Temporary Kings - Anthony Powell [64]
Ada spoke with clinical objectivity.
‘Perfectly right.’
‘For some reason Pam was determined to talk about that picture all through dinner. There were a lot of people there, Glober said. She was between a monsignore and a maharaja. You know how silent she is as a rule. That night she chattered incessantly. Went on and on. Nothing would stop her. She seemed to be doing this partly to get under the skin of a lady Glober knows, called Signora Clarini, the English wife of the Italian film director, but living apart. Apparently Signora Clarini was a girl-friend of Sir Magnus Donners years ago, and now wants to marry Glober. He conveyed that in his quiet way. Pam may decide not to marry him herself, she was going to make sure Signora Clarini didn’t either. She kept on talking about Donners, implying he was a voyeur.’
‘Pamela’s hardly in a position to take a high moral line, if only after some of the things being said about her at the more sensational end of the French press.’
Ada had not heard about the Ferrand-Sénéschal revelations. She brushed them aside. Borrit, a War Office colleague, who had served in Africa, once spoke of the Masai tribe holding, as a tenet of faith, that all cows in the world belong to them. Ada, in similar manner, arrogated to herself all the world’s gossip, sources other than her own a presumption.
‘Pam didn’t take a high moral line. Quite the reverse. She spoke as if she and Signora Clarini were sister whores. That, according to Glober, was what made Signora Clarini so cross.’
‘This was all in front of Widmerpool?’
‘That’s what Glober found so fascinating. Kenneth didn’t attempt to shut her up. Of course he knows by now that’s impossible, but Glober thought he was not only afraid of her – almost physically afraid – but got a kind of kick from what she was saying.’
‘How did their host enjoy this small talk at his table?’
‘Jacky Bragadin wasn’t feeling well that evening, thought he was going to have one of his attacks, so wasn’t bothering much. The monsignore was one of those worldly priests, who take anything in their stride, but the maharaja didn’t know where to look. Louis Glober, to relieve the tension, persuaded the maharaja to teach him cricket. Jacky Bragadin found a Renaissance mace that belonged to some famous condottiere, and they used that for a bat. The maharaja bowled a peach, Glober hit it so hard he caught Kenneth on the jaw. That made further trouble.’
‘Somebody once did that with a banana at school. His face must have a radar-like attraction for fruit. Glober still wants to marry Pamela in spite of all this?’
‘I think so. He’s quite tough. He says all his contemporaries have drunk themselves crazy, undergone major surgery, discharged both barrels with their big toe, dropped down dead on the set, and he’s not going to fall for any of that. All the same, he’s disturbed about Gwinnett. Pam asked Louis if Gwinnett was queer. That’s what worried him. Her interest. Is he?’
‘Homosexual?’
‘Of course.’
‘I don’t think so. I don’t think he’s very normal either.’
‘Will Gwinnett’s book about Trapnel be good? Ought we to publish it? We’ll talk about that later. Here’s my vaporetto. See you at the Men of Letters | Men of Science session. I must polish up my speech. Don’t breathe a word about anything I’ve said, will you?’
She boarded a vessel bound for the Lido. I waited for the next boat heading towards the Grand Canal. To present Sir Magnus Donners as Candaules at the Bragadin dinner party showed imagination on Pamela