Trapnel burst out.
‘You’re trying to get Books sacked —’
‘Don’t interrupt me,’ said Widmerpcol. ‘Bagshaw has a contract.’
He made a half turn about in order, more unmistakably, to include Pamela in whatever he was now about to announce. She went so far as to raise her eyebrows slightly. Widmerpool still primarily addressed himself to Trapnel.
‘You may fear that I am going to institute divorce proceedings. Such is not my intention. Pamela will return in her own good time. I think we understand each other.’
Widmerpool paused.
‘That is what I came to tell you,’ he said. ‘That — and to express my contempt for the way you live and the way you have behaved.’
Trapnel threw back the army blankets. He rose quite slowly from the divan. His body, seen through the spotted pyjamas, was desperately thin. He retied their cord; then, in his bare feet, walked very deliberately to where the huge wardrobe stood in the corner of the room. Against it was propped the death’s-head sword-stick. Trapnel picked up the stick, and pressed the spring at the back of the skull. The blade was released. He threw the sheath on top of Oblomov, The Thin Man, Adolphe, and the several other books lying on the bedclothes.
‘Get out.’
Trapnel did not actually threaten Widmerpool with the sword. He held the point to the ground, as if about to raise the weapon in formal salute before joining combat in a duel. It was hard to estimate where exactly his actions hovered between play-acting and loss of control. Widmerpool stood firm.
‘No dramatics, please.’
This calmness was to his credit. He knew little of Trapnel, but what he knew certainly gave no guarantee that a man of Trapnel’s sort would not be capable of eccentric violence. If it came to that, I felt no absolute assurance on that matter myself. Whatever his merits as a writer, Trapnel could not be regarded as a well-balanced personality. Anything might be looked for from him. Besides, there were his ‘pills’. One had the impression that, as such stimulants go, they were fairly mild. At the same time, he could easily have moved on to stronger stuff. Pamela might have encouraged that course; living with her almost necessitated it. Even the pills in their accustomed form might be sufficient to induce indiscreet conduct, especially when the question posed was evicting from a lover’s flat the husband of his mistress.
‘Are you going?’
‘I have no wish to stay.’
Widmerpool picked up his hat from the suitcase. He brushed the felt with his elbow. Then he turned once more towards Pamela.
‘I shall be abroad for some weeks in Eastern Europe. As a Member of Parliament I have been invited to enjoy the hospitality of one of the new Governments.’
‘I said get out.’
Trapnel raised the sword slightly. Widmerpool took no notice. He continued raspingly to brush the surface of the hat. This time he addressed himself to me.
‘The visit should make an interesting Fission article. Some apologists for the Liberal and Peasant leaders have suggested that concessions to the Soviet point of view have been too all-embracing. What I always tell people, who are not themselves in the know, is that our own brand of social-democracy, for better or worse, is not always exportable.’
He reorientated himself towards Pamela.
‘When I return I shall not be surprised to find that you have reconsidered matters.’
She looked straight at him. Otherwise she gave no sign that she had heard what he said. Widmerpool went very red again. He passed through the door into the hall. The front door slammed, but did not shut. Trapnel in his bare feet ran out of the flat. He could be heard to pull the front door violently open again. From the steps he shouted into the night.
‘Coprolite! Faecal débris! Fossil of dung!’
A minute later he returned to the sitting-room. He took the sheath-half of the swordstick from the bed, replaced the blade and returned it to the corner by the wardrobe. Then he climbed under the blankets again, and lay back. He looked quite exhausted. Pamela, on the other hand, now showed signs of life. A faint colour had come into her face, a look of excitement I had never before seen there. She smiled. Something unexpected was afoot. She came across the room, and sat down on the bed. Trapnel took one of her hands. He did not speak. Comment came from Pamela this time.
‘I’m glad you were here, Nicholas. I’m glad it all happened in front of someone. I wish there had been a lot more people. Hundreds more. Now you know what my life was like.’
Trapnel patted her hand. He was much shaken. Not well in any case, he was likely to be dissatisfied with the scene that had taken place. He could scarcely be said to have dominated it in the manner of one of his own screen heroes, even if it were better not to have run Widmerpool through, or whatever was in his mind.
‘I do apologize for getting you mixed up with all this, Nick. It wasn’t my fault. How the hell could I guess he was going to turn up here? I thought there wasn’t a living soul knew the address, except one or two shops round here. Private detectives? It makes you think.’
The idea of private detectives obviously fascinated Trapnel’s roman policier leanings, which were highly developed. He was also worried.
‘Will you be awfully good, and keep quiet about all this, Nick? Don’t say a word, for obvious reasons.’
Pamela shook back her hair.
‘Thank you so much for coming, and for bringing the book. I expect we shall see you again here, as we aren’t going out much, as long as X isn’t well. I’ll ring you up, and you can bring another book some time.’
She spoke formally, like a hostess saying goodbye to a visitor she barely knows, who has paid a social call, and now explains that he must leave. A complete change had come over her after the impassivity she had shown until now. Before I could reply, she spoke again, this time abandoning formality.
‘Bugger off — I want to be alone with X.’
5
I left London one Saturday afternoon in the autumn to make some arrangement about a son going to school. Owing to the anomalies of the timetable, the train arrived an hour or so early for the appointment. There was an interval to kill. After a hot summer the weather still remained warm, but, not uncommon in that watery region, drizzle descended steadily, while a feeble sun shone through clouds that hung low over stretches of claret-coloured brick. It was too wet to wander about in the open. For a time I kicked my heels under a colonnade. A bomb had fallen close by. One corner was still enclosed by scaffolding and a tarpaulin. Above the arch, the long upper storey with its row of oblong corniced windows had escaped damage. The period of the architecture — half a century later, but it took little nowadays to recall him — brought Burton to mind; Burton, by implication the art of writing in general. On this subject he knew what he was talking about:
‘ ’Tis not my study or intent to compose neatly … but to express myself readily & plainly as it happens. So that as a River runs sometimes precipitate and swift, then dull and slow; now direct, then winding; now deep, then shallow, now muddy, then clear; now broad, then narrow; doth my style flow; now serious, then light; now comical, then satirical; now more elaborate, then remiss, as the present subject required, or as at the time I was affected.’
Even for those with a prejudice in favour of symmetry, worse rules might be laid down. The antithesis between satire and comedy was especially worth emphasis; also to write as the subject required, or the author thought fit at the moment. One often, when writing, felt a desire to be ‘remiss’. It was good to have that recommended. An important aspect of writing unmentioned by Burton was ‘priority’; what to tell first. That always seemed one of the basic problems. Trapnel used to talk about its complexities. For example, even to arrange in the mind, much less on paper, the events leading up to the demise of Fission after a two-year run, the swallowing up (by the larger publishing house of which Clapham was chairman) of the firm of Quiggin & Craggs, demanded an effective grasp of narrative ‘priorities’.