‘You can’t help admiring the way Gypsy does things. Good old hard-core stuff. You know the trouble about the Stevens book – thought to bring discredit on the Party. Gypsy’s performed one of those feats that most people don’t think of on account of their ruthless simplicity. She has quite simply liquidated the manuscript. Both copies.’
‘Aren’t there more than two copies?’
‘Apparently not.’
‘How did she get hold of them?’
‘After much argument, the original MS had been sent to the printer to be cast off. It was to be allowed to go ahead anyway as far as proof. Then Howard said he’d like to reread the book in peaceful surroundings, so he borrowed the carbon, and took it home with him. A day or two later, Gypsy, that’s her story, thought it was another manuscript Howard had asked her to post to Len Pugsley – who sometimes does reading for the firm, he poked Gypsy briefly – and Len says the parcel never arrived. He was moving house at the time. Stevens’s carbon seems to have gone astray between the Oval and Chalk Farm. Meanwhile, the printers got a telephone message, the origins of which no one can trace, to send back the MS they were to cast off. There was some question about it to be settled editorially. Now that copy can’t be found either.’
‘Stevens will have to write it again?’
‘That’s where the neatness of the sabotage comes in. Rewriting will take a longish time. By the time it’s finished the poor impression Stevens gives of the Comrades and their behaviour will, with any luck, be out of date – anyway in the eyes of the reading public. At worst, all ancient history.’
‘How’s Stevens taking the loss?’
‘He’s pretty cross. Can you blame him? The more interesting point is that Rosie Manasch is very cross too. In fact she’s withdrawn her support from the mag in consequence of her crossness with Quiggin & Craggs as a firm. That’s awkward, because – though personally I think a lot of unnecessary fuss was made about the Trapnel parody – the rest of the board don’t feel it a good moment to stir up Widmerpool.’
‘Is Stevens getting compensation?’
‘You haven’t studied the writing paper. The greatest care is taken of manuscripts, but no responsibility. However, they’ve allowed the contract to be cancelled.’
‘That was handsome.’
Compared with the Stevens row, the disappointment caused by Sillery’s Diary, after all the haggling about terms, and high advance, was a minor blow, though again there were repercussions. The extracts were called Garnered at Sunset: Leaves from an Edwardian Journal.
‘A masterpiece of dullness,’ said Bagshaw. ‘JG read it. Howard read it. For once they were in complete agreement. The only thing to do will be to publish, and hope for the best. I’m surprised at Ada. She’s strung them along over Sillery.’
Ada’s policy in the matter, as not seldom, was enigmatic, probably dictated by a mixture of antagonistic considerations. The Diary, seen as one of the paths to a career, had not been truly subjected to her usually sharp judgment. Its lack of interest had been obscured by inner workings of the curious kind of flirtation she and Sillery had shared. Those elements might be put forward as excuse for the recommendation. It was also possible, knowing Sillery as she did, that Ada had genuinely found Garnered at Sunset absorbing. Publishers’ readers, as Quiggin remarked, are no less subjective than other animals. It might be thought that this critical lapse on Ada’s part would have prejudiced her position in the firm. On the contrary, nothing more retributive was visited on her than that Quiggin proposed marriage.
Bagshaw suggested that an emotional scene contingent on some sort of reprimand on the subject of the Sillery Journal, had brought things to a head, but there can be no doubt an offer of marriage was already at the back of Quiggin’s mind. The fact that the firm was moving towards a close had nothing to do with it. He was accepted. As a married man, the place he had found on the board of Clapham’s firm would be advantageous; on the whole a step forward in a publishing career. The two of them were quietly married one August afternoon before the Registrar; Mark Members and L. O. Salvidge, witnesses. Craggs and Gypsy were not asked. Craggs had announced he was going into semi-retirement when the firm closed down, but it seemed likely that he would continue his activities, at least in an inconspicuous manner, with many little interests of a political sort that had always engrossed him. All these things played a part, others too, in the winding up of Quiggin & Craggs, representative of common enough impediments to running a publishing house; exceptional, in as much as they were exceptional, only on account of the individuals concerned. The climax, in an odd way, seemed to be the night spent with Trapnel and Bagshaw. That had been rather different. By then, in any case, both magazine and publishing business had received the death sentence. All the same that night – the symbolic awfulness of its events – was something to put a seal on the whole affair. It confirmed several other things too.
