Inside Mr Enderby

"I was just going anyway," said dignified swaying Enderby. "If you will allow me the privilege of finishing my drink here."

"You've had enough, you have, mate," said the man, more kindly. From the saloon bar came the call of "Last orders." "If you want to drown your secret sorrows don't do it where me and my wife is, see, because I take the sort of thing that you've been saying very hard, see." Enderby put down his glass, gave the dart-man a glassy but straight look, then eructed strongly and without malice. He bowed and, pushing his way courteously through the long-swallowers anxious to get one last one in, made an exit that was not without dignity. Outside in the street the heady air of a Gui

Enderby gasped. The procession of the evening's whiskies and beers passed painfully through a new taste-organ that had been erected specially for this occasion. They grimaced in pain, making painful obeisance as they passed. Gas and fire shot up as from a geyser, smiting rudely the crystalline air. Premonitions of the desire to vomit huddled and fluttered. Enderby went to the wall.

"Now then," said the man, "where is it you want to go, eh? Ke

"Victoria," said Enderby's stomach-gas, shaped into a word by tongue and lips. He had, at the moment, no air.

"Easy," said the kind man. "First to the right second to the left keep straight on brings you to Ke

Enderby still gasped. This sort of thing had not happened since his student-days when he had once been beaten up by a pub pianist and his friend for being bloody sarky about the sort of pseudo-music the pub pianist had been playing. Enderby filled his coughing lungs in draught after draught, then wondered whether he really wanted to vomit. He thought, for the moment, not. The punch in the stomach still glowed and smouldered, and the name london fluttered in fearful flames, a warning, as in the trailer of some film about call-girls or the end of the world. He saw himself safe in his own lavatory, at work on his poems. Never again. Never never again. Women's Institutes. Gold medals. London pubs. Traps set for poor Enderby, gins waiting for him to trip.

He reached Ke

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, pe

"You," said Enderby, "should not be here. You should be at di

"I was at di

"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.