Enderby gasped. The procession of the evening’s whiskies and beers passed painfully through a new taste-organ that had been erected specially for this occasion. They grimaced in pain, making painful obeisance as they passed. Gas and fire shot up as from a geyser, smiting rudely the crystalline air. Premonitions of the desire to vomit huddled and fluttered. Enderby went to the wall. ‘Now then,’ said the man, ‘where is it you want to go, eh? Kennington you are now, see, if you didn’t know.’
‘Victoria,’ said Enderby’s stomach-gas, shaped into a word by tongue and lips. He had, at the moment, no air.
‘Easy,’ said the kind man. ‘First to the right second to the left keep straight on brings you to Kennington Station, see. Get a train to Charing Cross, that’s the second stop, Waterloo’s the first, change at Charing Cross, see, Circle Line. Westminster St James’s Park and then you’re there, see. And the very best of luck and no hard feelings.’ He patted Enderby’s left shoulder and re-entered the public bar.
Enderby still gasped. This sort of thing had not happened since his student-days when he had once been beaten up by a pub pianist and his friend for being bloody sarky about the sort of pseudo-music the pub pianist had been playing. Enderby filled his coughing lungs in draught after draught, then wondered whether he really wanted to vomit. He thought, for the moment, not. The punch in the stomach still glowed and smouldered, and the name LONDON fluttered in fearful flames, a warning, as in the trailer of some film about call-girls or the end of the world. He saw himself safe in his own lavatory, at work on his poems. Never again. Never never again. Women’s Institutes. Gold medals. London pubs. Traps set for poor Enderby, gins waiting for him to trip.
He reached Kennington Station without much difficulty and booked to Victoria. In the train, sitting opposite a cross-eyed man who spoke Scots to a complacent terrier on his knee, Enderby felt a shipboard motion and knew that soon he must dash to the rails. Further along on the side where he was sitting, he had the illusion that a couple of gum-chewing teenagers were discussing a play by Calderón. He strained to listen and nearly fell on his right ear. At Waterloo he was sure that the Scotsman with strabismus said ‘morne plaine’ to his dog. A drum beat and a bugle brayed in Enderby’s stomach; here, perhaps, he must admit defeat, stagger off, be sick in a fire-bucket. Too late. The train and time marched on from Waterloo, under the river, and, thank God, there was Charing Cross. The charing-cross-eyed man got out here too, with terrier. ‘A drop taken,’ he said confidentially to Enderby and then marched off to the Bakerloo Line, dog trotting with twinkletoes behind, fat rump, joyous tail. Enderby now felt decidedly unwell and bewildered. He had a confused notion that the southbound platform of this Northern Line would take him whither he wanted. He staggered over and sat on a bench. Across the rail a poster showed an outdoor man draining a milk stout, his fine muscular throat corded with stout-drinker’s strength. Next to that was a colourwash sketch, vivid with steam and laughter, of a confident young man wrestling with a delightful girl for a portion of pie made with meat-extract. Next to that a ginger child, macrocephalic, went ‘Ooooo!’ with pleasure, his cheek gumboiled with a slab of extra-creamy toffee. Enderby retched, but memory saved him with four lines of a drinker’s poem he had written in his drunken youth:
And I have walked no way I looked
And multitudinously puked
Into the gutter, legs outstretched,
Holding my head low as I …
That threw his present queasiness back into the past and also depersonalized it. The solace of art. And now the distant Minotaur roar of the tube-train alerted the others waiting on that platform. One man folded his evening paper and stuck it into the side-pocket of his greatcoat. Poet Speaks Out for Fair Play, read Enderby. Field-day for poets, this. The tube-train slammed itself into the clearing, bringing a fine gale of Arctic air which did Enderby good. He stood and felt giddy but steeled himself to travel to Victoria, seeing that, in his muzzy state, as a very large and desirable lavatory of blasts and sulphuretted hydrogen. He straddled before a not-yet-opened double-door of the train, trying to hold the unquiet platform steady, while the passengers waiting to alight stood as though for a curtain call. Then a panic of doubt clouted Enderby as the doors slid open and the alighters flooded off. ‘Is this,’ he called, ‘all right for Victoria?’ Many of the emergent did not speak English and made apologetic gestures, but a cool woman’s voice said:
‘This, Mr Enderby, is most certainly not all right for Victoria.’ Enderby blinked at this apparition, Mrs What’s-her-name of Fem, racing ace’s widow, in semi-formal pale apple-green taffetas, sheathed at the front, and three-quarter-length Persian lamb jacket, marcasite clip as single fine dress-embellisher, tiny hoop ear-rings of marcasite, marcasite-coloured glacé kid high-heels, penny-coloured hair cleanly glowing. Enderby’s mouth opened sheepishly. ‘If you got this train,’ she said, ‘you would be travelling to Waterloo and Kennington, Tooting Bec, ultimately Morden. From the look of you, you would probably be awakened at Morden. You wouldn’t like Morden very much.’
