David Lodge - Small World by Author's Note Read Free Book Online Page B

I’ll draw you a map.”
    Following Busby’s directions, Persse left the campus, walked through some quiet residential streets lined with large, handsome houses, their snowy drives scored by the tyre tracks of Rovers and Jaguars; crossed a busy thoroughfare, where buses and lorries had churned the snow into furrows of black slush; and penetrated a region of older and less well-groomed property. After a few minutes he became aware of a figure slipping and sliding on the pavement ahead of him, crowned by a familiar deerstalker.
    “Hallo, Professor Zapp,” he said, drawing level. “Are you taking a stroll?”
    “Oh, hi, Percy. No, I’m on my way to visit my old landlord. I spent six months in this place, you know, ten years ago. I even thought of staying here once. I must have been out of my mind. Do you know it well?”
    “I’ve never been here before, but I have an aunty living here. Not a real aunty, but related through cousins. My mother said to be sure to look her up. I’m on my way now.”
    “A duty call, huh? I take a right here.”
    Persse consulted his map. “So do I.”
    “How d’you like Rummidge, then?”
    “There are too many streetlights.”
    “Come again?”
    “You can’t see the stars properly at night, because of all the streetlights,” said Persse.
    “Yeah, and there are a few other disadvantages I could tell you about,” said Morris Zapp. “Like not a single restaurant you would take your worst enemy to, four different kinds of electric socket in every room, hotel bedrooms that freeze your eyebrows to the pillows, and disc jockeys that deserve to have their windpipes slit. I can’t say that the absence of stars bugged me all that much.”
    “Even the moon seems dimmer than at home,” said Persse. “You’re a romantic, Percy, you know that? You ought to write poetry. This is the street: Gittings Road.”
    “My aunty’s street,” said Persse.
    Morris Zapp stopped in the middle of the pavement. “That’s a remarkable coincidence,” he said. “What’s your aunty’s name?”
    “Mrs O’Shea, Mrs Nuala O’Shea,” said Persse. “Her husband is Dr Milo O’Shea.”
    Morris Zapp performed a little jig of excitement. “It’s him, it’s him!” he cried, in a rough imitation of an Irish brogue. “It’s himself, my old landlord! Mother of God, won’t he be surprised to see the pair of us.”
    “Mother of God!” said Dr O’Shea, when he opened the front door of is large and gloomy-looking house. “If it isn’t Professor Zapp!”
    “And here’s your nephew from the Emerald Isle, Percy McGarrigle, come to see his aunty,” said Morris Zapp.
    Dr O’Shea’s face fell. “Ah, yes, your mammy wrote, Persse. But I’m afraid you’ve missed Mrs O’Shea—she left for Ireland yesterday. But come in, come in. I’ve nothing to offer you, and surgery starts in twenty minutes, but come in.” He ushered them into a chilly parlour, smelling Faintly of mildew and mothballs, and switched on an electric fire in the hearth. Simulated coals lighted up, though not the element. “Cheerful, I always think—makes you feel warm just to look at it,” said the doctor.
    “I’ve brought you a little duty-free hooch,” said Morris Zapp, taking a half-bottle of scotch from his raincoat pocket.
    “God love you, it’s just like old times,” groaned Dr O’Shea. He got down on his knees and groped in a sideboard for glasses. “The whisky flowed like water,” he confided in Persse, “when Professor Zapp lived here.”
    “Don’t get the wrong idea, Percy,” said Morris Zapp. “It’s just Milo’s way of saying I usually had a bottle or two of Old Grandad in the cupboard. Here’s looking at you, Milo.”
    “So where’s Aunty Nuala?” Persse enquired, when they had sunk the whisky, and O’Shea was refilling their glasses.
    “Back in Sligo. Family troubles.” Dr O’Shea shook his head gravely. “Her sister is very bad, very bad. All on account of that daughter of hers,