Temporary Kings

  ‘Why, hullo?’

  There was a pause at the other end of the line. I was not sure we had not been cut off. Then Gwinnett cleared his throat.

  ‘Can we have a talk?’

  ‘Of course. When?’

  He seemed undecided. While he was thinking, I looked to see the time. It was well after six.

  ‘Now, if you like. We could have a drink somewhere.’

  ‘I can’t manage right now.’

  There was another long pause. He seemed to regret having called. At least he sounded as if he required help in making up his mind whether or not to ring off. It looked as if he would do that, unless I could suggest an alternative. I had no plans for the evening. Dinner with Gwinnett would solve that problem. In an odd way, prospect of his company gave a sense of adventure.

  ‘How about dining together?’

  Gwinnett considered the proposal for some seconds. The idea seemed not greatly to appeal, but in the end he concurred. ‘OK.’

  He made it sound a concession.

  ‘Where shall that be?’

  ‘Not in the hotel, I guess.’

  ‘I agree.’

  Talk took place about restaurants. Gwinnett showed himself unexpectedly knowledgeable. In this, as in other matters, he was a dark horse. We fixed on one at last, arranging to meet at the table. He showed no immediate sign of getting off the line, but did not speak, nor appear, at that juncture, to have more to say.

  ‘Eight o’clock then?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  ‘OK.’

  I hung up. He was not an easy man. All the same, I liked him. Later, at the restaurant, he turned up punctually. The fact that I liked him was just as well, otherwise dinner, anyway at the start, would have been tedious. I had supposed, rather complacently, that Gwinnett wanted to talk about his assignation with Pamela; report on it, ask an opinion, perhaps discuss future tactics. As the meal progressed, he showed no sign of approaching that subject. The appointment might well have foundered. Nothing was more probable. The more one thought about it, the less likely seemed any possibility of Pamela having turned up. Gwinnett had almost certainly waited, perhaps for an hour or two, in the porch of the Basilica, then trudged back to the hotel. That was the picture. In any case, now we were together, he had to be allowed to approach the matter On his own terms. To force an issue would be fatal. Without going into details about Tokenhouse, I mentioned meeting Glober at the Biennale, lunching in his company. Gwinnett showed no interest. He talked of Conference matters. He was preparing a report for his College. The College, so it appeared, had arranged his attendance with that in view, the Venetian visit combined with London, for Trapnel research. He asked if I had known Dr Brightman for long.

  ‘I met her for the first time here. I’d read some of her books.’

  Gwinnett spoke highly of Dr Brightman, the good impression she had made on the Faculty, when exchange professor, her influence on his own way of looking at things. He said all that quite simply, in the manner Americans achieve, without self-consciousness or affectation, serious comment that, in English terms, would require – at least almost certainly receive – less direct unvarnished treatment. He let fall that his family had moved to New England after the Civil War. The impression was of an unusual, rather lonely young man, who had sustained a kind of intellectual nourishment from an older woman, with whom no sort of cross-currents of gender, not the slightest, were in question. I still wondered what was his trouble, the wound that had somehow maimed him. Dr Brightman must have been understanding about whatever that might be. Dinner was nearly at an end, when, quite suddenly, he turned to the subject of Pamela. This employment of two personalities in himself was possibly deliberate; voluntary or involuntary, characteristic of him.

  ‘She showed up at San Marco.’

  ‘She did?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Gwinnett’s follow-up took so long to arrive that there were moments when it looked as if these words were all the information he proposed to give about the meeting.

  ‘Is she likely to produce any usable Trapnel material?’

  His silence extorted that. Gwinnett did not answer the question. Instead, he suggested we should leave the restaurant, drink more coffee elsewhere.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Where shall we go?’

  ‘Florian’s?’

  ‘OK.’

  As soon as we were outside he began about Pamela. What he had to say may have seemed easier to express in comparative darkness of the street, rather than across the table at an over brightly lighted restaurant. Now he sounded thoroughly excited, not at all inert.

  ‘I’m going to meet her in London.’

  ‘That sounds all right.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did she suggest that?’

  ‘Yes – when she saw me in San Marco.’

