Books Do Furnish a Room - Anthony Powell [81]
‘Have you a shilling? The fire’s going out.’
She took the coin and slipped it into the slot, reviving the dying flame, just going blue. As the gas flared up again, its hiss for some inexplicable reason suggested an explanation of why Pamela had married Widmerpool. She had done it, so to speak, in order to run away with Trapnel. I do not mean she had thought that out in precise terms – a vivid imagination would be required to predict the advent of Trapnel into Widmerpool’s life – but the violent antithesis presented by their contrasted forms of existence, two unique specimens as it were brought into collision, promised anarchic extremities of feeling of the kind at which she aimed; in which she was principally at home. She liked – to borrow a phrase from St. John Clarke – to ‘try conclusions with the maelstrom’. One of the consequences of her presence was to displace Trapnel’s tendency to play a part during the first few minutes of any meeting. That could well have been knocked out of him by ill health, as much as by Pamela. He spoke now as if he were merely a little embarrassed.
‘There were one or two things I wanted to talk about. You know I don’t much like having to explain things on the telephone, though I often have to do that. Anyway, it’s cut off here, the instrument was removed bodily yesterday, and I’m not supposed to go outside for the moment, owing to this malaise I’ve got. You and I haven’t seen each other for some time, Nick. Such a lot’s happened. As I’m a bit off colour I thought you wouldn’t mind coming to our flat. It seemed easier. Pam was sure you’d come.’
He gave her one of those ‘adoring looks’, which Lermontov says mean so little to women. Pamela stared back at him with an expression of complete detachment. I thought of King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid, though Pamela was far from a pre-raphaelite type or a maid, and, socially speaking, the boot was, if anything, on the other foot. No doubt it was Trapnel’s beard. He had also allowed his hair to grow longer than usual. All the same, he sitting up on the divan, she standing above him, they somehow called up the picture.
‘I brought some essays by L. O. Salvidge.’
‘Paper Wine?’
Trapnel, by some mysterious agency, always knew about all books before they were published. It was as if the information came to him instinctively. He laughed. The thought of reviewing Salvidge’s essays must have made him feel better. One had the impression that he had been locked up with Pamela for weeks, like the Spanish honeymoon couples Borrit used to describe, when we were in the War Office together. To get back to the world of reviewing seemed to offer a magical cure for whatever Trapnel suffered. It really cheered him up.
‘Just what I need – have we got anything to drink, darling?’
‘A bottle of Algerian’s open. Some dregs left, I think.’
‘I don’t want anything at the moment, thanks very much.’
Trapnel lay back on the divan.
‘To begin with, that bloody parody of mine.’
‘I mistook it at first for the real thing.’
That amused Trapnel. Pamela continued to stand by without comment or change of expression.
‘I’m glad you did that. What’s happened about it? Any reactions?’
‘None I’ve heard about. There was some trepidation at the Fission office that trouble might arise from the obvious quarter. Books is away with flu.’
‘What a bloody fool he is. I wrote the thing quite a long time ago at his suggestion. He said he’d have to talk to the others about it. I hadn’t contemplated present circumstances then.’
‘Nor did anyone else.’
‘What about Books?’
‘The evidence is that he didn’t know.’
‘Will Widmerpool believe that?’
‘What can he do?’ asked Pamela. ‘He ought to be flattered.’
Even when she made this comment the tone suggested she was no more on Trapnel’s side than Widmerpool’s. She was assessing the situation objectively.
‘That’s what Books told Evadne Clapham,’ said Trapnel. ‘On that occasion I hadn’t also run away with her husband. I suppose everything combined means I won’t be able to write for Fission any longer. That’s a blow, because it was one of my main sources of income, and I liked the magazine.