The Complete Enderby (21 page)

‘What a very odd thing to say!’ said Vesta. ‘What, I wonder, do you mean by that?’

‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ asked Enderby, agitated. ‘I mean, we’ve lived under the same roof for, oh, for months, and you’ve never breathed a word about it.’

‘Why should I have done? It never seemed relevant to anything we ever talked about. And you never showed any curiosity about me. As I’ve already said, you have, for a poet, surprisingly little curiosity.’

Enderby looked at her, definitely curiously: by rights, this revelation should have modified her appearance, but she still seemed a slim Protestant beauty, cognate with his adolescent vision, an angel of release.

She said, ‘Anyway, it makes no difference. I left the Church when I was, oh, when I married Pete. He, as everybody but you knows, had already been married and divorced. I was drifting anyway; I didn’t believe any more. Pete believed in motor engines, I’ll say that for him, and he used to pray before racing, though I
don’t
know what to; perhaps to some archetypal internal combustion engine. Pete was a nice boy.’ She drained her glass.

‘Have some more wine,’ said Enderby.

‘Yes, I will, just a little. Rome has a peculiar atmosphere, hasn’t it? Don’t you feel that? It makes me, somehow, feel that I’m empty, empty of belief and so on.’

‘Be careful,’ said Enderby, very clearly, leaning across. ‘Be very careful indeed of feeling like that. Rome’s just a city like anywhere else. A vastly overrated city, I’d say. It trades on belief just as Stratford trades on Shakespeare. But don’t you start thinking that it’s a great pure mother calling you home. You can’t go home, anyway. You’re living in sin. We were only married in a registry office, remember.’

‘And are we living in sin?’ asked Vesta coolly. ‘I haven’t noticed particularly.’

‘Well,’ said Enderby, confused, ‘that’s what the world would think if the world happened to know and to be Catholic. We’re not, of course, really, as you say, living in sin at all.’

‘You’ve contracted out of everything in your time, haven’t you? Out of the Church, out of society, out of the family –’

‘Damn it all, I am, after all, a poet –’

‘Everything goes into the lavatory, everything. Even the act of love.’

Enderby flushed flea-coloured. ‘What do you mean by that? What do you know about that? I’m just the same as anybody else, except that I’m not accustomed, except that it’s been a long time, except that I’m ugly and shy and –’

‘Everything’s going to be put right. You just wait. You’ll see.’ She gave him, forgiving, a kind cool hand. Anything he might then have wanted to say was snatched from his very lungs by a massive silver plunging of claws, swallowed, as all sounds of angelic noontime were swallowed, by a sudden boisterous revelry of bells, huge throats of white metal baying, snarling, hurling, fuming at the sky, the heavens of Rome a nickel and aluminium flame of bells.

After sauced pasta and a straw-harnessed globe of Chianti, Vesta’s proposal seemed reasonable enough. Because she spoke of the
process
rather than the end: cool breezes stirred by the fan of the moving coach; the stop for tasting the wines of the Frascati vineyards; the wide sheet of lake and the
albergo
on its shore. And then the rolling back to Rome in early evening. It was more than a proposal, anyway. When Enderby said yes she promptly pulled the tickets out of her handbag. ‘But,’ said Enderby, ‘are we to spend all our time in Rome riding in coaches?’

‘There’s a lot to see, isn’t there? And you’d better see it all just so you can confirm that it’s rubbishy.’

‘It is rubbishy, too.’ And Enderby, in after-lunch somnolence, thought particularly of that ghastly Arco di Costantino which was like a petrified and sempiternal page of the
Daily Mirror
, all cartoons and lapidary headlines. But a lake would be, especially in this cruel mounting heat, different altogether. Rome was really best taken in liquid form – wine, fountains and Aqua Sacra. Enderby approved of Aqua Sacra. Charged with a wide selection of windy chemicals, it brought the wind up lovely and contrived a civilized evacuation of the bowels. In these terms he recommended it seriously to Vesta.

Enderby was surprised that this lake was to be visited by so many. Boarding the coach at the hotel, he had immediately prepared for sleep; almost at once they, and the jabbering polyglot others, had been told to get out. They were at some nameless piazza, sweltering and bone-dry, mocked by a fountain. There, their metal blistering in the sun, stood a fleet of coaches. Men with numbered placards stuck on sticks yelled for their squads, and obedient people, frowning and wrinkling in the huge light, marched on to markers. ‘We’re Number Six,’ said Vesta. They marched.

