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By Root 2952 0

unambiguous enough during the months that transformed him from a mere acquaintance of Bagshaw’s, and professional adjunct of Fission, into a recognized figure in one’s own life. His personality, built up with thought, deserves a word or two on account of certain elements not restricted to himself. He was a fine specimen of a general type, to which he had added flourishes of his own, making him – it was hardly going too far to say – unique in the field. The essential point was that Trapnel always acted a part; not necessarily the same part, but a part of some kind. Insomuch as most people cling to a role in which they particularly fancy themselves, he was no great exception so far as that went. Where he differed from the crowd was in so doggedly sticking to the role – or roles – he had chosen to assume.

Habitual role-sustainers fall, on the whole, into two main groups: those who have gauged to a nicety what shows them off to best advantage: others, more romantic if less fortunate in their fate, who hope to reproduce in themselves arbitrary personalities that have won their respect, met in life, read about in papers and books, or seen in films. These self-appointed players of a part often have little or no aptitude, are even notably ill equipped by appearance or demeanour, to wear the costume or speak the lines of the prototype. Indeed, the very unsuitability of the role is what fascinates. Even in the cases of individuals showing off a genuine pre-eminence – statesmen, millionaires, poets, to name a few types – the artificial personality can become confused with the passage of time, life itself being a confused and confusing process, but, when the choice of part has been extravagantly incongruous, there are no limits to the craziness of the performance staged. Adopted almost certainly for romantic reasons, the role, once put into practice, is subject to all sorts of unavoidable and unforeseen restraints and distortions; not least, in the first place, on account of the essentially rough-and-ready nature of all romantic concepts. Even assuming relative clarity at the outset, the initial principles of the role-sustainer can finally reach a climax in which it is all but impossible to guess what on earth the role itself was originally intended to denote.

So it was with Trapnel. Aiming at many roles, he was always playing one or other of them for all he was worth. To do justice to their number requires – in the manner of Burton – an interminable catalogue of types. No brief definition is adequate. Trapnel wanted, among other things, to be a writer, a dandy, a lover, a comrade, an eccentric, a sage, a virtuoso, a good chap, a man of honour, a hard case, a spendthrift, an opportunist, a raisonneur; to be very rich, to be very poor, to possess a thousand mistresses, to win the heart of one love to whom he was ever faithful, to be on the best of terms with all men, to avenge savagely the lightest affront, to live to a hundred full of years and honour, to (lie young and unknown but recognized the following day as the most neglected genius of the age. Each of these ambitions had something to recommend it from one angle or another, with the possible exception of being poor – the only aim Trapnel achieved with unqualified mastery – and even being poor, as Trapnel himself asserted, gave the right to speak categorically when poverty was discussed by people like Evadne Clapham.

‘I do so agree with Gissing,’ she said. ‘When he used to ask of a writer – has he starved?’

The tribute was disinterested, as Evadne Clapham did not in the least look as if she had ever starved herself. The remark ruffled Trapnel.

‘Gissing was more of an authority on starvation than on writing.’

‘You don’t think hunger teaches things?’

‘I know as much about starvation as Gissing, probably more.’

‘Then you prove his point – though after all it’s dedication that counts in the end.’

‘Dedication’s often the hallmark of inferior performance.’

Trapnel was in a severe mood on that occasion. He was annoyed at Evadne Clapham being brought to his favourite pub The