The Picturegoers

by David Lodge

  ‘But suppose their parents are looking for them?’

  ‘My dear girl, this is how their parents get rid of them. And don’t tell me the film’s unsuitable. Most of these kids have home-lives that would give the censor fits.’

  The kids were looking crestfallen, and the infant, sensing the general depression, began to whine.

  ‘Woi we got to go in the two-an’-nines, Mister? We ain’t got the money.’

  ‘Well, I can hardly say I’m looking after you if you go in different seats from me, can I? And I personally intend to go in the two-and-nines. However, I suppose I can scrape together the extra. Come on.’

  And in they went, with Mark putting on a little act for the benefit of the commissionaire, calling out, ‘Come along, Jimmy, don’t leave Bobby behind, Joe,’ and Clare’s heart thumping, but filled with a sudden surge of affection for Mark.

  * * *

  From his seat on the top deck of a traffic-locked bus, Damien O’Brien watched the charade with tight-lipped disapproval. That fellow Underwood was doing his best to degrade Clare, and she was almost co-operating. He could not understand how a girl who had once intended to be a nun could keep company with a person so obviously worldly and unprincipled.

  A man, breathing heavily, slumped down beside him. Damien glanced at the frayed, greasy cuffs of the man’s raincoat, and wrinkled his nostrils as the pungent odour of beer reached him. He wriggled into the corner of his seat as the bus lurched forward and removed from his vision the scandalous advertisement of some half-naked film actress, spread across the entrance to the cinema. It was time some organization of Catholic action organized a protest against such advertisements. He might bring it up at that evening’s meeting … The thought recalled him to the beads he was fingering in his pocket. He passed on to the Third Joyful Mystery of the rosary: the Birth of Our Lord. The image of the crib in the seminary chapel at Christmas flashed upon his mind. What a moving and eternally significant group! Our Lady gazing tenderly at the Child, while St Joseph stood, proud and watchful, at the door of the stable. The Holy Family. God had decided that he, Damien, should not become a priest. The vow of chastity was no longer an obligation, and although he had toyed with the idea of a private vow of celibacy, he had rejected it as being liable to cause misunderstanding. No, it was the ideal of the Holy Family that allured him, the ideal which no priest could realize. And Clare Mallory was the obvious, providential partner for such a work. The moment he had heard that she had left a convent after being a novice for two years had been like a moment of prophetic revelation. She was his cousin, it was true, but twice removed. What could be more fitting than that they should join forces, and overcome their spiritual setbacks by realizing an ideal comparable to a successful religious vocation? Her great kindness in finding him more suitable accommodation than he had first obtained on crossing to England, had encouraged his hopes, which he had only very discreetly hinted at, knowing from personal experience how sensitively one required to be treated on returning to the world from the cloistered calm of the seminary. And then Underwood had arrived on the scene, like the Serpent into the Garden, deceiving everyone with his so-called charm, and insinuating his disturbing influence between Clare and himself.

  Underwood hadn’t, of course, appreciated the delicacy of Clare’s situation, which somehow gave him the advantage, as she never took offence at anything he did or said. Underwood had been with the Mallorys barely a week when he asked Clare if she would like to go to the pictures with him—in front of the whole family too—just as he himself had decided the moment was propitious to suggest to Clare that she might join the Committee of the Apostleship of Prayer (of which he was secretary) as an Ordinary Member. No one but himself seemed to appreciate the indecorum of Underwood’s invitation—that a girl not four months out of the convent should go gallivanting off to a picture-palace with a virtual stranger. In fact, when he mentioned his concern privately to his aunt Elizabeth she had laughed, and said:

  ‘Ah you’re a queer gloomy sort of fellow, Damien. Sure it will do the girl a world of good to see a little life now she’s left the convent for good. I wonder you haven’t asked her yourself before now.’

  It wasn’t, of course, that Clare preferred Underwood to himself: he wouldn’t do her the injustice of supposing that. No, it was this accursed urge she had to ‘convert’ him, an urge which Underwood encouraged for his own purposes, keeping up a pretence of interest, and even consenting to go to Mass again. It was useless to point out to Clare that the fellow, even though he did seem to have been baptized a Catholic, was a confirmed sceptic; in fact, she had turned on him quite sharply when he had expressed this opinion. Her retort still stung: ‘You seem to think that Mark is incapable of faith just because he’s cleverer than you or me. I don’t think that’s very charitable, Damien.’

  Clever. That was the trouble with Underwood, he was too damned clever—or at least he made Clare think he was, and she grovelled before his almighty brain, which after all didn’t amount to more than a cynical wit and a few quotations. And in any case she had been going out with him more and more frequently lately, to theatres and cinemas, which couldn’t be attributed entirely to disinterested motives. Yes, the more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that he would be doing her a favour to point out the dangers of her behaviour, the danger of her motives being misinterpreted, and of these wordly amusements actually gaining a hold on her. And perhaps he might convey some hint of the pain it was causing to himself.

  The bus stopped with a jolt, and clutching the Minute Book of the Apostleship of Prayer, Damien hurriedly alighted from the bus and made his way to the church of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour.

  * * *

  Picking absently at a pimple on her chin, Patricia Mallory sat waiting for the gangster film to end so that she could see the first half-hour of the main film. She hated going in halfway through a picture. But Mummy would insist that she went to bed early because she was ‘swotting’—(how naïve and superstitious it was, her reverence for study—but useful sometimes)—and also insisted that she didn’t go alone to the pictures, which meant taking Patrick.

  ‘Patrick, don’t fidget,’ she hissed.

  He ignored her rebuke. In fact he had only spoken to her once that evening, to ask her for the money for an ice-cream, which she had had the satisfaction of refusing. After all, she didn’t get much more pocket-money than he did, considering all the extras she had to buy—stockings and lipstick and aspirins and so forth—while he lived as economically as a young animal. Boys had all the best of it really, no headaches and suchlike, not expected to do much around the house, no wonder Patrick did well at school, whereas they somehow expected her to do everything, to study and help with the housework. And when that day before the exams it had been just too much to bear, and she had shouted that she must have some time when she did nothing, not study or housework, but just nothing, and cried and made a scene, they had all looked very surprised and shocked and hadn’t understood at all. But Mark had understood, though he had only been with them a short time, and must have been terribly embarrassed by the scene, he wasn’t used to the family with people always bursting into tears, other people didn’t live like that, with emotions going off like mines under your feet, the trouble was there were too many of them living at too close quarters … And she had dashed upstairs and slammed her door and locked it, with her mother’s annoyed worried voice coming up the stairs with, she could just imagine, the corners of her mouth drawn in, how old that made her look, ‘Well, she can stay there as long as she likes, the silly great baby. Perhaps she’ll appreciate how well she’s treated when she’s hungry.’ But Mark had understood, for she had met him when she unlocked her door and crept out to the george, and he had grinned at her, and invited her into his room and given her some chocolate and a book to read, it was called A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which she took back to her own room. And she had read it through, soaking up like a dry sponge its sadness and revol
t and rebellion and need to be free, and how she wished she could have met Stephen when he was her age, and talked to him and said how she understood. The chocolate too had enabled her to stay upstairs for a reasonable time, to compose herself and gain prestige, so that she had command of the situation when she finally went downstairs, and behaved very calmly and sweetly, and sat with her knees together and her skirt smoothed demurely over them, saying thank you and making conversation, while all the rest were confused and embarrassed and didn’t know where to look. Really that day had been a turning-point, for she had built her examination answer round the book Mark had leant her, and Miss Brooks had been so impressed with it she had shown it to Mother Superior, who made a tremendous fuss because one of her pupils had been reading James Joyce; and that had rather made her reputation among the girls, and placed her almost on a par with Lucy Travers who had nearly been expelled for coming to school on her boy friend’s motor-bike.

