Temporary Kings - Anthony Powell [116]
Pamela’s name did not occur in the letter. At the same time, Gwinnett’s emphasis on Trapnel, in what he wrote, may have been a formality, something to supply basis for communication, felt to be needed, of necessity delicate to express. The Trapnel enquiries were plainly not urgent. In their connexion, Gwinnett spoke of returning to his critical biography only after sufficient time had elapsed to ensure the dissertation’s approach remained objective, ran no risk of being too much coloured by events that concerned himself, rather than his subject. Characteristically, he added that he still believed in ‘aiming at objectivity, however much that method may be currently under fire’. As well as reducing immediate attention to the Trapnel book – though not his own fundamental interest in Trapnel himself – Gwinnett had abandoned academic life as a formal profession for the time being. He might return to the campus one of these days, he said, at the moment he only wanted to ruminate on that possibility. His new job, also teaching, was of quite a different order. He had become instructor of water-skiing at one of the Mediterranean seaside resorts of the Spanish coast. He said he liked the work pretty well.
Gwinnett also touched on Glober’s death. The accident (on the Moyenne Corniche) had been one of those reflecting no marked blame on anyone, except that the car had been travelling at an unusually high speed. A friend of Glober’s, a well-known French racing-driver, had been at the wheel. The story received very thorough press coverage. It was the sort of end Glober himself would have approved. Although the last time I saw him – of which I will speak later – he was with Polly Duport, Match Me Such Marvel was soon after abandoned as a project. No one seemed to know how far things had gone between them in personal relationship. The general view was that her profession, rather than love affairs, came first in her life. She may have been well out of the Glober assignment, because, about a month before Glober died, she acquired a good part (not the lead, one in some ways preferable to that) in a big ‘international’ film made by Clarini, Baby Wentworth’s estranged husband.
I had the impression that Gwinnett and Glober had never much cared for one another. Beyond appreciating the obvious fact of their differing circumstances, I had no well defined comprehension of how they would have mutually reacted in their own country. In his letter, Gwinnett – like Gwinnett in the flesh – remained enigmatic, but he did comment on the way Death (he gave the capital letter) had been in evidence all round. There was nothing in the least obsessive in the manner he treated the subject. He did not, of course, disclose whether he had ‘known’ Pamela’s condition before she came to the hotel. How could he disclose that?
The fact is, Gwinnett must have known. Otherwise there would have been no point in Pamela making the sacrifice of herself. Her act could only be looked upon as a sacrifice – of herself, to herself. So far as sacrifice went, Gwinnett could accept Pamela’s, as much as Iphigenia’s. The sole matter for doubt, in the light of inhibitions existing, not on one side only, was whether, at such a cost, all had been achieved. One hoped so. I wrote a letter back to Gwinnett. I told him how I had seen Glober, without having opportunity to speak with him,