  ‘The interview there went off well?’

  ‘She turned up on time.’

  ‘That in itself must have been a surprise.’

  Gwinnett laughed uneasily. He was evidently making a great effort, no doubt for the sake of his book, to be clear, uncomplicated, unlike how he usually felt, how at least he behaved.

  ‘You know how dark it is in the Basilica? I was standing by the doors. I didn’t recognize her for a moment, although I was thinking I must be careful not to miss her. She had dressed up all in black, a skirt, dark glasses, a kind of mantilla. She looked – I just don’t know how to put it. I was almost scared. She didn’t say a word. She took me by the hand, down one of those side aisles. It was the darkest part of the church. She stopped behind a pillar, a place she seemed to know already.’

  Gwinnett was momentarily prevented from continuing his story by thickening of the crowd, as we approached the Piazza along a narrow street, necessitating our own advance in single file. Two nuns passed. Gwinnett turned back, indicating them.

  ‘Do you know the first thing Lady Widmerpool said? She asked if the place we were in didn’t make me want to turn to the religious life?’

  ‘How did you answer that one?’

  ‘I said it might be a good experience for some people. It wasn’t one I felt drawn to myself. I asked if she herself was thinking of taking the veil.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘I said her clothes looked more religious than in the Palazzo.’

  ‘How did she take that?’

  ‘She laughed. She said she often felt that way. I wasn’t all that surprised. It fits in.’

  The comment showed Gwinnett no beginner in female psychology. He and Pamela might be well matched. This was the first outward indication of a mystic side to her. Gwinnett for the moment had shaken off his own constraint.

  ‘I began to speak of Trapnel. She listened, but didn’t give much away. The next thing did startle me.’

  He gave an embarrassed laugh.

  ‘She grabbed hold of me,’ he said.

  ‘You mean — ’

  ‘Just that.’

  ‘By the balls?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Literally?’

  ‘Quite literally. Then she hinted the story about Ferrand-Sénéschal was true.’

  Coming out from under the pillars, we entered the Piazza. The square was packed with people. They trailed rhythmically backwards and forwards like the huge chorus of an opera. One of the caffè orchestras was playing selections from The Merry Widow, Widmerpool’s favourite waltz, he had said, just before Barbara Goring poured sugar over his head. The termination of the Pamela story had to be left in Gwinnett’s discretion. It was not to be crudely probed.

  ‘That was when she told me to call her up when I got to London. I just said I’d do that.’

  ‘By that time she’d let go – or was she still holding on?’

  He laughed. He seemed past embarrassment now.

  ‘I’d disengaged her – told her to lay off.’

  ‘How did she take that?’

  ‘OK. She laughe
d the way she does. Then she took off.’

  ‘To contemplate the religious life elsewhere?’

  Gwinnett did not offer an opinion on that point.

  ‘You heard no more from her about Trapnel?’

  ‘Not a word.’

  Most of the tables at Florian’s seemed occupied. People from the Conference were scattered about among multitudes of tourists. Gwinnett and I moved this way or that through the crowded café, trying to find somewhere to sit. Then two chairs were vacated near the band. Making for them, we were about to settle down, when someone from the next table called out. They were a party of four, revealed to be Rosie Manasch – Rosie Stevens now for some years – her husband, Odo Stevens, and an American couple.

  ‘Switch the chairs round and join us,’ said Stevens. ‘We’ve just finished a Greek cruise, staying in Venice a day or two to get our breath.’

  Rosie introduced the Americans, middle-aged to elderly, immensely presentable. I played Gwinnett in return. It was more characteristic of Stevens than his wife that Gwinnett and I should not be allowed to sit by ourselves. Like Glober, he had a taste for forming courts. He was a little piqued, or pretended to be, at hearing about the Conference.

  ‘Why do I never get asked to these international affairs? Not a grand enough writer, I suppose. Who’s turned up? Mark Members? Quentin Shuckerly? The usual crowd?’

