Anthony Powell - Temporary Kings

‘You never published any of St John Clarke’s novels, Mr Tokenhouse, did you?’

Tokenhouse, who had been particularly irritated when St John Clarke failed to produce the promised Introduction to The Art of Horace Isbister , made some non-commital answer about his firm not dealing in fiction, which Ada must have known already. She pressed the subject, not, so it appeared, because Tokenhouse was likely to throw light on St John Clarke, as from some wish of her own to emphasize the almost forgotten novelist’s unrecognized merits. Then her aim became clearer.

‘Louis — I shall call you Louis, Mr Glober — has come to Europe to look for a story to film. Of course, I hoped he would want one of my own novels — in default of one of yours, Nick — but we’ve been talking together, and he was saying the moment must have arrived for something nostalgic, something Edwardian. Then I had the brilliant idea that St John Clarke was the answer.’

This was rather a different story from Pamela’s statement that Glober was going to film something by Trapnel. What subject Glober should choose struck me at the time as a perfectly endurable topic, during luncheon in these fairly idyllic surroundings, not one to take for a moment seriously. The same applied to Pamela’s earlier words on the matter, in that case easing the way for Gwinnett. Commercial deals like selling stories to film companies are more likely to emerge from tedious negotiation undertaken by agents in prosaic offices. Such was one’s melancholy conclusion. Glober, if not a producer in the top class, had been quite a figure in Hollywood; he was therefore tough. No doubt his mood accorded with this sort of chit-chat. To conclude any true buyer’s interest had been aroused would be to misconstrue the ways of film tycoons. All the same, to be too matter-of-fact about such possibilities could be wide of the mark, as to be too susceptive to pleasing possibilities. With businessmen, you can never tell; least of all when movies are in question. On Ada’s part, this looked like declaration of war on Pamela. She sounded very sure of herself.

‘Perhaps you don’t know, Nick, that we control the St John Clarke rights now. Clapham got the lot before he died. Just for the sake of tidiness — but I forgot, you probably do know, because St John Clarke left the royalties to your Warminster brother-in-law, and of course they came back to Quiggin & Craggs in the Warminster Trust. JG secured our own interest before Craggs died.’

What Ada stated made sense. I had not known about the St John Clarke rights; at least never thought out that aspect. She was undoubtedly going to do her best to sell a St John Clarke novel to Glober.

‘A strange man I used to know in the army was devoted to Match Me Such Marvel . He’d worked in a provincial theatre or cinema, so he might be the right pointer for popular success.’

Bithel’s view, twenty years later, could represent the winning number. Ada was enthusiastic.

‘ Match Me Such Marvel is the one I suggested. There’s a homosexual undercurrent. Of course, you Americans are so jumpy about homosexuality. It would be a great pity to leave that sequence out.’

‘Who says we’re going to leave it out?’ said Glober lazily. ‘We Americans are getting round to hearing about all sorts of things of that kind these days. You don’t do us justice. When were you last in the States, Ada?’

They were a well matched couple when it came to that sort of teasing, as cover for business negotiation. Tokenhouse, likely to disapprove of such levity, was ruminating on some matter of his own. Suddenly he joined in.

‘St John Clarke was a vain fellow. I never cared for such novels of his as I read. He behaved in a most unsatisfactory manner dealing with my firm. It was only quite by chance I came across a pamphlet he had written in the latter part of his life dealing with an interest of my own, that is to say Socialist Realism in painting. That pamphlet was not without merit.’

Ada showed herself more than equal to this comment too. Her policy was, I think, to ventilate in a general way the claims of St John Clarke; get his name thoroughly into Glober’s head, without bothering too much whether the impression was good or bad. When St John Clarke had sunk in as a personality, she would plug the book she wanted to be filmed. She showed warm appreciation of this new aspect of the novelist.

‘Exactly, Mr Tokenhouse. St John Clarke is no back-number. His style may seem a little old-fashioned today, but there is nothing old-fashioned about his thought. He is full of compassion — compassion of his own sort, sometimes a little crudely expressed to the modern ear. I am most interested in what you say about his art criticism. I had missed that. Of course I know about Socialist Realism. I expect you used to read a magazine called Fission , which ran for a couple of years just after the war, and remember the instructive analysis Len Pugsley wrote there, called Integral Foundations of a Fresh Approach to Art for the Masse .’

Tokenhouse got out his pencil. Making Ada repeat the tide of Pugsley’s article, he wrote it on a paper table napkin. I recalled Bagshaw’s editorial irritation at having to publish the piece.

‘If we’ve got to print everything written by whoever’s rogering Gypsy, we’ll have to get a new paper allocation. Even our Commy subscribers don’t want to read that stuff.’

Bagshaw’s comment, partially disproved by Tokenhouse’s interest, was borne out to the extent that Gypsy (retaining her name and style) had gone to live with Pugsley, when she became a widow. Tokenhouse now found himself assailed by Ada with an absolute barrage of expertise on his own subject. She began to reel off the names of what were evidently Socialist Realist painters.

‘Svatogh? Gaponenko? Toidze? I can only remember a few of the ones Len mentioned. Of course you’ll be familiar with all their pictures, and lots more. There is so much in art of which one remains so dreadfully ignorant. I must look into all that side of painting again, when I have a moment to spare.’

Tokenhouse, who had certainly begun luncheon in a mood of refusal to truckle to undue demands on making himself agreeable, could not fail to be impressed. I was impressed myself. In her days as employee at Quiggin & Craggs, the Left Wing bias of the firm had naturally demanded a smattering of Marxist vocabulary, but to retain enough political small talk of that period to meet Tokenhouse on his own Socialist Realist ground was no small achievement; not less because Quiggin himself, anyway commercially, had so far abrogated his own principles as to have lately scored a publishing bull’s eye with the Memoirs of a Tory ‘elder statesman’. Glober laughed quietly to himself.

‘You two take me back to the Film Writers’ Guild. Give me two minutes notice to beat it, before you throw the bomb.’

Seen closer, over a longer period, he was observable as a little tired, a little melancholy, amusing himself with mild jaunts such as this one, which made small demand on valuable reserves. He was husbanding his forces. To suppose that, in no way implied a state of total exhaustion. You felt there was quite a lot left for future effort, even if requirement for everything to be played out in public, in a manner at once striking and elegant, increased need for exceptional energy. What did not happen in public had no reality for Glober at all. In spite of the quiet manner, there was no great suggestion of interior life. What was going on inside remained there only until it could be materially expressed as soon as possible. The tress of hair had to record the sexual conquest.

To unAmerican eyes, probing the mysteries of American comportment and observance, this seemed the antithesis of Gwinnett. Much going on in Gwinnett was never likely to find outward expression. That was how it looked. No doubt a European unfamiliarity heightened, rather than diminished, the contrast; even caricatured its salient features. That did not remove all substance, the core seeming to be the ease with which Glober manipulated the American way; Gwinnett’s awkwardness in its employment. That was to put things crudely, possibly even wrongly, just consequence of meeting both in Europe. Glober, only recently sprung from the Continent, had about him something of the old fashioned Jamesian American, seeking new worlds to conquer. Gwinnett was not at all like that. With Gwinnett, everything was within himself. He had, so it seemed, come to Europe simply because he was passionately interested in Trapnel, obsessed by him, personally identified with him; again, one felt, inwardly, rather than outwardly.