David Lodge - Small World (35 page)

Morris changes into his red silk running shorts and Euphoric State sweatshirt and Adidas training shoes, and drops his letter into the mail box in the hall on his way out of the villa. Some other residents sunning themselves on the terrace smile and wave as he trots briskly through the villa gardens. As soon as he is out of sight, he slows to a more deliberate pace. Even so, the sweat pours from his brow and the loudest noise he can hear is the rasp of his own breathing. His footsteps are muffled by the dead pine needles that carpet the footpath. He always takes the same route—a mile-long circuit through the woods, uphill from the villa, downhill coming back, which usually takes him about thirty-five minutes. He is determined one day to do the whole thing without stopping, but this evening, as usual, he is obliged to stop at the top of the incline about halfway round, to recover his breath. He leans against a tree, his chest heaving, looking up through the branches above his head to the hazy blue of the sky.

Then everything goes black.

Two

whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeee!

The wind whistled softly through the reeds at the edge of Lough Gill. Persse McGarrigle squinted anxiously at the sky. Overhead it was as blue as his own eyes, but the horizon looked ominously dark. The students of the Celtic Twilight Summer School, two days out from their base at Limerick on a literary sightseeing tour, did not, however, look so far. They were in ecstasies at the sunlight glinting on the ruffled waters of the lake, the reeds bowing gracefully in the breeze, the green hills encircling the lough, and the purple, whale-shaped outline of Ben Bulben in the background. Mostly middle-aged Americans, collecting credits for their part-time degree courses back home or combining a European vacation with cultural self-improvement, they jumped down from the bus with cries of delight, and waddled up and down the shore, clicking and whirring with their cameras, watched indulgently by a cluster of Sligo boatmen wearing waders and filthy, tattered Aran sweaters. Rocking gently beside a little wooden jetty were three weathered-looking rowing boats which had been hired to take the students across to the Lake Isle of Innisfree, subject of W. B. Yeats’s most frequently anthologized poem.

” ‘I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,’ ” an overweight matron in tartan Bermuda shorts and dayglo pink tee-shirt recited aloud in the accents of Brooklyn, with a knowing smile in Persse’s direction. For the past two summers Persse had acted as tutor on this course, directed by Professor McCreedy, and being at a loose end since his disillusioning experience in Amsterdam, had agreed to do so again this summer. ” ‘And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made.’ Do we get to see the cabin, Mr McGarrigle?”

“I don’t think Yeats actually got around to building it, Mrs Finklepearl,” said Persse. “It was more of a dream than a reality. Like most of our dearest ambitions.”

“Oh, don’t say that, Mr McGarrigle. I believe in looking at the bright side of everything.”

“Are we going in those little boats?”

Persse turned to face the addresser of this question with surprise and even pleasure, for it was the first word he had spoken in Persse’s hearing since the summer school began.

“It’s not far, Mr Maxwell.”

“They don’t even have motors.”

“The men are very strong rowers,” Persse assured him. But Mr Maxwell relapsed into gloomy silence. He was dressed more formally than most of the party, in herringbone sports jacket and worsted trousers, and wore the kind of sunglasses that went darker and lighter according to circumstances. In the bright dazzle off the lake, his eyes were two opaque black discs. Maxwell was a bit of a mystery man—a teacher at some small Baptist college in the Deep South, who gave the impression in seminars that the level of discussion was too jejune to tempt his participation, and was consequently feared and disliked by the other students.

“You’re not gonna chicken out of the boat-ride, are you, Mr Maxwell?” Mrs Finklepearl taunted him.

“I can’t swim,” he said shortly.

“Me neither!” cried Mrs Finklepearl. “But nuttin’ is gonna stop me going to the Lake Isle of Innisfree. ‘Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee.’ I think I’ll just get my zipper from the bus, though. This breeze is kinda chilly.”

Persse encouraged her to do so, in spite of knowing that this garment was made of scarlet and lime-green nylon, with royal blue piping. He strolled over to the group of boatmen. “Shouldn’t there be four boats?” he enquired.

“Paddy Malone’s boat is holed,” said one of the men. “But sure we’ll manage fine with the three. They can all squeeze in.”

“What about the weather?” said Persse, surveying the sky again. “It’s very dark over to the west.”

“The weather will hold for another two hours,” he was assured. “As long as you can see Ben Bulben, you’ve no need to worry.” This advice was hardly disinterested, as Persse well knew, for the boatmen stood to lose half their fee, not to mention tips, if the trip were cancelled. But his misgivings were overruled by Professor McCreedy, who was afraid of disappointing the students. “Let us not delay, however,” he urged. “Round them up and get them into the boats.”

So into the boats they got, amid much laughter and shouted advice and badinage, the ungainly American matrons in their gaudy windcheaters and plastic peeptoe sandals clambering into the rowboats held steady by the grinning boatmen standing in the shallow water. Persse found himself in the prow of his boat with knees pressed against Maxwell’s, sitting opposite. There were thirty-six people in the party—twelve to a boat, plus two oarsmen. It was too many. The boats were low in the water—Persse could touch its surface without stretching.

At first, all went well. The oarsmen pulled strongly, and a kind of race developed between the boats, each group urging on its crew. The wavelets dashing against the bows caused only a slight, rather agreeable spray to sprinkle the passengers. But then, as the shore receded and flattened behind them, and the low outline of the Isle of Innisfree rose in front of them, the light seemed to thicken and the wind grew stronger. Persse anxiously surveyed the horizon, which was much nearer than it had been earlier. He could no longer see Ben Bulben. The sun disappeared behind a dark cloud and the colour of the water changed instantly from blue to black, flecked with whitecaps. The boats began to pitch and toss, and to ship large dollops of cold water, causing the passengers to utter shrill cries of alarm and distress. Persse, sitting at the prow, was soon soaked to his skin.

“Better turn back!” he shouted to the two oarsmen in his boat.

One of them shook his head “Can’t risk turning in this squall,” he cried. “We’re over halfway there, anyhow.”

The island, however, still looked dismally distant, shrouded by a shower of rain that swept rapidly towards them across the intervening water, and passed over the boats like a whiplash, stinging the faces of the passengers. They were all so wet now that they no longer bothered to complain when a wave slopped over the side. Their silence was an indication of how frightened they all were, gripping the gunwales, up to their ankles in water, watching the faces of the two oarsmen for reassurance. These two rowed grimly on in the teeth of the wind, their task made harder by the weight of water in the boat. There was no bailing implement aboard, though one or two passengers made feeble efforts to improvise with their shoes and sunhats.

Whether it was because their craft was leakier than the others, or its load heavier, or the oarsmen weaker, Persse observed that their boat was falling behind the other two. Mrs Finklepearl, her eyes closed, was crooning the words of “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” to herself, like a prayer or mantra: “And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of morning to where the cricket sings…”

A particularly big wave broke over the bow and the recitation ended abruptly in a gurgle and a sob. Maxwell’s lenses had turned transparent in the murky light and his pale grey eyes were eloquent of pure terror. He clutched at Persse’s arm with a grip as tight as the Ancient Mariner’s. “Are we sinking?” he screeched.

“No, no,” said Persse. “We’re fine. Safe as houses.”

But his voice lacked conviction. The boat was dangerously low in the water—indeed it was beginning to look more like a bath than a boat. The veins stood out on the foreheads of the rowers, and their oars seemed almost to bend under the strain of keeping the waterlogged vessel in motion. The island was still more than a hundred yards away. The oarsmen looked at each other meaningfully and rested their oars. One called out to Persse, “I fear she’s taken too much water, sir.”

“I told you—we’re sinking!” screamed Maxwell, clutching Persse still more tightly. “Save me!”

“For God’s sake, control yourself man,” protested Persse, struggling to free himself from the other’s frantic grip.

“But I can’t swim! I’ll drown! Where are the other boats? Help! Help!”

“Can you only think of saving your own skin?” Persse exclaimed indignantly. “What about the ladies here?”

“You mustn’t let me drown. I have a great sin on my conscience.” Maxwell’s face was contorted with fear and guilt. “This storm is God’s judgment upon me.”

“He’s being very unfair to the rest of us, then,” Persse snapped, peering through the rain at the shore of the island, which the other two boats seemed to have reached safely. “Let’s shout ‘Help’ all together, ladies and gentlemen,” he urged, to keep their spirits up. “One-two-three…”

“Help!” they all shouted in ragged chorus, all except Maxwell, who seemed to have abandoned hope. “Yes, it’s God’s judgment,” he moaned. “To drown me in a lake in Sligo, the very place where I deceived the poor girl. I didn’t know we’d be coming here when I signed up for the course.”

“What girl was that?” said Persse.

“She was a chambermaid,” sniffed Maxwell, tears or rain or lakewater running down his face and dripping from his nose. “In a hotel I was staying at, years ago, for the Yeats Summer School. My doctoral dissertation was on Celtic mythology in the early poems.”

“The divil take your doctoral dissertation!” cried Persse. “What was the girl’s name?”

“She was called Bernadette. I don’t remember her second name.”

“McGarrigle,” said Persse. “The same as mine.”

Maxwell’s grip on Persse suddenly relaxed. He stared incredulously. “That’s right. It was McGarrigle. How did you know?”

At that moment the boat slowly sank beneath them to the accompaniment of piteous cries from the rest of the passengers, who soon, however, found that they were floundering in only two feet of water, their vessel having fortunately drifted over a sandbank. The other boatmen waded out from the shore to carry the more elderly and infirm survivors of this shipwreck to dry land. Persse was obliged to carry Maxwell, who had flung his arms round Persse’s neck as the boat went down, and refused to unclasp them.

“I’ve a good mind to hold your head under the water and drown you after all,” Persse growled. “But drowning’s too good for you. You ruined my cousin’s life. Getting her with child and then deserting her.”

“I’ll make it up to her,” whimpered Maxwell. “I’ll marry her if you like.”

“Huh, she wouldn’t want to marry a spalpeen like yourself,” said Persse.

“I’ll make restitution. I’ll make a settlement on her and the child.”

“That’s more like it,” said Persse. “We’ll have that put in writing by a Sligo solicitor tomorrow morning. Signed and sealed. I’ll undertake to deliver it.”

Two days later, Persse flew from Dublin to Heathrow, carrying in his pocket a copy of the legal document, now lodged with a Sligo solicitor, in which Professor Sidney Maxwell, of Covenant College, Atlanta, Georgia, admitted paternity of Bernadette McGarrigle’s son, Fergus, and guaranteed her an annual allowance that should be sufficient to permit her to retire from her present employment. Professor McCreedy had granted Persse twenty-four hours’ leave from the summer school, and it was his intention to seek another interview with Mrs Gasgoine, to ask her for Bernadette’s address, or to forward his message. But when he got to the building in Soho Square, he found the office he had visited before occupied by a travel agency. “Girls Unlimited?” said the receptionist. “No, I never heard of it, but then I’ve only been here a couple of weeks. Gentleman looking for Girls Unlimited, Doreen, know anything about it? No, she don’t either.

You could try the video place on the ground floor.” Persse tried the video place on the ground floor but they seemed to suspect him of being a policeman: first they offered him a bribe, and when he asked what it was for, they told him to get lost. Nobody in the entire building would admit to having known that Girls Unlimited ever existed, let alone its present whereabouts. Persse could think of nothing to do but return to Ireland and try advertising in newspapers, or perhaps show-business trade magazines.

He travelled back to Heathrow on the tube in a despondent mood, not only on account of his frustration over Bernadette, but because the journey had revived memories of Angelica. Not that she had been out of his mind for more than five minutes at a time all summer. The petition he had left in St George’s chapel on his last visit had not been answered—not the part that pertained to himself anyhow. “Dear God, let me forget Angelica.” Would he ever forget that exquisite face and form? The dark hair falling in shining waves about her neck and shoulders at the Rummidge sherry party, or streaming on the wind as she spurned the footpath under her running shoes; her peat-dark eyes gravely attentive in the lecture-room, or dreamily enchanted by his snow poem under the moon? Or glazed and vacant in the obscene photograph outside the Blue Heaven? Persse shook his head irritably at that last image, angry that he had allowed it to rise into his consciousness, as he stepped off the train at Heathrow.

He discovered that he had a two-hour wait till the next plane to Dublin. A sign “To St George’s Chapel” caught his eye, and for want of anything better to do, he followed it. This time it led him not to the airport laundry, but to the bunker of liver-coloured brick beneath the black wooden cross. He pushed through the swing doors and descended the stairs to the hushed chapel below the ground.

His petition was still there, pinned to the green baize noticeboard:”Dear God, let me forget Angelica. Lead her from the life that degrades her.” But it had been annotated in a minute italic hand that Persse knew well—so well that his heart stopped beating for a moment, his lungs bulged with trapped breath, his vision blurred and he almost swooned.

“Appearances can be misleading. Vide F.Q. II. xii .66.”

Persse recovered his balance, snatched the paper from the noticeboard, and ran with it to the nearest terminal building. He knocked aside protesting travellers in his eagerness to get to the bookstall. Did they have a copy of The Faerie Queene by Sir Edmund Spenser? No, they did not. Not even the Penguin edition? Not in any edition. Did they not realize that
The Faerie Queene
was one of the jewels in the crown of English poetry? There was not much call for poetry at Heathrow. Sir could, if sir wished, try the other bookstalls in the airport, but his chances of success were slim. Persse ran from terminal to terminal, from bookstall to bookstall, loudly demanding a copy of
The Faerie Queene
. One assistant offered him Enid Blyton, another the latest issue of
Gay News
. He thrust his fingers through his curly hair in frustration. Obviously there was only one thing to do: go back to central London, where the bookshops would still, with any luck, be open.