The Military Philosophers - Anthony Powell [45]
‘Of course he’s a Vichy man now,’ said Tompsitt.
‘Do French diplomats have mistresses?’
‘The Italians are worse,’ said Tompsitt pontifically.
‘Now then, you two, keep off the girls,’ said Widmerpool gaily. ‘Come on, Nicholas.’
‘I’ve got to take these papers back.’
‘You can cut through the Horse Guards.’
We ascended to ground level and set off through St James’s Park. The water had been drained from the lake to decrease identification from the air, leaving large dejected basins of clay-like soil. There were no ducks.
‘Rather ridiculous the way those two were talking about women,’ said Widmerpool. ‘You’d hardly believe how unsophisticated some of these Civil Servants are on such subjects, even senior ones, the Foreign Office as much as any, in spite of thinking so much of themselves. They like to behave as if they are a lot of duke’s nephews who’ve got there by aristocratic influence, whereas they’re simply a collection of perfectly ordinary middle-class examinees with rather less manners than most. “The Italians are worse!” Did you ever hear such a remark? I’ve known Tomp for a very long time, and he’s not a bad fellow, but lives in a very constricted social sphere.’
‘Who was the other?’
‘Some fellow from MEW,’ said Widmerpool. ‘No real experience of the world.’
There was something to be said for Widmerpool’s views, though there had been a time when he had argued the other way. This contempt for those uninstructed in moral licence was new too. It was the sort of subject he was inclined to avoid. His own sex life had always been rather a mystery. There was nothing so very unusual about that. Most people’s sex life is a mystery, especially that of individuals who seem to make most parade of it. Such is the conclusion one finally arrives at. All the same, Widmerpool had more than once shown himself an exceptional mixture of vehemence and ineptitude; the business of Gypsy Jones, for example, in his early days; then the disastrous engagement to Mrs Haycock or his romantic love for Barbara Goring. Few subjects are more fascinating than other people’s sexual habits from the outside; the tangled strands of appetite, tenderness, convenience or some hope of gain. In the light of what he had been saying, a direct question could sound not unreasonably inquisitive.
‘How do you organize that side of your own life these days?’
I did not feel absolutely at ease making this unconcealed attempt to satisfy curiosity, but, in supposing Widmerpool might be embarrassed, evasive or annoyed, I was wholly wrong. The enquiry delighted him. He clapped me on the back.
‘Plenty of pretty little bits in the black-out.’
‘Tarts?’
‘Of course.’
The solution was the same as Borrit’s. I remembered now that Widmerpool had commented favourably, years before, when I told him my own rooms in Shepherd Market were flanked by a large block of flats housing prostitutes. At the time, I had supposed that remark bombast on his part. Now, such a diagnosis seemed less positive. Perhaps, anyway in the course of the years, his remark, ‘How convenient’, had acquired a certain authenticity. One wondered what cumbersome burden of desire, satisfied or unsatisfied, possibly charged in its fulfilment with some elaborate order of ritual, Widmerpool carried round with him.
‘I suppose you have to be rather careful.’
It was a lame comment, which Widmerpool treated with the contempt it deserved.
‘I am careful,’ he said. ‘Is there anything about my life that would lead you to suppose I should not be careful? I believe in thinking things out. Arranging my life, but arranging it in such a way that I do not fall into a groove. By the way, there is a probability I shall go red in the near future.’
‘Go red?’
I had not the least idea what he meant. It seemed possible he might have returned to the subject of sexual habits, planning something in that line embarrassing even to himself.
‘Become a full colonel.’
He snapped the words out. Failure to recognize a colloquialism had irritated him. The phrase was peculiar to himself. Usually people spoke of a ‘red hat’ or ‘taking flannel