  In fact that book had made her decide to be a writer, and she found that unlike all her previous determinations—nun (shapeless clothes, straight hair, quiet voice, kindly to juniors), Olympic athlete (too few clothes, short hair, hearty voice, encouraging to juniors), and ballet dancer (flared skirt and flat shoes, severe scraped-back hair, no voice, oblivious of juniors), this new enthusiasm, which under ridicule had swiftly shed its trappings (dark clothes, unkempt hair, resonant voice, baffling to juniors), still retained its hold on her imagination.

  She suddenly saw the silhouettes of Mark and Clare against the screen, as they sat down a few rows in front. She also became vexedly aware that she had drawn blood from a pimple on her chin. She was glad that she and Patrick would be going home before Mark and Clare, so that they wouldn’t meet.

  She wondered if Clare minded Mark helping her with her work. He did help her an awful lot. And if it wasn’t for her friendship with Mark, how would she keep her sanity and self-respect under the absurdly puritanical discipline imposed on her by her mother, which made it almost impossible for her to make friends with anyone her own age—not that there was anyone worth knowing in Brickley anyway.

  ‘Patrick, do stop fidgeting.’

  * * *

  Father Kipling gradually emerged from his confusion and embarrassment, and began to assemble the data of his situation as a first step towards restoring his shattered self-possession. He risked a glance to his left, but the stout lady on whose corns he had been accused of stepping with such brutal violence, had apparently forgotten the injury and was gazing fixedly at the screen while her hand moved rhythmically from a noisy paper-bag in her lap to an equally noisy mouth. Emboldened, he looked around him, and found that everybody seemed to have forgotten the disturbance, which had apparently been nothing more than a temporary interruption of their trance-like communion with the screen. Relieved, he turned his own attention to it.

  After several minutes of close application, visual and auditory, he was still defeated as to the form and purpose of the performance. It was not Bernadette: that much was obvious, and disturbing. He turned to his left, changed his mind, and turned to his right, where an odoriferous young woman sat fondling her hair.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘but could you possibly tell me if there is another film being shown this evening. You see I was under the impression …’ But he was already wilting under her insulted, contemptuous gaze.

  ‘Shouldn’t be surprised,’ she drawled coldly, and turned to mutter something to her companion, who leaned forward to examine him. Father Kipling pressed back against his seat, and resolved to wait and see.

  * * *

  In the warm darkness Len felt for Bridget’s warm, moist hand, and warmly she squeezed his rough, strong fingers in return. They had been in the cinema about ten minutes now, and already the warmth was making Bridget pleasantly drowsy. Gradually the ache drained out of her legs into her feet, and, as she eased off her shoes, was absorbed by the carpet. With the ache vanished the strain and irritation of another day behind the counter of XYZ cafeteria: the burnt toast, the greasy rags, Raymond the Italian washer-up who pinched on sight … a good job for him Len didn’t know. She rested her head in the crook of Len’s neck and shoulder, and he chinned her curls. The pupils of her askew eyes kept sliding to the bottom corners of their sockets from weight and weariness; after a time she happily allowed them to stay there, and closed her lids on the black and white crooks and detectives punching each other’s jaws. Distantly she heard their grunts, the crunch of flesh and bone, the crash of splintered furniture. Len sat very still. Then, as she expected and wanted, he moved his arm up and over and round her shoulders.

  If only the stubborn plush barrier of the seat-arm would melt, she would be in absolute bliss. But the seat-arm was the little piece of grit she encountered so often at the happiest times that she had come to think of it as inevitable, and almost necessary. Never had she known a moment of happiness without that little piece of grit pricking her. Whenever she was with Len it was wonderful, but there was always an end to it, a comfortless kiss on the porch with Mrs. Potts probably peering through the curtains at them, she wouldn’t have men in the house at any price. Mostly the kiss was at the bottom of High Hill where Len caught his last bus, because usually he didn’t have time to see her home, and though he would have walked home she wouldn’t let him, and anyway there was his mother … It would be the same this evening and every evening until he went into the army, which would be even worse—they didn’t dare talk about it, but it was hanging over them all the time. In the end, when Len had finished his apprenticeship and his national service, they would be married, and how wonderful that would be, no more good nights then, and no more cafeteria for her, but there would be babies and Len’s moods and night-shifts and illnesses, always something. Perhaps if it wasn’t for the something, life … But Bridget’s dim speculations petered out as she surrendered drowsily to the luxury of Len’s strong arms around her shoulders.

