Anthony Powell - The Acceptance World

‘Anne has married Dicky Urtifraville.’

‘Not the Dicky Umfraville?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well I never.’

Even that did not make much impression on him. The fact that he had not already heard of Anne Stepney’s marriage suggested that Stringham must pass weeks at a time in a state in which he took in little or nothing of what was going on round him. That could be the only explanation of ignorance of an event with which he had such close connexions.

‘Shall we make a move?’

‘Where is Peter Templer? I saw his face — sometimes two or three of them — during that awful dinner. We might bring him along as well. Always feel a bit guilty about Peter.’

‘He has gone home.’

‘I bet he hasn’t. He’s gone after some girl. Always chasing the girls. Let’s follow him.’

‘He lives near Maidenhead.’

‘Too far. He must be mad. Is he married?’

‘His wife has just left him.’

‘There you are. Women are all the same. My wife left me. Has your wife left you, Nick?’

‘I’m not married.’

‘Lucky man. Who was Peter’s wife, as they say?’

‘A model called Mona.’

‘Sounds like the beginning of a poem. Well, I should have thought better of her. One of those long-haired painter fellows must have got her into bad habits. Leaving her husband, indeed. She oughtn’t to have left Peter. I was always very fond of Peter. It was his friends I couldn’t stand.’

‘Let’s go.’

‘Look here, do let’s have another drink. What happened to Le Bas?’

‘He is going to be taken home in an ambulance.’

‘Is he too tight to walk?’

‘He had a stroke.’

‘Is he dead?’

‘No — Brandreth is looking after him.’

‘What an awful fate. Why Brandreth?’

‘Brandreth is a doctor.’

‘Hope I’m never ill when Brandreth is about, or he might look after me. I’m not feeling too good at the moment as a matter of fact. Perhaps we’d better go, or Brandreth will start treating me too. It was Widmerpool’s speech, of course. Knocked Le Bas out. Knocked him out cold. Nearly knocked me out too. Do you remember when we got Le Bas arrested?’

‘Let’s go to your flat.’

‘West Halkin Street. Where I used to live before I was married. Surely you’ve been there.’

‘No.’

‘Ought to have asked you, Nick. Ought to have asked you. Been very remiss about things like that.’

He was extremely drunk, but his legs seemed fairly steady beneath him. We went upstairs and out into the street.

‘Taxi?’

‘No,’ said Stringham. ‘Let’s walk for a bit. I want to cool off. It was bloody hot in there. I don’t wonder Le Bas had a stroke.’

There was a rich blue sky over Piccadilly. The night was stiflingly hot. Stringham walked with almost exaggerated sobriety. It was remarkable considering the amount he had drunk.

‘Why did you have so many drinks tonight?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I do sometimes. Rather often nowadays, as a matter of fact. I felt I couldn’t face Le Bas and his Old Boys without an alcoholic basis of some sort. Yet for some inexplicable reason I wanted to go. That was why I had a few before I arrived.’

He put out his hand and touched the railings of the Green Park as we passed them.

‘You said you were not married, didn’t you, Nick?’

‘Yes.’

‘Got a nice girl?’

‘Yes.’

‘Take my advice and don’t get married.’

‘All right.’

‘What about Widmerpool. Is he married?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘I’m surprised at that. Widmerpool is the kind of man to attract a woman. A good, sensible man with no nonsense about him. In that overcoat he used to wear he would be irresistible. Quite irresistible. Do you remember that overcoat?’

‘It was before my time.’

‘It’s a frightful shame,’ said Stringham. ‘A frightful shame, the way these women go on. They are all the same. They leave me. They leave Peter. They will probably leave you. … I say, Nick, I am feeling extraordinarily odd. I think I will just sit down here for a minute or two.’

I thought he was going to collapse and took his arm. However, he settled down in a sitting position on the edge of the stone coping from which the railings rose.

‘Long, deep breaths,’ he said. ‘Those are the things.’

‘Come on, let’s try and get a cab.’

‘Can’t, old boy. I just feel too, too sleepy to get a cab.’

As it happened, there seemed to be no taxis about at that moment. In spite of what must have been the intense discomfort of where he sat, Stringham showed signs of dropping off to sleep, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the railings. It was difficult to know what to do. In this state he could hardly reach his flat on foot. If a taxi appeared, he might easily refuse to enter it. I remembered how once at school he had sat down on a staircase and refused to move, on the grounds that so many annoying things had happened that afternoon that further struggle against life was useless. This was just such another occasion. Even when sober, he possessed that complete recklessness of behaviour that belongs to certain highly strung persons. I was still looking down at him, trying to decide on the next step, when someone spoke just behind me.

‘Why is Stringham sitting there like that?’

It was Widmerpool’s thick, accusing voice. He asked the question with a note of authority that suggested his personal responsibility to see that people did not sit about in Piccadilly at night.

‘I stayed to make sure everything was done about Le Bas that should be done,’ he said. ‘I think Brandreth knows his job. I gave him my address in case of difficulties. It was a disagreeable thing to happen. The heat, I suppose. It ruined the few words I was about to say. A pity. I thought I would have a breath of fresh air after what we had been through, but the night is very warm even here in the open.’

He said all this with his usual air of immense importance.

‘The present problem is how to get Stringham to his flat.’

‘What is wrong with him? I wonder if it is the same as Le Bas. Perhaps something in the food—’

Widmerpool was always ready to feel disturbed regarding any question of health. In France he had been a great consumer of patent medicines. He looked nervously at Stringham. I saw that he feared the attack of some mysterious sickness that might soon infect himself.

‘Stringham has had about a gallon to drink.’

‘How foolish of him.’

I was about to make some reply to the effect that the speeches had needed something to wash them down with, but checked any such comment since Widmerpool’s help was obviously needed to get Stringham home, and I thought it better not to risk offending him. I therefore muttered something that implied agreement.

‘Where does he live?’

‘West Halkin Street.’

Widmerpool acted quickly. He strolled to the kerb. A cab seemed to rise out of the earth at that moment. Perhaps all action, even summoning a taxi when none is there, is basically a matter of the will. Certainly there had been no sign of a conveyance a second before. Widmerpool made a curious, pumping movement, using the whole of his arm, as if dragging down the taxi by a rope. It drew up in front of us. Widmerpool turned towards Stringham, whose eyes were still closed.

‘Take the other arm,’ he said, peremptorily.

Although he made no resistance, this intervention aroused Stringham. He began to speak very quietly:

‘Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide,

And wash my Body whence the Life has died …’

We shoved him on to the back seat, where he sat between us, still murmuring to himself: