Anthony Burgess - The Clockwork Testament (Or - Enderby 's End)

"That's what they all say. That's what he said, till I stopped him."

"How did you stop him?" Enderby asked, fascinated.

"Another irrelevance. Don't you bastards ever think of your responsibility?"

"To our art," Enderby said. "Oh my God," he added in quite impersonal distress, "do you mean there's to be no more art? Aye, by St. Anne," he added, seeing that mad was a very difficult term to define, "and ginger shall be hot in the-"

"There you go again. Decent people suffer and you sit on your fat ass talking about art."

"That's just low abuse," he frowned. "Besides, I don't think you could call this really sitting." She had, he could see, beneath the peel of the mad hate, a sweet face, a Catholic face, ruined, God help the girl, ruined. "No, no," he said in haste. "Relevance is what is called for. I see that." And then: "Look. If you shoot me, it won't make any difference, will it? It won't destroy the words I wrote." And then: "What intrigues me, if that doesn't sound too irrelevant a term, is how you got to know them in the first place. My poems, I mean. I mean, not many people do. And here you are, young as I see, also beautiful if I may say that without sounding frivolous or irrelevant, knowing them. If you do know them, that is, of course, I mean," he ended cunningly.

"Oh, I know them all right," she cried scornfully. "I see lines set up at eye level in the subway. There's one in fifteen-foot-high Gothic letters just by the Port Authority. They get sort of stitched into that Times Square news-ticker thing."

"Interesting," Enderby said.

"There you go," she gun-pointed. "Interesting. So tied up in yourself and your so-called work you're just interested. Interested in how it happened, and all that crap about youth and beauty and the other irrelevancies."

"They're not irrelevant," Enderby said sharply. "I won't have that. Beauty and youth are the only things worth having. Dust hath closed Helen's eye. And they go. And here you are, saying they don't matter. Silly bitch," he attempted, not sure whether that would pull the trigger.

"That bastard introduced me to them, if you must know," she said, not listening. "It started off when we were on our honeymoon and it was in the morning and he giggled and said the marriage contract was designed in spite of what the notaries think to be by only one pen signed and that is mine and full of ink. But he didn't, oh no, just giggled."

"A mere jeu d'esprit," Enderby mumbled regretfully, remembering his own honeymoon when he didn't either, just giggled.

"That's how that bastard started me off. Anything to make me suffer, bastard as he was."

"That doesn't sound like a North American idiom," Enderby said in wonder. "That's more the way they speak where I come from."

"Yes. Possession, isn't it? Takeover. Bastard."

"Well, blame him, not me. I mean, damn it, it could have been William Shakespeare, couldn't it? Or Robert Bridges, bloody fool, not worthy of him. And thy loved legacy, Gerard, hath lain Coy in my breast. Bloody evil idiot. Or Geoffrey Grigson."

"Shakespeare's dead," she said reasonably. "So may the other two be, whoever they are. But you're alive. You're here. I've waited a long time for this."

"How did you know I was here?"

"Irrelevant irrelevant. It was announced, if you must know, after a talk show this evening that you were going to be on tomorrow night."

"Recorded it too early. Take too much for granted. I'm not. It's all been changed now."

"And I called them and they said you wouldn't be on and they'd never have you on. But they gave me your address."

"The swine. They're not supposed to. Address a private thing. Sheer bloody vindictiveness." He fumed briefly. She smiled thinly in scorn and said:

"Self self self. Self and art. You bastard."

"Oh," Enderby said, "get the bloody shooting over with. We've all got to die sometime. You too. They'll send you to the chair, or whatever barbarity they have now. I don't believe in capital punishment. I cancelled this long poem about Pelagius. I won't write the Odontiad. I've nothing on hand. Come on, get it over."

"Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. What you're going to do is to grovel. And after that I may or I may not-"

"May not what?"

"You're not going to have a nice easy martyrdom. I know men. You'll be glad to grovel."

"Grovel grovel grovel," Enderby growled like a tom turkey. "Artists are expected to grovel, aren't they? While the charlatans and the plagiarists and the corrupters and the defilers and the politicians have their arseholes licked. What do you want me to do-eat the bloody things? I've just had supper, remember. And," cunningly, "you won't want to turn me into Jesus Christ, will you?"

"Blasphemous bastard."

"And, moreover, if I may say so, I don't see how you're going to make me grovel. Your only alternative is to use that bloody thing there. Well, I don't mind dying."

"Of course you don't. Enderby flopped over his slim volumes, blood coming out of his mouth. Not that that would ever get into books. I'd make sure of that. There are no martyrs these days. Except blacks."

"All right, then. I'm going to get up now, this bloody thing's uncomfortable anyway, and walk into that kitchen there, and get the block guard on the blower, tell him to bring the cops along." Cops was the only possible word, a thriller word. Okay buster you call the cops.

She kept shaking her head all the time. "Glad to grovel, glad to. I've seen it before. With him. I have six rounds in here. I'm a good shot, my father taught me, my father, worth ten of you, you bastard. I can nip at bits of you. Nip nip nip. Make you deaf. Make you noseless. Give you a fucking anatomical excuse for being sexless."

"Where did you get that idea from? Who taught you that? Who's been talking-"

"Irrelevant."

"Look," Enderby said, wondering whether, to be on the safe side, to make a good act of contrition or not. "I'm getting up." He got up. "That's better. And I'm going to go, as I said I would, to-"

"You won't make it, friend. Your anklebone will be shattered."

He realised bitterly that he did not want his anklebone shattered. Good clean death, yes. Altogether different, by George. "Well, then," he said. And then: "They'll come up, in. Pistol shots. Break the door down."

"Do you honestly believe that, you innocent bastard of an idiot? This is not safe little England. Do you honestly think that anyone would care?" She shook her head at his lack of cisatlantic sophistication. "Listen, idiot. Listen, bastard."

Enderby listened. Of course, yes. You got used to it in time. In time it was just a decoration of the silence. Silence in a baroque frame. I say, that's good, I could use that. He heard the whining of police cars and the scream of ambulances. And then, from the west, bang bang. Yes, of course.

"But," she said, "we'll make sure, won't we? Go over there and turn on the TV. Turn it on loud. Keep going round the dial till I tell you to stop." Enderby moved with nonchalance, but only to sit down on a pouffe. Much much better. He said, with nonchalance:

"You do it. Play Russian roulette with it. That's Nabokov," he said in haste, "not me. Pale Fire," he clarified.

"Bastard," she said. But she got up and walked towards him, pointing her little gun. It was a nice little weapon from the look of it. She had delightful legs, Enderby saw regretfully, and seemed to be wearing stockings, not those panty-hose abominations. Suspenders, what they called garters here, and then knickers. He was surprised to find himself, under the thick hot Edwardian trousers, responding solidly to the very terms. Camiknicks. Beyond his pouffe , she moved sidelong to the television set. She then switched on and turned the dial click click click with her left hand, looking towards Enderby and pointing her weapon. Enderby sat on his pouffe calmly, hands about his knees. She had been drawn now into a harmless area of entertainment. It was sound she was choosing, she would be in charge of the visual part. A new kind of art really, pop and audience participation and so on, gestures of creative impotence. There was a swift diachronic kaleidoscope of images and a quite interesting synthetic statement: Thats it I guess its quality for you and for your so send fifteen dollars only its Butch you love isnt it I guess so emphatic denial issued by. Then she came to a palpable war film and, eyes uninterested still, turned up the noise of bombardment. Enderby said: