‘No,’ said Enderby.
‘One of these big nuts,’ said the dwarf. ‘Don’t know ’ow it got there, but there it was. Big one,’ he insisted, making an illustrative ring with thumb and finger. ‘A nut, you know. Not a nut you can eat, but one of these nuts you put a bolt through.’ He showed, with the index-finger of his other hand, how exactly this was done. ‘Do you see my meaning?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ said Enderby.
‘Well,’ said the dwarf, ‘I got to lookin’ at it and thinkin’ about it, and then an idea come into me ’ead. Know what the idea was?’
‘No,’ said Enderby.
The dwarf came very close, awkward on his crutches, and seemed about to eat Enderby’s ear. ‘Put it in,’ he said. ‘Wife was out, see, and there was nowt else to do. It fitted real snug, too, you’d be surprised. Anyway, there it was, and you know what ’appened then?’
‘No,’ said Enderby.
‘Wouldn’t come out,’ said the dwarf, reliving the horror in his eyes. ‘There it was, stuck in, and it wouldn’t come out. Right bloody fool I must ’ave looked to the cat when it come in through the window. A ’ot night, see, and the window was open. There I was, with this thing of mine stuck in this nut, and it wouldn’t come out. I tries all sort of things – puttin’ it under the cold water tap and gettin’ a file at it, but it wasn’t no good. Then the wife comes back from the pictures and she sees what I’ve done and she sends the kids straight upstairs. Bad enough the cat seein’ it, but it wasn’t right the kids should know what was goin’ on. So you know what she does?’
‘No,’ said Enderby.
‘She sends for the ambulance and they takes me to ’ospital. Not this one, though. We was livin’ somewhere else at the time. Well, they tries and tries, but it’s no good. All sorts of things they tries. Know what they ’as to do at the finish?’
‘No,’ said Enderby.
‘Send for the fire brigade. I’m not tellin’ you a word of a lie, but they ’as to do that. On my God’s honour, they send for the fire brigade, and you know what the fire brigade ’as to do?’
‘No,’ said Enderby.
‘They gets one of their special saws to saw through metal and they as a ’ose-pipe playin’ on it all the time. Know why that was?’
‘To keep it cool,’ said Enderby.
‘You’ve got it,’ said the dwarf. ‘There’s not many as would give the right answer like you done. To keep it cool. Anyway, they gets it off, and that’s when they ask me to see this trick cyclist like what you’ve seen. Didn’t do no good though.’ He looked gloomy.
‘Is that why you’re back in again?’ said Enderby.
‘Naw,’ said the working-dwarf with scorn. ‘Broke my leg at work this time. Always somethin’ though, int there?’
From this moment Enderby thought that, with a certain measure of help and encouragement, he might conceivably decide that it might be possible for him to want, with certain inevitable reservations, to go on living. He woke up in the middle of the night laughing at some dream-joke. The sister had to give him a sedative.
2
Flitchley, surrounded by the pink snow of apple-blossom, cuckoo-(appropriately)-echoing, green, quiet with a quiet that the clack and clock of table-tennis only emphasized the more, Flitchley was all that Dr Greenslade had said it would be. Several weeks later Enderby sat on a bird-loud terrace reading a harmless boy’s book of violence (‘… The Chink, with a sinister Oriental smile on his inscrutable yellow countenance, wrenched the knife from the back of his dead companion and threw it straight at Colonel Bill. Bill ducked, hearing the evil weapon twang in the door. He had ducked only just in time. “Now,” he said, a cold smile on his clean-cut features, “I think I’ve had more than enough of your treachery for one day, Mr John Chinaman.” He advanced on the Chink, who now gibbered in his own outlandish language what was evidently a prayer for mercy …’). In the day-room was the cheerful music of the table being set for luncheon. Beyond the haha a gardener bent at work. Fellow-patients of Enderby walked the grounds or, like himself, sat at rest with sedative literature. Occasionally Enderby would lower his book to his lap, close his eyes, and say softly to himself, many times over, ‘My name is Enderby-Hogg, my name is Enderby-Hogg.’ It was part of the process of his cure; a gently contrived change of identity. Hogg had been his mother’s maiden name; soon, the Enderby silenced, it would be altogether his.
The bell rang for luncheon and, from the day-room radio, news refinedly boomed. Enderby-Hogg sat down, one of a mess of six, having first shaken hands with a Mr Barnaby. Mr Barnaby, like a dog, insisted on shaking hands with everybody at all hours of the day and sometimes, waking everybody gently up for the purpose, in the night. He had a sweet wrinkled face and, like that Enderby soon to disappear, was something of a poet. He had written verses on the Medical Superintendent beginning:
You have certainly got it in for me and no
Question about that, you fierce-eyed man.
Your wife no more loves you than that black crow
Up in the tree loves you, or that can
Which whilom held baked beans of the brand of Heinz,
Or that dog belonging to the lodge-keeper which so sorely whines
At the same table was Mr Trill, one of the symptoms of whose derangement was an ability to name the winner of any major horse-race run in the last sixty years. He was a man of venerable appearance who, he swore, hated racing. Enderby-Hogg now said to him, in automatic greeting, ‘Thousand Guineas, 1910.’ Mr Trill looked up mournfully from his soup and said, ‘Winkipop, owned Astor, trained W. Waugh, ridden Lynham. Starting price five to two.’ There was Mr Beecham, a master plumber who, on psychiatric instructions, spent all his day painting pictures: black snakes, red murder, his wife with three heads. Mr Shap, insurance agent, with dark glasses and a black hole for a mouth, said nothing, did nothing, but at times would scream one word: PASTE. Finally there was Mr Killick who preached, in an undertone, to the birds. He had the look of a successful butcher.
This company of six drank its soup and then was served, by two cheerful nurses of radiant complexion, with slabs of meat pie and scooped spuds. There were spoons and forks, but no knives. The meal chewed itself by pleasantly and quietly, except that at one point a dressing-gowned man at another table cried to the ceiling:
‘Sink her, Number One!’
He was soothed quickly by one of the nurses, a homely Lancashire lass with a strong sense of humour. She said, ‘You sink that meat pie quick, my lad. Treacle duff’s coming alongside.’ Enderby-Hogg laughed with the rest at this typical bit of Lancashire badinage. The treacle duff, with liberal custard, was then wheeled in, and Mr Killick, hungry after a morning preaching to the birds, had three helpings. After the meal some went back to bed, while Enderby-Hogg and others sat in the solarium. Enderby-Hogg had no money, but some obscure charitable fund invoked by the almoner supplied him with a sufficiency of cigarettes. A nurse came round with matches to light up for the smokers: no patient was allowed matches of his own, not since one Jehovah-minded G.P.I. sufferer had called Flitchley Sodom and set fire to it.
After a quiet smoke and lazy rambling chat, Enderby-Hogg went to the lavatory. The little cabinets, without doors, could be looked in on from the corridor through a thick glass wall: even here there was no sense of aloneness. After an ample healthy movement, Enderby-Hogg went to the ward he shared with eleven others, there to lie on his bed till summoned for his afternoon session with Dr Wapenshaw. He finished his boy’s book (‘… “And,” grinned Colonel Bill, “despite all the dangers and hazards, it was a jolly good adventure which I’d be happy to undertake again.” But, as he pulled the throttle and the mixture exploded sweet and strong, little did he think that adventure of an even more thrilling kind awaited him. That adventure, chaps, we shall learn about in our next story – the ninety-seventh! – of Colonel Bill and the faithful Spike.’). Enderby-Hogg looked forward, without undue excitement, to reading that story.
At three o�
�clock a smiling nurse summoned him to Dr Wapenshaw. Dr Wapenshaw said, ‘Ah, hallo there, old man. Things going all right, eh? Jolly good, jolly good,’ for all the world like Colonel Bill or his creator. Dr Wapenshaw was a big man whose superfluous fat proclaimed, like medals, his former Rugby football triumphs. He had large feet and a moustache and a voice like Christmas pudding. But he was a clever and original psychiatrist. ‘Sit down,’ he invited. ‘Smoke if you want to.’ Enderby-Hogg sat down, smiling shyly. He adored Dr Wapenshaw.
‘Enderby-Hogg, Enderby-Hogg,’ said Dr Wapenshaw, as though beginning a nursery rhyme. A thick file was open on the desk before him. ‘Enderby-Hogg. Bit of a mouthful, isn’t it? I think we might drop the Enderby, don’t you? Keep it, of course, in the background as an optional extra if you like. How do you feel about the Hogg?’
‘Oh, fine,’ said Hogg. ‘Perfectly all right.’
