The Driver' s Seat

She turns back to Bill with an agreeable and indulgent smile. The stewardesses come efficiently collecting the trays, cluttering one upon the other. Bill, when their trays are collected, puts up first Lise’s table and then his own. He puts his arm through hers.

‘I’m your type,’ he says, ‘and you’re mine. Are you planning to stay with friends?’

‘No, but I have to meet somebody.’

‘No chance of us meeting some time? How long are you planning to stay in the city?’

‘I have no definite plans,’ she says. ‘But I could meet you for a drink tonight. Just a short drink.’

‘I’m staying at the Metropole,’ he says. ‘Where will you be staying?’

‘Oh, just a small place. Hotel Tomson.’

‘I don’t think I know Hotel Tomson.’

‘It’s quite small. It’s cheap but clean.’

‘Well, at the Metropole,’ Bill says, ‘they don’t ask any questions.

‘As far as I’m concerned,’ Lise says, ‘they can ask any questions they like. I’m an idealist.’

‘That’s exactly what I am,’ Bill says. ‘An idealist. You’re not offended, are you? I only meant that if we get acquainted, I think, somehow, I’m your type and you’re my type.’

‘I don’t like crank diets,’ Lise says. ‘I don’t need diets. I’m in good form.’

‘Now, I can’t let that pass, Lise,’ Bill says. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. The macrobiotic system is not just a diet, it’s a way of life.’

She says, ‘I have somebody to meet some time this afternoon or this evening.’

‘What for?’ he says. ‘Is it a boy-friend?’

‘Mind your own business,’ she says.. ‘Stick to your yin and your yang.’

‘Yin and Yang,’ he says, ‘is something that you’ve got to understand. If we could have a little time together, a little peaceful time, in a room, just talking, I could give you some idea of how it works. It’s an idealist’s way of life. I’m hoping to get the young people of Naples interested in it. I should think there would be many young people of Naples interested. We’re opening a macrobiotic restaurant there, you know.’

Lise peers behind her again at the staring, sickly man. ‘A strange type,’ she says.

‘With a room behind the public dining hall, a room for strict observers who are on Regime Seven. Regime Seven is cereals only, very little liquid. You take such a very little liquid that you can pee only three times a day if you’re a man, two if you’re a woman. Regime Seven is a very elevated regime in macrobiotics. You become like a tree. People become what they eat.’

‘Do you become a goat when you eat goat’s cheese?’

‘Yes, you become lean and stringy like a goat. Look at me, I haven’t a spare piece of fat on my body. I’m not an Enlightenment Leader for nothing.’

‘You must have been eating goat’s cheese,’ she says. ‘This man back here is like a tree, have you seen him?’

‘Behind the private room for observers of Regime Seven,’ Bill says, ‘there will be another little room for tranquillity and quiet. It should do well in Naples once we get the youth movement started. It’s to be called the Yin-Yang Young. It does well in Denmark. But middle-aged people take the diet too. In the States many senior citizens are on macrobiotics.’

‘The men in Naples are sexy.’

‘On this diet the Regional Master for Northern Europe recommends one orgasm a day. At least. In the Mediterranean countries we are still researching that aspect.’

‘He’s afraid of me,’ Lise whispers, indicating with a jerk of her head the man behind her. ‘Why is everybody afraid of me?’

‘What do you mean? I’m not afraid of you.’ Bill looks round, impatiently, and as if only to oblige her. He looks away again. ‘Don’t bother with him,’ he says. ‘He’s a mess.

Lise gets up. ‘Excuse me,’ she says, ‘I have to go and wash.’

‘See you come back,’ he says.

She passes across him to the aisle, holding in her hand both her hand-bag and the paperback book she bought at the airport, and as she does so she takes the opportunity to look carefully at the three people in the row behind, the ill-looking man, the plump woman and the young girl, who sit without conversing, as it seems unconnected with each other. Lise stands for a moment in the aisle, raising the arm on which the hand-bag is slung from the wrist, so that the paperback, now held between finger and thumb, is visible. She seems to display it deliberately, as if she is one of those spies one reads about who effect recognition by pre-arranged signals and who verify their contact with another agent by holding a certain paper in a special way.

Bill looks up at her and says, ‘What’s the matter?’

She starts moving forward, at the same time answering Bilname = "note" ‘The matter?’

‘You won’t need that book,’ Bill says.

She looks at the book in her hand as if wondering where it came from and with a little laugh hesitates by his side long enough to toss it on to her seat before she goes up the plane towards the toilets.

Two people are waiting in line ahead of her. She takes her place abstractedly, standing in fact almost even with the row where her first neighbour, the business man, is sitting. But she does not seem to be aware of him or to care in the slightest that he glances up at her twice, three times, at first apprehensively and then, as she continues to ignore him, less so. He turns a page of his newspaper and folds it conveniently for reading, and reads it without looking at her again, settling further into his seat with the slight sigh of one whose visitor has left and who is at last alone.

