Anthony Powell - The Acceptance World

Quiggin had made an impression upon Mona, because, almost immediately after we sat down to dinner, she began to make enquiries about him. Possibly, on thinking it over, she felt that his obvious interest in her had deserved greater notice. In answer to her questions, I explained that he was J. G. Quiggin, the literary critic. She at once asserted that she was familiar with his reviews in one of the ‘weeklies’, mentioning, as it happened, a periodical for which, so far as I knew, he had never written.

‘He was a splendid fellow in his old leather overcoat,’ said Templer. ‘Did you notice his shirt, too? I expect you know lots of people like that, Nick. To think I was rather worried at not having struggled into a dinner-jacket tonight, and he just breezed in wearing the flannel trousers he had been sleeping in for a fortnight, and not caring a damn. I admire that.’

‘I couldn’t remember a thing about meeting him before,’ said Mona. ‘I expect I must have been a bit tight that night, otherwise I should have known his name. He said Mark Members introduced us. Have you heard of him? He is a well-known poet.’

She said this with an ineffable silliness that was irresistible.

‘I was going to meet him here, as a matter of fact, but he never turned up.’

‘Oh, were you?’

She was astonished at this; and impressed. I wondered what on earth Members had told her about himself to have won such respect in her eyes. Afterwards, I found that it was his status as ‘a poet’, rather than his private personality, that made him of such interest to her.

‘I never knew Mark well,’ she said, rather apologetic at having suggested such ambitious claims.

‘He and Quiggin are usually very thick together.’

‘I didn’t realise Nick was waiting for an old friend of yours, sweetie,’ said Templer. ‘Is he one of those fascinating people you sometimes tell me about, who wear beards and sandals and have such curious sexual habits?’

Mona began to protest, but Jean interrupted her by saying: ‘He’s not a bad poet, is he?’

‘I think rather good,’ I said, feeling a sudden unaccountable desire to encourage in her an interest in poetry. ‘He is St. John Clarke’s secretary — or, at least, he was.’

I remembered then that, if Quiggin was to be believed, the situation between Members and St. John Clarke was a delicate one.

‘I used to like St. John Clarke’s novels,’ said Jean. ‘Now I think they are rather awful. Mona adores them.’

‘Oh, but they are too wonderful.’

Mona began to detail some of St. John Clarke’s plots, a formidable undertaking at the best of times. This expression of Jean’s views — that Members was a goodish poet, St. John Clarke a bad novelist — seemed to me to indicate an impressive foothold in literary criticism. I felt now that I wanted to discuss all kind of things with her, but hardly knew where to begin on account of the barrier she seemed to have set up between herself and the rest of the world. I suspected that she might merely be trying to veer away conversation from a period of Mona’s life that would carry too many painful implications for Templer as a husband. It could be design, rather than literary interest. However, Mona herself was unwilling to be deflected from the subject.

‘Do you run round with all those people?’ she went on. ‘I used to myself. Then — oh, I don’t know — I lost touch with them. Of course Peter doesn’t much care for that sort of person, do you, sweetie?’

‘Rubbish,’ said Templer. ‘I’ve just said how much I liked Mr. J. G. Quiggin. In fact I wish I could meet him again, and find out the name of his tailor.’

Mona frowned at this refusal to take her remark seriously. She turned to me and said: ‘You know, you are not much like most of Peter’s usual friends yourself.’

That particular matter was all too complicated to explain, even if amenable to explanation, which I was inclined to doubt. I knew, of course, what she meant. Probably there was something to be said for accepting that opinion. The fact that I was not specially like the general run of Templer’s friends had certainly been emphasised by the appearance of Quiggin. I was rather displeased that the Templers had seen Quiggin. To deal collectively with them on their own plane would have been preferable to that to which Quiggin had somehow steered us all.

‘What was the flick like?’ Templer enquired.

‘Marvellous,’ said Mona. ‘The sweetest — no, really — but the sweetest little girl you ever saw.’

‘She was awfully good,’ said Jean.

‘But what happened?’

‘Well, this little girl — who was called Manuela — was sent to a very posh German school.’

‘Posh?’ said Templer. ‘Sweetie, what an awful word. Please never use it in my presence again.’

Rather to my surprise, Mona accepted this rebuke meekly: even blushing slightly.

‘Well, Manuela went to this school, and fell passionately in love with one of the mistresses.’

‘What did I tell you?’ said Templer. ‘Nick insisted the film wasn’t about lesbians. You see he just poses as a man of the world, and hasn’t really the smallest idea what is going on round him.’

‘It isn’t a bit what you mean,’ said Mona, now bursting with indignation. ‘It was a really beautiful story. Manuela tried to kill herself. I cried and cried and cried.’

‘It really was good,’ said Jean to me. ‘Have you seen it?’

‘Yes. I liked it.’

‘He’s lying,’ said Templer. ‘If he had seen the film, he would have known it was about lesbians. Look here, Nick, why not come home with us for the week-end? We can run you back to your flat and get a toothbrush. I should like you to see our house, uncomfortable as staying there will be.’

‘Yes, do come, darling,’ said Mona, drawing out the words with her absurd articulation. ‘You will find everything quite mad, I’m afraid.’

She had by then drunk rather a lot of champagne.

‘You must come,’ said Jean, speaking in her matter-of- fact tone, almost as if she were giving an order. ‘There are all sorts of things I want to talk about.’

‘Of course he’ll come,’ said Templer. ‘But we might have the smallest spot of armagnac first.’

Afterwards, that dinner in the Grill seemed to partake of the nature of a ritual feast, a rite from which the four of us emerged to take up new positions in the formal dance with which human life is concerned. At the time, its charm seemed to reside in a difference from the usual run of things. Certainly the chief attraction of the projected visit would be absence of all previous plan. But, in a sense, nothing in life is planned — or everything is — because in the dance every step is ultimately the corollary of the step before; the consequence of being the kind of person one chances to be.

While we were at dinner heavy snow was descending outside. This downfall had ceased by the time my things were collected, though a few flakes were still blowing about in the clear winter air when we set out at last for the Templers’ house. The wind had suddenly dropped. The night was very cold.

‘Had to sell the Buick,’ Templer said. ‘I’m afraid you won’t find much room at the back of this miserable vehicle.’

Mona, now comatose after the wine at dinner, rolled herself up in a rug and took the seat in front. Almost immediately she went to sleep. Jean and I sat at the back of the car. We passed through Hammersmith, and the neighbourhood of Chiswick: then out on to the Great West Road. For a time I made desultory conversation. At last she scarcely answered, and I gave it up. Templer, smoking a cigar in the front, also seemed disinclined to talk now that he was at the wheel. We drove along at a good rate.