Books Do Furnish a Room

4

In the new year, without further compromise, Dickensian winter set in. Snow fell, east winds blew, pipes froze, the water main (located next door in a house bombed out and long deserted) passed beyond insulation or control. The public supply of electricity broke down. Baths became a fabled luxury of the past. Humps and cavities of frozen snow, superimposed on the pavement, formed an almost impassable barrier of sooty heaps at the gutters of every crossing, in the network of arctic trails. Bagshaw sat in his overcoat, the collar turned up round a woollen muffler, from which a small red nose appeared above a gelid moustache. Ada’s protuberant layers of clothing travestied pregnancy. Only Trapnel, in his tropical suit and dyed greatcoat, seemed unaware of the cold. He complained about other things: lack of ideas: emotional setbacks: financial worries. Climate did not affect him. The weather showed no sign of changing. It encouraged staying indoors. I worked away at Burton.

On the whole Bagshaw’s tortuous, bantering strategy, which had seen him through so many tussles with employers and wives (the latest one kept rigorously in the background), was designed to conceal hard-and-fast lines of opinion — assuming Bagshaw still held anything of the sort — so that, in case of sudden showdown, he could without prejudice give support wherever most convenient to himself. Even so, he allowed certain assessments to let fall touching on the fierce internal polemics that raged under the surface at Quiggin & Craggs; by association, at Fission too. Such domestic conflict, common enough in all businesses, took a peculiarly virulent form in this orbit, according to Bagshaw, on account of political undercurrents concerned.

‘There are daily rows about what books are taken on. JG’s not keen on frank propaganda, especially in translation. The current trouble’s about a novel called The Pistons of Our Locomotives Sing the Songs of Our Workers. JG thinks the title too long, and that it won’t sell anyway. No doubt the party will see there’s no serious deficit, but JG fears that sort of book clogs the wheels — the pistons in this case — of the non-political side of the list. He’s nervous in certain other respects too. He doesn’t mind inconspicuous fraternal writings inculcating the message in quiet ways. He rather likes that. What he doesn’t want is for the firm to get a name for peddling the Party Line.’

‘Craggs takes another view?’

‘Howard’s an old fellow-traveller of long standing. He hardly notices the books are propaganda. It all gives him a nostalgic feeling that he’s young again, running the Vox Populi Press, having the girls from the 1917 Club. All the same, he probably wouldn’t argue with JG so much if he wasn’t being prodded all the time by Gypsy.’

‘And Widmerpool?’

‘All I’m certain about is he wants to winkle me out of the editorship. As I’ve said, he behaves at times like a crypto, but I suspect he’s still waiting to see which way the cat will jump — and of course he doesn’t want to get too far the wrong side of his Labour bosses in the House.’

‘You were uncertain at first.’

‘He’s been repeating pure Communist arguments about the Civil War in Greece. He may simply believe them. I’m never quite sure Gypsy hasn’t a hold on him of some sort. There was a story about them in the old days. That was long before I came on the scene so far as Gypsy was concerned.’

‘How does Rosie Manasch take all this?’

‘She’s only interested in writers and art, all that sort of thing. She doesn’t cause any trouble. She holds those mildly progressive views of the sort that are not at all bothered by the Party Line. Incidentally, she seems to have taken rather a fancy to young Odo Stevens. Trappy’s becoming rather a worry. We’re always shelling out to him. He writes an article or a short story, gets paid on the nail, is back on the doorstep the next afternoon, or one of his stooges is, and he wants some more. I can handle him all right, but I’m not sure they’re doing so well on the other side of the yard.’

Trapnel’s financial embarrassments had become unambiguous enough during the months that transformed him from a mere acquaintance of Bagshaw’s, and professional adjunct of Fission, into a recognized figure in one’s own life. His personality, built up with thought, deserves a word or two on account of certain elements not restricted to himself. He was a fine specimen of a general type, to which he had added flourishes of his own, making him — it was hardly going too far to say — unique in the field. The essential point was that Trapnel always acted a part; not necessarily the same part, but a part of some kind. Insomuch as most people cling to a role in which they particularly fancy themselves, he was no great exception so far as that went. Where he differed from the crowd was in so doggedly sticking to the role — or roles — he had chosen to assume.

Habitual role-sustainers fall, on the whole, into two main groups: those who have gauged to a nicety what shows them off to best advantage: others, more romantic if less fortunate in their fate, who hope to reproduce in themselves arbitrary personalities that have won their respect, met in life, read about in papers and books, or seen in films. These self-appointed players of a part often have little or no aptitude, are even notably ill equipped by appearance or demeanour, to wear the costume or speak the lines of the prototype. Indeed, the very unsuitability of the role is what fascinates. Even in the cases of individuals showing off a genuine pre-eminence — statesmen, millionaires, poets, to name a few types — the artificial personality can become confused with the passage of time, life itself being a confused and confusing process, but, when the choice of part has been extravagantly incongruous, there are no limits to the craziness of the performance staged. Adopted almost certainly for romantic reasons, the role, once put into practice, is subject to all sorts of unavoidable and unforeseen restraints and distortions; not least, in the first place, on account of the essentially rough-and-ready nature of all romantic concepts. Even assuming relative clarity at the outset, the initial principles of the role-sustainer can finally reach a climax in which it is all but impossible to guess what on earth the role itself was originally intended to denote.

So it was with Trapnel. Aiming at many roles, he was always playing one or other of them for all he was worth. To do justice to their number requires — in the manner of Burton — an interminable catalogue of types. No brief definition is adequate. Trapnel wanted, among other things, to be a writer, a dandy, a lover, a comrade, an eccentric, a sage, a virtuoso, a good chap, a man of honour, a hard case, a spendthrift, an opportunist, a raisonneur; to be very rich, to be very poor, to possess a thousand mistresses, to win the heart of one love to whom he was ever faithful, to be on the best of terms with all men, to avenge savagely the lightest affront, to live to a hundred full of years and honour, to (lie young and unknown but recognized the following day as the most neglected genius of the age. Each of these ambitions had something to recommend it from one angle or another, with the possible exception of being poor — the only aim Trapnel achieved with unqualified mastery — and even being poor, as Trapnel himself asserted, gave the right to speak categorically when poverty was discussed by people like Evadne Clapham.

‘I do so agree with Gissing,’ she said. ‘When he used to ask of a writer — has he starved?’

The tribute was disinterested, as Evadne Clapham did not in the least look as if she had ever starved herself. The remark ruffled Trapnel.

‘Gissing was more of an authority on starvation than on writing.’

‘You don’t think hunger teaches things?’

‘I know as much about starvation as Gissing, probably more.’

‘Then you prove his point — though after all it’s dedication that counts in the end.’

‘Dedication’s often the hallmark of inferior performance.’

Trapnel was in a severe mood on that occasion. He was annoyed at Evadne Clapham being brought to his favourite pub The Hero of Acre. The conversation was reproduced in due course, somewhat more elaborately phrased, with the heroine getting the whip-hand, when Evadne Clapham’s next novel appeared. However, that is by the way. To return to Trapnel’s ambitions, they were — poverty apart — not only hard to achieve individually, but, even in rotation, impossible to combine. That was over and above Trapnel’s particular temperament, no great help. Infeasibility did not prevent him from behaving, where ambitions were concerned, like an alpinist who tackles the sheerest, least accessible rock face of the peak he has sworn to ascend.

The role of ‘writer’ was on the whole the one least damaged when the strain became too severe, a heavy weight of mortal cargo jettisoned. There were times when even that role suffered violent stress. All writing demands a fair amount of self-organization, some of the ‘worst’ writers being among the most highly organized. To be a ‘good’ writer needs organization too, even if those most capable of organizing their books may be among the least competent at projecting the same skill into their lives. These commonplaces, trite enough in themselves, are restated only because they have bearing on the complexity of Trapnel’s existence. There was a growing body of opinion, including, as time went on, Craggs, Quiggin, even Bagshaw himself — though unwillingly — which took the view that Trapnel’s shiftlessness was in danger of threatening his status as a ‘serious’ writer. His books might be what the critics called ‘well put together’ — Trapnel was rather a master of technical problems — his life most certainly was the reverse. Nevertheless, people have to do things their own way, and the troubles that beset Trapnel were for the most part in what Pennistone used to call ‘a higher unity’. So far as coping with down-to-earth emergencies, often seemingly unanswerable ones, Trapnel could show surprising agility.

One point should be cleared up right away. If comparison of his own life with a camel ride to the tomb makes Trapnel sound addicted to self-pity, a wrong impression has been created. Self-pity was a trait from which, for a writer — let alone a novelist — he was unusually free. On the other hand, it would be mistaken to conclude from that fact that he had a keen grasp of objectivity where his own goings-on were concerned. That judgment would be equally wide of the mark. This lack of objectivity made him enemies; that of self-pity limited sales. Whatever Trapnel’s essence, the fire that generated him had to see him through difficult days. At the same time he managed to retain in a reasonably flourishing state — flourishing, that is, in his own eyes — what General Conyers would have called his ‘personal myth’, that imaginary state of being already touched on in Trapnel’s case. The General, speaking one felt with authority, always insisted that, if you bring off adequate preservation of your personal myth, nothing much else in life matters. It is not what happens to people that is significant, but what they think happens to them.

Although ultimate anti-climaxes, anyway in their most disastrous form, were still kept at bay at this period, portents were already threatening in the eyes of those — L. O. Salvidge, for example, one of the first to praise the Camel — who took a gloomy view. Others — Evadne Clapham led this school of thought — dismissed such brooding with execrations against priggishness, assurances that Trapnel would ‘grow up’. When Evadne Clapham expressed the latter presumption, Mark Members observed that he could think of no instance of an individual who, having missed that desirable attainment at the normal stage of human development, successfully achieved it in later life. It was hard to disagree. The fact is that a certain kind of gifted irresponsibility, combined with physical stamina and a fair degree of luck — in some respects Trapnel was incredibly lucky — always holds out an attractive hope that its possessor will prove immune to the ordinary vengeances of life; that at least one human being, in this case X. Trapnel, will beat the book, romp home a winner at a million to one.

Trapnel said he preferred women to have tolerable manners. The taste was borne out by the behaviour of such girls as he produced in public. When things were going reasonably well, he would be living with a rather unusually pretty one, who was also to all appearances bright, good tempered and unambitious. At least that was the impression they gave when on view at The Hero of Acre, or another of Trapnel’s chosen haunts. The fairly rapid turnover suggested they might be less amenable when alone with Trapnel, not on their best behaviour; but that, after all, was just as much potential criticism of Trapnel as of the girl. She usually kept herself by typing or secretarial work (employed in concerns other than those coming under the heading of publishing and journalism), her financial contribution tiding over the ménage more or less — on the whole less rather than more — during lean stretches of their life together.

The pair of them, when Trapnel allowed his whereabouts to be known, were likely to be camped out in a bleak hotel in Bloomsbury or Paddington, enduring intermittent persecution from the management for delayed action in payment of the bill. The Ufford, as it used to be in Uncle Giles’s day, would have struck too luxurious, too bourgeois a note, but, after wartime accommodation of a semi-secret branch of the Polish army in exile, the Ufford, come down in the world like many such Bayswater or Notting Hill establishments, might well have housed Trapnel and his mistress of the moment; their laundry impounded from time to time, until satisfactory settlement of the weekly account.

Alternatively, during brief periods of relative affluence, Trapnel and his girl might shelter for a few weeks in a ‘furnished flat’. This was likely to be a stark unswept apartment in the back streets of Holland Park or Camden Town. The flat might belong to an acquaintance from The Hero of Acre, for example, possibly borrowed, while a holiday was taken, custodians needed to look after the place; if Trapnel and his girl could be so regarded.

When, on the other hand, things were going badly, the girl would have walked out — this happened sooner or later with fair regularity — and, if the season were summer, the situation might not exclude a night or two spent on the Embankment The Embankment would, of course, represent a very low ebb indeed, though certainly experienced during an unprosperous interlude immediately preceding the outbreak of war. After such disasters Trapnel always somehow righted himself, in a sense seeming to justify the optimism of Evadne Clapham and those of her opinion. Work would once more be established on a passable footing, a new short story produced, contacts revived. The eventual replacement of the previous girl invariably kept up the traditionally high standard of looks.

