Anthony Powell - Books Do Furnish a Room

‘Bernard, I’m going to take the liberty of sending you a proof copy of Alaric Kydd’s new novel Sweetskin . It will interest you.’

Shernmaker showed he had heard this statement by swivelling his head almost imperceptibly in Quiggin’s direction, at the same time signifying by an unaltered expression that nothing was less likely than that a work of Kydd’s would hold his attention for a second. However, he took the opportunity of moving out of the immediate range of Sheldon’s trumpeting narrative, giving Quiggin a look to denote rebuke for ever having allowed such an infliction to be visited on a sensitive critic’s nerves. Quiggin seemed to expect nothing more welcoming than this reception.

‘There may be trouble about certain passages in Kydd’s book — two especially. If it has to be toned down through fear of prosecution, I’d like you to have read what the author originally wrote.’

Shernmaker continued his stern silence. If he allowed his face to relax at all, it was only to register deeper suspicion of publishers and all their works. Quiggin was by no means to be put off by such severity. He smiled encouragingly. Although not by nature ingratiating, he could be industrious at the process if worth while.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve washed your hands of Kydd’s work, Bernard — like Pilate?’

Shernmaker did not return the smile. He thought for a time. Quiggin, unlike Pilate for his part, awaited an answer. Shernmaker brought his own out at last.

‘Pilate washed his hands — did he wash his feet?’

It was now Quiggin’s turn to withhold a smile. He was as practised a punch-line killer and saboteur of other people’s witticisms as Shernmaker himself. This disrespect for one of the firm’s new authors must also have annoyed him. A lot was expected from Kydd. Before further exchanges could take place, Quiggin’s old friend Mark Members arrived. With him was a young man whose khaki shirt, corduroy trousers, generally buccaneering aspect, suggested guerrilla warfare in the Quiggin manner, though far more effectively. This was appropriate enough in Odo Stevens, an unlikely figure to turn up at a publisher’s party, though apparently an already accepted acquaintance of Members. As Sillery had remarked, white locks suited Members. He allowed them to grow fairly long, which gave him the rather dramatic air of a nineteenth-century literary man who had loved and suffered, the mane of hair weighing down his slight, spare body. Stevens made a face expressing recognition, but, before we could speak, was at once buttonholed by Quiggin, with whom he also appeared on the best of terms. Members now introduced Stevens to Shernmaker.

‘I don’t know whether you’ve met Odo Stevens, Bernard? You probably read his piece the other day about life with the Army of Occupation. Odo and I have just been discussing the most suitable European centre for cultural congress — you know my organization is trying to get one on foot. Do you hold any views? Your own co-operation would, of course, be valuable.’

Shernmaker was still giving nothing away. Frowning, moving a little closer, he watched Members’s face as if trying to detect potential insincerities; allowing at the same time a rapid glance at the door to make sure no one of importance was arriving while his attention was thus occupied. Shernmaker’s party personality varied a good deal according to circumstance; this evening a man of iron, on guard against attempts to disturb his own profundities of thought by petty everyday concerns. His duty, this manner implied, was with a wider world than any offered by Quiggin & Craggs and their like; if a trifle sullen, he must be forgiven. He had already shown that, once committed to such inanities, the best defence was epigram. Members, who had known Shernmaker for years — almost as long as he had known Quiggin — evidently wanted to get something out of him, because he showed himself quite prepared to put up, anyway within reason, with the Shernmaker personality as then exercised.

‘You’ll agree, Bernard, that effective discussion of the Writer’s Position in Society is impractical in unsympathetic surroundings. Artists are vulnerable to circumstance, never more so than when compulsorily confined to their native shores.’

Still Shernmaker did not answer. Members became more blunt in exposition.

‘We’re none of us ever going to get out of England again, except as emissaries of culture. That’s painfully clear. We’re caught in a trap. Unless something is done, we’ll none of us ever see the Mediterranean again.’

Evadne Clapham, L. O. Salvidge and Malcolm Crowding, the last of whom had a poem in Fission , had joined the group. All agreed with this deduction. Evadne Clapham went further. She clasped her hands together, and quoted:

‘A Robin Redbreast in a Cage

Puts all Heaven in a Rage.’

The lines suddenly brought Shernmaker to life. He stared at Evadne Clapham as if outraged. She smiled invitingly back at him.

‘Rubbish.’

‘You think Blake rubbish, Mr Shernmaker?’

‘I disagree with him in this particular case.’

‘How so?’

‘A robin redbreast in a rage

Puts all heaven in a cage.’

Evadne Clapham now unclasped her hands, and brought them together several times in silent applause.

‘Very good, very good. You are quite right, Mr Shernmaker. I often notice what aggressive birds they are when I’m gardening. Your conclusion is, of course, that writers must not be held in check. Don’t you agree, Mark? We must make ourselves heard. Do tell me about the young man you came in with. Isn’t it true he’s had a very glamorous war career, and is terribly naughty?’

This question was answered by Quiggin introducing Odo Stevens all round as the man who was writing a war book to make all other war books seem thin stuff. It was to be about Partisans in the Balkans. Quiggin was a little put out to find that Stevens and I had already met, but we were again prevented from talking by an incident taking place that was in a small way dramatic. Pamela Widmerpool, followed by her husband, had come into the room. Quiggin turned to greet them. Stevens was obviously as surprised to see Pamela at this party as I had been myself to find him there. As they came past he spoke to her.

‘Why, hullo, Pam.’

She looked straight at, and through, him. It was not so much that she ignored what Stevens had said, as that she behaved as if he had never spoken, was not even there. She seemed to be looking at someone or something beyond him, unable to see Stevens himself at all. Stevens, by nature as sure of himself as a man could well be, was not in the least embarrassed, but certainly taken aback. When he grasped what had happened, he turned towards me and grinned. We were not near enough for comment.

‘There’s someone I’d like you to meet, dear heart,’ said Widmerpool. ‘We’ll talk business later, JG. There are two misprints in my own article, but on the whole Bagshaw must be agreed to have made a creditable job of the first number.’

Apart from her treatment of Stevens — or signalizing it by that — Pamela gave the impression of being on her best behaviour. She allowed herself to be piloted across to the Cabinet Minister. Cutting Stevens might be explained by the fact that, when last seen with him, she had slapped his face. It was quite possible that night, the first of the flying-bombs, had been also the last she had seen of him. To start again as total strangers was one way of handling such matters. The most recent news of her had been from Hugo Tolland. Pamela had appeared at his antique shop in the company of an unidentified man, who had paid cash for an Empire bidet , later delivered to the Widmerpool flat in Victoria Street; a highly decorative piece of furniture, according to Hugo. Inevitably her sickness at Thrubworth had developed into a legend of pregnancy, cut short artificially and not occasioned by her husband, but that was probably myth.