The Complete Enderby (96 page)

‘Believe you me, you will make yourselves bloody laughing-stocks. The title comes from –’

‘Not even William Shakespeare is immune from censure. We have here a quorum, I think –’

‘Some of them drunk.’

‘That is uncalled for –’

He had assuaged his misery and boredom by raging around the small office, uncleaned, unvisited, that had long before been allotted to him, switching on the typewriter and mostly ignoring its invitatory hum, thus vindictively wasting the Peter Brook
Theater’s
electricity, but also occasionally adding a pecked line to a formless poem he was allowing to accumulate, its theme Caesar (he, Enderby, unlaureled) and Cleopatra (she who these days uttered mostly a distracted
Hi
at him. Her dresser had arrived from New York, an Iras or Charmian of gross mammyish aspect who slept in the room next to Enderby’s and laughed in her sleep).

Nor will this quadrate marble crush

Juice from the olive stone,

No slave philosopher enmesh

In marriage stone and moon.

By narrow moongate let me in,

Eased by the olive’s gush.

He had had his chance, he could not deny it, but he had not wanted the chance, had he? Shakespeare would have understood, she not, never, either Dark Lady. Musing thus, he received a cold note ordering him to perform what seemed to be a final scriptorial office, namely to compose a kind of national anthem for Elizabethan England. He rattled off:

Delivering it in an envelope (let them bloody well process that into something singable, the bastards) to the secretarial concourse, he had seen for the first time the presswet posters.
ACTOR ON HIS ASS
. Clever in a way. It could not be, though it was now being, considered obscene, since it was a citation from
Hamlet
, but its implication was totally vulgar. On a notice board he had read that the final dress rehearsal would be in the nature of a free performance for the schoolkids of Indianapolis and environs, three in the
afternoon
of 6 January, Twelfth Night if anyone was interested, and that in the evening there would be an obligatory party at the mansion of Mrs Schoenbaum. That party was in progress now. Enderby was having it out about the title with one of the board of governors of the theater trust, a hardware magnate named, it seemed, Humrig, retired and now, apparently, a full-time churchwarden. He drank teetotal punch, which few others there did. Enderby said:

‘Anyway, it’s not my responsibility – either the title or your own wretched squeamishness.
Ass
is
asinus
, a donkey.’

‘You wrote the ah play.’

‘I wrote something. Whether that something is still there I can’t say. I did not go to the dress rehearsal, though I heard lots of ill-behaved schoolchildren. They seemed to enjoy it. On their level.’

Enderby turned his back on Mr Humrig and went to the improvised bar, which the mad son Philip and the grey black retainer were running together. ‘Gin,’ Enderby ordered. The mad son Philip whispered:

‘I got this stuff spiked.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Smell it.’ A jug of murky orange liquid was raised to Enderby’s nose and he got a whiff of surgical spirit.

‘That,’ Enderby said, ‘could be dangerous.’

‘Shit to them. That guy there plays piano like shit.’

He meant the haired
répétiteur
Coppola, who was crashing out what sounded like an atonal cancan, to which Toplady’s ginger mistress and another girl pranced with raised skirts. ‘Gin,’ Enderby insisted. He observed April Elgar in a blazing scarlet directoire, from the look of it, nightdress talking earnestly to the black lad of the company, Sir Walter Raleigh for all Enderby knew, who counted points off on his fingers. Toplady sat glumly with talking elders on or in the deep couch. Enderby heard something about renewal of contract, probably nonrenewal. Toplady was perhaps for the chop for some reason, probably unconnected primarily with the ass business. Mrs Allegramente came up to Enderby and said:

‘Leave the Irish alone.’

‘Only too glad,’ Enderby said, ‘to leave the murderous bastards
alone
. It’s not my concern anyway. If you’re so concerned get over to Belfast and have your kneecaps converted to Quaker Oats.’

