Books Do Furnish a Room - Anthony Powell [89]
A minute later he returned to the sitting-room. He took the sheath-half of the swordstick from the bed, replaced the blade and returned it to the corner by the wardrobe. Then he climbed under the blankets again, and lay back. He looked quite exhausted. Pamela, on the other hand, now showed signs of life. A faint colour had come into her face, a look of excitement I had never before seen there. She smiled. Something unexpected was afoot. She came across the room, and sat down on the bed. Trapnel took one of her hands. He did not speak. Comment came from Pamela this time.
‘I’m glad you were here, Nicholas. I’m glad it all happened in front of someone. I wish there had been a lot more people. Hundreds more. Now you know what my life was like.’
Trapnel patted her hand. He was much shaken. Not well in any case, he was likely to be dissatisfied with the scene that had taken place. He could scarcely be said to have dominated it in the manner of one of his own screen heroes, even if it were better not to have run Widmerpool through, or whatever was in his mind.
‘I do apologize for getting you mixed up with all this, Nick. It wasn’t my fault. How the hell could I guess he was going to turn up here? I thought there wasn’t a living soul knew the address, except one or two shops round here. Private detectives? It makes you think.’
The idea of private detectives obviously fascinated Trapnel’s roman policier leanings, which were highly developed. He was also worried.
‘Will you be awfully good, and keep quiet about all this, Nick? Don’t say a word, for obvious reasons.’
Pamela shook back her hair.
‘Thank you so much for coming, and for bringing the book. I expect we shall see you again here, as we aren’t going out much, as long as X isn’t well. I’ll ring you up, and you can bring another book some time.’
She spoke formally, like a hostess saying goodbye to a visitor she barely knows, who has paid a social call, and now explains that he must leave. A complete change had come over her after the impassivity she had shown until now. Before I could reply, she spoke again, this time abandoning formality.
‘Bugger off – I want to be alone with X.’
5
I left London one Saturday afternoon in the autumn to make some arrangement about a son going to school. Owing to the anomalies of the timetable, the train arrived an hour or so early for the appointment. There was an interval to kill. After a hot summer the weather still remained warm, but, not uncommon in that watery region, drizzle descended steadily, while a feeble sun shone through clouds that hung low over stretches of claret-coloured brick. It was too wet to wander about in the open. For a time I kicked my heels under a colonnade. A bomb had fallen close by. One corner was still enclosed by scaffolding and a tarpaulin. Above the arch, the long upper storey with its row of oblong corniced windows had escaped damage. The period of the architecture – half a century later, but it took little nowadays to recall him – brought Burton to mind; Burton, by implication the art of writing in general. On this subject he knew what he was talking about:
‘ ’Tis not my study or intent to compose neatly … but to express myself readily & plainly as it happens. So that as a River runs sometimes precipitate and swift, then dull and slow; now direct, then winding; now deep, then shallow, now muddy, then clear; now broad, then narrow; doth my style flow; now serious, then light; now comical, then satirical; now more elaborate, then remiss, as the present subject required, or as at the time I was affected.’
Even for those with a prejudice in favour of symmetry, worse rules might be laid down. The antithesis between satire and comedy was especially worth emphasis; also to write as the subject required, or the author thought fit at the moment. One often, when writing, felt a desire to be ‘remiss’. It was good to have that recommended. An important aspect of writing unmentioned by Burton was ‘priority’; what to tell first. That always seemed one of the basic problems.