… And in that last delirium of lust
Your image glows. Love is a blinding rain,
Love crow all the cocks, love lays the dust
Of this cracked crying throat whose thirst is pain…
He wrote out a cheque for Mrs Meldrum, composed the curtest of farewells: "Thank you for your unwanted solicitude. Take a week's notice. Yours etc." To Mrs Bainbridge he wrote a courteous acknowledgement of her communications and regretted that, on maturer consideration, he found himself unable to find it in himself to meet the meagre poetic needs, if even these existed, of the readers of Fem. His compliments to Miss or Mrs Frobisher, if Mrs Bainbridge would be good enough to pass them on, and congratulations on possessing so tough-stomached a gang of followers of her culinary columns. He, Enderby, had, if it was of any interest to anyone, suffered greatly from her Spaghetti Fromaggio Surprise. He proposed to destroy the contract and distribute the copies of Fem to the poor. He was hers sincerely. P.S. He was moving from the above address forthwith, whither he knew not yet. No point in her replying. Calmer now, Enderby shaved and prepared to go out. He would be safe so long as that shouter Jack was still at work.
5
Arry, in grubby cook's white, complete with white necktie and white mushroom hat, stood at the bar of the Freemason's Arms, taking time off from his kitchens. He greeted Enderby with no enthusiasm but, without asking or being asked, ordered a double whisky for him. "That suit," he said, "were a right bloody mess. Ad to send it tert cleaner's." He drank off a good three-quarters of a pint of brown ale mixed with bitter.
"I'm sorry," said Enderby. "It won't happen again. I shan't have to borrow from you again. I'm leaving."
"Leavin'? Goin'? Not coomin' back 'ere naw mawr?"
"That's right."
Arry looked solemn, but that stiff crust of his expression seemed to be hiding a tiny feeling of relief; a whiff of relief escaped as through a steam-hole in the crust. He said:
"Where to?"
"I don't know," said Enderby. "Somewhere else along the coast. It doesn't matter where, really."
"Thee get as far aweeeeeh," advised Arry, prolonging his vowels, as in some primitive language, "far aweeeeeh," to emphasize the distance, "far aweeeeeh," by onomatopoeic suggestion, "as tha can bloody get. That's naht 'ere, naht for nobody. Coom back 'ere," he said, "never naw mawr." He looked with gloom at the lesbians in the corner-Gladys in glasses and leopard-skin pants sly-cuddling crosseyed Prudence-and then with compassion at Enderby.
"This is to say good-bye, really," said Enderby, "and to hope that your suit prospers."
"It'll be aw right when it cooms back fromt cleaner's."
"I meant the other suit," said Enderby, "the Arry to Thelma suit. I've brought one more poem for you, the very last of the cycle. If this doesn't do the job, nothing will." He took the folded sheet from his pocket.
Any shook his head. "Naht doin'," he said, "naht doin' at all. It were a bloody wester mah tahm."
"My time, too," said Enderby.
"Wan 'and int till," said Any, "and toother betwinner legs. No good to man nor flamin' beast that Thelma. Oo's tecken no notice er naht av doon forrer."
"Well," sighed Enderby, "that's how it is. Nobody wants poetry nowadays. All wasted." He prepared to rip up his final fiery offering.
"Weren't wested," said Arry. "Ot stooff, wan or two were. Ah lakhed 'em. Boot oo," he said, "didn't 'ave bloody intelligence." He put out a clean cook's hand to rescue Enderby's poem. He took the folded sheet and unfolded it with wan interest. He pretended to read it, then put it into his trouser-pocket. Enderby bought him a pint of brown ale and bitter. Enderby said:
"Since I've lived here you're the only one I've been in any way friendly with. That's why I wanted to shake hands with you before I go."
"All sheck 'ands wi' thee," said Arry, and did so. "When will yer be clearin' off?"
"I've got to pack," said Enderby. "And then I've got to decide where I'm going to. Tomorrow, I should think. While Jack's out at work."
"Oo's Jack?"
"Oh, yes, sorry. The chap who lives upstairs. He thinks I've been carrying on with the woman he lives with."
"Ah," said Arry, shaking his head, then looking at Enderby with renewed compassion. "Get away as soon as yer can," said Arry. "Shoove yer things in a bag and then get to Victoria Station. On Victoria Station there's nameser places stoock oop on indiketters. Teck thy choice, lad. There's plenty on 'em. You choose wanner them and go straight to it. All places is the same nowadays," he said. "The big thing to do is to kip movin'. And," he asked, "what will yer do when yeu've getten wherever yer goin'? Wilt kip on wi' same game?"
"It's all I can do," said Enderby. "Writing verse is all I'm cut out for."
Arry nodded and finished his pint, the fourth since Enderby's entrance. "Dawn't write too mooch abaht spaghetti, then," he said, frothily. "Leave spaghetti to them as knaws summat abaht it." He shook hands with Enderby once more. "Moost get back now," he said, "tert bloody job. Special loonch for Daughters of Temperance." He spaced out the words like a poster. "Luke after yerself," said Arry. He waved a white cook's arm from the door and then went out. Spaghetti coiled, puzzled, in Enderby's brain. Then a horrid thought struck him. He finished his whisky palpitating but then calmed down. He might have sent it to Mrs Meldrum. But no, he distinctly remembered pinning a cheque to a quarter-sheet of writing-paper. But that made no difference, did it? That might still have got into the wrong envelope. He'd better get out of here very, very quickly.
As he panted towards his packing down the esplanade, the gulls wheeled and wailed and climbed the blue wall of the marine winter day. For two days now he had forgotten to feed them. They planed, complained. Greedy beady eyes. Ungrateful birds. They mewed no farewell to Enderby; they would be there, waiting for his doles of bread, further up or down the coastline.
Chapter Five
1
Of what the world would call essentials, Enderby had few to pack. It was the bathful of verse that was the trouble. Kneeling in front of it, as though-and here he laughed sardonically-he worshipped his own work, he began to bundle it into the larger of his two suitcases, separating-with reasonable care-manuscripts from sandwich-crusts, cigarette-packets, and the cylinders of long-used toilet-rolls. But he found so many old poems which he had quite forgotten that he could not resist reading them through, open-mouthed, as afternoon ticked on towards dusk. He had modified drastically his original plan of departure, his aim now being to catch some evening train (Jack permitting) to Victoria, spend the night in a hotel, and then, about midday, follow some new spoke to the south coast. He had, he felt, to live near the sea, this being a great wet slobbering stepmother or green dogmatic Church which he could keep his eye on; nothing, at least, insidious about it.
It was amazing what things he had written, especially in his youth: pastiches of Whitman, Charles Doughty, an attempted translation of the Duino Elegies, limericks, even the beginning of a verse-play about Copernicus. There was one sonnet in sprung rhythm and Alexandrines which dated from the days of his love and envy of the proletariat. He read the sestet with horror and wonder:
When the violet air blooms about him, then at last he can wipe