Heat was intense in the coach; it had cooked to a turn in a slow oven. Even Vesta glowed. Enderby became a kind of fountain, his bursting sweat almost audible. And a worried man came on to the coach, calling, ‘Where is Dr Buchwald?’ in many languages, so that a kind of fidgety sense of responsibility for this missing one pervaded the coach and engendered scratchiness. In front of Enderby a Portuguese snored, his head on the shoulder of a Frenchman, a stranger; Americans camera-recorded everything, like the scene of a crime; there were two chortling Negroes; a large ham-pink German family spoke of Rome in serious and regretful cadences,
churning
the sights and sounds into long compound sausage-words. Enderby closed his eyes.

Vaguely, through the haze of his doze, he was aware of comforting wind fanned in by the movement of the coach. ‘A very popular lake,’ he said sleepily to Vesta; ‘must be. All these people.’ The convoy was rolling south. Through the coach loudspeaker came the voice of the guide, in Italian, French, German and American, and the intermittent drone was finneganswaked by lightly sleeping Enderby into a parachronic lullaby chronicle, containing Constantine the grandgross and battlebottles fought by lakes which were full of lager. He awoke, laughing, to see villas and vineyards and burning country, then slept again, carrying into deeper sleep a coin-image of Vesta looking on him protectively with the protectiveness of a farmer’s wife carrying a pig to market.

He was awakened, smacking dry lips, to a small town of great charm and cleanliness, napkin-carrying waiters waiting on a wide terrace full of tables. Stiff stretching coach-loads got out to drink. Here, Enderby understood, they were very near to Frascati, and that wine that was so shy of travel had travelled the least possible distance. White dust, heat, the shimmering flask on the table. Enderby felt suddenly well and happy. He smiled at Vesta and took her hand, saying:

‘Queer that we’re both renegade Catholics, isn’t it? You were right when you said that it’s a bit like coming home. What I mean is, we understand a country like this better than the Protestants. We belong to its traditions.’ He indicated, with a kind smile, a couple of hungry-eyed children at the foot of the terrace steps, the elder of the two solemnly nose-picking. ‘Even if you don’t believe any longer,’ said Enderby, ‘you’re bound to find England a bit strange, a bit inimical. I mean, take all the churches they stole from us. I mean, they can keep them for all I care, but they ought to be reminded occasionally that they’re really still ours.’ He looked round the full drinking terrace happily, soothed by the jabber of alien phonemes.

Vesta smiled somewhat sourly and said: ‘I wish you wouldn’t talk in your sleep. Not in public, anyway.’

‘Why, what was I saying?’

‘You were saying, “Down with the Pope”, or words to that
effect
. It’s a good thing that not many people on this trip can understand English.’

‘That’s funny,’ said Enderby. ‘I wasn’t even thinking of the Pope. That’s very curious. Amazing what the subconscious mind can get up to, isn’t it?’

‘Perhaps you’d better stay awake on this leg of the journey,’ ordered Vesta. ‘It’s the last leg.’

‘I mean, it isn’t as though anybody mentioned the Pope, or anything, is it?’ puzzled Enderby. ‘Look, people are climbing aboard.’

They followed the chatter, smiling faintly at their fellow-passengers as they moved down the aisle of the coach. There had been some changing-round of seats, but that didn’t matter: at the very furthest, you could not be more than one seat away from the window. A paunched small cocky Frenchman, however, linen-suited and with panama as though resident in a colony, hurled and fluted sharp words at a German who, he alleged, had taken his seat. The German barked and sobbed indignant denial. A tipsy lean Portuguese, thus encouraged by a fellow-Latin, started on an innocent red cheese of a Dutchman: a claim had, at the outset, been staked to that seat nearest the driver and renewed at this stop for refreshment – see, your fat Dutch arse is sitting on it, my map of Rome and environs. Europe now warred with itself, so that a keen-eyed Texan called, ‘Aw, pipe down.’ The guide came aboard and spoke French, saying that as a little infant at school he had been taught to keep to the first seat allotted to him. Enderby nodded; in French that sounded reasonable and civilized. The guide translated into American, saying, ‘Like you were in school, stick to your own seat and don’t try and grab somebody else’s. Okay?’

