The Acceptance World - Anthony Powell [51]
In the throng that straggled several yards behind these more important figures I identified two young men who used to frequent Mr. Deacon’s antique shop; one of whom, indeed, was believed to have accompanied Mr. Deacon himself on one of his holidays in Cornwall. I thought, immediately, that Mr. Deacon’s other associate, Gypsy Jones, might also be of the party, but could see no sign of her. Probably, as Quiggin had suggested, she belonged by then to a more distinguished grade of her own hierarchy than that represented by this heterogeneous collection, nearly all apparently ‘intellectuals’ of one kind or another.
However, although interested to see Sillery in such circumstances, there was another far more striking aspect of the procession which a second later riveted my eyes. Members must have taken in this particular spectacle at the same instant as myself, because I heard him beside me give a gasp of irritation.
Three persons immediately followed the group of notables with whom Sillery marched. At first, moving closely together through the mist, this trio seemed like a single grotesque three-headed animal, forming the figurehead of an ornamental car on the roundabout of a fair. As they jolted along, however, their separate entities became revealed, manifesting themselves as a figure in a wheeled chair, jointly pushed by a man and a woman. At first I could not believe my eyes, perhaps even wished to disbelieve them, because I allowed my attention to be distracted for a moment by Sillery’s voice shouting in high, almost jocular tones: ‘Abolish the Means Test!’ He had uttered this cry just as he came level with the place where Members and I stood; but he was too occupied with his own concerns to notice us there, although the park was almost empty.
Then I looked again at the three other people, thinking I might find myself mistaken in what I had at first supposed. On the contrary, the earlier impression was correct. The figure in the wheeled chair was St. John Clarke. He was being propelled along the road, in unison, by Quiggin and Mona Templer.
‘My God!’ said Members, quite quietly.
‘Did you see Sillery?’
I asked this because I could think of no suitable comment regarding the more interesting group. Members took no notice of the question.
‘I never thought they would go through with it,’ he said.
Neither St. John Clarke, nor Quiggin, wore hats. The novelist’s white hair, unenclosed in a cap such as Sillery wore, was lifted high, like an elderly Struwwelpeter’s, in the stiff breeze that was beginning to blow through the branches. Quiggin was dressed in the black leather overcoat he had worn in the Ritz, a red woollen muffler riding up round his neck, his skull cropped like a convicts. No doubt intentionally, he had managed to make himself look like a character from one of the novels of Dostoievski. Mona, too, was hatless, with dishevelled curls: her face very white above a high-necked polo jumper covered by a tweed overcoat of smart cut. She was looking remarkably pretty, and, like Sillery, seemed to be enjoying herself. On the other hand, the features of the two men with her expressed only inexorable sternness. Every few minutes, when the time came for a general shout to be raised, St. John Clarke would brandish in his hand a rolled-up copy of one of the ‘weeklies’, as he yelled the appropriate slogan in a high, excited voice.
‘It’s an absolute scandal,’ said Members breathlessly. ‘I heard rumours that something of the sort was on foot. The strain may easily kill St. J. He ought not to be up—much less taking part in an open-air meeting before the warmer weather comes.’
I was myself less surprised at the sight of Quiggin and St. John Clarke in such circumstances than to find Mona teamed up with the pair of them. For Quiggin, this kind of thing had become, after all, almost a matter of routine. It was ‘the little political affair’ Sillery had mentioned at the private view. St. John Clarke’s collaboration in such an outing was equally predictable—apart from the state of his health—after what Members and Quiggin had both said about him. From his acceptance of Quiggin