Anthony Powell - The Kindly Ones

I had not set eyes on Duport since I was an undergraduate, since the night, in fact, when Templer had driven us all into the ditch in his new car. A whole sequence of memories and sensations, luxuriant, tender, painful, ludicrous, wearisome, rolled up, enveloping like a fog. Moreland, as I have said, liked talking of the variations of sexual jealousy, the different effect produced by men with whom a woman has been ‘shared’.

‘Some of them hardly matter at all,’ he had said. ‘Others you can’t even bear to think about. Very mention of their name poisons the whole relationship — the whole atmosphere. Again you get to like — almost to love — certain ones, husbands or cast-off lovers, I mean. You feel dreadfully sorry for them, at least, try to make their wives or ex-mistresses behave better to them. It becomes a matter of one’s own self-respect.’

Duport, so far as I was concerned, had been a case in point. I had once loved his wife, Jean, and, although I loved her no longer, our relationship had secreted this distasteful residue, an unalterable, if hidden, tie with her ex-husband. It was a kind of retribution. I might not like the way Duport behaved, either to Jean or towards the world in general, but what I had done had made him, at least in some small degree, part of my own life. I was bound to him throughout eternity. Moreover, I was, for the same reason, in no position to be censorious. I had undermined my own critical standing. Duport’s emergence in this manner cut a savage incision across Time. Templer’s Vauxhall seemed to have crashed into the ditch only yesterday; I could almost feel my nose aching from the blow received by the sudden impact of Ena’s knee, hear Templer’s fat friend, Brent, swearing, the grinding, ghastly snorts of the expiring engine, Stringham’s sardonic comments as we clambered out of the capsized car. It had all seemed rather an adventure at the time. I reflected how dreadfully boring such an experience would be now, the very thought fatiguing. However, an immediate decision had to be taken about Duport. I made up my mind to pretend not to recognise him, although the years I had loved Jean made him horribly, unnaturally familiar to me, as if I had been seeing Duport, too, all the time I had been seeing her. Indeed, he seemed now almost more familiar than repellent.

The thought that Duport had been Jean’s husband, that she had had a child by him, that no doubt she had once loved him, had not, for some reason, greatly worried me while she and I had been close to each other. Duport had never — I cannot think why — seemed to be in competition with myself where she was concerned. For Jean to have married him, still, so to speak, to own him, although living apart, was like a bad habit (Uncle Giles poring in secret over The Perfumed Garden), no more than that; something one might prefer her to be without, to give up, nothing that could remotely affect our feeling for each other. Anyway, I thought, those days are long past; they can be considered with complete equanimity. Duport and I had met only once, fourteen or fifteen years before. He could safely be regarded as the kind of person to whom the past, certainly such a chance encounter, would mean little or nothing, in fact be completely forgotten. No doubt since then new friends of his had driven him scores of times into the ditch with new cars full of new girls. He was that sort of man. Such were my ill-judged, unfriendly, rather priggish speculations. They turned out to be hopelessly wide of the mark.

Duport’s first act on sitting down at the table was to pour out a stiffish whisky, add a splash of soda from the syphon also standing on the table, and gulp the drink down. Then he looked contemptuously round the room. Obviously my own presence had materially altered the background he expected of the dining-room at the Bellevue. He stared hard. Soup was set in front of him. I supposed he would turn to it. Instead, he continued to stare. I pretended to be engrossed with my fish. There was something of the old Albert in the sauce. Then Duport spoke. He had a hard, perfectly assured, absolutely uningratiating voice.

‘We’ve met before,’ he said.

‘Have we?’

‘Somewhere.’

‘Where could that have been?’

‘Certain of it. I can’t remember your name. Mine’s Duport — Bob.’

‘Nicholas Jenkins.’

‘Aren’t you a friend of my former brother-in-law, Peter Templer?’

‘A very old friend.’

‘And he drove us both into the ditch in some bloody fast second-hand car he had just bought. Years ago. A whole row of chaps and a couple of girls. The party included a fat swab called Brent.’

‘He did, indeed. That was where we met. Of course I remember you.’

‘I thought so. Do you ever see Peter these days?’

‘Hadn’t for ages. Then we met about a year ago — just after “Munich”, as a matter of fact.’

‘I’ve heard him talk about you. I used to be married to his sister, Jean, you know. I believe I’ve heard her speak of you, too.’

‘I met her staying with the Templers.’

‘When was that?’

‘Years ago — when I had just left school.’

‘Ever see her later?’

‘Yes, several times.’

‘Probably when she and I were living apart. That is when Jean seems to have made most of her friends.’

‘When I last saw Peter, he was talking about some new job of yours.’

I judged it best to change the subject of Jean — also remembering the talk about Duport between Sir Magnus Donners and Widmerpool. Up to then, I had thought of Duport only in an earlier incarnation, never considered the possibility of running into him again.

‘Was he, indeed? Where did you meet him?’

‘Stourwater.’

‘Did you, by God? What do you do?’

I tried to give some account, at once brief and intelligible, of the literary profession: writing; editing; reviewing; the miscellaneous odd jobs to which I was subject, never, for some reason, very easy to define to persons not themselves in that world. To my relief, Duport showed no interest whatever in such activities, apparently finding them neither eccentric nor important.

‘Shouldn’t think it brings in much dough,’ he said. ‘But how do you come to know Donners?’

‘We were taken over by some friends who live in the neighbourhood.’

‘You’re married?’

‘Yes.’

‘How do you like being married?’

‘Support it all right.’

‘You’re lucky. I find it a great relief not to be married — though I was quite stuck on Jean when we were first wed. But what on earth are you doing in this dump?’

I explained about Uncle Giles, about Albert.

‘So that’s the answer,’ said Duport. ‘Of course I used to see your uncle cruising about here. Bad-tempered old fellow. Didn’t know he’d dropped off the hooks. They like to keep death quiet in places like this. Look here, when you were staying with Donners, was an absolute bugger called Widmerpool there too?’

‘Widmerpool wasn’t staying there. He just looked in. Wanted to say something about your business affairs, I think. I know Widmerpool of old.’

‘A hundred per cent bastard — word’s too good for him.’

‘I know some people think so.’

‘Don’t you?’

‘He and I rub along all right. But why are you living at the Bellevue?’

‘Keeping out of the immediate view of the more enterprising of my creditors. I only wish my stay here were going to be as brief as yours.’

‘How did you find the place?’

‘Odd chance, as a matter of fact. I once brought a girl down to the Royal for the week-end — one of those bitches you want to have and get out of your system and never set eyes on again. While we were there I made friends with the barman. He’s called Fred and a very decent sort of chap. When I found, not so long ago, that I’d better go into comparative hiding, I decided this town would be as good a place as any other to put myself out of commission for a week or two. I left my bags at the station and dropped in to the Royal bar to ask Fred the best place to make an economical stay. He sent me straight to the Bellevue.’