It has turned out that the sick-looking man is after all connected with the plump woman and the young girl who sat beside him on the plane. He is coming out of the airport building, now, not infirmly but with an air of serious exhaustion, accompanied by the woman and the girl.

Lise stands a few yards away. By her side is Bill; their luggage is on the pavement beside them. She says, ‘Oh there he is!’ and leaves Bill’s side, running up to the sick-eyed man. ‘Excuse me!’ she says.

He hesitates, and makes an awkward withdrawaname = "note" two steps backward, and with the steps he seems to withdraw even more his chest, shoulders, legs and face. The plump woman looks at Lise inquiringly while the girl just stands and looks.

Lise addresses the man in English. She says, ‘Excuse me, but I wondered if you wanted to share a limousine to the centre. It works out cheaper than a taxi, if the passengers agree to share, and it’s quicker than the bus, of course.’

The man looks at the pavement as if inwardly going through a ghastly experience. The plump woman says, ‘No, thank you. We’re being met.’ And touching the man on the arm, moves on. He follows, as if bound for the scaffold while the girl stares blankly at Lise before walking round and past her. But Lise quickly moves with the group, and once again confronts the man. ‘I’m sure we’ve met somewhere before,’ she says. The man rolls his head slightly as if he has toothache or a headache. ‘I would be so grateful,’ Lise says, ‘for a lift.’

‘I’m afraid—’ says the woman. And just then a man in a chauffeur’s uniform comes up. ‘Good morning, m’ lord,’ he says. ‘We’re parked over there. Did you have a good trip?’

The man has opened his mouth wide but without making a sound; now he closes his lips tight.

‘Come along,’ says the plump woman, while the girl turns in an unconcerned way. The plump woman says sweetly to Lise, while brushing past her, ‘I’m sorry, we can’t stop at the moment. The car’s waiting and we have no extra room.

Lise shouts, ‘But your luggage — you’ve forgotten your luggage.’

The chauffeur turns cheerily and says over his shoulder, ‘No luggage, Miss, they don’t bring luggage. Got all they need at the villa.’ He winks and breezes about his business.

The three follow him across the street to the rows of waiting cars and are followed by other travellers who stream out of the airport building.

Lise runs back to Bill. He says, ‘What are you up to?’

‘I thought I knew him,’ Lise says. She is crying, her tears fall heavily. She says, ‘I was sure he was the right one. I’ve got to meet someone.

Bill says, ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry, people are looking. What’s the matter? I don’t get it.’ At the same time he grins with his wide mouth as if to affirm that the incomprehensible needs must be a joke. ‘I don’t get it,’ he says, pulling out of his pocket two men‘s-size paper handkerchiefs, and, selecting one, handing it to Lise. ‘Who did you think he was?’

Lise wipes her eyes and blows her nose. She clutches the paper handkerchief in her fist. She says, ‘It’s a disappointing start to my holidays. I was sure.

‘You’ve got me for the next few days if you like,’ Bill says. ‘Don’t you want to see me again? Come on, we’ll get a taxi, you’ll feel better in a taxi. You can’t go on the bus, crying like that. I don’t get it. I can give you what you want, wait and see.’

On the pavement, further up, among a cluster of people waiting for a taxi is the sturdy young man in his business suit, holding his briefcase. Lise looks listlessly at Bill, then beyond Bill, and just as listlessly takes in the man whose rosy face is turned towards her. He lifts his suitcase immediately he catches sight of her and crosses the road amongst the traffic, moving quickly away and away. But Lise is not watching him any more, she does not even seem to have remembered him.

In the taxi she laughs harshly when Bill tries to kiss her. Then she lets him kiss her, emerging from the contact with raised eyebrows as who should say, ‘What next?’ ‘I’m your type,’ Bill says.

The taxi stops at the grey stone downtown Hotel Tomson. She says, ‘What’s all that on the floor?’ and points to a scatter of small seeds. Bill looks at them closely and then at his zipper-bag which has come unzipped by a small fraction.

‘Rice,’ he says. ‘One of my sample packs must have burst and this bag isn’t closed properly.’ He zips up the bag and says, ‘Never mind.’

He takes her to the narrow swing doors and hands her suitcase to the porter. ‘I’ll look for you at seven in the hall of the Metropole,’ he says. He kisses her on the cheek and again she raises her eyebrows. She pushes the swing door and goes with it, not looking back.

FOUR

At the hotel desk she seems rather confused as if she is not quite sure where she is. She gives her name and when the concierge asks for her passport she evidently does not immediately understand, for she asks him what he wants first in Danish, then French. She tries Italian, lastly English. He smiles and responds to Italian and English, again requesting her passport in both languages.

‘It is confusing,’ she says in English, handing over her passport.

‘Yes, you left part of yourself at home,’ the concierge says. ‘That other part, he is still en route to our country but he will catch up with you in a few hours’ time. It’s often the way with travel by air, the passenger arrives ahead of himself. Can I send you to your room a drink or a coffee?’

‘No, thank you.’ She turns to follow the waiting page-boy, then turns back. ‘When will you be finished with my passport?’

‘Any time, any time, Madam. When you come down again. When you go out. Any time.’ He looks at her dress and coat, then turns to some other people who have just arrived. While the boy waits, dangling a room-key, to take her up, Lise pauses for a moment to have a good look at them. They are a family: mother, father, two sons and a small daughter all speaking German together volubly. Lise is meanwhile gazed back at by the two sons. She turns away, impatiently gesturing the page-boy towards the lift, and follows him.

In her room she gets rid of the boy quickly, and without even taking her coat off lies down on the bed, staring at the ceiling. She breathes deeply and deliberately, in and out, for a few minutes. Then she gets up, takes off her coat, and examines what there is of the room.

It is a bed with a green cotton cover, a bedside table, a rug, a dressing-table, two chairs, a small chest of drawers; there is a wide tall window which indicates that it had once formed part of a much larger room, now partitioned into two or three rooms in the interests of hotel economy; there is a small bathroom with a bidet, a lavatory, a washbasin and a shower. The walls and a built-in cupboard have been a yellowish cream but are now dirty with dark marks giving evidence of past pieces of furniture now removed or rearranged. Her suitcase lies on a rack-table. The bedside light is a curved chromium stand with a parchment shade. Lise switches it on. She switches on the central light which is encased in a mottled glass globe; the light flicks on, then immediately flickers out as if, having served a long succession of clients without complaint, Lise is suddenly too much for it.

She tramps heavily into the bathroom and first, without hesitation, peers into the drinking-glass as if fully expecting to find what she does indeed find: two Alka-Seltzers, quite dry, having presumably been put there by the previous occupant who no doubt had wanted to sober up but who had finally lacked the power or memory to fill the glass with water and drink the salutary result.

By the side of the bed is a small oblong box bearing three pictures without words to convey to clients of all languages which bell-push will bring which room attendant. Lise examines this with a frown, as it were deciphering with the effort necessary to those more accustomed to word-reading the three pictures which represent first a frilly maid with a long-handled duster over her shoulder, next a waiter carrying a tray and lastly a man in buttoned uniform bearing a folded garment over his arm. Lise presses the maid. A light goes on in the box illuminating the picture. Lise sits on the bed and waits. Then she takes off her shoes and, watching the door for a few seconds more, presses the buttoned valet who likewise does not come. Nor does room-service after many more minutes. Lise lifts the telephone, demands the concierge and complains in a torrent that the bell-pushes bring no answer, the room is dirty, the tooth-glass has not been changed since the last guest left, the central light needs a new bulb, and that the bed, contrary to the advance specifications of her travel agency, has a too-soft mattress. The concierge advises her to press the bell for the maid.

Lise has started reciting her list over again from the beginning, when the maid does appear with a question-mark on her face. Lise puts down the receiver rather loudly and points to the light which the maid tries for herself, then, nodding her understanding of the case, makes to leave. ‘Wait!’ says Lise, first in English then in French, to neither of which the maid responds. Lise produces the glass with its Alka-Seltzers nestled at the bottom. ‘Filthy!’ Lise says in English. The maid obligingly fills the glass from the tap and hands it to Lise. ‘Dirty!’ Lise shouts in French. The maid understands, laughs at the happening, and this time makes a quick getaway with the glass in her hand.

Lise slides open the cupboard, pulls down a wooden hanger and throws it across the room with a clatter, then lies down on the bed. Presently she looks at her watch. It is five past one. She opens her suitcase and carefully extracts a short dressing-gown. She takes out a dress, hangs it in the cupboard, takes it off the hanger again, folds it neatly and puts it back. She takes out her sponge-bag and bedroom slippers, undresses, puts on her dressing-gown and goes into the bathroom, shutting the door. She has reached the point of taking a shower when she hears voices from her room, a scraping sound, a man‘s and a girl’s. Putting forth her head from the bathroom door, she sees a man in light brown overalls with a pair of steps and an electric light bulb, accompanied by the maid. Lise comes out in her dressing-gown without having properly dried herself in the evident interest of protecting her hand-bag which lies on the bed. Her dressing-gown clings damply to her. ‘Where is the tooth-glass?’ Lise demands. ‘I must have a glass for water.’ The maid touches her head to denote forgetfulness and departs with a swish of her skirt, never to return within Lise’s cognizance. However, Lise soon makes known her need for a drinking-glass on the telephone to the concierge, threatening to leave the hotel immediately if she doesn’t get her water-glass right away.

