Books Do Furnish a Room - Anthony Powell [103]
It was still wet outside, but, by the time my appointment was at an end, the rain had stopped. A damp earthy smell filled the air. The weather was appreciably colder. In spite of that a man in a mackintosh was sitting on the low wall that ran the length of the further side of the street in front of the archway and chapel. It was Widmerpool. He looked in great dejection. I had not seen him since the night at Trapnel’s flat, when he had, so to speak, expressed his confidence in Pamela’s return. Now that had come about. He had prophesied truly. Isobel, about a month before, soon after the destruction of Profiles in String, had pointed out a paragraph in a newspaper listing guests at some public function. The names ‘Mr Kenneth Widmerpool MP and Mrs Widmerpool’ were included. It was just as predicted. In the Governmental reshuffle at the beginning of October Widmerpool had received minor office. In spite of these two matters, both showing himself undoubtedly in the ascendant, he sat lonely and cheerless. I should have been tempted to try and slip by unnoticed, but he saw me, and shouted something. I crossed the road.
‘Congratulations on your new parliamentary job.’
‘Thanks, thanks. What are you doing down here?’
I told him, adding that I had been talking with Le Bas.
‘I ran into him too. I took the opportunity of giving him some account of my Balkan visit. Whatever one may think of Le Bas’s capabilities as a teacher, he is supposedly in charge of the young, and should therefore be put in possession of the correct facts.’
‘How did your trip go?’
‘We hear a lot about what is called an “Iron Curtain”. Where is this “Iron Curtain”, I ask myself? I found no sign. That was what I told Le Bas. You might think him a person to hold reactionary views, but I found that was not at all the case, now that the idea of world revolution has been dropped. By the way, how are you employed since Fission has closed down.
I mentioned various concerns that involved me. Widmerpool showed no embarrassment in mentioning the magazine. He even asked if it were true that Bagshaw had secured a job in television. However, when I enquired why, on such a damp and increasingly cold evening, he should be sitting on the wall, apparently just watching the world go by, he shifted uneasily, stiffening at the question.
‘Pam and I came down for the day.’
He laughed.
‘She’s got a young friend here whom she met somewhere during his holidays, and he invited her to tea. She’s having tea in his room now. I’m waiting for her.’
‘A boy, you mean?’
‘Yes – I suppose you’d call him a boy still.’
‘I meant still at the school?’
‘He was leaving, but stayed on for some reason – to captain some team, I think. Son or nephew of one of the Calthorpes. Do you remember them? Pam thought it would be an amusing jaunt. She insisted I mustn’t spoil the party by coming too. Rather a good joke.’
All the same, he did not look as if he found it specially funny. Blue-grey mist was thickening round us. I had a train to catch. The Widmerpools had come by car. They had no fixed plan about getting back to London. Pamela hated being tied down by too positive arrangements. She was going to pick her husband up hereabouts when the tea-party was over. I thought of what Trapnel had said of her couplings.
‘I must be off.’
‘I don’t believe I ever sent you details about that society I was telling Le Bas about. My secretary will forward them. I received Quiggin & Craggs’s Autumn List recently – their last. There were some interesting titles. Clapham has asked me to continue my association with publishing by joining his board.’
I too had received the list; later heard Quiggin’s comments on it. Sillery’s Garnered at Sunset, unexciting as the selection might be, had been noticed respectfully. Shernmaker, for example, was unexpectedly approving. Sales were not too bad, even if the advance was never recouped. Sillery might be said to have successfully imposed his will in this last fling. So did Ada Leintwardine. I Stopped at a Chemist upset several of the more old-fashioned