‘You really mean that’s your manuscript over there in the water?’
Trapnel nodded.
‘The whole of it?’
‘It wasn’t quite finished. The end was what we had the row about.’
‘You must have a copy?’
“Of course I haven’t a copy. Why should I? I told you, it wasn’t finished yet.’
Even Bagshaw was appalled. He began to speak, then stopped, something I had never seen happen before. There was certainly nothing to say. Trapnel just stood there.
‘Come and look for the stick, Trappy.’
Trapnel was not at all disposed to move. Now the act had taken place, he wanted to reflect on it. Perhaps he feared still worse damage when the flat was reached, though that was hard to conceive.
‘In a way I’m not surprised. Even though this particular dish never struck me as likely to appear on the menu, it all fits in with the cuisine. Christ, two years’ work, and I’ll never feel the same as when I was writing it. She may be correct in what she thinks about it, but I’ll never be able to write it again — either her way or my own.’
Bagshaw, in spite of his feelings about the manuscript, could not forget the stick. The girl did not interest him at all.
‘You’ll never find a swordstick like that again. It was a great mistake to throw it away.’
Trapnel was not listening. He stood there musing. Then all at once he revealed something that had always been a mystery. Being Trapnel, an egotist of the first rank, he supposed this disclosure as of interest only in his own case, but a far wider field of vision was at the same time opened up by what was unveiled. In a sense it was of most interest where Trapnel was concerned, because he seems to have reacted in a somewhat different fashion to the rest of Pamela’s lovers, but, applicable to all of them, what was divulged offered clarification of her relations with men. Drink, pills, the strain of living with her, the destruction of Profiles in String, combination of all those, brought about a confession hardly conceivable from Trapnel in other circumstances. He now spoke in a low, confidential tone.
‘You may have wondered why a girl like that ever came to live with me?’
‘Not so much as why she ever married that husband of hers,’ said Bagshaw. ‘I can understand all the rest.’
‘I doubt if you can. Not every man can stand what’s entailed.’
‘I don’t contradict that.’
‘You don’t know what I mean.’
‘What do you mean?’
Trapnel did not answer for a moment. It was as if he were thinking how to phrase whatever he intended to say. Then he spoke with great intensity.
‘It’s when you have her. She wants it all the time, yet doesn’t want it. She goes rigid like a corpse. Every grind’s a nightmare. It’s all the time, and always the same.’
Trapnel said this with absolute simplicity. Irony, melodrama, narcissism, fantasy, all his accustomed tendency to. play a role had been this time completely eliminated. The curtain was at least partially drawn aside. A little light had been let in, Stevens had not told all the truth.
‘I could take it, because — well, I suppose because I loved her. Why not admit it? I’m not sure I don’t still.’
Bagshaw could not stand that. Excessive displays of amative sensibility always disturbed him.
‘Even Sacher-Masoch drew the line somewhere, Trappy — true we don’t know where. What did her husband think about this, I’d like to know.’
‘She told me he only tried a couple of times. Gave it up as a bad job.’
‘So that’s how things are?’
‘For certain reasons it suited him to be married to her.’
‘And her to him?’
‘She stopped that, if ever true, when she came to live with me.’
Even after what had taken place, Trapnel spoke defensively.
‘It gave him a kind of prestige,’ he said.
‘Not much prestige the way she was carrying on.’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘I don’t.’
‘It’s not what she does, it’s what she is.’
‘You mean he’s positively flattered?’
‘That’s what she seemed to think. She may be right. That’s a form of masochism too. It’s not my sort. Not that I can explain my sort, if that’s what it is. It doesn’t feel unnatural to me. As I said, I love her — at least used to. I don’t think I do now. She’ll always go on like this. She’s a child, who doesn’t know any better.’
‘Oh, balls,’ said Bagshaw. ‘I’ve heard men say that sort of thing about women before. It’s rubbish, the scrapings of the barrel. You must rise above that, Trappy. Let’s get back to your place anyway.’
I had never seen Bagshaw so agitated. This time Trapnel came quietly. When we reached the bridge, he insisted that he did not want to look for the stick.
‘It’s a sacrifice. One of those things you dedicate to the Gods. I remember reading about a sacred pool in an Indian temple, where good writing floated on the water, bad writing sank. Perhaps the Canal has the same property, and Pam was right to put my book there.’
Those words meant that he was getting back his normal form. Panache was coming into play. I sympathized with Bagshaw’s sentiments as to the deliberate throwing away of a good swordstick, but Trapnel’s manner of dealing with the situation had not been without its lofty side. Nothing unexpected was found in the flat. Pamela had packed her clothes, and left with the suitcases. The Modigliani and her own photographs were gone too. No doubt she had strolled down to the Canal, disposed of Profiles in String, then returned with a taxi to remove her effects. Trapnel glanced for a second at the spaces left by the pictures.
‘She can’t have been gone more than a few hours. She must have done it after dark. If only I’d come back earlier in the day she’d still have been here.’
He took off the tropical jacket, slipped it on to a wire coat-hanger pendant from a hook in the door, loosened his tie. After that he stretched. That seemed to give him an idea. He began to look about the room, opening drawers, examining the shelf at the top of the inside of the wardrobe, even searching under the bed. Doubtless he was looking for ‘pills’ of one sort or another. Pamela might well have taken them away with her. He talked while he hunted round.
‘I warned you hospitality would be rather sparse if you came back. Not a drop of Algerian left. I’m sorry for that. It was a great help when you’re seeing things through. I’ll just have to have a think now as to the best way of tackling life.’
‘Will you be all right, Trappy?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Nothing we can do?’
‘Not a thing — ah, here we are.’
Trapnel had found the box. He swallowed a couple of examples of whatever sustaining globules were kept inside it. Possibly they were no more than sleeping pills. There was now no point in our staying a moment longer. Both Bagshaw and I tried to say something more of a sympathetic sort. Trapnel shook his head.
‘Probably all for the best. Who can tell? Still, losing that manuscript takes some laughing off. I’ll have to think a lot about that.’
Bagshaw still hung about.
‘Are you absolutely cleaned out, Trappy?’
‘Me? Cleaned out? Good heavens, no. Thanks a lot all the same, but a cheque arrived this morning, quite a decent one, from a film paper I’d done a piece for.’
Whether or not that were true, it was a good exit line; Trapnel at his best. Bagshaw and I said goodnight. We passed again along the banks of the Canal, its waters still overspread with the pages of Profiles in String. The smell of the flat had again reminded me of Maclintick’s.
‘Will he really be all right?’