Books Do Furnish a Room (27 page)

He reorientated himself towards
Pamela.

‘When I return I shall not be
surprised to find that you have reconsidered matters.’

She looked straight at him.
Otherwise she gave no sign that she had heard what he said. Widmerpool went
very red again. He passed through the door into the hall. The front door
slammed, but did not shut. Trapnel in his bare feet ran out of the flat. He
could be heard to pull the front door violently open again. From the steps he
shouted into the night.

‘Coprolite! Faecal débris!
Fossil of dung!’

A minute later he returned to
the sitting-room. He took the sheath-half of the swordstick from the bed,
replaced the blade and returned it to the corner by the wardrobe. Then he
climbed under the blankets again, and lay back. He looked quite exhausted.
Pamela, on the other hand, now showed signs of life. A faint colour had come
into her face, a look of excitement I had never before seen there. She smiled.
Something unexpected was afoot. She came across the room, and sat down on the
bed. Trapnel took one of her hands. He did not speak. Comment came from Pamela
this time.

‘I’m glad you were here,
Nicholas. I’m glad it all happened in front of someone. I wish there had been a
lot more people. Hundreds more. Now you know what my life was like.’

Trapnel patted her hand. He was
much shaken. Not well in any case, he was likely to
be dissatisfied with the scene that
had taken place. He could scarcely be said to have dominated it in the manner
of one of his own screen heroes, even if it were better not to have run
Widmerpool through, or whatever was in his mind.

‘I do apologize for getting you
mixed up with all this, Nick. It wasn’t my fault. How the hell could I guess he
was going to turn up here? I thought there wasn’t a living soul knew the
address, except one or two shops round here. Private detectives? It makes you
think.’

The idea of private detectives
obviously fascinated Trapnel’s
roman
policier
leanings, which were highly developed. He was also worried.

‘Will you be awfully good, and
keep quiet about all this, Nick? Don’t say a word, for obvious reasons.’

Pamela shook back her hair.

‘Thank you so much for coming,
and for bringing the book. I expect we shall see you again here, as we aren’t
going out much, as long as X isn’t well. I’ll ring you up, and you can bring
another book some time.’

She spoke formally, like a
hostess saying goodbye to a visitor she barely knows, who has paid a social
call, and now explains that he must leave. A complete change had come over her
after the impassivity she had shown until now. Before I could reply, she spoke
again, this time abandoning formality.

‘Bugger off – I want to be
alone with X.’

I left London one Saturday afternoon in the autumn to make some arrangement about a son going to school.
Owing to the anomalies of the timetable, the train arrived an hour or so early
for the appointment. There was an interval to kill. After a hot summer the
weather still remained warm, but, not uncommon in that watery region, drizzle
descended steadily, while a feeble sun shone through clouds that hung low over
stretches of claret-coloured brick. It was too wet to wander about in the open.
For a time I kicked my heels under a colonnade. A bomb had fallen close by. One
corner was still enclosed by scaffolding and a tarpaulin. Above the arch, the
long upper storey with its row of oblong corniced windows had escaped damage.
The period of the architecture – half a century later, but it took little
nowadays to recall him – brought Burton to mind; Burton, by implication the art
of writing in general. On this subject he knew what he was talking about:

‘ ’Tis not my study or intent
to compose neatly … but to
express myself readily & plainly as it happens. So that as a River runs
sometimes precipitate and swift, then dull and slow; now direct, then winding;
now deep, then shallow, now muddy, then clear; now broad, then narrow; doth my
style flow; now serious, then light; now comical, then satirical; now more
elaborate, then remiss, as the present subject
required, or as at the time I was affected.’

Even for
those with a prejudice in favour of symmetry, worse rules might be laid down. The antithesis between satire
and comedy was especially worth emphasis; also to write as the subject required, or
the author thought fit at the moment. One often, when writing, felt a desire to
be ‘remiss’. It
was good to have that recommended. An important aspect of writing unmentioned by Burton was ‘priority’; what to tell first. That always seemed one of the basic problems. Trapnel used to talk about its complexities. For
example, even to arrange in the mind, much less on paper, the
events leading up to the demise of
Fission
after a
two-year
run, the swallowing up (by the larger publishing house of
which Clapham was chairman) of the firm of Quiggin & Craggs, demanded an effective grasp of narrative ‘priorities’.

