The Complete Enderby

by Anthony Burgess

  Who had mentioned love? Had anybody mentioned love? They had lived under one roof chaste, vestal, phoenix, and turtle, with Pete Bainbridge grinning from some Elysium of racing-drivers at the strange ménage of Friends. But one had only to chuck and see spin that worn coin on the polished floor for it to chink louder and louder music and revolve into a world. Had it been pocket or handbag? Enderby could not remember, but he was sure that one evening one of them had spoken the word in some connection or other, perhaps denouncing its inflation in popular songs or in the hoarse speech of immediate need, perhaps discussing its personified identification with, in seventeenth-century religious poetry, the Lord. Then, by a swift process too subtle and irrational for analysis, one or other of them had whistled down the dove-hawk from safe heights of speculation to perch, blinking, on a pair of joined hands.

  ‘I’ve been so lonely,’ she had said. ‘I’ve been so cold at night.’

  Enderby, potential bedwarmer, still potential on this brief flight to the honeymoon, for they had been chaste till now. Till tonight. Tonight in the Albergo Tritone on the Via Nazionale. Something, gulped Enderby, to look forward to.

  ‘Look,’ said a voice, meaning ‘Listen’. Enderby started from the tiny seat, listening. ‘Your ticket does not entitle you to undisputed monopolization of the john.’ That, Enderby considered, was well put. The voice was American and authoritative and Enderby hastened to give place, fairly sure now that he felt better. Outside the folding doors he breathed deeply, taking in a large touristy man who nodded at him, edging past. He had a steak complexion and two cameras – still and movie respectively – on his stomach at the ready. Enderby wondered if he would photograph the john. Through a porthole summer cloud shone up. Enderby walked down the aisle to his bride who sat, cool and lovely, gazing at summer cloud beneath. She looked up and smiled, asking if he felt better. She gave her hand to him as he sat. It seemed to be a new life beginning.

  2

  As if he were in a well-appointed bath, Enderby was struck by various liquid sensations as they descended to Rome (going down. Eternal City: pasta, old junk, monumental remnants, figleaved stone stalwarts, veal, Vatican, staircases to basement and bones of martyrs. The whole roofed in ringing silver and refreshed by fountains. And the very best of luck). He felt cold sweat as his stomach, tardy in descending, encouraged its master to view Rome in a sort of stepmother-context (Pope in picture on bedroom wall, blessing seven hills; translucent image of St Peter’s embedded in cross of blancmange-coloured rosary; missal bookmark of Holy Family as middle-class spaghetti-guzzlers, printed in Rome). Then he was warmed by thrilling gushes, the chicken-skinned hand that held the hand of the bride growing smooth again, as there swam up from the News of the World a picture of a heavy-breasted starlet sploshing, for a lark, in the Trevi fountain. There were also weary handsome princes in sordid divorce cases and Cinecittà was greater than the Vatican. It was all right really, it would be all right, sensual, thrilling. He looked with pride on his bride and, like a distant rumour of war, felt a prick of desire, legitimate desire; she was, in a flash, identified with this new city, to be, all so legitimately, sacked and pillaged. He said to her, a few words coming back from his L. of C. days, ‘Io ti amo.’ She smiled and squeezed his hand. Enderby, Latin lover.

  The warmth, the excitement, the sense of rejuvenation, survived the landing (the stewardess smirked at the exit as though she herself, after the aerial gestation, had given birth to the airport; the American who had ousted Enderby from the john began clicking away desperately). In the ragged procession to the buildings, Ciampino stretching in hot honeymoon weather, Enderby felt the barren flat airfield express, like a blank page, his new freedom, this being a freedom from his old freedom. A Cassius-lean and Casca-sullen Roman customs-man zipped open roughly the overnight bag of Vesta and held up for the whole shed to see a new nightdress. He winked sullenly at Enderby, and this to Enderby was a good omen, even though the man was starved-jawed and hence untrustworthy. The fat bus-driver sang some plangent oily aria with amore in it, jolting up the Appian Way, thus inspiring confidence. And then, whoosh, came the cold water again as the sun clouded over above a mossy aqueduct growing in ruins out of the dry grass, over an old plinth lying like a large merd under a comic-strip-coloured petrol poster. The American from the john fed his cameras like lapdogs. Meanwhile Enderby grew oppressed with a sense of travelling through a butcher’s shop of mean history, between the ribs of carcasses, already being force-fed with chunks of the carrion empire. Rostra were quietly set up just beyond his line of vision and on them settled a sort of Seneca chorus of smirking noseless ancient Romans, fat on Sicilian corndoles and gladiator’s blood. They would be present at the honeymoon; it was their city.

