Free David Lodge by David Lodge Page A

shoulder-blades. Then they took a bus across the island, where they had booked into a pensión at a more sheltered resort with a beach.
    At first they were quite content with swimming, sunbathing and the other simple diversions of the little resort: the cafés and bodegas where alcohol was so absurdly cheap, the shops selling gaudy basket-work and leather goods, and the rather pretentiously named “nightclubs” where, for the price of a bottle of sweet Spanish champagne, you could dance on a concrete floor to the jerky rhythm of a three-piece band and occasionally witness an amateurish but spirited performance of flamenco dancing. The young people conducted themselves with their habitual decorum and amiability, and the proprietress of the pensión , who had regarded them somewhat suspiciously on their arrival, now beamed at them as they came in for the somewhat repetitive, but decent fare she served: soup, fish or veal, chips, salad and water melon.
    The loss of innocence began, perhaps, with an awareness of their enhanced physical attractiveness. The pallor of study and factory work was burned away by the southern sun in a matter of days, and they looked at each other as into an artfully tinted ballroom mirror, with little thrills of pleasurable surprise. How handsome, how pretty, they were! How becoming was Joanna's freckled tan against her sun-bleached hair, how trim and limber Sally's brown limbs in her yellow swim-suit, how fit and virile the boys looked on the beach, or dressed for the evening in white shirts and natty lightweight slacks.
    Then the rhythm of the Spanish day was itself an invitation to sensual indulgence. They got up late, breakfasted and went to the beach. At about two they returned to the pensión for lunch, with which they drank a good deal of wine. They then retired to their rooms for a siesta. At six, showered and changed, they took a stroll and an aperitif. They dined at eight-thirty, and afterwards went out again, into the silky Mediterranean night, to a favourite bodega where, sitting round a bare wooden table, they conscientiously sampled every liqueur known to the Balearic Islands. Sometime after midnight they returned to the pensión , a little unsteady on their feet, giggling and shushing each other on the stairs. They all went into the girls' room and Joanna brewed them instant coffee with a little electric gadget that you immersed in a cup of water. Then they cuddled for a while on the twin beds. But the hours they learned to identify as the most erotically exciting were those of the siesta, when they lay on their beds in their underclothes, replete with food and drink, sleepy but seldom asleep, dazed by the heat that pressed against the closed shutters, limp, unresisting vessels of idle thoughts and desires. One afternoon Desmond and Robin were lying on their beds in their Y-fronts, Robin browsing listlessly in an old copy of the New Statesman he had brought with him, and Desmond staring, hypnotised, at the closed shutters, where sunlight was seeping through the cracks like molten metal, when there was a knock on the door. It was Sally.
    “Are you decent?”
    Robin answered: “No.”
    “In the nude?”
    “No.”
    “That's all right then.”
    Sally came into the room. Neither boy moved to cover himself. Somehow it seemed too much of an effort in the heat. In any case, Sally's own knickers were clearly visible beneath the shirt, borrowed from Robin, that she was wearing by way of a negligee.
    “What d'you want?” said Robin.
    “Company. Jo's asleep. Move up a bit.”
    Sally sat down on Robin's bed.
    “Ouch, mind my sun-burn,” he said.
    Desmond closed his eyes and listened for a while to the whispers, giggles, rustlings and creakings from the other bed. “In case you haven't noticed,” he said at length, “I'm trying to have a siesta.”
    “Why don't you take my bed, then?” said Sally. “It's quiet in there.”
    “Good idea,” said Desmond, getting up and putting on his