Looking out between the pillars
at the raindrops glinting on the cobbles of a broad open space, turning the
whole thing over in the mind, much seemed to me inevitable, as always
contemplating the past. At the same time, although many things had gone wrong,
several difficulties had been successfully surmounted. For instance, the
prosecution of
Sweetskin
had been parried; the verdict,
‘Not Guilty’. Nevertheless, the case had cost money, caused a lot of worry to
the directors. Alaric Kydd himself had been so certain that he would be sent to
prison for uttering an obscene work that he let his flat on rather good terms
for eighteen months; later finding difficulty in obtaining satisfactory
alternative accommodation. He was also wounded by the tone of voice – certainly
a very silly one – in which prosecuting counsel read aloud in court certain passages
from his novel.

More damaging to the firm in a
way, though morally rather than financially, was the
Sad
Majors
affair. Bagshaw leaked an account of that. He had come back to the office in a
restless, resentful mood after his bout of flu, according to Ada, spending the
first forty-eight hours of convalescence drinking, then retiring to bed again
for a further day before settling down. Whether or not he had deliberately kept
the Trapnel parody ‘on the spike’ for use at the most appropriate occasion was never
cleared up. Most probably, as in previous episodes of Bagshaw’s history, an
infallible instinct for causing trouble had brought guidance without need of
exact knowledge. Widmerpool appeared to have made no complaint to the board. He
remained out of touch with Quiggin & Craggs long after the Court Circular
announced his return from the People’s Republic, where he had been paying his
visit. No doubt he was busy with parliamentary affairs. There was in any case
not much he could do. If
Fission
had
not ceased publication, Bagshaw’s contract would in any case have run out. He
had dropped hints that he himself wanted to move. No one was going to stand in
his way. The fact was that Bagshaw was by now attracted by the promise of
helping to open up the still mainly unexplored eldorado of television.

Bagshaw took pleasure in
elaborating the Odo Stevens story. He did not like Stevens as a man, but
admired him as an adventurer. They used to meet when Stevens from time to time
looked into the
Fission
office to see if there were a
book to review. Stevens had developed an additional contact with the magazine
on account of his association with Rosie Manasch. Never backward at publicizing
his successes, he did not at present convey more than that he had an ally in
that quarter. If Rosie had decided she needed relaxation with a man
considerably younger than herself, she was agreed to have had a distressing
time in many ways, and Stevens, whatever his failings, had the advantage of
being a figure not to be taken too seriously. Both parties were judged well
able to look after themselves. That was how it seemed at the time. However,
even at an early stage the relationship was sufficiently strong to play a part
in the Quiggin & Craggs upheaval. This came about when the
Sad
Majors
controversy, simmering for some little while, took aggressive shape. Bagshaw,
always interested in a row of this sort, was ravished by a move now made.

‘You can’t help admiring the
way Gypsy does things. Good old hard-core stuff. You know the trouble about the
Stevens book – thought to bring discredit on the Party. Gypsy’s performed one
of those feats that most people don’t think of on account of their ruthless
simplicity. She has quite simply liquidated the manuscript. Both copies.’

‘Aren’t there more than two
copies?’

‘Apparently not.’

‘How did she get hold of them?’

‘After much argument, the
original MS had been sent to the printer to be cast off. It was to be allowed
to go ahead anyway as far as proof. Then Howard said he’d like to reread the
book in peaceful surroundings, so he borrowed the carbon, and took it home with
him. A day or two later, Gypsy, that’s her story, thought it was another
manuscript Howard had asked her to post to Len Pugsley – who sometimes does
reading for the firm, he poked Gypsy briefly – and Len says the parcel never
arrived. He was moving house at the time. Stevens’s carbon seems to have gone
astray between the Oval and Chalk Farm. Meanwhile, the printers got a telephone
message, the origins of which no one can trace, to send back the MS they were
to cast off. There was some question about it to be settled editorially. Now
that copy can’t be found either.’

