The Complete Enderby

by Anthony Burgess

  Enderby went back to the living-room. Heartburn, like labour pains, had started again. There was plenty of bicarbonate solution still in the glass, so, in less than half a minute, Enderby was able to growl it away hollowly:

  Grerrrbrogharrrgawwwwwpfffffh.

  There was an immediate response from upstairs: a shoe of admonition was banged three times. Enderby looked up to the noise meekly, as to chiding God. It was time that he left. He heard what sounded like, ‘Shut up, Enderby,’ and then the woman’s voice said, ‘Leave him alone. He can’t help it.’ A row of indistinguishable words then began, ending with Jack shouting, ‘Oh, he did, did he? And whose idea was that? False little bitch, aren’t you?’ The sadness, see, after coition. Enderby shook his head sadly and went back to bed. He would give a week’s notice to Mrs Meldrum; he would sign no contract with Mrs Bainbridge. Mrs Meldrum could have her smiling bald bath-taking young man on an expense account; if there was no weekly poem from Enderby it was not likely that the strong-stomached readers of Fem would pine away.

  4

  That settled it. Morning brought a letter from Vesta Bainbridge:

  Dear Mr Enderby,

  Well, you do seem to have been beating it up pretty tidily on your visit to London. I have only now managed to get hold of an evening paper of that memorable day which, albeit briefly, makes it reasonably clear that you went out of your way to antagonize a certain knightly patron of your art. I must confess that, in some ways, I admire your independent attitude, though God knows how any poet nowadays can afford that Byronic luxury. Sir George, I hear, is very angry and hurt. What came over you? I just don’t understand, but then I’m only a very ordinary person with no great claim to intellect, and I would never be so presumptuous as to think myself capable of fathoming a poet’s brain. The fact is, and I daresay you’ll hear this from your own publisher fairly soon, that your name smells to heaven with Goodby’s for Good Books, so watch out.

  In the circumstances, I think it would be a good plan to print your weekly effusion under or over a pseudonym. This would also give us a chance to prettify the feature with a photograph of some long-haired male model with a quill in his hand and his dreamy eyes up to heaven – you know what I mean: The Poet: what every housewife thinks a poet ought to look like. Can you suggest a pseudonym? Do sign that contract and return it. I did enjoy our tea together.

  Yours,

  Vesta Bainbridge

  Enderby trembled with rage as he crushed the good quality writing-paper. He hurled the letter into the lavatory-pan and then pulled the chain, but the thing was too thick to flush down. He had to pick it out wet and then take it into the kitchen and put it in an old cardboard rubbish-box along with condensed-milk tins, fishbones, potato peelings and tea leaves. After an hour of brooding and trying to carry on with his work, he felt a compulsion to read it again and did so, all smothered with tea-leaves as it was. Beating pretty tidily London memorable day albeit briefly independent attitude Byronic what every housewife thinks Vesta Bainbridge. He stood frowning, reading it in the tiny hallway, squinting at the words because it was dark there. There was a sudden double-beating on the door, as on a gorilla’s chest, and Enderby looked up, surprised. ‘Come out, Enderby,’ cried the voice of Jack. ‘I want a word with you, Enderby, you bloody poet.’

  ‘For cough,’ snarled Enderby, with much of his stepmother’s spirit and intonation.

  ‘Come out of there, Enderby. Come out and fight like a man. Open that door and let me bash you, you bastard.’

  ‘No,’ said Enderby, ‘I won’t. If I opened that door I’d regret it. I know I would. I don’t want your blood on my hands.’

  ‘Enderby,’ shouted Jack, ‘I’m giving you fair warning. Open up there and let me do you in, you fornicating poet. I’ll give you sleeping with my wife, you false sod.’

  ‘It’s not your wife,’ said Enderby. ‘And I slept on the couch. Somebody’s been telling lies about me. Now you clear off before I get angry.’

  ‘Open that door, Enderby, please,’ pleaded Jack’s voice. ‘I want to do you in, it’s only right and fair as I should, you bastard, and I’m already late for work. Open up and let’s get it over.’ And he thumped with both hands on the door. From above the woman’s voice could be heard, and there was something about it to show clearly the image of a woman in nightdress and curlers. ‘Stop it, Jack,’ she cried. ‘You’re only making a fool of yourself.’

  ‘Fool of myself, eh? We’ll soon see. Now you shut up. You’ve had your turn and now it’s going to be Enderby’s turn.’ He renewed the thundering. Enderby went to the kitchen and came back with his hare-eviscerating knife. ‘Open up, Enderby. Time’s getting on, you bastard.’ Enderby opened up.

  Jack was a youngish tough man with lined cheeks and eyes the colour of urine. If hairs be wires, black wires grew in his head. He had both fists ready, with the thumbs pitiably tucked inside. Enderby had been punched in London; he was not going to be punched here. He raised his knife. ‘For cough,’ he said.

  ‘That’s playing unfair,’ said Jack. ‘I meant clean bashing. That’s not right when you get on to that stabbing lark. All I’m saying is, you leave her upstairs alone, see, and one bloody good bash in the chops and call it a day. You’ve no call to go fornicating with what’s mine, as you ought to be first to admit. Now put that knife down like a man and take what’s coming to you.’

  ‘For cough,’ said Enderby, in a murderer’s stance. ‘I hadn’t got my key, that was all, and she let me sleep on the sofa. If you don’t believe that you’ll never believe anything.’

  ‘I’ll believe what I want to believe,’ said Jack with great candour. ‘I’m coming back to see you again. Don’t think you’ve got away with this, because you haven’t, Enderby, poet or no poet. I tell you that straight. I’m off to work now and late too, which is your fault and makes things worse.’ With a sudden brisk jerk and stylish follow-through he wrested the knife from the grasp of Enderby. ‘There,’ he said proudly. ‘Now you’ve had it.’ Enderby swiftly slammed the door. ‘I’ll be back, Enderby,’ called Jack. ‘Make no mistake about it. You’ll be done, no two ways about that, as you’ll see.’ He kicked Enderby’s door and then thumped out of the house, crashing the great outer portal shut.

  Enderby locked himself in the lavatory, trembling. Canaille, canaglia, with their bloody sex and blasted jealousy. Well, the time had come; all things pointed to it: out, out, out. Where to now? He sat on the seat and began to scribble: (a) Draw cash from bank; (b) Get map of south coast; (c) Send cheque and week’s notice Mrs M.; (d) Write to Mrs B.; (e) see Arry. With this need to plan and the thought of the nightmare of packing still to come, he grew flustered. He tried to calm himself by writing a final consummatory poem for Arry, the end of the whole cycle. It reeked with hot hands, white flesh, hoarse desire, love, love, love. It had a certain cathartic effect on Enderby, like loud blasphemous obscenities.

  … And in that last delirium of lust

  Your image glows. Love is a blinding rain,

  Love crow all the cocks, love lays the dust

  Of this cracked crying throat whose thirst is pain …

  He wrote out a cheque for Mrs Meldrum, composed the curtest of farewells: ‘Thank you for your unwanted solicitude. Take a week’s notice. Yours etc.’ To Mrs Bainbridge he wrote a courteous acknowledgement of her communications and regretted that, on maturer consideration, he found himself unable to find it in himself to meet the meagre poetic needs, if even these existed, of the readers of Fem. His compliments to Miss or Mrs Frobisher, if Mrs Bainbridge would be good enough to pass them on, and congratulations on possessing so tough-stomached a gang of followers of her culinary columns. He, Enderby, had, if it was of any interest to anyone, suffered greatly from her Spaghetti Fromaggio Surprise. He proposed to destroy the contract and distribute the copies of Fem to the poor. He was hers sincerely. P.S. He was moving from the above address forthwith, whither he knew not yet. No point in her replying. Calmer now, Enderby shaved and prepared to go o
ut. He would be safe so long as that shouter Jack was still at work.

  5

  Arry, in grubby cook’s white, complete with white necktie and white mushroom hat, stood at the bar of the Freemason’s Arms, taking time off from his kitchens. He greeted Enderby with no enthusiasm but, without asking or being asked, ordered a double whisky for him. ‘That suit,’ he said, ‘were a right bloody mess. Ad to send it tert cleaner’s.’ He drank off a good three-quarters of a pint of brown ale mixed with bitter.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Enderby. ‘It won’t happen again. I shan’t have to borrow from you again. I’m leaving.’

  ‘Leavin’? Goin’? Not coomin’ back ’ere naw mawr?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Arry looked solemn, but that stiff crust of his expression seemed to be hiding a tiny feeling of relief; a whiff of relief escaped as through a steam-hole in the crust. He said:

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Enderby. ‘Somewhere else along the coast. It doesn’t matter where, really.’

