Anthony Powell - Temporary Kings

‘At least we’re going to meet again,’ he said.

‘What could be better than that?’

‘Where do you think she’s arranged to meet?’

‘I can’t guess.’

‘Try.’

‘Harry’s Bar?’

Gwinnett shook his head.

‘St Mark’s.’

‘In the Piazza?’

‘In the Basilica.’

‘Any particular place in the church?’

‘She just said she’d be there at a certain time.’

‘On, on …’ pleaded Jacky Bragadin. ‘On, on…’

Daniel Tokenhouse rang up the following morning to acknowledge my notification of arrival in Venice. I was still in bed when he telephoned, though breakfast had been ordered. In keeping with an instinctive determination to hold the moral advantage, he made a point of ascertaining that I was not yet up. On the line, he sounded in tolerably good form, brisk, peremptory, as always. I had not expected him to be in the least senile, but the sharpness of his manner may have been amplified by some apprehension, shared by myself, that changes must have taken place in both of us during the last twenty years, which could prove mutually disenchanting.

‘How are you, Dan?’

‘In rude health. Working hard, as ever. Been up painting since half-past six this morning. Hate staying in bed. You’ll find developments in my style. I shall be interested to hear what you think of them.’

Complete absorption in himself, and his own doings, always characterized Tokenhouse, a temperament that had served him pretty well in getting through what must have been, on the whole, rather a solitary life, especially of late years. He had in no way relaxed this solipsistic standpoint.

‘When can your works be seen?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that. Sunday morning would suit me best. You will not be in conference then, I trust, with your fellow intellectuals? I hope they are proving themselves worthy of their proud designation. Come about twelve o’clock midday — half-past eleven, if you prefer. That will give us more time. Do not fear. I shall not be attending matins.’

He gave his high, unamused laugh.

‘How do I reach you, Dan?’

‘I live, I am thankful to say, in a spot quite off the beaten track of that horrible fellow, the tourist. Among the people of Venice. The real people. I could not remain here an hour otherwise. My flat is in the quarter of the Arsenal, if you know where that is, a calle off the Via Garibaldi. You take an accelerato, then a short walk along the Riva Ca Di Dio and Riva Biagio. Let me explain the exact whereabouts, for it is not at all easy to find.’

He gave minute instructions, forcibly bringing back the years when I had worked under him, something establishing a relationship which can never wholly fade.

‘Afterwards, I thought, we might walk as far as the Biennale together. I have not seen the latest Exhibition yet. I should like you to lunch with me at the restaurant in the Giardini.’

‘I’ll be with you, Dan, between half-past eleven and twelve on Sunday.’

‘You may not care for the sort of work I am doing now. I warn you of that. Are you sure you know how to get here? Let me repeat my instructions.’

He went over the directions with that pedantic attention to detail natural to him, dilated by army training.

‘Have you got it? Remember, an accelerato. When you disembark, turn to the right, walk straight on, then bear left, left again, then right — not left, remember — then right again. It’s over a greengrocer’s. Walk straight up.’

When Sunday morning came, the place turned out quite easy to find. It was a characteristic Tokenhouse abode, which, freedom from sound of traffic apart, might have been situated in an alley-way of some down-at-heel district of London, or anywhere else, all architectural and local emphasis as negative as possible; exceptional only insomuch as to discover — elect to inhabit — so featureless a location in Venice was in itself a shade impressive. I climbed the stairs and knocked. The door opened immediately, as if Tokenhouse had been already gripping the handle, impatiently awaiting someone to arrive.

‘Hullo, Dan.’

‘Come in, come in. Through here. This is the room where I paint.’

The windows faced on to a blank wall. Except for a pile of canvases, none of great size, stacked in one corner, the room showed no sign of being an artist’s studio. It was scrupulously neat, suggesting for some perverse reason — possibly actual by-product of its owner’s intense anti-clericalism — sense of arrival in the study of an urban vicarage or rectory, including an indefinably churchly smell.

‘Did it take you long to get here? No? Not after my detailed instructions, I expect. They were necessary. How are you? What is your hotel like? I know it by name. I can’t bear that fashionable end of the Canal. It gets worse every year. I continue to live in Venice only because I am used to the place by now. At my age it would be a great business to move. Besides, there are advantages. One can make oneself useful.’

He rapped his knuckles together several times, and nodded. In spite of the parsonic overtones of the sitting-room-studio, Tokenhouse himself did not look at all like a clergyman; nor even the very reasonably successful publisher of art books he had been in his time. Acquired erudition, heterodox opinions, expatriate domicile, none had done anything to alter deep dyed marks of the military profession, an appearance, one imagined, Tokenhouse would not have chosen. At the same time, if aware of looking like a retired soldier, even heartily disliking that, he would have considered dishonest any effort at diminishment brought about by artificial means, such as wearing relatively unconformist clothes. His clothes, in one sense, certainly were unconformist, but not at all with that object in view. Spare, wiry, very upright, he could be thought dried up, wizened, ascetic; considering his years, not particularly old. His body seemed made up of gristle, rather than flesh; grey hair, trimmed severely, almost en brosse , remaining thick. He peered alertly, rather peevishly, through gold-rimmed spectacles set well forward on a long thin reddish nose. An all-enveloping chilliness of manner hung about him, sense of being utterly cut off from the rest of the world, a personality, even physique, no sun could warm. Unlike Widmerpool, sweltering in his House of Lords suit, the ancient jacket Tokenhouse wore, good thick serviceable tweed, designed to keep out damp wind on the moors, his even older flannel trousers punctiliously pressed, seemed between them garments scarcely substantial enough to prevent him looking blue with cold, in spite of blazing Venetian sunlight outside.

‘How are your family? You have children of your own almost grown up now, I believe? Is that not so?’

He spoke as if procreation of children were an extraordinary fate to overtake anyone, consequence of imprudence, if not worse. We talked for a time of things that had happened since our last meeting.

‘Your father and I parted on bad terms. There was no other way. He could never see reason. An entirely unphilosophic mind. Childish view of politics. Now he is dead. Most of the people I used to know are dead. I don’t find that makes much difference to me. I have learnt to be self-supporting. It is the only way. No good thinking about the past. The future is what matters. But you said you would like to see some of my work. Then we’ll go to the Exhibition. The Gardens are within walking distance. The pictures aren’t much good this year, I’m told, but let’s look at my work first, if that is what you would like.’

Moving jerkily across the room, he returned once more with some of the unframed canvases, chosen from the pile that lay in the corner. He spread out several of these, propping them up against chairs.