Temporary Kings (21 page)

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.’