Anthony Powell - Books Do Furnish a Room

‘I came by taxi.’

‘I mean how did you discover where I was living?’

‘There are such aids as private detectives.’

Widmerpool said that with disdain. Trapnel laughed. The laughter too was of the kind associated with a horror film.

‘I always wanted to meet someone who employed a private detective.’

Widmerpool did not answer at once. He appeared to be jockeying for position, taking up action stations before the contest really broke into flame. He cleared his throat.

‘I have come here to clarify the situation. By arrival in person, some people might judge that I have put myself in a false position. Such is not my own opinion. A person of your kind, Trapnel, has neither the opportunity to observe, nor capacity to understand, the demands laid on a man who takes up the burden of public life. It is therefore necessary that certain facts should be plainly stated. The best person to state them is myself.’

Trapnel listened to this with the air of an accomplished actor. His ‘hollow’ laughter was now followed by a ‘grim’ smile. It was still a performance. Widmerpool had not got him, so to speak, out in the open yet.

‘First,’ said Widmerpool, ‘you borrow money from me.’

Trapnel’s defiance had not been geared to that particular form of attack at that moment. He dropped his acting and looked very angry, quite unsimulated rage.

‘Then you lampoon me in a magazine of which I am one of the chief supporters.’

Trapnel began to smile again at that. If the first accusation put him in a weak position, the second to some extent restored equilibrium.

‘Finally, my wife comes to live with you.’

Widmerpool paused. He too was being melodramatic now. Trapnel had ceased to smile. He was very white. He had lost command of his role as actor. Pamela watched them, still showing no change of expression. Widmerpool must have been to some extent aware that by making Trapnel angry, dislodging him from playing a part, he was moving towards ascendancy.

‘You can keep my pound. Do not bother, when you are next paid for some paltry piece of journalism, to make another attempt to return it — which was, so I understand, your subterfuge for insinuating yourself into my house. The pound does not matter. Forget about it. I make you a present of it.’

Trapnel did not speak.

‘Secondly, I want to express quite clearly my own indifference to your efforts to ridicule my economic theories. Some people might have thought that an act of ungratefulness on your part. Your own ignorance of the elementary principles of economics makes it not even that. Your so-called parody is a failure. Not funny. Several people have told me so. And at the same time I recognize it as a deliberate insult. That is a matter between the board and Bagshaw — ’

Trapnel burst out.

‘You’re trying to get Books sacked —’

‘Don’t interrupt me,’ said Widmerpcol. ‘Bagshaw has a contract.’

He made a half turn about in order, more unmistakably, to include Pamela in whatever he was now about to announce. She went so far as to raise her eyebrows slightly. Widmerpool still primarily addressed himself to Trapnel.

‘You may fear that I am going to institute divorce proceedings. Such is not my intention. Pamela will return in her own good time. I think we understand each other.’

Widmerpool paused.

‘That is what I came to tell you,’ he said. ‘That — and to express my contempt for the way you live and the way you have behaved.’

Trapnel threw back the army blankets. He rose quite slowly from the divan. His body, seen through the spotted pyjamas, was desperately thin. He retied their cord; then, in his bare feet, walked very deliberately to where the huge wardrobe stood in the corner of the room. Against it was propped the death’s-head sword-stick. Trapnel picked up the stick, and pressed the spring at the back of the skull. The blade was released. He threw the sheath on top of Oblomov, The Thin Man, Adolphe , and the several other books lying on the bedclothes.

‘Get out.’

Trapnel did not actually threaten Widmerpool with the sword. He held the point to the ground, as if about to raise the weapon in formal salute before joining combat in a duel. It was hard to estimate where exactly his actions hovered between play-acting and loss of control. Widmerpool stood firm.

‘No dramatics, please.’

This calmness was to his credit. He knew little of Trapnel, but what he knew certainly gave no guarantee that a man of Trapnel’s sort would not be capable of eccentric violence. If it came to that, I felt no absolute assurance on that matter myself. Whatever his merits as a writer, Trapnel could not be regarded as a well-balanced personality. Anything might be looked for from him. Besides, there were his ‘pills’. One had the impression that, as such stimulants go, they were fairly mild. At the same time, he could easily have moved on to stronger stuff. Pamela might have encouraged that course; living with her almost necessitated it. Even the pills in their accustomed form might be sufficient to induce indiscreet conduct, especially when the question posed was evicting from a lover’s flat the husband of his mistress.

‘Are you going?’

‘I have no wish to stay.’

Widmerpool picked up his hat from the suitcase. He brushed the felt with his elbow. Then he turned once more towards Pamela.

‘I shall be abroad for some weeks in Eastern Europe. As a Member of Parliament I have been invited to enjoy the hospitality of one of the new Governments.’

‘I said get out.’

Trapnel raised the sword slightly. Widmerpool took no notice. He continued raspingly to brush the surface of the hat. This time he addressed himself to me.

‘The visit should make an interesting Fission article. Some apologists for the Liberal and Peasant leaders have suggested that concessions to the Soviet point of view have been too all-embracing. What I always tell people, who are not themselves in the know, is that our own brand of social-democracy, for better or worse, is not always exportable.’

He reorientated himself towards Pamela.

‘When I return I shall not be surprised to find that you have reconsidered matters.’

She looked straight at him. Otherwise she gave no sign that she had heard what he said. Widmerpool went very red again. He passed through the door into the hall. The front door slammed, but did not shut. Trapnel in his bare feet ran out of the flat. He could be heard to pull the front door violently open again. From the steps he shouted into the night.

‘Coprolite! Faecal débris! Fossil of dung!’

A minute later he returned to the sitting-room. He took the sheath-half of the swordstick from the bed, replaced the blade and returned it to the corner by the wardrobe. Then he climbed under the blankets again, and lay back. He looked quite exhausted. Pamela, on the other hand, now showed signs of life. A faint colour had come into her face, a look of excitement I had never before seen there. She smiled. Something unexpected was afoot. She came across the room, and sat down on the bed. Trapnel took one of her hands. He did not speak. Comment came from Pamela this time.

‘I’m glad you were here, Nicholas. I’m glad it all happened in front of someone. I wish there had been a lot more people. Hundreds more. Now you know what my life was like.’

Trapnel patted her hand. He was much shaken. Not well in any case, he was likely to be dissatisfied with the scene that had taken place. He could scarcely be said to have dominated it in the manner of one of his own screen heroes, even if it were better not to have run Widmerpool through, or whatever was in his mind.

‘I do apologize for getting you mixed up with all this, Nick. It wasn’t my fault. How the hell could I guess he was going to turn up here? I thought there wasn’t a living soul knew the address, except one or two shops round here. Private detectives? It makes you think.’