A Question of Upbringing - Anthony Powell [13]
“I can’t imagine he was ever much good with the girls,” said Templer.
“Maybe not,” said Stringham. “Not everyone has your singleness of aim. As a matter of fact do you think Le Bas has any sex life?”
“I don’t know about Le Bas,” said Templer, who had evidently been waiting since his arrival back from London for the right moment to make some important announcement about himself, “but I have. The reason I took the later train was because I was with a girl.”
“You devil.”
“I was a devil, I can assure you.”
“I suppose we shall have to hear about it,” said Stringham. “Don’t spare my feelings. Did you hold hands at the cinema? Where did you meet?”
“In the street.”
“Do you mean you picked her up?”
“Yes.”
“Fair or dark?”
“Fair.”
“And how was the introduction effected?”
“She smiled at me.”
“A tart, in other words.”
“I suppose she was, in a kind of way,” said Templer, “but quite young.”
“You know, Peter, you are just exactly the sort of boy my parents warned me against.”
“I went back to her flat.”
“How did you acquit yourself?”
“It was rather a success; except that the scent she used was absolutely asphyxiating. I was a bit afraid Le Bas might notice it on my clothes.”
“Not after the cigarette smoked by Jenkins’s uncle. Was it a well appointed apartment?”
“I admit the accommodation was a bit on the squalid side,” said Templer. “You can’t have everything for a quid.”
“That wasn’t very munificent, was it?”
“All I had. That was why I had to walk from the station.”
“You seem to have been what Le Bas would call ‘a very unwise young man’.”
“I see no reason why Le Bas should be worried by the matter, if he didn’t notice the scent.”
“What an indescribably sordid incident,” said Stringham. “However, let’s hear full details.”
“Not if you don’t want to be told them.”
“We do.”
Templer was supplying further particulars when Le Bas appeared in the room again. He seemed increasingly agitated, and said: “Templer, I want you to come and show me in the time-table which train you took. I have telephoned to the station and have been told that the one you should have travelled on was not late – and Jenkins, don’t forget that I shall expect to see that letter from your uncle by the end of the week. You had better keep him up to it, Stringham, as it is just as much in your interests as his that the matter should be cleared up.”
He tore off up the passage with Templer following behind at a slower pace. Stringham said: “Peter is crazy. He really will get shot out sooner or later.”
Although incomplete, the story of Templer’s London adventure – to be recapitulated on countless future occasions – had sufficiently amplified the incident for its significance to be inescapably clear to Stringham and myself. This was a glimpse through that mysterious door, once shut, that now seemed to stand ajar. It was as if, sounds of far-off conflict, or the muffled din of music and shouting, dimly heard in the past, had now come closer than ever before. Stringham smiled to himself and whistled. I think he felt a little uneasy in the awareness that Templer was one up on him now. He did not discuss the matter further: I too had no comment to make before thinking things over. After a time Templer returned to the room. He said: “What an infernal nuisance that man Le Bas is. I think he is going to write to my father. I particularly do not want trouble at this moment.”
“He seems to have developed a mania for letters flying in all directions,” said Stringham. “However, I feel competent to deal with his puny onslaughts. Meanwhile, I should like to hear more of this unfortunate incident which you were in the course of describing with such a wealth of colour. Begin at the beginning, please.”
*
The episode that Stringham continued to call “Templer’s unfortunate incident,” not startlingly interesting in itself, somehow crystallised my impression of Templer’s character: rathe