And I have walked no way I looked
And multitudinously puked
Into the gutter, legs outstretched,
Holding my head low as I…
That threw his present queasiness back into the past and also depersonalized it. The solace of art. And now the distant Minotaur roar of the tube-train alerted the others waiting on that platform. One man folded his evening paper and stuck it into the side-pocket of his greatcoat. Poet Speaks Out for Fair Play, read Enderby. Field-day for poets, this. The tube-train slammed itself into the clearing, bringing a fine gale of Arctic air which did Enderby good. He stood and felt giddy but steeled himself to travel to Victoria, seeing that, in his muzzy state, as a very large and desirable lavatory of blasts and sulphuretted hydrogen. He straddled before a not-yet-opened double-door of the train, trying to hold the unquiet platform steady, while the passengers waiting to alight stood as though for a curtain call. Then a panic of doubt clouted Enderby as the doors slid open and the alighters flooded off. "Is this," he called, "all right for Victoria?" Many of the emergent did not speak English and made apologetic gestures, but a cool woman's voice said:
"This, Mr Enderby, is most certainly not all right for Victoria." Enderby blinked at this apparition, Mrs What's-her-name of Fem, racing ace's widow, in semi-formal pale apple-green taffetas, sheathed at the front, and three-quarter-length Persian lamb jacket, marcasite clip as single fine dress-embellisher, tiny hoop ear-rings of marcasite, marcasite-coloured glacé kid high-heels, penny-coloured hair cleanly glowing. Enderby's mouth opened sheepishly. "If you got this train," she said, "you would be travelling to Waterloo and Kennington, Tooting Bee, ultimately Morden. From the look of you, you would probably be awakened at Morden. You wouldn't like Morden very much."
"You," said Enderby, "should not be here. You should be at dinner somewhere."
"I was at dinner," she said. "I've just come back from Hampstead." The train-doors slid together and the train moved off into its tunnel, its wind stirring her hair and making her raise her voice, so that the Scots intonation became clearer than before. "And," she said, her sober green eyes appraising swaying Enderby, "I'm on my way home to Gloucester Road. Which means we can take the same train and I can make quite sure that you alight at Victoria. From Victoria on you must be commended to the protection of whatever gods look after drunken poets." She had in her something of the thin-lipped Calvinist; in her tone was no element of amused indulgence. "Come," she said, and she took Enderby's arm.
"If you don't mind," said Enderby. "If you'll excuse me just a moment -" Green looked at green. Enderby managed to trap the brief flow in his show handkerchief. "Oh, God," he said. "Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph."
"Come on," she said. "Walk. Take deep breaths." She led him firmly towards the Circle Line. "You are in a bad way, aren't you?" All her perfume could not sweeten Enderby's shame.
5
Enderby was back in 81 Fitzherbert Avenue, thoroughly sobered at last by two slips on to his bottom on the frozen way from the station. On that same sore bottom he sat on the stairs, crying. This flight ran up, starting at the side of Enderby's flat's front door, to a landing with mirror and potted palm. Then came a dark and sinister stairway, uncarpeted, to the flat above, the home of the salesman and his woman. Enderby sat crying because he had forgotten his key. He had neglected, perhaps because flustered by Mrs Meldrum's visit that morning, to transfer the key from his sports-coat pocket to the corresponding pocket of the jacket of Arry's suit. It was now after one in the morning, too late to call on Mrs Meldrum to open up for him with her master. He had no money for a hotel room; it was too cold to sleep in a shelter on the esplanade; he did not fancy begging a cell at the police station (there were criminal-looking coppers there, with wide-boy tashes). It was best to sit here on the third step up, overcoated and muffled, crying and smoking alternately.
Not that he had much left to smoke. Mrs Whatever-her-name-was of Fem had taken his remaining packet of ship's Woodbines (she was out of them and smoked nothing else) as a reward for her stoic Scots toleration of his wanting to be sick on the deck of the train all the way to Victoria. Enderby had five Senior Service to last him till the late winter dawn. He cried. He was weary, far beyond sleepiness. It had been a long and eventful day, excruciatingly attritive. Even on his homeward coastward train journey the entire coach had seemed to be full of wet-mouthed Irishmen singing. And now the cold stair, the long vigil. He howled like a moon-bemused hound-dog.
The door of the flat above opened creakily. "Is that you, Jack?" whispered the woman's voice, huskily. "Have you come back, Jack?" Her vowels were not unlike Arry's: uvyer coom buck juck. "I'm sorry, Jack," she said. "I didn't mean what I said, love. Come on to bed, Jack."
"It's me," said Enderby. "Not him. Me. Without a key," he added.
"Who are you?" asked the woman. The bulb of the landing light had long burnt out, months ago, unreplaced by Mrs Meldrum. Neither could see the other.
"Him from downstairs," said Enderby, falling easily into demotic. "Not him as you live with."
"He's gone off," came the voice down the stair-well. "He's always said he would and now he's done it. We had a bit of a barney."
"That's right," said Enderby.
"What do you mean that's right? We had a bit of a barney and now he's gone off. I bet he's gone to that bitch down by the Ornamental Gardens."
"Never mind," said Enderby. "He'll come back. They always do."
"He won't. Not tonight he won't. And I'm frightened up here on my own."
"What are you frightened of?"
"Of being on my own. Like I said. In the dark, too. It went out while we was having this barney and I couldn't see to hit him. Have you got a bob you can let me have till first thing tomorrow morning?"
"Not a sausage," said Enderby proudly. "I blued it all on booze in town. I think I'd better come up there," he added, bold. "I could sleep on the couch or something. I forgot my key, you see. It's a damn nuisance."
"If you come up here you'd better not let Jack get hold of you."
"Jack's gone off with this bitch down by the Ornamental Gardens," said Enderby.
"Ah. So you seen him, did you? I thought as much. You can see the black at her roots, bitch as she is."
"I'm coming up now," said Enderby. "Then you won't be frightened of being on your own. You've got a couch up there, have you?" said Enderby, rising in pain and crawling up the stairs.
"If you think you're going to get in bed with me you've got another think coming. I've finished with all men."
"I've no intention of getting into bed with you," said indignant Enderby. "I just want to lie down on the couch. I don't really feel all that good."
"You needn't be so bloody well on your bloody high horse. I've been in bed with better men than what you'll ever hope to be. Careful," she said, as Enderby kicked the metal pot of the palm on the landing. He clambered blind up the second flight, hugging the banister. At the top he collided with a warm bosomy shape. "You can cut that out for a start," she said. "A bit too forward you are for a start." She sniffed briskly. "That scent's very expensive," she said. "Who you been with, eh? Still waters run deep, if you're really who you say you are, meaning him that lives down there."
"Where is it?" groped Enderby. "I just want somewhere to lie down." His hands felt the softness and width of a sofa, the continuum broken by bottle-shapes (they clanked) and a half-full chocolate box (rustled). "Lay down," he corrected himself, to be more matey.