Temporary Kings - Anthony Powell [82]
‘Not at all.’
‘Try speaking it.’
On the tongue the syllables were no more significant.
‘An old friend.’
‘Of yours?’
‘Both of us.’
‘A hanger-on of Gypsy’s?’
That was just a shot at possibles.
‘Once, I believe. A Fission connexion.’
‘A foreigner?’
‘Not at all.’
‘You’re not suggesting the name’s “Widmerpool”?’
‘What else could it be?’
‘Denounced as – what amounts to being denounced as a Stalinist?’
‘In fact, a Revisionist, I think.’
‘But – ’
‘I always said he was at the game.’
‘Docs a certain Dr Belkin mean anything to you?’
Among the scores of such names proverbial to Bagshaw, Dr Belkin’s did not figure. That did not alter the conviction Bagshaw had already reached about Widmerpool.
‘There have been some odd stories going round about both the Widmerpools since Ferrand-Sénéschal died.’
Bagshaw was not greatly interested in whatever part Pamela had played. It was the political angle he liked.
‘That woman may have invented the whole tale about herself and Ferrand-Sénéschal. A sexual fantasy. It wouldn’t surprise me at all. The denunciations at the trial are another matter. It’s become a routine process. Nagy in Hungary, earlier in the year. Slansky in Czechoslovakia. I’d like to know just what happened about Widmerpool. He probably didn’t move quite quick enough. Might be a double bluff. You can’t tell. He himself could have felt he needed a little of that sort of attention to build up his reputation as an anti-Communist of the extreme Left. Make people think he’s a safe man, because he’s attacked from the Communist end. Pretend he’s an enemy, when he’s really a close friend.’
Bagshaw rambled on. Time came to leave. I was rather glad to go. The Bagshaw house was on the whole lowering to the spirit. Its other members did not appear again, but, when Bagshaw opened the front door, discordant sounds were still audible from the higher floors, together with the noise of loud hammering in the basement. Bagshaw came down the steps.
‘Well, goodbye. I expect you’re hard at work. I’ve been thinking a lot about Widmerpool. He’s a very interesting political specimen.’
The Venetian trip, contrary to the promises of Mark Members, had not renewed energies for writing. All the same, established priorities, personal continuities, the confused scheme of things making up everyday life, all revived, routines proceeding much as before. The Conference settled down in the mind as a kind of dream, one of those dreams laden with the stuff of real life, stopping just the right side of nightmare, yet leaving disturbing undercurrents to haunt the daytime, clogging sources of imagination – whatever those may be – causing their enigmatic flow to ooze more sluggishly than ever, periodically cease entirely.
Gwinnett showed no sign of arrival in England. In the light of his general behaviour, changing moods, estrangement from social life, distaste for doing things in a humdrum fashion, that was not at all surprising. If still engaged in the unenviable labour of sampling first-hand former Trapnel anchorages, he might well judge that enterprise liable to prejudice from outside contacts. Some writers require complete segregation for getting down to a book. Gwinnett could be one of them. He was, in any case, under no obligation to keep me, or anyone else, informed of his movements. He might quite easily have decided that, so far as I was concerned, any crop of Trapnel memories had been sufficiently harvested by him in Venice. When it comes to recapitulation of what is known of a dead friend, for the benefit of a third party (whether or not writing a biography), remnants transmissible in a form at once lucid, unimpeded by subjective considerations, are astonishingly meagre.
I felt a little concerned by being left with the Commonplace Book on my hands, and would have liked opportunity to return it to Gwinnett. Scrappy, much abbreviated, lacking the usual neatness of Trapnel’s holographs, its contents were not without interest to a professional writer, who had also known Trapnel. The notes gave an idea, quite a good