Temporary Kings (24 page)

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.

Bagshaw was at once
attentive to the idea of an American biographer of X.
Trapnel seeking an interview with himself. In fact he pressed for a meeting to
hear a fuller account of Gwinnett’s needs. Television had made him more prolix
than ever on the line. One was also increasingly aware that he was no longer
Books-do-furnish-a-room Bagshaw of ancient days, but Lindsay Bagshaw, the
Television ‘personality’, no towering magnate of that order, but, if only a
minor scion, fully conscious of inspired status. He suggested a visit to his
own house, something never before put forward. In the past, a pub would always
have been proposed. Bagshaw himself was a little sheepish about the change.
Complacent, he was also a trifle cowed. He attempted explanation.

‘I like to get back as early as possible after work. May prefers
that. There’s always a lot to do at home.’

The
idea of Bagshaw deferring, in this manner, to domesticity, owning, even
renting, a house was an altogether unfamiliar one. In early life, married or
single, his quarters had been kept secret. They were in a sense his only
secret, everyone always knowing about his love affairs, political standpoint,
prospects of changing his job, ups and downs of health. Where he lived was
another matter. That was not revealed. One pictured him domiciled less vagrantly
than Trapnel, all the same never in connexion with anything so portentous as a
house. There was no reason why Bagshaw should not possess a house, nor in
general be taken less seriously than other people. No doubt, for his own
purposes, he had done a good deal to encourage a view of himself as a grotesque
figure, moving through a world of farce. Come to rest in relatively prosperous
circumstances, he had now modified the role for which he had formerly typecast
himself. Dynamic styles of life required one ‘image’; static, another. How deep
these changes went could not be judged. Bagshaw remained devious.

‘We’re
a bit north of Primrose Hill. I got the lease on quite favourable terms during
the property slump some years after the war, when I left
Fission
. I shall look forward to hearing all about
Professor Gwinnett, when I see you.’

Bagshaw’s
house, larger than surmised, was of fairly dilapidated exterior. Waiting on the
doorstep, I wondered whether the upper storeys were let off. Children’s voices
were to be heard above, one of them making rather a fuss. Children had never
played a part in the Bagshaw field of operation. They seemed out of place
there. I rang a couple of times, then knocked. The door was opened by a girl of
about sixteen or seventeen. Rather vacant in expression, reasonably
good-looking, she was not on sight identifiable as member of the family or
hired retainer. The point could not be settled, because she turned away without
speaking, and set off up some stairs. At first I supposed her a foreign ‘au
pair’, speaking no English, possibly seeking an interpreter, but, as she
disappeared, she could be heard complaining.

‘All
right, I’m coming. Don’t make such a bloody row.’

The
protest was a little hysterical as uttered. There was an impression, possibly
due to a naturally tuberous figure, that she might be pregnant. That could
easily have been a mistaken conclusion. I waited. Several doors could be
explored, if no one appeared. I was about to experiment with one of these, when
an elderly man, wearing a woollen dressing-gown, came slowly down the stairs up
which the girl had departed. It was evident that he did not expect to find me
in the hall. His arrival there would pose action of some sort, but, suddenly
aware of my presence, he muttered some sort of apology, retreating up the
stairs again. Even if Bagshaw’s way of life had in certain respects altered,
become more solid, a fundamental pattern of unconventionality remained. The
problem of what to do next was solved by the appearance, from a door leading
apparently to the basement, of Bagshaw himself.

‘Ah,
Nicholas. When did you arrive? How did you get in? Avril opened the door, I
suppose. Where is she now? Gone off to quieten the kids, I expect. You haven’t
been here long, have you?’

‘No,
but a white-haired gentleman came down the stairs just now, apparently seeking
help.’

Bagshaw
dismissed that.

‘Only
my father. May didn’t appear, did she? The gas-cooker’s blown. Come in here,
shall we?’

He
had changed a good deal since last seen. At that period we did not have a
television set, so I had never watched a Bagshaw programme. He looked not only
much older, also much more untidy, which once would have seemed hard to
achieve. The room we entered was even untidier than Bagshaw himself. The mess
there was epic. It seemed half-study, half-nursery, in one corner a bookcase
full of works on political theory, in another a large dolls’ house, lacking its
façade. The tables and floor were covered with typescripts, income-tax forms,
newspapers, weeklies, mini-cars, children’s bricks. Bagshaw made a space on the
sofa, at the far end from that where the stuffing was bursting out.

‘Now
– a drink?’

‘Who
is Avril?’

‘One
of my stepdaughters.’

‘I
didn’t know — ’

‘Three
of them. Avril’s not a bad girl. Not very bright. A bit sub, to tell the truth.
She’s in rather a jam at the moment. Can’t be helped.’

Bagshaw
made a despairing, consciously theatrical gesture, no doubt developed from his
professional life.

‘Are
the other stepchildren upstairs?’

He
looked surprised. Certainly the ages seemed wrong, if anything were to be
inferred from the noises being made.

‘No,
no. The ones upstairs are my own. The stepchildren are more or less grown-up.
Getting into tangles with boyfriends all the time. You see I’m quite a family
man now.’

Bagshaw
said that in a whimsical, rather faraway voice, probably another echo of his
programme. His whole demeanour had become more histrionic, at least histrionic
in a different manner from formerly. He sat down without pouring himself out a
drink, something not entirely without precedent, though unlikely to be linked
now with curative abstinences of the past.

‘Aren’t
you having anything?’

‘I
hardly drink at all these days. Find I feel better. Get through more work. Here’s
May. How’s your migraine, dear? Have a drink, it may make you feel better. No?
Too busy?’

Mrs
Bagshaw, in her forties, with traces of the same blonde good-looks as her
daughter, had the air of being dreadfully harassed. She was also rather lame.
Evidently used to people coming to see her husband about matters connected with
his work, perfectly polite, she obviously hoped to get out of the room as soon
as possible, after giving some sort of a progress report about the
cooking-stove crisis. This problem solved, or postponed, she excused herself
and retired again. Bagshaw, who had listened gravely, replied with apparent
good sense to his wife’s statements and questions, clearly accepted this new
incarnation of himself. In any case, it was no longer new to him. When Mrs
Bagshaw had gone, he settled down again to his professionally avuncular manner.

‘Where
will this American friend of yours stay in London, Nicholas?’

‘In
one of those bleak hotels X used to frequent. He hopes to get the atmosphere
first-hand. He really is very keen on doing the book well.’

‘Which
one?’

Bagshaw
groaned at the name, and shook his head. To judge from the exterior of the
place, that reaction was justified.

‘I
spent a night there myself once years ago – rather a sordid story I won’t bore
you with – in fact recommended the place to Trappy in the first instance. The
bathroom accommodation doesn’t exactly measure up to the highest mod. con.
standards. You know how strongly Americans feel about these things.’

‘Gwinnett
wants the Trapnel ethos, not the best place in London to take a bath.’

‘I
see.’

That
fact impressed Bagshaw. He thought about it for a moment.

‘Look
here, this idea occurred to me as soon as you mentioned your American. Why
doesn’t Professor Gwinnett – I mean only when he’s completed his stint of
Trapnel ports of call, not before – come and PG with us? The spare room’s free
at the moment. Our Japanese statistician went back to Osaka. I think we made
him comfortable during his stay. At least he never complained. That may have
been Zen, of course, overcoming of illusory dualisms. I got quite interested in
Zen while he was with us.’

The
idea of lodging with Bagshaw, a guest paying or non-paying, would once have
seemed almost as extraordinary as the fact of his possessing a house. Even in
the reformed state of his ménage there were disrecommendations. If anyone were
to be ‘lodger’, Bagshaw himself had always appeared prototype of the kind, one
of Nature’s lodgers; coaxing the landlady, when behind with the rent, seducing
her daughter, storing (in his revolutionary days) subversive pamphlets under
the bed. He was imaginable in all such stylized circumstances; even meeting his
death as a lodger – the Passing of the Third Floor Back, with Bagshaw as the
body. Although that picture had to be revised, the thought of paying to live
with Bagshaw was still to be accepted with some demur. That was what I felt as
Bagshaw himself digressed on the subject.

‘The
Icelander, an economist, was rather a turgid fellow, the Eng. Lit. New
Zealander, a charming boy. We’re looking for a replacement just like your
friend – and what could be better from his point of view, if he’s writing a
book about poor old Trappy? I’ll tell you what, Nicholas, I’ll send a line to
Professor Gwinnett to await arrival, so that he can arrange to see me whenever
it suits his purpose. We’ll have a talk. If all goes well, I’ll suggest he comes
and beds down here. I’ll put it this way, that he doesn’t dream of doing any
such thing until he’s made an exhaustive study, in depth, of Trapnel haunts,
thoroughly absorbed the Trapnel
Weltanschauung
.
That should not take long. The essentials are not difficult to grasp.’

Gwinnett
was, after all, well able to look after himself. He needed no surveillance,
would resent anything of the sort. Besides, from Gwinnett’s point of view,
there was something to be said for hearing about Trapnel, while living side by
side with Bagshaw. If he decided that to stay with the Bagshaws was convenient
to his purpose, he would do so; if not, either refuse, or after brief trial
withdraw. That was the situation. In any case, Gwinnett was not concerned with
living a life of ease, but – something very different – living the life of
Trapnel. To lodge with the Bagshaws would in no way run counter to that ambition,
in spite of Trapnel himself never having undergone the experience. He must have
done similar things. At that moment a girl, recognizable as sister of Avril,
probably a year or so older, came into the room. She took no notice of us, but
knelt down, and began hunting about in the bookcase. She, too, was fairly
good-looking.

‘What
do you want, Felicity?’

‘A
book.’

‘This
is Mr Jenkins.’

‘Hullo,’
she said, without turning round.

‘Where’s
Stella?’ asked Bagshaw.

‘God
knows.’

She
found her book, and went away, slamming the door after her. Bagshaw grimaced at
the noise.

‘That
one’s rather a worry too. Young people are nowadays. It’s either Regan or
Goneril. Look here, have you seen this? Only one paper reported the item.’

He
searched about among the assortment of journals lying on the floor, indicating
a short paragraph on the foreign news page, when he found the special one he
wanted. Its subject was a recent state trial in one of the countries of Eastern
Europe, action somewhat unexpected in an atmosphere, in general, of relaxed
international tension. Representatives of an outgoing Government had been
expelled from the Party, and a former police minister, with one or two others,
imprisoned by the new administration taking over. No great prominence was being
given by the London press to these proceedings, which appeared to be of a
fairly stereotyped order in the People’s Republic concerned. That morning a
modest headline in my own paper had drawn attention to allegations that some of
the accused had been in the pay of the British Secret Service. The three or
four persons named as having set out to corrupt members of the fallen Government
(together with certain officials and ‘intellectuals’) were all British
Communists of some public standing, or at least prominent fellow-travellers,
malting little or no concealment of their political affiliations; in short, as little
likely to be connected with the British Secret Service, as the accused of being
in touch with that organization. An additional name, unintelligibly translated,
had been put within inverted commas in Bagshaw’s newspaper paragraph.