David Lodge Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Emma has a clear vision of her goals and priorities,” the headmistress of the Sixth Form College where she was Head Girl wrote in her final report, “and she has the ability and determination to realise them.” This prediction proved accurate. She obtained a good 2.1 in modern languages at Bath University (a degree highly valued by employers because of its emphasis on current affairs rather than literature) and a Master's degree in Business Studies at Warwick. During the postgraduate course she lived conveniently and economically at home, a spacious modern house in the leafiest part of Solihull, and at the end of it was accepted for a fast-track training scheme by a national bank. She joined their Midland headquarters in Birmingham, where she was soon promoted to a responsible position in the Private Clients department. Her father, who was MD of a company in Coventry which manufactured components for the car industry, gave her an interest-free loan to put down the deposit on a one-bedroom flat on the seventh floor of a new building overlooking a canal in the middle of the city, part of a system of drab industrial waterways recently transformed into an environment for leisure pursuits and stylish urban living.
    At a course on new developments in financial services she met a young accountant called Neville Holloway who also worked for a Birmingham-based firm, and started going out with him. He was a good-looking young man with dark brown eyes and beautiful white teeth which he frequently exposed in an engaging smile. Emma's teeth were a disappointment to her, small and irregular, so she had got into the habit of not smiling very much, but she was a natural blonde with otherwise pleasing features and a shapely size 12 figure. Catching sight of herself in a mirror standing or sitting beside Neville, she thought they made a handsome couple. After a while Neville moved into Emma's flat and contributed his fair share to the mortgage repayments and other expenses. They could walk to their respective workplaces, and at weekends they went jogging along the canal towpaths. They ate out a good deal in the numerous restaurants of varied ethnic character that had sprung up in the city centre. It was an agreeable life.
    Emma's parents, who had grown up under the influence of a more puritanical moral code, did not really approve of their daughter's cohabitation with Neville, but they liked him well enough and reluctantly accepted that it was the way of young people nowadays, so they refrained from reproachful comment. One day, however, when the relationship was about three years old, Mrs Dobson, unable to contain her feelings any longer, asked Emma if she and Neville had any plans for the future. “You mean marriage?” Emma asked. “Well, yes dear,” Mabel Dobson said nervously. “As a matter of fact, I have been thinking about it lately,” Emma said, to her mother's great relief. Emma had always had very clear plans for her future, in which marriage had its place. She and Neville had been living happily together long enough for her to feel comfortable about upgrading the relationship. Her mother's question was timely: it gave her a pretext for raising the matter with Neville, and she did so the very next evening.
    He seemed surprised, and rather disconcerted. “Aren't we quite happy as we are?” he said. “Yes, but we can't go on like this indefinitely,” she said. “I want to have children. That is, I don't positively want them at this moment,” she added scrupulously, “but I know I will eventually, and if you leave it too late there are all kinds of health risks.” “I take your point, Em,” Neville said, “but there's no immediate hurry, is there?” “It takes a long time to organize a wedding these days, especially the kind I want,” she said. “What kind is that?” he asked. “One to remember,” Emma said. “For instance, I want to have the reception at Longstaffe Hall and I happen to know they're booked