Mrs Schoenbaum did not seem happy about her party. She stood at an end of the room with the lawyer Elvin or Alvin or something, clad in black silk pyjamas with a gold caftan over, her hair, as previously, glued to a snapshot wuthering. She seemed ready for a cardiac arrest when two genuine Elizabethans entered, late and tanked up elsewhere – William Shakespeare and the Earl of Essex, both bearded, wigged, ruffed, jerkined, slashtrunked, hosed. Enderby too had a profound tremor until William Shakespeare spoke in the accent of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He cried:

‘Greetings to ye all, let the nutbrown ale floweth, or, marry and egad, the iciclebythewalled martini.’ He noticed Enderby and added: ‘And all that sort of heynonnino shit.’ Enderby growled:

‘Learn your Elizabethan grammar before you start mocking it. The accusative of
ye
is
you
. And a profound heynonnino to you, fleerer and bad actor.’

‘Do not,’ said Humrig the churchwarden, ‘use language of that sort in the presence of Mrs Schoenbaum.’

‘Shit,’ said the mad son Philip. ‘Shit shit shit.’

‘Philip,’ his mother said, ‘
please
.’

‘I wanna play the piano,’ Philip said, ‘and that guy there hogs it.’

‘Welcome,’ haired Coppola said, banging three Scriabinesque cacophonies and getting up with a low bow and an arm stretched in proffer. Philip drooled his way over and began to play something manic and unrecognizable. He cried:

‘Dance! Dance!’ Some obeyed. Enderby asked the grey black for more gin. Oldfellow Shakespeare was on to him now, saying:

‘And what the fuck do you know about acting?’

‘Enough to know that you’re as much like Shakespeare as my arse or ass. And,’ he added, ‘your breath smells horrible.’ It did too. Perhaps that was the origin of sodomy: avoiding partner’s halitosis. Enderby got away and over to a corner where Mrs Schoenbaum’s daughter was leasing her bedroom for half an hour for five dollars. Toplady and the conferrers got up with difficulty from the deep boat of a couch. Toplady cried:

‘Stop that row for a minute.’

‘Okay.’ Oldfellow had followed Enderby. ‘You try it, buster, that’s all, you just try it.’

‘I speak English anyway,’ Enderby said, ‘and I know the lines.’

The hands of Philip had been forcibly removed from the piano keys. Toplady cried: ‘A few words, friends. You’ve worked hard. We’ve all worked hard. Some not so hard as others, but let that pass. Tomorrow we open. Or rather tomorrow
you
open. My contract as Artistic Director of the Peter Brook Theater was due to end in March. By mutual agreement it ends as of now. Certain elements do not like the way I have been doing things. There’s a feeling that I should have concentrated on ordure like
Abie’s Irish Rose
or
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
. I have not made the Peter Brook Theater a centre of entertainment. It is wrong apparently to take the drama seriously. Until my successor has been chosen things will be in the incapable hands of my sleeping assistant director Jed Tilbury. Bless some of you and fuck others. I go.’ He went. Some watched him go, others turned to look at this Jed Tilbury, who was the black lad enumerating points, though now no longer, to April Elgar. He cried:

‘Hey, man –’

‘De party over, I guess,’ said the grey black retainer. ‘An a gud ting too,’ in the manner of Mr Woodhouse.

‘More gin,’ Enderby said. ‘And then call me a taxi.’

‘You call you own taxi, man. I don’t call no taxis for no one no how.’

Toplady’s mistress was meanwhile looking for her left shoe and calling: ‘Gus, Gus, wait for me, Gus.’ The shoe found, she stopped on her way out to fix hatefilled eyes on Enderby. ‘It’s you,’ she said. ‘You brought bad luck, you bastard.’

‘Not me, kid or baby or whatever it is,’ Enderby said heavily. ‘Somebody bigger than me. Leave well alone is what I say. And don’t call me bastard.’

‘Bastard,’ she said and was off, crying ‘Gus.’ Enderby said to the grey black:

‘You’re a servant. Call me a taxi. But first more gin.’

‘You not call me servant, man. I ain’t no servant.’

Mrs Allegramente was now there, saying: ‘Is he giving trouble, Edwin? Is he being racist?’

