Anthony Powell - Books Do Furnish a Room

‘I’m not satisfied with X’s book.’

That was the first aesthetic judgment I had ever heard her make. When she had earlier changed the subject from Trapnel’s writing, I thought she found, as some women do, concentration on a husband’s or lover’s work in some manner vexing. That she should return to his writing of her own volition was unexpected. It looked as if this were another manner of keeping Trapnel on his toes, because he reacted strongly to the comment.

‘I’m going to alter the bits you don’t like. You know, Nick, Pam’s got a marvellous instinct for a sequence that has gone a shade wrong technically. I can’t put it all right in five minutes, darling. These things take time and hard work. It’ll all be done in due course, when I’ve thrown off this bloody thing that’s playing such hell with work.’

‘This is Profiles in String ?’

‘I can’t get the feel of the end chapters. Most of the bad criticism you read is lack of understanding of what it feels like to get the wheels working internally when you’re writing a novel. Not one reviewer in a thousand grasps that.’

Pamela showed no interest in subtleties of literary feeling.

‘I’d rather you burnt it than published it as it stands. In fact you’re not going to.’

Trapnel sighed. It was unlike him to accept criticism so humbly. On the face of it, there seemed no more reason to suppose Pamela knew how a novel should be written — from Trapnel’s point of view — than did the reviewers. In general, if he allowed himself to seek another opinion about how to deal with some matter in what he was writing — a short story, for example — he was accustomed to argue hard all the way in favour of whatever treatment he himself had in mind. Pamela showed contempt for the abject manner in which her objections had been received. Once more she switched the subject to her own situation.

‘What are people saying about us?’

‘No one knows quite what has happened.’

‘How do you mean?’

She pouted. At that moment the bell rang. Trapnel groaned.

‘God, it’s the man trying to collect the money for the newspapers. He’s come back.’

Pamela made a face.

‘Take no notice. He’ll go away after a while.’

‘He’ll see the light. It was daytime when he came before, and he thought we weren’t in.’

Pamela turned to me.

‘You answer the door. Tell him we’re away — that we’ve lent you the flat.’

I showed unwillingness to undertake this commission. Trapnel was apologetic.

‘We’re being dunned. It always happens if you allow people to know your address. It’s like hotels insisting on cleaning the room out from time to time. There’s always some inconvenience, wherever you live. I couldn’t help giving the address this time, otherwise we wouldn’t have had any papers delivered.’

‘Perhaps it’s for the other people in the house.’

‘They’ve gone away — decamped, I think. Do deal with it.’

‘But what can I say to the man, if he is the newspaper man?’

‘Tell him — ’

The bell rang again. Pamela showed signs of getting cross.

‘Look, X can’t get up in his present state. Do go. If you had ten bob — twelve at the most — that would keep him quiet.’

There seemed no way of avoiding the assignment. I took ten shillings from my notecase, in so far as possible to cut short discussion, and went into the hall. To see the way, it was necessary to leave the flat door ajar. Even so, the place was inconveniently dark, and the front door required a certain amount of negotiating to open. It gave at last. The figure waiting on the the doorstep was not the newspaperman, but Widmerpool. He did not seem in the least surprised that I should be the person to admit him.

‘I expect you’re here on business about the magazine, Nicholas?’

‘Delivering a book to be reviewed, as a matter of fact.’

‘I’m rather glad to find you on the premises. Don’t go away from a mistaken sense of delicacy. Matters of a rather personal nature are likely to be discussed. I am quite glad to have a witness, especially one conversant with the circumstances, connected, I mean, by ties of business, albeit literary business. Where is Trapnel? This way, I take it?’

The light shining through the sitting-room door showed Widmerpool where to go. He took off his hat, crossed the boards of the hall, and over the threshold of the flat. It had at least been unnecessary to announce him. In fact he announced himself.

‘Good evening. I have come to talk about some things.’

Pamela, hands stuck in the pockets of her trousers, was still standing, with her peculiar stillness of poise, in front of the gas fire. If Widmerpool had shown lack of surprise at my opening the door to him, he had at least expressed what seemed to him an adequate explanation as to why I should be with Trapnel. I arranged reviewing at Fission ; Trapnel reviewed books. That was sufficient reason for my presence. The fact that Trapnel had run away with Widmerpool’s wife had nothing to do with the business relationship between Trapnel and myself. To disregard it was almost something to approve. That view was no doubt more especially acceptable in the light of propaganda put about by Widmerpool himself.

Pamela, on the other hand, except insomuch as having left her husband, he might, in one sense, be expected to come and look for her, in another, could scarcely have been prepared for his arrival. So far from showing any wonder, she made no sign whatever of being even aware that an additional person had entered the room. She did not permit herself so much as a glance in Widmerpool’s direction. Her expression, one of slight, though not severe displeasure, did not alter in the smallest degree. She seemed to be concentrating on a tear in the wallpaper opposite that ran in a great jagged parabola through a pattern of red parrots and blue storks, freak birds of the same size.

Widmerpool did not speak immediately after his first announcement. He went rather red. He put his hat on top of Trapnel’s manuscript, where it lay on the table. Trapnel himself was now sitting bolt upright on the divan. This must, in a way, have been the moment he had been awaiting all his life: a truly dramatic occasion. That he was determined to rise to it was shown at once by the tone of his voice when he spoke.

‘Would you oblige me by removing your hat from off my book?’

Widmerpool, whatever else he had taken in his stride, was astonished by this request. No doubt it presupposed an altogether unforeseen, alien area of sensibility. Picking up the hat again, he replaced it on one of the suitcases.

Trapnel maintained a tone of dramatically cold politeness. His voice trembled a little when he spoke again.

‘I’m sorry. I must have sounded rude. I did not mean to be that. I have a special thing about my manuscripts — that is, I hate them being treated like any old pile of waste paper. Please take your coat off and sit down.’

‘Thank you, I prefer to stand. I shall not be staying long, so that it is not worth my taking off my coat.’

Widmerpool gazed round the room. It was clearly worse, far worse, than he had ever dreamed; if he had thought at all about what he was likely to run to earth. His face showed that, considered in the light of housing insufficiencies inspected in his own constituency, the flat was horrific. Trapnel, possibly remembering the talk they had exchanged on such deplorable conditions, noticed this survey. He almost grinned. Then his manner changed.

‘How did you find the house?’

This time Trapnel spoke with the hollow faraway voice of a horror film. He was determined to remain master of the situation. Widmerpool was quite equal to the manoeuvring.