Seventeen. The date of composition was at the foot of the manuscript. To whom had he written that? He brooded, scratching. To nobody, he decided glumly. But had he not dreamed, at that romantic age, of some willow-wand creature who, though of infinite refinement and smelling sweet as May, would not be offended by this all too decipherable symbolism of importunacy? He had shaped this girl in his heart, as mystics shape God, in terms of what she should not be, namely his stepmother; then her positive image had arisen by dint of long brooding on her negative attributes. She had come in a dream then, slender and laughing and, above all, clean. Not a widow: he refused to allow this re-issue of the image to take on the colours and scents of Mrs Bainbridge.
He sighed, then began, very deliberately and coldly, as a pure poetic exercise, to write a very erotic poem from Arry to Thelma, full of breasts and thighs and panting longing.
When he had finished he set it aside to cool, then he went on with his building of the labyrinth, home of the Pet Beast.
2
This was the order of a usual Enderby day: he would rise at dawn or just after, winter and summer alike; he would breakfast, defecate, and then work, sometimes beginning his work while actually defecating; at ten-fifteen he would shave and prepare to go out, sometimes with a shopping-reticule; at ten-thirty he would leave the flat, walk seawards, buy a loaf, feed the gulls; immediately after that he would take his morning whisky with the aged and dying or, if Arry were not at work, with Arry in the Freemason's Arms; sometimes he would visit Arry in his kitchens, and Arry would give him scraps for his larder-a turkey-carcass, a few slices of fat pork, a bit of scrag-end for Sunday's meal; Enderby would then do such shopping as was needed-a loaf for himself, potatoes, ten cigarettes, pickles, a small meat-pie, a fourpenny custard; back home he would prepare his meal, or, if something cold was left over from the day before, eat at once, working while he ate; he would then loll somnolent in a chair or even, rolling dressed into bed, deliberately sleep. Then back to the lavatory for the last long stint of the day; after that the remains of his earlier meal, or bread with some cheap relish; stepmother's tea as a nightcap; bed. A way of life which harmed no one. Sometimes the caprices of the Muse would disrupt this pattern by hurling poems-fragmentary or fully-formed-at Enderby; then, in mid-whisky, in bed, cooking, toiling at the structures of non-lyrical works, he would have to write down at once to her hysterical or coldly vatic or telegraphic dictation. He respected his Muse but was frightened of her whims: she could be playful kitten or tiger fully-clawed, finger-sucking idiot child or haughty goddess in Regency ball-gown; her moods, like her visits, were unpredictable. More predictable were his other visitants-dyspepsia in its various forms, wind, hiccoughs. Between dispensations of celestial and visceral afflation he lived his quiet days, a solitary man, harmless. Letters and visitors rarely disturbed his door, news from the dangerous world never intruded. His dividends and tiny royalties were paid straight into the bank; the bank he visited once a month only, humbly waiting with his cash cheque made out neatly for twenty-odd pounds behind bull-necked publicans and ascetic-faced butchers who paid in, inexplicably, dull mounds of copper that took long to count. He envied nobody except the great proved dead.
His routine, already disturbed by the disastrous London trip, was further disturbed by a consequence of that trip, namely the arrival of a big parcel. The address-panel had Fem printed on it and the picture of a well-groomed though moronic-faced young woman, evidently a typical Fem-reader. Enderby, who had been deep in his poem, received the parcel trouserless and open-mouthed, then ran into the living-room with a thudding heart to open it up. There was a contract for him to sign and a brief letter from Mrs Bainbridge telling him that here was a contract to sign and here were copies of past issues of Fem. She wrote in thick long-strokes, was formal and business-like, but had allowed her scent to inspissate, most delicately, the writing-paper. Enderby had little nose, but he caught her very feminine image very clearly. So.
Enderby knew little of magazines. As a boy he had read Film Fun and Funny Wonder. As a young man he had known poetry periodicals and waspish left-wing week-end reviews. In the Army he had seen such things as the troops read. In professional waiting-rooms he had sat stony-faced over Punch. He was aware of a postwar rash of cheap journals and wondered at their range of specialization and at the number of cults they seemed to serve. There were two or three, he knew, wholly devoted to some dead filmstar who had become a sort of corn-god; he had seen others which, severally, glorified young living louts with guitars-presumably what Mrs Bainbridge had called pop-singers. There was evidently a strong religious hunger among young girls which these poor simulacra and their press-priests alone seemed available to feed. There was also, among these same young girls, money crying to be spent, for it seemed that in this age of specialists only the unskilled and witless were at a premium. But the dreaming wives had money also. Fem fought screaming for their sixpences, trying to elbow out Womanly, kick Lovely in the teeth, rip the corsets off Wifey and tear out the hair of Blondie by its black roots.
He sat down eagerly to read Fem. Time passed, lost for ever, never to be redeemed, as he snorted adenoidally over its contents. The cover had a girl's face, generically and boringly lovely. The cover of each issue, he noted, flicking through the pile on his knees, had a young woman's face, probably always the same one, though he could not be certain. The covers of magazines for men, he fancied, preferred to exploit woman from the neck down. A fair division. Enderby read readers' letters: somebody's little girl asked if God lived in an aeroplane; how to turn an old jam-jar into an elegant vase by using four different shades of nail-varnish (total cost 8s. 6d.); that sweet grateful smile was all the reward she could ask for her act of charity; the budgerigar of Mrs F. (Rotherham) could say "Dolly loves Mummy"; how stupid men could be, couldn't they, wanting to keep potatoes in a kitchen-drawer! (Enderby read this gravely puzzled: why was that stupid?) There was a serial story called "For Ever and a Day", illustrated opulently with a ravishing but doubtful bride. A five-page article demonstrated that it did not cost very much more to make your own disc-cabinet (or to get husband or boyfriend to make it) than to buy it in a shop. There were short stories called "Heart Afire". "Why Did You Leave Me?", "I Thee Wed", "Hello, Romance", mostly garnished with pictures of couples glued together, upright. A vital-warming religious column by a popular young pop-singing parson was followed by a feature on "Our Queen's Dogs".
There was a chilling clinical chat on tumours, there were articles on stiletto heels, marmalade-making, being a radiant bride. Enderby sat absorbed for a long time in a Special Cookery Supplement, seeing at last a means of improving his diet (he would try Orange Goody tomorrow). He was shocked and touched by letters sent to Millicent Goodheart, a blue-haired lady with sharp red talons and a gentle smile: "He said it was artificial respiration, but now I find I am to have his child"; "I have only been married three months but I have fallen in love with my husband's father". Enderby nodded approvingly at the good sense of the replies. She should not have done it; I'm terribly sorry for you, my dear, but you must remember marriage is for keeps.