The Kindly Ones - Anthony Powell [73]
‘How do you like Albert?’
‘Get along with Albert, as you call him, like a house on fire – but it’s a pretty dead-and-alive hole to live in, I can tell you. It’s the sort of town where you feel hellishly randy all the time. I’ve got quite a bit of work to do in the way of sorting out my own affairs. That keeps me going during the day. But there’s nothing whatever to do in the evenings. I go to a flick sometimes. The girls are a nightmare. We’d better go out and get drunk together tonight. Make you forget about your uncle. Has he left you anything?’
‘Doubt if he’d anything to leave.’
‘Never mind. You’ll get over it. I’d like to have a talk with you about Widmerpool.’
This intermittent conversation had taken us through most of dinner. I felt scarcely more drawn to Duport than on the day we first met. He was like Peter Templer, with all sympathetic characteristics removed. There was even a slight physical resemblance between the two of them. I wondered if one of those curious, semi-incestuous instincts of attraction had brought Jean to Duport in the first place, or whether Templer and Duport had become alike by seeing a good deal of each other as brothers-in-law and in the City. Duport, I knew, suffered financial crises from time to time. For a period he would live luxuriously, then all his money would disappear. This capacity for making money, combined with inability to keep it, was mysterious to me. I had once said something of the sort to Templer, when he complained of his brother-in-law’s instability.
‘Oh, Bob knows he will be able to recoup in quite a short time,’ Templer had said. ‘Doesn’t worry him, any more than it worries you that you will be able to write the review of some book when it appears next year. You’ll have something to say, Bob’ll find a way of making money. It’s only momentary inconvenience, due to his own idiocy. It’s not making the money presents the difficulty, it’s keeping his schemes in bounds – not landing in jail.’
I could see the force of these words. They probably explained Duport’s present situation. From what Templer used to say of him – from what Jean used to say of him – I knew quite a lot of Duport. At the same time, there were other things I should not at all have minded hearing about, which only Duport could tell me. I was aware that to probe in this manner was to play with fire, that it would probably be wiser to remain in ignorance of the kind of thing which I was curious to know. However, I saw, too, there was really no escape. I was fated to spend an evening in Duport’s company. While I was about it, I might as well hear what I wanted to hear, no matter what the risk. Like Uncle Giles’s failings, all was no doubt written in the stars.
‘Where shall we go?’
‘The bar of the Royal.’
For a time we walked in silence towards the sea-front, the warm night hinting at more seductive pursuits than drinking with Duport.
‘News doesn’t look very good,’ I said. ‘Do you think the Germans are going into Poland?’
There seemed no particular object in avoiding banality from the start, as the evening showed every sign of developing into a banal one.
‘There’s bloody well going to be a war,’ said Duport, ‘you can ease your mind about that. If I’d been in South America, I’d have sweated it out there. Might in any case. Still, I suppose currency restrictions would make things difficult. I’ve always been interested in British Guiana aluminium. That might offer something. I’ll recount some of my recent adventures in regard to the international situation when we’ve had some drinks. Did you meet Peter Templer’s wife at Stourwater?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did you think of her?’
‘Something’s gone a bit adrift,