Temporary Kings (20 page)

‘The
emigrant ship?’

‘They
are a poor family found travelling without a ticket on the vaporetto.’

‘Better
still. A souvenir of Venice. That’s fine.’

Glober,
certainly aware of Widmerpool’s impatience to speak with Tokenhouse alone, was
determined not to be hurried. Tokenhouse, equally recognizing Widmerpool’s
claim on him, whatever that was, also showed no scruple about keeping him
waiting. He seemed almost to enjoy doing so. Glober enquired about terms.
Widmerpool was getting increasingly restive. He fidgeted about. Glober began to
argue that the sum Tokenhouse had named as price for his picture was altogether
inadequate. A discussion now developed similar to that about paying the
restaurant bill. At last Widmerpool could bear it no longer. He interrupted
them.

‘I
expect you know our mutual friend was unable to come?’

He
addressed himself to Tokenhouse, who took no notice of this comment.

‘Our
friend is not here,’ Widmerpool repeated.

Although
clear we should have to go soon, the strain of waiting for that moment was
telling on him. Tokenhouse merely nodded, as much as to say he accepted that as
regrettable, though of no great importance.

‘He
mentioned when I last saw him he might not be able to undertake the trip this
time… Now, about wrappings. It will have to be newspaper. You must not mind it
being a not very pro-American journal.’

Tokenhouse
laughed quite heartily at his own joke. The all but unprecedented sale of a
picture had for the moment quite altered him. He could not be bothered with
Widmerpool’s problems, however grave, until the negotiation was completed.

‘It’s
all – well – a bit unfortunate,’ said Widmerpool.

‘Ah-ha,
it is? I’m sorry … Now, string? Here we are. We’ll have to unknot this. I think
it good to have to make use of your hands from time to time. A bourgeois
upbringing has given me no aptitude in that direction. I always tie granny
knots. There we are. Not a very neat parcel, I fear, but people don’t fuss
about that sort of thing in this quarter of Venice. There we are. There we are.’

He
handed Glober the picture, enclosed now in several sheets of
Unità
. Glober took it. Tokenhouse stood back.

‘Luckily
my pictures are a manageable size. Patrons of Veronese or Tiepolo would need
more than the painter’s morning paper to bring their purchases home wrapped up.’

The
name of Tiepolo seemed to cause a moment’s faint embarrassment, not only to
Widmerpool, but also, for some reason, to Ada and Glober. In any case, if we
did not leave, Widmerpool was soon going to request our withdrawal in so many
words. I could recognize the signs. Glober, too, seeing a showdown imminent,
and deciding against a head-on clash at that moment, brought matters to a
close, shaking hands with Tokenhouse. Tokenhouse saw us to the top of the stairs.

‘I
may get in touch with you again. Nick, before you leave Venice. There might be
a small package I should like you to post for me in England. The mails are very
uncertain here. Ah-ha, yes. Goodbye to you then, goodbye. I’m glad we had
opportunity to meet again, Mr Glober. Yes, yes. I do my poor best. Ah-ha,
ah-ha. I hope I may at least have acted as a signpost away from Formalism. Yes,
do let me know about the blocks, Mrs Quiggin. I quite see your position.
Goodbye, goodbye.’

We
left him to Widmerpool, whatever dialogues lay ahead of them. After reaching
the street, nothing was said for a minute or two. Then Glober spoke.

‘That
was a most interesting experience – and a superb addition to my collection of
twentieth-century primitives.’

‘I
adored Mr Tokenhouse,’ said Ada. ‘Those blocks could be quite a snip, if he’s
prepared to consider a reasonable price. I remember JG talking of him now. I’m
not sure JG didn’t know the psychiatrist – a Party member – who treated
Tokenhouse for his breakdown, anyway treated some ex-publisher for a breakdown.
He used to treat a friend of Howard Craggs, an old girl called Milly Andriadis,
who died in Paris last year.’

‘I
once went to a party given by Mrs Andriadis,’ said Glober. ‘That shows how old
I am.’

Neither
he nor Ada spoke of Widmerpool. There seemed something almost deliberate about
their avoidance of his name. Then Glober stopped suddenly.

‘Oh,
hell.’

‘What’s
happened?’

‘I’d
forgotten that contact man I was due to see at the Gritti.’

He
looked at his watch.

‘I’m
going to be late. What’s to be done in a town without taxis, and not a gondola
in sight?’

Ada
pointed.

‘If
you run, you’ll catch the circolare. It’s coming up. You could just about make
it.’

Glober,
with a shout that we must meet again soon, seemed delighted to show his mettle
as a short-distance sprinter. Taking Tokenhouse’s picture from under his arm,
he bounded off. We saw him catch the boat, just as the rope was thrown across
the rails. He turned and waved in our direction. We waved back.

‘What
energy.’

‘All
quite unnecessary too. He’s surrounded by secretaries and hangers-on of one
kind or another, who are only there to give an impression big business is being
transacted. I’m going to make for the Lido. Have a rest, before going out this
evening with Emily Brightman.’

We
walked on towards the vaporetto stop.

‘Who’s
this American called Gwinnett that Pam’s taken a fancy to?’

‘Has
she taken a fancy to him? He’s writing a book about our old friend X. Trapnel.
If you don’t deflect Glober’s film interests to St John Clarke, Gwinnett might
help in making a Trapnel film. Did she tell you she liked him?’

Ada
laughed at such an idea.

‘I
was hearing about Gwinnett from Glober. Can you keep a secret? Glober wants to
marry Pam, not just have an affair with her. Don’t breathe a word to anyone.
You won’t, will you? He revealed that to me when he found I was her old friend.
Only in the strictest confidence.’

‘What
does her husband think about that? He must have had plenty of opportunities to
divorce her, if he wanted. Anyway, why should she herself decide to marry
Glober?’

‘I
doubt if Kenneth knows yet. He just thinks Glober’s one of her usuals. So far
as Pam is concerned, the bait Glober holds out is the lead in this great film
he’s going to make.’

‘Pamela?
But she’s never acted in her life, has she?’

Ada
thought that a naive reaction.

‘What
does that matter? Besides, Pam’s no fool. If she wants a thing, she’ll force
herself to do it. What Glober’s worried about is this young American turning
up, who’s a Trapnel fan. He doesn’t want Gwinnett sticking round, if he does a
Trapnel film. That’s why he’s begun to look about for another book to make his
picture from. There’s a character just like Pam in
Match Me Such Marvel
. Of course, St John
Clarke didn’t know anything about women, but a competent script-writer could
alter all that.’

‘Why
should she want to act at all?’

‘Because
Pam longs for fame.’

‘You
mean publicity?’

‘Anything
you like to call it. Nobody’s ever heard of her. She doesn’t care for that. For
one thing, she isn’t keen on nobody having heard of her, and quite a lot of
people having heard of me.’

‘Where
did Glober meet her?’

‘At
her father’s place in Montana. Cosmo Flitton married an American, and they run
a dude ranch together. Wouldn’t you adore to meet some dudes? Anyway, Pam went
up there to stay, when she was in the States with Kenneth, and Louis Glober
fell.’

‘So
Cosmo Flitton’s still going?’

‘Not
only still going, but a highly regarded figure out there, with his one arm and
reputation of an old hero. Everybody’s mad about him. About Pam too, Glober
says. He also described a scene that took place last night at Jacky Bragadin’s,
which went rather far even for Pam. It all arose from the Tiepolo ceiling. That
was why Kenneth Widmerpool winced when Tiepolo was mentioned by Mr Tokenhouse,
just before we left. Do you know the subject of the picture? I was brought up
on significant form, colour values, all that sort of thing, so I hadn’t
particularly noticed what was being illustrated. Unlike Mr Tokenhouse, and Len
Pugsley, my family always rather looked down on people who thought a picture
told a story. I know about Socialist Realism, but this is an Old Master. I just
saw a classical subject, and left it at that. Apparently it’s a man showing his
naked wife to a friend.’

Ada
spoke with clinical objectivity.

‘Perfectly
right.’

‘For
some reason Pam was determined to talk about that picture all through dinner.
There were a lot of people there, Glober said. She was between a monsignore and
a maharaja. You know how silent she is as a rule. That night she chattered incessantly.
Went on and on. Nothing would stop her. She seemed to be doing this partly to
get under the skin of a lady Glober knows, called Signora Clarini, the English
wife of the Italian film director, but living apart. Apparently Signora Clarini
was a girl-friend of Sir Magnus Donners years ago, and now wants to marry
Glober. He conveyed that in his quiet way. Pam may decide not to marry him
herself, she was going to make sure Signora Clarini didn’t either. She kept on
talking about Donners, implying he was a voyeur.’

