Books Do Furnish a Room (18 page)

‘Of course, of course.’

It was not possible to judge
how far Widmerpool had taken in Trapnel’s identity. I was at a loss to
understand the meaning of this move. Trapnel continued to speak his piece.

‘I don’t want to bother you,
just to say this. It looks as if there might be a danger of their bringing a
case against Alaric Kydd’s
Sweetskin
. I
haven’t read it, of course, because it isn’t out yet – but we don’t want JG put
inside just because some liverish judge happens to take a dislike to Kydd’s
work.’

Widmerpool, if rather taken
aback at being appealed to in this manner, was at the same time not unflattered
to be regarded as the natural protector of publishers, now that he was in a
sense a publisher himself. The manoeuvre was quite uncharacteristic of Trapnel.
Like most writers in favour of abolishing current restrictions, such as they
were, he was not so far as I knew specially interested in the question of ‘censorship’.
Trapnel’s writing was not of the sort to be greatly affected by prohibitions of
language or subject matter. He was competent to express whatever he wanted in
an oblique manner. At the same time, he might well feel that, if obliquity in
the context were less concordant than bluntness, it was absurd for bluntness to
be forbidden by law. Language was a matter of taste. It looked as if the theme
of censorship had been evoked on the spur of the moment as a medium convenient
for making himself known to Widmerpool. Although Trapnel’s appearance was of a
kind to which he was unused, Widmerpool showed himself equal to the challenge.

‘I’m happy you mention the
matter. It is one that has always been at the back of my mind as of prime
importance. As with so many questions of a similar sort, there are two sides.
We must consider all the evidence carefully, especially that of those best
fitted to judge in such matters. Amongst them I don’t doubt you are one, Mr
Trapnel, an author yourself and man of experience, well versed in the subject.
My own feeling is that we want to do away with the interference of
old-fashioned busybodies to the furthest possible extent, while at the same
time taking care not to offend the susceptibilities of simple people with a
simple point of view, and their livings to earn, people who haven’t time to
concern themselves too closely with what may easily have the appearance of
contradictory arguments put forward by the pundits of the so-called
intellectual world, men whom you and I perhaps respect less than they respect
themselves. The prejudices of such people may seem unnecessarily complicated to
the man in the street, who has been brought up with what could sometimes be
justly regarded as a lot of out-of-date notions, but notions that are
nevertheless dear to him, if only because they have been dear in the past to
someone whose opinion he knew and revered – I mean of course to his mother.’

Widmerpool, who had dropped his
voice at the last sentence, paused and smiled. The reply was one with which no
politician could have found fault. Surprisingly enough, it seemed equally
satisfactory to Trapnel. His acceptance of such an answer was as inexplicable
as his reason for asking the question.

‘Admirably expressed, Mr
Widmerpool. What I envy about an MP like yourself is not the power he wields,
it’s his constituency. Going round and seeing how all sorts of different people
live, what their homes are like, some friendly, some hostile. It must be a
fascinating experience – what background stuff for a novelist.’

This was getting so near utter
nonsense that I wondered whether Trapnel had managed to get drunk in a
comparatively short time on the watery cocktail
available, and, for reasons still obscure, wanted to pick a quarrel with Widmerpool; was, in fact, building up to
deliver some public
insult. Widmerpool himself totally accepted Trapnel’s words at their face value.

‘It is indeed a privilege to
see ordinary folk in their own homes, though I never thought of the
professional advantage you put forward. Well, housing conditions need a lot of
attention, and I can tell you I am giving them of my best.’

‘You should come and try to
pull the plug where I am living myself,’ said Trapnel. ‘I won’t enlarge.’

Widmerpool looked rather uneasy
at that. Trapnel, seeing he risked prejudicing the good impression he intended
to convey, laughed and shook his head, dismissing the matter of plumbing.

‘I just wanted to mention the
matter. Nice of you to have listened to it – nice also to have met.’

‘Just let me make a note of
your bad housing, my friend,’ said Widmerpool. ‘Exact information is always
useful.’

Trapnel had spoken his last
words in farewell, but Widmerpool led him aside and took out a notebook. At the
same moment Pamela abandoned Gainsborough, whose attractions her husband must
have overrated. She came towards us. Widmerpool turned to her. She disregarded
him, and addressed herself to me in her slow, hypnotic voice.

‘Have you been attending any
more funerals?’

‘No – have you?’

‘Just awaiting my own.’

‘Not imminent, I hope?’

‘I rather hope it is.’

‘How are you enjoying political
life?’

‘Like any other form of life – sheer
hell.’

She said that in a relatively
friendlv tone. Craggs intervened and led Widmerpool away, Trapnel returned. I
introduced him to Pamela. It was not a success. In fact it was a disaster. From
being in quite a good humour, she switched immediately to an exceedingly bad
one. As he came up, her face at once assumed an expression of instant dislike.
Trapnel himself could not fail to notice this change in her features. He winced
slightly, but did not allow himself to be discouraged sufficiently to abandon
all hope of making headway. Obviously he was struck by Pamela’s appearance. For
a moment I wondered whether that had been the real reason for making such a
point of introducing himself to Widmerpool. Any such guess turned out wide of
the mark. On the contrary, he had not seen them come into the room together,
nor taken in who she was. His head appeared still full of whatever he had been
talking about to Widmerpool, because he did not listen when I told him her
name. It turned out later that he was determined in his own mind that Pamela
was a writer of some sort. Having decided that point, he wanted to find out
what sort of a writer she might be. This was on general grounds of her looks,
rather than any very special attraction he himself found for them.

