Anthony Powell - Books Do Furnish a Room

The idea of private detectives obviously fascinated Trapnel’s roman policier leanings, which were highly developed. He was also worried.

‘Will you be awfully good, and keep quiet about all this, Nick? Don’t say a word, for obvious reasons.’

Pamela shook back her hair.

‘Thank you so much for coming, and for bringing the book. I expect we shall see you again here, as we aren’t going out much, as long as X isn’t well. I’ll ring you up, and you can bring another book some time.’

She spoke formally, like a hostess saying goodbye to a visitor she barely knows, who has paid a social call, and now explains that he must leave. A complete change had come over her after the impassivity she had shown until now. Before I could reply, she spoke again, this time abandoning formality.

‘Bugger off — I want to be alone with X.’

I left London one Saturday afternoon in the autumn to make some arrangement about a son going to school. Owing to the anomalies of the timetable, the train arrived an hour or so early for the appointment. There was an interval to kill. After a hot summer the weather still remained warm, but, not uncommon in that watery region, drizzle descended steadily, while a feeble sun shone through clouds that hung low over stretches of claret-coloured brick. It was too wet to wander about in the open. For a time I kicked my heels under a colonnade. A bomb had fallen close by. One corner was still enclosed by scaffolding and a tarpaulin. Above the arch, the long upper storey with its row of oblong corniced windows had escaped damage. The period of the architecture — half a century later, but it took little nowadays to recall him — brought Burton to mind; Burton, by implication the art of writing in general. On this subject he knew what he was talking about:

‘ ’Tis not my study or intent to compose neatly … but to express myself readily & plainly as it happens. So that as a River runs sometimes precipitate and swift, then dull and slow; now direct, then winding; now deep, then shallow, now muddy, then clear; now broad, then narrow; doth my style flow; now serious, then light; now comical, then satirical; now more elaborate, then remiss, as the present subject required, or as at the time I was affected.’

Even for those with a prejudice in favour of symmetry, worse rules might be laid down. The antithesis between satire and comedy was especially worth emphasis; also to write as the subject required, or the author thought fit at the moment. One often, when writing, felt a desire to be ‘remiss’. It was good to have that recommended. An important aspect of writing unmentioned by Burton was ‘priority’; what to tell first. That always seemed one of the basic problems. Trapnel used to talk about its complexities. For example, even to arrange in the mind, much less on paper, the events leading up to the demise of Fission after a two-year run, the swallowing up (by the larger publishing house of which Clapham was chairman) of the firm of Quiggin & Craggs, demanded an effective grasp of narrative ‘priorities’.

Looking out between the pillars at the raindrops glinting on the cobbles of a broad open space, turning the whole thing over in the mind, much seemed to me inevitable, as always contemplating the past. At the same time, although many things had gone wrong, several difficulties had been successfully surmounted. For instance, the prosecution of Sweetskin had been parried; the verdict, ‘Not Guilty’. Nevertheless, the case had cost money, caused a lot of worry to the directors. Alaric Kydd himself had been so certain that he would be sent to prison for uttering an obscene work that he let his flat on rather good terms for eighteen months; later finding difficulty in obtaining satisfactory alternative accommodation. He was also wounded by the tone of voice — certainly a very silly one — in which prosecuting counsel read aloud in court certain passages from his novel.

More damaging to the firm in a way, though morally rather than financially, was the Sad Majors affair. Bagshaw leaked an account of that. He had come back to the office in a restless, resentful mood after his bout of flu, according to Ada, spending the first forty-eight hours of convalescence drinking, then retiring to bed again for a further day before settling down. Whether or not he had deliberately kept the Trapnel parody ‘on the spike’ for use at the most appropriate occasion was never cleared up. Most probably, as in previous episodes of Bagshaw’s history, an infallible instinct for causing trouble had brought guidance without need of exact knowledge. Widmerpool appeared to have made no complaint to the board. He remained out of touch with Quiggin & Craggs long after the Court Circular announced his return from the People’s Republic, where he had been paying his visit. No doubt he was busy with parliamentary affairs. There was in any case not much he could do. If Fission had not ceased publication, Bagshaw’s contract would in any case have run out. He had dropped hints that he himself wanted to move. No one was going to stand in his way. The fact was that Bagshaw was by now attracted by the promise of helping to open up the still mainly unexplored eldorado of television.

Bagshaw took pleasure in elaborating the Odo Stevens story. He did not like Stevens as a man, but admired him as an adventurer. They used to meet when Stevens from time to time looked into the Fission office to see if there were a book to review. Stevens had developed an additional contact with the magazine on account of his association with Rosie Manasch. Never backward at publicizing his successes, he did not at present convey more than that he had an ally in that quarter. If Rosie had decided she needed relaxation with a man considerably younger than herself, she was agreed to have had a distressing time in many ways, and Stevens, whatever his failings, had the advantage of being a figure not to be taken too seriously. Both parties were judged well able to look after themselves. That was how it seemed at the time. However, even at an early stage the relationship was sufficiently strong to play a part in the Quiggin & Craggs upheaval. This came about when the Sad Majors controversy, simmering for some little while, took aggressive shape. Bagshaw, always interested in a row of this sort, was ravished by a move now made.

‘You can’t help admiring the way Gypsy does things. Good old hard-core stuff. You know the trouble about the Stevens book — thought to bring discredit on the Party. Gypsy’s performed one of those feats that most people don’t think of on account of their ruthless simplicity. She has quite simply liquidated the manuscript. Both copies.’

‘Aren’t there more than two copies?’

‘Apparently not.’

‘How did she get hold of them?’

‘After much argument, the original MS had been sent to the printer to be cast off. It was to be allowed to go ahead anyway as far as proof. Then Howard said he’d like to reread the book in peaceful surroundings, so he borrowed the carbon, and took it home with him. A day or two later, Gypsy, that’s her story, thought it was another manuscript Howard had asked her to post to Len Pugsley — who sometimes does reading for the firm, he poked Gypsy briefly — and Len says the parcel never arrived. He was moving house at the time. Stevens’s carbon seems to have gone astray between the Oval and Chalk Farm. Meanwhile, the printers got a telephone message, the origins of which no one can trace, to send back the MS they were to cast off. There was some question about it to be settled editorially. Now that copy can’t be found either.’

‘Stevens will have to write it again?’

‘That’s where the neatness of the sabotage comes in. Rewriting will take a longish time. By the time it’s finished the poor impression Stevens gives of the Comrades and their behaviour will, with any luck, be out of date — anyway in the eyes of the reading public. At worst, all ancient history.’