Books Do Furnish a Room - Anthony Powell [14]
‘I thought it good – who is X. Trapnel? Somebody else mentioned him.’
‘The best first novel since before the war,’ said Bagshaw.
‘Not that that’s in itself particularly high praise. Trapnel was a clerk in one of our New Delhi outfits – the people who used to hand out those pamphlets about Civics and The Soviet Achievement, all that sort of thing. I was always rapt in admiration at the way the Party arranged to have its propaganda handled at an official level. As a matter of fact Trapnel himself wasn’t at all interested in politics, but he was always in trouble with the authorities, and I managed to help him one way and another.’
Although not in the front rank of literary critics – there might have been difficulty in squeezing him into an already overcrowded and grimacing back row – Bagshaw had reason in proclaiming Trapnel’s one of the few promising talents thrown up by the war; in contrast with the previous one, followed by no marked luxuriance in the arts.
‘Then he got a poisoned foot. Trapnel was a low medical category anyway, that’s why he was doing the job at his age. He got shipped back to England. By the end of the war he’d winkled himself into a film unit. He’s very keen on films. Wants to get back into them, I believe, writing novels at the same time – but what about your own novels, Nicholas? Have you started up at one again?’
I told him why I was staying at the University, and how work was going to be disrupted during the following week owing to Erridge’s funeral. The information about Erridge at once disturbed Bagshaw.
‘Lord Warminster is no more?’
‘Heard it last night.’
‘This is awful.’
‘I’d no idea you were a close friend.’
Bagshaw’s past activities, especially at the time when he was seeing a good deal of Quiggin, might well have brought him within Erridge’s orbit, though I had never connected them in my mind.
‘I didn’t know Warminster well. Always liked him when we met, and of course sorry to hear the sad news, but why it might be ominous for me was quite apart from personal feelings. The fact was he was putting up the money for a paper I’m supposed to be editing. I was on the point of telling you about it.’
At this period there was constant talk of ‘little magazines’ coming into being. Professionally speaking, their establishment was of interest as media for placing articles, reviewing books, the various pickings of literary life. Erridge had toyed with some such project for years, although the sort of paper he contemplated was not likely to be of much use to myself. It was no great surprise to hear he had finally decided to back a periodical of some sort. The choice of Bagshaw as editor was an adventurous one, but, if they knew each other already, Bagshaw’s recommendation of himself as a ‘professional rebel’ might well have been sufficient to get a job in Erridge’s gift.
‘A new publishing firm, Quiggin & Craggs, is going to produce the magazine. Warminster – Erry, as you call him – was friends with both directors. You must know J. G. Quiggin. Doubt if he’s ever been CP, but Craggs has been a fellow-traveller for years, and my old friend Gypsy toes the Party line as consistently as anyone could.’
‘What’s Gypsy got to do with it?’
‘As Craggs’s wife.’
‘Gypsy married to Craggs?’
‘Has been for a year or two. Quiggin’s an interesting case. He’s always had Communist leanings, but afraid to commit himself. JG doesn’t like too many risks. He feels he might get into more trouble as a Party Member than outside. He hasn’t got Craggs’s staying power.’
‘But Erry wasn’t a Communist at all. In many ways he disapproved, I believe, though he never came out in the open about it.’
‘No, but he got on all right with JG and Howard Craggs. There was even a suggestion he did more than get on well with Gypsy at one time. He was going to back the publishing firm too, though they are to be run quite separately.’
‘What’s the magazine to be called?