  The sun suddenly exploded, a fire in a syrup factory, as they arrived at the airline terminal on the Via Nazionale. A dwarf porter of great strength carried their cases the few doors down to the hotel and Enderby gave him a tip of over-light suspect coins. They were bowed at and greeted with insincere golden smiles in the hotel lobby. ‘Signor Enderby,’ said Signor Enderby, ‘and Signora Bainbridge.’ ‘No, no, no,’ said Signora Enderby. Enderby smiled. ‘Not used to it yet, you see. Our honeymoon,’ he explained to the receptionist. He, a dapper Roman elf, said:

  ‘Honeymoon, eh? I maker sure everythinger quiet forer honeymoon. A long time since I have a honeymoon,’ he said regretfully. Vesta said:

  ‘Look, I don’t feel all that well. Do you think we could be taken to our –?’ There were immediate calls and dartings and hoistings of bags.

  ‘Darling,’ said Enderby, concerned. ‘What is it, darling?’

  ‘Tired, that’s all. I want to lie down.’

  ‘Darling,’ said Enderby. They entered a lift that was all rococo filigree-work, an airy frail cage that carried them up to a floor paved with veiny marble. Enderby saw, with interest, an open Roman lavatory, but he waved the interest away. Those days were over. They were shown into their room by a young man in a wine-coloured coat, his nose squashed flat as in desperate contradiction of the myth of Roman profiles. Enderby gave him several worthless slips of metal and asked for vino. (Enderby in Rome, ordering vino.) The young man shook hands with himself fiercely, then tensely raised the upper hand, teeth clenched as though lifting a killing weight, showing the space between to Enderby – a bottle of air with a hand-bottom and hand-top. ‘Frascati,’ he nodded direly, and went out, nodding. Enderby turned to his wife. She sat on the window-side of the double bed, looking out at the Via Nazionale. The little room was full of its noise – tram-clanks, horse-clops, Fiats and Lambrettas. ‘Tired, tired, tired,’ said Vesta, blue arcs back under her eyes, her face weary in the sharp Roman light. ‘I don’t feel at all the thing.’

  ‘It’s not –?’ asked Enderby.

  ‘No, of course it’s not. This is our wedding-day, isn’t it? I’ll be all right when I’ve had a rest.’ She kicked off her shoes and then, as Enderby gulped, swiftly unhitched her stockings. He turned to the dull sights of the street: metropolitan dourness, no flashing Southern teeth, no song. Across the road a shop, as though for Enderby’s own benefit, had a special display of holy pictures going cheap, ill-painted hagiographs festooned with rosary-beads. When he turned back towards the bed Vesta was already in it, her thin arms and shoulders uncovered. Not a voluptuous woman; her body pared to a decent female minimum. That was as it should be. Enderby had once caught his stepmother stripped off in the bathroom, panting with the exertion of one of her rare over-all washes, flesh-shaking, fat tits swinging like bells. He shuddered at the memory, his burring lips becoming, for the moment, those of his stepmother flinching at the cold sponge. There was a knock. Enderby had read Dante with an English crib; there was, he knew, a line which contained the word for ‘come in’. He delved for it, and it came up just as the door opened. ‘All hope abandon,’ he called in fine Tuscan, ‘you who –’ A long-faced waiter peered in, doubtful, then entered with his tray, leaving without waiting (a non-waiting waiter) for a ti
p. Enderby, a mad Englishman, sighed and poured wine. He shouldn’t have said that. It was a bad omen. It was like Byron waking on his wedding-night and thinking that the bedroom fire was hell. He said:

  ‘Darling. Would you care for a glass of this, darling?’ He gulped some thirstily. A very nice little wine. ‘Help you to sleep if you’re going to sleep.’ She nodded tiredly. Enderby poured another glass, the urine-gold flashing in the clear light, belching as it left the bottle. He gave the glass to her and she sat up to sip it. Fair down on her upper lip, Enderby noticed in love and pity, his arm round her shoulders to support her sitting up. She drank half a glassful and at once, to Enderby’s shock and horror, reacted violently. Pushing him and the glass away, she fought to leave the bed, her cheeks bulging. She ran on bare feet to the washbowl, gripped its sides, groaned and started to vomit. Enderby, much concerned, followed and stood by her, slender, defenceless in her minimal unalluring summer underwear. ‘That’s your lunch coming up,’ said Enderby, watching. ‘A bit fatty, wasn’t it?’ With a roar more came up. Enderby poured water from the water-bottle.

  ‘Oh God,’ she groaned. ‘Oh Jesus.’ She turned on both taps and began to retch again.

  ‘Drink this,’ said Enderby. ‘Water.’ She gulped from the proffered glass and vomited again, but this time mostly water, groaning between spasms blasphemously. ‘There,’ said Enderby, ‘you’ll be better now. That was a nasty sort of pudding they served up. All jammy.’

  ‘Oh Jesus Christ,’ retched Vesta (All jammy). Enderby watched kindly, a past master on visceral dysfunctions, as she got it all up. Then weak, wet, limp, spent, she staggered back to the bed. ‘A good start,’ she gasped. ‘Oh God.’

  ‘That’s the worst of meals on aircraft,’ said Enderby, sage after his first flight. ‘They warm things up, you see. Have some more wine. That’ll settle your stomach.’ Fascinated by the near-rhymes, he began softly to repeat. ‘That’ll settle, that’ll settle,’ pacing the room softly, one hand in pocket, the other holding wine.

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ moaned Vesta. ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘Yes, darling,’ said Enderby, accommodating. ‘Certainly, darling. You have a little sleep, darling.’ He heard himself wheedling like a foreign whore, so he straightened up and said more gruffly, ‘I’ll go and see about traveller’s cheques.’ Saying that, he was standing up against the door, as if challenging it or measuring himself against it. When a knock came he was able to open it at once. The long-faced boy looked startled. His arms were full of roses, red and white. ‘Fiori,’ he said, ‘per la signora.’

  ‘Who from?’ frowned Enderby, feeling for an accompanying card. ‘Good God,’ he said, finding it. ‘Rawcliffe. And Rawcliffe’s in the bar. Darling,’ he called, turning. But she was asleep.

  3

  ‘Ah,’ said Rawcliffe. ‘You got the message, got the flowers? Good. Where,’ he asked, ‘is Mrs Enderby?’ He was dressed as when Enderby had last seen him, in an old-fashioned heavy suit with a gold watch-chain, Kipling-moustached, beetle-goggled, drunk.

  ‘Mrs Enderby,’ said Enderby, ‘is dead.’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ said Rawcliffe. ‘Already? Roman fever? How very Jamesian!’

  ‘Oh, I see what you mean,’ said Enderby. ‘Sorry. She only became Mrs Enderby today, you see. It takes some getting used to. I thought you meant my stepmother.’

  ‘I see, I see. And your stepmother’s dead, is she? How very interesting!’ Enderby shyly examined the bar, the shelves massed with liquors of all countries, the silver tea-urn, the espresso apparatus. Behind the bar a short fat man kept bowing. ‘Have some of this Strega,’ said Rawcliffe. ‘Dante,’ he said, and the fat un-Dantesque man came to attention. Rawcliffe then spoke most intricate Italian, full, as far as Enderby could judge, of subjunctives, but with a most English accent. ‘Strega,’ said Dante. ‘Are you,’ said Enderby nastily, ‘in all the Italian anthologies, too?’ He was given, with flourishes, a glass of Strega.

  ‘Ha, ha,’ said Rawcliffe, without much mirth. ‘As a matter of fact, there’s a very good Italian translation of that little poem of mine, you know. It goes well into Italian. Now, tell me, tell me, Enderby, what are you writing at the moment?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Enderby. ‘I finished my long poem, The Pet Beast. I told you about that.’

  ‘You most certainly did,’ said Rawcliffe, bowing. Dante bowed too. ‘A very good idea, that was. I look forward to reading it.’

  ‘What I’d like to know,’ said Enderby, ‘is what you’re doing here. You don’t look as though you’re on holiday, not in those clothes you don’t.’

  Rawcliffe did something Enderby had read about but never before seen: he placed a finger against his nose. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Most certainly not on holiday. At work. Always at work. Some more Strega?’

  ‘With me,’ said Enderby. Dante bowed and bowed, filling their glasses. ‘And one for you, too,’ said Enderby, expansive, on his honeymoon. Dante bowed and said to Rawcliffe, ‘Americano?’

  ‘Inglese,’ said Rawcliffe.

  ‘Americani,’ said Dante, leaning forward, confidential, ‘fack you. Mezzo mezzo.’

  ‘Un poeta,’ said Rawcliffe, ‘that’s what he is. Poeta. Feminine in form, masculine in gender.’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ said Enderby. ‘Did you by any chance mean anything by that?’

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ said Rawcliffe, ‘it’s my belief that all we poets are really a sort of a blooming hermaphrodite. Like Tiresias, you know. And you’re on your honeymoon, eh? Have some more Strega.’

  ‘What exactly do you mean by that?’ said Enderby, wary.

  ‘Mean? You are a one for meaning, aren’t you? The meaning of meaning. I. A. Richards and the Cambridge school. A lot of twaddle, if you ask my opinion. All right, if you won’t have more Strega with me I’ll have more Strega with you.’

  ‘Strega,’ said Enderby.

  ‘Your Italian’s coming along very nicely,’ said Rawcliffe. ‘A couple of nice vowels there. A couple of nice Stregas,’ he said, as these appeared. ‘God bless, all.’ He drank. He sang, ‘Who would an ender be, let him come hither.’

  ‘How did you know we were here?’ asked Enderby.

  ‘Air terminal,’ said Rawcliffe. ‘Today’s arrivals from London. Always interesting. Here, they said honeymoon. Remarkable, Enderby, in a man of your age.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Enderby.

  ‘You gentlemen ave Strega on the ouse,’ said Dante, pouring.

  ‘Tante grazie,’ said Rawcliffe. ‘There you go, Enderby, worrying about meaning all the time.’ He sang, standing to attention. ‘Would you a spender be, would you a mender be, God save the Queen. No meaning there, is there? Would you a fender be. That’s better still. Too much meaning in your poetry, Enderby. Always has been.’ His words rode over a few drinker’s belches. ‘Pardon, as they say.’ He drank.

  ‘Strega,’ said Enderby. ‘E uno per Lei, Dante.’

  ‘You can’t say that,’ said Rawcliffe, hiccoughing. ‘What bloody awful Italian you speak, Enderby! Bad as your poetry. Pardon. Fair criticism. But I will say that the monster idea of yours was a bloody good one. Too good to make a poem out of it. Ah, Rome,’ he said, lyrically, ‘fair, fair Rome. Remarkable place, Enderby, no place like it. Listen, Enderby. I’m going to a party tonight. At the house of the Principessa Somebody-or-other. Would you like to come? You and your missus? Or does it behove you to retire early this fair nuptial night?’ He shook his head. ‘La Rochefoucauld, or some other bloody scoundrel, said you mustn’t do it on the first night. What did he know about it, eh? Homosexuals, the lot of them. All writers are homosexuals. They have to be. Stands to reason. To hell with writing.’ He poured his last few drops of Strega on to the floor. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is for the Lares and Penates to come and lap up. A potation, that is to say a libation. They come to lap it up like bloody big dogs. More Strega.’

  ‘Don’t you think?’ said Enderby cautiously. ‘I mean, if you’re going
to a party –’

  ‘Not for hours yet,’ said Rawcliffe. ‘Hours and hours and hours. Plenty of time for you to get it over and done with several times over before it starts. If you can, that is. Shellfish are bloody good, you know. Magnificent augmenters of male potency. Scampi. Dante,’ he cried, ‘send for some scampi for this here signore. He is a newly married man, God bless him.’ Rawcliffe swayed on his stool. Dante said:

  ‘Today you are married? Very good. You ave Strega on the ouse.’ He poured. ‘Salute,’ he toasted. ‘Molti bambini,’ he winked.

  ‘Lovely grub,’ said Rawcliffe, drinking. Enderby drank and said:

  ‘What you’ve been saying is very indelicate. You ought by rights to be bashed.’

  ‘Oh dear dear dear me, no,’ said Rawcliffe, shaking his head, his eyes shut. ‘Not on a day like this. Much too warm. Pace, pace, this is a city of peace.’ He began to fall asleep.

  ‘Troppo,’ confided Dante. ‘Too mash. You get im ome.’

  ‘No,’ said Enderby. ‘Damn it all, I’m on my honeymoon. I don’t like him, anyway, Nasty bit of work.’

  ‘Jealous,’ mumbled Rawcliffe, eyes still shut, head drooping to the counter. ‘I’m in all the anthologies. He’s not. Popular poet, me. Known and loved and respected by all.’ He then neatly, as in a professional tumbling act, collapsed with the stool on to the deep carpet of the bar, falling, it seemed, quite slowly, in a rotary figure. The noise, though muffled, was loud enough to summon men in skimpy suits from the hotel lobby. These spoke very fast Italian and looked with hate upon Enderby. Enderby said:

  ‘Nothing to do with me. He was drunk when I met him.’ Surlily he added, ‘Damn it all, I’m on my honeymoon.’ Two men bent over Rawcliffe and Enderby was afforded an intimate, non-tourist’s, glimpse of the city, for one man had dandruff and the other boil-scars on his nape. Rawcliffe opened one eye and said, very clearly: