‘Do you mean to say you don’t know? Louis is coming over next month. Everything is arranged.’
‘What’s it to be?’
‘Match Me Such Marvel, of course. I’m sure it’s going to make a box-office record. I can’t wait.’
‘So Trapnel’s off?’
Ada showed more pity than astonishment.
‘Trapnel?’
‘Glober was going to do a Trapnel film when we were in Venice. Probably a kind of life of Trapnel, with Pamela Widmerpool in the lead. You’d only just begun to make St John Clarke propaganda with him.’
‘He saw at once the St John Clarke novel was a much better idea.’
‘Is Pamela equally happy?’
Quiggin cut in.
‘I’m bored to death with this film of Glober’s. I don’t believe we’re really going to make any money out of it, even if he does it. You never know with these people. Set against Ada’s time writing her own novels, or working in the firm, I’ve always doubted whether it’s worth while.’
‘Oh, shut up,’ said Ada.
She turned to me again.
‘Do you really not know about Louis deciding on another girl for his leading lady, as well as ditching the Trapnel idea? That was all settled months ago.’
‘Glober found Pamela too much in the end?’
‘He fell for someone else.’
Quiggin continued to show irritation about the film.
‘Do let’s discuss another subject. The food at lunch wasn’t too bad. I’m never sure Caucasian wine suits me. I thought he seemed rather a sulky little man, when I had a word with him through the interpreter.
‘Who’s Glober fallen for now?’
‘Why, Polly Duport, of course. You must live absolutely out of the world not to know that. He saw her in the Hardy film at the Venice Festival. She turned up there herself. It was an instantaneous click.’
‘Didn’t that cause trouble?’
‘With Pam?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t think Pam really cared by then, even if she cared much before. She was already mad about that other American, what was he called — Russell Gwinnett. She still is. Haven’t you heard about what happened at the Bagshaws’?’
‘I know about that, more or less, but not about Polly Duport.’
‘You remember how horrid Pam was to me in Venice, considering what friends we’d been. She’s been ringing me up almost daily lately, trying to find out what’s become of Gwinnett. How should I know? I barely met him. The most I did was to ask for us to be allowed to consider his book on X. Trapnel, when it’s finished.’
This upset Quiggin again.
‘A book on X. Trapnel is never going to sell. Why get us involved in it at all. It would only mean more money down the drain.’
‘So any question of Pamela marrying Glober is at an end?’
‘Why should she marry Glober?’
‘You said he wanted to marry her — not just have an affair with her.’
‘I did?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sure I didn’t. Anyway, if I did, I shouldn’t have done so. Forget about it. Of course, it’s all off. How could it be anything else? Louis’s terribly sweet and kind, but you never know what he’s going to do next.’
‘That’s just what I’ve already stated,’ said Quiggin.
‘All film people go on like that. Never mind. I do think he really is keen on Match Me Such Marvel. Of course it’s not going to be called that. We haven’t decided on the best tide yet. Polly is a marvellous girl too. Not only glamorous, but a real professional.’
‘What I can’t believe is Pamela making no row.*
‘Even Pam realized she’d never get the part once Louis began taking Polly out to dinner.’
‘Did Pamela meet Polly Duport?’
‘I didn’t think so. The Widmerpools went back to England halfway through the Film Festival. It was Pam’s thing about Gwinnett, as much as anything else, that caused Louis to give her up. It serves Pam right. I believe she really did think she was going to become famous.*
‘Why did Glober object so much? Gwinnett was positively running away from the situation, so far as anything Glober might object to. He still is. Even in the early stages, he only wanted Trapnel information.’
‘Louis didn’t think so. Anyway there was Pam. Perhaps it was because he was another American.’
‘Is Glober going to marry Polly Duport now?’
‘Isn’t she married already, to an actor, though they’re living apart? She was on her own when she came to Venice. Perhaps he will.’
‘What does Widmerpool think about it all? His feelings don’t seem to have been considered much, whether Pam leaves him or stays. Your idea was that he would be quite glad to get her taken off his hands. Now, if he goes to prison for spying, she’ll be able to visit him in the Scrubs or Dartmoor, wherever he’s sent — give him additional hell.’
Quiggin was outraged.
‘You think that a matter to joke about?’
‘Isn’t that what it looks like?’
‘That Parliamentary Question was disgraceful. Our own particular form of McCarthyism. All very gentlemanly, of course, none the less smearingly vindictive.’
‘You think he’ll emerge without a stain on his character?’
Quiggin was prepared to be less severe on that point. ‘Haven’t we all sins to forgive? Sins of over-enthusiasm, I mean. Look, Ada, there’s our bus.’
5
Each recriminative decade poses new riddles, how best to live, how best to write. One’s fifties, in principle less acceptable than one’s forties, at least confirm most worst suspicions about life, thereby disposing of an appreciable tract of vain expectation, standardized fantasy, obstructive to writing, as to living. The quinquagenarian may not be master of himself, he is, notwithstanding, master of a passable miscellany of experience on which to draw when forming opinions, distorted or the reverse, at least up to a point his own. After passing the half-century, one unavoidable conclusion is that many things seeming incredible on starting out, are, in fact, by no means to be located in an area beyond belief. The ‘Widmerpool case’ fell into that category. It remained enigmatic so far as the public were concerned. People who liked to regard themselves as ‘in the know’ were not much better off, one rumour contradicting another, what exactly Widmerpool had done to put himself in such an awkward spot remaining undefined. One extraneous item came my own way, which, as purely negative evidence, could have been added to material sifted by whatever official body was undertaking an enquiry. It was expressed in the form of a picture postcard of the Doge’s Palace.
‘Have to date heard nothing from your friend about blocks. Weather here good. D. McN. T.’
That, at least, indicated none of the disaster, threatening Widmerpool on account of Dr Belkin’s absence from the Conference, had resulted in Tokenhouse suffering comparable repercussions. I had intended to ask the Quiggins about the blocks for the Cubist series, when walking with them after luncheon at the Soviet Embassy. More personally engrossing matters had intervened. The blocks remained forgotten. I sent Tokenhouse a postcard of Nelson’s Column, saying (in army parlance) the matter would be looked into, a report forwarded.
In early summer, Isobel and I went by chance to a musical party organized by Rosie and Odo Stevens. It was a charity affair, our inclusion nothing to do with the meeting in Venice. In fact, the people who brought us knew the Stevenses hardly at all. I make this point to emphasize that guests present at this particular entertainment were not handpicked. No doubt everyone who received an invitation, in the first instance, was an acquaintance of some sort. Beyond such intermediaries stretched a relatively anonymous conflux of persons, whose passport to the house lay only in willingness to buy a ticket. Had things been otherwise, the evening might have turned out differently; possibly not certain other events that followed.