David Lodge by David Lodge

opposite effect.
    “I don't want to intrude,” he said. “But…”
    “You were afraid I was going to throw myself in?”
    “It crossed my mind,” he said. “You had that look about you.”
    “It wouldn't be any use,” she said. “I can swim. Rather well actually.”
    “Yes, I can believe that,” he said. “So you're all right?”
    “Yes, thank you.”
    “OK.” He walked on a few paces, and then turned back. “D'you feel like a drink, by any chance? There's a nice little pub along here.”
    “All right,” Emma said.
    “Excellent.” He extended his hand. “I'm Oscar.”
    She shook his hand. “Emma.”
     
    “So what do you do, Emma?” he asked her, when he brought their drinks from the bar - a vodka and tonic for her and a beer for himself - and sat down opposite her at a small table.
    “I work in a bank,” she said. Usually she answered this question by saying “I'm a banker”, because it sounded more important, but she guessed that for Oscar the word would have ugly associations with unscrupulous men earning huge bonuses for gambling recklessly with other people's money and causing the credit crisis. “What about you?” she asked.
    “I'm a conceptual poet,” he said.
    “What's conceptual poetry?” she asked.
    “It can be anything in words that you present as poetry. You don't have to make it up. You just find it.”
    “Where?”
    “Anywhere. Weather forecasts, small ads, football results… The more ordinary it is, the better. I'm working on a long narrative poem at the moment which is a transcription of the satnav instructions for a journey from Land's End to John O'Groats. It's called Turn Around When Possible .”
    Emma laughed. The sound surprised her and she realised that she hadn't laughed for a long time. “You mean you just copy out the directions? That doesn't seem very original.”
    “Originality is an ego-trip. Conceptual poetry humbles itself before the miracle of language itself. You don't impose your will on it.”
    “That's interesting,” Emma said.
    “Of course, with Turn Around When Possible I had to choose the journey, and drive the route, so the poem is original in that sense.”
    “Can you recite some of it?”
    “Sure.” He fixed her gaze with his bright blue eyes, which seemed to her like the eyes of an angel, and intoned in a lilting, melodious voice: “ Cross the roundabout, second exit, then cross the roundabout, third exit…bear right, then keep to the left…keep to the left…in two hundred yards, take the exit and join the motorway…exit ahead! …in eight hundred hundred yards take the exit…take the exit…cross the roundabout, second exit...turn around when possible... ”
    “That's lovely,” Emma said, entranced by the sublime purposeless of the exercise.
     
    Several days later Emma arrived at her parents' house, summoned by an angry message from her father left on her voicemail. “What's going on, Emma? He demanded, as soon as he had closed the front door behind her. “Neville's parents phoned us this morning. He's sent them an email from Dubai, saying you'd broken off the engagement and the wedding is cancelled. They seemed to think we knew. I didn't know what to say.”
    “It's true,” Emma said. Her mother, who came into the front hall in time to hear this, burst into tears. “Oh Emma!” she wailed. “Why?”
    “He cheated on me,” Emma said. “I was prepared to forgive him but he had changed his mind about getting married.” She gave a brief account of the episode.
    “What a bastard,” Mr Dobson said, softening his tone, and putting a comforting hand on Emma's shoulder. “I wish I could sue him for the cost of cancelling the wedding.”
    “There's no need to cancel it.” Emma said. “All we need to do is have new invitations printed.”
    Mr Dobson removed his hand and Mrs Dobson gaped at her. “What?” they said simultaneously.
    “There's no need to cancel the wedding, because I'm in love with another man who wants