‘Stevens will have to write it
again?’

‘That’s where the neatness of
the sabotage comes in. Rewriting will take a longish time. By the time it’s finished the poor impression Stevens gives of the Comrades and their behaviour will, with any luck, be out of date – anyway in the eyes of the
reading public. At worst, all ancient history.’

‘How’s Stevens taking the loss?’

‘He’s pretty cross. Can you
blame him? The more interesting point is that Rosie Manasch is very cross too.
In fact she’s withdrawn her support from the mag in consequence of her
crossness with Quiggin & Craggs as a firm. That’s awkward, because – though
personally I think a lot of unnecessary fuss was made about the Trapnel parody
– the rest of the board don’t feel it a good moment to stir up Widmerpool.’

‘Is Stevens getting
compensation?’

‘You haven’t studied the
writing paper. The greatest care is taken of manuscripts, but no
responsibility. However, they’ve allowed the contract to be cancelled.’

‘That was handsome.’

Compared with the Stevens row,
the disappointment caused by Sillery’s Diary, after all the haggling about
terms, and high advance, was a minor blow, though again there were
repercussions. The extracts were called
Garnered at Sunset: Leaves from an Edwardian Journal
.

‘A masterpiece of dullness,’
said Bagshaw. ‘JG read it. Howard read it. For once they were in complete
agreement. The only thing to do will be to publish, and hope for the best. I’m
surprised at Ada. She’s strung them along over Sillery.’

Ada’s policy in the matter, as
not seldom, was enigmatic, probably dictated by a mixture of antagonistic
considerations. The Diary, seen as one of the paths to a career, had not been
truly subjected to her usually sharp judgment. Its lack of interest had been
obscured by inner workings of the curious kind of flirtation she and Sillery
had shared. Those elements might be put forward as excuse for the recommendation.
It was also possible, knowing Sillery as she did, that Ada had genuinely found
Garnered at Sunset
absorbing. Publishers’
readers, as Quiggin remarked, are no less subjective than other animals. It
might be thought that this critical lapse on Ada’s part would have prejudiced her position in the firm. On the contrary, nothing more retributive was visited on her than that Quiggin proposed marriage.

Bagshaw suggested that an emotional scene contingent on some sort of reprimand on the subject of the Sillery Journal, had
brought things to a head, but there can be no doubt an
offer of marriage was already at the back of Quiggin’s
mind. The fact that the firm was moving towards
a close had nothing to do with it. He was accepted. As a married man, the place he had found on the board of Clapham’s firm would be advantageous; on the whole a step forward in a publishing career. The two of them were quietly married one August
afternoon before the Registrar; Mark Members and L. O. Salvidge, witnesses. Craggs and Gypsy were not asked. Craggs had announced he was going into semi-retirement when the firm closed down, but it seemed likely that he would continue his activities, at least in an inconspicuous manner, with many little interests of a political sort that had always engrossed him. All these things played a part, others too, in the winding up of Quiggin & Craggs, representative of common enough impediments to running a
publishing house; exceptional, in as much as they were exceptional, only on account of the individuals concerned. The climax, in an odd way, seemed to be the
night spent with Trapnel and Bagshaw. That had been rather different. By then, in any case, both magazine and publishing business had received the death sentence. All
the same that night – the symbolic awfulness of its events – was
something to put a seal on the whole affair. It confirmed
several other things too.

Matters had begun with a
telephone call from Bagshaw at about half-past nine one evening four or five
weeks before. From the opening sentences it was clear he was drunk, less clear what he wanted. At first the object seemed no more than a chat about
the sadness of life, perhaps a long one, but entailing merely a sympathetic
hearing. That was too good to be true. It soon grew plain some request was
going to be made. Even then, what the demand would be became only gradually
apparent.