Anthony Powell - A Buyers Market

As I reached the outskirts of Shepherd Market, at that period scarcely touched by rebuilding, I regained once more some small sense of exultation, enjoyed whenever crossing the perimeter of that sinister little village, that I lived within an enchanted precinct. Inconvenient, at moments, as a locality: noisy and uncomfortable: stuffy, depressing, unsavoury: yet the ancient houses still retained some vestige of the dignity of another age; while the inhabitants, many of them existing precariously on their bridge earnings, or hire of their bodies, were — as more than one novelist had, even in those days, already remarked — not without their own seedy glory.

Now, touched almost mystically, like another Stonehenge, by the first rays of the morning sun, the spot seemed one of those clusters of tumble-down dwellings depicted By Canaletto or Piranesi, habitations from amongst which arches, obelisks and viaducts, ruined and overgrown with ivy, arise from the mean houses huddled together below them. Here, too, such massive structures might, one felt, at any moment come into existence by some latent sorcery, for the place was scarcely of this world, and anything was to be surmised. As I penetrated farther into the heart of that rookery, in the direction of my own door, there even stood, as if waiting to greet a friend, one of those indeterminate figures that occur so frequently in the pictures of the kind suggested — Hubert Robert or Pannini — in which the architectural subject predominates. This materialisation took clearer shape as a man, middle-aged to elderly, wearing a bowler hat and discreetly horsy overcoat, the collar turned-up round a claret-coloured scarf with white spots. He leant a little to one side on a rolled umbrella, just as those single figures in romantic landscape are apt to pose; as if the painter, in dealing with so much static matter, were determined to emphasise “movement” in the almost infinitesimal human side of his composition.

“Where are you off to?” this person suddenly called across the street.

The voice, grating on the morning air, was somewhat accusing in tone. I saw, as a kind of instantaneous revelation, that it was Uncle Giles who stood on the corner in front of the public-house. He seemed undecided which road to take. It was plain that, a minute or two earlier, he had emerged from one of the three main centres of nocturnal activity in the immediate neighbourhood, represented by the garage, the sandwich bar, and the block of flats of dubious repute. There was not a shred of evidence pointing to one of these starting points in preference to another, though other alternatives seemed excluded by his position. I crossed the road.

“Just up from the country,” he said, gruffly.

“By car?”

“By car? Yes, of course.”

“Is it a new one?”

“Yes,” said Uncle Giles. “It’s a new one.”

He spoke as if he had only just thought of that aspect of the vehicle, supposedly his property, that was stated to have brought him to London. One of those pauses followed for which my uncle’s conversation was noted within the family circle. I explained that I was returning from a dance, a half-truth that seemed to cover whatever information was required, then and there, to define my circumstances in as compact and easily intelligible a form as possible. Uncle Giles was not practised in following any narrative at all involved in its nature. His mind was inclined to stray back to his own affairs if a story’s duration was of anything but the briefest. My words proved redundant, however. He was not in the least interested.

“I am here on business,” he said. “I don’t want to waste a lot of time. Never was keen on remaining too long in London. Your hand is never out of your pocket.”

“Where are you staying?”

My uncle thought for a moment.

“Bayswater,” he said, slowly and rather thoughtfully.

I must have looked surprised at finding him so comparatively far afield from his pied-à-terre , because Uncle Giles added:

“I mean, of course, that Bayswater is where I am going to stay — at the Ufford, as usual. There is a lot to be said for a place where they know you. Get some civility. At the moment I am on my way to my club, only round the corner.”

“My rooms are just by here.”

“Where?” he asked, suspiciously.

“Opposite.”

“Can’t you find anywhere better to live — I mean it’s rather a disreputable part of the world, isn’t it?”

As if in confirmation of my uncle’s misgivings, a prostitute, small, almost a dwarf, with a stumpy umbrella tucked under her arm, came hurrying home, late off her beat — tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap — along the pavement, her extravagant heels making a noise like a woodpecker attacking a tree. She wore a kind of felt helmet pulled low over her face, which looked exceedingly bad-tempered. Some instinct must have told her that neither my uncle nor I were to be regarded in the circumstances as potential clients; for altering her expression no more than to bare a fang at the side of her mouth like an angry animal, she sped along the street at a furious pace — tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap — and up the steps of the entrance to the flats, when she disappeared from sight. Uncle Giles averted his eyes. He still showed no sign of wishing to move from the spot, almost as if he feared even the smallest change of posture might in some unforeseen manner prejudice the veil of secrecy that so utterly cloaked his immediate point of departure.

“I have been with friends in Surrey,” he said grudgingly, as if the admission were unwillingly drawn from him. “It’s a favourite county of mine. Lovely in the autumn. I’m connected with the paper business now.”

I hoped sincerely that this connection took, as was probable, remote and esoteric form, and that he was not associated with some normal branch of the industry with which my own firm might be expected to open an account. However, he showed no desire to pursue this matter of his new employment. Instead, he produced from his overcoat pocket a handful of documents, looking like company reports, and glanced swiftly through them. I thought he was going to begin discussing the Trust — by now the Trust remained practically the only unsevered link between himself and his relations — in spite of the earliness of the hour. If his original idea had been to make the Trust subject of comment, he must have changed his mind, finding these memoranda, if such they were, in some way wanting, because he replaced the papers carefully in order and stuffed them back into his coat.

“Tell your father to try and get some San Pedro Warehouses Deferred,” he said, shortly. “I have had reliable advice about them.”

“I’ll say you said so.”

“Do you always stay up as late as this?”

“No — it was a specially good party.”

I could see from my uncle’s face that not only did he not accept this as an excuse, but that he had also chosen to consider the words as intended deliberately to disconcert him.

“Take a bit of advice from one who has knocked about the world for a good many years,” he said. “Don’t get in the habit of sitting up till all hours. It never did anyone any good.”

“I’ll bear it in mind.”

“Parents well?”

“Very well.”

“I’ve been having trouble with my teeth.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well, I must be off. Good-bye to you.”

He made a stiff gesture, rather as if motioning someone away from him, and moved off suddenly in the direction of Hertford Street, striding along very serious, with his umbrella shouldered, as if once more at the head of his troops, drums beating and colours flying, as the column, conceded all honours of war, marched out of the capitulated town. Just as I opened the door of my house, he turned to wave. I raised my hand in return. Within, the bedroom remained unaltered, just as it had appeared when I had set out for the Walpole-Wilsons’, the suit I had worn the day before hanging dejectedly over the back of a chair. While I undressed I reflected on the difficulty of believing in the existence of certain human beings, my uncle among them, even in the face of unquestionable evidence — indications sometimes even wanting in the case of persons for some reason more substantial to the mind — that each had dreams and desires like other men. Was it possible to take Uncle Giles seriously? And yet he was, no doubt, serious enough to himself. If a clue to that problem could be found, other mysteries of life might be revealed. I was still pondering Uncle Giles and his ways when I dropped into an uneasy sleep.