David Lodge - Small World by Author's Note

shifted, close-up gave way to a wider, deeper perspective, and it became apparent that the owner of the vagina had another penis in her mouth, and the owner of the first penis had his tongue in another vagina, whose owner in turn had a finger in someone else’s anus, whose penis was in her vagina; and all were in frantic motion, like the pistons of some infernal machine. Keats it was not. It was a far cry from the violet blending its odour with the rose. “Siddown, can’t you?” someone hissed in the circumambient darkness. Persse groped for a seat, but his hand fell on a padded shoulder, and was shaken off with a curse. The moans and groans rose to a crescendo, the pistons jerked faster and faster, and Persse registered with shame that he had polluted himself. Perspiration poured from his brow and dimmed his sight. When what seemed, for one hallucinatory moment, to be the face of Angelica loomed between two massive hairy thighs, Persse turned and fled from the place as if from the pit of hell.
    The man behind the reception desk looked up, startled, as Persse catapulted into the foyer. “Too tame for you?” he said. “You can’t have a refund, I’m afraid. Try next week, we’ve got some new Danish stuff coming in.”
    Persse grabbed the man by his lapels and hauled him halfway across he desk. “You have made me defile the image of the woman I love,” he hissed. The man paled, and lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. Persse pushed him back into his seat, ran out of the cinema, across the road, and into the Catholic church.
    A light was burning above a confessional bearing the name of “Fr Finbar O’Malley,” and within a few minutes Persse had unburdened his conscience and received absolution. “God bless you, my son,” said the priest in conclusion.
    “Thank you, Father.”
    “By the way, do you come from Mayo?”
    “I do.”
    “Ah. I thought I recognized the sound of Mayo speech. I’m from I he West myself.” He sighed behind the wire grille. “This is a terrible sinful city for a young Irish lad like yourself to be cast adrift in. How would you like to be repatriated?”
    “Repatriated?” Persse repeated blankly.
    “Aye. I administer a fund for helping Irish youngsters who have come over here looking for work and think better of it, and want to go back home. It’s called the Our Lady of Knock Fund for Reverse Emigration.”
    “Oh, I’m only visiting, Father. I’m going back to Ireland tomorrow.”
    “You have your ticket?”
    “Yes, Father.”
    “Then good luck to you, and God speed. You’re going to a better place than this, I can tell you.”
    By the time Persse got back to the University it was afternoon, and the Conference had departed on a coach tour of literary landmarks in the region. Persse took a bath and slept for a few hours. He awoke feeling serene and purified. It was time to go to the bar for a drink before dinner.
    The conferees were back from the sightseeing trip, which had not been a success: the owners of George Eliot’s childhood home had not been warned in advance, and would not let them inside the house, so they had had to content themselves with milling about in the garden and pressing their faces to the windows. Then Ann Hathaway’s cottage proved to be closed for maintenance; and finally the coach had broken down just outside Kenilworth, on the way to the Castle, and a relief vehicle had taken an hour to arrive.
    “Never mind,” said Bob Busby, moving among the disgruntled conferees in the bar, “there’s still the medieval banquet to look forward to.”
    “I hope to God Busby knows what he’s doing,” Persse heard Philip Swallow saying. “We can’t afford another cockup.” He was speaking to a man in a rather greasy charcoal grey suit whom Persse had not seen before.
    “What’s it all about, then?” said this man, who had a Gauloise smouldering in one hand and a large gin and tonic in the other.
    “Well, there’s a place in town called ‘Ye