Books Do Furnish a Room (28 page)

‘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 had 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.

‘Does Nicholas know what’s
happened?’

‘Roughly.’

‘I’d like to be a bit clearer
about what’s up.’

‘There’s been some trouble with
Pam. It was all over my new book. We never seem to agree about writing,
especially my writing. It’s almost as if she hates it, doesn’t want me to do
it, and yet she thinks about my work all the time, knows just where the weak
places are. We have a lot of rows about it. We had one this morning. I left the
house in a rage. I told her she was mad on Naturalism. That’s why the subject
was on my mind. Books and I began talking about it. I’m for it too. I told her
I was. I’ve told everyone, and written it. What I can’t stand is people giving
it their own exclusive meaning. That’s what Pam does. She just uses it to pick
on the way I write. She brings up all my own arguments against me. Then when I
half agree, she takes an absolutely opposite line. It’s like Pavlov’s dogs. I
think sometimes I’ll go up the wall.’