Temporary Kings - Anthony Powell [79]
‘I like to get back as early as possible after work. May prefers that. There’s always a lot to do at home.’
The idea of Bagshaw deferring, in this manner, to domesticity, owning, even renting, a house was an altogether unfamiliar one. In early life, married or single, his quarters had been kept secret. They were in a sense his only secret, everyone always knowing about his love affairs, political standpoint, prospects of changing his job, ups and downs of health. Where he lived was another matter. That was not revealed. One pictured him domiciled less vagrantly than Trapnel, all the same never in connexion with anything so portentous as a house. There was no reason why Bagshaw should not possess a house, nor in general be taken less seriously than other people. No doubt, for his own purposes, he had done a good deal to encourage a view of himself as a grotesque figure, moving through a world of farce. Come to rest in relatively prosperous circumstances, he had now modified the role for which he had formerly typecast himself. Dynamic styles of life required one ‘image’; static, another. How deep these changes went could not be judged. Bagshaw remained devious.
‘We’re a bit north of Primrose Hill. I got the lease on quite favourable terms during the property slump some years after the war, when I left Fission. I shall look forward to hearing all about Professor Gwinnett, when I see you.’
Bagshaw’s house, larger than surmised, was of fairly dilapidated exterior. Waiting on the doorstep, I wondered whether the upper storeys were let off. Children’s voices were to be heard above, one of them making rather a fuss. Children had never played a part in the Bagshaw field of operation. They seemed out of place there. I rang a couple of times, then knocked. The door was opened by a girl of about sixteen or seventeen. Rather vacant in expression, reasonably good-looking, she was not on sight identifiable as member of the family or hired retainer. The point could not be settled, because she turned away without speaking, and set off up some stairs. At first I supposed her a foreign ‘au pair’, speaking no English, possibly seeking an interpreter, but, as she disappeared, she could be heard complaining.
‘All right, I’m coming. Don’t make such a bloody row.’
The protest was a little hysterical as uttered. There was an impression, possibly due to a naturally tuberous figure, that she might be pregnant. That could easily have been a mistaken conclusion. I waited. Several doors could be explored, if no one appeared. I was about to experiment with one of these, when an elderly man, wearing a woollen dressing-gown, came slowly down the stairs up which the girl had departed. It was evident that he did not expect to find me in the hall. His arrival there would pose action of some sort, but, suddenly aware of my presence, he muttered some sort of apology, retreating up the stairs again. Even if Bagshaw’s way of life had in certain respects altered, become more solid, a fundamental pattern of unconventionality remained. The problem of what to do next was solved by the appearance, from a door leading apparently to the basement, of Bagshaw himself.
‘Ah, Nicholas. When did you arrive? How did you get in? Avril opened the door, I suppose. Where is she now? Gone off to quieten the kids, I expect. You haven’t been here long, have you?’
‘No, but a white-haired gentleman came down the stairs just now, apparently seeking help.’
Bagshaw dismissed that.
‘Only my father. May didn’t appear, did she? The gas-cooker’s blown. Come in here, shall we?’
He had changed a good deal since last seen. At that period we did not have a television set, so I had never watched a Bagshaw programme. He looked not only much older, also much more untidy, which once would have seemed hard to achieve. The room we entered was even untidier than Bagshaw himself. The mess there was epic. It seemed half-study, half-nursery,