Bennett: Helped by the wonder of invention

‘Groping back to bed after a piss’ is the first line of a poem. One senses, does one not, that it may not be a poem of a romantic nature. And as so often in this column it is by Larkin, Philip Larkin, prince of grumps.

Larkin wrote of how things are. He did not pretend that we stride the corridors of life with head held high and virtue blazing, sure of aim and firm of purpose. Rather he knew we grope in the darkness, stubbing toes and dry of mouth, fogged with sleep and weak of flesh. And I for one appreciate his honesty. It was Dr Johnson who said there are only two reasons to read: the better to enjoy life or the better to endure it. Larkin provides a double bull’s eye. To read him is to delight in his honesty, but also to know you’re not alone.

This poem came to mind because I got a gift. It was an invention that I had not known existed. Had you told me of it two weeks ago I’d have doubted you. But now all I can say is that this may not be an age of miracles but it is an age of wonders. And to introduce this wonder, indulge me with the following scenario. You are in bed. It is the middle of the night, the hours of deepest black. You are sunk in sleep, lost to the world, and riding the muscled donkey of your dreams. Some people insist they’re not imaginative.

They cannot make a story up, they say, or paint a picture. But free them from the straitjacket of wakefulness and how their minds go to it. What tales they tell, what images they paint. The greatest show on earth, said Robert Graves, and given rag-cheap. Inside your dream you roll to ease the pressure on a shoulder, and as you roll you almost break the surface of your sleep. And you hear, from the outer edge of consciousness, a squeak. ‘Hello,’ it says. ‘Don’t mind me. Go back to sleep. It really doesn’t matter. I’m sorry I spoke.’ It is, of course, the body’s jester speaking. Its most amusing organ. The bladder. You drop back down towards the warm embrace of inky nothingness. But even as you drop, ‘Hello,’ it says again. ‘I hope I’m not interrupting anything. I mean it’s nothing urgent, but in your own time, when it suits you, if you wouldn’t mind.’

And that’s that. The bladder’s like a distant phone that rings and rings and rings. You know that in the end you’ll have to go and answer it. My father kept a potty under the bed. Constable Rees in Under Milk Wood had his helmet. But in these days of indoor bathrooms you go for a little walk.

You heave yourself from the cocoon of bed linen and find the way, as Larkin said, by groping. The geography’s familiar but we are visual creatures and in the dark even the known becomes hazardous. You’d like to turn the light on but dread the spearing photons. You’d reel from their assault. You’d groan and shield your eyes. Worse still they’d wake your system, would startle it into a daylight mode. And then you’d lose an hour, two hours perhaps, inviting sleep back down. And in those hours what thoughts might stir and swell until they blocked all hope of sleep and cruel morning edged the curtains? So the light stays off. You grope your way to the bathroom and ... but soft, what light from yonder bathroom breaks?

The toilet bowl is glowing, is giving off a soft blue light, enough to steer your path but not enough to wake you out of bleariness.

It is as if the house has known you purpose. The toilet bowl is glowing, is giving off a soft blue light, enough to steer your path but not enough to wake you out of bleariness. The porcelain looks like disembodied plasma, or something that might run a planet in Doctor Who, a futuristic oracle. It seems a miracle. It is a wonder.

You bend to look. Something’s clipped to the porcelain rim. Inside the bowl’s a little plastic bulb, immune to flushing or alternative assault; outside the bowl, but linked to it, a motion sensor. It detects your lumbering befogged approach and lights your way to accurate relief. And when you go it turns itself back off.

Who thought of this device? Who had it patented and manufactured? Whose destiny depends on it? Who bloody cares? For now, with a mind astonished at the way the world can seem to be advancing while staying just the same, you reach for the arm of Philip Larkin, prince of grumps, and grope your way to bed.