‘I’ve been told it’s not Veronese at his best — Iphigenia, isn’t it?’
That had been Lovell’s view in moods of denigration or humility. Gwinnett seemed more interested in the subject of the picture than whether or not Veronese had been on form.
‘That’s an intriguing story it depicts. The girl offering herself for sacrifice. The calm dignity with which she faces death. Tiepolo painted an Iphigenia too, more than once, though I’ve only seen the one at the Villa Valmarana. There’s at least one other that looks even finer in reproduction. It’s the inferential side of the myth that fascinates me.’
Gwinnett sounded oddly excited. His manner had altogether altered. The thought of Iphigenia must have strangely moved him. Then he abruptly changed the subject. For some reason speaking of the Veronese had released something within himself, made it possible to introduce another, quite different motif, one, as it turned out, that had been on his mind ever since we met. This matter, once given expression, a little explained earlier lack of ease. At least it suggested that Gwinnett, when broaching topics that meant a lot to him, was not so much vain or unaccommodating, as nervous, paralysed, unsure of himself. That was the next impression, equally untrustworthy as a judgment.
‘You knew the English writer X. Trapnel, Mr Jenkins?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Pretty well, I believe?’
‘Yes, I was quite an authority on Trapnel at one moment.’
Gwinnett sighed.
‘I’d give anything to have known Trapnel.’
‘There were ups and downs in being a friend.’
‘You thought him a good writer?’
‘A very good writer.’
‘I did too. That’s why I’d have loved to meet him. I could have done that when I was a student. I was over in London. I get mad at myself when I think of that. He was still alive. I hadn’t read his books then. I wouldn’t have known where to go and see him anyway.’
‘All you had to do was to have a drink at one of his pubs.’
‘I couldn’t just speak to him. He wouldn’t have liked that.’
‘If somebody had told you one or two of his haunts — The Hero of Acre or The Mortimer — you could hardly have avoided hearing Trapnel holding forth on books and writers. Then you might have stood him a drink. The job would have been done.’
‘Trapnel’s the subject of my dissertation — his life and works.’
‘So Trapnel’s going to have a biographer?’
‘Myself.’
‘Fine.’
‘You think it right?’
‘Quite right.’
Gwinnett nodded his head.
‘I ought to say I’d already planned to get in touch with you, Mr Jenkins — among others who’d known Trapnel — when I reached England after this Conference. I’d never have expected to find you here.’
After the statement of Gwinnett’s Trapnel project relations might have been on the way to becoming easier. That did not happen; at least easing was by no means immediate. For a minute or two he seemed even to regret the headlong nature of the confession. Then he recovered some of the earlier more amenable manner.
‘You did not go on seeing Trapnel right up to his death, I guess?’
‘Not for about four or five years before that. It must be the best part of ten years now since I talked to him — though he once sent me a note asking the date when some book had been published, the actual month, I mean. He went completely underground latterly.’
‘What book was that — the one he wanted to know about?’
‘A collection of essays by L. O. Salvidge called Paper Wine. There had been some question of Trapnel reviewing it, but the notice never got written.’
‘Where was Trapnel living when he wrote you?’
‘He only gave an accommodation address. A newspaper shop in the Islington part of the world.
‘I want to see Mr Salvidge too when I get to London.’
‘As you know, he contributed an Introduction to a posthumous work of Trapnel’s called Dogs Have No Uncle.’
‘It’s good. Not as great as Camel Ride to the Tomb, but good. What a sense of doom that other tide gives.’
In contrast with the passing of a prolific writer like Ferrand-Sénéschal, Trapnel’s end, in spite of aptness of circumstances, took place unnoticed by the press. That was not surprising. He had produced no ‘serious’ work during his latter days. Throughout his life he had been accustomed to ‘go underground’ intermittently, when things took an unfavourable turn; the underground state becoming permanent after the Pamela Widmerpool affair, her destruction of his manuscript, return to her husband. That was when Trapnel disappeared for good. I knew no one who continued to hobnob with him. He must have made business contacts from time to time. His name would occasionally appear in print, or on the air, in connexion with hack work of one kind or another. This was usually radio or television collaboration with a partner, a professional, safely established, to whom Trapnel had passed on a saleable idea he himself lacked energy or will to hammer out to the end. In these exchanges he must have inclined to avoid former friendly affiliations, reminders of ‘happier days’. It had to be admitted Trapnel had known ‘happier days’, even if of a rather special order.
Bagshaw was a case in point of Trapnel deliberately rejecting overtures from an old acquaintance. As he had himself planned after the liquidation of Fission, when such fiefs were comparatively easy to seize, Bagshaw had carved out for himself an obscure, but apparently fairly prosperous, little realm in the unruly world of television. Now he was known as ‘Lindsay Bagshaw’, the first name latent until this coming into his own. I never saw much of him after the magazine ceased publication, though we would run across each other occasionally. Once we met in the lift at Broadcasting House, and he began to speak of Trapnel. Even by then Bagshaw had become rather a changed man. Success, even moderate success, had left a mark.
‘I’d have liked Trappy to appear in one of my programmes. Quite impossible to run him to earth. I caught sight of him one day from the top of a 137 bus. It wasn’t so much the beard and the long black greatcoat, as that melancholy distinguished air Trappy always had. I couldn’t jump off in full flight. It was one of those misty evenings in Langham Place. The lights were shining from all the rows of windows in this building. Trappy was standing by that church with the pointed spire. He was looking up at those thousand windows of the BBC, all ablaze with light. Something about him made me feel very sad. I couldn’t help thinking of the Scholar Gypsy, and Christ-Church hall, and all that, even though I wasn’t at the university myself, and it wasn’t snowing. I thought it would have been a splendid shot in a film. I wondered if he’d agree to do a documentary about his own failure in life — comparative, I mean. About a month later, I ran into one of his understrappers in a pub. He was going to see Trappy later that evening. I sent a note, but it wasn’t any good. No answer.’
There was also the occasional Trapnel story or article to appear, nothing to be ashamed of, at the same time nothing comparable with the old Trapnel standard. This submerged period of Trapnel’s life could not have been enviable. He abandoned The Hero of Acre, all the other pubs where he had been accustomed to harangue an assemblage of chosen followers. The roving intelligentsia of the saloon bar — cultural nomads of a race never likely to penetrate the international steppe — professional topers, itinerant bores, near-criminals, knew him no more. They were thrown back on their own resources, had to keep themselves instructed and amused in other ways. Where Trapnel himself went, whom he saw, how he remained alive, were all hard to imagine. Probably there remained women to find him still passable enough even in decline; more or less devoted mistresses to maintain survival of a sort As Trapnel himself might have insisted — one could hear his dry harsh voice speaking the words — a washed-up condition is not necessarily an unattractive one to a woman. That had also been one of Barnby’s themes: ‘Ladies like a man to rescue. A job that offers a challenge. They can annex the property at a cheap rate, and ruthlessly develop it.’