‘What do you associate the name with? Pigs? Filth?’ smiling. ‘Gluttony?’ Humorously, Dr Wapenshaw pig-snorted.
‘Of course not,’ said Hogg, smiling too. ‘Roses. A lawn in summer. A sweet-smelling woman at the piano. A silver voice. The smoke from a Passing Cloud.’
‘Excellent,’ said Dr Wapenshaw. ‘That will do very well indeed.’ He sat back in his swivel-chair, swivelling boyishly from side to side, looking kindly at Hogg. ‘That beard’s coming along all right,’ he said. ‘You should have a pretty good one in a couple of weeks. Oh, yes, I’ve made a note about glasses. We’re sending you to the oculist on Thursday.’
‘Thank you very much,’ said Hogg.
‘Don’t thank me, my dear fellow,’ said Dr Wapenshaw. ‘After all, it’s what we’re here for, isn’t it? To help.’ Tears came into Hogg’s eyes. ‘Now,’ said Dr Wapenshaw, ‘I’ve explained to you already just what it is we’re trying to do and why we’re trying to do it. Could you recap’ – he smiled – ‘in your own words?’
‘Enderby,’ said Hogg, ‘was the name of a prolonged adolescence. The characteristics of adolescence were well-developed and seemed likely to go on for ever. There was, for instance, this obsession with poetry. There was masturbation, liking to be shut up in the lavatory, rebelliousness towards religion and society.’
‘Excellent,’ said Dr Wapenshaw.
‘The poetry was a flower of that adolescence,’ said Hogg. ‘It still remains good poetry, some of it, but it was a product of an adolescent character. I shall look back with some pride on Enderby’s achievement. Life, however, has to be lived.’
‘Of course it has,’ said Dr Wapenshaw, ‘and you’re going to live it. What’s more, you’re going to enjoy living it. Now, let me tell you what’s going to happen to you. In a month’s time – perhaps less if you continue to make the excellent progress you’re already making – we’re sending you to our Agricultural Station at Snorthorpe. It’s really a convalescent home, you know, where you do a little gentle work – not too much, of course: just what you feel you can do and nothing more – and lead a very pleasant simple social life in beautiful surroundings. Snorthorpe,’ said Dr Wapenshaw, ‘is a little town on a river. There are summer visitors, swans, boating, nice little pubs. You’ll love it. A group of you – under supervision, of course, if you can really call it supervision – will be allowed out to pubs and dances and cinemas. In the home itself there’ll be chess competitions and sing-songs. Once a week,’ smiled Dr Wapenshaw, ‘I myself like to come down and lead a sing-song. You’ll like that, won’t you?’
‘Oh yes,’ breathed Hogg.
‘Thus,’ said Dr Wapenshaw, ‘you’ll gradually adjust yourself to living in society. You’ll even meet women, you know,’ he smiled. ‘Some day, you know, I look forward to your making a real go of marriage. Enderby made rather a mess of that, didn’t he? Still, it’s all over now. The annulment’s going through, so they tell me, quite smoothly.’
‘I can’t even remember her name,’ frowned Hogg.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Dr Wapenshaw. ‘That’s Enderby’s affair, isn’t it? You’ll remember it in your own good time. And, moreover, you’ll remember it with amusement.’ Hogg smiled tentatively, as in anticipation. ‘Now, as far as your future generally is concerned, I don’t want you to think about that at the moment. There’s going to be no worry about getting a really congenial job for you – we have our own department, you know, which sees to all that, and very efficient they are. The thing for you to do at the moment is to enjoy being this new person we’re trying to create. After all, it is great fun, isn’t it? I’m getting no end of a kick out of it all, and I want you to share that kick with me. After all,’ he smiled, ‘we’ve grown very close, haven’t we, these last few weeks? We’ve embarked on a real adventure together, and I’m enjoying every minute of it.’
‘Oh, me too,’ said Hogg eagerly. ‘And I’m really most awfully grateful.’
‘Well, it’s really awfully nice of you to say that,’ said Dr Wapenshaw. ‘But you’ve helped no end, yourself, you know.’ He smiled once more and then became genially gruffly business-like. ‘I’ll be seeing you,’ he said, looking at his diary, ‘on Friday morning. Now off you go and have your tea or whatever it is and leave me to see my next victim.’ He sighed humorously. ‘Work, work, work.’ He shook his head. ‘No end to it. Run along now,’ he grinned. Hogg grinned back and ran along.
For tea they had Marmite sandwiches, fish-paste sandwiches (Mr Shap cried out PASTE with such exquisite appropriateness that everybody had to laugh), fancy cakes and a small plum cake to each mess of six. After tea Hogg walked the grounds and surprised Mr Killick whispering to some bread-guzzling starlings beyond the haha, ‘Come on now, you birdies, be good and kind to each other and love God who made you all. He was a bird just like you.’ Hogg returned to the sunny solarium to find Mr Barnaby triumphantly finishing another stanza of his Ode to the Medical Superintendent. He read this aloud with great feeling, having first shaken hands heartily with Hogg:
I saw you the other night out on the field
Walking with a big stick with which you struck the grass
Repeatedly, but the dumb grass would not yield
To your importunities. So it will come to pass
That that piece of china standing on your shelf
Will fall on your head and give quite a shock to your evil-smelling self.
For dinner there were fish and a rice pudding with sultanas embedded in it. Mr Beecham, his hands vermilion from his day’s work on a large symbolical canvas, slowly picked out all the sultanas from his portion and arranged them in a simple gestalt on his bread-plate. After dinner there was television: amateur boxing which excited two patients so much that one of the nurses had to switch over to the other channel. On the other channel was a simple morality of good and evil set in the West of North America in the eighteen-sixties. It was interrupted at intervals by asthenic women demonstrating washing-machines, though some patients evidently could not see these as interpolations, taking them rather as integral to the plot. Integration was the theme: the building of a new human society under the sheriff ’s steadfast bright star. Hogg nodded frequently, seeing all this (conquest of new territory, death to the evil antisocial) as an allegory of his own reorientation.
3
High summer in Snorthorpe. Boats for hire by the bridge, by the bridge a hotel called the White Hart, much favoured by summer visitors. Drinkers squinting happily in moonlight on the terrace. Dogs yapping in glee, chased by children. Ducks and swans, fullfed, pampered. Willows. An old castle on a height far above the river.
A knot of men came walking, in loose formation though evidently a supervised gang, in the direction of the little town from the sunbrown fields of the Agricultural Station. They were men who looked as burnt and fit as the boating visitors, each carrying some such tool as a hoe or fork. By the bridge they halted at the cheerful command of their leader. ‘All right,’ he called. ‘Rest for five minutes. Old Charlie here says he’s got a stone in his boot.’ Mr Peacock was a decent brown man, squat and upright, who treated
his charges like young brothers. Old Charlie sat on the parapet and Mr Peacock helped him off with his road-dusty boot.
‘Fag?’ said Piggy Hogg (as he was jocularly called) to his companion. Bob Curran took one, nodding his thanks. He pulled out a cheap cylindrical lighter and struck it, the flame invisible in noon air that was all flame. Piggy Hogg bent over, sucking his fag alight.
‘Won’t be long for you now,’ said Bob Curran.
‘Won’t be long,’ said Piggy Hogg, taking in the long receding bank of willows. ‘Next week, they reckon.’ He detached a tobacco fibre from his lower lip. The lips were framed in brown beard pied with grey; his skin was tanned; he wore steel spectacles. He had something of the look of Hemingway, but there his association with literature ended. A moderately well-spoken middle-aged man evidently not used to manual work, but a good trier, respected by his ward-mates, helpful as a letter-writer. Some had said that it was a waste of an educated man, putting him like they said they were going to as bar-tender in training at a Midland hotel. But Piggy Hogg knew it was no waste.
A couple of nights back he had, after lights out, slipped on his bedroom headphones. Rejecting, with a click of the plastic dial on the wall, first the Light, then the Home, he had notched into the Third. A bored-sounding young man had been talking about Modern Poetry: ‘… Enderby, before his unaccountable disappearance … established as a good minor poet in the tradition … perhaps little to say to our generation … the more significant work of Jarvis, Sime and Cazalet …’ He had listened with absolutely no interest. One was used, one was thrown away; Enderby had come out of it better than many; Hogg was looking forward to being a bar-tender. A bar-tender, moreover, who would be different from most, quite a character with his odd lines of poetry thrown out over the frothing pints. Behind the words and rhythms lay the sensations. Time for those.
The Complete Enderby Page 22