Like many men rather ‘successful’ with women, Trapnel always gave the impression of being glad to get away from them from time to time. Not at all a Don Juan — using the label in a technical sense — he was quite happy to remain with a given mistress, once established, until the next upheaval. The question of pursuing every woman he met did not arise. Unlike, say, Odo Stevens, Trapnel was content to be in a room with three or four women without necessarily suffering the obligation to impose his personality on each one of them in turn.

All the same, if they could feel safe with him in that sphere, Trapnel’s girls, even apart from shortage of money, had to ‘put up with what was in many respects a hard life, one regulated by social routines often un tempting to feminine taste. A gruelling example was duty at The Hero of Acre. They would be expected to sit there for hours while Trapnel held forth on Portrait of the Artist, or The Birth of a Nation. Incidentally, The Hero of Acre was to be avoided if absolute freedom from parasites was to be assured, even though Trapnel could drastically rebuff them, if they intervened when a more important assignation was in progress. Dismissal might take a minute or two, should they be drunk, and in any case their mere presence in the saloon bar could be inhibiting.

However, this body of auxiliaries was a vital aspect of the Trapnel way of life. When things were bad, they would come into play, collect books for review, deliver ‘copy’ — Trapnel in any case distrusted the post — telephone in his name about arrangements or disputes, tactfully propound his case if required, detail his future plans if known, try — when such action was feasible, sometimes when not — to raise the bid in his favour. They were to be seen lingering patiently in waiting rooms or halls of the journal concerned — at Quiggin & Craggs in the packing room, if cold and wet, the yard, if sunny and dry — usually the end in view to acquire ready cash for the Trapnel piece they had handed to the editor a short time before. Where Trapnel recruited these auxiliaries, how he disciplined them, was always a mystery.

This need to receive payment on the nail was never popular with the publishers and editors. Even Bagshaw used to grouse about it. The money in his hand, Trapnel could rarely hang on to it. He was always in debt, liked standing drinks. He could not understand the difficulties publishers and editors, especially the latter, made about advancing further sums.

‘After all, it’s not their own money. It’s little or no trouble to them. As a matter of fact the accountants, the boys who are put to the ultimate bother, such as it is, of unlocking the safe and producing the dough, are far easier to deal with than the editor himself.’

Accountants, as described by Trapnel, would often leave their offices after the money had been paid out, and join him in a drink. Perhaps they thought they were living dangerously. It might be argued they were. Trapnel had made a study of them.

‘People who spend their time absorbed with money always have a bright apologetic look about the eyes. They crave sympathy. Particularly accountants. I always offer a drink when specie changes hands. It’s rarely refused.’

Bagshaw was unusually skilful in controlling this aspect of Trapnel as a Fission contributor. Not at all inexperienced himself in the exertions of extracting money, he knew all the arguments why Trapnel should not be given any more until he produced the goods. Bagshaw would put on an immensely good-natured act that represented him as a man no less necessitous than Trapnel himself, if not more so. Trapnel did not have to believe that, but it created some sort of protection for Bagshaw. That was when Trapnel appeared in person. As time went on, these personal visits decreased in frequency.

Living as he did, there were naturally times when Trapnel was forced to apply for a loan. Widmerpool was a case in point. One of the principles dearest to Trapnel was that, as a writer himself, he did not care to borrow from another writer; anyway not more than once. At a party consisting predominantly of writers and publishers — publishers naturally unsuitable for rather different reasons — Widmerpool was a tempting expedient. A man of strong principle in his own particular genre, Trapnel appears to have observed this self-imposed limitation to the best of his ability, circumstances from time to time perforce intervening. The fulfilment of this creed must have been strengthened by practical experience of the literary profession’s collective deficiencies as medium for floating loans.

However, almost everyone had their story of being approached by Trapnel at one time or another: Mark Members: Alaric Kydd: L. O. Salvidge: Evadne Clapham: Bernard Shernmaker: Nathaniel Sheldon: Malcolm Crowding: even Len Pugsley. All had paid up. Among these Alaric Kydd took it the hardest. The ‘touch’ had been one afternoon, when Kydd and Trapnel had met at the Quiggin & Craggs office. They were moving northwards together in the direction of Tavistock Square, according to Kydd, who was very bitter about it afterwards. He had been particularly outraged by Trapnel’s immediate offer of a drink, a piece of good-fellowship received not at all in the spirit proffered. Quiggin, whose relations with Kydd were not entirely friendly, although proud of him as a capture, told the story after.

‘Alaric had my sympathy. The money was at one moment resting frugally and safely in his pocket — the next, scattered broadcast by Trapnel. Alaric wasn’t going to stand Trapnel a drink with it, it’s therefore logical he should object to Trapnel wasting it on a drink for him.’

Kydd’s never wholly appeased rancour implied abstraction of a somewhat larger sum than customary. A tenner was normal. Quiggin, whose judgment on such matters was to be respected, put it as high as twelve or fifteen — possibly even twenty. He may have been right. He had just signed a cheque for Kydd. There must have been a battle of wills. Trapnel did not on the whole prejudice his own market by gleaning the odd five bob or half-a-crown, though there may have been fallings by the wayside in this respect when things were bad; even descent to sixpences and pennies, if it came to that, for his unceasing and interminable telephone calls from the afternoon drinking clubs he liked to frequent. Such dives appealed to him chiefly as social centres, when The Hero and other pubs were closed, because Trapnel, as drinking goes, was not a great consumer, though he chose to speak of himself as if he were. An exceptionally excited or demoralized mood was likely to be the consequence of his ‘pills’, also apparently taken in moderation, rather than alcohol.

‘The habit of words bestows adroitness on men of letters in devising formulae of excuse in evading onerous obligations. More especially when it comes to parting with hard cash.’

St John Clarke had voiced that reflection — chronologically speaking, before the beginning of years — when Mark Members had managed to oust Quiggin from being the well-known novelist’s secretary; himself to be replaced in turn by Guggenbühl. Members had goodish stories about his former master, particularly on the theme of handling needy acquaintances from the past, who called in search of financial aid. Members insisted that the sheer artistry of St John Clarke’ pretexts claiming exemption from lending were so ornate in expression that they sometimes opened fresh avenues of attack for the quicker-witted of his persecutors.

‘Many a literary parasite met his Waterloo in that sitting-room,’ said Members. ‘There were crises when shelling out seemed unavoidable. St J. always held out right up to the time he was himself remaindered by the Great Publisher. I wonder what luck X. Trapnel would have had on that stricken field of borrowers.’

It was an interesting question. Trapnel was just about old enough to have applied for aid before St John Clarke’s passing. His panoramic memory for the plots of twentieth-century novels certainly retained all the better known of St John Clarke’s works; as of almost every other novelist, good, bad or indifferent, published in Great Britain since the beginning of the century. As to the United States, Trapnel was less reliable, though he could put up a respectable display of familiarity with American novelists too; anyway since the end of the first war. An apt quotation from Dust Thou Art (in the College rooms), Match Me Such Marvel (Bithel’s favourite) or the much more elusive Mimosa (brought to my notice by Trapnel himself), might well have done the trick, produced at the right moment by a young, articulate, undeniably handsome fan; the intoxicating sound to St John Clarke of his own prose repeated aloud bringing off the miracle of success, where so many tired old leathery hands at the game had failed. In the face of what might sound damaging, even contradictory evidence, Trapnel was no professional sponge in the manner of characters often depicted in nineteenth-century novels, borrowing compulsively and indiscriminately, while at the same time managing to live in comparative comfort. That was the picture Members painted of the St John Clarke petitioners, spectres from the novelist’s younger, more haphazard days, who felt an old acquaintance had been allowed too long to exist in undisturbed affluence. Members had paused for a phrase. ‘Somewhere between men of letters and blackmailers, a largely forgotten type.’

No one could say Trapnel resembled these. He neither lived comfortably, nor, once the need to take taxis were recognized, borrowed frivolously. Indeed, when things were going badly, there was nothing frivolous about Trapnel’s condition except the manner in which he faced it. He borrowed literally to keep alive, a good example of something often unrecognized outside the world of books, that a writer can have his name spread all over the papers, at the same time net perhaps only a hundred pounds to keep him going until he next writes a book. Finally, the battle against all but overwhelming economic pressures might have been lost without the support of Trapnel’s chief weapon — to use the contemporary euphemism ‘moral deterrent’ — the swordstick. The death’s head, the concealed blade, in the last resort gained the day.

I have given a long account of Trapnel and his ways in order to set in perspective what happened later. Not all this description is derived from first-hand knowledge. Part is Trapnel legend, of which there was a good deal. He reviewed fairly regularly for Fission, wrote an occasional short story, article or parody — he was an accomplished parodist of his contemporaries — and on the whole, in spite of friction now and then, when he lost his temper with a book or one of his pieces was too long or too short, the magazine suited him, he the magazine. His own volume of collected short stories Bin Ends was published. Trapnel’s reputation increased. At the same time he was clearly no stranger to what Burton called ‘those excrementitious humours of the third concoction, blood and tears’.

One day the blow fell. Alaric Kydd’s Sweetskin appeared on the shelf for review. Even Quiggin was known to have reservations about the novel’s merits. Several supposedly outspoken passages made him unwilling to identify himself with the author in his accustomed manner, in case there was a prosecution. In addition to that, a lack of humdrum qualities likely to appeal to critics caused him worry about its reception. These anxieties Quiggin had already transmitted to Bagshaw. Sweetskin was a disappointing book. Kydd had been coaxed away from Clapham’s firm. Now he seemed to be only a liability. On the one hand, the novel might be suppressed, the firm fined, a director possibly sent to gaol; on the other, the alleged lubricities being in themselves not sufficient to guarantee by any means a large sale, Sweetskin might easily not even pay off its considerable advance of royalties. How was the book to be treated in Fission? Kydd was too well known to be ignored completely. That would be worse than an offensive review. Who could be found, without too hopelessly letting down the critical reputation of Fission itself, to hold some balance between feelings on either side of the backyard at the Quiggin & Craggs office?

Then an opportune thing happened. Trapnel rang up Bagshaw, and asked if he could deal with Kydd, in whose early work he was interested, even though he thought the standard had not been maintained. If he could see Sweetskin, he might want to write a longer piece, saying something about Kydd’s origins and development, in which the new book would naturally be mentioned. Bagshaw got in touch with me about this. It seemed the answer. Trapnel’s representative came round the same afternoon to collect the review copy.

The following week, when I was at Fission ‘doing’ the books, Trapnel rang up. He said he was bringing the Sweetskin review along himself late that afternoon, and suggested we should have a drink together. There was something he particularly wanted to talk about. This was a fairly normal thing to happen, though the weather was not the sort to encourage hanging about in pubs. I also wanted to get back to Burton. However, Trapnel was unusually pressing. When he arrived he was in a jumpy state, hard to say whether pleased or exasperated. Like most great egoists, a bad arriver, he lacked ease until settled down into whatever role he was going to play. Something was evidently on his mind.

‘Would you object to The Hero? That’s the place I’d feel it easiest to tell you about this.’

If the object of the meeting was to disclose some intimate matter that required dissection, even allowing for Trapnel’s reasonably competent control of his creatures, few worse places could be thought of, but the venue was clearly demanded by some quirk of pub mystique. These fears were unjustified. The immoderate cold had kept most of the usual customers away. The place was almost empty. We sat down. Trapnel looked round the saloon bar rather wildly. His dark-lensed spectacles brought to The Hero’s draught-swept enclaves a hint of warmer shores, bluer skies, olives, vines, in spite of the fact that the turn-ups of the tussore trousers were soaked from contact with the snow. He at once began a diatribe against Sweetskin, his notice of which had been left unread at the office.

‘I warned you it wasn’t much good.’