‘You,’ said Enderby, ‘should not be here. You should be at dinner somewhere.’
‘I was at dinner,’ she said. ‘I’ve just come back from Hampstead.’ The train-doors slid together and the train moved off into its tunnel, its wind stirring her hair and making her raise her voice, so that the Scots intonation became clearer than before. ‘And,’ she said, her sober green eyes appraising swaying Enderby, ‘I’m on my way home to Gloucester Road. Which means we can take the same train and I can make quite sure that you alight at Victoria. From Victoria on you must be commended to the protection of whatever gods look after drunken poets.’ She had in her something of the thin-lipped Calvinist; in her tone was no element of amused indulgence. ‘Come,’ she said, and she took Enderby’s arm.
‘If you don’t mind,’ said Enderby. ‘If you’ll excuse me just a moment –’ Green looked at green. Enderby managed to trap the brief flow in his show handkerchief. ‘Oh, God,’ he said. ‘Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph.’
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Walk. Take deep breaths.’ She led him firmly towards the Circle Line. ‘You are in a bad way, aren’t you?’ All her perfume could not sweeten Enderby’s shame.
5
Enderby was back in 81 Fitzherbert Avenue, thoroughly sobered at last by two slips on to his bottom on the frozen way from the station. On that same sore bottom he sat on the stairs, crying. This flight ran up, starting at the side of Enderby’s flat’s front door, to a landing with mirror and potted palm. Then came a dark and sinister stairway, uncarpeted, to the flat above, the home of the salesman and his woman. Enderby sat crying because he had forgotten his key. He had neglected, perhaps because flustered by Mrs Meldrum’s visit that morning, to transfer the key from his sports-coat pocket to the corresponding pocket of the jacket of Arry’s suit. It was now after one in the morning, too late to call on Mrs Meldrum to open up for him with her master. He had no money for a hotel room; it was too cold to sleep in a shelter on the esplanade; he did not fancy begging a cell at the police station (there were criminal-looking coppers there, with wide-boy tashes). It was best to sit here on the third step up, overcoated and muffled, crying and smoking alternately.
Not that he had much left to smoke. Mrs Whatever-her-name-was of Fem had taken his remaining packet of ship’s Woodbines (she was out of them and smoked nothing else) as a reward for her stoic Scots toleration of his wanting to be sick on the deck of the train all the way to Victoria. Enderby had five Senior Service to last him till the late winter dawn. He cried. He was weary, far beyond sleepiness. It had been a long and eventful day, excruciatingly attritive. Even on his homeward coastward train journey the entire coach had seemed to be full of wet-mouthed Irishmen singing. And now the cold stair, the long vigil. He howled like a moon-bemused hound-dog.
The door of the flat above opened creakily. ‘Is that you, Jack?’ whispered the woman’s voice, huskily. ‘Have you come back, Jack?’ Her vowels were not unlike
Arry’s: uvyer coom buck juck. ‘I’m sorry, Jack,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean what I said, love. Come on to bed, Jack.’
‘It’s me,’ said Enderby. ‘Not him. Me. Without a key,’ he added.
‘Who are you?’ asked the woman. The bulb of the landing light had long burnt out, months ago, unreplaced by Mrs Meldrum. Neither could see the other.
‘Him from downstairs,’ said Enderby, falling easily into demotic. ‘Not him as you live with.’
‘He’s gone off,’ came the voice down the stair-well. ‘He’s always said he would and now he’s done it. We had a bit of a barney.’
‘That’s right,’ said Enderby.
‘What do you mean that’s right? We had a bit of a barney and now he’s gone off. I bet he’s gone to that bitch down by the Ornamental Gardens.’
‘Never mind,’ said Enderby. ‘He’ll come back. They always do.’
‘He won’t. Not tonight he won’t. And I’m frightened up here on my own.’
‘What are you frightened of?’
‘Of being on my own. Like I said. In the dark, too. It went out while we was having this barney and I couldn’t see to hit him. Have you got a bob you can let me have till first thing tomorrow morning?’
‘Not a sausage,’ said Enderby proudly. ‘I blued it all on booze in town. I think I’d better come up there,’ he added, bold. ‘I could sleep on the couch or something. I forgot my key, you see. It’s a damn nuisance.’
‘If you come up here you’d better not let Jack get hold of you.’
‘Jack’s gone off with this bitch down by the Ornamental Gardens,’ said Enderby.
‘Ah. So you seen him, did you? I thought as much. You can see the black at her roots, bitch as she is.’
‘I’m coming up now,’ said Enderby. ‘Then you won’t be frightened of being on your own. You’ve got a couch up there, have you?’ said Enderby, rising in pain and crawling up the stairs.
‘If you think you’re going to get in bed with me you’ve got another think coming. I’ve finished with all men.’
‘I’ve no intention of getting into bed with you,’ said indignant Enderby. ‘I just want to lie down on the couch. I don’t really feel all that good.’
‘You needn’t be so bloody well on your bloody high horse. I’ve been in bed with better men than what you’ll ever hope to be. Careful,’ she said, as Enderby kicked the metal pot of the palm on the landing. He clambered blind up the second flight, hugging the banister. At the top he collided with a warm bosomy shape. ‘You can cut that out for a start,’ she said. ‘A bit too forward you are for a start.’ She sniffed briskly. ‘That scent’s very expensive,’ she said. ‘Who you been with, eh? Still waters run deep, if you’re really who you say you are, meaning him that lives down there.’
‘Where is it?’ groped Enderby. ‘I just want somewhere to lie down.’ His hands felt the softness and width of a sofa, the continuum broken by bottle-shapes (they clanked) and a half-full chocolate box (rustled). ‘Lay down,’ he corrected himself, to be more matey.
‘Make yourself comfortable,’ she said, bloody sarky. ‘If you want anything don’t hesitate to ring. At what hour of the morning would you like your morning tea?’ she said, in a hot-potato chumble. ‘Men,’ she said, going apparently, to her bedroom. She made a contemptuous noise, worthy of Enderby himself, leaving him to the dark.
4
1
HE AWOKE WITH first light to the xylophone of milk bottles and impotent rasping of self-starters. He smacked his lips and clacked his tongue on his hard palate, feeling his mouth like – the vulgar simile swam up from his vulgar pub-crawl – an all-in wrestler’s jock-strap. The vulgar simile put fingers to its nose in the gesture his stepmother had called ‘fat bacon’, made the old Roman sign, raspberried, and clambered off up the wall like a lizard. Enderby in his overcoat felt cold and grubby, matching the room that now emerged like a picture on a television screen when the set has at last warmed up. With the picture, noise: that woman’s snoring from the next room. Enderby listened, interested. He had never realized that women could snore so loud. His stepmother had, of course, been able to blast a roof off, but she had been unique. Unique? He remembered some lavatorial writing or other about all stepmothers being women or all women stepmothers or something, and then the whole day came back, certainly not a dull day, and he caught quite clearly the name of the widow who had given him tea and taken him to the Victoria tube-stop: Vesta Bainbridge. Shame warmed all Enderby’s body and then hunger hammered at him, as at a door. The shameful day marched by briskly, its nostrils widened in a silly smirk, and it carried a banner of St George. It noisily tramped off to stand at ease behind the gimcrack sideboard. Enderby put on his spectacles, seeing beer bottles and old Daily Mirrors with painful clarity, then creaked, groaning, to the kitchenette. This was full of small square platters that had held TV meals, also empty milk bottles with crusty archipelagoes inside them. Enderby drank water from the tap. He opened the cupboard, wiping his mouth on a dish-cloth, and found gherkins. He ate some of these crisp slugs and soon felt better.
Before leaving he called on his hostess, but she lay sprawled over the double bed, uncovered, working hard at sleep. Her bubs, like blancmanges not properly set, shivered gently under the translucent nightgown as a lorry went by. Black smoke of hair over her face lifted and fell, obedient to her snore. Enderby covered her with the eiderdown, bowed, and left. She was not so old, he decided. A fat stupid girl not really capable of ill-nature. She had given Enderby shelter; Enderby would not forget.
As Enderby went downstairs he met his own milkman: a pint for Enderby’s door, a half-pint for the foot of the stairs. The milkman leered and double-clacked his tongue. So many dawns, so many betrayers. Enderby had an idea. ‘Had to sleep up there,’ he said. ‘Locked myself out. Do you know anything about locks?’
‘Love laughs at locksmiths,’ said the milkman sententiously. ‘I’ll just see if I’ve got a bit of wire.’
A minute later the postman came with Littlewood’s coupons for upstairs, nothing for Enderby. ‘That’s not quite the way,’ he said critically. ‘Let me have a try.’ He breathed heavily over the lock, probing and fiddling. ‘Coming,’ he panted. ‘Half a tick.’ The lock sprang, Enderby turned the knob, the door opened.
‘Very much obliged,’ he said, ‘to both you gentlemen.’ He had not relished the prospect of going to see Mrs Meldrum. He gave them his last coppers and entered.
Ah, but it was a relief to be back. Enderby stripped off his overcoat and hung it by its left shoulder on the hook in the tiny hall. He took off, with slightly greater care, the suit he had borrowed from Arry and rolled it neatly in a ball. He placed this, pending the returning of it, on the unmade bed, and then he put on his turtle-neck sweater. He was dressed now for work. His bare legs twinkled into the living-room and at once he scented change. There was a letter on the table, unstamped, and the table itself had been cleared of yesterday morning’s dirty dishes. Enderby kicked on the electric fire and sat down to read, his brow troubled. The letter was from Mrs Meldrum.
Dear Mr E,
You will forgive me taking a look round when you was out, as I have every right being the landlady when all said and done. Well, you have got the place disgraceful no two ways about it, what with the bath full of pieces of poetry which was never the intention of them who make baths and have them fitted in. And the carpets not swept neither, I would be ashamed to have to show anybody round it. Well, what I said still hold water, that the rent goes up from next month and you been lucky to have it so cheap for so long, what with prices of things going up everywhere. If you dont like it you know what to do, I have others who will keep the place proper only too anxious to move in next week. You need somebody to look after you and no mistake, it is not natural for a man of your age and with your education as you say you have, living on his own and nobody to look after the house. To be blunt about it and not to shut up about what needs to be spoke out loud you need to get married before
you sink to rack and ruin, which is the true opinion of many as I have spoke to.
Yours respctfly
W. Meldrum. (Mrs)
So. Enderby scratched his knee bitterly. That’s what they wanted, was it? Enderby looked after, the dishes washed properly, the beds made regularly, the bathroom a pretty dream of a place with glaucous curtains and brushes for back and nails, nylon bristles with plastic fish-shape handles, the bath always waiting for a pink healthy tubber singing la-la-la through the steam. And, for hubby Enderby, a den to write his precious poetry in, a hobby for hubby. No. Bird-voices started in his head: prudence-preaching pigeons, cautioning rooks: beware of meadows, widows. Act act act, called the ducks: drain the sacrament of choice. ‘This is my choice,’ said Enderby firmly, as he went to the kitchen to get breakfast (that bitch Mrs Meldrum had washed his dishes!) and brew up stepmother’s tea. He would be true to that archetypal bitch, his father’s second wife. She had made his life a misery; he would give no other woman that privilege.
And yet. And yet. Enderby had his breakfast of dry bread, strawberry jam, and tea, then went to his workshop. His papers lay untouched by Mrs Meldrum; his table with its legs specially shortened awaited him by the hollow seat. The Pet Beast was growing slowly; the volume of fifty poems, planned for the autumn, was nearly complete. The first job to be cleared out of the way was the composing of a new love lyric for the Arry to Thelma sequence. Enderby felt guilty about the state of Arry’s suit. It had, inexplicably, collected mud round the knees; a lapel had been incontinently soiled; the knife-crease had, with incredible speed, become blunted. Arry should be mollified with something really good. He had been complaining about the subject-matter of Enderby’s offerings: too many kitchen similes, the appeal to her hard heart too indirect. She had, Arry swore, been reading these poems aloud to the car salesmen, and they had been yak-yakking at them. Enderby must write something very direct, not crude, mind, but direct, telling her what Arry desired to do with her, something that she would keep under her pillow and blush when she drew it (scented with her scent) out. Enderby thought, sitting on his throne, that he might have something suitable in stock. He rummaged in the bath and found certain very early lyrics. Here was one he had written at the age of seventeen. ‘The Music of the Spheres’, it was called.
The Complete Enderby Page 8