‘Gwinnett wants the Trapnel ethos, not the best place in London to take a bath.’
‘I see.’
That fact impressed Bagshaw. He thought about it for a moment.
‘Look here, this idea occurred to me as soon as you mentioned your American. Why doesn’t Professor Gwinnett—I mean only when he’s completed his stint of Trapnel ports of call, not before—come and PG with us? The spare room’s free at the moment. Our Japanese statistician went back to Osaka. I think we made him comfortable during his stay. At least he never complained. That may have been Zen, of course, overcoming of illusory dualisms. I got quite interested in Zen while he was with us.’
The idea of lodging with Bagshaw, a guest paying or non-paying, would once have seemed almost as extraordinary as the fact of his possessing a house. Even in the reformed state of his ménage there were disrecommendations. If anyone were to be ‘lodger’, Bagshaw himself had always appeared prototype of the kind, one of Nature’s lodgers; coaxing the landlady, when behind with the rent, seducing her daughter, storing (in his revolutionary days) subversive pamphlets under the bed. He was imaginable in all such stylized circumstances; even meeting his death as a lodger—the Passing of the Third Floor Back, with Bagshaw as the body. Although that picture had to be revised, the thought of paying to live with Bagshaw was still to be accepted with some demur. That was what I felt as Bagshaw himself digressed on the subject.
‘The Icelander, an economist, was rather a turgid fellow, the Eng. Lit. New Zealander, a charming boy. We’re looking for a replacement just like your friend—and what could be better from his point of view, if he’s writing a book about poor old Trappy? I’ll tell you what, Nicholas, I’ll send a line to Professor Gwinnett to await arrival, so that he can arrange to see me whenever it suits his purpose. We’ll have a talk. If all goes well, I’ll suggest he comes and beds down here. I’ll put it this way, that he doesn’t dream of doing any such thing until he’s made an exhaustive study, in depth, of Trapnel haunts, thoroughly absorbed the Trapnel Weltanschauung. That should not take long. The essentials are not difficult to grasp.’
Gwinnett was, after all, well able to look after himself. He needed no surveillance, would resent anything of the sort. Besides, from Gwinnett’s point of view, there was something to be said for hearing about Trapnel, while living side by side with Bagshaw. If he decided that to stay with the Bagshaws was convenient to his purpose, he would do so; if not, either refuse, or after brief trial withdraw. That was the situation. In any case, Gwinnett was not concerned with living a life of ease, but—something very different—living the life of Trapnel. To lodge with the Bagshaws would in no way run counter to that ambition, in spite of Trapnel himself never having undergone the experience. He must have done similar things. At that moment a girl, recognizable as sister of Avril, probably a year or so older, came into the room. She took no notice of us, but knelt down, and began hunting about in the bookcase. She, too, was fairly good-looking.
‘What do you want, Felicity?’
‘A book.’
‘This is Mr Jenkins.’
‘Hullo,’ she said, without turning round.
‘Where’s Stella?’ asked Bagshaw.
‘God knows.’
She found her book, and went away, slamming the door after her. Bagshaw grimaced at the noise.
‘That one’s rather a worry too. Young people are nowadays. It’s either Regan or Goneril. Look here, have you seen this? Only one paper reported the item.’
He searched about among the assortment of journals lying on the floor, indicating a short paragraph on the foreign news page, when he found the special one he wanted. Its subject was a recent state trial in one of the countries of Eastern Europe, action somewhat unexpected in an atmosphere, in general, of relaxed international tension. Representatives of an outgoing Government had been expelled from the Party, and a former police minister, with one or two others, imprisoned by the new administration taking over. No great prominence was being given by the London press to these proceedings, which appeared to be of a fairly stereotyped order in the People’s Republic concerned. That morning a modest headline in my own paper had drawn attention to allegations that some of the accused had been in the pay of the British Secret Service. The three or four persons named as having set out to corrupt members of the fallen Government (together with certain officials and ‘intellectuals’) were all British Communists of some public standing, or at least prominent fellow-travellers, making little or no concealment of their political affiliations; in short, as little likely to be connected with the British Secret Service, as the accused of being in touch with that organization. An additional name, unintelligibly translated, had been put within inverted commas in Bagshaw’s newspaper paragraph.
‘Who is …?’