Matters had begun with a telephone call from Bagshaw at about half-past nine one evening four or five weeks before. From the opening sentences it was clear he was drunk, less clear what he wanted. At first the object seemed no more than a chat about the sadness of life, perhaps a long one, but entailing merely a sympathetic hearing. That was too good to be true. It soon grew plain some request was going to be made. Even then, what the demand would be became only gradually apparent.
‘As the mag’s closing down, I thought a small celebration would be justified.’
‘So you said, Books. You’ve said that twice.’
‘Sorry, sorry. The fact is everything always comes at once. Look, Nicholas, I want your help. I’d already decided on this small celebration, when Trappy got in touch with me at the office. He rang up himself, which, as you know, he doesn’t often do. He’s in a lot of trouble. This girl, I mean.’
‘Pamela Widmerpool?’
It was as well to make sure.
‘That’s the one.’
The fact that Pamela might be Widmerpool’s wife had made, from his tone of voice, little or no serious impact on Bagshaw. He clearly thought of her as one, among many, of Trapnel’s girls … Tessa … Pat … Sally … Pauline … any of the Trapnel girls Bagshaw himself had known in the course of their acquaintance.
‘What’s happened?’
‘They’ve had some row about his novel – you know the one – what – can’t quite – ’
He made a tremendous effort, but I had to intervene.
‘Profiles in String?’
‘That’s the book. He’s tremendously pleased with it, but can’t decide about an ending. He wants one, she wants another.’
‘Trapnel’s writing the bloody book, isn’t he?’
Bagshaw was shocked at this disregard for authority conferred by a love attachment.
‘Trappy was upset. They had a row. Now he doesn’t want to go back and find she’s left. She may have done. He wants someone to go back with him. Soften the blow. I said I’d do that.’
‘Look, Books, why are you telling me all this?’
‘I was quite willing to do that. See him home, I mean. Trappy and I went to the pub to talk things over. You know how it is. I’m not quite sure I can get him back unaided.’
‘Do you mean he’s passed out?’
Bagshaw was insulted at the suggestion that such a fate might have overtaken any friend of his.
‘Not in the least. It’s just he’s in a bit of a state. Sort of nervous condition. That’s what I’m coming to. It’s really an awful lot to ask. Would it be too great an infliction for you to come along and lend a hand?’
‘Is it those pills?’
‘Might be.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Not far from Trappy’s flat. Once we’ve got him under way there’ll be nothing to it.’
Bagshaw named a pub I had never heard of, but, from the description of its locality, evidently not far from Trapnel’s base, assuming that unchanged from the night I had visited him. Since that night I had heard nothing of him or Pamela. She ha
d not rung up to ask for further books to review. The L. O. Salvidge notice had never been sent in. Salvidge was aggrieved. Trapnel ceased altogether to be a contributor to Fission in its latter days.
‘Can he walk?’
‘Of course he can walk – at least I think so. It’s not walking I’m worried about, just I don’t know how he’ll behave when he gets into the open. After all, which of us does? You’d be a great support, Nicholas, if you could manage to come along. You always get on all right with Trappy, which is more than some do. I’m full of apologies for asking this.’
Although in most respects quite different, the situation seemed to present certain points in common with conducting Bithel, collapsed on the pavement, back to G Mess; restoring Stringham to his flat after the Old Boy dinner. In some sense history was repeating itself, though incapacity to walk seemed not Trapnel’s disability.
‘All right, I’ll be along as soon as I can.’
Isobel was unimpressed by this call for help. There was much to be said for her view of it. Now that Bagshaw was off the line, compliance took the shape of moral weakness, rather than altruism or benevolence.
‘Looking after Trapnel’s becoming monotonous. Is Mrs Widmerpool still his true-love?’
‘She’s what the trouble’s about.’
The pub turned out to be another of Bagshaw’s obscure, characterless drinking places, this time off the Edgware Road. It was fairly empty. Bagshaw and Trapnel were at a table in the corner, both perfectly well behaved. Closer investigation showed Bagshaw as drunk in his own very personal manner, that is to say he would become no drunker however much consumed. There was never any question of going under completely, or being unable to find his way home. Trapnel, on the other hand, did not at first show any sign of being drunk at all. He had abandoned his dark lenses. Possibly he only wore them in hard winters. He was sitting, quietly smiling to himself, hunched over the death’s-head stick.
‘Hullo, Nick. I’ve just been talking to Books about a critical work I’m planning. It’s to be called The Heresy of Naturalism. People can’t get it right about Naturalism. They think if a writer like me writes the sort of books I do, it’s because that’s easier, or necessary nowadays. You just look round at what’s happening and shove it all down. They can’t understand that’s not in the least the case. It’s just as selective, just as artificial, as if the characters were kings and queens speaking in blank verse.’
‘Some of them are queens,’ said Bagshaw.
‘Do listen, Books. You’ll profit by it. What I’m getting at is that if you took a tape-recording of two people having a grind it might truly be called Naturalism, it might be funny, it might be sexually exciting, it might even be beautiful, it wouldn’t be art. It would just be two people having a grind.’
‘But, look here, Trappy — ’
‘All right, they don’t have to be revelling in bed. Suppose you took a tape-recording of the most passionate, most moving love scene, a couple who’d – oh, God, I don’t know – something very moving about their love and its circumstances. The incident, their words, the whole thing, it gets accidentally taped. Unknown to them the machine’s been left on by mistake. Anything you like. Some wonderful objet trouvé of that sort. Do you suppose it would come out as it should? Of course it wouldn’t. There are certain forms of human behaviour no actor can really play, no matter how good he is. It’s the same in life. Human beings aren’t subtle enough to play their part. That’s where art comes in.’
‘All I said was that Tolstoy —’
‘Do keep quiet, Books. You’ve missed the point. What I mean is that if, as a novelist, you put over something that hasn’t been put over before, you’ve done the trick. A novelist’s like a fortune-teller, who can impart certain information, but not necessarily what the reader wants to hear. It may be disagreeable or extraneous. The novelist just has to dispense it. He can’t choose.’
‘All I said was, Trappy, that personally I preferred Realism – Naturalism, if you wish – just as I’ve a taste for political content. That’s how Tolstoy came in. It’s like life.’
‘But Naturalism’s only “like” life, if the novelist himself is any good. If he isn’t any good, it doesn’t matter whether he writes naturalistically or any other way. What could be less “like” life than most of the naturalistic novels that appear? If he’s any good, it doesn’t matter if his characters talk like Disraeli’s, or incidents occur like Vautrin, smoking a cigar and dressed up as a Spanish abbé, persuades Lucien de Rubempré not to drown himself. Is Oliver Twist a failure as a novel because Oliver, a workhouse boy, always speaks with exquisite refinement? As for politics, who cares which way Trimalchio voted, or that he was a bit temperamental towards his slaves?’
‘Trappy – no, wait, let me speak – all this started by my saying that, just as masochism’s only sadism towards yourself, revolutions only reconcentrate the centre of gravity of authority, and, if you wish, of oppression. The people who feel they suffer from authority and oppression want to be authoritative and oppressive. I was just illustrating that by something or other I thought came in Tolstoy.’
‘But, Books, you said Tolstoy wrote “like” life, because he was naturalistic. I contend that his characters aren’t any more “like” – in fact aren’t as “like” – as, say, Dostoevsky’s at their craziest. Of course Tolstoy’s inordinately brilliant. In spite of all the sentimentality and moralizing, he’s never boring – at least never in one sense. The material’s inconceivably well arranged as a rule, the dialogue’s never less than convincing. The fact remains, Anna Karenin’s a glorified magazine story, a magazine story of the highest genius, but still a magazine story in that it tells the reader what he wants to hear, never what he doesn’t want to hear.’
