forgotten I’m supposed to be going out tonight?”
“No, I haven’t forgotten.”
“Where in hell are you?”
“I’m in prison, actually.”
“In prison?”
“I’ve been arrested for stealing bricks.”
“Jesus. Did you steal them?”
“No, of course not. I mean, I had them in the car, but I didn’t steal them… It’s a long story.”
“Better cut it short, Professor,” said the police officer who was standing guard over him.
“Look Désirée, can you come down here and try and bail me out? They say it will cost about a hundred and fifty dollars.”
“Cash,” said the policeman.
“Cash,” he repeated.
“I don’t have that much, and the banks are shut. Will they accept an American Express credit card?”
“Do you accept credit cards?” Philip asked the policeman.
“No.”
“No, they don’t.”
“I’ll get the money somehow,” said Désirée. “Don’t worry.”
“Oh, I’m not worried,” said Philip miserably. He heard Désirée hang up, and put his own receiver down.
“You’re allowed one other phone call,” said the policeman.
“I’ll save it up,” he said.
“You got to make it now or not at all. And you better not count on getting bailed out, leastways not till Monday. You’re an alien, see? That can complicate things.”
“Oh dear. What happens now?”
“What happens now is that I lock you up. Too bad the misdemeanour cell is full right up with other folk been taking bricks that don’t belong to them. I’m gonna have to put you in the felons’ cell.”
“Felons?” The word had a dread sound to his ears, and his misgivings were not allayed by the two powerfully built Negroes who sprang to their feet with feral agility as the cell door was opened.
“This here’s a Professor, boys,” said the policeman, propelling Philip firmly inside and locking the door. “So mind you speak nice to him.”
The felons prowled around him.
“What you busted for, Professor?”
“Stealing bricks.”
“Hear that
, Al?”
“I heard it, Lou.”
“Like how many bricks, Professor?”
“Oh, about twenty-five.”
The felons looked wonderingly at each other. “Perhaps they was gold bricks,” said one. The other gave a high-pitched, wailing laugh.
“Any cigarettes, Professor?”
“I’m sorry, no.” It was the only time he ever regretted having given up smoking.
“That’s a sharp pair of pants the Professor is wearing, Al.”
“Sure is, Lou.”
“I like a pair of pants that fits nice and snug around the ass, Al.”
“Me too, Lou.”
Philip sat down quickly on the wooden bench that ran round the wall, and didn’t move until Désirée bailed him out. “You came just in time,” he told her as they drove away from police headquarters. “I should have been raped if I’d stayed the night.”
It was funny in retrospect, but he had no wish to repeat the experience. If a posse of cops were to come rushing through Mather Gate right now to arrest them, he thought he would probably be among the first to break ranks and flee to the sanctuary of his office. Fortunately it was a quiet day on campus and the vigil seemed unlikely to provoke a breach of the peace. Passers-by just stared and smiled. A few made peace signs or Black Power salutes and shouted “Right on!” and “Power to the People!” A television team, a reporter and his cameraman, toting the heavy equipment on his back like a bazooka, filmed them for a few minutes, the lens of the camera slowly traversing along the length of the steps, irresistibly recalling the annual school photograph. Sy Gootblatt held a copy of the Euphoric State Daily in front of his face. “How do we know they aren’t working for the FBI?” he explained.
To begin at the beginning: I was driving through Plotinus one Saturday afternoon—I’d been shopping downtown—and on the way back I passed the site of a church that was being demolished and noticed that lots of people, mostly students, were carrying away the old bricks in wheelbarrows and supermarket trolleys. I overtook a group labouring along with a load of bricks in paper sacks and shopping baskets, and recognized one of my own students… Wily Smith. With two black friends from the Ashland ghetto and a white girl in a kaftan and bare feet. They accepted his offer of a lift to the Garden with alacrity, loaded the bricks into the boot of the Corvair and jumped into the passenger seats. As Philip drew up at an intersection near the Garden, Wily Smith suddenly yelled “Pigs!” Three of the car’s doors flew open simultaneously and Philip’s passengers fled in four different directions. The two policemen in the car that drew up behind him did not bother to pursue them. They homed in on Philip, sitting at the wheel, paralysed with fright. “Did I go through a red light or something?” he quavered.
“Open up your trunk, please.”
“It’s only got some old bricks in it.”
“Just open up the trunk.”
He was so flustered he forgot the Corvair was a rear-engined car and opened the engine cowling by mistake.
“Don’t play games with me, Mac, I haven’t the time.”
“Terribly sorry!” Philip opened up the luggage compartment.
“Where’d those bricks come from?”
“The, er, there’s a building, a church, being demolished down the road, you must have seen it. Lots of people are taking the old bricks away.”
“You have written permission to take those bricks?”
“Look, officer, I didn’t take the bricks. Those students who were in the car had them. I was just giving them a lift.”
“What are their names and addresses?”
Philip hesitated. He knew Wily Smith’s address, and it was his habit to tell the truth, especially to policemen.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I assumed they had permission.”
“Nobody had permission. Those bricks are stolen goods.”
“Really? They can’t be worth very much, can they? But I’ll take them back to the church right away.”
“Nobody’s going to church. You got identification?”
Philip produced his Faculty Identity Card and British driver’s licence. The former provoked a curt homily against professors encouraging their students to violate property, the latter provoked deep but silent suspicion. Both documents were confiscated. A second police car drew up beside them and the occupants began to unload the bricks from Philip’s car and to transfer them into the police cars. Then they all went to police headquarters.
The room they put him in first was small, windowless and airless. He was strongly cautioned against damaging it or defacing the walls with obscenities, frisked for weapons, and left alone for half an hour to meditate on his sins. Then they brought him out and booked him. His faculty identity card and British driver’s licence were scrutinized again. The contents of his pockets were itemized and confiscated—a discomfiting experience, which reminded him of a game played long ago on Pythagoras Drive. There was much amusement around the duty-sergeant’s desk at the appearance of a marble, belonging to Darcy, in his jacket pocket (“Ho, ho, you’re sure losing your marbles now, hey Professor?”), turning into moral disapproval mingled with prurient envy when it became evident that the car he was driving and the house he was living in belonged to a woman other than the wife whose portrait was in his wallet. He was photographed, and his fingerprints taken. After that he was allowed his phone call to Désirée and then he was locked up with the felons. Désirée succeeded in bailing him out at seven in the evening, just when he had given up hope of being out before Monday. She was waiting for him in the lobby of the Hall of Justice, cool, crisp and confident in a cream-coloured trouser-suit, her red hair drawn back in a bun. He fell on her neck.
“Désirée… Thank God you came.”
“Hey, you look strung out. They been beating you up or something?”
“No, no, but it was… upsetting.”
Désirée was gentle, even tender, for the first time in their acquaintance. She stood on her toes to kiss him on the lips, linked arms and drew him towards the exit. “Tell me all about it,” she said.
He told her in rambling, disconnected sentences. It wasn’t just the shock of relief: as once before, the unexpected kiss had melted some glacier within him—unsuspected emotions and forgotten sensations were suddenly in full flood. He wasn’t thinking about the arrest any more. He was thinking that it was the first time they had touched one another. And it almost seemed as if Désirée was thinking the same thing. To his disconnected remarks, she gave disconnected answers; driving home, she took her eyes off the road for dangerously long periods to look at him, she laughed and swore a little hysterically. Observing and interpreting these signs he felt still more excited and bewildered. His limbs trembled uncontrollably as he got out of the car, and went into the house. “Where are the twins?” he asked. “Next door,” said Désirée, looking at him strangely. She shut the front door, and took off her jacket. And her shoes. And her trousers. And her shirt. And her panties. She didn’t wear a bra.
“Excuse me, Phil,” Sy Gootblatt whispered. “But I think you’re having an erection and it doesn’t look nice at a vigil.”
…
At about 12:30, the vigil came to an uneventful end, and the demonstrators dispersed, chattering, for lunch. Philip had a shrimp salad sandwich with Sy Gootblatt in the Silver Steer restaurant on campus. Afterwards, Sy went back to his office to pound out another Hooker article on his electric typewriter. Philip, too restless to work (he hadn’t read a book, not a real book, right through, for weeks), took the air. He strolled across Howie Plaza, soaking up the sunshine, past the booths and stalls of student political groups—a kind of ideological fair, this, at which you could join SDS, buy the literature of the Black Panthers, contribute to the Garden Bail Fund, pledge yourself to Save the Bay, give blood to the Viet Cong, obtain leaflets on first-aid in gas attacks, sign a petition to legalize pot, and express yourself in a hundred other interesting ways. On the street side of the plaza, a fundamentalist preacher and a
group of chanting Buddhist monks vied with each other for the souls of those less committed to the things of this world. It was a relatively quiet day in Plotinus. Although there were State Troopers stationed on every intersection along Cable Avenue, directing the traffic, keeping the pavements clear, preventing people from congregating, there was little tension in the air, and the crowds were patient and good-humoured. It was a kind of hiatus between the violence, gassing and bloodshed of the recent past and the unpredictable future of the Great March. The Gardeners were busy with their preparations for that event; and the police, having had some bad publicity for their role in the Garden riots, were keeping a low profile. It was business as usual along Cable Avenue, though several windows were shattered and boarded up, and there was a strong, peppery smell of gas in the Beta Bookshop, a favourite gathering place for radicals into which the police had lobbed so many gas grenades it was said you could tell which students in your class had bought their books there by the tears streaming down their faces. The more wholesome and appetizing fumes of hamburger, toasted cheese and pastrami, coffee and cigars, seeped into the street from crowded bars and cafés, the record shops were playing the latest rock-gospel hit Oh Happy Day through their external speakers, the bead curtains rattled in the breeze outside Indian novelty shops reeking of joss-sticks, and the strains of taped sitar music mingled with the sounds of radios tuned to twenty-five possible stations in the Bay area coming from the open windows of cars jammed nose to tail in the narrow roadway.
Philip snapped up a tiny vacant table at the open window of Pierre’s café, ordered himself an ice-cream and Irish coffee, and sat back to observe the passing parade: the young bearded Jesuses and their barefoot Magdalenes in cotton maxis, Negroes with Afro haircuts like mushroom clouds and metallic-lensed sunglasses flashing heliographed messages of revolution to their brothers across the street, junkies and potheads stoned out of their minds groping their way along the kerb or sitting on the pavement with their backs to a sunny wall, ghetto kids and huckleberry runaways hustling the parking meters, begging dimes from drivers who paid up for fear of getting their fenders scratched, priests and policemen, bill-posters and garbage collectors, a young man distributing, without conviction, leaflets about courses in Scientology, hippies in scarred and tattered leather jackets toting guitars, and girls, girls of every shape and size and description, girls with long straight hair to their waists, girls in plaits, girls in curls, girls in short skirts, girls in long skirts, girls in jeans, girls in flared trousers, girls in Bermuda shorts, girls without bras, girls very probably without panties, girls white, brown, yellow, black, girls in kaftans, saris, skinny sweaters, bloomers, shifts, muu-muus, granny-gowns, combat jackets, sandals, sneakers, boots, Persian slippers, bare feet, girls with beads, flowers, slave bangles, ankle bracelets, earrings, straw boaters, coolie hats, sombreros, Castro caps, girls fat and thin, short and tall, clean and dirty, girls with big breasts and girls with flat chests, girls with tight, supple, arrogant buttocks and girls with loose globes of pendant flesh wobbling at every step and one girl who particularly caught Philip’s attention as she waited at the kerb to cross the street, dressed in a crotch-high mini with long bare white legs and high up one thigh a perfect, mouth-shaped bruise.