While waiting for the threat to take effect Lise again considers the contents of her suitcase. This seems to present her with a problem, for she takes out a pink cotton dress, hangs it in the cupboard, then after hesitating for a few seconds she takes it off the hanger again, folds it carefully and lays it back in her case. It may be that she is indeed contemplating an immediate departure from the hotel. But when another maid arrives with two drinking-glasses, apologies in Italian and the explanation that the former maid had gone off duty, Lise continues to look through her belongings in a puzzled way, taking nothing further out of her suitcase.

This maid, seeing laid out on the bed the bright-coloured dress and coat in which Lise had arrived, inquires amiably if Madam is going to the beach.

‘No,’ says Lise.

‘You American?’ says the maid.

‘No,’ Lise says.

‘English?’

‘No.’ Lise turns her back to continue her careful examination of her clothes in the suitcase, and the maid goes out with an unwanted air, saying, ‘Good day.’

Lise is lifting the corners of her carefully packed things, as if in absent-minded accompaniment to some thought, who knows what? Then, with some access of decision, she takes off her dressing-gown and slippers and starts putting on again the same clothes that she wore on her journey. When she is dressed she folds the dressing-gown, puts the slippers back in their plastic bag, and replaces them in her suitcase. She also puts back everything that she has taken out of her sponge-bag, and packs this away.

Now she takes from an inside pocket of her suitcase a brochure with an inset map which she spreads out on the bed. She studies it closely, finding first the spot where the Hotel Tomson is situated and from there traces with her finger various routes leading into and away from the centre of the town. Lise stands, bending over it. The room is dark although it is not yet two in the afternoon. Lise switches on the central light and pores over her map.

It is marked here and there with tiny pictures which denote historic buildings, museums and monuments. Eventually Lise takes a ballpoint pen from her bag and marks a spot in a large patch of green, the main parkland of the city. She puts a little cross beside one of the small pictures which is described on the map as ‘The Pavilion’. She then folds up the map and replaces it in the pamphlet which she then edges in her hand-bag. The pen lies, apparently forgotten, on the bed. She looks at herself in the glass, touches her hair, then locks her suitcase. She finds the car-keys that she had failed to leave behind this morning and attaches them once more to her key-ring. She puts the bunch of keys in her hand-bag, picks up her paperback book and goes out, locking the door behind her. Who knows her thoughts? Who can tell?

She is downstairs at the desk where, behind the busy clerks, numbered pigeon-holes irregularly contain letters, packages, the room-keys, or nothing, and above them the clock shows twelve minutes past two. Lise puts her room-key on the counter and asks for her passport in a loud voice causing the clerk whom she addresses, another clerk who sits working an adding machine, and several other people who are standing and sitting in the hotel lobby, to take notice of her.

The women stare at her clothes. They, too, are dressed brightly for a southern summer, but even here in this holiday environment Lise looks brighter. It is possibly the combination of colours — the red in her coat and the purple in her dress — rather than the colours themselves which drags attention to her, as she takes her passport in its plastic envelope from the clerk, he looking meanwhile as if he bears the whole of the eccentricities of humankind upon his slender shoulders.

Two girls, long-legged, in the very brief skirts of the times, stare at Lise. Two women who might be their mothers stare too. And possibly the fact that Lise’s outfit comes so far and unfashionably below her knees gives an extra shockingness to her appearance that was not even apparent in the less up-to-date Northern city from which she set off that morning. Skirts are worn shorter here in the South. Just as, in former times, when prostitutes could be discerned by the brevity of their skirts compared with the normal standard, so Lise in her knee-covering clothes at this moment looks curiously of the street-prostitute class beside the mini-skirted girls and their mothers whose knees at least can be seen.

So she lays the trail, presently to be followed by Interpol and elaborated upon with due art by the journalists of Europe for the few days it takes for her identity to be established.

‘I want a taxi,’ Lise says loudly to the uniformed boy who stands by the swing door. He goes out to the street and whistles. Lise follows and stands on the pavement. An elderly woman, small, neat and agile in a yellow cotton dress, whose extremely wrinkled face is the only indication of her advanced age, follows Lise to the pavement. She, too, wants a taxi, she says in a gentle voice, and she suggests to Lise that they might share. Which way is Lise going? This woman seems to see nothing strange about Lise, so confidently does she approach her. And in fact, although this is not immediately apparent, the woman’s eyesight is sufficiently dim, her hearing faint enough, to eliminate, for her, the garish effect of Lise on normal perceptions.

‘Oh,’ says Lise, ‘I’m only going to the Centre. I’ve no definite plans. It’s foolish to have plans.’ She laughs very loudly.

‘Thank you, the Centre is fine for me,’ says the woman, taking Lise’s laugh for acquiescence in the sharing of the taxi.

And, indeed, they do both load into the taxi and are off.

‘Are you staying here long?’ says the woman.