Books Do Furnish a Room (22 page)

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

‘Did you tell Ada how you felt?’

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

‘Ada’s pretty smart at
guessing.’

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

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

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

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

He pondered this extravagant – literally
extravagant – possibility.

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

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

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

‘God, what a brilliant idea.’

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

‘I’ll get on the job right
away.’

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

‘I can’t thank you enough.’

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

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

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

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

‘What will happen?’

‘Gypsy won’t hear of it.’

‘What’s Gypsy got to do with
it?’

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

‘Have they turned the book
down?’

‘They’re arguing it out.’

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

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

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

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

‘And mine to Susie.’

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

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

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

‘Come along.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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