  Now in his early forties, Odo Stevens, less unchanged than Rosie, had salvaged a fair amount of the bounce associated with his earlier days; Rosie, for her part, entirely retaining an intrinsic air of plump little queen of the harem. Having decided, possibly on sight, to marry Stevens, she seemed perfectly satisfied now the step was taken. So far as that went, so did Stevens. They had two or three children. There had been ups and downs during the years preceding marriage, but these had been survived, the chief discord when Matilda Donners had shown signs of wanting to capture Stevens for herself. Owing either to Matilda’s tactical inferiority, or loss of interest in the prize, nothing had come of that, Rosie carrying Stevens off in the end. His temporary seizure by Matilda may have been planned more as a foray into her rival’s territory – war considered as a mere extension of foreign policy – a sortie into the enemy’s country, not intended as permanent advance beyond foremost defended localities, already recognized as such. At the time, Rosie took the aggression calmly, in that spirit preparing for withdrawal just as far as necessary, never losing her head. Matilda’s punitive raid was, so to speak, driven off in due course, after admittedly inflicting a certain measure of casualty; both sides afterwards possessing some claim to have achieved their objective. During this little campaign, explosive while it lasted, Stevens was rumoured to have gone with Matilda to Ischia.

  The battle over Stevens could claim a certain continuity from the past, Matilda and Rosie not only rivals at giving parties, but Rosie’s first husband, Jock Udall, having belonged to a newspaper-owning family traditionally opposed to Sir Magnus Donners and all his works. Some thought the pivot of the Ischia incident Stevens himself, bringing pressure on Rosie to force marriage. If so, the manoeuvre was successful. When his body was finally recovered from the battlefield, marriage took place, although only after a decent interval, to purge his contempt. The story that Stevens had given Rosie a black eye during these troubled times was never corroborated. After marriage, a greater docility was, on the contrary, evident in Stevens. He hovered about on the outskirts of the literary world, writing an occasional article, reviewing an occasional book. It was generally supposed he might have liked some regular occupation, but Rosie would not allow that, imposing idleness on her husband as a kind of eternal punishment for the brief scamper with Matilda. Stevens had never repeated the success of Sad Majors, a work distinguished, in its way, among examples of what its author called ‘that dicey art-form, the war reminiscence’. The often promised book of verse – ‘verse, not poetry’, Stevens always insisted – had never appeared. I had heard it suggested that Stevens worked part-time for the Secret Service. War record, general abilities, way of life, none of them controverted that possibility, though equally the suggestion may have been quite groundless. When Rosie, and the two Americans, began to talk to Gwinnett, Stevens swivelled his chair round in my direction.

  ‘Do you know who’s in this town, Nick?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My old girl friend Pam Flitton. I saw her wandering across the Piazzetta soon after we arrived. She didn’t see me.’

  He spoke in a dramatically low voice. There was no doubt a touch of facetiousness in pretending his wartime affair with Pamela was a desperate secret from his wife, even if true he was more than a little in awe of Rosie.

  ‘She’s staying with someone called Jacky Bragadin. Both the Widmerpools are.’

  ‘Somebody called Jacky Bragadin? Don’t be so snobbish, old cock. I know Jack Bragadin. Rosie’s known him for years. He was a friend of her father’s. He once came to a party of ours in London. Don’t try and play down your smart friends, as if I was too dim to have heard of them. We were actually thinking of ringing Jacky up tomorrow, asking if we could come and see him.’

  ‘Keep calm, Odo. He’s not a friend of mine. I never met him before the Conference went over his Palazzo. That was how I knew the Widmerpools were staying with Jacky Bragadin.’

  Rosie caught the name. She left the Americans to chat together with Gwinnett, who had assumed, with his compatriots, a blunt, matter-of-fact, all-purposes air.

  ‘Did you mention Jacky Bragadin? How is he? His heart wasn’t too good when I last saw him, also that trouble with his chest. We thought of getting into touch. Do you know who’s staying there?’

  ‘I was telling Odo – the Widmerpools, among others.’

  ‘Good heavens, the Frog Footman, and that ghastly wife of his. What can Jacky be thinking of? Thank goodness you warned me. Who are the other unfortunates?’