‘Pamela’s
hardly in a position to take a high moral line, if only after some of the
things being said about her at the more sensational end of the French press.’

Ada
had not heard about the Ferrand-Sénéschal revelations. She brushed them aside.
Borrit, a War Office colleague, who had served in Africa, once spoke of the
Masai tribe holding, as a tenet of faith, that all cows in the world belong to
them. Ada, in similar manner, arrogated to herself all the world’s gossip,
sources other than her own a presumption.

‘Pam
didn’t take a high moral line. Quite the reverse. She spoke as if she and
Signora Clarini were sister whores. That, according to Glober, was what made
Signora Clarini so cross.’

‘This
was all in front of Widmerpool?’

‘That’s
what Glober found so fascinating. Kenneth didn’t attempt to shut her up. Of
course he knows by now that’s impossible, but Glober thought he was not only
afraid of her – almost physically afraid – but got a kind of kick from what she
was saying.’

‘How
did their host enjoy this small talk at his table?’

‘Jacky
Bragadin wasn’t feeling well that evening, thought he was going to have one of
his attacks, so wasn’t bothering much. The monsignore was one of those worldly
priests, who take anything in their stride, but the maharaja didn’t know where
to look. Louis Glober, to relieve the tension, persuaded the maharaja to teach
him cricket. Jacky Bragadin found a Renaissance mace that belonged to some
famous condottiere, and they used that for a bat. The maharaja bowled a peach,
Glober hit it so hard he caught Kenneth on the jaw. That made further trouble.’

‘Somebody
once did that with a banana at school. His face must have a radar-like
attraction for fruit. Glober still wants to marry Pamela in spite of all this?’

‘I
think so. He’s quite tough. He says all his contemporaries have drunk
themselves crazy, undergone major surgery, discharged both barrels with their
big toe, dropped down dead on the set, and he’s not going to fall for any of
that. All the same, he’s disturbed about Gwinnett. Pam asked Louis if Gwinnett
was queer. That’s what worried him. Her interest. Is he?’

‘Homosexual?’

‘Of
course.’

‘I
don’t think so. I don’t think he’s very normal either.’

‘Will
Gwinnett’s book about Trapnel be good? Ought we to publish it? We’ll talk about
that later. Here’s my vaporetto. See you at the
Men of Letters | Men
of Science
session. I must polish up my speech. Don’t
breathe a word about anything I’ve said, will you?’

She
boarded a vessel bound for the Lido. I waited for the next boat heading towards
the Grand Canal. To present Sir Magnus Donners as Candaules at the Bragadin
dinner party showed imagination on Pamela’s part. Bob Duport had offered much
the same solution as to what Sir Magnus ‘liked’.

‘Donners
never minded people getting off with his girls. I’ve heard he’s a voyeur.’

Barnby,
without arriving at that logical conclusion, had expressed the same mild
surprise at Sir Magnus’s lack of jealousy. The subject, reduced to the crude
medium of the peep-hole, recalled the visit to Stourwater, when, without
warning, its owner had suddenly appeared through a concealed door, decorated
with the spines of dummy books, just as if he had been waiting at an
observation post. The principle could clearly be extended from a mere social
occasion to one with intimate overtones. The power element in both uses was
obvious enough.

‘Peter
may have developed special tastes too,’ Duport said. ‘Very intensive womanizing
sometimes leads to that, and no one can say Peter hasn’t been intensive.’

In
days when Peter Templer had been pursuing Pamela, he might easily have talked
to her about Sir Magnus, even taken her to see him, but not at Stourwater, the
castle by then converted to wartime uses. The fact that his former home was now
a girl’s school, looked on as expensive, could hardly be unpleasing to the
shade of Sir Magnus, if it walked there. The practices attributed to him, justly
or not, had to be admitted as inescapably grotesque, humour never more patently
the enemy of sex. Perhaps Gyges, too, had felt that; as king, living his next
forty years in an atmosphere of meticulous sexual normality. I should have
liked to discuss the whole matter with Moreland, but, although he was no longer
married to Matilda, the habits of Sir Magnus and his mistresses remained a
delicate one to broach. He was like that. Moreland was not well. In fact,
things looked pretty bad. He would work for a time with energy, then fall into
a lethargic condition. There had been financial strains too. One of his
recordings becoming in a small way a popular hit, made that side easier lately.
We rarely met. He and Audrey Maclintick – whom he had never married – lived,
together with a black cat, Hardicanute, an obscure, secluded life.