Books Do Furnish a Room - Anthony Powell [60]
‘Quite often.’
‘Girls like that are not in my line. I don’t care how smashing they look. I need a decent standard of manners.’
At this stage of our acquaintance I did not know much about Trapnel’s girls, beyond his own talk about them, which indicated a fair amount of experience. Some ‘big’ love affair of his had gone wrong not long before our first meeting. Ada came round with the drink jug. Trapnel filled up and moved away.
‘Not much danger of intoxication from this brew,’ she said.
‘The Editor doesn’t seem to have done too badly.’
‘Books had an early go at the actual bottle – before this potion was mixed.’
Bagshaw, rather red in the face, was in fact little if at all drunker than he had been at the beginning of the party, reaching a saturation point beyond which he never overflowed. He was clutching Evadne Clapham affectionately round the waist, he explained to her – with some supposed reference to her short story in Fission – where Marx differed from Feuerbach in aiming not to interpret the world but to change it; and what was the real significance of Lenin’s April Theses.
‘Evadne Clapham’s coiffure always reminds me of that line of Arthur Symons, “And is it seaweed in your hair?”’ said Ada. ‘There’s been some hot negotiation with poor old Sillers, but we’ve come across with quite a big advance in the end. I hope the book will justify that when it appears.’
‘What’s Odo$cvens’s work to be called?’
‘Sad Majors, an adaption of –
Let’s have one other gaudy night: call to me
All my sad captains …
JG doesn’t care for the title. We’re trying to get Stevens to change it.’
‘Why? He must agree it’s a gloomy rank.’
‘God – Nathaniel Sheldon’s helping himself. He must think he’s not being appreciated.’
It was true.Sheldon was routing about under the drink table. Ada hurried off. It was time to go home. I sought out Quiggjn to say goodbye. He was talking with Shernmaker, whose temper seemed to have improved, because he was teasing Quiggin.
‘Gauguin abandoned business for art, JG – you’re like Rimbaud, who abandoned art for business.’
‘Resemblances undoubtedly exist between publishing and the slave trade,’ said Quiggin ‘But it’s not only authors who get sold, Bernard’
Down stairs in the packing department Widmerpool was wandering about looking for something. He no longer retained his earlier geniality, was now despondent.
‘I’ve lost my briefcase. Hid it away somewhere down here. I say, that friend of yours, Trapnel, is an odd fellow, isn’t he?’
‘In appearance?’
‘Among other things.’
‘He’s a good writer.’
‘So I’m told.’
‘I mean should be useful on Fission.’
‘Ah, there’s the briefcase – no, I’ve just been talking to Trapnel, and his behaviour rather surprised me. As a matter of fact he asked me to lend him some money.’
‘Following, no doubt, on your recommendations in the House that interest rates should be reduced.’
‘Your joke is no doubt very amusing. At the same time you will agree Trapnel’s request was unusual on the part of a man whom I had never set eyes on before tonight, when he introduced himself to me?’
‘You know what literary life is like.’
‘I’m beginning to learn.’
‘Did you come across?’
‘I handed over a pound. The man assured me he was completely penniless. However, let us speak no more of that. I merely put it on record. I consider the party for Fission was a success. It will get off to a good start, even though I do not feel so much confidence in Bagshaw as I could wish.’
‘He knows his stuff.’
‘So everyone says. He appeared to me rather drunk by the end of the evening, but I must not stay gossiping. I have to get back to Westminster. Pam had to leave early. She had a dinner engagement.’
We went outside. Trapnel was standing on the pavement. He had just hailed a cab. He must have been waiting there for one to pass for some minutes; in fact since he had taken the pound off Widmerpool.
‘Dearth of taxis round this neighbourhood’s almost as bad as where I’m living. Can I give anyone a lift? I’m heading north.’
We both declined the offer.