Anthony Powell - Hearing Secret Harmonies

‘Hullo, Sunny.’

Farebrother’s face at once lost its smile. Instead, it assumed an expression of rueful compassion. It was the face he had put on when Widmerpool, then a major on the staff, seemed likely to be sacked from Divisional Headquarters. Farebrother, an old enemy, had dropped in to announce that fact.

‘Nicholas, how splendid to meet again after all these years. You find me on my way back from a sad occasion. I am returning from Kensal Green Cemetery. The last tribute to an old friend. One of these fellows I’d known for a mighty long time. Life will never be quite the same again without him. We didn’t always hit it off together — but, my goodness, Nicholas, he was someone known to you too. I’ve just been to Jimmy Stripling’s funeral. Poor old Jimmy. You must remember him. You and I stayed at the Templers’, a hundred years ago, when Jimmy was there. He was the old man’s son-in-law in those days. Tall chap, hair parted in the middle, keen on motor-racing. I always remember how Jimmy, and some of the rest of the house-party, tried to play a trick on me, after we’d come back from a ball, and I had gone up to bed. Poor old Jimmy hoped to put a po in my hatbox. I was too sharp for him.’

Farebrother shook his head in sadness at the folly of human nature, folly so abjectly displayed by Jimmy Stripling in hoping to outwit Farebrother in a matter of that sort. I saw now that a black tie added to the sombre note struck by the rest of his clothes.

‘Jimmy and I used to do a lot of business together in our early City days. He always pretended we didn’t get on well. Then, poor old boy, he gave up the City — he was in Lloyd’s, hadn’t done too badly there, and elsewhere — gave up his motor-racing, got a divorce from Peter Templer’s sister, and began mixing himself up with all sorts of strange goings-on that couldn’t have been at all good for the nerves. Old Jimmy was a highly strung beggar in his way. Took up with a strange lady, who told fortunes. Occultism, all that. Not a good thing. Bad thing, in fact. The last time I saw him, only a few years ago, he was driving along Piccadilly in a car that could have been fifty years old, if it was a day. Jimmy must have lost all his money. His cars were once his pride and joy. Always had the latest model before anyone else. Now he was grinding along in this old crock. I could have wept at seeing Jimmy reduced to an old tin can like that.’

Farebrother, a habit of his when he told almost any story, suddenly lowered his voice, at the same time looking round to see if we were likely to be overheard, though no one else was sitting at our end of the compartment.

‘It was even worse than that, I fear. There weren’t many at the funeral but those who were looked a rum lot, to say the least. I got into conversation with one of the few mourners who was respectably dressed. Turned out he was a member of Lloyd’s, like Jimmy, though he hadn’t seen him for a long time. Do you know what had happened? When that fortune-telling lady of Jimmy’s was gathered in, he took up with a boy . Would you have believed it? Jimmy may have behaved like a crackpot at times, but no one ever guessed he had those tastes. This bloke I talked to told me he’d heard that a lot of undesirables used to live off Jimmy towards the end. I don’t think he’d have invented the tale on account of the funny types at the funeral. Jimmy’s boy was there. In fact he was more or less running the show. He wore a sort of coloured robe, hair not much short of his shoulders. Good-looking lad in his way, if you’d cleaned him up a bit. Funnily enough, I didn’t at all take against him, little as I’m drawn to that type as a rule. Even something I rather liked, if you can believe that. He had an air of efficiency. That always gets me. It was a cremation, and this young fellow showed himself perfectly capable of taking charge. All these strange types in their robes sang a sort of dirge for Jimmy at the close of the proceedings.’

‘Perhaps it was the efficiency Jimmy Stripling liked?’

‘I hope you’re right, Nicholas. I hadn’t thought of that. Jimmy just needed somebody to look after him in his old age. I expect that was it. We all need that. I see I’ve been uncharitable. I’m glad I went to the funeral, all the same. I make a point of going to funerals and memorial services, sad as they are, because you always meet a lot of people at them you haven’t seen for years, and that often comes in useful later. Jimmy’s was the exception. I never expect to set eyes on mourners like his again, Kensal Green, or anywhere else.’

The train was approaching my station.

‘How are you yourself, Sunny?’

‘Top-hole form, top-hole. Saw my vet last week. Said he’d never inspected a fitter man of my age. As you probably know, Nicholas, I’m a widower now.’

‘I didn’t. I’m sorry to hear —’

‘Three years ago. A wonderful woman, Geraldine. Marvellous manager. Knew just where to save. Never had any money of her own, left a sum small but by no means to be disregarded. A wonderful woman. Happy years together. Fragrant memories. Yes, I’m in the same little place in the country. I get along somehow. Everyone round about is very kind and helpful. You and your wife must come and see my roses. I can always manage a cup of tea. Bless you, Nicholas, bless you …’

As I walked along the platform towards the Exit staircase the train moved on past me. I saw Farebrother once more through the window as the pace increased. He was still sitting bolt upright, and had begun to smile again. On the visit to which he had himself referred, the time when Stripling’s practical joke had fallen so flat, Peter Templer had pronounced a judgment on Farebrother. It remained a valid one.

‘He’s a downy old bird.’

IRRITATED BY WHAT HE JUDGED the ‘impacted clichés’ of some review, Trapnel had once spoken his own opinions on the art of biography.

‘People think because a novel’s invented, it isn’t true. Exactly the reverse is the case. Because a novel’s invented, it is true. Biography and memoirs can never be wholly true, since they can’t include every conceivable circumstance of what happened. The novel can do that. The novelist himself lays it down. His decision is binding. The biographer, even at his highest and best, can be only tentative, empirical. The autobiographer, for his part, is imprisoned in his own egotism. He must always be suspect. In contrast with the other two, the novelist is a god, creating his man, making him breathe and walk. The man, created in his own image, provides information about the god. In a sense you know more about Balzac and Dickens from their novels, than Rousseau and Casanova from their Confessions.’

‘But novelists can be as egotistical as any other sort of writer. Their sheer narcissism often makes them altogether unreadable. A novelist may inescapably create all his characters in his own image, but the reader can believe in them, without necessarily accepting their creator’s judgment on them. You might see a sinister strain in Bob Cratchit, conventionality in Stavrogin, delicacy in Molly Bloom. Besides, the very concept of a character in a novel — in real life too — is under attack.’

‘What you say, Nick, strengthens my contention that only a novel can imply certain truths impossible to state by exact definition. Biography and autobiography are forced to attempt exact definition. In doing so truth goes astray. The novelist is more serious — if that is the word.’

‘Surely biographers and memoir-writers often do no more than imply things they chronicle, or put them forward as uncertain. A novelist is subjective, and selective, all the time. The others have certain facts forced on them, whether they like it or not. Besides, some of the very worst novelists are the most consciously serious ones.’