David Lodge - Small World by Author's Note Page A

asked him to come back, with no conditions, he, well, has me over a barrel, as you would say.”
    “Do you still, ah, make it together?”
    “Occasionally. But presumably he’s not satisfied. There was a story in the paper the other day, about a man who’d had a heart attack and asked his doctor if it was safe to have sexual intercourse, and the doctor said, ‘Yes, it’s good exercise, but nothing too exciting, just with your wife.’ “
    Morris laughed.
    “I thought it was funny, too,” said Hilary. “But when I read it out to Philip he scarcely cracked a smile. He obviously thought it was a deeply poignant story.”
    Morris shook his head, and cut himself another slice of Brie. “I’m amazed, Hilary. Frankly, I always thought of you as the dominant partner in this marriage. Now Philip seems to be calling all the shots.”
    “Yes, well, things have gone rather well for him lately. He’s started to make a bit of name for himself at last. He’s even started to look more handsome than he ever did before in his life.”
    “I noticed,” said Morris. “The beard is a knockout.”
    “It conceals his weak chin.”
    “That silver-grey effect is very distinguished.”
    “He has it touched up at the barber’s,” said Hilary. “But middle-age becomes him. It’s often the way with men. Whereas women find themselves hit simultaneously by the menopause and the long-term effects of childbearing. It doesn’t seem quite fair… Anyway, Philip managed to get his Hazlitt book finished at last.”
    “I never knew about that,” Morris said.
    “It’s had very little attention—rather a sore point with Philip. But it was a book, and he had it accepted by Lecky, Windrush and Bernstein just when the chair here became vacant, which was a bit of luck. He’d been effectively running the Department for years, anyway, so they appointed him. His horizons began to expand immediately. You’ve no idea of the mana the title of Professor carries in this country.”
    “Oh, I have, I have!” said Morris Zapp.
    “He started to get invited to conferences, to be external examiner at other universities, he got himself on the British Council’s list for overseas lecture tours. He’s always off travelling somewhere these days. He’s going to Turkey in a few weeks time. Last month it was Norway.”
    That’s how it is in the academic world these days,” said Morris Zapp. “I was telling a young guy at the conference just this morning. The day of the single, static campus is over.”
    And the single, static campus novel with it, I suppose?”
    “Exactly! Even two campuses wouldn’t be enough. Scholars these days are like the errant knights of old, wandering the ways of the world in search of adventure and glory.”
    “Leaving their wives locked up at home?”
    “Well, a lot of the knights are women, these days. There’s positive discrimination at the Round Table.”
    “Bully for them,” said Hilary gloomily. “I belong to the generation that sacrificed their careers for their husbands. I never did finish my MA, so now I sit at home growing fat while my silver-haired spouse zooms round the world, no doubt pursued by academic groupies like that Angelica Thingummy he brought here the other flight.”
    “Al Pabst? She’s a nice girl. Smart, too.”
    “But she needs a job, and Philip might be in a position to give her one some day. I could see that in her eyes as she hung on his every word.”
    “Most of the conference she’s been going around with our old friend Dempsey.”
    “Robin Dempsey? That’s a laugh. No wonder Philip was making snide comments about him at breakfast, he’s probably jealous. Perhaps Dempsey has a job to fill at Darlington. Shall I make some coffee?”
    Morris helped her stack the dishwasher, and then they took their coffee into the lounge. While they were drinking it, Philip returned. “How was the banquet?” Morris asked.
    “Awful, awful,” Philip groaned. He sank into a chair and covered his