Books Do Furnish a Room - Anthony Powell [87]
‘Would you oblige me by removing your hat from off my book?’
Widmerpool, whatever else he had taken in his stride, was astonished by this request. No doubt it presupposed an altogether unforeseen, alien area of sensibility. Picking up the hat again, he replaced it on one of the suitcases.
Trapnel maintained a tone of dramatically cold politeness. His voice trembled a little when he spoke again.
‘I’m sorry. I must have sounded rude. I did not mean to be that. I have a special thing about my manuscripts – that is, I hate them being treated like any old pile of waste paper. Please take your coat off and sit down.’
‘Thank you, I prefer to stand. I shall not be staying long, so that it is not worth my taking off my coat.’
Widmerpool gazed round the room. It was clearly worse, far worse, than he had ever dreamed; if he had thought at all about what he was likely to run to earth. His face showed that, considered in the light of housing insufficiencies inspected in his own constituency, the flat was horrific. Trapnel, possibly remembering the talk they had exchanged on such deplorable conditions, noticed this survey. He almost grinned. Then his manner changed.
‘How did you find the house?’
This time Trapnel spoke with the hollow faraway voice of a horror film. He was determined to remain master of the situation. Widmerpool was quite equal to the manoeuvring.
‘I came by taxi.’
‘I mean how did you discover where I was living?’
‘There are such aids as private detectives.’
Widmerpool said that with disdain. Trapnel laughed. The laughter too was of the kind associated with a horror film.
‘I always wanted to meet someone who employed a private detective.’
Widmerpool did not answer at once. He appeared to be jockeying for position, taking up action stations before the contest really broke into flame. He cleared his throat.
‘I have come here to clarify the situation. By arrival in person, some people might judge that I have put myself in a false position. Such is not my own opinion. A person of your kind, Trapnel, has neither the opportunity to observe, nor capacity to understand, the demands laid on a man who takes up the burden of public life. It is therefore necessary that certain facts should be plainly stated. The best person to state them is myself.’
Trapnel listened to this with the air of an accomplished actor. His ‘hollow’ laughter was now followed by a ‘grim’ smile. It was still a performance. Widmerpool had not got him, so to speak, out in the open yet.
‘First,’ said Widmerpool, ‘you borrow money from me.’
Trapnel’s defiance had not been geared to that particular form of attack at that moment. He dropped his acting and looked very angry, quite unsimulated rage.
‘Then you lampoon me in a magazine of which I am one of the chief supporters.’
Trapnel began to smile again at that. If the first accusation put him in a weak position, the second to some extent restored equilibrium.
‘Finally, my wife comes to live with you.’
Widmerpool paused. He too was being melodramatic now. Trapnel had ceased to smile. He was very white. He had lost command of his role as actor. Pamela watched them, still showing no change of expression. Widmerpool must have been to some extent aware that by making Trapnel angry, dislodging him from playing a part, he was moving towards ascendancy.
‘You can keep my pound. Do not bother, when you are next paid for some paltry piece of journalism, to make another attempt to return it – which was, so I understand, your subterfuge for insinuating yourself into my house. The pound does not matter. Forget about it. I make you a present of it.’
Trapnel did not speak.
‘Secondly, I want to express quite clearly my own indifference to your efforts to ridicule