Books Do Furnish a Room - Anthony Powell [62]
The pair of them, when Trapnel allowed his whereabouts to be known, were likely to be camped out in a bleak hotel in Bloomsbury or Paddington, enduring intermittent persecution from the management for delayed action in payment of the bill. The Ufford, as it used to be in Uncle Giles’s day, would have struck too luxurious, too bourgeois a note, but, after wartime accommodation of a semi-secret branch of the Polish army in exile, the Ufford, come down in the world like many such Bayswater or Notting Hill establishments, might well have housed Trapnel and his mistress of the moment; their laundry impounded from time to time, until satisfactory settlement of the weekly account.
Alternatively, during brief periods of relative affluence, Trapnel and his girl might shelter for a few weeks in a ‘furnished flat’. This was likely to be a stark unswept apartment in the back streets of Holland Park or Camden Town. The flat might belong to an acquaintance from The Hero of Acre, for example, possibly borrowed, while a holiday was taken, custodians needed to look after the place; if Trapnel and his girl could be so regarded.
When, on the other hand, things were going badly, the girl would have walked out – this happened sooner or later with fair regularity – and, if the season were summer, the situation might not exclude a night or two spent on the Embankment The Embankment would, of course, represent a very low ebb indeed, though certainly experienced during an unprosperous interlude immediately preceding the outbreak of war. After such disasters Trapnel always somehow righted himself, in a sense seeming to justify the optimism of Evadne Clapham and those of her opinion. Work would once more be established on a passable footing, a new short story produced, contacts revived. The eventual replacement of the previous girl invariably kept up the traditionally high standard of looks.
Like many men rather ‘successful’ with women, Trapnel always gave the impression of being glad to get away from them from time to time. Not at all a Don Juan – using the label in a technical sense – he was quite happy to remain with a given mistress, once established, until the next upheaval. The question of pursuing every woman he met did not arise. Unlike, say, Odo Stevens, Trapnel was content to be in a room with three or four women without necessarily suffering the obligation to impose his personality on each one of them in turn.
All the same, if they could feel safe with him in that sphere, Trapnel’s girls, even apart from shortage of money, had to ‘put up with what was in many respects a hard life, one regulated by social routines often un tempting to feminine taste. A gruelling example was duty at The Hero of Acre. They would be expected to sit there for hours while Trapnel held forth on Portrait of the Artist, or The Birth of a Nation. Incidentally, The Hero of Acre was to be avoided if absolute freedom from parasites was to be assured, even though Trapnel could drastically rebuff them, if they intervened when a more important assignation was in progress. Dismissal might take a minute or two, should they be drunk, and in any case their mere presence in the saloon bar could be inhibiting.
However, this body of auxiliaries was a vital aspect of the Trapnel way of life. When things were bad, they would come into play, collect books for review, deliver ‘copy’ – Trapnel in any case distrusted the post – telephone in his name about arrangements or disputes, tactfully propound his case if required, detail his future plans if known, try – when such action was feasible, sometimes when not