Temporary Kings

3

Daniel Tokenhouse rang up the following morning to acknowledge my notification of arrival in Venice. I was still in bed when he telephoned, though breakfast had been ordered. In keeping with an instinctive determination to hold the moral advantage, he made a point of ascertaining that I was not yet up. On the line, he sounded in tolerably good form, brisk, peremptory, as always. I had not expected him to be in the least senile, but the sharpness of his manner may have been amplified by some apprehension, shared by myself, that changes must have taken place in both of us during the last twenty years, which could prove mutually disenchanting.

‘How are you, Dan?’

‘In rude health. Working hard, as ever. Been up painting since half-past six this morning. Hate staying in bed. You’ll find developments in my style. I shall be interested to hear what you think of them.’

Complete absorption in himself, and his own doings, always characterized Tokenhouse, a temperament that had served him pretty well in getting through what must have been, on the whole, rather a solitary life, especially of late years. He had in no way relaxed this solipsistic standpoint.

‘When can your works be seen?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that. Sunday morning would suit me best. You will not be in conference then, I trust, with your fellow intellectuals? I hope they are proving themselves worthy of their proud designation. Come about twelve o’clock midday — half-past eleven, if you prefer. That will give us more time. Do not fear. I shall not be attending matins.’

He gave his high, unamused laugh.

‘How do I reach you, Dan?’

‘I live, I am thankful to say, in a spot quite off the beaten track of that horrible fellow, the tourist. Among the people of Venice. The real people. I could not remain here an hour otherwise. My flat is in the quarter of the Arsenal, if you know where that is, a calle off the Via Garibaldi. You take an accelerato, then a short walk along the Riva Ca Di Dio and Riva Biagio. Let me explain the exact whereabouts, for it is not at all easy to find.’

He gave minute instructions, forcibly bringing back the years when I had worked under him, something establishing a relationship which can never wholly fade.

‘Afterwards, I thought, we might walk as far as the Biennale together. I have not seen the latest Exhibition yet. I should like you to lunch with me at the restaurant in the Giardini.’

‘I’ll be with you, Dan, between half-past eleven and twelve on Sunday.’

‘You may not care for the sort of work I am doing now. I warn you of that. Are you sure you know how to get here? Let me repeat my instructions.’

He went over the directions with that pedantic attention to detail natural to him, dilated by army training.

‘Have you got it? Remember, an accelerato. When you disembark, turn to the right, walk straight on, then bear left, left again, then right — not left, remember — then right again. It’s over a greengrocer’s. Walk straight up.’

When Sunday morning came, the place turned out quite easy to find. It was a characteristic Tokenhouse abode, which, freedom from sound of traffic apart, might have been situated in an alley-way of some down-at-heel district of London, or anywhere else, all architectural and local emphasis as negative as possible; exceptional only insomuch as to discover — elect to inhabit — so featureless a location in Venice was in itself a shade impressive. I climbed the stairs and knocked. The door opened immediately, as if Tokenhouse had been already gripping the handle, impatiently awaiting someone to arrive.

‘Hullo, Dan.’

‘Come in, come in. Through here. This is the room where I paint.’

The windows faced on to a blank wall. Except for a pile of canvases, none of great size, stacked in one corner, the room showed no sign of being an artist’s studio. It was scrupulously neat, suggesting for some perverse reason — possibly actual by-product of its owner’s intense anti-clericalism — sense of arrival in the study of an urban vicarage or rectory, including an indefinably churchly smell.

‘Did it take you long to get here? No? Not after my detailed instructions, I expect. They were necessary. How are you? What is your hotel like? I know it by name. I can’t bear that fashionable end of the Canal. It gets worse every year. I continue to live in Venice only because I am used to the place by now. At my age it would be a great business to move. Besides, there are advantages. One can make oneself useful.’

He rapped his knuckles together several times, and nodded. In spite of the parsonic overtones of the sitting-room-studio, Tokenhouse himself did not look at all like a clergyman; nor even the very reasonably successful publisher of art books he had been in his time. Acquired erudition, heterodox opinions, expatriate domicile, none had done anything to alter deep dyed marks of the military profession, an appearance, one imagined, Tokenhouse would not have chosen. At the same time, if aware of looking like a retired soldier, even heartily disliking that, he would have considered dishonest any effort at diminishment brought about by artificial means, such as wearing relatively unconformist clothes. His clothes, in one sense, certainly were unconformist, but not at all with that object in view. Spare, wiry, very upright, he could be thought dried up, wizened, ascetic; considering his years, not particularly old. His body seemed made up of gristle, rather than flesh; grey hair, trimmed severely, almost en brosse, remaining thick. He peered alertly, rather peevishly, through gold-rimmed spectacles set well forward on a long thin reddish nose. An all-enveloping chilliness of manner hung about him, sense of being utterly cut off from the rest of the world, a personality, even physique, no sun could warm. Unlike Widmerpool, sweltering in his House of Lords suit, the ancient jacket Tokenhouse wore, good thick serviceable tweed, designed to keep out damp wind on the moors, his even older flannel trousers punctiliously pressed, seemed between them garments scarcely substantial enough to prevent him looking blue with cold, in spite of blazing Venetian sunlight outside.

‘How are your family? You have children of your own almost grown up now, I believe? Is that not so?’

He spoke as if procreation of children were an extraordinary fate to overtake anyone, consequence of imprudence, if not worse. We talked for a time of things that had happened since our last meeting.

‘Your father and I parted on bad terms. There was no other way. He could never see reason. An entirely unphilosophic mind. Childish view of politics. Now he is dead. Most of the people I used to know are dead. I don’t find that makes much difference to me. I have learnt to be self-supporting. It is the only way. No good thinking about the past. The future is what matters. But you said you would like to see some of my work. Then we’ll go to the Exhibition. The Gardens are within walking distance. The pictures aren’t much good this year, I’m told, but let’s look at my work first, if that is what you would like.’

Moving jerkily across the room, he returned once more with some of the unframed canvases, chosen from the pile that lay in the corner. He spread out several of these, propping them up against chairs.

‘You’ve certainly changed your style, Dan.’

‘True, O King.’

That had always been a favourite expression of Tokenhouse’s, especially when not best pleased. I tried to think of something to say. The Camden Town Group had been wholly superseded, utterly swept away, so far as the art of Daniel Tokenhouse was concerned. What had taken its place was less easy to define; a sort of neo-primitivism. The light was bad for forming a judgment. So revolutionary was the transformation that a happy phrase to cover just what had happened did not come easily to mind. The new Tokenhouse style, in one of its expressions, suggested frescoes, frescoes on a very small scale; not at all in the manner of, say, Barnby’s murals once decorating the entrance to the Donners-Brebner Building. After some minutes, Tokenhouse himself making no comment, I felt compelled to pronounce a judgment, however insipid.

‘The garage scene has considerable force. Its colour emotive too, limiting yourself in that way to an almost regular monochrome, picked out with passages of flat heavy black.’

‘You mean this study?’

‘Both of those. Aren’t they the same group from another angle?’

‘Yes, this is another shot. Three in all. The subject is Four priests rigging a miracle. The rather larger version here, and its fellow, are less successful, I think. At the same time both have merit of a sort.’

‘You always make several studies of the same subject nowadays?’

‘I find that produces the best results. I work slowly. That comes from lack of early training. My difficulty is usually to get the values correctly.’

‘The browns, greys and blacks seem to create an effective recession.’

‘Ah, you have misunderstood me. Having, so to speak, forged ahead politically myself, it is easy to forget other people remain content with old notions of painting, formalists ones. I meant, of course, that it is not always plain sailing so far as political values are concerned. I am no longer interested in such purely technical achievements as correct recession, so called, or making a kind of pattern.’

‘Still, incorrect recession can surely play havoc — unless, of course, deliberate distortion is in question. Was your change of technique gradual?’

Tokenhouse gave a restive intake of breath to show how wildly he had been misunderstood.

‘One forgets, one forgets. Let me explain. I had begun to feel very impatient with Formalism, the sort of painting that derived from Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, not to mention their successors, such as the Surrealists — as I prefer to call them, Pseudo-Realists. I thought about it all a lot. I long pondered the phrase read somewhere: “A picture is an act of Socialism.” I don’t expect you’re familiar with that approach. You may not agree anyway. Your dissent is immaterial to me. I made up my mind to embark on a fresh start. I began by taking a bus over the bridge to Mestre, and attempting some plein air studies. I set about one of those large installations there — hydro-electric, or whatever they arc — a suitably functional conception. Absurd as that may seem, I created the impression of being engaged on some sort of industrial espionage. Nothing serious happened, but it was all rather tedious and discouraging. Much more important than the interfering attitude of the authorities was my own fear that Impressionist errors were creeping back, just as fallaciously as if I was one of the old ladies sitting on a camp-stool in front of the Salute. In short, I comprehended I was still hopelessly aesthetic.’

‘I’d never call you an aesthete, Dan.’

Tokenhouse laughed shortly.

‘Certainly not in the nineteenth-century use of the word. All the same, you have to watch yourself. We all have to. That was specially true of my next phase, when I thought I would try Political Symbolism. The effect was very mixed. I’ve painted-over quite a lot of them, wiped them out completely. This is one of the rather better efforts I preserved. It was completed quite soon after my breach with retrospection — accepting the past, I mean, simply as a point of departure. The important thing was I had learnt by then that Naturalism was not enough.’

‘Like patriotism?’

Tokenhouse paid no attention, either because he never cared for flippancy, or, more likely, had passed beyond paying attention to most remarks made by other people. He had begun to speak quickly, excitedly, almost gabbling this account of his own development as a painter, reciting his painting creed like a lesson learnt by heart.

‘I suddenly saw in a flash, a revelation, that I could not retain any remnant of self-respect, if I gave way to Formalism again in the slightest degree. I must satisfy my own conviction that a new ideological content had to be infused into painting, one free of all taint of neutrality. That was just as important for an amateur like myself, as for a professional painter of long standing and successful attainment.’

Like an onlooker dexterously exposing an attempt to deceive in manipulation of the Three-Card Trick, Tokenhouse seized the three studies of miracle-rigging priests, two in his right hand, one in his left, with incredible speed setting in their place a single example of his interim period. It was larger in size than earlier exhibits, brighter in colour. Most of his pictures, Formalist or Reformed, were apt to end up a superfluity of brownish-carmine tones. This latest canvas, vermilion and light cobalt, showed the origins of the fresco technique in representation of what were evidently factory workers, stripped to the waist, pushing over a precipice a disordered group of kings and bishops, easily recognizable by their crowns and mitres. Perhaps deliberately, treatment of posture and movement was a trifle wooden, but the painter had clearly taken a certain pleasure in depicting irresolute terror in the features of monarchs and ecclesiastics toppling into the abyss. The subject suggested, not for the first time in the character of Tokenhouse, a touch of muted sadism, revealed occasionally in conversation, otherwise kept, so far as one knew, in check.

‘I found Politico-Symbolism, for a person of my limited imaginative faculties, a cul de sac. My aim latterly has been to depict social injustice in as straightforward a manner as possible, compatible with avoiding that too passive Realism of which I have spoken. My own constricted skill has prevented me from attempting some of the more ambitious subjects I have in mind, though I like to think there are signs of improvement. Ah-ha, you do too? I am glad. It is simply a question of documentation in the last resort. You meditate along the correct political lines, the picture almost paints itself. Look at this — and this.’

We inspected a representative collection of Tokenhouse’s more recent work.

‘I don’t want to bore you with my efforts. Shall we set out for the Biennale? If you want to see more, we could look in again after lunch, but I expect you’ve had enough by now.’

He found an ashplant walking-stick, placed on his head a battered grey hat with a greenish-black ribbon, turned down the brim all round, opened the door of the flat. We set off for the Giardini, Tokenhouse at his habitual short rapid stride, a military quickstep, suggesting chronic fear of unpunctuality. He hurried along, hobnailed shoes grinding the cobbles.

‘I’m feeling rather pleased about a letter received this morning. I’ve been revising my will, terms that may surprise some people, among others making the lawyers agree to insert a clause for no religious ceremony at the funeral. They didn’t like it. Don’t like that sort of thing, even these days. I had my way. No nonsense of that sort. Well, tell me about your Conference. What do you all discuss? Plenty of nonsense talked there, I’ll be bound.’

‘The Philosophy of Engagement — Obligations of the Writer — the Arts in relation to World Government — all that sort of thing.’

‘Ah-ha, yes. There can be serious sides to such questions, but they are rarely tackled. Now those attending your Conference, do any émigré writers from the USSR, or Balkan countries, turn up there? One would be interested to hear what such people are saying and thinking, especially the Russians. For example how they react to the “thaw”, as people call it. I’ve been looking through a novel called Dr Zhivago. I expect you’ve heard of it. It’s been given a good deal of publicity. I suppose that sort of book, purporting as it does to present the point of view of certain members of a generation very much on their way out, might give a certain amount of satisfaction to expatriate Russians? Those who’ve chosen to dissociate themselves from the great developments taking place in their country. It would gratify them, a book like that, by stilling their self-reproach. Have you come across instances of that? One would be interested to hear.’

‘I haven’t met any émigré Russians at the Conference. I couldn’t swear none are there.’

‘Which again reminds me. There’s a certain Dr Belkin who might have turned up. He visits Venice from time to time. Usually lets me know at the last moment.’

‘Not an émigré?’

‘No, no. Far from it. A man of the soundest views in his own country. He informed me some little while ago he might be looking in on this congress, or one about this time. He enjoys coming to Venice, because he’s devoted to painting. He’s even kind enough to be interested in my own humble brush. Of course my sort of painting is practised comparatively little in Western Europe. Nice of him to include a novice like myself in his survey. He’s been to visit me several times. Naturally we see eye to eye politically.’

‘Somebody else was asking about him.’

‘Belkin has many friends. I do what I can to keep him up to date about books and things. Hold them for him sometimes, if he’s afraid they’ll go astray in the post. That avoids delay in the long run. He admits his own impatience with some of the bureaucracy unavoidable in getting an entirely new system of government working, a revolutionary one. We all have to face that. There’s quite a lot of stuff he prefers to collect personally when he turns up here.’

‘Somebody said they thought he wouldn’t be able to come to the Conference.’

‘Very possibly not. It’s of no great importance. I can hold his stuff for him. I always like to see Belkin. Such a cheerful fellow. Full of ideas. Where does this Conference of yours meet?’

‘Over there on San Giorgio.’

A mist of heat hung over the dome and white campanile, beyond the glittering greenish stretch of water, across the surface of which needles of light perpetually flashed. It was so calm the halcyon’s fabled nest seemed just to have floated by, subduing the faintest tremor of wind and wave. We reached the Gardens, and entered the cool of the lime trees. Tokenhouse made for the enclosure permanently consecrated to the cluster of strange little pavilions, which, every two years, house pictures and sculpture by which each country of the world chooses to be known to an international public.

‘We’ll look at everything. Just to get an idea how low the art of painting has fallen in these latter days of capitalism. You were speaking of the obligations of the artist. I hope someone has pointed out that art has been in the hands of snobs and speculators too long. Indeed, I can guarantee that the only sanctuary from subjectless bric-à-brac here will be in the national pavilions of what you no doubt term the Iron Curtain countries. We will visit the USSR first.’

The white pinnacled kiosk-like architecture of a small building, no doubt dating from pre-Revolutionary times, seemed by its outwardly church-like style to renew the ecclesiological atmosphere that pursued Tokenhouse throughout life. Within, total embargo on aesthetic abstraction proved his forecast correct. We loitered for a while over Black Sea mutineers and tractor-driving peasants. Never able wholly to control a taste for antagonism, even against his own recently voiced opinions, Tokenhouse shook his head more than once over these images of a way of life he approved, here found wanting in executive ability.

‘Don’t think I’m lapsing into aestheticism in complaining that some of these scenes from the Heroic Epoch seem a little lacking in inspiration. Not all of this expresses with conviction the Unity of the Masses. I shall return for a further assessment. Now we will marvel at the subjective inanities you probably much prefer.’

Tokenhouse showed no ill will in exploring the other national selections on view, my own presence giving excuse to examine what, alone, might have caused him to suffer guilt at inspecting at all.

‘Absurd,’ he kept muttering. ‘Preposterous.’

In the French pavilion we came upon Ada Leintwardine and Louis Glober. They were standing before a massive work, seven or eight foot high, chiefly constructed from tin or zinc, horsehair, patent leather and cardboard. Ada was holding forth on its points, good and bad, Glober listening with a tolerant smile. Glober saw us first. ‘Hi.’

As neither of them seemed attached to a party, it was to be supposed they had become sufficiently friendly at the Bragadin palace to arrange a visit to the Biennale together. There was the possibility, a remote one, that both had decided to spend Sunday morning at the Exhibition, run across each other by chance. Ada wore a skirt and carried a guidebook, outer marks of serious sightseeing, but the idea of Glober setting out on his own for such a trip was scarcely credible. Ada’s immediate assumption of the exaggeratedly welcoming manner of one caught in compromising circumstances was not very convincing either. The Biennale was hardly the place for a secret assignation.

‘Why, hullo,’ she said. ‘Everyone seems to have decided to come here today. What fun. We’re having such an argument about the things on show, especially this one. Mr Glober sees African overtones, influenced by Ernst. To me the work’s much more redolent of Samurai armour designed by Schwitters.’

To recognize a potential pivot of Conference gossip, a touch of piquancy, in detection of the pair of them together, was reasonable enough on Ada’s part. Glober’s greeting too, his serenely hearty manner always retaining a certain degree of irony, was seasoned this time with a small injection of deliberately roguish culpability. Nevertheless, their combined acceptance of giving cause for interesting speculation could not be taken at absolute face value. Pretence to an exciting vulnerability was more likely to be demanded by sexual prestige, an implied proposition that something was ‘on’, no more than mutual tribute to each other’s status as ‘attractive people’. That was to take a cool commonsense-inspired view. At the same time, the significance of so rapid a move towards association together was not to be altogether ignored, even if Glober, as playboy-tycoon, was no longer in his first youth; Ada, near-bestseller, mother of twins, alleged to prefer her own sex.

Ada’s pronouncements on the subject of the artefact in front of us, extensive and well informed, continued for some minutes, so there was no immediate opportunity to introduce Tokenhouse. He was contemplating the metal-and-leather framework with unconcealed dislike, dissatisfied, too, at prospect of meeting strangers, particularly an American, representing by his nationality all sorts of political and social attitudes to be disapproved. A pause in Ada’s talk giving opportunity to tell him she was a well-known novelist, also active force in a publisher’s office, so to speak, on the other side of the counter, he showed no awareness of her writing, but grudgingly muttered something about having heard of her husband. When, on the other hand, Glober’s name was announced, Tokenhouse displayed an altogether unexpected remembrance of him. He seemed positively glad to meet Glober again after thirty years.

‘You’re the man who put up the idea of the Cubist series. Of course you are. I’m not in the least interested in Cubists now, with their ridiculous aesthetic ideas, but I thought them a good proposition at the time, and I haven’t changed my mind about that. It was a good proposition then. I was quite right.’

This looked, at first, an altogether remarkable example of Glober’s mastery of those attributes which impose their owner’s personality for life; even after so trivial a business contact as that which had brought Tokenhouse and himself together. Then there turned out to exist a more tangible cause than Glober’s charm, in itself, to stimulate Tokenhouse’s memory. He began to chatter away in his rapid, assertive, disconnected manner, which, once under way, was impossible to check, however ill-adapted, or unintelligible, to his listeners.

‘We made the blocks for the Cubist illustrations. They were never used. Your firm went out of business, but it wasn’t due to that. Several American publishers went bust about that time. Some of the most active, as regards what were then new ideas. The whole thing was called off for quite other reasons. It was a great pity. I always held we could have made a success of things. I had a row with my board about it. They accused me of behaving in a highhanded manner. Very well, I said, if you think that, I’ll pay for the blocks myself. I’ll buy them at cost price. I’ll stand the damage. They’ll be my property. They could make no objection to that. So long as publishing remains in private hands, it might just as well be for my profit, as for that of any other speculator. I’d use them in my own good time. That was what happened. They’ve been in store ever since. I own them to this day. I stick to it that they would have made a good series in the light of what was being thought at the time.’

Tokenhouse was quite breathless by the end of his speech, excitement similar to that displayed by him when expatiating on what painting should be. Glober took in the situation at once. He grasped that he was dealing with an eccentric, one in a high class of his category, and roared with laughter. Glober may not have remembered much about Tokenhouse personally (he had shown no sign when I spoke of him earlier), but he appreciated that he was in the presence of an oddity, from whom amusement might, for the moment, be derived. Perhaps the notion of Tokenhouse buying the Cubists blocks appealed to Glober as, on however infinitesimal a scale, a touch of his own method, an element of playboy-tycoonery. That was in spite of Tokenhouse being, on the surface, about as far from a playboy as you could get, while his former status of tycoon, if ever to be so called, was an inconceivably modest one. Perhaps that was a misjudgment, however diluted, the characteristics being present in Tokenhouse too. The important fact was that, reunited with Glober, he was pleased to see him.

‘Maybe we were men before our time, Mr Tokenhouse. Too ready to experiment with new ideas too early. I’m sorry it all ended that way. Not long after we met in London, I abandoned publishing for motion pictures. When I came back to publishing for a while, things had greatly changed. That was why I returned to the Coast.’

‘Yes, yes.’

Tokenhouse spoke inattentively, still thinking about the blocks, certainly unapprised of ‘the Coast’, or why Glober should return there. This talk of publishing must have struck Ada as a useful opening. She had accepted without the least umbrage lack of acquaintance with herself as a novelist. The blocks offered as good, if not better, opportunity for impressing Glober with her own abilities.

‘I should like to hear more about the Cubist blocks, Mr Tokenhouse. My husband’s firm would certainly be glad to consider the question of taking them over from you, should you be interested in an advantageous price. In these days of steeply mounted production charges, they might find a place in our list.’

Tokenhouse, never much at ease with women, especially good-looking ones, approached this proposition with caution, but without open hostility. The incomparable training of having worked as Sillery’s secretary behind her, Ada had made rather a speciality of handling the older generation of Quiggin & Craggs authors, becoming so accomplished in that respect that she might now be indulging in mere display of that dexterity for its own sake. Whether or not she wanted the blocks, Tokenhouse accepted the principle of a tender. He began to discuss a lot of not specially interesting technical particulars. Retirement from publishing, changed taste in art, revised ideological opinions, had none of them blunted a keen business sense. Ada showed no less briskness about the potential deal. Glober looked at his watch.

‘Have you and Mr Tokenhouse any plans for luncheon? Mrs Quiggin and I — should I say Miss Leintwardine? — were going to the restaurant here. Why don’t you both join us?’

Ada looked for a moment as if she might have preferred to keep Glober to herself, a natural enough instinct, then changed her mind, welcoming the suggestion.

‘Do let’s all lunch together — and call me Ada.’

Tokenhouse also hesitated for a moment at thus entangling himself with forms of social life against which he had openly declared war, but he had by no means finished what he had to say about the blocks. Having in any case planned to eat at the restaurant, refusal was difficult. Even if his reluctance, and Ada’s, had been more determined, Glober’s pressure to enlarge the party might have surmounted that too. To deny him would have required a lot of energy. If he had an ulterior motive, long or short term, nothing of the sort was apparent. As before in the Palazzo, he seemed to hope for no more than to collect round him as many persons as available. That was simply because collecting people round him (creating one of those rudimentary courts adumbrated by Dr Brightman) brought a sense of confidence in himself. Finally, everyone had by that time seen as much of the Exhibition as desired, whether to praise or blame. Art was abandoned. It was agreed the party should lunch together. We strolled across to the restaurant, finding a table to allow a good view of the water. Glober enquired about drinks.

‘A negrone,’ said Ada. ‘With an urgent request for plenty of gin.’

Tokenhouse declared that he never took more than a single glass of wine in the middle of the day. Glober would not hear of that. So gently importunate was he about everyone having an aperitif that in the end Tokenhouse, obstinate in his habits as a rule, surprisingly gave way, agreeing to begin with a ‘punt è mes’. That was more of a triumph than Glober knew. He went on to make suggestions about what we should eat, judicious so far as that went, even if originating in a wish to impose the will. They were not acceptable to Ada. When Quiggin had married her, he had still taken pride in being an austere man — like most persons of that pretension, imposing frugality on his acquaintances, while making a lot of fuss himself, if food happened not to be absolutely to his own taste. Ada put an end to all that. Under her sway, Quiggin would now discuss bad wine, salad dressings, regional dishes, with the best. Such gastronomic ascendancy behind her, Ada was not likely to accept dictation from Glober.

Tokenhouse did not join in this chatter about food. He ordered spaghetti for himself, and sat back in silence. He would probably have liked to continue talking about blocks, but Ada must have decided nothing more could be settled about the matter until put before Quiggin. The fact was, Tokenhouse had lost the habit of this sort of party. In his publishing days he had gone out a good deal, possessing the reputation of an aggressive talker when the evening was well advanced, and he had taken a fair amount to drink. Even dead sober, he was usually prepared to shout down the rest of the party, if there were disagreements. Now he gave the impression of once more beginning to disapprove, earlier distrust of such company rearoused in him. He was rather cross when Glober nodded for a repetition of the drinks, but swallowed the second glass of vermouth, also took several deep gulps of wine when it arrived. Ada switched her attention to him, now offering a clue to her own easy acceptance of breaking up a tête-à-tête with Glober.

‘You never published any of St John Clarke’s novels, Mr Tokenhouse, did you?’

Tokenhouse, who had been particularly irritated when St John Clarke failed to produce the promised Introduction to The Art of Horace Isbister, made some non-commital answer about his firm not dealing in fiction, which Ada must have known already. She pressed the subject, not, so it appeared, because Tokenhouse was likely to throw light on St John Clarke, as from some wish of her own to emphasize the almost forgotten novelist’s unrecognized merits. Then her aim became clearer.

‘Louis — I shall call you Louis, Mr Glober — has come to Europe to look for a story to film. Of course, I hoped he would want one of my own novels — in default of one of yours, Nick — but we’ve been talking together, and he was saying the moment must have arrived for something nostalgic, something Edwardian. Then I had the brilliant idea that St John Clarke was the answer.’

This was rather a different story from Pamela’s statement that Glober was going to film something by Trapnel. What subject Glober should choose struck me at the time as a perfectly endurable topic, during luncheon in these fairly idyllic surroundings, not one to take for a moment seriously. The same applied to Pamela’s earlier words on the matter, in that case easing the way for Gwinnett. Commercial deals like selling stories to film companies are more likely to emerge from tedious negotiation undertaken by agents in prosaic offices. Such was one’s melancholy conclusion. Glober, if not a producer in the top class, had been quite a figure in Hollywood; he was therefore tough. No doubt his mood accorded with this sort of chit-chat. To conclude any true buyer’s interest had been aroused would be to misconstrue the ways of film tycoons. All the same, to be too matter-of-fact about such possibilities could be wide of the mark, as to be too susceptive to pleasing possibilities. With businessmen, you can never tell; least of all when movies are in question. On Ada’s part, this looked like declaration of war on Pamela. She sounded very sure of herself.

‘Perhaps you don’t know, Nick, that we control the St John Clarke rights now. Clapham got the lot before he died. Just for the sake of tidiness — but I forgot, you probably do know, because St John Clarke left the royalties to your Warminster brother-in-law, and of course they came back to Quiggin & Craggs in the Warminster Trust. JG secured our own interest before Craggs died.’

What Ada stated made sense. I had not known about the St John Clarke rights; at least never thought out that aspect. She was undoubtedly going to do her best to sell a St John Clarke novel to Glober.

‘A strange man I used to know in the army was devoted to Match Me Such Marvel. He’d worked in a provincial theatre or cinema, so he might be the right pointer for popular success.’

Bithel’s view, twenty years later, could represent the winning number. Ada was enthusiastic.

‘Match Me Such Marvel is the one I suggested. There’s a homosexual undercurrent. Of course, you Americans are so jumpy about homosexuality. It would be a great pity to leave that sequence out.’

‘Who says we’re going to leave it out?’ said Glober lazily. ‘We Americans are getting round to hearing about all sorts of things of that kind these days. You don’t do us justice. When were you last in the States, Ada?’

They were a well matched couple when it came to that sort of teasing, as cover for business negotiation. Tokenhouse, likely to disapprove of such levity, was ruminating on some matter of his own. Suddenly he joined in.

‘St John Clarke was a vain fellow. I never cared for such novels of his as I read. He behaved in a most unsatisfactory manner dealing with my firm. It was only quite by chance I came across a pamphlet he had written in the latter part of his life dealing with an interest of my own, that is to say Socialist Realism in painting. That pamphlet was not without merit.’

Ada showed herself more than equal to this comment too. Her policy was, I think, to ventilate in a general way the claims of St John Clarke; get his name thoroughly into Glober’s head, without bothering too much whether the impression was good or bad. When St John Clarke had sunk in as a personality, she would plug the book she wanted to be filmed. She showed warm appreciation of this new aspect of the novelist.

‘Exactly, Mr Tokenhouse. St John Clarke is no back-number. His style may seem a little old-fashioned today, but there is nothing old-fashioned about his thought. He is full of compassion — compassion of his own sort, sometimes a little crudely expressed to the modern ear. I am most interested in what you say about his art criticism. I had missed that. Of course I know about Socialist Realism. I expect you used to read a magazine called Fission, which ran for a couple of years just after the war, and remember the instructive analysis Len Pugsley wrote there, called Integral Foundations of a Fresh Approach to Art for the Masse.’

Tokenhouse got out his pencil. Making Ada repeat the tide of Pugsley’s article, he wrote it on a paper table napkin. I recalled Bagshaw’s editorial irritation at having to publish the piece.

‘If we’ve got to print everything written by whoever’s rogering Gypsy, we’ll have to get a new paper allocation. Even our Commy subscribers don’t want to read that stuff.’

Bagshaw’s comment, partially disproved by Tokenhouse’s interest, was borne out to the extent that Gypsy (retaining her name and style) had gone to live with Pugsley, when she became a widow. Tokenhouse now found himself assailed by Ada with an absolute barrage of expertise on his own subject. She began to reel off the names of what were evidently Socialist Realist painters.

‘Svatogh? Gaponenko? Toidze? I can only remember a few of the ones Len mentioned. Of course you’ll be familiar with all their pictures, and lots more. There is so much in art of which one remains so dreadfully ignorant. I must look into all that side of painting again, when I have a moment to spare.’

Tokenhouse, who had certainly begun luncheon in a mood of refusal to truckle to undue demands on making himself agreeable, could not fail to be impressed. I was impressed myself. In her days as employee at Quiggin & Craggs, the Left Wing bias of the firm had naturally demanded a smattering of Marxist vocabulary, but to retain enough political small talk of that period to meet Tokenhouse on his own Socialist Realist ground was no small achievement; not less because Quiggin himself, anyway commercially, had so far abrogated his own principles as to have lately scored a publishing bull’s eye with the Memoirs of a Tory ‘elder statesman’. Glober laughed quietly to himself.

‘You two take me back to the Film Writers’ Guild. Give me two minutes notice to beat it, before you throw the bomb.’

Seen closer, over a longer period, he was observable as a little tired, a little melancholy, amusing himself with mild jaunts such as this one, which made small demand on valuable reserves. He was husbanding his forces. To suppose that, in no way implied a state of total exhaustion. You felt there was quite a lot left for future effort, even if requirement for everything to be played out in public, in a manner at once striking and elegant, increased need for exceptional energy. What did not happen in public had no reality for Glober at all. In spite of the quiet manner, there was no great suggestion of interior life. What was going on inside remained there only until it could be materially expressed as soon as possible. The tress of hair had to record the sexual conquest.

To unAmerican eyes, probing the mysteries of American comportment and observance, this seemed the antithesis of Gwinnett. Much going on in Gwinnett was never likely to find outward expression. That was how it looked. No doubt a European unfamiliarity heightened, rather than diminished, the contrast; even caricatured its salient features. That did not remove all substance, the core seeming to be the ease with which Glober manipulated the American way; Gwinnett’s awkwardness in its employment. That was to put things crudely, possibly even wrongly, just consequence of meeting both in Europe. Glober, only recently sprung from the Continent, had about him something of the old fashioned Jamesian American, seeking new worlds to conquer. Gwinnett was not at all like that. With Gwinnett, everything was within himself. He had, so it seemed, come to Europe simply because he was passionately interested in Trapnel, obsessed by him, personally identified with him; again, one felt, inwardly, rather than outwardly.

Dr Brightman had called Gwinnett a ‘gothic’ American. What, in contrast, would she call Glober? She had invoked Classicism and Romanticism. Here again it was hard to apportion epithets. In one sense, Glober, the practical man, was also the ‘romantic’ — as often happens — Gwinnett, working on his own interior lines, the ‘classical’. Gwinnett wanted to see things without their illusory trimmings; Glober forced things into his own picturesque mould. In doing that, Glober retained some humour. Could the same be said of Gwinnett? Would Gwinnett, for example, be capable of taking pleasure in Tokenhouse as a medium for amusement? Was the analogy to be found in quite other terms of reference: Don Juan for Glober, Gwinnett in Faust?

The wine, passing round rather rapidly, may have played some part in these reflections. Tokenhouse was by now a little tight. Age, or abstinence, must have weakened his head. Perhaps solitude, sheer lack of opportunity to air his views, caused a few glasses to release the urgent need to hold forth again at a crowded table. He now proceeded to reproduce, in greatly extended form, the lecture he had given me earlier on the necessity for rejecting Formalism. In doing this, Tokenhouse passed all reasonable bounds of dialectical prosiness. Glober, showing American tolerance for persons outlining a favourite theme with searching thoroughness, did not interrupt him, but, when coffee came, Tokenhouse had gone too far in presuming on national forbearance in indicating to a compulsive talker that he has become a bore. By that time Tokenhouse had admitted he painted himself. Glober leant across the table.

‘Now see here, Mr Tokenhouse. We’re going to drink a glass of Strega, then we’re all coming back to your studio to admire your work.’

That took Tokenhouse so much by surprise that he scarcely demurred at the Strega, protesting only briefly, as a matter of form. It was hard for an amateur painter — he kept on making a point of this status — to be other than flattered. It was agreed the party should make their way to the flat after leaving the restaurant. When the bill arrived, Glober insisted on paying. He swept aside energetic, if rambling, efforts on the part of Tokenhouse to prevent this on grounds that I was his guest. They argued for a time, Tokenhouse producing a ten-thousand-lire note, Glober thrusting it aside. We set off at last, Tokenhouse still talking hard. He was not drunk in any derogatory sense, had merely taken a little more than accustomed, which had transformed a prickly detachment into discursiveness not to be checked. He hurried along, the old grey hat jammed down on his head, swinging his stick, Glober taking long strides to keep up. Ada and I followed a short way behind.

‘How on earth did you know the names of those painters, Ada? Are they Russian?’

Ada smiled, justifiably pleased with herself.

‘Len Pugsley’s at our Lido hotel. He’d brought the article with him, as basis of a speech he’s going to make at the Conference. Getting something published in Fission was his first real step in life.’

‘His last one too. Why hasn’t he appeared?’

‘Len’s got a stomach upset. He’s in bed. He wanted to rehearse his speech. He read it all to me. I say, I hear from Glober the Widmerpools have had a terrible row.’

‘Isn’t that a permanent state?’

‘This one’s worse than usual.’

Ada could offer no more at that moment, because Glober, fearing dispersal of his court, or that its courtiers were plotting against him, turned back to make sure we were included in whatever he was discussing with Tokenhouse. A few minutes later we entered the narrow calle in which the flat was situated. Tokenhouse led the way up the stairs. He opened the door, pointing ahead.

‘Seat yourselves. I’m afraid there is nothing luxurious about my way of life. You must excuse that, take me as you find me, a humble amateur painter.’

He stumped off in the direction of the canvases in the corner.

Glober looked round the room.

‘Mr Tokenhouse, you ought to advertise your studio as Annex to the Biennale Exposition.’

‘I should, I should. I shall have to wait another two years now.’

Tokenhouse laughed excitedly, shuffling about arranging pictures at every angle. Glober’s interest must have encouraged him to widen the scope of what he was prepared to display. In addition to those shown in the morning were others stacked in two cupboards.

‘Do I detect the influence of Diego Rivera, Mr Tokenhouse?’

‘Ah-ha, you may, you may.’

‘Or is it José Clemente Orozco, who did those frescoes at Dartmouth? There is something of that artist too.’

Tokenhouse was in ecstasies, if such a word could be used of him at all.

‘I would not deny influence of the former. I am less familiar with the work of the latter. I flatter myself in these experiments in style, now wholly abandoned, I have caught a small touch of Rivera’s gift for speaking in a popular language. This, for instance — now who the devil can that be?’

A heavy knock had been given on the outside door. Tokenhouse set down the two pictures he was holding. He did not go to the door at once. Instead, he took a small diary from his pocket, and studied it. The knock came again. Tokenhouse, put out by this interruption, went into the passageway. The sound came of the door being opened, followed by muffled conversation. The caller’s enquiry had not been audible. Tokenhouse’s answer was testy, almost shrill.

‘Yes, yes. Of course he mentioned your name to me. More than once in the past. I had no idea you were attending the Conference. You’re not? Ah-ha, I see. Well, come in then. It’s not very convenient, but now you’re here, you’d better stay. I have some people looking at my pictures. Yes, my pictures, I said — but you can wait till they’re gone. Then we can have a talk.’

He returned to the studio-room accompanied by Widmerpool.

‘This is — did you say Lord — yes, Lord Widmerpool. Ah-ha, you know everybody. That makes things easier.’

Tokenhouse spoke the word ‘Lord’ with great contempt. Neither he, nor Widmerpool himself, looked in the least as if they believed the fact of ‘knowing everyone’ made things easier. Tokenhouse had spoken the words bitterly, ironically. In his own eyes nothing much worse could happen, now that his Private View had been interrupted, the chance of a lifetime mucked up; Widmerpool, armed with an introduction, arriving at this particular moment. Tokenhouse seemed to know instinctively that Widmerpool felt no interest whatever in pictures, good or bad.

‘Take a seat.’

Widmerpool looked round. There was no very obvious place to do so. He was undoubtedly surprised at finding Glober, Ada, myself, here; not more so than I, that he should suppose it advantageous to visit Tokenhouse. The connexion could hardly be publishing. By the time Widmerpool, in an advisory capacity, had been on the Quiggin & Craggs board, Tokenhouse’s days as a publisher were over. Possibly some link went back to Widmerpool’s time in a solicitor’s office; his former firm perhaps that recording the ban on religious rites at the Tokenhouse obsequies. Widmerpool had plainly not been warned that painting was Tokenhouse’s hobby. He stared rather wildly at the pictures propped up all over the room, then nodded to each of us in turn.

‘Yes — we all know each other. How are you, Ada? We haven’t met since Fission. I expect you’re at the Conference, or come for the Film Festival?’

The last suggestion seemed to have struck him on the spur of the moment, probably on account of Glober’s film connexions. Ada pretended to be piqued.

‘Didn’t you notice me at the Bragadin palace, Kenneth? I saw you. Pam and I talked away. I should have thought she’d have mentioned that to you.’

Widmerpool, discerning a probe for information, rather than expression of wounded feelings, gave nothing away. He smiled.

‘Pam often forgets to tell me things. We think it best not to live in each other’s pockets. It makes married life easier. You would agree, wouldn’t you, Louis?’

‘I sure would.’

Glober laughed in his usual quiet friendly way, which did not at all conceal dislike. He also took the opportunity of stating his own situation.

‘Mrs Quiggin and I were discussing the Biennale the time her Conference was looking over Jacky’s place. We thought we’d take a look at the Biennale pictures together too. Who should we meet but Mr Jenkins and Mr Tokenhouse. Now we’re admiring Mr Tokenhouse’s pictures instead of those at the Biennale.’

That was brief, exact description of just what had happened. If Glober had designs on Pamela — it was hard to think otherwise — he might welcome opportunity of emphasizing to Widmerpool that he had ‘picked up’ Ada, accordingly was not to be taken as too serious a competitor for Pamela. Such was just a notion that occurred. If it displayed Glober’s intention, Widmerpool showed no sign of appreciating the point.

‘I see.’

He spoke flatly, staring round again at the rows of small canvases that cluttered the studio. Obviously they conveyed nothing to him. He appeared more than ever worried, but made an effort.

‘Have you collected these over the years, Mr Tokenhouse?’

Tokenhouse looked furious.

‘I painted them.’

He snapped out the answer.

‘Yourself. I see. How clever.’

Widmerpool said that without the smallest irony.

‘Merely a hobby. Not at all clever. The last thing they are — or I should wish them to be — is clever.’

Tokenhouse did not conceal his annoyance. Widmerpool had ruined the afternoon. Here were all his pictures spread out, a relatively sympathetic audience to whom he could preach his own theories of art, a unique occasion, in short, wrecked by the arrival of a self-important stranger — a ‘lord’ at that — with an introduction, presumably about some business matter. Again, it was hard to see what business interests Widmerpool and Tokenhouse could share, yet the connexion was clearly not a friendly one, some common acquaintance’s suggestion that the two of them would get on well together. Although nettled, Tokenhouse did not seem exactly taken aback. Widmerpool, after whatever had been said at the door, must represent some burden liable to be shouldered sooner or later. The botheration was for such responsibility to have descended at this moment. Tokenhouse, accepting the party was over, like a child putting away its toys, began gloomily replacing the canvases in the nearer cupboard. Then one of Glober’s gestures went some way towards saving the situation.

‘Just a moment, Mr Tokenhouse. Don’t be in such a hurry with those pictures of yours. Would you consider a sale? If you would — and don’t tell me to hell with it — I’d like to know your price for the shipwreck scene.’

He pointed to one of the illustrations of social injustice, such it must be, seemingly enacted on the crowded deck of a boat, where several persons were in trouble. Tokenhouse paused in his tidying up. He visibly responded to the enquiry.

‘Sell a picture?’

‘That’s what I hoped.’

Tokenhouse considered.

‘I’ve only been asked that once before, apart from an occasion years ago — in my Formalist days — when requested to present a picture of mine to be raffled for a charity. It was one of those typical feckless efforts to bolster up the capitalist system — some parson at the bottom of it, of course — attempting to launch that sort of ameliorating endeavour, which I now recognize as worse, more deliberately harmful, than brutal indifference, and should now naturally refuse to have anything to do with.’

Tokenhouse turned to Widmerpool. He spoke rather spitefully.

‘The only other occasion when I sold one of my pictures was to our mutual friend. The friend who sent you here. He very kindly bought one of my efforts.’

Widmerpool seemed further embarrassed. He started slightly. Then he made a movement of the hand to express appreciation.’

‘Oh, yes. Did he, indeed? I didn’t know he liked painting.’

‘Of course he does. He bought one of the army incidents. I called it Any Complaints? A typical mess-room injustice about rations. To buy it was a charming return for a small service I had been able to perform for him. I had, of course, expected no such return, having acted entirely from principle.’

‘I’m sorry I didn’t know you were an artist,’ said Widmerpool.

There was silence. Tokenhouse blew his nose. Glober returned to the question of buying a picture himself.

‘Then I take it you will sell one, Mr Tokenhouse?’

‘I see no reason why not, no reason at all.’

‘The emigrant ship?’

‘They are a poor family found travelling without a ticket on the vaporetto.’

‘Better still. A souvenir of Venice. That’s fine.’

Glober, certainly aware of Widmerpool’s impatience to speak with Tokenhouse alone, was determined not to be hurried. Tokenhouse, equally recognizing Widmerpool’s claim on him, whatever that was, also showed no scruple about keeping him waiting. He seemed almost to enjoy doing so. Glober enquired about terms. Widmerpool was getting increasingly restive. He fidgeted about. Glober began to argue that the sum Tokenhouse had named as price for his picture was altogether inadequate. A discussion now developed similar to that about paying the restaurant bill. At last Widmerpool could bear it no longer. He interrupted them.

‘I expect you know our mutual friend was unable to come?’

He addressed himself to Tokenhouse, who took no notice of this comment.

‘Our friend is not here,’ Widmerpool repeated.

Although clear we should have to go soon, the strain of waiting for that moment was telling on him. Tokenhouse merely nodded, as much as to say he accepted that as regrettable, though of no great importance.

‘He mentioned when I last saw him he might not be able to undertake the trip this time… Now, about wrappings. It will have to be newspaper. You must not mind it being a not very pro-American journal.’

Tokenhouse laughed quite heartily at his own joke. The all but unprecedented sale of a picture had for the moment quite altered him. He could not be bothered with Widmerpool’s problems, however grave, until the negotiation was completed.

‘It’s all — well — a bit unfortunate,’ said Widmerpool.

‘Ah-ha, it is? I’m sorry … Now, string? Here we are. We’ll have to unknot this. I think it good to have to make use of your hands from time to time. A bourgeois upbringing has given me no aptitude in that direction. I always tie granny knots. There we are. Not a very neat parcel, I fear, but people don’t fuss about that sort of thing in this quarter of Venice. There we are. There we are.’

He handed Glober the picture, enclosed now in several sheets of Unità. Glober took it. Tokenhouse stood back.

‘Luckily my pictures are a manageable size. Patrons of Veronese or Tiepolo would need more than the painter’s morning paper to bring their purchases home wrapped up.’

The name of Tiepolo seemed to cause a moment’s faint embarrassment, not only to Widmerpool, but also, for some reason, to Ada and Glober. In any case, if we did not leave, Widmerpool was soon going to request our withdrawal in so many words. I could recognize the signs. Glober, too, seeing a showdown imminent, and deciding against a head-on clash at that moment, brought matters to a close, shaking hands with Tokenhouse. Tokenhouse saw us to the top of the stairs.

‘I may get in touch with you again. Nick, before you leave Venice. There might be a small package I should like you to post for me in England. The mails are very uncertain here. Ah-ha, yes. Goodbye to you then, goodbye. I’m glad we had opportunity to meet again, Mr Glober. Yes, yes. I do my poor best. Ah-ha, ah-ha. I hope I may at least have acted as a signpost away from Formalism. Yes, do let me know about the blocks, Mrs Quiggin. I quite see your position. Goodbye, goodbye.’

We left him to Widmerpool, whatever dialogues lay ahead of them. After reaching the street, nothing was said for a minute or two. Then Glober spoke.

‘That was a most interesting experience — and a superb addition to my collection of twentieth-century primitives.’

‘I adored Mr Tokenhouse,’ said Ada. ‘Those blocks could be quite a snip, if he’s prepared to consider a reasonable price. I remember JG talking of him now. I’m not sure JG didn’t know the psychiatrist — a Party member — who treated Tokenhouse for his breakdown, anyway treated some ex-publisher for a breakdown. He used to treat a friend of Howard Craggs, an old girl called Milly Andriadis, who died in Paris last year.’

‘I once went to a party given by Mrs Andriadis,’ said Glober. ‘That shows how old I am.’

Neither he nor Ada spoke of Widmerpool. There seemed something almost deliberate about their avoidance of his name. Then Glober stopped suddenly.

‘Oh, hell.’

‘What’s happened?’

‘I’d forgotten that contact man I was due to see at the Gritti.’

He looked at his watch.

‘I’m going to be late. What’s to be done in a town without taxis, and not a gondola in sight?’

Ada pointed.

‘If you run, you’ll catch the circolare. It’s coming up. You could just about make it.’

Glober, with a shout that we must meet again soon, seemed delighted to show his mettle as a short-distance sprinter. Taking Tokenhouse’s picture from under his arm, he bounded off. We saw him catch the boat, just as the rope was thrown across the rails. He turned and waved in our direction. We waved back.

‘What energy.’

‘All quite unnecessary too. He’s surrounded by secretaries and hangers-on of one kind or another, who are only there to give an impression big business is being transacted. I’m going to make for the Lido. Have a rest, before going out this evening with Emily Brightman.’

We walked on towards the vaporetto stop.

‘Who’s this American called Gwinnett that Pam’s taken a fancy to?’

‘Has she taken a fancy to him? He’s writing a book about our old friend X. Trapnel. If you don’t deflect Glober’s film interests to St John Clarke, Gwinnett might help in making a Trapnel film. Did she tell you she liked him?’

Ada laughed at such an idea.

‘I was hearing about Gwinnett from Glober. Can you keep a secret? Glober wants to marry Pam, not just have an affair with her. Don’t breathe a word to anyone. You won’t, will you? He revealed that to me when he found I was her old friend. Only in the strictest confidence.’

‘What does her husband think about that? He must have had plenty of opportunities to divorce her, if he wanted. Anyway, why should she herself decide to marry Glober?’

‘I doubt if Kenneth knows yet. He just thinks Glober’s one of her usuals. So far as Pam is concerned, the bait Glober holds out is the lead in this great film he’s going to make.’

‘Pamela? But she’s never acted in her life, has she?’

Ada thought that a naive reaction.

‘What does that matter? Besides, Pam’s no fool. If she wants a thing, she’ll force herself to do it. What Glober’s worried about is this young American turning up, who’s a Trapnel fan. He doesn’t want Gwinnett sticking round, if he does a Trapnel film. That’s why he’s begun to look about for another book to make his picture from. There’s a character just like Pam in Match Me Such Marvel. Of course, St John Clarke didn’t know anything about women, but a competent script-writer could alter all that.’

‘Why should she want to act at all?’

‘Because Pam longs for fame.’

‘You mean publicity?’

‘Anything you like to call it. Nobody’s ever heard of her. She doesn’t care for that. For one thing, she isn’t keen on nobody having heard of her, and quite a lot of people having heard of me.’

‘Where did Glober meet her?’

‘At her father’s place in Montana. Cosmo Flitton married an American, and they run a dude ranch together. Wouldn’t you adore to meet some dudes? Anyway, Pam went up there to stay, when she was in the States with Kenneth, and Louis Glober fell.’

‘So Cosmo Flitton’s still going?’

‘Not only still going, but a highly regarded figure out there, with his one arm and reputation of an old hero. Everybody’s mad about him. About Pam too, Glober says. He also described a scene that took place last night at Jacky Bragadin’s, which went rather far even for Pam. It all arose from the Tiepolo ceiling. That was why Kenneth Widmerpool winced when Tiepolo was mentioned by Mr Tokenhouse, just before we left. Do you know the subject of the picture? I was brought up on significant form, colour values, all that sort of thing, so I hadn’t particularly noticed what was being illustrated. Unlike Mr Tokenhouse, and Len Pugsley, my family always rather looked down on people who thought a picture told a story. I know about Socialist Realism, but this is an Old Master. I just saw a classical subject, and left it at that. Apparently it’s a man showing his naked wife to a friend.’

Ada spoke with clinical objectivity.

‘Perfectly right.’

‘For some reason Pam was determined to talk about that picture all through dinner. There were a lot of people there, Glober said. She was between a monsignore and a maharaja. You know how silent she is as a rule. That night she chattered incessantly. Went on and on. Nothing would stop her. She seemed to be doing this partly to get under the skin of a lady Glober knows, called Signora Clarini, the English wife of the Italian film director, but living apart. Apparently Signora Clarini was a girl-friend of Sir Magnus Donners years ago, and now wants to marry Glober. He conveyed that in his quiet way. Pam may decide not to marry him herself, she was going to make sure Signora Clarini didn’t either. She kept on talking about Donners, implying he was a voyeur.’

‘Pamela’s hardly in a position to take a high moral line, if only after some of the things being said about her at the more sensational end of the French press.’

Ada had not heard about the Ferrand-Sénéschal revelations. She brushed them aside. Borrit, a War Office colleague, who had served in Africa, once spoke of the Masai tribe holding, as a tenet of faith, that all cows in the world belong to them. Ada, in similar manner, arrogated to herself all the world’s gossip, sources other than her own a presumption.

‘Pam didn’t take a high moral line. Quite the reverse. She spoke as if she and Signora Clarini were sister whores. That, according to Glober, was what made Signora Clarini so cross.’

‘This was all in front of Widmerpool?’

‘That’s what Glober found so fascinating. Kenneth didn’t attempt to shut her up. Of course he knows by now that’s impossible, but Glober thought he was not only afraid of her — almost physically afraid — but got a kind of kick from what she was saying.’

‘How did their host enjoy this small talk at his table?’

‘Jacky Bragadin wasn’t feeling well that evening, thought he was going to have one of his attacks, so wasn’t bothering much. The monsignore was one of those worldly priests, who take anything in their stride, but the maharaja didn’t know where to look. Louis Glober, to relieve the tension, persuaded the maharaja to teach him cricket. Jacky Bragadin found a Renaissance mace that belonged to some famous condottiere, and they used that for a bat. The maharaja bowled a peach, Glober hit it so hard he caught Kenneth on the jaw. That made further trouble.’

‘Somebody once did that with a banana at school. His face must have a radar-like attraction for fruit. Glober still wants to marry Pamela in spite of all this?’

‘I think so. He’s quite tough. He says all his contemporaries have drunk themselves crazy, undergone major surgery, discharged both barrels with their big toe, dropped down dead on the set, and he’s not going to fall for any of that. All the same, he’s disturbed about Gwinnett. Pam asked Louis if Gwinnett was queer. That’s what worried him. Her interest. Is he?’

‘Homosexual?’

‘Of course.’

‘I don’t think so. I don’t think he’s very normal either.’

‘Will Gwinnett’s book about Trapnel be good? Ought we to publish it? We’ll talk about that later. Here’s my vaporetto. See you at the Men of Letters | Men of Science session. I must polish up my speech. Don’t breathe a word about anything I’ve said, will you?’

She boarded a vessel bound for the Lido. I waited for the next boat heading towards the Grand Canal. To present Sir Magnus Donners as Candaules at the Bragadin dinner party showed imagination on Pamela’s part. Bob Duport had offered much the same solution as to what Sir Magnus ‘liked’.

‘Donners never minded people getting off with his girls. I’ve heard he’s a voyeur.’

Barnby, without arriving at that logical conclusion, had expressed the same mild surprise at Sir Magnus’s lack of jealousy. The subject, reduced to the crude medium of the peep-hole, recalled the visit to Stourwater, when, without warning, its owner had suddenly appeared through a concealed door, decorated with the spines of dummy books, just as if he had been waiting at an observation post. The principle could clearly be extended from a mere social occasion to one with intimate overtones. The power element in both uses was obvious enough.

‘Peter may have developed special tastes too,’ Duport said. ‘Very intensive womanizing sometimes leads to that, and no one can say Peter hasn’t been intensive.’

In days when Peter Templer had been pursuing Pamela, he might easily have talked to her about Sir Magnus, even taken her to see him, but not at Stourwater, the castle by then converted to wartime uses. The fact that his former home was now a girl’s school, looked on as expensive, could hardly be unpleasing to the shade of Sir Magnus, if it walked there. The practices attributed to him, justly or not, had to be admitted as inescapably grotesque, humour never more patently the enemy of sex. Perhaps Gyges, too, had felt that; as king, living his next forty years in an atmosphere of meticulous sexual normality. I should have liked to discuss the whole matter with Moreland, but, although he was no longer married to Matilda, the habits of Sir Magnus and his mistresses remained a delicate one to broach. He was like that. Moreland was not well. In fact, things looked pretty bad. He would work for a time with energy, then fall into a lethargic condition. There had been financial strains too. One of his recordings becoming in a small way a popular hit, made that side easier lately. We rarely met. He and Audrey Maclintick — whom he had never married — lived, together with a black cat, Hardicanute, an obscure, secluded life.

At the hotel desk they handed out a letter from Isobel. I took it upstairs to read. Across the top of the page, an afterthought from personal things, that amorphous yet intense substance of which family life is made up, she had scribbled a casual postscript.

‘Have you seen about Ferrand-Sénéschal? Probably not as you never read the papers abroad. Fascinating rumours about Pamela Widmerpool.’

I lay on the bed and dozed. It would have been wiser to have drunk less at lunch. I felt Glober was to blame. Quite a long time later the telephone buzzed, waking me.

‘Hullo?’

‘Is that Mr Jenkins?’

It was a man’s voice, an American’s.

‘Speaking.’

‘It’s Russell Gwinnett.’

‘Why, hullo?’

There was a pause at the other end of the line. I was not sure we had not been cut off. Then Gwinnett cleared his throat.

‘Can we have a talk?’

‘Of course. When?’

He seemed undecided. While he was thinking, I looked to see the time. It was well after six.

‘Now, if you like. We could have a drink somewhere.’

‘I can’t manage right now.’

There was another long pause. He seemed to regret having called. At least he sounded as if he required help in making up his mind whether or not to ring off. It looked as if he would do that, unless I could suggest an alternative. I had no plans for the evening. Dinner with Gwinnett would solve that problem. In an odd way, prospect of his company gave a sense of adventure.

‘How about dining together?’

Gwinnett considered the proposal for some seconds. The idea seemed not greatly to appeal, but in the end he concurred. ‘OK.’

He made it sound a concession.

‘Where shall that be?’

‘Not in the hotel, I guess.’

‘I agree.’

Talk took place about restaurants. Gwinnett showed himself unexpectedly knowledgeable. In this, as in other matters, he was a dark horse. We fixed on one at last, arranging to meet at the table. He showed no immediate sign of getting off the line, but did not speak, nor appear, at that juncture, to have more to say.

‘Eight o’clock then?’

‘OK.’

‘I’ll be there.’

‘OK.’

I hung up. He was not an easy man. All the same, I liked him. Later, at the restaurant, he turned up punctually. The fact that I liked him was just as well, otherwise dinner, anyway at the start, would have been tedious. I had supposed, rather complacently, that Gwinnett wanted to talk about his assignation with Pamela; report on it, ask an opinion, perhaps discuss future tactics. As the meal progressed, he showed no sign of approaching that subject. The appointment might well have foundered. Nothing was more probable. The more one thought about it, the less likely seemed any possibility of Pamela having turned up. Gwinnett had almost certainly waited, perhaps for an hour or two, in the porch of the Basilica, then trudged back to the hotel. That was the picture. In any case, now we were together, he had to be allowed to approach the matter On his own terms. To force an issue would be fatal. Without going into details about Tokenhouse, I mentioned meeting Glober at the Biennale, lunching in his company. Gwinnett showed no interest. He talked of Conference matters. He was preparing a report for his College. The College, so it appeared, had arranged his attendance with that in view, the Venetian visit combined with London, for Trapnel research. He asked if I had known Dr Brightman for long.

‘I met her for the first time here. I’d read some of her books.’

Gwinnett spoke highly of Dr Brightman, the good impression she had made on the Faculty, when exchange professor, her influence on his own way of looking at things. He said all that quite simply, in the manner Americans achieve, without self-consciousness or affectation, serious comment that, in English terms, would require — at least almost certainly receive — less direct unvarnished treatment. He let fall that his family had moved to New England after the Civil War. The impression was of an unusual, rather lonely young man, who had sustained a kind of intellectual nourishment from an older woman, with whom no sort of cross-currents of gender, not the slightest, were in question. I still wondered what was his trouble, the wound that had somehow maimed him. Dr Brightman must have been understanding about whatever that might be. Dinner was nearly at an end, when, quite suddenly, he turned to the subject of Pamela. This employment of two personalities in himself was possibly deliberate; voluntary or involuntary, characteristic of him.

‘She showed up at San Marco.’

‘She did?’

‘Yes.’

Gwinnett’s follow-up took so long to arrive that there were moments when it looked as if these words were all the information he proposed to give about the meeting.

‘Is she likely to produce any usable Trapnel material?’

His silence extorted that. Gwinnett did not answer the question. Instead, he suggested we should leave the restaurant, drink more coffee elsewhere.

‘All right.’

‘Where shall we go?’

‘Florian’s?’

‘OK.’

As soon as we were outside he began about Pamela. What he had to say may have seemed easier to express in comparative darkness of the street, rather than across the table at an over brightly lighted restaurant. Now he sounded thoroughly excited, not at all inert.

‘I’m going to meet her in London.’

‘That sounds all right.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did she suggest that?’

‘Yes — when she saw me in San Marco.’

‘The interview there went off well?’

‘She turned up on time.’

‘That in itself must have been a surprise.’

Gwinnett laughed uneasily. He was evidently making a great effort, no doubt for the sake of his book, to be clear, uncomplicated, unlike how he usually felt, how at least he behaved.

‘You know how dark it is in the Basilica? I was standing by the doors. I didn’t recognize her for a moment, although I was thinking I must be careful not to miss her. She had dressed up all in black, a skirt, dark glasses, a kind of mantilla. She looked — I just don’t know how to put it. I was almost scared. She didn’t say a word. She took me by the hand, down one of those side aisles. It was the darkest part of the church. She stopped behind a pillar, a place she seemed to know already.’

Gwinnett was momentarily prevented from continuing his story by thickening of the crowd, as we approached the Piazza along a narrow street, necessitating our own advance in single file. Two nuns passed. Gwinnett turned back, indicating them.

‘Do you know the first thing Lady Widmerpool said? She asked if the place we were in didn’t make me want to turn to the religious life?’

‘How did you answer that one?’

‘I said it might be a good experience for some people. It wasn’t one I felt drawn to myself. I asked if she herself was thinking of taking the veil.’

‘Good for you.’

‘I said her clothes looked more religious than in the Palazzo.’

‘How did she take that?’

‘She laughed. She said she often felt that way. I wasn’t all that surprised. It fits in.’

The comment showed Gwinnett no beginner in female psychology. He and Pamela might be well matched. This was the first outward indication of a mystic side to her. Gwinnett for the moment had shaken off his own constraint.

‘I began to speak of Trapnel. She listened, but didn’t give much away. The next thing did startle me.’

He gave an embarrassed laugh.

‘She grabbed hold of me,’ he said.

‘You mean — ’

‘Just that.’

‘By the balls?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Literally?’

‘Quite literally. Then she hinted the story about Ferrand-Sénéschal was true.’

Coming out from under the pillars, we entered the Piazza. The square was packed with people. They trailed rhythmically backwards and forwards like the huge chorus of an opera. One of the caffè orchestras was playing selections from The Merry Widow, Widmerpool’s favourite waltz, he had said, just before Barbara Goring poured sugar over his head. The termination of the Pamela story had to be left in Gwinnett’s discretion. It was not to be crudely probed.

‘That was when she told me to call her up when I got to London. I just said I’d do that.’

‘By that time she’d let go — or was she still holding on?’

He laughed. He seemed past embarrassment now.

‘I’d disengaged her — told her to lay off.’

‘How did she take that?’

‘OK. She laughed the way she does. Then she took off.’

‘To contemplate the religious life elsewhere?’

Gwinnett did not offer an opinion on that point.

‘You heard no more from her about Trapnel?’

‘Not a word.’

Most of the tables at Florian’s seemed occupied. People from the Conference were scattered about among multitudes of tourists. Gwinnett and I moved this way or that through the crowded café, trying to find somewhere to sit. Then two chairs were vacated near the band. Making for them, we were about to settle down, when someone from the next table called out. They were a party of four, revealed to be Rosie Manasch — Rosie Stevens now for some years — her husband, Odo Stevens, and an American couple.

‘Switch the chairs round and join us,’ said Stevens. ‘We’ve just finished a Greek cruise, staying in Venice a day or two to get our breath.’

Rosie introduced the Americans, middle-aged to elderly, immensely presentable. I played Gwinnett in return. It was more characteristic of Stevens than his wife that Gwinnett and I should not be allowed to sit by ourselves. Like Glober, he had a taste for forming courts. He was a little piqued, or pretended to be, at hearing about the Conference.

‘Why do I never get asked to these international affairs? Not a grand enough writer, I suppose. Who’s turned up? Mark Members? Quentin Shuckerly? The usual crowd?’

Now in his early forties, Odo Stevens, less unchanged than Rosie, had salvaged a fair amount of the bounce associated with his earlier days; Rosie, for her part, entirely retaining an intrinsic air of plump little queen of the harem. Having decided, possibly on sight, to marry Stevens, she seemed perfectly satisfied now the step was taken. So far as that went, so did Stevens. They had two or three children. There had been ups and downs during the years preceding marriage, but these had been survived, the chief discord when Matilda Donners had shown signs of wanting to capture Stevens for herself. Owing either to Matilda’s tactical inferiority, or loss of interest in the prize, nothing had come of that, Rosie carrying Stevens off in the end. His temporary seizure by Matilda may have been planned more as a foray into her rival’s territory — war considered as a mere extension of foreign policy — a sortie into the enemy’s country, not intended as permanent advance beyond foremost defended localities, already recognized as such. At the time, Rosie took the aggression calmly, in that spirit preparing for withdrawal just as far as necessary, never losing her head. Matilda’s punitive raid was, so to speak, driven off in due course, after admittedly inflicting a certain measure of casualty; both sides afterwards possessing some claim to have achieved their objective. During this little campaign, explosive while it lasted, Stevens was rumoured to have gone with Matilda to Ischia.

The battle over Stevens could claim a certain continuity from the past, Matilda and Rosie not only rivals at giving parties, but Rosie’s first husband, Jock Udall, having belonged to a newspaper-owning family traditionally opposed to Sir Magnus Donners and all his works. Some thought the pivot of the Ischia incident Stevens himself, bringing pressure on Rosie to force marriage. If so, the manoeuvre was successful. When his body was finally recovered from the battlefield, marriage took place, although only after a decent interval, to purge his contempt. The story that Stevens had given Rosie a black eye during these troubled times was never corroborated. After marriage, a greater docility was, on the contrary, evident in Stevens. He hovered about on the outskirts of the literary world, writing an occasional article, reviewing an occasional book. It was generally supposed he might have liked some regular occupation, but Rosie would not allow that, imposing idleness on her husband as a kind of eternal punishment for the brief scamper with Matilda. Stevens had never repeated the success of Sad Majors, a work distinguished, in its way, among examples of what its author called ‘that dicey art-form, the war reminiscence’. The often promised book of verse — ‘verse, not poetry’, Stevens always insisted — had never appeared. I had heard it suggested that Stevens worked part-time for the Secret Service. War record, general abilities, way of life, none of them controverted that possibility, though equally the suggestion may have been quite groundless. When Rosie, and the two Americans, began to talk to Gwinnett, Stevens swivelled his chair round in my direction.

‘Do you know who’s in this town, Nick?’

‘Who?’

‘My old girl friend Pam Flitton. I saw her wandering across the Piazzetta soon after we arrived. She didn’t see me.’

He spoke in a dramatically low voice. There was no doubt a touch of facetiousness in pretending his wartime affair with Pamela was a desperate secret from his wife, even if true he was more than a little in awe of Rosie.

‘She’s staying with someone called Jacky Bragadin. Both the Widmerpools are.’

‘Somebody called Jacky Bragadin? Don’t be so snobbish, old cock. I know Jack Bragadin. Rosie’s known him for years. He was a friend of her father’s. He once came to a party of ours in London. Don’t try and play down your smart friends, as if I was too dim to have heard of them. We were actually thinking of ringing Jacky up tomorrow, asking if we could come and see him.’

‘Keep calm, Odo. He’s not a friend of mine. I never met him before the Conference went over his Palazzo. That was how I knew the Widmerpools were staying with Jacky Bragadin.’

Rosie caught the name. She left the Americans to chat together with Gwinnett, who had assumed, with his compatriots, a blunt, matter-of-fact, all-purposes air.

‘Did you mention Jacky Bragadin? How is he? His heart wasn’t too good when I last saw him, also that trouble with his chest. We thought of getting into touch. Do you know who’s staying there?’

‘I was telling Odo — the Widmerpools, among others.’

‘Good heavens, the Frog Footman, and that ghastly wife of his. What can Jacky be thinking of? Thank goodness you warned me. Who are the other unfortunates?’

‘An American film tycoon called Louis Glober. Baby Clarini, who used to be Baby Wentworth. Those are the only ones I know about, in addition to the Widmerpools.’

Rosie made a face at the name of Baby Wentworth.

‘Jacky certainly can take it on the chin, Baby and Pamela Widmerpool under the same roof. What about Louis Glober? I seem to know the name. Is he up to the weight of the others? I hope so.’

One of the Americans enquired about Glober.

‘What’s he up to now? Louis Glober hasn’t made a picture in years. The last I heard of him was automobile racing, in fact saw him at the Indianapolis Speedway.’

They talked of Glober and his past exploits. Gwinnett remained silent. I had not caught the name of the Americans, indeed never found that out. The husband began to enlarge on the Glober legend.

‘Did you ever hear of Glober’s Montana caper?’

That looked a possibility as the story of Glober’s meeting with Pamela, but turned out to have bearings of interest chiefly on Glober’s many-sidedness. It explained, too, a Montana connexion.

‘One time Glober was in Hollywood, he went north with a cowboy actor — I’ll think of the name — who was starring in a picture of Glober’s. The Indians were bestowing some sort of a tribal honour on this actor, who’d invited Glober to accompany him, and watch the ceremony. Montana, it seems, went to Glober’s head. That’s how he is. He talked of starting life again up there, buying a defunct cattle business, refinancing Indian leases, that sort of stuff. He was crazy about it all.’

‘Wouldn’t mind that kind of life myself,’ said Stevens. ‘In the open all day.’

‘Oh, darling?’ said Rosie. ‘Do you think so?’

‘Glober stayed up there quite a while, talking of becoming a cattleman. All sorts of yarns came back to the Coast about his doings. There was supposed to have been a gun fight. A rancher found Glober in compromising circumstances with his wife. He pulled a gun, took a shot at Glober, and missed. Glober must have been prepared for trouble, because he had his own gun by him, blazed back, and missed too. They ran out of shells, or the lady herself intervened, so they settled to cut the cards for her. Glober lost, and returned to Hollywood.’

‘His luck was in,’ said Stevens.

The story suggested the monde in which Cosmo Flitton had come to rest. I caught Gwinnett’s eye.

‘That’s all pure Trapnel — the sort of thing X would have loved, but never managed to bring off.’

Gwinnett nodded, without giving any indication whether or not he agreed.

‘When the tale got back to Beverly Hills, Dorothy Parker said Glober planned to take the lead in his next picture himself. It was to be called The Western of the Playboy World.’

The American lady broke in.

‘Louis Glober’s got a fine side too. All that money he gave for the mental health research project, that institution for schizophrenics. It was all done on the quiet. Not a soul knew it was Glober, until — ’

Stevens kicked me under the table. I lost track of the precise history of Glober’s generous act, but caught enough to gather it had been brought about in deliberate secrecy, the teller of the story having happened quite by chance on the magnanimous part Glober had played. I could not at once understand whatever Stevens was signalling. His eyes stared fixedly in front of him. Glancing round in the direction towards which they were set, I was now able to observe Pamela Widmerpool moving between the closely packed tables and chairs. As usual she gave the impression almost of floating through the air. She was apparently looking for someone thought likely to be sitting at Florian’s. At least that was the impression given. Possibly she was merely taking an evening walk, choosing to wander through the crowded caffè to give spice to a stroll, cause a little inconvenience, draw attention to herself. The people at the tables stared at her. As she wove her way amongst them, she paused from time to time to stare haughtily back. Stevens was rather rattled. ‘She’s bloody well making in our direction,’ he muttered. Pamela had hit him in the face the last time I had seen them together, but no doubt he feared her unhappy moral impact on his wife, rather than physical violence. The others had not noticed Pamela’s onset. Rosie, always a great talker, had a conspicuous rival in the American lady. Gwinnett seemed resigned to the position in which he found himself. Pamela had marked down our table. She was steering for it, without the least hurry. The course unquestionably was intentional. She was still wearing her white trousers, carrying from her shoulder a bag hung from a gold chain. Stevens was surprisingly disturbed.

‘Had this got to happen?’

Pamela halted behind the chair of the male American. He was unaware of her presence there.

‘Have you seen Louis?’

‘Glober?’

‘No, Louis the Fourteenth.’

‘I haven’t seen either since lunch.’

‘Did you lunch with Louis?’

‘Yes, Glober — not the Roi Soleil.’

‘I thought he was giving lunch to that old cow Ada. Do you know she put round a story that I left a picador in Spain because I found a basket-ball player twice his size?’

‘Ada was there too.’

‘Where?’

‘The restaurant in the Giardini.’

‘Did he take Ada back to screw her — if he can still manage that, or can’t she face a man any longer?’

‘So far as I know Glober left for the Gritti Palace to meet a business acquaintance, and Ada returned to the Lido to work on a speech she’s going to make at the Conference.’

‘Louis’s been seen at Cipriani’s since he was at the Gritti.’

‘Then I can’t help.’

‘I want some dope from him.’

Although the word might be reasonably used for any entity too much trouble to particularize, Pamela spoke as if she meant a drug, rather than, say, schedule of airflights to London, programme of tomorrow’s sightseeing, name of a recommended restaurant. She sounded as if she felt a capricious desire for a narcotic Glober could supply, no breathless despairing longing, just what she wished at the moment. The possibility was not to be wholly dismissed as an aspect of Glober’s courtship. The men of the party had risen, standing awkwardly beside their chairs, while this conversation proceeded, waiting for her to move on.

‘How are you, Pam?’ asked Stevens.

He still sounded nervous. She glanced at him, but gave no sign of having seen him before. Stevens himself may have hoped matters would rest there, that Pamela, failing to obtain the information she sought, would continue on her way without further acknowledgment. She remained, not speaking, looking coldly round, regarding Gwinnett with as chilly an eye as the rest. There was no suggestion they had met, far less touched on the religious life, shared some sort of physically sexual brush. Gwinnett himself was hardly more forthcoming. Absolutely poker-faced, his expression was that of a man determined not to fall below the standard of politeness required by convention towards an unknown woman pausing by the table at which he had been sitting, at the same time not unwilling that she should move on as quickly as possible to enable him to resume his seat. Pamela had no intention of moving on.

‘I’m not going to drag the canals for Glober. I’ll get the stuff from him tomorrow.’

She stepped forward to occupy the chair temporarily vacated by the American husband, thereby putting an end to any hope that she was not going to stay. The American managed to find another chair, then good-naturedly asked what she wanted to drink.

‘A cappuccino.’

Stevens was forced into mumbling some sort of general introduction. Rosie, of course, knew perfectly well who Pamela was, but either the two of them, by some chance, had never met, or it suited the mood of both to pretend that. Gwinnett, without emphasis, allowed recognition of previous acquaintanceship of some sort by making a backward jerk of the head. Rosie, undoubtedly angry at Pamela imposing herself in this manner, was at the same time, unlike Stevens, quite unruffled in outward appearance.

‘We heard you and your husband were staying with Jacky,’ she said. ‘How is he? Free from that catarrh of his, I hope?’

She expertly eyed Pamela’s turn-out, letting the assessment pause for a second on what appeared to be a wine-stain, at closer range revealed, on the white trousers, which Pamela, in spite of other signs of grubbiness, had not bothered to change. Rosie also contemplated for a moment the crocodile-skin bag. Its heavy chain of gold looked rather an expensive item. This was all very cool on both sides, the sense of tension — though neither glanced at the other — between Pamela and Gwinnett, rather than Pamela and Rosie. When the cappuccino arrived, Pamela did not touch it. She sat there quietly, taking no notice of anyone. Then she seemed to decide to answer Rosie’s question.

‘Jacky’s no worse than usual. Only worried about having a couple like us staying with him.’

‘You and your husband?’

‘Yes.’

Rosie laughed lightly. ‘Why should he be worried by that?’

‘One accused of murder, the other of spying.’

‘Oh, really. Which of you did which?’

Still smiling, Rosie spoke quite evenly. Pamela allowed herself a faint smile too.

‘The French papers are hinting I murdered Ferrand-Sénéschal.’

‘The French writer?’

Rosie’s tone suggested that to have murdered Ferrand-Sénéschal was an act, however thoughtless, anyone might easily have committed.

‘They haven’t said in so many words I did it yet.’

‘Oh, good — and the spying?’

Pamela laughed.

‘Only those in the know, like Jacky, are fussing about that at present.’

‘I see.’

‘Jacky thinks he’ll get in wrong with one lot, or the other, through us. Jacky’s got quite a lot of Communist chums, movie people, publishers, other rich people like himself. Some of them are Stalinists, and quarrelling with the new crowd. Jacky doesn’t want a stink. It looks as if a stink’s just what he’s going to get. He didn’t bargain for that when he said we could come and stay, though he wasn’t too keen in the first place. I had to turn the heat on. He thought I’d keep an American called Louis Glober quiet, and we might both be useful in other ways. Now he wants to get rid of us. That may not be so easy.’

She laughed again. The joke had to be admitted as rather a good one, even if grimmish for Jacky Bragadin. Rosie smiled tolerantly. She did not pursue further inflexions of the story by asking more questions. She picked up the bag resting on the table, its long chain still looped round Pamela’s shoulder.

‘How pretty.’

‘Do you think so? I hate the thing. This man Glober gave it me. He keeps saying he’ll change it. He’ll only get something worse, and I can’t be bothered to spend hours in a shop with him.’

‘Is Mr Glober over for the Film Festival?’ asked one of the Americans.

‘That’s what he’s put out. He probably wants to pick up some hints from the German film about the blackmailing whore.’

‘I rather wish we were staying for the Film Festival,’ said Rosie.’ I’d like to see Polly Duport in the Hardy picture. We know her. She’s so nice, as well as being such a good actress.’

There was a lull in conversation. Stevens remarked that his new interest was in vintage cars. The Americans said they would have to be thinking of returning to their hotel soon. Rosie confirmed the view that it had been a tiring day. Stevens looked as if he might have liked to linger at Florian’s, but any such intractability would clearly be inadvisable, if matrimonial routines were to operate harmoniously. He did not openly dissent. Within the limits of making no pretence she found the presence of Pamela welcome, Rosie had been perfectly polite. Stevens could count himself lucky the situation had not hardened into open discord. Retirement from the scene had something to offer. Pamela appeared indifferent to whether they stayed or went. Goodbyes were said. She nodded an almost imperceptible farewell and dismissal. The Stevens party withdrew. They were enclosed almost immediately by the shadows of the Piazza. We sat for a minute or two in silence. The orchestra sawed away at Tales of Hoffmann.

‘What a shit Odo is,’ said Pamela.

‘Rosie is nice.’

It seemed best to make that statement right away, declare one’s views on the subject, rather than wait for attack. That would be preferable to a follow-up defending Rosie, as a friend. Rather surprisingly, Pamela agreed.

‘Yes, she’s all right. I suppose she gets a kick out of keeping that little ponce.’

‘You must admit his war record was good.’

‘What’s that to me?’

To stay longer at the table would be not only to prejudice Gwinnett’s opportunity for further pursuit of Trapnel investigations, but also, if Pamela had taken a fancy to him, risk being told in uncompromising terms to leave them à deux.

‘I’m off too.’

Pamela herself rose at that.

‘I’ve had enough of this place,’ she said.

That remark had all the appearance of being Gwinnett’s cue, a chance not to be missed to take her elsewhere, get out of her whatever he wanted. Florian’s could reasonably be regarded as a distracting spot for serious discussion. Gwinnett himself stood up, but without putting forward any alternative proposal. There was a pause. As a matter of form, I offered to see Pamela back to the Bragadin palace. If Gwinnett did not want to settle immediately on another port of call, he could easily suggest the duty of taking her home should fall to him. He said nothing. Pamela herself categorically refused escort.

‘Where’s your hotel?’

I named it.

‘Both of you?’

‘Yes.’

She turned to Gwinnett.

‘Are you going back too?’

‘That was my intention.’

Pamela fully accepted the implication that he did not propose to take her on at that moment. She showed no resentment.

‘I’ll walk as far as your hotel, then decide what I want to do. I like wandering about Venice at night.’

Gwinnett was certainly showing himself capable of handling Pamela in his own manner. He seemed, at worst, to have accomplished a transformation of roles, in which she stalked him, rather than he her. That might produce equally hazardous consequences, not least because Pamela herself showed positive taste for the readjustment. The hunter’s pursuit was no doubt familiar to her from past experience, only exceptional, in this case, to the extent that Gwinnett was already in her power from need to acquire Trapnel material.

‘OK,’ he said.

The three of us set off together. Nothing much was said until we were quite close to the hotel. Then, on a little humped bridge crossing a narrow waterway, Pamela stopped. She went to the parapet of the bridge, leant over it, looking down towards the canal. Gwinnett and I stopped too. She stared at the water for some time without saying anything. Then she spoke in her low unaccentuated manner.

‘I’ve thought of nothing but X since I’ve been in Venice. I see that manuscript of his floating away on every canal. You know Louis Glober wants to do it as a film, with that ending. It might have happened here. This place just below.’

Gwinnett seemed almost to have been waiting for her to make that speech.

‘Why did you do it?’

He asked that quite bluntly.

‘You think it was just to be bitchy.’

‘I never said so.’

‘But you think it.’

He did not answer. Pamela left the parapet of the bridge. She moved slowly towards him.

‘I threw the book away because it wasn’t worthy of X.’

‘Then why do you want Glober to make a picture of something not worthy?’

‘Because the best parts can be preserved in a film.’

I supposed by that she meant her own part, in whatever Trapnel had written, could be recorded that way; at least her version of it. Then Gwinnett played a trump. Considering contacts already made, he had shown characteristic self-control in withholding the information until now.

‘Trapnel preserved the outline himself in his Commonplace Book.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Something you don’t know about.’

‘Where is it?’

‘I’ve got it.’

‘He says there what he said in Profiles in String?’

‘Some of it.’

‘I’ll destroy that too — if it isn’t worthy of him.’

Gwinnett did not answer.

‘You don’t believe me?’

‘I entirely believe you, Lady Widmerpool, but you don’t have the Commonplace Book.’

In another mood she would certainly have shown contemptuous amusement for Gwinnett’s prim formality of manner. Now she was working herself up into one of her rages.

‘You won’t take my word — that I threw the manuscript into the Canal because it wasn’t good enough?’

‘I take your word unreservedly, Lady Widmerpool.’

Gwinnett himself might have been quite angry by then. It was impossible to tell. As usual he spoke, like Pamela herself, in a low unemphatic tone.

‘X himself knew it was a necessary sacrifice. He said so after. He liked to talk about that sort of thing. It was one side of him.’

What she stated about Trapnel was not at all untrue, if strange she had appreciated that aspect of him. She was an ideal instance of Barnby’s pronouncement that, for a woman, being in love with a man does not necessarily imply behaving well to him. Some comment of Trapnel’s about the destruction of the manuscript must have come to her ears later.

‘That was why he threw away his swordstick too.’

This settled the fact of someone having given her an account of the incident. Not myself, unlikely to have been Bagshaw, the story had just travelled round.

‘You knew that?’

She was insistent.

‘I’d been told,’ Gwinnett admitted.

He was stonewalling obstinately.

‘You don’t know what sacrifice is.’

Gwinnett gave an odd smile at that.

‘What makes you think so?’

If Pamela were an uncomfortable person, so was he. The way he asked that question was dreadfully tortured. If she noticed that fact — as time went on one suspected she did not miss much — she gave no sign.

‘I’ll show you.’

She slipped from off her shoulder the bag Glober had given her, wound the chain quickly about it, forming a rough knot. Then, holding the shortened links of gold, whirled round the bundle in the air, like a sort of prayer-wheel, and tossed it over the side of the bridge. There was the gentlest of splashes. The crocodile-skin (returned to its natural element) bobbed about for a second or two on the surface of the water, the moonlight glinting on metal clasps, a moment later, weighed down by the weight of its chain, sinking into the dark currents of the little canal. Gwinnett still did not speak. Pamela returned from the parapet from which she had watched the bag disappear.

‘That shows you what X did with something he valued.’

She had evidently intended to play out for Gwinnett’s benefit a figurative representation of the offering up of both manuscript and swordstick. Gwinnett did not propose to allow that. He showed himself prepared for a tussle.

‘You said just a short while back you didn’t think all that of the purse.’

He stood there openly unimpressed. For the moment it looked as if Pamela were going to hit him in the face, register one of those backhand swings she had dealt Stevens in the past. She may have contemplated doing so, thought better of it. Instead, she took hold of his right arm with her left hand, and hammered on his chest with her fist. She must have hit him quite hard. He retreated a step or two from the force of the onset, laughing a little, still not speaking. Pamela ceasing to pound Gwinnett at last, stood back. She gave him a long searching look. Then she turned, and walked quickly away in the direction from which we had come. Gwinnett did nothing for a minute or two. Either a lot of breath had been knocked out of him, and he was recovering, or he remained lost in contemplation of the whole strange incident; probably both. Then at last he shook his head.

‘I’d best go see what she’s after.’

He too set off into the night. He did that at a more moderate speed than Pamela’s. I left them to make whatever mutual coordination between them, physical or intellectual, seemed best in the light of whatever each required from the other. Even in the interests of getting a biography written about Trapnel, it was not for a third party to intervene further. Gwinnett had certainly entered the true Trapnel world in a manner no aspiring biographer could discount. It was like a supernatural story, a myth. If he wanted to avoid becoming the victim of sorcery, being himself turned into a toad, or something of that kind — in moral terms his dissertation follow Profiles in String into the waters of the Styx — he would have to find the magic talisman, and do that pretty quickly. It might already be too late.

Dr Brightman was in the hall of the hotel. She too had just come in. The evening with Ada had been a great success.

‘What a nice girl she is. I hear you both met at the Biennale. Russell Gwinnett suggested we should go there together. I must speak to him about it.’

‘Russell Gwinnett’s just been beaten up by Lady Widmerpool.’

Dr Brightman showed keen interest in the story of what had been happening. At the end she gave her verdict.

‘Lady Widmerpool may be what Russell is looking for.’

‘At least she could hardly be called a mother-substitute.’

‘Mothers vary.’

‘You called him gothic?’

‘To avoid the word decadent, so dear to the American heart, especially when European failings are in question. It is rarely used with precision here either. Of course there were the Decadents, so designated by themselves, but think of the habits of Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar, neither of whom can be regarded as exactly decadent personalities.’

‘Are you implying sexual ambivalence in Gwinnett?’

‘I think not. His life might have been easier had that been so. Of course he remains essentially American in believing all questions have answers, that there is an ideal life against which everyday life can be measured — but measured only in everyday terms, so that the ideal life would be another sort of everyday life. It is somewhere at that point Russell’s difficulties lie.’

We said goodnight. I slept badly. Tokenhouse rang up early again the following morning. He brushed aside reference to the visit to his studio. He was, in his own terms, back to normal, comparative gaieties of the Glober luncheon obliterated entirely.

‘I think you said you were going to be in Venice another day or two?’

I told him when the Conference broke up.

‘In that case we shall not be able to meet again — and I shall not require the package, of which I spoke, posted in England. I find I am falling seriously behind in my work. Got to buckle down, not waste any more time with visitors, if the job is to be properly done. Of course I was glad to see you after so many years, hear your news. Painting is like everything else, it must be taken seriously. No good otherwise. That does not mean I was not pleased we fell in with each other. Let me know if you come to Venice again on a similar peregrination with your intellectual friends.’

‘Did you clear up Widmerpool’s problem?’

‘Widmerpool?’

‘The man who came in while we were looking at your pictures.’

‘Widmerpool? Ah, yes, Lord Widmerpool. For the moment I could not place the name. Yes, yes. I did my best for him. Only a small matter. I don’t know why he seemed so concerned about it. He simply wanted to ascertain the whereabouts of a friend we have in common. By the way, keep it to yourself, will you, that you met Lord Widmerpool at my studio. He asked me to say that. I have no idea why. He rather gave me to understand that he had offered some excuse, other than that he was coming to see me, to avoid some social engagement — I can sympathize with that — and did not want so flimsy a motive to be revealed. Well, I mustn’t waste the whole morning coffee-housing on this vile instrument. Has your Conference settled anything by its coming together? No? I thought not. Goodbye to you, goodbye.’

He rang off. When I saw Gwinnett later in the morning, before one of the sessions, I asked if he had caught up with Pamela. He replied so vaguely that it remained uncertain whether he had managed to find her; or found her, and been sent about his business. He said he was not packing up with the Conference, having decided to stay on for the Film Festival. Then he spoke as an afterthought.

‘There’s something I’d be glad for you to do for me when you get back to England — tell Trapnel’s friend, Mr Bagshaw, whom you mentioned, I’ll be calling him up. Just so he doesn’t think I’m some crazy American dissertation-writer, and give me the brush-off.’

‘He won’t do that. Where are you staying in London?’

Gwinnett named an hotel in Bloomsbury, a former haunt of Trapnel’s.

‘That will be fairly spartan.’

‘I’ll get the atmosphere there. Later I might try some of the more rundown locations too.’

‘You’re going to do it in style.’

‘Sure.’

I saw Gwinnett only once again, the day the Conference closed. He appeared carrying a small parcel, which looked like a paper-wrapped book. This he handed to me.

‘It’s Trapnel’s Commonplace Book. You’ll like to see it, though there isn’t all that there.’

‘Won’t you need it? When will I be able to return it to you, and where?’

‘You keep it for the next few weeks. I’d rather it wasn’t in my own hands for the time being. I’ll get in touch when I want it back.’

That was all he would say, except also implying a preference not to be called up, otherwise contacted, at the hotel. Apart from the loan of the Commonplace Book, a generous one, our parting was as stiff as our meeting had been. Thinking over the unsolicited lending of the Commonplace Book I could only surmise he felt the Trapnel notes, after what she had said, safer right away from Pamela. Did he not trust himself, or was it that he thought her capable of anything? Dr Brightman, not remaining for the Film Festival, was also delaying immediate return to England.

‘It seemed a pity to be in this part of Italy, and not idle away a few days with the Ostrogoths and Lombards. The Venetian air overcomes one with dilettantism. That nice little Ada Leintwardine says she will join me for a night or two, when the Film Festival is over, at whatever place I have reached by then. Such an adventure to have met Lady Widmerpool. My colleagues will be green with envy.’

At that period, when one travelled to and from Venice direct by air (the route avoided by Widmerpool), a bus picked up, or set down, airport passengers in the Piazzale Roma. By night this happened at an uncomfortable hour. You waited in a caffè, the bus arriving about one o’clock in the morning. Ennui and dejection were to be associated with the small hours spent in that place. Even in daytime the Piazzale Roma, flanked by two garages of megalomaniac dimension, overspread with parked charabancs and trucks, crowded throughout the twenty-four hours with touts and loiterers, is a gloomy, dusty, untidy, rather sinister spot. These backblocks, raw underside of the incredible inviolate aqueous city, were no doubt regarded by Tokenhouse as the ‘real Venice’ — though one lot of human beings and their habitations cannot be less or more ‘real’ than another — purlieus that, in Casanova’s day, would have teemed with swindlers, thieves, whores, pimps, police spies, flavours probably not wholly absent today.

Waiting for the airport bus, I watched gangs of young men circling the huge square again and again. They seemed to wander about there all night. As one of these clusters of itinerant corner-boys prowled past the caffè, a straggler from the group turned aside for a moment to utter the hissing accolade owed to any female passer-by not absolutely monstrous of feature.

‘Bella! Bellissima!’

A confrere ahead of him looked round too, and the wolf-whistler, forgetting his own impassioned salutation of a moment before, entered into argument with his friend, quite evidently about another subject. They all trudged on, chattering together. Through the shadows, recurrently dispersed by flashing headlights of cars passing and repassing, a slim trousered figure receded through murky byways, slinking between shifting loafers and parked vehicles. It certainly looked like Pamela Widmerpool. She was alone, roving slowly, abstractedly, through the Venetian midnight.