Enduring Love: Chapter 21 Summary & Analysis

The next morning, Joe drives Johnny B. Well to the house where Joe will be sold the gun he has requested. In Joe’s pocket is £750 in wadded-up bills, and he listens disdainfully as Johnny B. Well advises him on how to speak “cool[ly]” to the men who will be providing the weapon. Johnny tells Joe that the men whom he’ll be meeting are “intellectuals” rather than mere criminals, and Joe feels as if he “already” hate[s] them. As he drives, he looks at Johnny next to him and sees the toll that the man’s lifestyle has taken on his appearance.

After a long drive into the countryside, Joe and Johnny B. Well come eventually to an “ugly mock Tudor house,” which looks to Joe “like a place where crimes could be safely committed.” Johnny advises Joe not to “make fun of these people” when he sees them, and the two of them walk to the door and ring the bell. The man who opens the door, Steve, is an acquaintance of Johnny, and the two begin to argue about what day it is. Eventually, Steve moves further into the house, followed by Joe and Johnny.

In the kitchen is a woman named Daisy, whom Joe guesses to be “about fifty.” To Joe, Daisy’s appearance tells a “tale of regret,” and Joe watches her until the group is joined by Xan, a friend of Steve who possesses large, muscular forearms. As the group sits down at the kitchen table, Joe finds it difficult not to laugh at Steve’s “fierce burnt orange” mustache. Joe’s stomach feels uneasy, and his body seems “weightless and shivery.” To cover the combination of “anxiety and hilarity” that he feels, he takes a bite of the oatmeal that he has been served. The effort is unsuccessful, however, and, after a few moments, Joe falls to the floor in a fit of hysterical laughter. Passing this off as an ammonia allergy (the room smells of bleach), Joe apologizes. Nevertheless, he is soon drawn into a minor disagreement with Steve about the nature and origin of allergies.

As the conversation turns to the gun Joe wishes to purchase, the others assure him that they don’t “approve” of weapons. Steve and Xan argue briefly about why they’re selling the gun and whether the deal is really about “the money,” but, in the end, all agree that Joe will have to explain why he wants a gun in the first place. Joe assures the sellers that he wants the gun for self-defense, and, to seal the bargain, he puts his entire wad of money on the table at once.

Steve briefly indicates that he will keep Joe’s money and give him nothing, but Xan insists that Steve produce the gun. The two seem not to agree about which of them will get the money, and Xan soon throws his empty porridge bowl at Steve, whose neck he misses “by an inch.” At this provocation, Steve and Xan begin to fight, violently, on and around the kitchen table. When Xan places Steve in a “headlock,” Joe warns Xan that he is “going to kill him” if he continues. As the two men fight on, Daisy leaves the room and returns with a shoebox. Inside is the gun, and she gives it to Joe and tells him to leave.

Joe and Johnny B. Well flee the scene, not wanting, in Johnny’s words, “to be a witness.” As they begin to drive back to London, Joe’s phone rings, and Jed Parry is, once again, on the other line. Parry is in Joe’s apartment, he reveals, and, disturbingly, he’s “sitting [t]here with Clarissa.”