This would mean embarrassment for Quiggin, if Trapnel had been unremittingly scathing. Coming on top of the ‘touch’, unfavourable comment from such a source would make Kydd more resentful than ever. However, that was primarily Quiggin’s worry. So far as I was concerned the juggernaut of critical opinion must be allowed to take its irrefragable course. If too fervent worshippers, like Kydd, were crushed to powder beneath the pitiless wheels of its car, nothing could be done. Only their own adoration of the idol made them so vulnerable. Trapnel was specially contemptuous of Kydd’s attempts at eroticism. To be fair, Sweetskin was in due course the object of prosecution, so presumably someone found the book erotic, but Trapnel became almost frenzied in his expostulations to the contrary. It was then suddenly revealed that Trapnel was in the middle of a row with Quiggin & Craggs.

‘I thought you got on so well with Ada?’

Ada Leintwardine dealt with Trapnel in ordinary contacts with the firm. She did not control disposal of money — there Quiggin was called in — but questions of production, publicity, all such matters passed through her hands. Book production, as it happened, owing to shortage of paper and governmental restrictions of one kind or another, was at the lowest ebb in its history at this period. A subject upon which Trapnel held strong views, this potential area of difference might have led to trouble. Ada always smoothed things over. After the honeymoon following the transfer of Camel Ride to the Tomb, Trapnel and Craggs scarcely bothered to conceal the lack of sympathy they felt for one another. It looked as if Quiggin had now been swept into embroilment by Trapnel’s tendency to get on bad terms with all publishers and editors.

In this connexion, Ada was an example of Trapnel’s exemption from the need to captivate every woman with whom he came in contact. He would not necessarily have captivated Ada had he tried. Nothing was less likely. The point was that he did not try. He always emphasized his amicable relations with her, how much he preferred these to be on a purely business basis. This proved no more than that Ada was not Trapnel’s sort of woman, Trapnel not Ada’s sort of man, but, for someone who liked running other people’s lives so much as Ada, to get on with Trapnel, who liked running his own, was certainly a recommendation for tact in doing business.

‘Ada’s all right. She’s a grand girl. It isn’t Ada who gets me down. She’s always on my side. It’s Craggs who’s impossible. I feel pretty sure of that. He makes trouble in the background.’

‘What sort of trouble?’

‘Influencing JG.’

‘Bin Ends went quite well?’

‘All right. They’ve been looking at the first few chapters of Profiles in String — provisional title. I want some money while I’m writing it. I can’t live on air.’

‘Surely they’ll advance something on what you’ve shown them?’

‘They’ve given me a bit already, but I’ve got to exist while I write the bloody book.’

‘You mean they won’t unbelt any more?’

‘I may have to approach another publisher.’

‘You’re under contract?’

‘They like the new book all right, what there is. Like it very much. If they won’t see reason, I may have to put the matter in the hands of my solicitors.’

Trapnel tapped the skull against the table. Talk about his solicitors always meant a highly nervous state. Even at the time of the monumental entanglement of the conte, it was doubtful whether legal processes had ever been carried further than consultation with old Tim Clipthorpe, one of the seasoned habitués of The Hero, his face covered with crimson blotches, who had been struck off the roll in the year the Titanic went down, as he was always telling any adjacent toper who would listen. In any case, Trapnel gave the impression that, as publishing rows go, this was not a specially serious one. Even if it were, he could hardly have brought a fellow-writer, not a particularly close friend, to shiver in the boreal chills of The Hero’s saloon bar merely to confirm the parsimony of publishers; still less to listen to a critical onslaught against the amateurish pornography and slipshod prose of Alaric Kydd. Even Trapnel’s egotism was hardly capable of that. He was, in fact, obviously playing for time, talking at random while he tried to screw himself up to making some more or less startling confession. Again he tapped the swordstick against the table.

‘Don’t let’s talk about all this rot anyway. One of the things I wanted to tell you was that Tessa’s walked out on me.’

That was much more the sort of thing to be expected. Even so, Tessa seemed a rather slender pretext for bringing about a portentous meeting such as this one. An attractive girl, she had shown early signs of finding the Trapnel way of life too much for her. Her departure was not a staggering surprise. Sympathy seemed best expressed by enquiry, though the answer was not in much doubt.

‘How did it happen?’

‘Yesterday — just left a note saying she was through.’

‘Things had been getting difficult?’

‘There was rather a scene last week. I thought it had all blown over. Apparently not. As a matter of fact I’m not sorry. I was fond of Tessa, but things have to have an end — at least most do.’

‘Dowson said something of the sort in verse.’

Trapnel brushed aside further condolences, admittedly rather feeble ones, on the subject of the vicissitudes of love. He was, to say the least, bearing Tessa’s abdication with fortitude. I was surprised at quite such a show of indifference, thinking some of it perhaps assumed. Trapnel, although resilient, was not at all heartless in such matters.

‘Now Tessa’s gone I’m faced with a decision.’

‘Giving up women altogether?’

Trapnel laughed with rather conscious bitterness.

‘I mean Tessa kept me from making an absolute fool of myself. Now I’m left without that support.’

He did not have the appearance of having indulged in a recent drinking bout, nor too many pep-pills, but was in such an unusual state that I began to wonder whether, after all, Ada was at the bottom of all this; that I had been summoned to give advice on the uncommon situation of an author falling in love with his publisher. The suspicion became almost a certainty when Trapnel leant forward and spoke dramatically, almost in a whisper.

‘Nick, I’m absolutely mad about somebody.’

‘A replacement for Tessa?’

‘No — nothing like that. Nothing like Tessa at all. This is love. The genuine thing. I’ve never known what it was before. Not really. Now I do.’

This was going a little far. He spoke with complete gravity, though he and I were not at all on the terms when revelations of that kind are volunteered. Trapnel’s emotional life, if proffered at all, was as a rule dished up with a light dressing of irony or melancholy. He was never brutal; on the other hand, he was never severely stricken. From the outside he appeared a reasonably adoring lover, if not an unduly serious one. The attitude maintained that night in The Hero was different from anything previously handed out. I had made up my mind to leave very soon now, almost at once. If Trapnel wanted to make a statement, he must get on with the job, do it expeditiously. The night was too cold to hang about any longer, while he braced himself to set forth in detail this amatory crisis, whatever it might be.

‘Why isn’t this one like Tessa?’

Instead of answering the question, Trapnel opened Sweetskin again. He removed from its pages the review slip which notes date of publication, together with the request (never in the history of criticism vouchsafed) that the publisher should be sent a copy of the notice when it appeared in print. This small square of paper had been inserted earlier by Trapnel to mark a passage of notable ineptitude to be read aloud as illustration of Kydd’s inability to write with grace, distinction or knowledge of the ways of women. He had recited the paragraph a few minutes before. Now he took one of several pens from the outside breast pocket of the tropical jacket, quickly wrote something on the back of the slip of paper, and passed it across to me. On examination, this enigmatic missive disclosed two words inscribed in Trapnel’s small decorative script, of which he was rather proud. I read them without at first understanding why my attention should be drawn to this name.

Pamela Widmerpool

The whole procedure had been so odd, I was so cold and bored, the final flourish so unexpected — although in one sense Trapnel at his most Trapnelesque — that I did not immediately grasp the meaning of this revealment, if revealment it were.

‘What about her?’

Trapnel did not speak at once. He looked as if he could not believe he had heard the words correctly. I asked again. He smiled and shook his head.

‘That’s whom I’m in love with.’

No comment seemed anywhere near adequate. This was beyond all limits. Burton well expressed man’s subjection to passion. To recall his words gave some support now. ‘The scorching beams under the Æquinoctial, or extremity of cold within the circle of the Arctick, where the very Seas are frozen, cold or torrid zone cannot avoid, or expel this beat, fury and rage of mortal men.’ No doubt that was just how Trapnel felt. His face showed that he saw this climax as the moment of truth, one of those high-spots in the old silent films that he liked to recall, some terrific consummation emphasized by several seconds of monotonous music rising louder and louder, until, almost deafening, the notes suddenly jar out of tune in a frightful discord: the train is derailed: the canoe swept over the rapids: the knife plunged into the naked flesh. All is over. The action is cut: calm music again, perhaps no music at all.

‘Of course I know I’m mad. I don’t stand a chance. That’s one of the reasons why the situation’s nothing like Tessa — or any other girl I’ve ever been mixed up with. I admit it’s not sane. I admit that from the start.’

If things had gone so far that Trapnel could not even pronounce the name of the woman he loved, had to write it down on a review slip, the situation must indeed be acute. I laughed. There seemed nothing else to do. That reaction was taken badly by Trapnel. He had some right to be offended after putting on such an act. That could not be helped. He looked half-furious, half-upset. As he was inclined to talk about his girls only after they had left, there was no measure for judging the norm of his feelings when they were first sighted. Possibly he was always as worked up as at that moment, merely that I had never been the confidant. That seemed unlikely. Even if he showed the same initial excitement, the incongruity of making Pamela his aim was something apart.

‘You didn’t much take to her at the Fission party.’

‘Of course I didn’t. I thought her the most awful girl I’d ever met.’

‘What brought about the change?’

‘I was in Ada’s room looking through my press-cuttings. Mrs Widmerpool suddenly came in. She’s an old friend of Ada’s. I hadn’t known that. She didn’t bother to be announced from the downstairs office, just came straight up to Ada’s room. She wanted to telephone right away. I was standing there talking to Ada about the cuttings. Mrs Widmerpool didn’t take any notice of me. I might just as well not have been there, far less chatted with her at a party. Ada told her my name again, but she absolutely cut me. She went to the telephone, at once began cursing the girl at the switchboard for her slowness. When she got the number, it was to bawl out some man who’d sent her a jar of pickled peaches as a present. She said they were absolutely foul. She’d thrown them down the lavatory. She fairly gave him hell.’

‘That stole your heart away?’

‘Something did. Nick, I’m not joking. I’m mad about her. I’d do anything to see her again.’

‘Did you converse after the telephoning?’

‘That’s what I’m coming to. We did talk. Ada asked her if she’d read the Camel. My God, she had — and liked it. She was — I don’t know — almost as if she were shy all at once. Utterly different from what she’d been at the party, or even a moment before in the room. She behaved as if she quite liked me, but felt it would be wrong to show it. That was the moment when the thing hit me. I didn’t know what to do. I felt quite ill with excitement. I mean both randy, and sentimentally in love with her too. I was wondering whether I’d ask both her and Ada to have a drink with me before lunch — perhaps borrow ten bob from Ada and pay her back later in the afternoon, because I was absolutely cleaned out at the moment of speaking — then Mrs Widmerpool suddenly remembered she was lunching with some lucky devil, and had told him to be at the restaurant at twelve-thirty, it being then a good bit after one o’clock- She went away, but quite unhurried. She knew he’d wait. What can I do? I’m crazy about her.’

Trapnel paused. The story still remained beyond comment. However, it was apparently not at an end. Something else too was on Trapnel’s mind. Now he looked a shade embarrassed, a rare condition for him.

‘You remember I talked to her husband at that party? We got on rather well. I can never think of him as her husband, but all the same he is, and something happened which I wish had never taken place.’

‘If you mean you borrowed a quid off him, I know — he told me.*

‘He did? In that case I feel better about it. The taxi absorbed my last sixpence. I had to get back to West Kilburn that night by hook or crook. I won’t go into the reason why, but it was the case. I’d walked there once from Piccadilly, and preferred not to do it again. That was why I did a thing I don’t often do, and got a loan from a complete stranger. The fact was it struck me as I was leaving the party that Mr Widmerpool had been so kind in listening to me — expressed such humane views on housing and such things — that he wouldn’t mind helping me over a temporary difficulty. I was embarrassed at having to do so. I think Mr Widmerpool was a bit embarrassed too. He didn’t know what I meant at first.’

Trapnel laughed rather apologetically. It was possible to recognize a conflict of feelings. As a writer, he could perfectly appreciate the funny side of taking a pound off Widmerpool; the whole operation looked like a little exercise in the art, introducing himself, making a good impression, bringing off the ‘touch’. He had probably waited to leave the party until he saw Widmerpool going down the stairs, instinct guiding him as to the dole that would not be considered too excessive to withhold. At the same time, as a borrower, Trapnel had to keep up a serious attitude towards borrowing. He could not admit the whole affair had been a prepared scheme from the start. Finally, as a lover, he had put himself in a rather absurd relation to the husband of the object of his affections. To confess that showed how far Trapnel’s defences were down. He returned to the subject of Pamela.

‘Ada says they don’t get on too well together. She told me that when I dropped in again on the office the following day. A man who looks like that couldn’t appreciate such a marvellous creature.’

‘Did you tell Ada how you felt?’

‘Not on your life. There’s a lot of argument going on about the new novel, as I mentioned, quite apart from notices still coming in for Bin Ends. It was perfectly natural for me to look in again. As a matter of fact Ada began to speak of Mrs Widmerpool herself as soon as I arrived. I just sat and listened.’

‘Ada’s pretty smart at guessing.’

‘She doesn’t guess how I feel. I know she doesn’t. She couldn’t have said some of the things she did, if she had. I was very careful not to give anything away — you won’t either, Nick, will you? I don’t want anyone else to know. But how on earth am I to see her again.’

‘Go and pay Widmerpool back his quid, I suppose.’

This frivolous, possibly even heartless comment was made as a mild call to order, a suggestion so unlikely to be followed that it would emphasize the absurdity of Trapnel’s situation. That was not at all the way he took it. On the contrary, the proposal immediately struck him not only as seriously put forward, but a scheme of daring originality. No doubt the proposal was indeed original in the sense that repayment of a loan had never occurred to Trapnel as a measure to be considered.

‘Christ, what a marvellous idea. You mean I’d call at their place and hand back the pound?’

He pondered this extravagant — literally extravagant — possibility.

‘But what would Mr Widmerpool say if he happened to be there when I turned up? He’d think it a bit odd.’

‘Even if he did, he’d be unlikely to refuse a pound. A very pleasant surprise.’

Even then it never occurred to me that Trapnel would take this unheard-of step.

‘God, what a brilliant idea.’

We both laughed at such a flight of fancy. Trapnel’s condition of tension slightly relaxed. Sanity seemed now at least within sight. All the same, he continued to play with the idea of seeing Pamela again.

‘I’ll get on the job right away.’

There seemed more than a possibility that the pound, so improbably required for potential return to Widmerpool, might be requested then and there, whether or not it ever found its way back into Widmerpool’s pocket. The fact no such demand was made may have been as much due to Trapnel’s disinclination to borrow in an obviously unornamental manner, as his rule that application to another writer was reluctant. His attack on such occasions was apt to be swift, imperative, self-assured, never less than correct in avoiding a precursory period of uneasy anticipation, often unequivocally brilliant in being utterly unexpected until the last second; at the same time never intrusive, even in the eyes of those perfectly conversant with Trapnel’s habits. In the nature of things he met with rebuff as well as acquiescence — the parallel of seduction inevitably suggests itself — but there had been many successes. On this occasion probably Quiggin & Craggs, worsted in the current wrangle about advances, would pay up; anyway a pound. Paradoxical as that might seem, getting the money would be the least of Trapnel’s problems, if, in the spirit in which he had first accosted Widmerpool, he wanted to add a grotesque end to the story by settling the debt.

‘I can’t thank you enough.’

He fell into deep thought, adopting now a different, rather dramatically conscious style. Having derived all that was needed from our meeting, his mind was devoted to future plans. I told him circumstances prevented my staying longer at The Hero. Trapnel nodded absently. I left him, his glass of beer still three-quarters full, rested precariously on the copy of Sweetskin. On the way home the whole affair struck me as reminiscent of Rowland Gwatkin, my former Company Commander, revealing at Castlemallock Anti-Gas School his love for a barmaid. Gwatkin’s military ambition was narrow enough compared with Trapnel’s soaring aspirations about being a ‘complete man’ and more besides. At the amatory level there was no comparison. Nevertheless, something existed in common, some lack of fulfilment, as Pennistone would say, ‘in a higher unity’. Besides, if Trapnel’s medical category — not to mention a thousand ineligibilities of character — had not precluded him from recommendation for a commission, no doubt he too would have shared Gwatkin’s warlike dreams; a dazzling flying career added to the other personal targets.

After that night Trapnel disappeared. His work for Fission continued. The stooges came into play, delivering reviews or other pieces, collecting books and cheques, bringing suggestions for further items. Trapnel himself was no longer available. According to Bagshaw, he even ceased to pursue the question of further payment to assist the completion of Profiles in String. Use of surrogates did not prevent complicated negotiations taking place in relation to Fission contributions. For example, Trapnel suggested withdrawing what he had written about Sweetskin, and replacing the review with a parody. Bagshaw liked the idea. It was better for his own relations with Quiggin that Kydd’s novel should not be torn to shreds; better, if it came to that, from my own standpoint too. Alaric Kydd himself might not be altogether pleased to be treated in this fashion, but, a prosecution now pending, he had other things to think about. In any case Sweetskin would enjoy more space than in a notice of normal length. Trapnel’s lightness of touch in showing up Kydd’s weak points as a novelist indicated that the hysterical feelings displayed at The Hero had calmed down; at least infatuation with Pamela had left his talent unimpaired. Possibly this hopeless passion had already been apportioned to the extensive storehouse of forgotten Trapnel fantasies.

Sweetskin was not the only book to cause Quiggin & Craggs worry. Bagshaw reported a serious row blowing up about Sad Majors. Here the complexities of politics, rather than those of sex, impinged on purely commercial considerations. Bagshaw was very much at home in this atmosphere. He talked a lot about the Odo Stevens manuscript, which he had been allowed to read, and described as ‘full of meat’. However, although written in a lively manner, some of the material dealing with the Communist guerillas with whom Stevens had been in contact was at least as outspoken in its field as Kydd on the subject of sex.

‘It appears a British officer operating with a rival Resistance group got rather mysteriously liquidated. Accidents will happen even with the best-regulated secret police. Of course a lot of Royalists were shot, and quite a fair number of people who weren’t exactly Royalists, not to mention a crowd of heretical Communists too, the whole party ending, as we all know, in wholesale arrests and deportations. This is, of course, rather awkward for a firm of progressive tone. JG thinks it can be hoovered over satisfactorily. He wants to do the book, because it will sell, but Howard’s against. He saw at once there’d be a lot of trouble, if the material appeared in its present form.’

‘What will happen?’

‘Gypsy won’t hear of it.’

‘What’s Gypsy got to do with it?’

‘It’s her affair, isn’t it, if what Stevens has said is damaging to the Party? She’s bloody well consulted, apart from anything else, because Howard’s afraid of her — actually physically afraid. He knows about one or two things Gypsy’s arranged in her day. So do I. I don’t blame him.’

‘Have they turned the book down?’

‘They’re arguing it out.’

The weather was still unthawed when, a month or two later, I dined with Roddy Cutts at the House of Commons. Spring should have been on the way by then, but there was no sign. Our respective wives were both to give birth any day now. Roddy had suggested having a night out together to relieve the strain. A night out with Roddy carried no implications of outrageous dissipation. We talked most of the time about family affairs. He had seen Hugo Tolland the day before, who had been staying at Thrubworth, bringing back an account of how Siegfried, the German POW, was every day growing in local stature.

‘Siegfried gives regular conjuring displays now in the village hall. There’s talk of his getting engaged to one of Skerrett’s granddaughters. He’ll be nursing the constituency before we know where we are. Well, I suppose it’s about time to be getting along. I’ll just see how the debate’s going before we make for home.’

Roddy Cutts’s large handsome face always became drawn with anxiety when, at the close of any party at which he had been host, he glanced at the bill. This time the look indicated the worst; that he was ruined; parliamentary career at an end; he would have to sell up; probably emigrate. An extravagant charge would certainly have been out of place. Whatever the shock, Roddy made no comment. He dejectedly searched through pocket after pocket in apparently vain attempts to find a sum adequate to meet so severe a demand on a man’s resources. The second round through, one of the waistcoat pockets yielded a five-pound note. He smoothed out its paper on the table.

‘Give my love to Isobel, and hopes that all will be well.’

‘And mine to Susie.’

The change arrived. Roddy sorted it lethargically, at the same time giving the impression that the levy might have been less disastrous than at first feared. His manner of picking up coins and examining them used to irritate our brother-in-law George Tolland. We rose from the table, exchanging the claustrophobic pressures of the hall, where the meal had been eaten, for a no less viscous density of parliamentary smoking-rooms and lobbies, suffocating, like all such precincts, with the omnipresent and congealed essence of public contentions and private egotisms; breath of life to their frequenters. Roddy’s personality always took on a new dimension within these walls.

‘If you’ll wait for a minute in the central lobby, I’ll just hear how National Assistance Payments are going.’

Callot-like figures pervaded labyrinthine corridors. Cavernous alcoves were littered with paraphernalia of scaffolding and ropes, Piranesian frameworks hinting of torture and execution, but devised only to repair bomb damage to structure and interior ornament. Roddy reappeared.

‘Come along.’

We crossed the top of the flight of steps leading down into St Stephen’s Hall, the stairs seeming to offer a kind of emergency exit from contemporary affairs into a mysterious submerged world of mediaeval shadows, tempting to explore if one were alone, in spite of icy draughts blowing up from these spectral depths. Suddenly, from the opposite direction to which we were walking, Widmerpool appeared. He was pacing forward slowly, deliberately, solemnly, swinging his arms in a regular motion from the body, as if carefully balancing himself while he trod a restricted bee-line from one point to another. At first he was too deep in thought to notice our advance towards him. Roddy shouted a greeting.

‘Widmerpool, just the man I’m looking for.’

He could never resist accosting anyone he knew, and buttonholing them. Now he began a long dissertation about ‘pairing’. Surprised out of his own meditations, Widmerpool seemed at first only aware that he was being addressed by a fellow MP. A second later he grasped the linked identities of Roddy and myself, our relationship, the fact that were brothers-in-law evidently striking him at once as a matter of significance to himself. He brushed aside whatever Roddy was talking about — conversation in any case designed to keep alive a contact with a member of the other side, rather than reach a conclusion — beginning to speak of another subject that seemed already on his mind, possibly the question he had been so deeply pondering.

‘I’m glad to come on you both. First of all, my dear Cutts, I wanted to approach you regarding a little non-party project I have on hand — no, no, not the Roosevelt statue — it is connected with an Eastern European cultural organization in which I am interested. However, before we come to public concerns, there are things to be settled about the late Lord Warminster’s letter of instructions. They are rather complicated — personal rather than legal bearings, though the Law comes in — so that to explain some of the points to you might save a lot of correspondence in the future. You could then pass on the information by word of mouth to your appropriate relatives, decisions thereby reached in a shorter time.’

Roddy showed attention to the phrase ‘non-party project’, but, with the professional politician’s immediate instinct for executing a disengaging movement from responsibilities that promised only unrewarding exertion, he at once began to deny all liability for sorting out the problems of Erridge’s bequests.

‘Nicholas and I have no status in the matter whatsoever, my dear Widmerpool, you must address yourself to Hugo or Frederica. They are the people. Either Hugo or Frederica will put you right in a trice.’

Widmerpool must have been prepared for that answer, actually expecting it, because he smiled at the ease with which such objections could be overruled by one of his long experience.

‘Of course, of course. I perfectly appreciate that aspect, Cutts, that you and Nicholas are without authority in the matter. You are correct to stress the fact. The point I put forward is that the normal course of action would result in a vast deal of letter-writing between Messrs Turnbull, Welford & Puckering, Messrs Quiggin & Craggs, Messrs Goodness-knows-who-else. I propose to cut across that. I had quite enough of shuffling the bumf round when I was in the army. As a result I’ve developed a positive mania these days against pushing paper. Man-to-man. That’s the way. Cut corners. I fear pomposity is not one of my failings. I can’t put up with pompous people, and have often been in trouble on that very account.’

Roddy was determined not to be outdone in detestation of pomposity and superfluous formality. For a moment the two MPs were in sharp competition as to whose passion for directness and simplicity was the more heartfelt, at least could be the more forcibly expressed. At the end of this contest Widmerpool carried his point.

‘Therefore I suggest you forget the official executors for the moment, and accompany me back to my flat for the space of half an hour, where we can deal with the Warminster file, also discuss the small non-party committee I propose to form. No, no, Cutts, I brook no refusal. You can both be of inestimable help in confirming the right line is being taken regarding post-mortem wishes, I mean a line acceptable to the family. As a matter of fact you may both be interested to learn more of your late brother-in-law’s system of opinion, his intellectual quirks, if I may use the phrase.’

Curiosity on that last point settled the matter. Roddy enjoyed nothing better than having a finger in any pie that happened to be cooking. Here were at least two. It was agreed that we should do as Widmerpool wished.

‘Come along then. It’s just round the corner. Only a step. We may as well walk — especially as there are likely to be no taxis.’

Along the first stretch of Victoria Street, dimly lighted and slippery, Roddy and Widmerpool discussed 2½% Treasury Stock Redeemable after 1975; by the time we reached the flats, they had embarked on the topic of whether or not, as Governor of the Bank of England, Montagu Norman had adequately controlled the ‘acceptance houses’. The entrance, rather imposing, was a high archway flanked by gates. This led into a small courtyard, on the far side of which stood several associated masses of heavy Edwardian building. It was a cheerless spot. I asked if Short still lived here.

‘You know Leonard Short? He’s just below us. Very convenient it should be so. He’s a good little fellow, Short. My Minister has a high opinion of him.’

‘Who is your Minister?’

Even Roddy was rather appalled by this ignorance, hastening to explain that Widmerpool had been appointed not long before Personal Private Secretary to a member of the Cabinet; the one, in fact, who had attended the Quiggin & Craggs party, the Minister responsible for the branch of the civil service to which Short belonged. Widmerpool himself showed no resentment at this lapse, merely laughing heartily, and enlarging on his own duties.

‘As PPS one’s expected to take an intelligent interest in the ministry concerned. The presence there of Leonard Short oils the wheels for me. We’re quite an intellectual crowd here. I expect you’ve heard of Clapham, the publisher, who lives in another of the flats. You may even know him. He is a good type of the old-fashioned publishing man. I find his opinions worthy of attention now I have a stake in that business myself. There’s nothing flashy about Clapham, neither intellectually nor socially. He was speaking to me about St John Clarke the other night, whom he knew well, and, so he tells me, still enjoys a very respectable sale.’

The hall was in darkness. There was a lift, but Widmerpool guided us past it.

‘I must remind you electricity is now in short supply — shedding the load, as we have learnt to call it. The Government has the matter well in hand, but our lift here, an electric one, is for the moment out of action. You will not mind the stairs. Only a few flights. A surprisingly short way in the light of the excellent view we enjoy on a clear day. Pam is always urging a move. We have decided in principle to do so, inspected a great deal of alternative accommodation, but there is convenience in proximity to the House. Besides, I’m used to the flat, with its special characteristics, some good, some less admirable. For the time being, therefore, it seems best to remain where we are. That’s what I’m always telling Pam.’

By this time we had accomplished a couple of flights.

‘How is Mrs Widmerpool?’ asked Roddy. ‘I remember she was feeling unwell at the funeral.’

‘My wife’s health was not good a year ago. It has improved. I can state that with confidence. In fact during the last month I have never known her better — well, one can say in better spirits. She is a person rather subject to moods. She changes from one moment to the next.’

Roddy, probably thinking of the cipherine nodded heartily. Widmerpool took a key from his pocket. He paused before the door. Talk about Pamela had unsettled him.

‘I don’t expect Pam will have gone to bed yet. She does sometimes turn in early, especially if she has a headache, or it’s been an exhausting day for her. At other times she sits up quite late, indeed long after I’ve retired to rest myself. We shall see.’

He sounded rather nervous about what the possibilities might be. The small hall was at once reminiscent of the flat — only a short way from here — where Widmerpool had formerly lived with his mother. I asked after her. He did not seem over pleased by the enquiry.

‘My mother is still living with relations in the Lowlands. There’s been some talk lately of her finding a place of her own. I have not seen her recently. She is, of course, not so young as she was. We still have our old jokes about Uncle Joe in our letters, but in certain other aspects she finds it hard to realize things have changed.’

‘Uncle Joe?’

‘My mother has always been a passionate admirer of Marshal Stalin, a great man, whatever people may say. We had jokes about if he were to become a widower. At the same time, she would probably have preferred me to remain single myself. She is immensely gratified to have a son in the House of Commons — always her ambition to be mother of an MP — but she is inclined to regard a wife as handicap to a career.’

Widmerpool lowered his tone for the last comment. The lights were on all over the flat, the sound of running water audible. No one seemed to be about. Widmerpool listened, his head slightly to one side, with the air of a Red Indian brave seeking, on the tail of the wind, the well-known, but elusive, scent of danger. The splashing away of the water had a calming effect.

‘Ah, Pam’s having a bath. She was expecting my return rather later than this. I’ll just report who’s here. Go in and sit down.’

He spoke as if relieved to hear nothing more ominous was on foot than his wife having a bath, then disappeared down the passage. Roddy and I entered the sitting-room. The tone of furniture and decoration was anonymous, though some sort of picture rearrangement seemed to be in progress. The central jets of a gas fire were lighted, but the curtains were undrawn, a window open. Roddy closed it. Two used glasses stood on a table. There was no sign of whatever had been drunk from them. From the other end of the passage a loud knocking came, where Widmerpool was announcing our arrival. Apparently no notice was taken, because the taps were not turned off, and, to rise above their sound, he had to shout our names at the top of his voice. Pamela’s reactions could not be heard. Widmerpool returned.

‘I expect Pam will look in later. Probably in her dressing-gown — which I hope you will excuse.’

‘Of course.’

Roddy looked as if he could excuse that easily. Widmerpool glanced round the room and made a gesture of simulated exasperation.

‘She’s been altering the pictures again. Pam loves doing that — especially shifting round that drawing her uncle Charles Stringham left her. I can never remember the artist’s name. An Italian.’

‘Modigliani.’

‘That’s the one — ah, there’s been a visitor, I see. I’ll fetch the relevant documents.’

The sight of the two glasses seemed to depress him again. He fetched some papers. Kneeling down in front of the gas fire, he tried to ignite the outer bars, but they failed to respond. Widmerpool gave it up. He began to explain the matter in hand. Erridge, among other dispositions, had expressed the wish that certain books which had ‘influenced’ him should, if out of print, be reissued by the firm of Quiggin & Craggs. To what extent such republication was practicable had to be considered in the light of funds available from the Trust left by Erridge. Nothing was conditional. Widmerpool explained that the copyright situation was being examined. At present adjudication was not yet possible in certain cases; others were already announced as to be reissued elsewhere. Subsequent works on the same subject, political or economic — even more often events — had put Erridge’s old favourites out of date. On the whole, as Widmerpool had promised, the answers could be effectively dealt with in this manner, though several required brief consideration and discussion. We had just come to the end of the business, Widmerpool made facetious reference to the propriety of canvassing Parliamentary matters, even non-party ones, in the presence of a member of the public, when the door bell rang. Widmerpool looked irritable at this.

‘Who on earth can it be? Not one of Pam’s odd friends at this hour of the night, I hope. They are capable of anything.’

He went to open the door.

‘We don’t need to waste any more time here,’ said Roddy. ‘The Erry stuff is more or less cleared up. The non-party project can be ventilated when Widmerpool and I next meet in the House. I don’t want to freeze to death. Let’s make a getaway while he’s engaged.’

I was in agreement. Widmerpool continued to talk with whoever had come to the front door of the flat. Although he had left the door of the sitting-room open, the subject of their conversation could not be heard owing to the sound of the bath water, still running, or perhaps turned on again. It occurred to me that Pamela, with her taste for withdrawal from company, might deliberately have taken refuge in the bathroom on hearing the sound of our arrival; then turned on the taps to give the impression that a bath was in progress. Such procedure might even be a matter of routine on her part to avoid guests after a parliamentary sitting. The supposition was strengthened by Widmerpool’s own lack of surprise at her continued absence. It was like a mythological story: a nymph for ever running a bath that never filled, while her husband or lover waited for her to emerge. Now Roddy was getting impatient.

‘Come on. Don’t let’s hang about.’

We went out into the passage. The visitor turned out to be Short. He looked worried. Although only come from the floor below, apparently to deliver a message, he had taken the precaution of wearing an overcoat and scarf. Whatever the message was had greatly disturbed Widmerpool. One wondered if the Government had fallen, though scarcely likely within the time that had passed since we had left the House of Commons. Our sudden appearance from the sitting-room made Short even less at ease than he was already. He muttered some sort of a good evening. I introduced Roddy, as Widmerpool seemed scarcely aware that we had joined them. Before more could be said, evidently returning to the subject in hand, Widmerpool broke in again.

‘How long ago did you say this was?’

‘About an hour or two, as I told you. The message was just as I passed it on.’

Short was infinitely, unspeakably embarrassed. Widmerpool looked at him for a moment, then turned away. He walked hurriedly up the passage, lost to sight at the right-angle of its end. A door opened noisily from the direction of the running water. The sound of the flow ceased a moment later. The taps had been turned off sharply. Another door was opened. There came the noise of things being thrown about. Short blew his nose. Roddy got his overcoat and handed me mine. I asked Short what had hap-

‘It was just a message left for Kenneth by his wife. She rang the bell of my flat about an hour ago, and asked me to deliver it.’

Short stopped. Whatever the message was had seriously upset him. That left us none the wiser. Short seemed for a moment uncertain whether or not to reveal his secret. Then it became too much for him. He cleared his throat and lowered his voice.

‘As a matter of fact the message was — ”I’ve left”. We don’t know each other at all well. I thought she must mean she was going to catch a train, or something of that sort. Had been delayed, and wanted her husband to know the time of her departure.’

‘You mean left for good?’

Short nodded once or twice, almost to himself, in a panic-stricken manner. There could be no doubt that one side of his being had been immensely excited by becoming so closely involved in such a drama; another, appalled by all the implications of disorganization, wrongdoing and scandal. Before more could be told, Widmerpool returned.

‘It was very thoughtless of her to have forgotten to turn the bath tap off. The hot one too. Nobody in the place will get any hot water for weeks. You know, Leonard, she must have made this arrangement to go away on the spur of the moment.’

‘That’s just what it looked like.’

Short spoke as if he saw a gleam of hope.

‘She often acts like that. I deprecate it, but what can I do? I see she has taken both her suitcases. They must have been quite heavy, as most of her clothes have gone too. Did you help carry them down?’

‘The man was carrying them.’

‘Do you mean the porter? I thought he was having flu?’

‘Not the regular porter. It might have been the taxi-driver or someone driving a hired car. Perhaps they have a temporary man downstairs.’

‘I mean it was not just a friend?’

‘He hardly looked like a friend.’

‘What was he like?’

‘He had a beard. He was carrying the two bags. Your wife had a stick or umbrella under her arm, and two or three pictures.’

This piece of information agitated Widmerpool more than anything that had gone before. Short appeared unable to know what to think. Before Widmerpool’s return his words certainly suggested that he himself supposed Pamela had left for good; then Widmerpool’s demeanour seemed almost to convince him that this was no more than a whim of the moment to go off and visit friends. Now he was back where he started.

‘Repeat to me again exactly what she said.’

‘“Tell him I’m leaving, and taking the Modigliani and the photographs of myself. He can do what he likes with the rest of my junk.” ‘

‘Nothing more?’

‘Of course I supposed she was referring to some domestic arrangement you knew about already, that she wanted to inform you of the precise minute she had vacated the flat. I wondered if you had even taken another one. You have always talked of that. It looked as if she might be starting to move into it.’

Short sounded desperate. He must have been to talk like that. Roddy was desperate too, but only to get away. He was taking no interest whatever in the matter discussed. Now he could stand it no longer.

‘Look, my dear Widmerpool, it’s really awfully cold tonight. I think I’ll have to be getting back, as I want to know how my wife is faring. She’s expecting a baby, you know. Not quite yet, but you never can be certain with these little beggars. They sometimes decide to be early. We can have a word about your project in the smoking-room some time — over a drink perhaps.’

Widmerpool behaved very creditably. He accepted, probably with relief, that Roddy was not in the least interested in his affairs.

‘Most grateful to you both for having looked in, and run over those points. All I want you to do now is to pass on the proposed decisions informally to the executors. If they have any objections, they can let me know. Then we can get the items sorted out. I’m sorry the evening has been interrupted in this way. We’ll discuss the non-party matter on another occasion, Cutts. I must offer my apologies. There is nothing Pam enjoys more than mystifying people — especially her unfortunate husband. Goodnight, goodnight. Come into the flat for a moment, Leonard.’

What he was thinking was not revealed. Control of himself showed how far married life had inured him to sudden discomposing circumstances. If he believed that Pamela had deserted him without intention of return — it was hard to think anything else had happened — he kept his head. Perhaps her departure was after all a relief. It was impossible to guess; nor whether Trapnel was by now a figure known to him in his wife’s entourage. Short did not look at all willing to enter the flat for yet another rehash of his encounter with Pamela, but Widmerpool was insistent. He would not accept a denial on account of work with which Short was engaged. Roddy and I took leave of them, and set off down the stairs. Neither of us spoke until we reached the street. Roddy then showed some faint curiosity as to what had been happening.

‘What was it? I was too cold to take it in.’

‘It looks as if his wife’s gone off with a man called X. Trapnel.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘He writes novels.’

‘Like you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is he one of her lovers?’

‘So it appears.’

‘I gather they abound.’

‘All the same, this is a bit of a surprise.’

‘God — there’s a taxi.’

Not so very long after that evening, Isobel gave birth to a son; Susan Cutts, to a daughter. These events within the family, together with other comings and goings, not to mention the ever-pervading Burton, distracted attention from exterior events. Even allowing for such personal preoccupations, the whole Widmerpool affair, that is to say his wife’s abandonment of him, made far less stir than might be expected. There were several reasons for this. In the first place, that Widmerpool should marry a girl like Pamela Flitton had been altogether unexpected; that she should leave him was another matter. Nothing could be more predictable, the only question — with whom? A certain amount of gossip went round when it became known they were no longer under the same roof, but, the awaited climax having taken place, the question of the lover’s identity was not an altogether easy one to answer; nor particularly interesting when answered, for those kept alive by such nourishment. Few people who knew Widmerpool also knew Trapnel, the reverse equally true. Besides, could it be stated with certainty that Pamela was living with Trapnel?

Everyone agreed that, even if Pamela had embarked on a romance with Trapnel, however unlikely that might be, nothing was, on the other hand, more probable than that she had left him immediately after. All that could be said for certain was that both had utterly disappeared from sight. That at least was definite. Accordingly, the physical presence of two lovers did not, by public appearance, draw attention to open adultery. In the circumstances, interest waned. The question of ‘taking sides’, in general so much adding to public concern with such predicaments, here scarcely arose, husband and lover inhabiting such widely separated worlds. There was some parallel to the time, years before, when Mona had left Peter Templer for J. G. Quiggin.

A further reason for the story to develop a strangely muffled character, almost as if leaked through a kind of censorship, was the hard work Widmerpool himself put in to lower the outside temperature. However he might inwardly regard the situation, as an MP he was understandably anxious to play down such a blemish on the life of a public man. Just as he had done to Short on the night of Pamela’s departure, he emphasized through all possible channels his wife’s undoubted eccentricity, circulating anecdotes about her to suggest that she was doing no more than taking a brief holiday from married life. She would return when she thought fit. That was Widmerpool’s line. Her husband, knowing her strange ways, paid little attention, in the end more people than might be expected pretty well accepted that explanation. It was a trump card. At first that was not so apparent as it became later.

Of course a friend of Pamela’s like Ada Leintwardine — a position in which Ada was, as a woman, probably unique — was thrown into a great state of commotion when the news, such as it was, broke. It was confirmed by L. O. Salvidge to the extent that two or three weeks before he had seen Trapnel in The Hero, accompanied by a very beautiful girl with a pale face and dark hair. They had stayed in the saloon bar only a few seconds, not even ordering drinks. Trapnel wanted to make some arrangement with one of the auxiliaries. Salvidge’s information predated the night at Widmerpool’s. Ada conceded not only that she had now lost all touch with Pamela, but — an unexampled admission on Ada’s part — could claim no suspicion whatever as to what must have been going on. This amounted to confession that, however profound her own powers of intuition, they had fallen short of paramountcy in probing this particular sequence of emotional development. All she had supposed was that Trapnel had been ‘rather intrigued’ by Pamela; the notion that he should sufficiently flatter himself as to allow dreams of her mastery was something quite beyond credibility. Ada’s alliance with Pamela had, in fact, never taken the form of frequentation of the Widmerpool household. They had just been ‘girls together’ outside Pamela’s married life. Ada continually repeated her disbelief.

‘It can’t really be Trapnel.’

Not only did Trapnel himself no longer appear at the Fission office, his representatives now dropped off too. Bagshaw had recently retired to bed with flu. For once the new number was fully made up, left to be seen through the press by the latest secretary, a red-haired, freckled girl called Judy, whom Bagshaw himself had produced from somewhere or other, alleging that she was not at all stupid, but unreliable at spelling. Judy had just brought in a stack of advance copies of the magazine when in due course I arrived to carry out the normal stint with the books. These were being examined by Quiggin and Ada, who were both on the Fission side of the backyard.

Quiggin, possibly under the influence of Ada, had now for the most part abandoned his immediately post-war trappings suggesting he had just come in from skirmishing with a sten-gun in the undergrowth, though traces remained in a thick grey shirt. On the whole he had settled for a no-nonsense middle-aged intellectual’s style of dress, a new suit in dark check and bow tie, turn-out better suited to his station as an aspiring publisher. Ada was laughing at what they were reading, Quiggin less certain that he was finding the contribution funny. He had taken his hands from the jacket pockets of the check suit, and was straightening the lapels rather uneasily.

‘There’s going to be a row,’ said Ada.

She was pleased rather than the reverse by that prospect. Quiggin himself seemed not wholly displeased, though his amusement was combined with anxiety, which the Sweetskin case was sufficient to explain. An extract from Ada’s own novel was to be included in this current number. Her work in progress had not yet been given a tide, but it was billed as ‘daring’, so that in the cold light of print Quiggin might fear the police would now step in where Fission too was concerned.

‘Are you going to be prosecuted, Ada?’

‘I was laughing at X’s piece. Read this.’

She handed me a copy of the magazine. It was open at Widmerpool’s article Assumptions of Autarchy v. Dynamics of Adjustment. Since she had indicated Trapnel’s piece as the focus of interest, I turned back to the list of contents to find the page. Ada snatched it from me.

‘No, no. Where I gave it you.’

Another glance at the typeface showed what she meant. The page that at first appeared to be the opening of Widmerpool’s routine article on politics or economics — usually a mixture of both — was in fact a parody of Widmerpool’s writing by Trapnel. I sat down the better to appreciate the pastiche. It was a little masterpiece in its way. Trapnel’s ignorance of matters political or economic, his total lack of interest in them, had not handicapped the manner in which he caught Widmerpool’s characteristic style. If anything that ignorance had been an advantage. The gibberish, interspersed with double ententes, was entirely convincing.

‘I do not assert … a convincing lead … cyclical monopoly resistance… the optimum factor …’

This was Bagshaw taking the bit between his teeth. However one looked at it, that much was clear. In the course of arranging subjects for Trapnel’s parodies he had certainly included contributors to Fission before now. Alaric Kydd was not, as it happened, one of these, being somewhat detached from the Fission genre of writer, but Evadne Clapham, represented by a short story in the first number, had been one of Trapnel’s victims. Always excitable, she had at first talked of a libel action. Bagshaw had convinced her finally that only the most talented of writers were amenable to parody, and she had forgiven both himself and Trapnel. All this was in line with Bagshaw’s taste for sailing near the wind, whatever he did, but he had never spoken of setting Trapnel to work on Widmerpool. That was certainly to expose himself to danger. The temptation to do so, once the idea had occurred to an editor of Bagshaw’s temperament, would, on the other hand, be a hard one to resist.

If, in the light of his business connexions with the publishing firm and the magazine, it were risky to parody Widmerpool, Widmerpool’s lack of respect for Bagshaw’s abilities as an editor did not make the experiment any less hazardous. For the parody to appear in print at this moment would certainly liven the mixture with new unforeseen fermentations. It was equally characteristic of Bagshaw to be away from the office at such a juncture. Quiggin himself certainly grasped that, at a moment when lurid theories about the elopement were giving place to acceptance of the Widmerpool version, there was a danger of a severe setback for such an interpretation of the story. He saw that circumstances were so ominous that the only thing to do was to claim the parody as a victory rather than a defeat.

‘You have to look at things all ways. Kenneth Widmerpool is taking the line that no catastrophic break in his married life is threatened. Whether or not that is true, we have no reliable evidence how far, if at all, Trapnel is involved. In a sense, therefore, a good-natured burlesque by X of Kenneth’s literary mannerisms suggests friendly, rather than unfriendly, relations.’

‘Good-natured?’

Quiggin looked at Ada severely, but not without a suggestion of desire.

‘Parodies are intended to raise a laugh. Perhaps you did not know that, Ada. If someone had taken the trouble to show me the piece before it was printed, I might have done a little sub-editing here and there. I don’t promise it would have improved the whole, so perhaps it was better not.’

This speech indicated that Widmerpool might not have it all his own way, if he made too much fuss. It also confirmed indirectly the resentment of Widmerpool’s domination that, according to Bagshaw, Quiggin had begun increasingly to show. Judy, the secretary, feeling that some of these recriminations were directed against herself, or, more probably envious of the attention Quiggin was devoting to Ada, now began to protest.

‘How on earth was I to know one man had run away with the other man’s wife? Books just handed the copy over to me, saying he had a temperature of a hundred-and-two, and told me to get on with the job.’

‘Grown-up people always check on that particular point, my girl,’ said Quiggin. ‘Don’t worry. We’re not blaming you. Calm down. Take an aspirin. Isn’t it time for coffee? I admit I could have done without Bagshaw arranging this just at the moment the Sweetskin case is coming on, and all the to-do about Sad Majors.

I enquired as to Quiggin’s version of the Stevens trouble.

‘Odo’s written an excellent account of his time with the Partisans. Adventurous, personal, but a lot of controversial matter. Readers don’t want controversy. Why should they? Besides, it would be awkward for the firm to publish a book hinting some of the things Odo’s does, with Kenneth Widmerpool on the board. All his support for societies trying to promote good relations with that very country. You want to keep politics out of a book like that.’

‘Odo isn’t very interested in politics, is he?’

‘Not in a way, but he’s very obstinate.’

I left them still in a flutter about the parody. There was not much Widmerpool could do. It would increase his opposition to Bagshaw, but Bagshaw probably had a contract of some sort. At the end of that, if the magazine survived, Widmerpool was likely to try and get him sacked anyway. It was a typical Bagshaw situation. Meanwhile, he showed no sign of returning to the office. The message came that his flu was no better. Some evenings later there was a telephone call at home. A female voice asked for me.

‘Speaking.’

‘It’s Pamela Widmerpool.’

‘Oh, yes?’

She must have known I was answering, but for some reason of her own preferred to go through the process of making absolutely sure.

‘X is not well.’

‘ I’m very sorry —’

‘I want you to come and see him. He needs some books and things.’

‘But — ’

‘It’s really the only way — for you to come yourself.’

She spoke the last sentence irritably, as if the question of my bringing Trapnel aid in person had already arisen in the past, and, rather contemptibly, I had raised objections to making myself available. Now, it seemed, I was looking for a similar excuse again. She offered no explanation or apology for thus emerging as representative of the Trapnel, rather than Widmerpool, ménage. In taking on the former position there was not the smallest trace of self-consciousness.

‘This man Bagshaw has flu still. I can’t get any sense out of the half-witted girl left in charge at the Fission office. That’s why you must come.’

‘I was only going to say that I don’t know where you — where X is living.’

‘Of course you don’t. No one does. I’m about to tell you. Do you know the Canal at Maida Vale?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’re a bit north of there.’

She gave the name of a street and number of the house. I wrote them down.

‘The ground-floor flat. Don’t be put off by the look of the place outside. It’s inhabited all right, though you might not think so. When can you come? Tonight?’

She added further instructions about getting there.

‘What’s wrong with X?’

‘He’s just feeling like hell.’

‘Has he seen a doctor?’

‘He won’t.’

‘Wouldn’t it be wiser to make him?’

‘He’ll be all right in a day or two. He’s got quite a store of his pills. He just wants to talk to somebody. We don’t see anybody as a rule. You just happen to know both of us. That’s why you must come. Have you got a book to bring? Something for him to review?’

I had taken some review copies from the Fission shelves to look through at home. L. O. Salvidge’s collection of essays, Paper Wine, might do for Trapnel. I told Pamela I would produce something. She rang off without comment.

‘Don’t get robbed and murdered,’ said Isobel.

To visit Trapnel in one of his lairs was a rare experience at the best of times. Once we had both been allowed to have a drink with him at a flat in Notting Hill, within range of the Portobello Road, where he liked to wander among the second-hand stalls. He was then living with a girl called Sally. The invitation had been quite exceptional, possibly intended to establish some sort of an alibi for reasons never revealed. The present expedition was more adventurous. The Paddington area, and north of it, supplied one of the traditional Trapnel areas of bivouac. It was surprising that he and Pamela were to be found no farther afield. Their total disappearance suggested withdrawal from such ground to less established streets. It was of course true to say that, even when not specifically retired to the outer suburbs, one rarely knew for certain where Trapnel was living. The absence of news about him from pub sources indicated experiment with hitherto unfrequented taverns. Such investigation would not be unwelcome; by no means out of character. A fresh round of saloon bars would hold out promise of new disciples, new eccentrics, new bores, new near-criminals. Pamela herself might well have objected to a really radical retreat from the approaches to central London. The part she played was hard to imagine.

At this period the environs of the Canal had not yet developed into something of a quartier chic, as later incarnated. Before the war, the indigenous population, time-honoured landladies, inveterate lodgers, immemorial whores, long undisturbed in surrounding premises, had already begun to give place to young married couples, but buildings already tumbledown had now been further reduced by bombing. The neighbourhood looked anything but flourishing. Leaving Edgware Road, I walked along the north bank of the Canal. On either side of the water gaps among the houses marked where direct hits had reduced Regency villas to rubble. The street Pamela had described was beyond this stucco colony. It was not at all easy to find. When traced, the exterior bore out the description of looking uninhabited.

The architecture here had little pretension to elegance. Several steps led up to the front door. No name was quoted above the bell of the ground floor flat. I rang, and waited. The door was opened by Pamela. She was in slacks. I said good-evening. She did not smile.

‘Come in.’

Lighted only by a ray from the flat doorway left open, the hall, so far as could be seen in the gloom, accorded with the derelict exterior of the house; peeling wallpaper, bare boards, a smell of damp, cigarette smoke, stale food. The atmosphere recalled Maclintick’s place in Pimlico, when Moreland and I had visited him not long before his suicide. By contrast, the fairly large room into which I followed Pamela conveyed, chiefly on account of the appalling mess of things that filled it, an impression of rough comfort, almost of plenty. There were only a few sticks of furniture, a table, two kitchen chairs, a vast and hideous wardrobe, but several pieces of luggage lay about — including two newish suitcases evidently belonging to Pamela — clothes, books, cups, glasses, empty Algerian wine bottles. The pictures consisted of a couple of large photographs of Pamela herself, taken by well-known photographers, and, over the mantelpiece, the Modigliani drawing. Trapnel lay on a divan under some brown army blankets.

‘Look here, it’s awfully good of you to come, Nick.’

One wondered, at this austere period for acquiring any sort of clothing to be regarded as of unusual design, where he had bought the dirty white pyjamas patterned with large red spots. The circumstances were in general a shade more sordid than pictured. Trapnel had been reading a detective story, which he now threw on the floor. A lot of other books lay about over the bedclothes, among them Oblomov, The Thin Man, Adolphe, in a French edition, all copies worn to shreds. Trapnel looked pale, rather dazed, otherwise no worse than usual. Before I could speak, Pamela made a request.

‘Have you a shilling? The fire’s going out.’

She took the coin and slipped it into the slot, reviving the dying flame, just going blue. As the gas flared up again, its hiss for some inexplicable reason suggested an explanation of why Pamela had married Widmerpool. She had done it, so to speak, in order to run away with Trapnel. I do not mean she had thought that out in precise terms — a vivid imagination would be required to predict the advent of Trapnel into Widmerpool’s life — but the violent antithesis presented by their contrasted forms of existence, two unique specimens as it were brought into collision, promised anarchic extremities of feeling of the kind at which she aimed; in which she was principally at home. She liked — to borrow a phrase from St. John Clarke — to ‘try conclusions with the maelstrom’. One of the consequences of her presence was to displace Trapnel’s tendency to play a part during the first few minutes of any meeting. That could well have been knocked out of him by ill health, as much as by Pamela. He spoke now as if he were merely a little embarrassed.

‘There were one or two things I wanted to talk about. You know I don’t much like having to explain things on the telephone, though I often have to do that. Anyway, it’s cut off here, the instrument was removed bodily yesterday, and I’m not supposed to go outside for the moment, owing to this malaise I’ve got. You and I haven’t seen each other for some time, Nick. Such a lot’s happened. As I’m a bit off colour I thought you wouldn’t mind coming to our flat. It seemed easier. Pam was sure you’d come.’

He gave her one of those ‘adoring looks’, which Lermontov says mean so little to women. Pamela stared back at him with an expression of complete detachment. I thought of King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid, though Pamela was far from a pre-raphaelite type or a maid, and, socially speaking, the boot was, if anything, on the other foot. No doubt it was Trapnel’s beard. He had also allowed his hair to grow longer than usual. All the same, he sitting up on the divan, she standing above him, they somehow called up the picture.

‘I brought some essays by L. O. Salvidge.’

‘Paper Wine?’

Trapnel, by some mysterious agency, always knew about all books before they were published. It was as if the information came to him instinctively. He laughed. The thought of reviewing Salvidge’s essays must have made him feel better. One had the impression that he had been locked up with Pamela for weeks, like the Spanish honeymoon couples Borrit used to describe, when we were in the War Office together. To get back to the world of reviewing seemed to offer a magical cure for whatever Trapnel suffered. It really cheered him up.

‘Just what I need — have we got anything to drink, darling?’

‘A bottle of Algerian’s open. Some dregs left, I think.’

‘I don’t want anything at the moment, thanks very much.’

Trapnel lay back on the divan.

‘To begin with, that bloody parody of mine.’

‘I mistook it at first for the real thing.’

That amused Trapnel. Pamela continued to stand by without comment or change of expression.

‘I’m glad you did that. What’s happened about it? Any reactions?’

‘None I’ve heard about. There was some trepidation at the Fission office that trouble might arise from the obvious quarter. Books is away with flu.’

‘What a bloody fool he is. I wrote the thing quite a long time ago at his suggestion. He said he’d have to talk to the others about it. I hadn’t contemplated present circumstances then.’

‘Nor did anyone else.’

‘What about Books?’

‘The evidence is that he didn’t know.’

‘Will Widmerpool believe that?’

‘What can he do?’ asked Pamela. ‘He ought to be flattered.’

Even when she made this comment the tone suggested she was no more on Trapnel’s side than Widmerpool’s. She was assessing the situation objectively.

‘That’s what Books told Evadne Clapham,’ said Trapnel. ‘On that occasion I hadn’t also run away with her husband. I suppose everything combined means I won’t be able to write for Fission any longer. That’s a blow, because it was one of my main sources of income, and I liked the magazine.’

‘JG didn’t seem unduly worried. He’s got the Sweetskin prosecution on hand, and there’s some trouble about Odo Stevens’s book.’

‘I don’t want my publishing connexions messed up too. Quiggin & Craggs have their failings, but they aren’t doing too badly with Bin Ends. I’m not under contract for the next novel. I’m getting near the end now. I don’t want to have to hawk it round.’

At one moment Trapnel would give the impression that he was under contract with Quiggin & Craggs, and wanted to get rid of them; at the next, that he was not under contract, and wanted to stay. That was like him. He pointed to a respectably thick pile of foolscap covered with cuneiform handwriting. Although able to type, to use a typewriter was against Trapnel’s principles. The books had to be written by his own hand. This talk about the novel seemed to displease Pamela. She began to frown.

‘How’s my husband?’ she asked.

‘I’ve not seen him lately — not since the night you left.’

‘You saw him then?’

‘I’d been dining with another MP. We came back to the Victoria Street flat to discuss some things.’

‘Which MP?’

‘Roddy Cutts — my brother-in-law.’

‘That tall sandy-haired Tory?’

‘Yes.’

‘Were you there when Short delivered the message?’

‘Yes.’

‘How was it taken?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well or badly?’

‘There was no scene.’

A slight flush had come over her face when she asked these questions. There could be no doubt she derived some sort of sensual satisfaction from dwelling on what had happened. Trapnel, acute enough to recognize, and resent, this process of exciting herself by such means, looked uneasy. The manner in which she managed to maintain a wholly unchanged demeanour in these very changed surroundings was notable; yet after all why should she become different just because she had decided to spend a season with Trapnel? With him, with Odo Stevens, with Allied officers, for that matter with Widmerpool, she remained the same, as individuals mostly do within a more intimate orbit; at home; with a lover; under unaccustomed stress. To suppose otherwise is naïve. At the same time, some require action, others are paralysed by action. That dissimilarity recognized, people stay themselves. Pamela did not give an inch. She was not rattled. She did the rattling.

The same could not be said of Widmerpool. He was obstinate, not easily deflected from his purpose, but circumstances might rattle him badly. He was not, like Pamela, consistent in never adapting his behaviour to others. Her constant search for new lovers made the world see her as existing solely in the field of sex, but the Furies that had driven her into the arms of Widmerpool by their torments — no doubt his too — at the same time invested her with the magnetic power that mesmerized Trapnel, operated in a manner to transcend love or sex, as both are commonly regarded. Did she and Widmerpool in some manner supplement each other, she supplying a condition he lacked — one that Burton would have called Melancholy? Now she showed her powers at work.

‘I’m not satisfied with X’s book.’

That was the first aesthetic judgment I had ever heard her make. When she had earlier changed the subject from Trapnel’s writing, I thought she found, as some women do, concentration on a husband’s or lover’s work in some manner vexing. That she should return to his writing of her own volition was unexpected. It looked as if this were another manner of keeping Trapnel on his toes, because he reacted strongly to the comment.

‘I’m going to alter the bits you don’t like. You know, Nick, Pam’s got a marvellous instinct for a sequence that has gone a shade wrong technically. I can’t put it all right in five minutes, darling. These things take time and hard work. It’ll all be done in due course, when I’ve thrown off this bloody thing that’s playing such hell with work.’

‘This is Profiles in String?’

‘I can’t get the feel of the end chapters. Most of the bad criticism you read is lack of understanding of what it feels like to get the wheels working internally when you’re writing a novel. Not one reviewer in a thousand grasps that.’

Pamela showed no interest in subtleties of literary feeling.

‘I’d rather you burnt it than published it as it stands. In fact you’re not going to.’

Trapnel sighed. It was unlike him to accept criticism so humbly. On the face of it, there seemed no more reason to suppose Pamela knew how a novel should be written — from Trapnel’s point of view — than did the reviewers. In general, if he allowed himself to seek another opinion about how to deal with some matter in what he was writing — a short story, for example — he was accustomed to argue hard all the way in favour of whatever treatment he himself had in mind. Pamela showed contempt for the abject manner in which her objections had been received. Once more she switched the subject to her own situation.

‘What are people saying about us?’

‘No one knows quite what has happened.’

‘How do you mean?’

She pouted. At that moment the bell rang. Trapnel groaned.

‘God, it’s the man trying to collect the money for the newspapers. He’s come back.’

Pamela made a face.

‘Take no notice. He’ll go away after a while.’

‘He’ll see the light. It was daytime when he came before, and he thought we weren’t in.’

Pamela turned to me.

‘You answer the door. Tell him we’re away — that we’ve lent you the flat.’

I showed unwillingness to undertake this commission. Trapnel was apologetic.

‘We’re being dunned. It always happens if you allow people to know your address. It’s like hotels insisting on cleaning the room out from time to time. There’s always some inconvenience, wherever you live. I couldn’t help giving the address this time, otherwise we wouldn’t have had any papers delivered.’

‘Perhaps it’s for the other people in the house.’

‘They’ve gone away — decamped, I think. Do deal with it.’

‘But what can I say to the man, if he is the newspaper man?’

‘Tell him — ’

The bell rang again. Pamela showed signs of getting cross.

‘Look, X can’t get up in his present state. Do go. If you had ten bob — twelve at the most — that would keep him quiet.’

There seemed no way of avoiding the assignment. I took ten shillings from my notecase, in so far as possible to cut short discussion, and went into the hall. To see the way, it was necessary to leave the flat door ajar. Even so, the place was inconveniently dark, and the front door required a certain amount of negotiating to open. It gave at last. The figure waiting on the the doorstep was not the newspaperman, but Widmerpool. He did not seem in the least surprised that I should be the person to admit him.

‘I expect you’re here on business about the magazine, Nicholas?’

‘Delivering a book to be reviewed, as a matter of fact.’

‘I’m rather glad to find you on the premises. Don’t go away from a mistaken sense of delicacy. Matters of a rather personal nature are likely to be discussed. I am quite glad to have a witness, especially one conversant with the circumstances, connected, I mean, by ties of business, albeit literary business. Where is Trapnel? This way, I take it?’

The light shining through the sitting-room door showed Widmerpool where to go. He took off his hat, crossed the boards of the hall, and over the threshold of the flat. It had at least been unnecessary to announce him. In fact he announced himself.

‘Good evening. I have come to talk about some things.’

Pamela, hands stuck in the pockets of her trousers, was still standing, with her peculiar stillness of poise, in front of the gas fire. If Widmerpool had shown lack of surprise at my opening the door to him, he had at least expressed what seemed to him an adequate explanation as to why I should be with Trapnel. I arranged reviewing at Fission; Trapnel reviewed books. That was sufficient reason for my presence. The fact that Trapnel had run away with Widmerpool’s wife had nothing to do with the business relationship between Trapnel and myself. To disregard it was almost something to approve. That view was no doubt more especially acceptable in the light of propaganda put about by Widmerpool himself.

Pamela, on the other hand, except insomuch as having left her husband, he might, in one sense, be expected to come and look for her, in another, could scarcely have been prepared for his arrival. So far from showing any wonder, she made no sign whatever of being even aware that an additional person had entered the room. She did not permit herself so much as a glance in Widmerpool’s direction. Her expression, one of slight, though not severe displeasure, did not alter in the smallest degree. She seemed to be concentrating on a tear in the wallpaper opposite that ran in a great jagged parabola through a pattern of red parrots and blue storks, freak birds of the same size.

Widmerpool did not speak immediately after his first announcement. He went rather red. He put his hat on top of Trapnel’s manuscript, where it lay on the table. Trapnel himself was now sitting bolt upright on the divan. This must, in a way, have been the moment he had been awaiting all his life: a truly dramatic occasion. That he was determined to rise to it was shown at once by the tone of his voice when he spoke.

‘Would you oblige me by removing your hat from off my book?’

Widmerpool, whatever else he had taken in his stride, was astonished by this request. No doubt it presupposed an altogether unforeseen, alien area of sensibility. Picking up the hat again, he replaced it on one of the suitcases.

Trapnel maintained a tone of dramatically cold politeness. His voice trembled a little when he spoke again.

‘I’m sorry. I must have sounded rude. I did not mean to be that. I have a special thing about my manuscripts — that is, I hate them being treated like any old pile of waste paper. Please take your coat off and sit down.’

‘Thank you, I prefer to stand. I shall not be staying long, so that it is not worth my taking off my coat.’

Widmerpool gazed round the room. It was clearly worse, far worse, than he had ever dreamed; if he had thought at all about what he was likely to run to earth. His face showed that, considered in the light of housing insufficiencies inspected in his own constituency, the flat was horrific. Trapnel, possibly remembering the talk they had exchanged on such deplorable conditions, noticed this survey. He almost grinned. Then his manner changed.

‘How did you find the house?’

This time Trapnel spoke with the hollow faraway voice of a horror film. He was determined to remain master of the situation. Widmerpool was quite equal to the manoeuvring.

‘I came by taxi.’

‘I mean how did you discover where I was living?’

‘There are such aids as private detectives.’

Widmerpool said that with disdain. Trapnel laughed. The laughter too was of the kind associated with a horror film.

‘I always wanted to meet someone who employed a private detective.’

Widmerpool did not answer at once. He appeared to be jockeying for position, taking up action stations before the contest really broke into flame. He cleared his throat.

‘I have come here to clarify the situation. By arrival in person, some people might judge that I have put myself in a false position. Such is not my own opinion. A person of your kind, Trapnel, has neither the opportunity to observe, nor capacity to understand, the demands laid on a man who takes up the burden of public life. It is therefore necessary that certain facts should be plainly stated. The best person to state them is myself.’

Trapnel listened to this with the air of an accomplished actor. His ‘hollow’ laughter was now followed by a ‘grim’ smile. It was still a performance. Widmerpool had not got him, so to speak, out in the open yet.

‘First,’ said Widmerpool, ‘you borrow money from me.’

Trapnel’s defiance had not been geared to that particular form of attack at that moment. He dropped his acting and looked very angry, quite unsimulated rage.

‘Then you lampoon me in a magazine of which I am one of the chief supporters.’

Trapnel began to smile again at that. If the first accusation put him in a weak position, the second to some extent restored equilibrium.

‘Finally, my wife comes to live with you.’

Widmerpool paused. He too was being melodramatic now. Trapnel had ceased to smile. He was very white. He had lost command of his role as actor. Pamela watched them, still showing no change of expression. Widmerpool must have been to some extent aware that by making Trapnel angry, dislodging him from playing a part, he was moving towards ascendancy.

‘You can keep my pound. Do not bother, when you are next paid for some paltry piece of journalism, to make another attempt to return it — which was, so I understand, your subterfuge for insinuating yourself into my house. The pound does not matter. Forget about it. I make you a present of it.’

Trapnel did not speak.

‘Secondly, I want to express quite clearly my own indifference to your efforts to ridicule my economic theories. Some people might have thought that an act of ungratefulness on your part. Your own ignorance of the elementary principles of economics makes it not even that. Your so-called parody is a failure. Not funny. Several people have told me so. And at the same time I recognize it as a deliberate insult. That is a matter between the board and Bagshaw — ’

Trapnel burst out.

‘You’re trying to get Books sacked —’

‘Don’t interrupt me,’ said Widmerpcol. ‘Bagshaw has a contract.’

He made a half turn about in order, more unmistakably, to include Pamela in whatever he was now about to announce. She went so far as to raise her eyebrows slightly. Widmerpool still primarily addressed himself to Trapnel.

‘You may fear that I am going to institute divorce proceedings. Such is not my intention. Pamela will return in her own good time. I think we understand each other.’

Widmerpool paused.

‘That is what I came to tell you,’ he said. ‘That — and to express my contempt for the way you live and the way you have behaved.’

Trapnel threw back the army blankets. He rose quite slowly from the divan. His body, seen through the spotted pyjamas, was desperately thin. He retied their cord; then, in his bare feet, walked very deliberately to where the huge wardrobe stood in the corner of the room. Against it was propped the death’s-head sword-stick. Trapnel picked up the stick, and pressed the spring at the back of the skull. The blade was released. He threw the sheath on top of Oblomov, The Thin Man, Adolphe, and the several other books lying on the bedclothes.

‘Get out.’

Trapnel did not actually threaten Widmerpool with the sword. He held the point to the ground, as if about to raise the weapon in formal salute before joining combat in a duel. It was hard to estimate where exactly his actions hovered between play-acting and loss of control. Widmerpool stood firm.

‘No dramatics, please.’

This calmness was to his credit. He knew little of Trapnel, but what he knew certainly gave no guarantee that a man of Trapnel’s sort would not be capable of eccentric violence. If it came to that, I felt no absolute assurance on that matter myself. Whatever his merits as a writer, Trapnel could not be regarded as a well-balanced personality. Anything might be looked for from him. Besides, there were his ‘pills’. One had the impression that, as such stimulants go, they were fairly mild. At the same time, he could easily have moved on to stronger stuff. Pamela might have encouraged that course; living with her almost necessitated it. Even the pills in their accustomed form might be sufficient to induce indiscreet conduct, especially when the question posed was evicting from a lover’s flat the husband of his mistress.

‘Are you going?’

‘I have no wish to stay.’

Widmerpool picked up his hat from the suitcase. He brushed the felt with his elbow. Then he turned once more towards Pamela.

‘I shall be abroad for some weeks in Eastern Europe. As a Member of Parliament I have been invited to enjoy the hospitality of one of the new Governments.’

‘I said get out.’

Trapnel raised the sword slightly. Widmerpool took no notice. He continued raspingly to brush the surface of the hat. This time he addressed himself to me.

‘The visit should make an interesting Fission article. Some apologists for the Liberal and Peasant leaders have suggested that concessions to the Soviet point of view have been too all-embracing. What I always tell people, who are not themselves in the know, is that our own brand of social-democracy, for better or worse, is not always exportable.’

He reorientated himself towards Pamela.

‘When I return I shall not be surprised to find that you have reconsidered matters.’

She looked straight at him. Otherwise she gave no sign that she had heard what he said. Widmerpool went very red again. He passed through the door into the hall. The front door slammed, but did not shut. Trapnel in his bare feet ran out of the flat. He could be heard to pull the front door violently open again. From the steps he shouted into the night.

‘Coprolite! Faecal débris! Fossil of dung!’

A minute later he returned to the sitting-room. He took the sheath-half of the swordstick from the bed, replaced the blade and returned it to the corner by the wardrobe. Then he climbed under the blankets again, and lay back. He looked quite exhausted. Pamela, on the other hand, now showed signs of life. A faint colour had come into her face, a look of excitement I had never before seen there. She smiled. Something unexpected was afoot. She came across the room, and sat down on the bed. Trapnel took one of her hands. He did not speak. Comment came from Pamela this time.

‘I’m glad you were here, Nicholas. I’m glad it all happened in front of someone. I wish there had been a lot more people. Hundreds more. Now you know what my life was like.’

Trapnel patted her hand. He was much shaken. Not well in any case, he was likely to be dissatisfied with the scene that had taken place. He could scarcely be said to have dominated it in the manner of one of his own screen heroes, even if it were better not to have run Widmerpool through, or whatever was in his mind.

‘I do apologize for getting you mixed up with all this, Nick. It wasn’t my fault. How the hell could I guess he was going to turn up here? I thought there wasn’t a living soul knew the address, except one or two shops round here. Private detectives? It makes you think.’

The idea of private detectives obviously fascinated Trapnel’s roman policier leanings, which were highly developed. He was also worried.

‘Will you be awfully good, and keep quiet about all this, Nick? Don’t say a word, for obvious reasons.’

Pamela shook back her hair.

‘Thank you so much for coming, and for bringing the book. I expect we shall see you again here, as we aren’t going out much, as long as X isn’t well. I’ll ring you up, and you can bring another book some time.’

She spoke formally, like a hostess saying goodbye to a visitor she barely knows, who has paid a social call, and now explains that he must leave. A complete change had come over her after the impassivity she had shown until now. Before I could reply, she spoke again, this time abandoning formality.

‘Bugger off — I want to be alone with X.’