‘You keep out of this,’ Enderby said. And then: ‘Ah, please yourself. Protestant Ulster for ever. God bless King Henry the Eighth.’ Before going to the hallway to call himself a taxi, he went over to April Elgar and the black now revealed as Jed Tilbury. To him he said: ‘Congratulations are probably in order.’ To her: ‘I’m going back to the hotel. Will you come?’

‘Why?’ she said with a new pertness.

‘Because the party seems to be over and it was a terrible party anyhow and we stay at the same hotel and I’m calling a –’

‘Jed’ll take me home,’ she said.

From the tail of his right eye Enderby saw Dick Corcoran as Earl of Essex swill thirstily from an orange juice jug. Very sensible, do him good, all those vitamins. ‘Right,’ Enderby said. And then: ‘A queer sort of time we’ve had when you come to think about it. Meddling with Shakespeare. All right on the night, though. As they say.’ He saw now, coming in too late, Bodiman, Pip Wesel and Silversmith, all drunk and leering. The grey black retainer or hired man or whatever he was supposed to be called let out a great wail of distress. ‘If,’ Enderby said, ‘those three start insulting you, let me know.’

‘Certainly,’ she said. ‘I’ll call your room and you can come back and hit them or something.’ She spoke, for some reason, rather like the actress Bette Davis. Enderby knew now that it was far too late to start trying to learn about women. He sighed and said:

‘That girl who left just then, the one who plays Queen Elizabeth I gather, says it’s all my fault, whatever she means by
all
. Ah well, I suppose I must go and say good night to our hostess.’

‘Don’t be like that,’ Jed Tilbury said. ‘Nothing to be depressed about, man. Ain’t the end of the world.’ He showed many teeth, all his own, and added: ‘Just what it’s not.’ It was only when a taxi arrived that Enderby realized what he might mean. Ah just died, baby. Well, let them get on with it. The taxi driver was prepared for a long literary conversation with Enderby. He was a young Canadian, down here visiting for the Christmas vacation, then back to Yorke University outside Toronto to resume work on his thesis, to be entitled ‘Future in the Past’. About science fiction.

‘Been reading some of it,’ Enderby said tiredly.

‘Only viable literary form we have,’ said the Canadian. ‘What did you say your name was?’

‘Why are you driving a taxi?’ Enderby said instead of replying.

‘It’s my brother-in-law’s cab. He went bowling. Did I imagine it or were there two guys at that place dressed up like Shakespeare?’

‘You didn’t imagine it.’

‘And what did you say your name was?’

‘Enderby,’ Enderby said. ‘The poet,’ with small hope of being known as such, not that it mattered.

‘Right. I thought that was the name. And then when I saw these two guys it kind of rang a bell. Read that thing of yours if you’re the guy that wrote it. It was in the
Koksoak
, hell of a name. About Shakespeare. What you ought to write is sort of SF Shakespeare, know what I mean? About some Martian landing in Elizabethan England and meeting Shakespeare and putting The Power on him. See what I mean?’

‘It’s the name of a Canadian lake, I think.
Not
pronounced Cock Soak. Yes yes, I see what you mean. Here we are, I think.’

‘Yeah.’ Meaning the Holiday Inn in Terrebasse. ‘It’s an idea anyhow. Although there’s this theory that it’s us are the Martians. We landed on this planet in prehistoric times and killed off the earthmen. We knew that Mars was dying, see, and saw the fertility of the earth through powerful instruments. Then the earth’s lack of oxygen stunted our brains and we had to start all over again. Four dollars fifty.’

Enderby had a nightmare and woke from it, impertinently engorged, at something after four. He dreamed that he was forced to act the role of Shakespeare in
Actor on His Ass
because both leading man and understudy had walked out and there was nobody else who knew the lines. No question of cancelling the performance, too much investment involved, backers insisted that show go on. Enderby as Shakespeare went on stage and opened mouth but no words came out. The audience jeered and somebody threw a missile like a miniature moon. It hit his head and cracked open and covered him with olive oil. The audience roared. Enderby awoke sweating. Thank God it was only a dream, nightmare rather.