"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.
2
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 Cinecitta 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. Mean while 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 longer 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. Trascati," 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: