A Question of Upbringing - Anthony Powell [4]
I had been so struck by the conception of Widmerpool, disclosed almost as a new incarnation, shortly before on the road in front of the house, that I described, while the sausages cooked, the manner in which he had materialised in a series of jerks out of the shadows, bearing with him such tokens of despondency. Stringham listened, perforating each of the sausages with the scimitar. He said slowly: “Widmerpool suffers – or suffered – from contortions of the bottom. Dickinson told me that, in the days when the fags used to parade in the library at tea-time, they were all standing by the wall one evening when suddenly there were inarticulate cries. Owing to this infirmity of his, Widmerpool’s legs had unexpectedly given way beneath him.”
“Did he fall?”
“He clung to the moulding of the wall, his feet completely off the ground.”
“What next?”
“He was carted off.”
“I see. Have we any mustard?”
“Now I’ll tell you what I saw happen last summer,” Stringham went on, smiling to himself, and continuing to pierce the sausage. “Peter Templer and I had – for an unaccountable reason – been watching the tail-end of some cricket, and had stopped for a drink on the way back. We found Widmerpool standing by himself with a glass of lemonade in front of him. Some of the Eleven were talking and ragging at the far end of the counter and a skinned banana was thrown. This missed its target and hit Widmerpool. It was a bull’s-eye. The banana was over-ripe and it burst all over his face, knocking his spectacles sideways. His cap came off and he spilt most of the lemonade down the front of his clothes.”
“Characteristic of the Eleven’s throwing-in.”
“Budd himself was responsible. Widmerpool took out his handkerchief and began to clean up the mess. Budd came down the shop, still laughing, and said: “Sorry, Widmerpool. That banana wasn’t intended for you.” Widmerpool was obviously astonished to hear himself addressed by name, and so politely, by no less a person than the Captain of the Eleven – who could only have known what Widmerpool was called on account of the famous overcoat. Budd stood there smiling, showing a lot of those film-star teeth of his, and looking more than ever like the hero of an adventure story for boys.”
“That noble brow.”
“It doesn’t seem to help him to pile up runs,” said Stringham, “any more than do those fine cutting shots of his which photograph so well.”
He paused and shook his head, apparently in sadness at the thought of Budd’s deficiencies as a cricketer; and then continued: “Anyway, Budd – exuding charm at every pore – said: ‘I’m afraid I’ve made you in a bit of a mess, Widmerpool,’ and he stood there inspecting the havoc he had just caused. Do you know an absolutely slavish look came into Widmerpool’s face. ‘I don’t mind,’ he said, ‘I don’t mind at all, Budd. It doesn’t matter in the least.’”
Stringham’s dexterity at imitating the manner in which Widmerpool talked was remarkable. He stopped the narrative to put some bread into the fat in which the sausages were frying, and, when this was done, said: “It was as if Widmerpool had experienced some secret and awful pleasure. He had taken off his spectacles and was wiping them, screwing up his eyes, round which there were still traces of banana. He began to blow on the glasses and to rub them with a great show of good cheer. The effect was not at all what might have been hoped. In fact all this heartiness threw the most appalling gloom over the shop. Budd went back to his friends and finished whatever he was eating, or drinking, in deathly silence. The other members of the Eleven – or whoever they were – stopped laughing and began to mutter self-consciously to themselves about future