The Kindly Ones - Anthony Powell [69]
The thought that Duport had been Jean’s husband, that she had had a child by him, that no doubt she had once loved him, had not, for some reason, greatly worried me while she and I had been close to each other. Duport had never – I cannot think why – seemed to be in competition with myself where she was concerned. For Jean to have married him, still, so to speak, to own him, although living apart, was like a bad habit (Uncle Giles poring in secret over The Perfumed Garden), no more than that; something one might prefer her to be without, to give up, nothing that could remotely affect our feeling for each other. Anyway, I thought, those days are long past; they can be considered with complete equanimity. Duport and I had met only once, fourteen or fifteen years before. He could safely be regarded as the kind of person to whom the past, certainly such a chance encounter, would mean little or nothing, in fact be completely forgotten. No doubt since then new friends of his had driven him scores of times into the ditch with new cars full of new girls. He was that sort of man. Such were my ill-judged, unfriendly, rather priggish speculations. They turned out to be hopelessly wide of the mark.
Duport’s first act on sitting down at the table was to pour out a stiffish whisky, add a splash of soda from the syphon also standing on the table, and gulp the drink down. Then he looked contemptuously round the room. Obviously my own presence had materially altered the background he expected of the dining-room at the Bellevue. He stared hard. Soup was set in front of him. I supposed he would turn to it. Instead, he continued to stare. I pretended to be engrossed with my fish. There was something of the old Albert in the sauce. Then Duport spoke. He had a hard, perfectly assured, absolutely uningratiating voice.
‘We’ve met before,’ he said.
‘Have we?’
‘Somewhere.’
‘Where could that have been?’
‘Certain of it. I can’t remember your name. Mine’s Duport – Bob.’
‘Nicholas Jenkins.’
‘Aren’t you a friend of my former brother-in-law, Peter Templer?’
‘A very old friend.’
‘And he drove us both into the ditch in some bloody fast second-hand car he had just bought. Years ago. A whole row of chaps and a couple of girls. The party included a fat swab called Brent.’
‘He did, indeed. That was where we met. Of course I remember you.’
‘I thought so. Do you ever see Peter these days?’
‘Hadn’t for ages. Then we met about a year ago – just after “Munich”, as a matter of fact.’
‘I’ve heard him talk about you. I used to be married to his sister, Jean, you know. I believe I’ve heard her speak of you, too.’
‘I met her staying with the Templers.’
‘When was that?’
‘Years ago – when I had just left school.’
‘Ever see her later?’
‘Yes, several times.’
‘Probably when she and I were living apart. That is when Jean seems to have made most of her friends.’
‘When I last saw Peter, he was talking about some new job of yours.’
I judged it best to change the subject of Jean – also remembering the talk about Duport between Sir Magnus Donners and Widmerpool. Up to then, I had thought of Duport only in an earlier incarnation, never considered the possibility of running into him again.
‘Was he, indeed? Where did you meet him?