Anthony Powell - Books Do Furnish a Room

‘Hold up, Trappy. You’re tight.’

That was a fatal remark. Not only did open expression of that opinion make Trapnel very indignant, it also had the effect of physically increasing, anyway for the moment, the lack of control that was overcoming him. Trapnel always hated any suggestion that limits existed to his own powers of alcoholic assimilation. Bagshaw must already have known that. The fact that his comment was true made it no more excusable, except for being equally applicable to Bagshaw himself.

‘Tight? I’m always being asked by people how it is I’m never drunk, however much I put back. They can’t make it out. I can finish a bottle of brandy at a sitting, get up sober as when I started. Drink just doesn’t have any effect on me. You don’t suppose the few halves of bitter we’ve had tonight made me drunk, Books, do you? It’s you who are a little tipsy, my boy. You’ve rather a weak head.’

He waved his stick. If the contrast had to be made, this described their capacities in reverse. Bagshaw took it well, having made the initial error by his comment.

‘Drunk or sober, we can none of us stand here all night. Shall we head for your place, Trappy?’

This suggestion had a steadying, immediately subduing effect on Trapnel. He seemed to remember suddenly all he had been trying to forget. The outward appearance of drunkenness left him at once. He might have swallowed an instant sedative. The state of utter dejection returned. He spoke to Bagshaw quietly, almost humbly.

‘Does Nicholas know what’s happened?’

‘Roughly.’

‘I’d like to be a bit clearer about what’s up.’

‘There’s been some trouble with Pam. It was all over my new book. We never seem to agree about writing, especially my writing. It’s almost as if she hates it, doesn’t want me to do it, and yet she thinks about my work all the time, knows just where the weak places are. We have a lot of rows about it. We had one this morning. I left the house in a rage. I told her she was mad on Naturalism. That’s why the subject was on my mind. Books and I began talking about it. I’m for it too. I told her I was. I’ve told everyone, and written it. What I can’t stand is people giving it their own exclusive meaning. That’s what Pam does. She just uses it to pick on the way I write. She brings up all my own arguments against me. Then when I half agree, she takes an absolutely opposite line. It’s like Pavlov’s dogs. I think sometimes I’ll go up the wall.’

‘Why discuss your work with her?’ said Bagshawe inconsistently. ‘Tell her to get on with the washing-up.’

‘It’s not the first row we’ve had by a long chalk. Christ, I don’t want her to leave me. I know it’s pretty awful living the way we do, but I can’t face the thought of her leaving. You know I’m not sure there isn’t going to be a film in Profiles in String . It was the last thing I thought about when I started, but now I believe there might be. It would go over big, if it went over at all.’

At one moment it looked as if Trapnel were going to break down, at the next, that he was about to indulge in one of his fantasies about making money, which overwhelmed him from time to time. These sudden changes of gear were going to require careful handling, if he were to be conveyed back to the flat. It was much more likely that he would want to go to a drinking club of some sort. He usually knew the address of one that would admit him. Bagshaw, grasping the fact that Trapnel needed soothing, now took charge quite effectively. He must have had long experience in persuading fellow-drunks to do what he, rather than they themselves, wanted. He was ruthless about getting his own way when he thought that necessary, showing total disregard for other people’s wishes or convenience. That was now all to the good.

‘We know what you feel, Trappy. Come on. We’ll go back and see how things are. She’s probably longing to see you.’

‘You don’t know her.’

‘I admit that, but I’ve seen her. They’re all the same.’

‘There’s not a drop to drink.’

‘Never mind. Nick and I will just see you home.’

‘Will you really? I couldn’t face it otherwise.’

Trapnel was like a child who suddenly decides to be fretful no longer. Now he was even full of gratitude. We reached Edgware Road with him still in this mood. There was a small stretch of the main highway to negotiate before turning off by the Canal. The evening was warm, stuffy, full of strange smells. For once Trapnel seemed suitably dressed in his tropical suit. We turned down the south side of the Canal, walking on the pavement away from the houses. Railings shut off a grass bank that sloped down to the tow-path. Trapnel had now moved into a pastoral dream.

‘I love this waterway. I’d like to have a private barge, and float down it waving to the tarts.’

‘Do you get a lot down here?’ asked Bagshaw, interested.

‘You see the odd one. They live round about, but tend to work other streets. What a mess the place is in.’

Most of London was pretty grubby at this period, the Canal no exception. On the surface of the water concentric circles of oil, undulating in the colours of the spectrum, were illuminated by moonlight. Through these luminous prisms floated anonymous off-scourings of every kind, tin cans, petrol drums, soggy cardboard boxes. Watery litter increased as the bridge was approached. Bagshaw pointed to a peculiarly obnoxious deposit bobbing up and down by the bank.

‘Looks as if someone’s dumped their unit’s paper salvage. I used to have to deal with that at one stage of the war. Obsolete forms waiting to be pulped and made into other forms. An internal reincarnation. Fitted the scene in India.’

Trapnel stopped, and leant against the railings.

‘Let’s pause for a moment. Contemplate life. It’s a shade untidy here, but romantic too. Do you know what all that mess of paper looks like? A manuscript. Probably someone’s first novel. Authors always talk of burning their first novel, I believe this one’s drowned his.’

‘Or hers.’

‘Some beautiful girl who wrote about her seduction, and couldn’t get it published.’

‘When lovely woman stoops to authorship?’

‘I think I’ll go and have a look. Might give me some ideas.’

‘Trappy, don’t be silly.’

Trapnel, laughing rather dementedly, began to climb the railings. Bagshaw attempted to stop this. Before he could be persuaded otherwise, Trapnel had lifted himself up, and was halfway across. The railings presented no very serious obstacle even to a man in a somewhat deranged state, who carried a stick in one hand. He dropped to the other side without difficulty. The bank sloped fairly steeply to the lower level of the tow-path and the water. Trapnel reached the footway. He paused for a moment, looking up and down the length of the Canal. Then he went to the water’s edge, and began to poke with the swordstick at the sheets of paper floating about all over the surface.

‘Come back, Trappy. You’re not the dustman.’

Trapnel took no notice of Bagshaw. He continued to strain forward with the stick, until it looked ominously as if he would fall in. The pieces of paper, scattered broadcast, were all just out of reach.

‘We shall have to get over,’ said Bagshaw. ‘He’ll be in at any moment.’

Then Trapnel caught one of the sheets with the end of the stick. He guided it to the bank. For a second it escaped, but was recaptured. He bent down to pick it up, shook off the water and straightened out the page. The soaked paper seemed to fascinate him. He looked at it for a long time. Bagshaw, relieved that the railings would not now have to be climbed, for a minute or two did not intervene. At last he became tired of waiting.