‘Trappy, I won’t have you say that sort of thing about Tolstoy, though of course Dostoevsky’s more explicit when it comes to exhibiting the Marxist contention that any action’s justified—’
‘Do stop about Marxism, Books. Marxism has nothing to do with what I’m talking about. I’m talking about Naturalism. I’m in favour of Naturalism. I write that way myself. All I want to make clear is that it’s just a way of writing a novel like any other, just as contrived, just as selective. Do you call Hemingway’s impotent good guy naturalistic? Think what Dostoevsky would have made of him. After all, Dostoevsky did deal with an impotent good guy in love with a bitch, when he wrote The Idiot.’
Bagshaw was silenced for the moment. Trapnel was undoubtedly in an exceptionally excited state, unable to stop pouring out his views. He took a gulp of beer. The pause made comment possible.
‘We don’t know for certain that Myshkin was impotent.’
‘Myshkin was as near impotent as doesn’t matter, Nick. In any case Hemingway would never allow a hero of his to be made a fool of. To that extent he’s not naturalistic. Most forms of naturalistic happening are expressed in grotesque irrational trivialities, not tight-lipped heroisms. Hemingway’s is only one special form of Naturalism. The same goes for Scott Fitzgerald’s romantic-hearted gangster. Henry James would have done an equally good job on him in non-naturalistic terms. Most of the gangsters of the classic vintage were queer anyway. James might have delicately conveyed that as an additional complication to Gatsby’s love.’
Before literary values could be finally hammered out in a manner satisfactory to all parties, the pub closed. We moved from the table, Trapnel still talking. In the street his incoherent, distracted state of mind was much more apparent. He was certainly in a bad way. All the talk about writing, its flow not greatly different from the termination of any evening in his company, was just a question of putting off the evil hour of having to face his own personal problems. No doubt he had gone into these to some extent with Bagshaw earlier. They had then started up the politico-literary imbroglio in progress when I arrived at the pub. Now, even if nothing were said about Pamela, the problem of getting him home was posed. He was, as Bagshaw so positively believed, perfectly able to walk.
There was no difficulty about that. His manner was the disturbing element. An air of dreadful nervousness had descended on him. Now that he had ceased to argue about writing, he seemed to have lost all powers of decision in other matters. He stood there shaking, as if he were afraid. This could have been the consequence of lack of proper food, drinking, pills, or the mere fact of being emotionally upset. Burton had noticed such a condition. ‘Cousin-german to sorrow is fear, or rather sister, fidus Achates, and continual companion.’ That was just how Trapnel looked, a man weighed down by sorrow and fear. Suddenly he reeled. Bagshaw stepped towards him.
‘Hold up, Trappy. You’re tight.’
That was a fatal remark. Not only did open expression of that opinion make Trapnel very indignant, it also had the effect of physically increasing, anyway for the moment, the lack of control that was overcoming him. Trapnel always hated any suggestion that limits existed to his own powers of alcoholic assimilation. Bagshaw must already have known that. The fact that his comment was true made it no more excusable, except for being equally applicable to Bagshaw himself.
‘Tight? I’m always being asked by people how it is I’m never drunk, however much I put back. They can’t make it out. I can finish a bottle of brandy at a sitting, get up sober as when I started. Drink just doesn’t have any effect on me. You don’t suppose the few halves of bitter we’ve had tonight made me drunk, Books, do you? It’s you who are a little tipsy, my boy. You’ve rather a weak head.’
He waved his stick. If the contrast had to be made, this described their capacities in reverse. Bagshaw took it well, having made the initial error by his comment.
‘Drunk or sober, we can none of us stand here all night. Shall we head for your place, Trappy?’
This suggestion had a steadying, immediately subduing effect on Trapnel. He seemed to remember suddenly all he had been trying to forget. The outward appearance of drunkenness left him at once. He might have swallowed an instant sedative. The state of utter dejection returned. He spoke to Bagshaw quietly, almost humbly.