Books Do Furnish a Room (24 page)

‘Repeat to me again exactly
what she said.’

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

‘Nothing more?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Never heard of him.’

‘He writes novels.’

‘Like you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is he one of her lovers?’

‘So it appears.’

‘I gather they abound.’

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

‘God – there’s a taxi.’

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

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

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

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

‘It can’t really be Trapnel.’

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

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

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

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

‘Are you going to be
prosecuted, Ada?’

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

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

‘No, no. Where I gave it you.’

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

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

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

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

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

‘Good-natured?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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