The Military Philosophers - Anthony Powell [87]
Scarcely anything was known still about individual prisoners in Japanese POW camps, except that the lives of many of them had certainly been saved by the Bomb. News came through slowly from the Far East. I asked how Widmerpool could speak so definitely.
‘At the end of last year the Americans sank a Jap transport on the way from Singapore. They rescued some British prisoners on board. They had been in the same camp. One of them got in touch with Stringham’s mother when repatriated. It was only just in time, because Mrs Foxe herself died soon after that, as you probably saw.’
‘I hadn’t.’
He seemed to want to make some further confession.
‘As I expect you know, Mrs Foxe was a very extravagant woman. At the end, she found it not only impossible to live in anything like the way she used, but was even quite short of money.’
‘Stringham himself said something about that when I last saw him.’
‘The irony of the situation is that his mother’s South African money was tied up on Stringham,’ said Widmerpool. ‘Owing to bad management, she never got much out of those securities herself, but a lot of South African stock has recently made a very good recovery.’
‘I suppose Flavia will benefit.’
‘No, she doesn’t, as it turns out,’ said Widmerpool. ‘Rather an odd thing happened. Stringham left a will bequeathing all he had to Pam. He’d always been fond of her as a child. He obviously thought it would be just a few personal odds and ends. As it turns out, there could be a good deal more than that. With the right attention, Stringham’s estate in due course might be nursed into something quite respectable.’
He looked rather guilty, not without reason. We abandoned the subject of Stringham.
‘I don’t pretend Pamela’s an easy girl,’ he said. ‘We fairly often have rows – in fact are not on speaking terms for twenty-four hours or more. Never mind. Rows often clear the air. We shall see it through, whatever my position when I leave the army.’
‘You’ll go back to the City, I suppose?’
‘I’m not so sure.’
‘Other plans?’
‘I have come to the conclusion that I enjoy power,’ said Widmerpool. ‘That is something the war has taught me. In this connexion, it has more than once occurred to me that I might like governing…’
He brought his lips together, then parted them. This contortion formed a phrase, but, the words inaudible, its sense escaped me.
‘Governing whom?’
Leaning forward and smiling, Widmerpool repeated the movement of his lips. This time, although he spoke only in a whisper, the two words were intelligible.
‘Black men …’
‘Abroad?’
‘Naturally.’
‘That’s feasible?’
‘My reputation among those who matter could scarcely be higher.’
‘You mean you could easily get an appointment of that sort?’
‘Nothing in life is ever easy, my boy. Not in the sense you use the term. It is one of the mistakes you always make. The point is, we are going to see great changes. As you know, my leanings have always been leftwards. From what I see round me, I have no reason to suppose such sympathies were mistaken. Men like myself will be needed.’
‘If they are to be found.’
He clapped me on the back.
‘No flattery,’ he said. ‘No flattery, but I sometimes wonder whether you’re not right.’
He looked at his watch and sighed.
‘Being engaged accustoms one to unpunctuality,’ he went on in rather another tone, a less exuberant one. ‘I think I’ll have a word with that old stalwart, Lord Perkins, whom I see over there.’
‘I didn’t know till a moment ago that Perkins was married to Peter Templer’s sister.’
‘Oh, yes. So I believe. I don’t see them as having much in common as brothers-in-law, but one never knows. Unfortunate Templer getting killed like that. He was too old for that sort of business, of course. Stringham, too. I fear the war has taken a sad toll of our friends. I notice Donners over there talking to the Portuguese Ambassador. I must say a word to him too.’
In the seven years or so that had passed since I had last seen him, Sir Magnus Donners had grown not so much older in appearance, as less like a human being. He now resembled an animated tailor