  ‘Thee gets as far aweeeeeh,’ advised Arry, prolonging his vowels, as in some primitive language, ‘far aweeeeeh,’ to emphasize the distance, ‘far aweeeeeh,’ by onomatopoeic suggestion, ‘as tha can bloody get. That’s naht ’ere, naht for nobody. Coom back ’ere,’ he said, ‘never naw mawr.’ He looked with gloom at the lesbians in the corner – Gladys in glasses and leopard-skin pants sly-cuddling cross-eyed Prudence – and then with compassion at Enderby.

  ‘This is to say good-bye, really,’ said Enderby, ‘and to hope that your suit prospers.’

  ‘It’ll be aw right when it cooms back fromt cleaner’s.’

  ‘I meant the other suit,’ said Enderby, ‘the Arry to Thelma suit. I’ve brought one more poem for you, the very last of the cycle. If this doesn’t do the job, nothing will.’ He took the folded sheet from his pocket.

  Arry shook his head. ‘Naht doin’,’ he said, ‘naht doin’ at all. It were a bloody wester mah tahm.’

  ‘My time, too,’ said Enderby.

  ‘Wan ’and int till,’ said Arry, ‘and toother betwinner legs. No good to man nor flamin’ beast that Thelma. Oo’s tecken no notice er naht av doon forrer.’

  ‘Well,’ sighed Enderby, ‘that’s how it is. Nobody wants poetry nowadays. All wasted.’ He prepared to rip up his final fiery offering.

  ‘Weren’t wested,’ said Arry. ‘Ot stooff, wan or two were. Ah lakhed ’em. Boot oo,’ he said, ‘didn’t ’ave bloody intelligence.’ He put out a clean cook’s hand to rescue Enderby’s poem. He took the folded sheet and unfolded it with wan interest. He pretended to read it, then put it into his trouser-pocket. Enderby bought him a pint of brown ale and bitter. Enderby said:

  ‘Since I’ve lived here you’re the only one I’ve been in any way friendly with. That’s why I wanted to shake hands with you before I go.’

  ‘All sheck ’ands wi’ thee,’ said Arry, and did so. ‘When will yer be clearin’ off?’

  ‘I’ve got to pack,’ said Enderby. ‘And then I’ve got to decide where I’m going to. Tomorrow, I should think. While Jack’s out at work.’

  ‘Oo’s Jack?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sorry. The chap who lives upstairs. He thinks I’ve been carrying on with the woman he lives with.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Arry, shaking his head, then looking at Enderby with renewed compassion. ‘Get away as soon as yer can,’ said Arry. ‘Shoove yer things in a bag and then get to Victoria Station. On Victoria Station there’s nameser places stoock oop on indiketters. Teck thy choice, lad. There’s plenty on ’em. You choose wanner them and go straight to it. All places is the same nowadays,’ he said. ‘The big thing to do is to kip movin’. And,’ he asked, ‘what will yer do when yeu’ve getten wherever yer goin’? Wilt kip on wi’ same game?’

  ‘It’s all I can do,’ said Enderby. ‘Writing verse is all I’m cut out for.’

  Arry nodded and finished his pint, the fourth since Enderby’s entrance. ‘Dawn’t write too mooch abaht spaghetti, then,’ he said, frothily. ‘Leave spaghetti to them as knaws summat abaht it.’ He shook hands with Enderby once more. ‘Moost get back now,’ he said, ‘tert bloody job. Special loonch for Daughters of Temperance.’ He spaced out the words like a poster. ‘Luke after yerself,’ said Arry. He waved a white cook’s arm from the door and then went out. Spaghetti coiled, puzzled, in Enderby’s brain. Then a horrid thought struck him. He finished his whisky palpitating but then calmed down. He might have sent it to Mrs Meldrum. But no, he distinctly remembered pinning a cheque to a quarter-sheet of writing-paper. But that made no difference, did it? That might still have got into the wrong envelope. He’d better get out of here very, very quickly.

  As he panted towards his packing down the esplanade, the gulls wheeled and wailed and climbed the blue wall of the marine winter day. For two days now he had forgotten to feed them. They planed, complained. Greedy beady eyes. Ungrateful birds. They mewed no farewell to Enderby; they would be there, waiting for his doles of bread, further up or down the coastline.

  5

  1

  OF WHAT THE world would call essentials, Enderby had few to pack. It was the bathful of verse that was the trouble. Kneeling in front of it, as though – and here he laughed sardonically – he worshipped his own work, he began to bundle it into the larger of his two suitcases, separating – with reasonable care – manuscripts from sandwich-crusts, cigarette-packets, and the cylinders of long-used toilet-rolls. But he found so many old poems which he had quite forgotten that he could not resist reading them through, open-mouthed, as afternoon ticked on towards dusk. He had modified drastically his original plan of departure, his aim now being to catch some evening train (Jack permitting) to Victoria, spend the night in a hotel, and then, about midday, follow some new spoke to the south coast. He had, he felt, to live near the sea, this being a great wet slobbering stepmother or green dogmatic Church which he could keep his eye on; nothing, at least, insidious about it.

  It was amazing what things he had written, especially in his youth: pastiches of Whitman, Charles Doughty, an attempted translation of the Duino Elegies, limericks, even the beginning of a verse-play about Copernicus. There was one sonnet in sprung rhythm and Alexandrines which dated from the days of his love and envy of the proletariat. He read the sestet with horror and wonder:

  When the violet air blooms about him, then at last he can wipe

  His hands sheerfree of swink, monarch of hours ahead;

  Hearty he eats and, full, he sits to pull at his pipe,

  Warm at the kitchen glow. The courts- and sports-news read,

  He argues, sups, in the Lion vault; to a plate of tripe

  Or crisp chips home returns, then climbs to a dreamless bed.

  Dead on this homecoming cue Jack came home, his hands sheerfree of salesman’s swink, ready for Enderby. Enderby was aroused from the past by the gorilla two-fist beat on the door.

  ‘Come on, Enderby, out of it. On the job, Enderby. Come and be bashed, you poetic bloody nuisance.’

  ‘Have you got my knife?’ asked Enderby, standing now behind his punished door.

  ‘Your knife, eh? That’s been put in a refuse-bin, you dirty mess as you are, you. There’s going to be clean bashing only, you nasty deceitful thing. I’m giving you fair warning, Enderby. If you don’t open up I’m going to get old Ma Meldrum’s key. I’ll say that you lost yours, lying like you lied, you nasty liar. Then I’ll come in and do you. So open up like a sportsman and play the game and be bashed, you bugger, you.’

  Enderby shivered with rage and immediately began to roam the flat, trembling, looking for some weapon. Meanwhile Jack, who should, by rights, have been fatigued by his work, hammered at the door and execrated nastily. In the bathroom Enderby cast around and his eyes momentarily softened as they lighted on his old friend, the lavatory-seat. It had always been somewhat loose; it was not difficult to wrench it from the pin that had held it to the pedestal. ‘Coming,’ called Enderby. ‘Shan’t be a minut
e.’ He apologized to the wooden O as he pulled it roughly away, promising that soon he would write it a small ode of reparation. Armed with it he went to the door, pulled the door open and saw Jack’s thumb-protecting fists ready for a fierce double-bang at the empty air.

  ‘That’s not fair,’ he said, backing. ‘You’re not playing the game, Enderby. All I ask is a fair apology for ill-treating me as regards my own property.’ (‘Is that you back, Jack?’ came the voice from above. ‘Don’t hurt him too hard, love.’)

  ‘There’s nothing to apologize for,’ said Enderby. ‘If you don’t believe what I told you you must take the consequences of your disbelief. I’m going to clonk you on the head with this seat here.’

  ‘Not that,’ said Jack, trying, on dancing feet, to get in odd punches. ‘That’s comic, that is, that’s not decent. That’s making a farce out of the whole thing.’ Enderby parried the weak blows, slamming Jack’s wrists hard with his wooden weapon. He drove him down the hallway towards the front door of the house, past the two spotted pictures on the wall, both of Highland scenery in wretched weather. Enderby raised the seat high, intended to hit Jack’s wiry head with its hard border. He misjudged somewhat, and the seat came down to encircle Jack’s face, so that Jack was framed like a most animated portrait in a bottom-shaped ring. His hands clawed at it, forgetting to chop at Enderby’s own, which tugged down and down, Enderby’s obscure aim being to pull Jack to the floor and then stamp on him. ‘You bastard, you,’ cried Jack. ‘This isn’t funny, this isn’t, you sod.’ He tried to lift off the wooden lei of bottom-polished smoothness, but Enderby’s weight pulled down and down. ‘All I ask,’ panted Jack, ‘is an apology for what you done, did. Give me that and I’ll let you go.’ Enderby swung round, still clinging to Jack’s round pillory, and saw Jack’s woman at the foot of the stairs. She was dressed like Hamlet in black tights, a black sweater above, inside which her bubs danced still from her descent.