‘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.’
‘JG didn’t seem unduly worried. He’s got the Sweetskin prosecution on hand, and there’s some trouble about Odo Stevens’s book.’
‘I don’t want my publishing connexions messed up too. Quiggin & Craggs have their failings, but they aren’t doing too badly with Bin Ends. I’m not under contract for the next novel. I’m getting near the end now. I don’t want to have to hawk it round.’
At one moment Trapnel would give the impression that he was under contract with Quiggin & Craggs, and wanted to get rid of them; at the next, that he was not under contract, and wanted to stay. That was like him. He pointed to a respectably thick pile of foolscap covered with cuneiform handwriting. Although able to type, to use a typewriter was against Trapnel’s principles. The books had to be written by his own hand. This talk about the novel seemed to displease Pamela. She began to frown.
‘How’s my husband?’ she asked.
‘I’ve not seen him lately — not since the night you left.’
‘You saw him then?’
‘I’d been dining with another MP. We came back to the Victoria Street flat to discuss some things.’
‘Which MP?’
‘Roddy Cutts — my brother-in-law.’
‘That tall sandy-haired Tory?’
‘Yes.’
‘Were you there when Short delivered the message?’
‘Yes.’
‘How was it taken?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well or badly?’
‘There was no scene.’
A slight flush had come over her face when she asked these questions. There could be no doubt she derived some sort of sensual satisfaction from dwelling on what had happened. Trapnel, acute enough to recognize, and resent, this process of exciting herself by such means, looked uneasy. The manner in which she managed to maintain a wholly unchanged demeanour in these very changed surroundings was notable; yet after all why should she become different just because she had decided to spend a season with Trapnel? With him, with Odo Stevens, with Allied officers, for that matter with Widmerpool, she remained the same, as individuals mostly do within a more intimate orbit; at home; with a lover; under unaccustomed stress. To suppose otherwise is naïve. At the same time, some require action, others are paralysed by action. That dissimilarity recognized, people stay themselves. Pamela did not give an inch. She was not rattled. She did the rattling.
The same could not be said of Widmerpool. He was obstinate, not easily deflected from his purpose, but circumstances might rattle him badly. He was not, like Pamela, consistent in never adapting his behaviour to others. Her constant search for new lovers made the world see her as existing solely in the field of sex, but the Furies that had driven her into the arms of Widmerpool by their torments — no doubt his too — at the same time invested her with the magnetic power that mesmerized Trapnel, operated in a manner to transcend love or sex, as both are commonly regarded. Did she and Widmerpool in some manner supplement each other, she supplying a condition he lacked — one that Burton would have called Melancholy? Now she showed her powers at work.
‘I’m not satisfied with X’s book.’
That was the first aesthetic judgment I had ever heard her make. When she had earlier changed the subject from Trapnel’s writing, I thought she found, as some women do, concentration on a husband’s or lover’s work in some manner vexing. That she should return to his writing of her own volition was unexpected. It looked as if this were another manner of keeping Trapnel on his toes, because he reacted strongly to the comment.
‘I’m going to alter the bits you don’t like. You know, Nick, Pam’s got a marvellous instinct for a sequence that has gone a shade wrong technically. I can’t put it all right in five minutes, darling. These things take time and hard work. It’ll all be done in due course, when I’ve thrown off this bloody thing that’s playing such hell with work.’
‘This is Profiles in String?’
‘I can’t get the feel of the end chapters. Most of the bad criticism you read is lack of understanding of what it feels like to get the wheels working internally when you’re writing a novel. Not one reviewer in a thousand grasps that.’
Pamela showed no interest in subtleties of literary feeling.
‘I’d rather you burnt it than published it as it stands. In fact you’re not going to.’
Trapnel sighed. It was unlike him to accept criticism so humbly. On the face of it, there seemed no more reason to suppose Pamela knew how a novel should be written — from Trapnel’s point of view — than did the reviewers. In general, if he allowed himself to seek another opinion about how to deal with some matter in what he was writing — a short story, for example — he was accustomed to argue hard all the way in favour of whatever treatment he himself had in mind. Pamela showed contempt for the abject manner in which her objections had been received. Once more she switched the subject to her own situation.
‘What are people saying about us?’
‘No one knows quite what has happened.’
‘How do you mean?’
She pouted. At that moment the bell rang. Trapnel groaned.
‘God, it’s the man trying to collect the money for the newspapers. He’s come back.’
Pamela made a face.
‘Take no notice. He’ll go away after a while.’
‘He’ll see the light. It was daytime when he came before, and he thought we weren’t in.’