Anthony Powell - Books Do Furnish a Room

‘I’m happy you mention the matter. It is one that has always been at the back of my mind as of prime importance. As with so many questions of a similar sort, there are two sides. We must consider all the evidence carefully, especially that of those best fitted to judge in such matters. Amongst them I don’t doubt you are one, Mr Trapnel, an author yourself and man of experience, well versed in the subject. My own feeling is that we want to do away with the interference of old-fashioned busybodies to the furthest possible extent, while at the same time taking care not to offend the susceptibilities of simple people with a simple point of view, and their livings to earn, people who haven’t time to concern themselves too closely with what may easily have the appearance of contradictory arguments put forward by the pundits of the so-called intellectual world, men whom you and I perhaps respect less than they respect themselves. The prejudices of such people may seem unnecessarily complicated to the man in the street, who has been brought up with what could sometimes be justly regarded as a lot of out-of-date notions, but notions that are nevertheless dear to him, if only because they have been dear in the past to someone whose opinion he knew and revered — I mean of course to his mother.’

Widmerpool, who had dropped his voice at the last sentence, paused and smiled. The reply was one with which no politician could have found fault. Surprisingly enough, it seemed equally satisfactory to Trapnel. His acceptance of such an answer was as inexplicable as his reason for asking the question.

‘Admirably expressed, Mr Widmerpool. What I envy about an MP like yourself is not the power he wields, it’s his constituency. Going round and seeing how all sorts of different people live, what their homes are like, some friendly, some hostile. It must be a fascinating experience — what background stuff for a novelist.’

This was getting so near utter nonsense that I wondered whether Trapnel had managed to get drunk in a comparatively short time on the watery cocktail available, and, for reasons still obscure, wanted to pick a quarrel with Widmerpool; was, in fact, building up to deliver some public insult. Widmerpool himself totally accepted Trapnel’s words at their face value.

‘It is indeed a privilege to see ordinary folk in their own homes, though I never thought of the professional advantage you put forward. Well, housing conditions need a lot of attention, and I can tell you I am giving them of my best.’

‘You should come and try to pull the plug where I am living myself,’ said Trapnel. ‘I won’t enlarge.’

Widmerpool looked rather uneasy at that. Trapnel, seeing he risked prejudicing the good impression he intended to convey, laughed and shook his head, dismissing the matter of plumbing.

‘I just wanted to mention the matter. Nice of you to have listened to it — nice also to have met.’

‘Just let me make a note of your bad housing, my friend,’ said Widmerpool. ‘Exact information is always useful.’

Trapnel had spoken his last words in farewell, but Widmerpool led him aside and took out a notebook. At the same moment Pamela abandoned Gainsborough, whose attractions her husband must have overrated. She came towards us. Widmerpool turned to her. She disregarded him, and addressed herself to me in her slow, hypnotic voice.

‘Have you been attending any more funerals?’

‘No — have you?’

‘Just awaiting my own.’

‘Not imminent, I hope?’

‘I rather hope it is.’

‘How are you enjoying political life?’

‘Like any other form of life — sheer hell.’

She said that in a relatively friendlv tone. Craggs intervened and led Widmerpool away, Trapnel returned. I introduced him to Pamela. It was not a success. In fact it was a disaster. From being in quite a good humour, she switched immediately to an exceedingly bad one. As he came up, her face at once assumed an expression of instant dislike. Trapnel himself could not fail to notice this change in her features. He winced slightly, but did not allow himself to be discouraged sufficiently to abandon all hope of making headway. Obviously he was struck by Pamela’s appearance. For a moment I wondered whether that had been the real reason for making such a point of introducing himself to Widmerpool. Any such guess turned out wide of the mark. On the contrary, he had not seen them come into the room together, nor taken in who she was. His head appeared still full of whatever he had been talking about to Widmerpool, because he did not listen when I told him her name. It turned out later that he was determined in his own mind that Pamela was a writer of some sort. Having decided that point, he wanted to find out what sort of a writer she might be. This was on general grounds of her looks, rather than any very special attraction he himself found for them.

‘Are you doing something for Fission ?’

Pamela stared at him as if he had gone off his head.

‘Me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why should I?’

‘I just thought you might.’

‘Do I look the sort of person who’d write for Fission ?’

‘It struck me you did rather.’

She gave him a stare of contempt, but did not answer. Trapnel, seeing he was to be treated with deliberate offensiveness, made no further effort in Pamela’s direction. Instead, he began talking of the set-to on the subject of modern poetry that had just taken place between Shernmaker and Malcolm Crowding. Pamela walked away in the direction of Ada Leintwardine. Trapnel looked after her and laughed.

‘Who is she?’

‘I told you — Mrs Widmerpool.’

‘Wife of the MP I was chatting with?’

‘She’s rather famous.’

‘I didn’t get the name. I thought you were saying something about Widmerpool. So that’s who she is? I’d never have thought he’d have a wife like that. Bagshaw was talking about him, so I thought I’d like to make contact. I can’t say I was much taken with Mrs Widmerpool. Is that how she always behaves?’

‘Quite often.’

‘Girls like that are not in my line. I don’t care how smashing they look. I need a decent standard of manners.’

At this stage of our acquaintance I did not know much about Trapnel’s girls, beyond his own talk about them, which indicated a fair amount of experience. Some ‘big’ love affair of his had gone wrong not long before our first meeting. Ada came round with the drink jug. Trapnel filled up and moved away.

‘Not much danger of intoxication from this brew,’ she said.

‘The Editor doesn’t seem to have done too badly.’

‘Books had an early go at the actual bottle — before this potion was mixed.’

Bagshaw, rather red in the face, was in fact little if at all drunker than he had been at the beginning of the party, reaching a saturation point beyond which he never overflowed. He was clutching Evadne Clapham affectionately round the waist, he explained to her — with some supposed reference to her short story in Fission — where Marx differed from Feuerbach in aiming not to interpret the world but to change it; and what was the real significance of Lenin’s April Theses.

‘Evadne Clapham’s coiffure always reminds me of that line of Arthur Symons, “And is it seaweed in your hair?”’ said Ada. ‘There’s been some hot negotiation with poor old Sillers, but we’ve come across with quite a big advance in the end. I hope the book will justify that when it appears.’

‘What’s Odo$cvens’s work to be called?’

‘ Sad Majors , an adaption of –

Let’s have one other gaudy night: call to me

All my sad captains …

JG doesn’t care for the title. We’re trying to get Stevens to change it.’