The row of consonants, unlinked by vowels, was not to be spoken aloud. Bagshaw was quite excited. He was no longer an oppressed family man, nor even a television ‘personality’.
‘Is it one of their own people?’
‘You don’t recognize the name?’
‘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.’
‘Does 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, periodica
lly 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 idea, of what the novel destroyed by Pamela might have been like, had it ever been finished. Certain jottings, not always complimentary, had obvious reference to herself. Clearly obsessive, they were not always possible to interpret. If Pamela had her way, a film based on Profiles in String—more likely on Trapnel’s own life—made by Glober, the Commonplace Book could be of assistance.
If Gwinnett wanted to ‘understand’ Trapnel, two aspects emerged, one general, the other peculiar to Trapnel himself. There was the larger question, why writers, with apparent reserves of energy and ideas, after making a good start, collapse, or fizzle out in inferior work. In Trapnel’s case, that might have been inevitable. On the other hand, its consideration as an isolated instance unavoidably led to Pamela. Gwinnett’s approach, not uncommon among biographers, seemed to be to see himself, at greater or lesser range, as projection of his subject. He aimed, anyway to some extent, at reconstructing in himself Trapnel’s life, getting into Trapnel’s skin, ‘becoming’ Trapnel. Accordingly, if, in the profoundest sense, he were to attempt to discover why Trapnel broke down, failed to surmount troubles, after all, not greatly worse than many other writers had borne—and mastered—the inference could not be dodged that Gwinnett himself must have some sort of a love affair with Pamela. So far as he had revealed his plans, Gwinnett appeared to aim at getting into Trapnel’s skin, but not to that extent. In fact everything about Gwinnett suggested that he did not at all intend to have a love affair with Pamela. If he accepted the possibility, he was playing his cards with subtlety, holding them close to his chest. It was, of course, possible something of the sort had already taken place. Instinctively, one felt that had not happened.
This conjecture was endorsed—anyway in one sense—in an odd manner. To express how things fell out is to lean heavily on hearsay. That is unavoidable. Trapnel himself, speaking as a critic, used to insist that every novel must be told from a given point of view. An extension of that fact is that every story one hears has to be adjusted, in the mind of the listener, to prejudices of the teller; in practice, most listeners increasing, reducing, discarding, much of what they have been told. In this case, the events have to be seen through the eyes of Bagshaw’s father. What Bagshaw himself later related was not necessarily untrue. Bagshaw was in a position to get the first and best account. He must also have been the main channel to release details, even if other members of the household added to the story’s volume. Nevertheless, Bagshaw’s father, in his son’s phrase ‘the man on the spot’, was the only human being who really knew the facts, he himself only some of them.
The first indication that Gwinnett had accepted Bagshaw’s offer, gone to live in the house, was a story purporting to explain why he had left. This was towards Christmas. It looks as if the alleged happenings were broadcast to the world almost immediately after taking place, but only a long time later did I hear them from Bagshaw’s own lips. Dating is possible, because, on that occasion, Bagshaw made a great point of the Christmas decorations being up, imparting a jovial grotesqueness to the scene. Knowledge of the Christmas decorations did certainly add something. Through thick and thin, Bagshaw always retained vestiges of a view of life suggesting a thwarted artist, no doubt the side that finally brought him where he was.
‘My father enacted the whole extraordinary incident under a sprig of mistletoe. In the middle of it all, some of the holly came down, with that extraordinary scratchy noise holly makes.’
Although I had not expected Bagshaw’s father to be descending the stairs in his dressing-gown, when I called at the house, I had, in the distant past, more than once heard Bagshaw speak of him. They were on good terms. Even in those days, that had seemed a matter of interest in the light of the manner Bagshaw himself used to go on. Bagshaw senior had been in the insurance business, not a notable success in his profession, being neither energetic nor ambitious, but with the valuable quality that he was prepared to put up in a good-natured spirit with his son’s irregularities of conduct. On this account there was a certain justice in Bagshaw Apparently more or less supporting his father in retirement.
Mr Bagshaw had risen in the night to relieve himself. He was making his way to a bathroom in, or on the way down to, the basement. This fact at once raises questions as to the recesses of the Bagshaws’ house, its interior architectural complications. An upper lavatory may not have existed, been out of order, possibly occupied, in view of what took place later. On the other hand, some preference or quirk may have brought him downstairs. He could have been making a similar journey, when I had seen him. Perhaps sleeping pills, digestive mixtures, medicaments of some sort, were deposited at this lower level. The essential thing was that Mr Bagshaw had to pass through the hall.
It seems to have been a mild night for the time of year. That did not prevent Mr Bagshaw from being surprised, even for a moment startled, when, turning on one of the lights, he saw a naked woman standing in the passage or hall. Here again the narrative lacks absolute positiveness. In a sense, the truth of its essential features is almost strengthened by the comparative unimportance adjudged to exact locality. Bagshaw’s insistence on the mistletoe suggests the hall; other circumstances, a half-landing, or alcove, on the first-floor; not uncommon in a house of that date, possibly also offering a suitable nook or niche for mistletoe.
Bagshaw’s father, short-sighted, had not brought his spectacles with him. His immediate assumption was that the dimly outlined female shape was one of his son’s stepchildren, who, having taken a bath at a relatively unorthodox hour, had considered dressing not worth while for making the short transit required to her bedroom. Bagshaw, telling the story, admitted the girls behaved in a sufficiently unmethodical, not to say disordered manner, to make that possibility by no means out of the question. What seemed to have caused his father most surprise was not so much lack of clothing, but extinction of all movement. The naked lady was lost in thought, standing as if in silent vigil.
Mr Bagshaw made a conventional remark to the effect that she ‘must not catch cold’. Then, probably owing to receiving no reply, grasped that he was not speaking to one of the family. He may also, in spite of his poor sight, have observed the lady’s hair was grey, even if scarcely seeing well enough to appreciate threads of strawberry-pink caught by artificial light. Whatever he did or did not take in, one must concur in Bagshaw’s praise of his father for showing good sense, in no manner panicking at this unforeseen eventuality. At one time or another, he had undoubtedly experienced testing incidents in the course of existence with Bagshaw as a son, but by then he was a man of a certain age, and, however happy-go-lucky the atmosphere of the household, this was exceptional. Speculation as to what Mr Bagshaw thought is really beside the point. What happened was that (as when I myself saw him) he muttered an a
pology, and moved on; his comportment model of what every elderly gentleman might hope to display in similar circumstances.
Whether or not he associated in his mind the midnight nymph with Gwinnett is another matter. Gwinnett by then had lived in the house some little time, probably a couple of months. Equally unknown is how Pamela, in the first instance, effected entry into the Bagshaw house. Even Bagshaw himself never claimed to be positive about that. His theory was she had somehow ascertained the whereabouts of Gwinnett’s bedroom, then more or less broken in. That seems over-dramatic, if not infeasible. A more probable explanation, that one of the stepdaughters, the rather dotty, possibly pregnant one likeliest, had admitted her earlier in the evening, then denied doing so during subsequent investigations; Pamela finding Gwinnett in his room, or waiting there for his return. If the former, the two of them, Pamela and Gwinnett, had spent quite a long time, several hours, in the bedroom together, before Bagshaw’s father encountered her, wherever he did, in an unclothed state.
She was no longer in the hall, or on the half-landing, when Mr Bagshaw reappeared on his return journey. He seems to have taken this as philosophically as he had earlier sight of her, simply retiring to bed again. If he hoped after that for a good night’s rest, that hope was nullified by a further complication, a more ominous one. This development had taken place while he was himself down in the basement incommunicado. Bagshaw’s other stepdaughter, Felicity, now played a part. Woken by the interchange, slight as that had been, between Pamela and Bagshaw’s father, or (another possibility) herself cause of Mr Bagshaw’s descent to the basement by excluding him from an upstairs retreat, perhaps noticing the light on, came down to see what was afoot. She was faced with the same spectacle, a slim grey-haired lady wearing no clothes. Bagshaw, when he spoke of the matter, added a gloss to the circumstances.
‘The truth seems to be—I’d noticed it myself—Felicity had taken a fancy to Gwinnett. That was why she drew the obvious conclusions, and kicked up the hell of a row. So far as I know, Gwinnett hadn’t made any sort of a pass at her. Perhaps that was what made her so keen on him. Before you could quote Proudhon’s phrase about equilibrium of competition, her sister Stella heard the talking, and came down too. The whole lot were quarrelling like wild cats.’