Enderby felt himself growing instantly red and mad. He cried: ‘Who the hell do you think you are – the Pope?’ It was an Englishman’s never-never-never protest against foreign overbearingness. Vesta said, ‘Why don’t you keep your big mouth –’ The words of Enderby were translated swiftly into many tongues, and faces turned to look at Enderby, some wondering, others doubtful, yet others fearful. But one elderly man, a grey and dapper
raisonneur
-type, stood to say, in English. ‘We are rebuked. He reminds us of the purpose of our journey. Catholic Europe must not be divided.’ He sat down, and people began to look more warmly on Enderby,
one
wizened brownish woman offering him a piece of Belgian chocolate. ‘What did he mean by that?’ asked Enderby of Vesta. ‘The purpose of our journey, he said. We’re going to see this lake, aren’t we? What’s a lake got to do with Catholic Europe?’ ‘You’ll see,’ soothed Vesta, and then, ‘I think, after all, it might be better if you
did
have a little sleep.’

But Enderby could not now doze. The countryside slid past, brilliant distant townships on high sunlit plateaux, olive, vine, and cypress, villas, browned fields, endless blue sky. And at length came the lake, a wide white sheet of waters in laky air, the heat of the day mitigated by it, and the little inn close by. The guide, who had sulked and been silent since Enderby’s blast of brash Britishry in rebuke, now stood up to say, ‘We stay here two hours. The coach will be parked in the parking-place for coaches.’ He indicated, with a sketchy squizzle of his Roman fingers, roughly where that might be. He frowned at the Enderbys as they came down the coach-aisle, a blue-jawed lean Roman’s frown despite Enderby’s ‘No hard feelings? Eh?’ He was even stonier when Enderby said, ‘
Ma é vero che Lei ha parlato un poco pontificalmente
.’ ‘Come on,’ said Vesta.

The wide silver water breathed coolness. But, to Enderby’s fresh surprise, nobody seemed anxious to savour it. Crowds were leaving coaches and toiling up a hill towards what seemed to be a walled township. Coach after coach came up, disgorging unfestive people, grave, some pious with rosaries. There were carved Africans, a gaggle of Chinese, a piscatorium of Finns, a rotary chew of Americans, Frenchmen haussing their
épaules
, rare blond Vikings and their goddesses, all going up the hill. ‘We,’ said Vesta, ‘are also going up there.’

‘What,’ asked Enderby carefully, ‘lies up yonder hill?’

‘Come on.’ Vesta took his arm. ‘A little poetic curiosity, please. Come and find out.’

Enderby now half-knew what lay at the top of the hill-street they now began to ascend, dodging new squealing arriving coaches, but he suffered himself to be led, passing smiling sellers of fruit and holy pictures. Enderby paused for a moment aghast, seeing a playing-card-sized portrait repeated more than fifty-two times: it seemed at first to be his stepmother in the guise of a holy man blessing his portrait-painter. And then it was not she.

Panting, he was led up to massy gates and a courtyard already thronged and electric. Behind himself and Vesta crowds still moved purposefully up. A trap, a trap: he would not be able to get out. But now there was a holy roar, tremendous, hill-shaking, and an amplified voice began to speak very fast Italian. The voice had no owner: the open ecstatic mouths drank the air, their black eyes searching for the voice above the high stucco buff walls, the window-shutters thrown open for the heat, trees and sky. Joy suffused their stubbled faces at the loud indistinct words. The cry started – ‘
Viva, viva, viva!
’ – and was caught up. ‘So,’ said Enderby to Vesta, ‘it’s him, is it?’ She nodded. And now the French became excited, ear-cocking, lips parted in joy, as the voice seemed to announce fantastic departures by air: Toulon, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Avignon. ‘
Bravo!
’ The vales redoubled to the hills, and they to heaven. ‘
Bravo, bravo!
’ Enderby was terrified, bewildered. ‘What exactly is going on?’ he cried. Now the voice began to speak American, welcoming contingents of pilgrims from Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Delaware. And Enderby felt chill hands clasp his hot body all over as he saw the rhythmical signals of a cheer-leader, a young man in a new jersey with a large blue-woven P.

‘Rhode Island,’ said the voice. ‘Kentucky, Texas.’

‘Rah, rah, rah!’ came the cheers. ‘The Pope, the Pope, the Pope!’

‘Oh God, no,’ moaned Enderby. ‘For Christ’s sake let me get out of here.’ He tried to push, with feeble excuse-mes, but the crowd behind was dense, the eyes up to the hills, and he trod on a little French girl’s foot and made her cry. ‘Harry,’ said Vesta sharply, ‘you just stay where you are.’