"I've no intention of marrying him, do you hear me, Philip? I've no intention of dishonouring your dear father's memory." Enderby nodded at this apparent Hamlet situation. He did not however understand why this Philip, his gaunt stoned face encandled and dramatically shadowed, should look menacingly at him, Enderby. "He takes you for someone else, Mr Elderly," the mother explained. Tell him that you are not who he thinks you are."

"I am not," Enderby said loudly, "who he thinks I am." And then, in Duchess of Malfi tones, "I am Enderby, not Elderly. I am Enderby the poet."

This quietened the son down somewhat. He grabbed himself a hunk of the carved goo from the table centre and left noisily ingesting it. "Good boy, good boy," the academic said in relief.

"I think I'd better go now," Enderby said, getting up.

"Oh no, oh no," Mrs Schoenbaum cried in new distress. "Mrs Allegramente has to convince you."

"I'm already convinced," Enderby said. "There is a Happy House far far away."

"Not far away," Mrs Schoenbaum cried. "Let's start, Mrs Allegramente."

"Nothing will come through. Too much British scepticism around."

"Let's have him telling us to get out of Northern Ireland," Enderby suggested nastily.

"You see?" Mrs Allegramente said to Mrs Schoenbaum.

"Be good," pleaded Mrs Schoenbaum. "Promise to be good, Mr Elderly." And she got up. Enderby muttered something about Mrs Allegramente's better being good, but this was not heard in the chairleg skirring. He followed his hostess and the others out. Their hostess led them to a small chamber off the hallway. The son was to be heard back at his piano, playing a single monodic line, one hand evidently busy with his goo. The black servant in the white coat nodded balefully at everybody, not specifically Enderby. He too seemed stoned. The small chamber was brilliantly lighted. There was a round table in the middle, four chairs of a dining order, a kind of throne for, presumed Enderby, Mrs Allegramente. "No chicanery," the academic said to Enderby. "All above board. I have participated in previous sessions."

"Is that so?" Enderby said. "What is your ah specialization?"

"Pardon me?"

"You do what?"

"I run a course in theosophy. Saul Bellow is visiting us at the moment. He is deeply interested."

"My kind of town."

"Pardon me?"

"Be seated, all," Mrs Schoenbaum invited. "You will have the small lamp, Mrs Allegramente?" There was such a lamp on the table, a bulb of low wattage with a parchment shade. Enderby asked the theosophist in a low tone:

"Is that human skin?"

"Pardon me?" But Mrs Allegramente was already on her throne, breathing from the diaphragm. Look at the bloody man filling himself up with air. That had been said of AE, George Russell, prototheosophist, in sceptical Dublin. High on a throne like this, ready to speak of the maharishivantatattarara or some such bloody thing. Mrs Schoenbaum, very eager, turned out the bright main light. Shadows, shadows and shadows. She put Enderby as far away as possible from Mrs Allegramente or whatever her bloody name was. She said:

"We all join hands."

So Enderby had the dry bones of the academic on his left and the soft supermarket turkey breast of the paw of his hostess to the right.

"We may have to wait quite a while," Mrs Schoenbaum whispered to Enderby after quite a while of waiting. Enderby nodded that he understood, quite a while, feeling, with a sensation of faint horripilation, that it was colder than it ought to be. Mrs Allegramente encouragingly groaned. Enderby realized he had neglected to micturate for several hours. His bladder, encouraged by the cold and not giving a damn whether or not it was astral, happily, like a dog, pawed its owner for walkies. Mrs Allegramente went: "Oooooooh." There was a sound in the room like the tearing of paper. Enderby did not like this. His bladder importuned. Mrs Allegramente said:

"Is there anybody there?"

There was a more irritable papertearing noise and then, after a minute or so, a hell of a knock on the wall behind Mrs Allegramente.

"One knock yes, two knocks no?"

There was another hell of a knock, though as it were structured like a monosyllable.

"Is that William Shakespeare?"

"I'm getting out of here," Enderby said, hearing the wall banged in a sort of proud affirmation.

"Shhhh," went panting Mrs Schoenbaum. Mrs Allegramente asked:

"Have you a message for anyone?"

There was no reply. "Bloody nonsense," Enderby muttered. And then he heard knocking on the underside of the table itself. There were four swift knocks, then a pause. There were six swift knocks and a longer pause. There were four swift knocks, then a pause. There were six swift knocks and a longer pause. There were four swift knocks, then a pause. There were six swift knocks and then silence. The damned table all the time tried to leap, but the spirit fist was not strong enough to raise it. "Oh Jesus," Enderby muttered. Mrs Allegramente could be heard breathing with decent, or non-spirit-raising, shallowness. "No more?" Mrs Schoenbaum dared to ask. They all broke hands. Mrs Schoenbaum went to flood the room with decent brightness.

"It had the feel of a somewhat enigmatic message," the academic said as they all rose. Enderby said:

"Pardon me. I'm afraid I have to -" The lawyer grimly pointed.

Enderby found a small and overdainty lavatory off the hallway. He pounded his load out furiously. Enigmatic message his arse. His arse, thus invoked, spoke. 46 46 46. If that wasn't Bible-amending Shakespeare, who the hell was it? Enderby did not like any of this one little bit. He wiped his penis on a handy face towel. Poor sod, proud of his contribution to the King James psalms. And now these New English Bible bastards had cheated him of his major triumph. Enderby pulled a lever which flushed the bowl, and, while it flushed still, left. Mrs Allegramente was waiting for him outside the door. She said:

"The message couldn't be clearer. It was QUIT ULSTER QUIT ULSTER QUIT ULSTER. Even you must have gotten the message."

"Oh hell," Enderby said, zipping up his not wholly zipped fly, "it could have been KEEP ULSTER or KILL ULSTER or EGGS BOILED or BEER BLOATS or anything. But it was him all right. And you don't know why, do you, eh?" He wagged a finger at her. "Leave him alone is my advice. Don't meddle. Good friend for Jesus' sake forbear, remember that." Aaaaaargh. That was his stomach abetting. "I'm getting out of here," he said. And to Mrs Schoenbaum, who now hovered: "I'd better telephone for a taxi."

" Irving here," Mrs Schoenbaum said, "will drive you. It's on his way." The lawyer beamed unexpectedly and said with overmuch cordiality:

"Well, sure, delighted." This seemed to mean to Enderby that he would be dumped somewhere, having first been pistol-whipped, in the heart of flat Indiana. Enderby said:

"Thanks, but I don't want to cause trouble. A taxi will be fine." He felt, obscurely, that he was involved in the causing of a deeper trouble than any there yet realized or, with such cultural equipment as they possessed, could ever realize.