15 OCTOBER 1983, Page 26

Stuff of life

Terence de Vere White

Scenes from Later Life William Cooper (Macmillan £7.95)

In the art of concealing art William Cooper needs no instruction. A newcomer to his work is entitled to assume that he is reading a novel about a certain Joe Lunn who doesn't make as much money from writing as his merits deserve — one of a numerous tribe. Happier Days, his most recent novel, is in manuscript when the story begins. It tells about a doctor aged 62 who falls in love with a girl of 22. Lunn believes that he has made a discovery: fall- ing in love at his hero's age is exactly the same as falling in love at any other age.

When the reviews appear Mr Auberon Waugh finds fault with this theory. A friendly member of Joe's club pushes under his nose a review in the Evening Standard. 'The sentence in the review that leapt to my eye was to the effect that after the age of forty-five all sex is disgusting'. Leaving the author 'speechless with exasperation', his busy friend went off to find last Thursday's edition of the T.L.S. '1 didn't recognise the name of the reviewer and presumed him to be some provincial don'. He had accused Joe of name-dropping. To complete the dreary record, one Anthony Burgess weigh- ed in. He said Joe 'suffered from insuffi- cient sexual guilt.'

I remember that Waugh review; the minor don has recently disclosed himself; I am prepared to lay any odds Mr Burgess was writing about a novel by William Cooper. Does it matter? So much of the writer goes into every novel. Let Joe Lunn speak for himself. He has been having trouble moving into his new flat. One of the workmen is Irish. Chaos reigns. Joe and Mrs Joe are dining with friends. He is en- couraged to describe the experience. He doesn't need any encouragement. After a while Mrs Joe is nudging him under the table. One of the guests tells him, "If it's been the stuff of your life, you can write a novel about it. That's what novels are sup- posed to be about, isn't it? The stuff of people's lives." ' "There's stuff and stuff!" I cried. "And nobody want's this stuff." ' He must later have changed his mind. His friend's encouragement has acted on him like a licence to print money. That is if Joe Lunn and William Cooper are one and the same. We are told in calamitous detail about the move to the ' flat. Before it we sat through a chapter when Joe visited his bed-ridden mother. It supplied some clues. Joe is 67 now. Like his mother he suffers from cataract, but his is operable. He has arthritis in the left hip.

'How's Robert's lumbago?' Joe's mother asks. Cooper fans may know at once who Robert is, and Annette, when the old lady asked for her. 'I bent down and said loudly, "Schizophrenia". I sounded terrible Could Annette be Joe's wife? Thankfully, no. In the last sentence when Joe arrives in Victoria he takes a pint of beer before going home to Elspeth.

The Prudential (I think it is) has an advertisement showing a very clean-looking family. All of them smiling round Father who is smiling with Mother at the centre. He has cashed his retirement policy. The chapter about the Lunns' house and garden captures that atmosphere. When friends come they always say, 'What a beautiful garden you've got!' and when they see the house, 'What a beautiful house, you've got!'. But Joe has no retirement policy. He spells out in excruciating detail what his means are. Elspeth brings in about £3000. Viola pays for her keep and rent. The house is too big for three. It must be sold. Then there is all that about a Compulsory Pur- chase Order. These are matters a solicitor or estate agent has to listen to. They charge for it. Telling about one's operation has been a cliche for boring a captive audience since surgery began. Joe Lunn must hold the record. He tells all about that cataract operation, then the hip operation, then the returns to hospital when complications set in — once, twice, three times. Was it three? I lost count.

The stuff of life also included a visit to the House of Lords in pursuit of Robert, the lumbago victim. "I've read your book", he said. His voice had its slightly hollow, slightly lofty tone. "I think it's one of your best. One of your very best." Lords crowd around. `Mr Lunn: Lord Faux'. There is lots of that, also a horribly common lord with a Redcar accent. Robert tears Joe away, back to Robert's flat; he wants to talk about the book. This is a rare friend. He will put Joe into a trust he has formed. He will find a sinecure for him, lec- turing young writers. They come to the crux: 'What about the love-affair of the doctor and the girl?' Robert thought it was good. A fan in a thousand. The stuff of life includes an unlikely house party, a farewell luncheon, in-

distinguishable because Joe's preoccupa- tion with himself puts a grey colour wash over every page. Is there any light relief?

Any sex? (What was Burgess going on about?)

Sex, yes. Think of that Prudential adver- tisement. Get the setting right. Men of the world when they meet Joe exchange signals. They recognise a man who looks after his wife in that department. After those opera- tions the doctors advised against strenuous exercise for some time. Their writ didn't run in the Lunns' bedroom. On the second night Joe lies very quiet and shuts his eyes. Elspeth gets down to business. Fiction or fact? That is the embarrassment of Mr Cooper's method; it invites these indelicate questions. He asks the reader to play a game with him, not to let on that Joe is his spokesman and only a character in fiction by courtesy. It assumes an audience of Henrys, not necessarily afflicted with lum- bago, but just mad about the man.