Inside Mr Enderby

For, when a note was struck, we knew its name."

"Good," said Enderby. "This is the first time I've ever actually heard -"

"- That dark aborted any urge to tame

Waters that day might prove to be a ditch

But then were endless growling ocean, rich

In fish and heroes, till the dredgers came."

"Excellent," said Enderby. "And now the sestet." It excited him to hear his own verses. She went on confidently:

"Wachet auf! A fretful dunghill cock

Flinted the noisy beacons through the shires;

A martin's nest clogged the cathedral clock,

But it was morning (birds could not be liars).

A key cleft rusty age in lock and lock;

Men shivered by a hundred kitchen fires.

There," she said, taking breath. "But I've no real idea what it means."

"Oh," said Enderby, "the meaning doesn't matter all that much. I'm surprised at your liking that. It's not what I'd thought of as a woman's poem." Suddenly the poem seemed to find its place in the real world-overseas businessmen reading financial papers, the scent of Miss Dior or whatever it was, the noise of London waiting to pounce outside the hotel. Spoken by her, it seemed suddenly to have a use.

"And what exactly do you mean by a woman's poem?" asked Mrs Bainbridge.

"For you," said Enderby with disarming candour, "something softer and yet more elegant, something with less harshness and thought and history in it. That, you see, is about the Middle Ages and the coming of the Reformation. In the sestet you get Martin Luther and the begi

"I see," said Vesta Bainbridge. "I take it you're a Catholic, then."

"Oh, no, no," protested Enderby. "I'm not, really I'm not."

"All right," said Vesta Bainbridge, smiling. "I heard you the first time." Protestant Enderby gri

"I'd ask you to dine with me this evening, but I've just realized that I didn't bring very much money. I expected, you see, that I'd go straight back after lunch. I'm awfully sorry."

"Don't be," smiled Vesta Bainbridge. "I'm invited out. Somewhere in Hampstead. But it was nice of you to offer. Now," she said, looking at her tiny oyster watch, "goodness, the time, where do I write to?" She took out a small notebook and poised a pencil to record what Enderby dictated. Somehow, the address seemed vulgar and even comic, endited primly by that slim hand. 81 Fitzherbert Avenue. He tried to hide from her the sound of the lavatory's flush, the crusted milk-bottles on the doorstep, the mice scampering through the manuscripts. "Good," she said, closing the book. "Now I must go." She settled the ocelot over her shoulders, clipped her bag shut. Enderby stood. She stood. "It's been awfully nice," she said. "Oh, that's inadequate. But it's been quite a privilege, really it has. Now I really must fly." She gave him an unexpected handshake, straight from the elbow. "Don't bother to come to the door," she said. Then she was off, trimly and swiftly walking a tightrope across the carpet. For the first time Enderby caught a hint of colour of her hair, upswept at the nape, a sort of pe

Enderby nodded, the poet at ease with all classes of men, then realized with joy that he was once more alone and free. The wind that blew through him celebrated this fact.

3

Enderby was late returning home that evening. Though his perversely independent soul-the conscious Enderby shocked and gaping-had rejected the sweets of recognition, he felt that he and London had achieved more of a rapprochement than he could have thought possible, scratching paper and bared legs, the day before. A smart and worldly woman admired his work and had said so frankly. Lips that had been kissed by a prominent racing-driver and, Enderby presumed, by others whose teeth habitually gleamed at cameras, had recited from the Revolutionary So