The Complete Enderby (17 page)

Who had proposed marriage, and when? Who loved whom, if at all, and why? Enderby, in thinker’s pose on the lavatory seat, frowned back to an evening when he had sat finishing his epithalamion in her twin dining-room, facing a piece of furniture he admired – a sideboard, massive and warped, proclaiming its date (1685) among carved lozenges and other tropes, fancies of the woodworker signifying his love of the great negroid ship-oak he had shaped and smoothed. Above that sideboard hung a painting of Vesta done by Gideon Dalgleish, she pearly-shouldered and haughty in a ballgown, seeming about to fly off, centrifugally, back into waiting but invisible paint-tubes. Above open book-shelves was a photograph of the late Pete Bainbridge. He grinned handsomely in a helmet, seated at the wheel of the Anselm 2.493 litre (six-cylinder; 250 b.h.p. Girling disc brakes; Weber 58 DCO carburettors, etc.) in which he had met his messy death. Enderby had started his last stanza:

And even the dead may bring blue lips to this banquet

And twitter like mice or birds down their corridors

Hung with undecipherable blazons …

He had felt a sudden and unwonted surge of personal, as opposed to poet’s, strength: he, unworthy and ugly as he was, was at least alive, while this bright and talented handsome one had been blown to pieces. He had grinned, borrowing the shape of the grin from the dead man, in a sort of triumph. Vesta, reading some new brilliant novel by an undergraduate, had looked up from her Parker-Knoll and caught the grin. She had said:

‘Why are you grinning? Have you written something funny?’

‘Me? Funny? Oh, no.’ Enderby had covered his manuscript with clumsy paws, as one protects one’s dinner-plate from an importunate second scooping of mashed potato. ‘Nothing funny at all.’

She had got up, so graceful, to see what he was writing, asking: ‘What are you writing?’

‘This? Oh, I don’t think you’d like it. It’s – Well, it’s a sort of –’

She had picked up the sheet of scrawled lines and read aloud:

‘You see,’ Enderby had said, over-eagerly, ‘it’s an epithalamion. For the marriage of two mature people.’ Inexplicably she had lowered her head with its sweet-smelling penny-coloured hair and kissed him. Kissed him. Him, Enderby.

‘Your breath,’ she had said, ‘is no longer unhealthy. Sometimes it’s hard for the body and mind to come to terms. You’re looking better, much better.’ What could he say but, ‘Thanks to you’?

Airsick, seated in this aerial lavatory, he had to admit that a new Enderby had emerged out of the spring and early summer – a younger Enderby with less fat and wind, new teeth imperfect enough to look real, several smart suits, hair cunningly dressed by
Trumper’s
of Mayfair and breathing delicately of Eucris, less gauche in company, his appetite healthier with no dyspeptic lust for spices and bread-and-jam, more carefully shaven, his skin clearer, his eyeballs glassy with contact lenses. If only Mrs Meldrum could see him now!

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.

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 tip. 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.