‘Are you doing something for
Fission
?’

Pamela stared at him as if he
had gone off his head.

‘Me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why should I?’

‘I just thought you might.’

‘Do I look the sort of person
who’d write for
Fission
?’

 ‘It
struck me you did rather.’

She gave him a stare of
contempt, but did not answer. Trapnel, seeing he was to be treated with deliberate offensiveness, made no further effort in Pamela’s direction. Instead, he
began talking of the set-to on the subject of modern poetry that had just taken place between Shernmaker and
Malcolm Crowding. Pamela walked away in the direction of Ada Leintwardine. Trapnel looked after her
and laughed.

‘Who is she?’

‘I told you – Mrs Widmerpool.’

‘Wife of the MP I was chatting
with?’

‘She’s rather famous.’

‘I didn’t get the name. I
thought you were saying something about Widmerpool. So that’s who she is? I’d
never have thought he’d have a wife like that. Bagshaw was talking about him,
so I thought I’d like to make contact. I can’t say I was much taken with Mrs
Widmerpool. Is that how she always behaves?’

‘Quite often.’

‘Girls like that are not in my
line. I don’t care how smashing they look. I need a decent standard of manners.’

At this stage of our
acquaintance I did not know much about Trapnel’s girls, beyond his own talk
about them, which indicated a fair amount of experience. Some ‘big’ love affair
of his had gone wrong not long before our first meeting. Ada came round with
the drink jug. Trapnel filled up and moved away.

‘Not much danger of
intoxication from this brew,’ she said.

‘The Editor doesn’t seem to
have done too badly.’

‘Books had an early go at the actual bottle – before this potion was
mixed.’

Bagshaw, rather red in the face, was in fact little if at all drunker
than he had been at the beginning of the party, reaching a saturation point beyond which he never
overflowed. He was clutching Evadne Clapham affectionately round the waist, he
explained to her – with some supposed reference to her short story in
Fission
– where Marx differed from Feuerbach in aiming not to interpret the
world but to change it; and what was the real significance of Lenin’s April Theses.

‘Evadne Clapham’s coiffure
always reminds me of that line of Arthur Symons, “And is it seaweed in your
hair?”’ said Ada. ‘There’s been some hot negotiation with poor old Sillers, but
we’ve come across with quite a big advance in the end. I hope the book will
justify that when it appears.’

‘What’s Odo$cvens’s work to be
called?’

‘
Sad Majors
, an adaption of –

Let’s have one other gaudy
night: call to me
All my sad captains …

JG doesn’t care for the title.
We’re trying to get Stevens to change it.’

‘Why? He must agree it’s a
gloomy rank.’

‘God – Nathaniel Sheldon’s
helping himself. He must think he’s not being appreciated.’

It was true.Sheldon was routing
about under the drink table. Ada hurried off. It was time to go home. I sought out
Quiggjn to say goodbye. He was talking with Shernmaker, whose temper seemed to
have improved, because he was teasing Quiggin.

‘Gauguin abandoned business for
art, JG – you’re like Rimbaud, who abandoned art for business.’

‘Resemblances undoubtedly exist between publishing and the slave trade,’
said Quiggin ‘But it’s not only authors who get sold, Bernard’

Down stairs in the packing
department Widmerpool was wandering about looking for something. He no longer
retained his earlier geniality, was now despondent.

‘I’ve lost my briefcase. Hid it
away somewhere down here. I say, that friend of yours, Trapnel, is an odd
fellow, isn’t he?’

‘In appearance?’

‘Among other things.’

‘He’s a good writer.’

‘So I’m told.’

‘I mean should be useful on
Fission
.’

‘Ah, there’s the briefcase – no,
I’ve just been talking to Trapnel, and his behaviour rather surprised me. As a
matter of fact he asked me to lend him some money.’

‘Following, no doubt, on your
recommendations in the House that interest rates should be reduced.’

‘Your joke is no doubt very
amusing. At the same time you will agree Trapnel’s request was unusual on the
part of a man whom I had never set eyes on before tonight, when he introduced
himself to me?’

‘You know what literary life is
like.’

‘I’m beginning to learn.’

‘Did you come across?’

‘I handed over a pound. The man
assured me he was completely penniless. However, let us speak no more of that.
I merely put it on record. I consider the party for
Fission
was
a success. It will get off to a good start, even though I do not feel so much
confidence in Bagshaw as I could wish.’

‘He knows his stuff.’

‘So everyone says. He appeared
to me rather drunk by the end of the evening, but I must not stay gossiping. I
have to get back to Westminster. Pam had to leave early. She had a dinner
engagement.’

We went outside. Trapnel was
standing on the pavement. He had just hailed a cab. He must have been waiting
there for one to pass for some minutes; in fact since he had taken the pound
off Widmerpool.

‘Dearth of taxis round this
neighbourhood’s almost as bad as where I’m living. Can I give anyone a lift? I’m
heading north.’

We both declined the offer.

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

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

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