  * * *

  Doreen for a moment turned a straight back on the incoming customers, and, with feet together, watched the only bit of the film she could still enjoy at the end of a week’s repetition, where the gangster’s moll insulted the vicar who was cleaning up the racket, wearing the most heavenly black nylon négligée, almost see-through, but just saved by frothy lace all down the front, and black lace undies dark underneath, no wonder she was mad that he wouldn’t make love to her.

  As he eased his shoulders through the door, the minister turned and slid his eyes up and down the négligée.

  ‘Why don’t you take some of that paint off your face? It may be quite pretty underneath.’

  ‘Get out!’

  Father Kipling goggled at the scene. This bovine person in the flashily-cut suit was apparently intended to be a clergyman, though his parish seemed to consist exclusively of night-clubs, and his ministry of punching jaws. He received the advances of this disgracefully undressed Jezebel with disquieting composure. Really, it wasn’t surprising that the Protestant churches were in decline if this was the state of affairs.

  ‘Bet she takes off her make-up,’ said a woman in front of him.

  Sure enough, the actress sat down before her dressing-table and wiped experimentally at her face.

  ‘How remarkably acute,’ thought Father Kipling.

  ‘Told you,’ said the woman, nudging her husband triumphantly.

  ‘All right, all right, I heard,’ he said.

  ‘Mum, I want to go ’ome,’ whined a child who was sitting with them.

  ‘Ssh!’

  ‘Mum, can I ’ave a lolly?’

  ‘Give ’im sixpence, Fred.’

  ‘’E’s ’ad two already.’

  ‘Well you know we won’t get a moment’s peace without.’

  * * *

  ‘Damn,’ said Mark, as they seated themselves. ‘There are your parents just over there. Patrick and Patricia are here too, aren’t they? Soon have the whole bloody family.’

  ‘Mark,’ she reproved sadly.

  �
�Sorry.’

  He had agreed that she could rebuke him for bad language, ‘as long as I’m not expected to reform’. The force of this condition was only too apparent to her, and yet this was the dream she cherished—to reform, or rather, to convert Mark. It would not be easy. He was so bitter and cynical sometimes, and so flippant. ‘A confirmed sceptic’ was Damien’s verdict; but she couldn’t agree. After all, Mark had been a Catholic once. And already she had persuaded him to go to Mass again, to give the Faith a fair chance. Yet, she had to admit that there was a hard core of reserve and secrecy in him which she despaired of ever penetrating. Perhaps this was her fault.

  Since leaving the convent she had suffered from a kind of spiritual numbness which, she knew, was a common malady of religious, and probably ex-religious too. She was just going through the motions of piety at the moment. But she longed to be able to communicate to Mark some of the enthusiasm she had commanded in previous years. At school, for instance, when she had been captain of St Agatha’s House, ninety per cent of her girls had been daily communicants. Mark had teased her about this achievement, maintaining that it reduced Holy Communion to the level of a hockey tournament; and she was obliged to question the value of that kind of religious zeal since it had recoiled so disastrously on her in the case of Hilda. Nevertheless, she knew that she had once possessed a gift for generating religious feeling in others; but it had been a gift which had derived directly from her own piety. Mark’s religious life was of far greater interest and importance to her than her own at the moment, but she longed to be a participant in, not merely a spectator of, his rediscovery of the Catholic faith. She was racked by a sense of impotence, like standing on the sidelines with a pulled muscle when your team was on the verge of winning the match.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t swear so much, Mark. Especially about Mummy and Daddy.’

  ‘Sorry, Clare. You know how much I like your mother and father,’ replied Mark in a low voice. ‘It’s just that you’re so shy and withdrawn with me when they’re around, I was afraid that you wouldn’t let me do this.’