  ‘An American film tycoon called Louis Glober. Baby Clarini, who used to be Baby Wentworth. Those are the only ones I know about, in addition to the Widmerpools.’

  Rosie made a face at the name of Baby Wentworth.

  ‘Jacky certainly can take it on the chin, Baby and Pamela Widmerpool under the same roof. What about Louis Glober? I seem to know the name. Is he up to the weight of the others? I hope so.’

  One of the Americans enquired about Glober.

  ‘What’s he up to now? Louis Glober hasn’t made a picture in years. The last I heard of him was automobile racing, in fact saw him at the Indianapolis Speedway.’

  They talked of Glober and his past exploits. Gwinnett remained silent. I had not caught the name of the Americans, indeed never found that out. The husband began to enlarge on the Glober legend.

  ‘Did you ever hear of Glober’s Montana caper?’

  That looked a possibility as the story of Glober’s meeting with Pamela, but turned out to have bearings of interest chiefly on Glober’s many-sidedness. It explained, too, a Montana connexion.

  ‘One time Glober was in Hollywood, he went north with a cowboy actor – I’ll think of the name – who was starring in a picture of Glober’s. The Indians were bestowing some sort of a tribal honour on this actor, who’d invited Glober to accompany him, and watch the ceremony. Montana, it seems, went to Glober’s head. That’s how he is. He talked of starting life again up there, buying a defunct cattle business, refinancing Indian leases, that sort of stuff. He was crazy about it all.’

  ‘Wouldn’t mind that kind of life myself,’ said Stevens. ‘In the open all day.’

  ‘Oh, darling?’ said Rosie. ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Glober stayed up there quite a while, talking of becoming a cattleman. All sorts of yarns came back to the Coast about his doings. There was supposed to have been a gun fight. A rancher found Glober in compromising circumstances with his wife. He pulled a gun, took a shot at Glober, and missed. Glober must have been prepared for trouble, because he had his own gun by him, blazed back, and missed too. They ran out of shells, or the lad
y herself intervened, so they settled to cut the cards for her. Glober lost, and returned to Hollywood.’

  ‘His luck was in,’ said Stevens.

  The story suggested the monde in which Cosmo Flitton had come to rest. I caught Gwinnett’s eye.

  ‘That’s all pure Trapnel – the sort of thing X would have loved, but never managed to bring off.’

  Gwinnett nodded, without giving any indication whether or not he agreed.

  ‘When the tale got back to Beverly Hills, Dorothy Parker said Glober planned to take the lead in his next picture himself. It was to be called The Western of the Playboy World.’

  The American lady broke in.

  ‘Louis Glober’s got a fine side too. All that money he gave for the mental health research project, that institution for schizophrenics. It was all done on the quiet. Not a soul knew it was Glober, until — ’

  Stevens kicked me under the table. I lost track of the precise history of Glober’s generous act, but caught enough to gather it had been brought about in deliberate secrecy, the teller of the story having happened quite by chance on the magnanimous part Glober had played. I could not at once understand whatever Stevens was signalling. His eyes stared fixedly in front of him. Glancing round in the direction towards which they were set, I was now able to observe Pamela Widmerpool moving between the closely packed tables and chairs. As usual she gave the impression almost of floating through the air. She was apparently looking for someone thought likely to be sitting at Florian’s. At least that was the impression given. Possibly she was merely taking an evening walk, choosing to wander through the crowded caffè to give spice to a stroll, cause a little inconvenience, draw attention to herself. The people at the tables stared at her. As she wove her way amongst them, she paused from time to time to stare haughtily back. Stevens was rather rattled. ‘She’s bloody well making in our direction,’ he muttered. Pamela had hit him in the face the last time I had seen them together, but no doubt he feared her unhappy moral impact on his wife, rather than physical violence. The others had not noticed Pamela’s onset. Rosie, always a great talker, had a conspicuous rival in the American lady. Gwinnett seemed resigned to the position in which he found himself. Pamela had marked down our table. She was steering for it, without the least hurry. The course unquestionably was intentional. She was still wearing her white trousers, carrying from her shoulder a bag hung from a gold chain. Stevens was surprisingly disturbed.